CHAPTER XXIX.

Tom Murdock, seeing that his hopes by fair means were completely at an end, and that matters were likely to progress in another quarter at a rate which made it advisable not to let the leading horse get too far ahead, {108} determined to make a rush to the front, no matter whether he went the wrong side of a post or not--let that be settled after.

He had left home, and left a report behind him, which he took care to have industriously circulated, that he had gone to Armagh, and was about to be married to "a young lady" with a large fortune, and that he would visit the metropolis, Fermanagh, and perhaps Sligo, before he returned. But he did not go further than an obscure public-house in a small village in the lower part of the county of Cavan. There he met the materials for carrying out his plan. The object of it was shortly this--to carry away Winny Cavana by force, and bring her to a _friend's_ house in the mountains behind the village adverted to. Here he was to have an old buckle-beggar at hand to marry them the moment Winny's spirit was broken to consent. This man, a degraded clergyman, as the report went, wandered about the country in green spectacles and a short, black cloak, always ready and willing to perform such a job; doubly willing and ready for this particular one from the reward which Tom had promised him. If even the marriage ceremony should fail, either through Winny's obstinacy or the clergyman's want of spirit to go through with it in the face of opposition, still he would keep her for ten days or a fortnight at this _friend's_ house, stopping there himself too; and at the end of that time, should he fail in obtaining her consent, he would quit the country for a while, and allow her to return home "so blasted in character" that even "that whelp" would disown her. There was a pretty specimen of a lover--a husband!

It was now the end of June. The weather had been dry for some time, and the nights were clear and mild; the stars shone brightly, and the early dawn would soon present a heavy dew hanging on the bushes and the grass. The moon was on the wane; but at a late hour of the night it was conspicuous in the heavens, adding a stronger light to that given by the clearness of the sky and the brilliancy of the stars.

Rathcash and Rathcashmore were sunk in still repose; and if silence could be echoed, it was echoed by the stillness of the mountains behind Shanvilla and beyond them. The inhabitants of the whole district had long since retired to rest, and now lay buried in sleep, some of them in confused dreams of pleasure and delight.

The angel of the dawn was scarcely yet awake, or he might have heard the sound of muffled horses' feet and muffled wheels creeping along the road toward the lane turning up to Rathcash house, about two hours before day; and he must have seen a man with a dark mask mounted on another muffled horse at a little distance from the cart.

Presently Tom Murdock--there is no use in simulating mystery where none exists--took charge of the horse and cart to prevent them from moving, while three men stole up toward the house. Ay, there is Bully-dhu's deep bark, and they are already at the door.

"That dog! he'll betray us, boys," said one of the men.

"I'd blow his brains out if this pistol was loaded," said another; "and I wanted Tom to give me a cartridge."

"He wouldn't let any one load but himself, and he was right; a shot would be twiste as bad as the dog; beside, he's in the back yard, and cannot get out. Never heed him, but to work as fast as possible."

Old Ned Cavana and Winny heard not only the dog, but the voices. Winny's heart foretold the whole thing in a moment, and she braced her nerves for the scene.

The door was now smashed in, and the three men entered. By this time old Ned had drawn on his trousers; and as he was throwing his coat over his head to got his arms into the sleeves he was seized, and ere you could count ten he was pinioned, with his arms behind him and his legs tied {109} at the ankles, and a handkerchief tied across his mouth. Thus rendered perfectly powerless, he was thrown back upon the bed, and the room-door locked. Jamesy Doyle, who slept in the barn, had heard the crash of the door, and dressed himself in "less than no time," let Bully-dhu out of the yard, and brought him to the front door, in at which he rushed like a tiger. But Jamesy Doyle did not go in. That was not his game; but he peeped in at the window. No light had been struck, so he could make nothing of the state of affairs inside, except from the voices; and from what he heard he could make no mistake as to the object of this attack. He could not tell whether Tom Murdock was in the house or not, but he did not hear his voice. One man said, "Come, now, be quick, Larry; the sooner we're off with her the better."

Jamesy waited for no more; he turned to the lane as the shortest way, but at a glance he saw the horse and cart and the man on horseback on the road outside; and turning again he darted off across the fields as fast as his legs could carry him.

Bully-dhu, having gained access to the house, showed no disposition to compromise the matter. "No quarter!" was his cry, as he flew at the nearest man to him, and seizing him by the throat, brought him to the ground with a _sough_, where in spite of his struggles, he held him fast with a silent, deadly grip. He had learned this much, at least, by his encounter with the mastiff on New Year's day.

Careless of their companion's strait, who they thought ought to be able to defend himself, the other two fellows--and powerful fellows they were--proceeded to the bed-room to their left; they had locked the door to their right, leaving poor old Ned tied and insensible on the bed. Winny was now dressed and met them at the door.

"Are you come to commit murder?" she cried, as they stopped her in the doorway; "or have you done it already? Let me to my father's room."

"The sorra harm on him, miss, nor the sorra take the hair of his head well hurt no more nor your own. Come, put on your bonnet an' cloak, an' come along wid us; them's our ordhers."

"You have a master, then. Where is he? where is Tom Murdock?--I knew Tom _Murder_ should have been his name. Where is he, I say?"

"Come, come, no talk; but on wid your bonnet and cloak at wanst."

"Never; nor shall I ever leave this house except torn from it by the most brutal force. Where is your master, I say? Is he afraid of the rope himself which he would thus put round your necks?"

"Come, come, on wid your bonnet an' cloak, or, be the powers, we'll take you away as you are."

"Never; where is your master, I say?"

"Come, Larry, we won't put up wid any more of her pillaver; out wid the worsted."

Here Biddy Murtagh rushed in to her mistress's aid; but she was soon overpowered and tied "neck and heels," as they called it, and thrown upon Winny's bed. They had the precaution to gag her also with a handkerchief, that she might not give the alarm, and they locked the door like that at the other end of the house.

Larry, whoever he was, then pulled a couple of skeins of coarse worsted from his pocket, while his companion seized Winny round the waist, outside her arms; and the other fellow, who seemed expert, soon tied her feet together, and then her hands. A thick handkerchief was then tied across her mouth.

"Take care to lave plenty of braithin' room out iv her nose, Larry," said the other ruffian; and, thus rendered unable to move or scream, they carried her to the road and laid her on the car. The horseman in the mask asked them where the third man was, and they replied that he must have {110} "made off" from the dog, for that they neither saw nor heard him after the dog flew at him.

This was likely enough. He was the only man of the party in whom Tom Murdock could not place the most unbounded confidence.

"The cowardly rascal," he said. "We must do without him."

But he had _not_ made off from the dog.

The cart was well provided--_to do Tom Murdock justice_--with a feather-bed over plenty of straw, and plenty of good covering to keep out the night air. They started at a brisk trot, still keeping the horses' feet and the wheels muffled; and they passed down the road where the reader was once caught at a dog-fight.

But to return, for a few minutes, to Rathcash house. Bully-dhu was worth a score of old Ned Cavana, even supposing him to have been at liberty, and free of the cords by which he was bound. The poor old man had worked the handkerchief by which he had been gagged off his mouth, by rubbing it against the bed-post. He had then rolled himself to the door; but further than that he was powerless, except to ascertain, by placing his chin to the thumb-latch, for he had got upon his feet, that it was fastened outside. He then set up a lamentable demand for help--upon Winny, upon Biddy Murtagh, and upon Bully-dhu. The dog was the only one who answered him, with a smothered growl, for he still held fast by the grip he had taken of the man's throat. Poor Bully! you need not have been so pertinacious of that grip--the man has been _dead_ for the last ten minutes! Finding that it was indeed so, from the perfect stillness of the man, Bully-dhu released his hold, and lay licking his paws and keeping up an angry growl, in answer to the old man's cries.

We must leave them and follow Jamesy Doyle across the fields, and see if it was cowardice that made him run so fast from the scene of danger. Ah, no! Jamesy was not that sort of a chap at all. He was plucky as well as true to the heart's core. Nor was his intelligence and judgment at fault for a moment as to the best course for him to adopt. Seeing the fearful odds of three stout men against him, he knew that he could do better than to remain there, to be tied "neck and crop" like the poor old man and Biddy. So, having brought Bully-dhu round and given him 'his cue, he started off, and never drew breath until he found himself outside Emon-a-knock's window at Shanvilla, on his way to the nearest police station.

"Are you there, Emon?" said he, tapping at it.

"Yes," Emon replied from his bed; "who are you, or what do you want?"

"Jamesy Doyle from Rathcash house. Get up at wanst! They have taken away Miss Winny."

"Great heaven I do you say so? Here, father, get up in a jiffy and dress yourself. They have taken away Winny Cavana, and we must be off to the rescue like a shot. Come in, Jamesy, my boy." And while they were "drawing on" their clothes, they questioned him as to the particulars.

But Jamesy had few such to give them, as the reader knows; for, like a sensible boy, he was off for help without waiting for particulars.

The principal point, however, was to know what road they had taken. Upon this Jamesy was able to answer with some certainty, for ere he had started finally off, he had watched them, and he had seen the cart move on under the smothered cries of Winny; and he heard the horseman say, "Now, boys, through the pass between 'the sisters.'"

"They took the road to the left from the end of the lane, that's all I know; so let you cut across the country as fast as you can, an' you'll be at Boher before them. Don't delay me now, for I must go on to the police station an' hurry out the sargent {111} and his men; if you can clog them at the bridge till I cam' up with the police, all will be rights an' we'll have her back wid us. I know very well if I had a word wid Miss Winny unknown to the men, she would have sent me for the police; but I took you in my way--it wasn't twenty perch of a round."

"Thank you, Jamesy, a thousand times! There, be off to the sergeant as fast as you can; tell him you called here, and that I have calculated everything in my mind, and for him and his men to make for Boher-na-Milthiogue bridge as fast as possible. There, be off, Jamesy, and I'll give you a pound-note if the police are at the bridge before Tom Murdock comes through the pass with the cart."

"You may keep your pound, man! I'd do more nor that for Miss Winny." And he was out of sight in a moment.

The father and son were now dressed, and, arming themselves with two stout sticks, they did not "let the grass grow under their feet." They hurried on until they came to the road turning down to where we have indicated that our readers were once caught at a dog-fight. Here Emon examined the road as well as he could by the dim light which prevailed, and found the fresh marks of wheels. He could scarcely understand them. They were not like the tracks of any wheels he had ever seen before, and there were no tracks of horses' feet at all, although Jamesy had said there was a horseman beside the horse and cart.

Emon soon put down these unusual appearances--and he could not well define them for want of light--to some cunning device of Tom Murdock; and how right he was!

"Come on, father," said he. "I am quite certain they have gone down here. I know Tom Murdock has plenty of associates in the county Cavan, and the pass between 'the sisters' is the shortest way he can take. Beside, Jamesy heard him say the words. Our plan must be to cut across the country and get to Milthiogue bridge before they get through the pass and so escape us. What say you, father--are you able and willing to push on, and to stand by me? Recollect the odds that are against us, and count the cost."

"Emon, I'll count nothing; but I'll--

"Here, father, in here at this gap, and across by the point of Mullagh hill beyond; we must get to Boher before them."

"I'll count no cost, Emon, I was going to tell you. I'm both able and willing, thank God, to stand by you. You deserve it well of me, and so do the Cavanas. God forbid I should renuage my duty to you and them! Aren't ye all as wan as the same thing to me now?"

Emon now knew that his father knew all about Winny and him.

"Father," said he, "that is a desperate man, and he'll stop at nothing."

"Is it sthrivin' to cow me you are, Emon?"

"No, father; but you saw the state my mother was in as we left."

"Yes, I did, and why wouldn't she? But shure that should not stop us when we have right on our side; an' God knows what hoult, or distress, that poor girl is in, or what that villain may do to her; an' what state would your mother be in if you were left a desolate madman all your life through that man's wickedness?"

These were stout words of his father, and almost assured Emon that all would be well.

"Father," he continued, "if we get to the bridge before them, and can hold it for half an hour, or less, the police will be up with Jamesy Doyle, and we shall be all right."

The conversation was now so frequently interrupted in getting over ditches and through hedges, and they had said so much of what they had to say, that they were nearly quite silent for the rest of the way, except where Emon pointed out to his father the easiest place to get over a ditch, or through a hedge, or up the face of a {112} hill. Both their hearts were evidently in their journey. No less the father's than the son's: the will made the way.

The dappled specks of red had still an hour to slumber ere the dawn awoke, and they had reached the spot; there was the bridge, the Boher-na-Milthiogue of our first chapter, within a stone's throw of them. They crept to the battlement and peered into the pass. As yet no sound of horse or cart, or whispered word, reached their ears.

"They must be some distance off yet, father," said Emon; "thank God! The police will have the more time to be up."

"Should we not hide, Emon?"

"Certainly; and if the police come up before they do, they should hide also. That villain is mounted; and if a strong defence of the pass was shown too soon, he would turn and put spurs to his horse."

As he spoke a distant noise was heard of horses' feet and unmuffled wheels. The muffling had all been taken off as soon as they had reached the far end of the pass between the mountains, and they were now hastening their speed.

"The odds will be fearfully against us, father," said Emon, who now felt more than ever the dangerous position he had placed his father in, and the fearful desolation his loss would cause in his mother's heart and in his home. He felt no fear for himself. "You had better leave Tom himself to me, father. I know he will be the man on horseback. Let you lay hold of the horse's head under the cart, and knock one of the men, or both, down like lightning, if you can. You have your knife ready to cut the cords that tie her?"

"I have, Emon; and don't you fear me; one of them shall tumble at all events, almost before they know that we are on them. I hope I may kill him out an' out; we might then be able for the other two. Do you think Tom is armed?" he added, turning pale. But it was so dark Emon did not see it.

"I am not sure, but I think not He cannot have expected any opposition."

"God grant it, Emon! I don't want to hould you back, but don't be 'fool-hardy,' dear boy."

"Do you want to cow me, father, as you said yourself, just now?"

"No, Emon. But stoop, stoop, here they are."

Crouching behind the battlements of the bridge, these two resolute men waited the approach of the cavalcade. As they came to the mouth of the pass the elder Lennon sprang to the head of the horse under the cart, and, seizing him with his left hand, struck the man who drove such a blow as felled him from the shaft upon which he sat. Emon had already seized the bridle of the horseman who still wore the mask, and pushing the horse backward on his haunches, he made a fierce blow at the rider's head with his stick. But he had darted his heels--spurs he had none--into his horse's sides, which made him plunge forward, rolling Emon on the ground. Forward to the cart the rider then rushed, crying out, "On, on with the cart!" But Lennon's father was still fastened on the horse's head with his left hand, while with his right he was alternately defending himself against the two men, for the first had somewhat recovered, who were in charge of it.

Tom Murdock would have ridden him down also, and turned the battle in favor of a passage through; but Emon had regained his feet, and was again fastened in the horse's bridle, pushing him back on his haunches, hoping to get at the rider's head, for hitherto his blows had only fallen upon his arms and chest. Here Tom Murdock felt the want of the spurs, for his horse did not spring forward with life and force enough upon his assailant.

A fearful struggle now ensued between them. The men at the cart had not yet cleared their way from the {113} desperate opposition given them by old Lennon, who defendant himself ably, and at the same time attacked them furiously. He had not time, however, to cut the cords by which Winny was bound. A single pause in the use of his stick for that purpose would have been fatal. Neither had he been successful in getting beyond his first position at the horse's head. During the whole of this confused attack and defence, poor Winny Cavana, who had managed to shove herself up into a sitting posture in the cart, continued to cry out, "Oh, Tom Murdock, Tom Murdock! even now give me up to these friends and be gone, and I swear there shall never be a word more about it."

But Tom Murdock was not the man either to yield to entreaties, or to be baffled in his purpose. He had waled Edward Lennon with the butt end of his whip about the head and shoulders as well as he could across his horse's head, which Lennon had judiciously kept between them, at times making a jump up and striking at Tom with his stick.

Matters had now been interrupted too long to please Tom Murdock, and darting his heels once more into his horse's sides, he sprang forward, rolling young Lennon on the road again.

"All right now, lads!" he cried; "on, on with the cart!" and he rode at old Lennon, who still held his ground against both his antagonists manfully.

But all was not right. A cry of "The police, the police!" issued from one of the men at the cart, and Jamesy Doyle with four policemen were seen hurrying up the boreen from the lower road.

Perhaps it would be unjust to accuse Tom Murdock of cowardice even then--it was not one of his faults--if upon seeing an accession of four armed policemen he turned to fly, leaving his companions in for it. One of them fled too; but Pat Lennon held the other fast.

As Tom turned to traverse the mountain pass back again at full speed, Lennon, who had recovered himself, sprang like a tiger once more at the horse's head. Now or never he must stay his progress.

Tom Murdock tore the mask from his face, and, pulling a loaded pistol from his breast, he said: "Lennon, it was not my intention to injure you when I saw you first spring up from the bridge to-night; nor will I do so now, if your own obstinacy and foolhardy madness does not bring your doom upon yourself. Let go my horse, or by hell I'll blow your brains out! this shall be no mere tip of the hurl, mind you." And he levelled the pistol at his head, not more than a foot from his face.

"Never, with life!" cried Lennon; and he aimed a blow at Tom's pistol-arm. Ah, fatal and unhappy chance! His stick had been raised to strike Tom Murdock down, and he had not time to alter its direction. Had he struck the pistol-arm upward, it might have been otherwise; but the blow of necessity descended. Tom Murdock fired at the same moment, and the only difference it made was, that instead of his brains having been blown out, the ball entered a little to one side of his left breast.

Lennon jumped three feet from the ground, with a short, sudden shout, and rolled convulsively upon the road, where soon a pool of bloody mud attested the murderous work which had been done.

The angel of the dawn now awoke, as he heard the report of the pistol echoing and reverberating through every recess in the many hearts of Slieve-dhu and Slieve-bawn. Tom Murdock fled at full gallop; and the hearts of the policemen fell as they heard the clattering of his horse's feet dying away in quadruple regularity through the mountain pass.

Jamesy Doyle, who was light of foot and without shoe or stocking, rushed forward, saying, "Sergeant, I'll follow him to the end of the pass, {114} an' see what road he'll take." And he sped onward like a deer.

"Come, Maher," said the sergeant, "we'll pursue, however hopeless. Cotter, let you stop with the prisoner we have and the Young woman; and let Donovan stop with the wounded man, and stop the blood if he can."

Sergeant Driscol and Maher then started at the top of their speed, in the track of Jamesy Doyle, in full pursuit.

There were many turns and twists in the pass between the mountains. It was like a dozen large letter S's strung together.

Driscol stopped for a moment to listen. Jamesy was beyond their ken, round one or two of the turns, and they could not hear the horse galloping now.

"All's lost," said the sergeant; "he's clean gone. Let us hasten on until we meet the boy; perhaps he knows which road he took."

Jamesy had been stooping now and then, and peering into the coming lights to keep well in view the man whom he pursued. Ay, there he was, sure enough; he saw him, almost plainly, galloping at the top of his speed. Suddenly he' heard a crash, and horse and rider rolled upon the ground.

"He's down, thank God!" cried Jamesy, still rushing forward with some hope, and peering into the distance. Presently he saw the horse trot on with his head and tail in the air, without his rider, while a dark mass lay in the centre of the road.

"You couldn't have betther luck, you bloodthirsty ruffian, you!" said Jamesy, who thought that it was heaven's lightning that, in justice, had struck down Tom Murdock; and he maintained the same opinion ever afterward. At present, however, he had not time to philosophize upon the thought, but rushed on.

Soon he came to the dark mass upon the road. It was Tom Murdock who lay there stunned and insensible, but not seriously hurt by the fall. There was nothing of heaven's lightning in the matter at all. It was the common come-down of a stumbling horse upon a bad mountain road; but the result was the same.

Jamesy was proceeding to thank God again, and to tie his legs, when Tom came to.

Jamesy was sorry the man's _thrance_ did not last a little longer, that he might have tied him, legs and arms. With his own handkerchief and suspenders. But he was late now, and not quite sure that Tom Murdock would not murder him also, and "make off afoot."

Here Jamesy thought he heard the hurried step of the police coming round the last turn toward him, and as Tom was struggling to his feet, a bright thought struck him. He "whipt" out a penknife he had in his pocket, and, before Tom had sufficiently recovered to know what he was about, he had cut his suspenders, and given the waist-band of his trousers a _slip_ of the knife, opening it more than a foot down the back.

Tom had now sufficiently recovered to understand what had happened, and to know the strait he was in. He had a short time before seen a man named Wolff play Richard III. in a barn in C.O.S.; and if he did not roar lustily, "A horse, a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" he thought it. But his horse was nearly half a mile away, where a green spot upon the roadside tempted him to delay a little his journey home.

Tom was not yet aware of the approach of the police. He made a desperate swipe of his whip, which he still held in his hand, at the boy, and sprung to his feet. But Jamesy avoided the blow by a side jump, and kept roaring, "Police, police!" at the top of his voice. Tom now found that he had been outwitted by this young boy. He was so hampered by his loose trousers about his heels that he could make no run for it, and soon became the prisoner of Sergeant Driscol and his companion. Well done, Jamesy!

TO BE CONTINUED.

{115}

Translated from Le Monde Catholique.

FREDERICK HURTER.

Frederick Hurter, the illustrious historian of Pope Innocent III., died on the 27th of August, 1865, in Gratz, Austria, in the sevens-eighth year of his age. Of all the great Catholic characters which we have lost during the past year, there were undoubtedly very few who have shed a greater brilliancy on our era, and still our loss has, comparatively, passed unnoticed. Germany has certainly paid some homage to the memory of that great Christian; but outside that country almost general silence has enshrouded his tomb. In France, for example, not more than three or four religious newspapers have devoted to him even a few lines, and these all derived from a common source, and we should not be surprised if many of our own readers should now learn for the first time, from this notice, the death of a man so justly celebrated.

To what, then, have we to ascribe this forgetfulness or indifference? Perhaps a simple comparison of dates will account for it. Hurter died, as we have stated, in the latter part of August, and La Moricière in the early part of the following month. It is therefore natural to conjecture that the memory of the great historian was almost forgotten, or for the time absorbed, in the midst of the extraordinary manifestations and triumphal funeral ceremonies which have honored the remains of the immortal vanquished of Castelfidardo. It must be admitted, however, that such was not just; it would have been better to allow to each his legitimate share of respect, and, without derogating from the glory of La Moricière, render also to Hurter the honor to which he was so justly entitled. Beside, their names were destined to be associated, for both have fought under the same flag, although in a different manner. Both have been the champions of the Papal See, one with his brave sword and the other with his not less brave pen; and both have left magnificent footprints in the religious annals of the nineteenth century.

Another explanation of this apparent neglect, more natural and perhaps more truthful, might be found in the character of Frederick Hurter itself, and in that of his last writings. A long time previous to his death he had achieved the zenith of his fame; the latter part of his long life being devoted to learned studies of undoubted merit and immense advantage, but which have not had the same general attraction as his earlier productions, particularly with the French people. We freely acknowledge that this fact does but little credit to the Catholic mind of France, but it is nevertheless undeniable. A kind of comparative obscurity has covered with us the latter portion of Hurter's life, and this, in our opinion, is the principal reason that the news of his death has not created a deeper sensation in this country.

In order to repair, as far as it lies in our power, this injustice which the Catholics of Germany might well consider unfair or ungrateful, we would like to render, in these few pages, at least a feeble homage to the illustrious dead. We desire to gather together a few of the glorious remembrances which are associated with his name, and, above all, to point out that insatiable love of truth and justice which {116} was the distinguishing feature of his character and which seems to have pervaded his whole being under all circumstances and at all times.

Frederick Emmanuel Hurter was born of Protestant parents on the 19th of May, 1787, in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. His father was prefect of Lugano; his mother remarkable for her intellect as well as for her decision of character, having sprung from the noble family of the Zieglers. When scarcely six years old, the child was deeply moved at hearing an account of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, and before he had attained the age of twelve years he had conceived such a distaste for the excesses of the revolutionary spirit then prevailing that it seems never to have forsaken him. At this early age he was an eager student of the "History of the Seven Years' War," and declared himself in favor of Maria Theresa and against the King of Prussia. Two years afterward a discussion having arisen between himself, his school-fellows, and his teacher, on the relative merits of Pompey and Caesar, he promptly and energetically took the part of the former, believing that in the character of the latter was to be seen the personification of the revolutionary spirit. These were the first germs of that admirable sense of right which distinguished him on all occasions. There could even then be foreseen in that child the future man destined at some day to be the defender of the most august power in the world.

From his youth upward, and doubtless from the same feeling of being right, he applied himself with marked attention to ascertain the true history of that most misrepresented epoch, the middle ages, its monastic institutions, and its great pontiffs. Of the latter St. Gregory VII. seemed to have most attracted him, and his youthful mind seems to have delighted in comparing him with the great men of ancient Rome.

Having finished his preliminary studies in his native town, Hurter studied in the different classes of theology at the University of Göttingen, whence he obtained his diploma, and, having been first appointed pastor of an obscure village, was soon removed to Schaffhausen.

In 1824 he was appointed chancellor of the consistory; but neither his theological studies nor the duties of his office as pastor, a calling he had embraced through deference for his father rather than from personal inclination, diverted him from the object of his early predilections. Thus, while at Göttingen he found leisure to write a "History of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths." It was his first essay as historian, being at the time only twenty years old.

Later he wrote a book on the following subject, proposed by the National Institute of France: "The Civil State during the Government of the Goths, and the Fundamental Principles of the Legislation of Theodoric and his Successors." But this work remained among his manuscripts unpublished. It was at Schaffhausen that he resumed his favorite studies on the middle ages, and completed them. His great attraction was not, as might be expected, Gregory VII., but Innocent III., probably on account of a collection of letters written by that great pontiff, published by Baluze, and which he had formerly bought at public sale at Göttingen. He certainly had not then the remotest idea that that book would at some future day form the foundation of his fame, and the means of a radical change in his Christian and social life. He commenced his book on Innocent III. in 1818, but it was not until 1833 that the first volume appeared. The second was published the year following. In 1835 he became president of the consistory, an office which placed him at the head of the clergy of his district, and which he resigned after fulfilling its duties for six years. He published the third volume of his "History of Pope Innocent" in the meantime, and in {117} 1842 the fourth and last volume was given to the press.

This "History" was not only a great literary success, it was more. It produced a decided revolution in historical science. The effect of it in Switzerland, Germany, and in fact the whole of Europe, was immense. The extraordinary part enacted by that great Pope was seen for the first time in its proper light. By the irresistible logic of facts, Hurler demonstrated how the august institutions of the papacy accomplished its mission with a success which, up to his time, had never been conjectured. Every one became convinced that it was the papacy alone that had mastered and tempered the overwhelming forces of the half-civilized nations of Europe, in order to more eternal and spiritual ends. "Since then," says Hurter himself, in his preface to the third German edition of his first volume, page 21, "a great number of inveterate errors were corrected, many traditional prejudices dissipated, many doubts removed; certain minds drew light therefrom, others found a guide in it, and others attained _conviction_ from its pages. Comparing the present with the past, people became more circumspect in their judgments and less inconsistent in their conclusions, and at last an answer was found to the famous question of the Roman governor, "What is truth?" (_Quid est veritas?_) "Truth is what is based on the indisputable proofs of history and agrees with the nature of all things." Sebastian Brunner, a distinguished German writer, after reading the "History of Innocent III.," gave the following opinion of its author: "I hold Mr. Hurter to be the greatest of historians; no one previous to him embraces a whole century in so admirable a picture. Hurter is the apostolic historian of the nineteenth century." This apostleship of Frederick Hurter was the more efficient, being exercised by a Protestant, and, what was more, by the president of a consistory. And beside, who would not yield to the testimony of a man whose loyalty and integrity were above all suspicion, and who had made it the rule of his life to observe the most rigid impartiality in all his own views; to seek nothing but the truth, and to honor virtue and merit wherever met, without excepting those who differed from him, so as to neglect nothing in the accomplishment of his task in the most perfect possible manner? His indeed were admirable qualities, particularly when we consider how history was written in those times by writers looked upon as models and masters. But let us not enlarge on this topic; the "History of Innocent" is found in every library; let us rather show how that book earned for its author a reward far greater than mere worldly reputation.

His literary success, and, what was more, the undeniable services he had rendered to the Catholic cause, could not but excite the jealousy and dislike of his fellow Protestants. His "Excursion to Vienna and Presburg," which was published soon after he visited Austria, in 1839, excited their anger to the highest degree. Blinded by their passions, they resolved to put him on trial, so as to find him guilty and so depose him. In his "Exposé of the Motives of his Conversion" he states that they put him the unfair question, "Are you a Protestant at heart?" "This question," he continues, "had no relation whatever with the alleged facts bearing on my public office, but only with my 'History of Innocent III.' and with a visit to Vienna. I refused to answer, because they wanted rather to discover what I disbelieved than what I believed." This refusal excited a violent storm of indignation against him. After trying many times to avert it, and after suffering the most unworthy attacks with patience and fortitude, he seized his pen and fulminated his defense under the following title, "President Hurter and his Pretended Colleagues."

More painful trials still awaited him. Two of his daughters, one immediately after the other, became afflicted with {118} a malady which was soon to deprive him of them, and, while prayers for their recovery were being offered up in all the Catholic convents of Switzerland, his puritanical opponents exhibited the most uncharitable joy, thrusting the dagger of grief still further into a parent's heart. A less energetic character would doubtless have succumbed to such cruel wounds, but Hurter remained true to the maxim of the poet:

"Justum et tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor, prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis _tyranni_ Mente quatit solida. . ."

"The race of those tyrants is not yet extinct," he somewhere says. "I find still men who desire every one to bow before them, and that everything they do against those who dare discard such a miserable servitude should be commended." [Footnote 21] Hurter did better than to imitate the ancient philosopher; he accepted his trials with truly Christian resignation, perceiving in them the call of God to newer and higher duties. "I discovered in them," he writes, "the means of my salvation and my sanctification. I look upon the storm which has burst over me as a signal on the road I have to follow. At the same time I received the deep conviction that no peace was to be expected with such people. My choice was therefore made. I threw off titles, offices, and incomes, and went back to private life because I was disgusted with a sect which, through rationalism, upset all Christian dogmas, and, through pietism, tramples morals under foot." [Footnote 22] What hearty frankness, what Noble feelings, and what a true sense of justice!

[Footnote 21: Third ed., 1st vol. (Pref. P. V.)]

[Footnote 22: "Life of Fr. Hurter," by A. de Saint Cheron, p. 120. Some of the details of this article are extracted from this work, as well as from an article published in "Le Catholique" of Mayence, of September, 1865.]

Justice he demanded as well for others as for himself; therefore he did not fear to defend the Catholic cause in his books. In his work on the "Convents of Argovia and their Accusers" (1841), and on the "Persecutions of the Catholic Church in Switzerland" (1843), he denounces the tyranny of his Protestant compatriots in unmeasured terms. For this reason, also, he went to Paris in 1843 to plead, although in vain, the cause of the Catholics in Switzerland.

Having, as we have seen, resigned his position, he had ample leisure to devote himself to the more profound study of the Catholic doctrine, the dogmas of which he had already inwardly admitted. The "Symbolism" of Moehler he found of great utility, and the "Exposition of the Holy Mass," by Innocent III., served greatly to strengthen his religious convictions.

Hurter, however, was not precipitate. He desired that in taking so important a step conviction should be preceded by mature deliberation. About this time he writes: "He would certainly be mistaken who should think that I entered the _interior_ of the Catholic Church because I was solely led away by its external forms. I was neither a wanderer nor hair-brained. Undoubtedly the exterior impressed me; but I was not, however, therefore relieved from examining its fundamental principles with due care, or from studying the interior with proper caution. I entered it first through curiosity, a mere visitor, as it were, and I examined everything that I saw like one who, wanting to purchase a house, first looks closely at every part of it before closing the bargain. In that way I think I acquired, on many points, truer and more complete ideas than the frequenters of the house, and those who have spent their lives in it. I have too long postponed my free decision not to have earned the right to be able to decide whether the house suits me or not, or if any changes be required."

It is interesting to see, in his "Exposition of Motives," the narration of all the doubts under which he labored previous to making a final decision; how his mind gradually approached to a knowledge of the truth as he progressed in his investigation; how a thousand external circumstances, designed by Providence, powerfully {119} contributed to shake his will, and finally how his conversion was less his own work than the effect of that divine favor solicited by Catholic charity, of which he speaks so feelingly in his "Geburt und Wiedergebart."

The struggle was at last over. On the 16th of June, the feast of St. Francis Regis, he formally made his abjuration before Cardinal Ostini, formerly nuncio in Switzerland, at the Roman college, and five days afterward, on the feast of St. Louis de Gonzaga, he received the blessed sacrament in the presence of an immense congregation of the faithful. The prophetic words of Gregory XVI. were then confirmed: "_Spero che lei sera mio figlio_" (I hope that one day you will be my son). The church and her head numbered one child more. God had thus rewarded by his grace the perfect sincerity which the humble penitent had ever made the rule of his life. We may also be allowed to believe that the sweet protection of the Mother of God had efficaciously operated in his favor, for even while a Protestant he had many times pleaded her cause with his brethren.

The news of his conversion created quite different feelings. If the great Catholic family rejoiced, and with unanimous voice thanked God for having favorably heard their prayers, Protestantism felt wounded to the very heart. The reason is easily understood. The edifying example of humility exhibited by a man like Hurter was necessary to win over a great number of souls until then irresolute and wavering, as some planets attract their satellites in space.

As to him, full of gratitude toward God, his soul replete with light and peace, his head high and serene, he went back to his native town to resume his literary labors in retirement, as well as to undergo a series of new persecutions, the last consecration of the Christian. "I am not so narrow-minded," he wrote some time afterward, "that I did not expect wicked judgments, base calumnies, and every kind of insult. Facts have, however, far exceeded my anticipations, and I must confess that I did not think those men capable of going so far in their wickedness." Finally it became impossible for Hurter to remain longer at Schaffhausen, and, beside, a new and better career was soon opened for him. He received from Vienna an invitation to become the historiographer of the empire. He accepted the appointment and entered upon the fulfilment of its duties. Safe from the interruptions caused by the troubles of 1848, he soon after accepted the position, of privy councillor and the patent of nobility which were tendered him.

The last portion of his life was devoted to the practice of Christian virtues and to the completion of his great work on Ferdinand II. To this book he devoted twenty years' arduous labor, and was fortunate enough to complete it one year previous to his death.

In commencing this work Hurter collected all his powerful faculties, intending to display in its composition all that remarkable mental energy with which he had been gifted by nature. With incredible patience he examined one after another thousands of documents of all kinds long buried in the archives of the empire, and most of which were utterly unknown even to the learned. He could not understand to be history that which was not supported by undeniable documents. _Quod non est in actis, non est in mundo_, was his maxim--a maxim, alas! which is too often neglected by the generality of our modern historians. Nothing excelled his perseverance, I might almost say his rapture, when he desired to throw light on an obscure fact, to fill a hiatus, or to discover any historical truth. Never, perhaps, were scruples of accuracy, and at the same time independence of thought and courage in expression, carried to greater limits. Let us add, that when composing the "History of Ferdinand II." he was filled with a strong sympathy for his subject, and {120} in his admiration for that great man he could, like Tacitus, console himself with the sight of like grievances, and say with the Roman historian: _Ego hoc quoque laboris praemium petam, ut me a conspectu malorum, quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas, tantisper, aum prisca illa tota mente repeto, avertam, omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere a vero, sollicitum tamen efficere possit._

This work of Hurter's consists of eleven volumes. The first seven comprise the history of events from the reign of Archduke Charles, father of Ferdinand II., to the coronation of the latter prince; the remaining four being exclusively devoted to the reign of Ferdinand. In this comprehensive review of the events of that epoch the illustrious author has shown, by the light of true history, the great emperor and all the principal personages by whom he was surrounded, or in any way connected; particularly portraying the Archduke Charles, the Archduchess Maria, that splendid model of a Christian mother, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Tilly, and Wallenstein. Hurter studied the character of the latter with particular zeal, first in his sketch of the "Material to be used for the History of Wallenstein" (1855), and then in the more elaborate monography, "The last Four Years of Wallenstein" (1862), and finally in the "History of Ferdinand" itself. He arrives at the conclusion that the Duke of Friedland had really been guilty of treason, and that his tragic end is in no way to be attributed to Ferdinand. At the same time he does full justice to the great qualities of Wallenstein, acknowledging in him great capacity for organization, wonderful activity, and almost regal liberality; nor does he hesitate to class him among not only the greatest men of his age, but of all time.

But, as may be well understood, his great central figure was Ferdinand, whom he considers a most admirable and accomplished type of all the virtues surrounding royalty, notwithstanding his memory has been burthened with such foul calumnies by Protestant historians and their copyists. To relieve his name from these unjust aspersions was a task worthy of the genius of the historian of Innocent III. Having shown in the life of that pontiff the true embodiment of the Christian principles of the supreme priesthood, should he not also point out a temporal prince as the personification of genuine Catholic royalty?

We would desire to reproduce here the incomparable portrait of Ferdinand as it has been drawn by Hurter in his last volume, but, unfortunately, the limits of this article do not permit it. What compensates us, in some measure, for being able to give only so feeble an idea of that great work is, that we hope soon to see the _studies_ undertaken to speak of it more fully. We hope also that a competent translator will be soon found to give to France that work which, with the "History of Innocent III.," will immortalize the name of Hurter.

Yes, the great historian shall live in his writings, in which he has shown a soul so strong, so firm, so just, so humble, and yet so proud; so earnestly devoted to truth and so deeply adverse to falsehood, meanness, and hypocrisy. He will live in those countless works of charity of which he was the ever efficient author. He will live in the remembrance of so many hearts he has edified by his pious example, strengthened by his advice, and brought back to the true path by his admonitions. He will live, also, in the perpetual and grateful regard of a company, always so dear to him, to which he has given one of his sons, and whose motto he was proud to quote on the frontispiece of his great work. _Ad majorem Dei gloriam_.

We will end this sketch by repeating the words which an apostolic missionary, now a cardinal, once applied to the great historian; they cannot be {121} better or more happily chosen to sum up his whole life. Twenty years ago, after being a witness to his conversion, the Abbé de Bonnechose, writing from Rome, says of him: "_Justum deduxit Dominus per vias rectas et ostendit illi regnum Dei, et dedit illi scientiam sanctorum; honestavit illum in laboribus et complevit labores illius_" (Sap. x.) Yes, Hurter's mind was right, and God led him by the hand. He has shown him his kingdom on earth, the church of Christ, and the chair of Peter, where his authority sits enthroned, where he speaks and governs in the person of his vicar. It was he who endowed him with a knowledge of the science and philosophy of his doctrine and of the divine mysteries of the faith, and inspired in him those noble ideas the end and aim of which ought always to be the worship and exaltation of the true church, and the defence of the pontificate when calumniated. He has blessed the labors which have been conducted with such success, filling them with spirit and energy, to the end that they may bear the fruits of immortality! _Honestavit illum in laboribus et complevit labores illius._

J. MARTINOF.

WORDS OF WISDOM.

TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE BY DR. BOWRING.

To seek relief from doubt in doubt, From woe in woe, from sin in sin-- Is but to drive a tiger out, And let a hungry wolf come in.

Who helps a knave in knavery. But aids an ape to climb a tree! On an ape's head a crown you fling; Say--Will that make the ape a king?

Know you why the lark's sweet lay Man's divinest nature reaches? He is up at break of day Learning all that nature teaches.

The record of past history brings Wisdom of sages, saints, and kings; The more we read those reverend pages The more we honor bygone ages!

Whate'er befit--whate'er befal. One general law commandeth all: There's no confusion in the springs That move all sublunary things. All harmony is heaven's vast plan-- All discord is the work of man!

{122}

From The Sixpenny Magazine.

IRELAND AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798.

There has lately issued from the press a work under the title which heads our article, and which is amusing and instructive in the highest degree. Were it not written by a man whose ability and character are pledges for his veracity, we should rank it with Harrison Ainsworth's efforts, and designate it as an almost impossible romance. It has, as we think, appeared at a very opportune and timely juncture, and, in our opinion, Mr. Fitzpatrick is entitled to great praise for the talent, industry, and research evidenced in his volume.

Francis Higgins, the hero of Mr. Fitzpatrick's remarkable biographical sketch, and familiarly known by the title of "The Sham Squire," was born nobody exactly knows where, and reared nobody knows how. He commenced his career, however, in stirring times, and when great events were in their parturition, during which the history of Ireland presents a series of panoramic images--a mixture of light and shadow--instances of devoted fidelity and abounding rascality-- groupings of mistaken enthusiasm, selfish venality, and the most abhorrent domestic treason--such as we in vain look for in the annals of any other country or any other age. It is supposed that Higgins was born in a Dublin cellar, and while yet of tender years became successively "errand-boy, shoeblack, and waiter in a public-house"--improving trades for one of so ripe a spirit, but which he soon left, directed by a vaulting ambition, in order to become a writing-clerk in an attorney's office. While in this position, he commenced practice on his own account, by rejecting popery as unfashionable and impolitic, and by forging a series of legal documents purporting to show to all "inquiring friends" that he was a man of property and a government official. He had an object in this, as he was by this time to appear in a new character, as the lover of Miss Mary Anne Archer, who possessed a tolerable fortune and a foolish old father. Miss Archer happened to be a Roman Catholic, and was strong in her faith; but this was only a trifle to Higgins, who again forsook the new creed for the old, and proved thereby, like Richard, "a thriving wooer." They were married, and the Archer _père_ did at last what he ought to have done at first, ferreted out the real antecedents of his precious son-in-law, and discovered that he had a very clever fellow to deal with; while his daughter, finding, after a short time, that her husband was "by no means a desirable one," fled back to her bamboozled parent, who straightway indicted the pretender. Higgins was found guilty and imprisoned for a year, and it was during Judge Robinson's charge to the jury that he fastened the name of the "Sham Squire" on the prisoner, a sobriquet which stuck to him persistently during the remainder of his life, and proved a greater infliction to his vanity than an apparently heavier penalty would have been. This was in 1767. "Poor Mary Anne" died of a broken heart, and her parents survived her for only a short lime; while the widower, in order to make his prison life endurable, paid his addresses to the daughter of the gaoler and eventually married her, as her father was pretty well to do in the world, the situation being a {123} money-making one, as the order of that day was, as proved before the Irish House of Commons, that "persons were unlawfully kept in prison and loaded with irons, although not duly committed by a magistrate, until they had complied with the most exorbitant demands." When the Sham's term of a year's imprisonment ended, he had life to begin anew, and for some years we find him exercising many vocations, such as "setter" for excise officers, billiard-marker, hosier, etc. For an assault as a "setter," he was again tried and again convicted; but nothing daunted, as his old webs were broken, he proceeded in the construction of new. In 1775, we not only find him "a hosier," but president of the Guild of Hosiers; and in 1780 his services were engaged by Mr. David Gibbal, conductor of the "Freeman's Journal," then, as now, one of the most popular and well-conducted papers in Ireland. But from the period of the Sham Squire's connection with it, it seems to have degenerated, as in April, 1784, the journals of the Irish House of Commons show an "order" that "Francis Higgins, one of the conductors of the 'Freeman's Journal,' do attend this house to-morrow morning." He did so, and escaped with a reproof. Having gained some knowledge of law in the solicitor's office, we now find him anxious to become an attorney, which end he accomplished by the aid and influence of his friend and patron John Scott, afterward chief-justice, and elevated to the peerage as Lord Clonmel, rather for his political talents than his professional ones. From 1784 to 1787 Higgins also acted as deputy coroner for Dublin. By a series of manoeuvres he became the sole proprietor of the "Freeman's Journal," and became at once what is called in Ireland "a castle hack." Both as attorney and editor, the Sham Squire was now a man of importance, and many called in on him. Shrewd, sharp, and clever, with a glib tongue and a facile pen, no business was either too difficult or too dirty for him. He was made a justice of the peace by Lord Carhampton, who, as Colonel Luttrell, was designated by Grattan as "a clever bravo, ready to give an insult, and perhaps capable of bearing one;" in fact, the last allusion was deserved, as Luttrell had been called "vile and infamous" by Scott without resenting it. Lord Carhampton became commander-in-chief in Ireland, and during the outbreak of '98 was a merciless foe to the rebels who fell into his hands. Higgins, by this time, had become a great man, and lived in St. Stephen's Green, in magnificent style, keeping his coach and entertaining the nobility. He was a loyalist of the rosiest hue, and thought no mission too derogatory by which he might show his zeal. He attended divine service regularly, and that over, proceeded to "Crane Lane," in order to count over and receive his share of the gains in a gambling house of which he was principal proprietor, and which his influence with the police magistrates prevented the suppression of--then to his editorial duties, which were to uphold the measures of government and its officials, and to lampoon, cajole, or threaten all who dared to oppose them.

It was in the disastrous period of '98, however, that the Sham Squire's most sterling qualities came into active requisition, as evidenced by the following extract of a letter written by the Secretary Cooke to Lord Cornwallis, then lord lieutenant of Ireland. "Francis Higgins," he writes, "proprietor of the 'Freeman's Journal,' was the person who procured for me all the intelligence respecting Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and got--to set him, and has given me otherwise much information--£300;" meaning thereby that his excellency should sanction that annual amount for "secret service," out of a sum of £15,000, specially laid aside for that purpose. Beside this, however, a lump sum of £1000 was given to Higgins on the 20th of June, 1798, for the betrayal of his friend; and, independent of this, a confederate of his named Francis Magan, a barrister, {124} and a close ally of Lord Edward, and who positively "set" the unfortunate nobleman at Higgins's instigation, received £600 and a pension of £200 per annum for the worthy deed. Probably the most startling of all these revelations of domestic treachery was the conduct of Leonard McNally, barrister at law, and selected "for his ability, truth, zeal, and sterling honesty," as Curran's assistant in defending the prisoners implicated in the rebellion. This fellow seems to have outsoared even Higgins and Magan in his duplicity, since not alone did he keep government duly informed of the movements of the suspected, but when on their trial he exhibited the greatest activity in suggesting points for their defence, seconding his celebrated leader in his unwearied endeavors to save them, although he had previously made known to the law officers what course the accused men's counsel meant to take for the day, so that Curran and his legal friends were puzzled and surprised at having their best-concocted measures anticipated and baffled, although not a man of them ever thought of looking to "honest Mac" as the cause. For this and other services McNally received some thousands, and was gratified, in addition, with a pension of £300 per annum. Singularly enough, the terrible secrets of Magan and McNally were well kept until long after their deaths, and until the publication of the "Cornwallis Papers" enabled inquirers to strike on the true vein. Both these men are said to have been corrupted by the Sham Squire, who seems to have been the Mephistopheles of his time; but a still more notorious "informer," because an open one, was Reynolds--Tom Reynolds--who was promised a pension of £2000 a year and a seat in parliament for his services, but did not receive quite so much. In 1798, however, he received £5000 and a pension of £1000 a year; and as his demands were always importunate, it is known that during the remainder of his life he extracted £45,740 from his employers. Reynolds went abroad and died there, as Ireland would hardly have been for him either a safe or a pleasant residence; but Magan and McNally lived at home for many a goodly year, and were looked upon as honest men and sterling patriots to the last. Higgins did not long survive his victims; he died suddenly, in 1802, worth £20,000, a greater part of which, strange to say, he left for charitable purposes!

In reviewing thus the history of this Irish Jonathan Wild and his detestable comrogues, our object must, we hope, be evident. Their lives and actions are instructive in many ways, and never promised to be more so than now. What happened then may happen again; treason will be dogged by traitors to the end. Fear and avarice are omnipotent counsellors, and, when coupled with talent and ingenuity, marvellous indeed are the misery they can cause and the wide-spread devastation that travels in their track. That a needy and unscrupulous vagabond like Higgins should hunt his dearest friends to the scaffold is not to be wondered at; but that men of position and education like Reynolds, McNally, and Magan should join in the chase, and for years after look honest men in the face, evinces a hardihood of disposition and a callosity of conscience which, as a lesson, is instructive, and, as an utter disregard of remorseful feeling, appears all but impossible. No doubt such miscreants excuse their crimes on a plea of loyalty, and the plea would be all-sufficient had they not stipulated for the price, and had they not exulted in receiving it. There is something especially abhorrent to our natures in those wretches who voluntarily plunge into the ranks of anarchy and disaffection at one time, and then, when cowardice or cupidity overcomes them, overleap all the boundaries of honor and faith, and trade on the blood or suffering of the unfortunate men who placed their liberties or lives in their safe-keeping.

{125}

In the notes which Mr. Fitzpatrick has appended to his biography of the "Sham Squire" as "addenda" we have some well-authenticated and racy revelations of many of the singular Irish characters who flourished during the last thirty or forty years of the last century, and in the first few years of the beginning of this. Ireland appears to have been the "paradise of adventurers" in that day, as the times appear to have been out of joint, and the habits and general _morale_ of the upper and middle ranks were to the last degree loose and irregular. As the manners and modes of action of a people are in a considerable degree fashioned and influenced by the example set them by those who are placed in authority over them, it is not too much to assert that a great deal of the lax morality, unscrupulous spirit, and general demoralization were produced by some of the occupants of the vice-regal throne, and their "courts," the character and course of life of whom are painted by our author in anything but a seductive way. Brilliancy, show, pleasure, wit, and extravagance were the order of the day; lords-lieutenant were either dissipated _roués_, or incompetent imbeciles, and in either case they were sure to be coerced or cajoled by a mercenary tribe of political adventurers, who directed their actions and influenced their minds. We at once see by the wholesale corruption practised to bring about the Union, how utterly depraved must have been the men who openly or covertly prostituted themselves, when it was in contemplation; and never was political profligacy more open and more daring in its violation of honor, probity, and principle than in the abject submission of the Irish parliament, and its unhesitating anxiety to sell themselves, souls and bodies, to those who tempted them, and who had studied them far too accurately not to be sure of their prey. Amongst those who consented to accept the remuneration thus profusely offered them the lawyers bore a very prominent part; in fact, government could hardly have succeeded without their aid; of these, Fitzgibbon, afterward Lord Clare and chancellor, was the most forward and efficient. There was never a man better adapted for the work he had to do. Bold, active, astute, and unscrupulous, he could be all things to all men; those whom he could not cajole, he frightened; equally ready with the pen, the pistol, and the tongue, he was neither to be daunted nor silenced; terrible in his vengeance, no windings of his victims could escape him; and extravagant in his generosity (when the public purse had to bear the blunt), his jackals and partisans felt that their reward was sure, and therefore never hesitated to comply with his most exact demands. Few men had a larger number of followers, therefore, and no man ever made a more unscrupulous use of them. He had nothing of the recusant about him, however, and first and last he was consistent to his party and to the Protestant creed which he had adopted in early life, for he had been born and partly reared in the Roman Catholic faith. In his personal demeanor he was a lion-hearted man; when hissed in the streets by the populace he calmly produced his pistols; and once, on hearing that a political meeting against the Union was being held, he rushed into the middle of the assembled mass, commanded the high-sheriff to quit the chair, and so closed the meeting. On the bench he was equally fearless, and when recommended to beware of treachery, his answer was, "They dare not; I have made them as tame as cats." "If I live," he said, "to see the Union completed, to my latest hour I shall feel an honorable pride in reflecting on the share I had in contributing to effect it." He did live to see it, and to take his seat in the British parliament; but matters were altogether altered there. In his maiden effort he was rebuked by Lord Suffolk, called to order by the lord chancellor, while the Duke of Bedford indignantly snubbed him by {126} exclaiming, "We would not bear such insults from our _equals_, and shall we, my lords, tolerate them at the hands of mushroom nobility?" while, to cap the climax, Pitt, after hearing him, turned to Wilberforce, and said loud enough to be heard by Lord Clare, "Good G--d! did you ever, in all your life, listen to so thorough-paced a scoundrel as that!" Disappointed and despairing, he returned to Ireland, and died of a broken heart, while almost the last words he uttered to a friend were, "Only to think of it! I that had all Ireland at my disposal cannot now procure the nomination of a single gauger!"

John Scott, afterward Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel, was another prominent actor in those busy times. His birth was lowly, but his talents were considerable; he was light and flippant rather than profound, and he felt to the last a terrible mortification that his claims had been postponed to those of Lord Clare. He had neither the grasp of mind, nor the unhesitating manner of the chancellor, however; he was apt to surround himself with companions, like the "Sham Squire," for instance, who might be pleasant but were by no means reputable. Beside, his character for probity was distrusted; his first uprise in life was his wholesale appropriation of the property of a Catholic friend which he held in trust, as Catholics, at that time, could not retain property in their hands, and which he refused to disgorge. He was both venal and vindictive, and but too often prostituted his authority in pursuit of his passions. On one occasion, however, he was signally discomfited. A man of the name of Magee, who owned and edited the "Evening Post," had frequently come under the lash, and was treated with no mercy. Magee's vengeance took a curious form. Lord Clonmel was an ardent lover of horticulture, and had spent many thousand pounds in making his suburban villa a "model." Magee knew this, and as the chief demesne was skirted by an open common from which a thick hedge alone separated it, the journalist proclaimed a rural _fête_, on an enormous scale, to be held on the vacant ground, and to which the whole Dublin population, gentle and simple, were invited. Meats and liquors were given to an unlimited extent, and, in the evening, when the "roughs" were primed with whiskey, several pigs (shaved and with their tails well soaped) were let out as part of the amusement of the day. By preconcert, the affrighted animals were driven against Lord Clonmel's inclosure, which they speedily over-leaped, followed by the mob. Trees, shrubs, flowers, vases, and statues were in a wonderfully short time demolished in the "fun," while, to make the matter still more deplorable, the owner of the property thus wantonly devoted to revenge stood on the steps of his own hall-door, and with alternate fits of imprecation and entreaty besought the spoilers to desist, but in vain. Toward the close of his life, Lord Clonmel became a hypochondriac, and, supposing himself to be a tea-pot, hardly ventured to stir abroad lest he should be broken. On one occasion, his great forensic antagonist, Curran, was told that Clonmel was going to die at last, and was asked if he believed it. "I believe," was the reply, "that he is scoundrel enough to live or die _just as it meets his convenience_." Shortly before his death he said to Lord Cloncurry, "My dear Val, I have been a fortunate man, or what the world calls so; I am chief-justice and an earl; but were I to begin life again, I would rather be a chimney-sweeper, than consent to be connected with the Irish government."

Another "celebrity" was John Taler, "bully, butcher, and buffoon," who was afterward a peer and a judge. He was a bravo in the house and a despot on the bench. He jested with the wretched he condemned, and seemed never so happy as when {127} the scaffold was before his eyes. He was ignorant but ferocious, and when he could not conquer an opponent he would browbeat him.

"Give me a long day, my lord," said a culprit, whom he had just doomed.

"I am sorry to say I can't oblige you, my friend," replied Lord Norbury, smiling; "but I promise you a strong rope, which I suppose will answer your purpose as well."

When he died, and was about to be lowered into the grave himself, the tackle was rather short.

"Tare-an-agers, boys, don't spare the _rope_ on his lordship; don't you know he was always fond of it?" said one of the standers-by.

"I never saw a human face that so closely resembles that of a bull-dog!" remarked one barrister to another in court.

"Let him get a grip of your throat, and you will find the resemblance still closer," was the reply.

These and a hundred others, their equals, instruments, and subordinates, may be supposed to represent the Irish "turnspit" element; it must be acknowledged, however, that in contradistinction to them, there were sounding examples of men of a different and far superior class, such as the Leinsters, Charlemonts, Plunketts, Currans, Ponsonbys, and so forth, who would have adorned any country, and who certainly contributed to relieve their own from the almost intolerable odium which the wholesale venal profligacy of a large number had brought upon it.

From Once a Week.

THE LEGEND OF THE LOCKHARTS.

I.

King Robert on his death-bed lay, wasted in every limb, The priests had left, Black Douglas now alone was watching him; The earl had wept to hear those words, "When I am gone to doom, Take thou my heart and bear it straight unto the Holy Tomb."

II.

Douglas shed bitter tears of grief--he loved the buried man. He bade farewell to home and wife, to brother and to clan; And soon the Bruce's heart embalm'd, in silver casket lock'd, Within a galley, white with sails, upon the blue waves rock'd.

III.

In Spain they rested, there the king besought the Scottish earl To drive the Saracens from Spain, his galley sails to furl; It was the brave knight's eagerness to quell the Paynim brood. That made him then forget the oath he'd sworn upon the rood.

IV.

That was his sin; good angels frown'd upon him as he went With vizor down and spear in rest, lips closed, and black brow bent: Upon the turbans, fierce he spurr'd, the charger he bestrode Was splash'd with blood, the robes and flags he trampled on the road.

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V.

The Moors came fast with cymbal clash and tossing javelin, Ten thousand horsemen, at the least, on Castille closing in; Quick as the deer's foot snaps the ice, the Douglas thundered through, And struck with sword and smote with axe among the heathen crew.

VI.

The horse-tail banners beaten down, the mounted archers fled-- There came full many an Arab curse from faces smear'd with red, The vizor fell, a Scottish spear had struck him on the breast; Many a Moslem's frighten'd horse was bleeding head and chest.

VII.

But suddenly the caitiffs turn'd and gathered like a net, In closed the tossing sabres fast, and they were crimson wet, Steel jarr'd on steel--the hammers smote on helmet and on sword, But Douglas never ceased to charge upon that heathen horde.

VIII.

Till all at once his eager eye discerned amid the fight St. Clair of Roslyn, Bruce's friend, a brave and trusty knight. Beset with Moors who hew'd at him with sabres dripping blood-- Twas in a rice-field where he stood close to an orange wood.

IX.

Then to the rescue of St. Clair Black Douglas spurred amain, The Moslems circled him around, and shouting charged again; Then took he from his neck the heart, and as the case he threw, "Pass first in fight," he cried aloud, "as thou wert wont to do."

X.

They found him ere the sun had set upon that fatal day, His body was above the case, that closely guarded lay. His swarthy face was grim in death, his sable hair was stain'd With the life-blood of a felon Moor, whom he had struck and brain*d.

XI.

Sir Simon Lockhart, knight of Lee, bore home the silver case. To shrine it in a stately grave and in a holy place, The Douglas deep in Spanish ground they left in royal tomb. To wait in hope and patient trust the trumpet of the doom.

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[ORIGINAL.]

REMINISCENCES OF DR. SPRING. [Footnote 23]

[Footnote 23: "Personal Reminiscences of the Life and Times of Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York." 2 vols. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.]

Few persons who have lived much in New York during the last quarter of a century are not familiar with the dignified, resolute, yet kindly countenance of the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church. Fewer still are ignorant of his reputation as a leading and representative man in his denomination; a keen polemic; a great promoter of missionary, tract, and Bible societies; and, we may add, a very determined enemy of the Pope of Rome and all his aiders and abettors. For more than fifty-five years he has preached to the same congregation which gave him a call when he was first licensed as a minister. During his career thirteen Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Lincoln, have died; three Kings of England have been laid in their graves; the horrors of the Reign of Terror, the execution of Louis XVI., the rise and fall of the first Napoleon, the shifting scenes of the Restoration, the Orleans rule, the second Republic and the second Empire, have hurried each other across the stage of French history. He has long passed the scriptural term of the life of man; and now, at the almost patriarchal age of eighty-one, he gives us a collection of reminiscences of what he has seen and done during this protracted and eventful career.

It would be natural to suppose that such a book by such a man must be full of interest. As one of the recognized leaders of a rich and influential religious denomination, and one of the oldest and most respectable citizens of the first city of America, how many historical characters must he have met! to how many important events must he have been a witness! But any one who takes up these volumes in the hope of obtaining through them a clearer view of persons and times gone by, will be disappointed. They are interesting, it is true, but not, we will venture to say, in the way their author meant them to be. They cause us to wonder that the doctor should have seen so much and remembered so little. Yet as a picture of the life of a representative Presbyterian preacher and a complete exposure of the utter emptiness of the Presbyterian religion, these garrulous and random "Reminiscences" are the most entertaining pages we have read for many a month. We propose to cull for our readers a few of the most interesting passages.

Dr. Spring was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Feb. 24, 1785. His father was a minister, of whom the son says that "he would not shave his face on the Lord's day, nor allow his wife to sew a button on her son's vest; and on one occasion, when his nephew, the late Adolphus Spring, Esq., arrived in haste on a Saturday evening with the message that his father was on his bed of death, he would not mount his horse for the journey of seventy miles until the Sabbath sun had gone down." Though young Gardiner used to wonder, when a boy, why he was not allowed to participate in the customary sports of children, he seems to have preserved a warm affection for both his parents, of whom he speaks in a loving and reverential tone which we cannot too carefully respect. The thought that most affected him on their death was {130} "_that he had lost their prayers._" Gardiner was sent to Yale College at the age of fifteen, and during "a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit" upon that rather unregenerate institution, in the year 1803, he became, for a season, "hopefully pious." He had been uneasy for some time about the state of his soul, and one afternoon he resolved to pray, several hours, if necessary, until his sins were forgiven. "There," he says, "in the south entry of the old college, back side, middle room, third story, I wrestled with God as I had never wrestled before." The result of this spiritual struggle we do not profess to understand. He says that he rose from his knees without any hope that he had found mercy, yet feeling considerably relieved. For several weeks he went about, peaceful and happy, when, unluckily, the Fourth of July came, with its speeches and fireworks, and his "religious hopes and impressions all vanished as a morning cloud, and as the early dew." It was five or six years before they came back again.

When he graduated his father came to hear him speak, and at the close of the exercises gave him his blessing and told him to shift for himself. So, there he was, twenty years old, with four dollars in his pocket and a profession yet to be acquired. He borrowed two hundred and fifty dollars from a generous friend, obtained a situation as precentor in a church, opened a singing school, and applied himself zealously to the study of law. Before long he married a young lady as poor as himself, and went with her in 1806 to Bermuda, where he taught school for some time very successfully; but rumors of war between this country and Great Britain drove him back to the United States, and in his twenty-fourth year he entered upon the practice of the law at New Haven.

In the meanwhile those uneasy feelings of the soul, which he seems unable to analyze (though we warrant a good confessor would quickly have solved his perplexities) had not left him at peace. He writes to his father from Bermuda upon the state of his interior man:

"I should wish to go to heaven, because I should be pleased, with its employment. Were all my sins mortified and I rendered perfectly holy, I think I should the happy. . . . . Sometimes I can say, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. .... I am avaricious; and in the present state of my family, make money my god. I strain honesty _as far as I can_ to gain a little."

This was certainly not a satisfactory condition of things. The lust for mammon seems strong enough, but the aspirations for heaven might well have been rather more ardent. He goes to church and sings and weeps, and the minister and elders crowd around him to see what is the matter. He goes to prayer-meeting at last in New Haven, and there the conversion--such as it is--is effected: "As the exercises closed and the crowded worshippers rose to sing the doxology, I felt that I could 'praise God from whom all blessings flow.' Praise! praise! It was delightful to praise him! On the 24th of April following, I united with the visible church under Mr. Stuart's pastorate, and began to be an active Christian."

We must say that this seems to be a very simple and easy process of getting out of the power of the devil. Conversion, according to Dr. Spring's idea, is simply an emotion of the mind, a spasm of sentiment. It includes neither satisfaction for the past, nor the performance of any definite religious duty in the present or the future. Any one who can excite himself into the belief that he is regenerate, or tickle his mind into the pleasant state indicated by the man who, when asked, "How it felt to get religion?" replied that "it was just like having warm water poured down your back"--any such one, we say, may rest assured of his eternal safety. Dr. Spring is no more exacting with other candidates for conversion than he was with himself. To a sick man who inquires "what he shall do?" he answers: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

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"But will you not tell me _how_ I shall go to him?"

"Yes, I can tell you; you must not go in your own strength; for your strength is weakness. You must not go in your own righteousness, for you have none. You must feel your need of Christ, and see that he is just the Saviour adapted to your wants. You must adore, and love, and trust him. . . . . Commit to him your entire salvation, and in all holy 'obedience live devoted to his service.'" Now in all this there is just one practical suggestion, namely, to "live devoted to God's service"--and that the man could not follow because he was dying. Let our readers contrast Dr. Spring's death-bed ministrations with what a Catholic priest would have said and done in similar circumstances. The priest would have given definite instruction and divine sacraments; the preacher has nothing better to offer than a few commonplace generalities from his last Sunday's sermon.

But we must return to the reverend doctor's biography. Close upon the heels of his conversion came the resolution to be a minister. The pecuniary difficulties in the way of this change of profession were soon obviated by the generosity of a rich widow of Salem. There was another obstacle, however, of a more serious nature. This was Mrs. Spring. She was "not a professed Christian." She was "a worldly woman." She sought the honors of the world. She did not want to be a minister's wife. The doctor had a great respect for her. He was afraid to tell her of his resolution. We must let him describe in his own words how he got out of the difficulty:

"I then began a course of conduct which I have ever since pursued, and that was, in all cases where my own duty was plain, and my resolution formed, quietly to carry my resolution into effect, and meet the storm afterward. I did so in the present instance, though there was no other storm than a plentiful shower of tears. I said nothing to my wife; nothing to any one except Mr. Evarts. I sent my wife on a visit to my only sister, the wife of the Hon. Bezaleel Taft, at Uxbridge, the native place of my father, where I engaged in a few weeks to meet her, and make a further visit to Newburyport. She had no suspicion of my views, and left me with the confident expectation that she would return to New Haven.

"In the meantime, after she left me, I was busily employed in arranging my affairs for my removal to Andover. I announced my purpose to the church at the next prayer-meeting, and received a fresh impulse from their prayers and benedictions. Mr. Evarts took my office and my business, and closed up my unsettled accounts with his accustomed accuracy, and my ledger now records them. Mr. Smith, my old teacher, laughed at me; Judge Daggett was silent. Judge Rossiter said to me, 'Mr. Spring, the pulpit is your place; you were formed for the pulpit rather than the bar.' My business in New Haven was closed; my debts paid; my household furniture, small as it was, was carefully stowed away; my law library, worth about four hundred dollars, was disposed of, and I was on my way to Uxbridge, Newburyport, Salem, and Andover.

"When I reached Uxbridge, and was once more in the bosom of my little family, I felt that the trial had come. I could not at once disclose my plans to my wife, and was saved that painful interview by the suspicions of Mr. Taft, who told her that he believed I was going to be a clergyman! She laughed at him; but she saw a change in my deportment, and began to suspect it herself. I told her all. She went to her chamber and wept for a long time. But she came down, subdued indeed, but placid as a lamb, and simply said, 'It is all over now; I am ready.' Oh, how kindly has God watched over me! It seems as though the promise was fulfilled, 'Return unto thy country and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.' Some day or two before we left Uxbridge, Mr. Taft said to me, 'Brother Spring, I have a case before Justice Adams this morning; you are still a lawyer, and I want you to go and argue it with me.' The thought struck me pleasantly, and I resolved to go; but instead of assisting him, without his knowledge I engaged myself to what I thought the weaker party; and my last effort at the bar was in battling with my sister's husband, and in the place of my father's nativity."

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After eight months devoted to the study of theology at the Andover seminary, Mr. Spring was licensed to preach and received a call from the Brick church in New York. As a preliminary to his ordination, it was necessary for him to preach a trial sermon before the presbytery, and to submit to an examination as to his orthodoxy. In this latter test he did not give unqualified satisfaction, nevertheless they passed him, and he was duly ordained to the pastorship. As a salve, we suppose, for their consciences, the presbytery deputed the Rev. Dr. Milledollar, one of their number, to talk with the young minister, and try to reason him out of certain heterodox opinions which he entertained upon the subject of human ability. The result of the interview was that, in Dr. Milledollar's judgment, "the best way of curing a man of such views was to dip his head in cold water."

It was but a dismal religion of which he now became the minister. Tears, gloom, discomfort, and brokenness of heart were the characteristics of the spiritual life, and peace of mind was an alarming symptom of the dominion of the devil. "Newark is again highly favored," writes the minister to his parents: "there are not less than five hundred persons _very solemn_." "My people appear solemn; they were so at the lecture on Thursday evening." "I preached on Monday to a very solemn audience at my own house." "The state of things in the congregation, notwithstanding the war, is looking up. Our public meetings and our social gatherings are more full and more solemn." He visits Paris, and there passes an evening with a small party of his countrymen: "We could not refrain from weeping during the whole time we were together." The quantity of tears shed in the course of the book is positively appalling. Of course there is nothing that remotely resembles the gift of tears with which Almighty God sometimes rewards and consoles his saints. It is merely a perpetual gush of mawkish sentimentality, and we defy anybody to read these "Reminiscences" without having before him an image of the whole Brick church with chronic redness of the eyes. A member of the congregation went to the doctor once with a request that he would baptize a child. He was not one of the weepers, or, as Dr. Spring expresses it, "not a religious man." The opportunity was too good to be lost. The doctor labored with him, preached at him, probably wept at him, tried to impress him with the solemnity and privilege of the transaction, did not baptize his child, but finally prayed with him and urged him to come again. The result of the exhortation is a good commentary upon the whole system of sentimental spasmodic religion: "He went away," says Dr. Spring, "and being requested by his wife to have another interview with me, replied, 'No; _you will not catch me there again_.'" We suppose that the child was not baptized; but that, according to Dr. Spring, and in spite of the Bible, makes very little difference. It was his rule "to baptize only those children, one of whose parents was a professed Christian"--that is to say, a member of the church; and except in one instance he has never varied from this strict practice. "That," he says, "was in the case of a sick and dying grandchild, whose father was a man of prayer, but not a communicant, and I myself professed to stand _in loco parentis_, I now look upon the whole transaction as wrong."

Dr. Spring has done a great deal of theological fighting in his day; but his foes have been chiefly those of his own household. Now and then he has carried the war into foreign countries, as at the time of the famous School Question in New York, when he had a tilt with Bishop Hughes before the Common Council, and got decidedly the worst of it; but for the most part he has devoted himself to intestine feuds. The controversy between Hopkinsians {133} and Calvinists in the Presbyterian denomination; the disputes in the American Bible Society; the schism in the Young Men's Missionary Society of New York; the effort to create a division in the American Home Missionary Society; the controversies about the New Haven school of theology and the exscinding acts of the General Assembly;--these and many other religious quarrels took up a great deal of the doctor's time, and he still writes about them with no little acrimony and personal feeling. We subjoin a few extracts:

"The wrath of the Philadelphia Synod is praising the Lord. We shall have a battle in the spring, and lay a heavy hand upon that report. I shall not hesitate to take my life in my hand if Providence allows me to go to the Assembly."--_vol. i., p._70.

"The Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely had published his celebrated work, entitled 'The Contrast,' the object of which is to show the points of difference between the views of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic theology. It was addressed to prejudice and ignorance, and was aimed at the youthful pastor of the Brick church."--_Vol. i., p._ 129.

"I find my heart strangely _suspicious_. Sometimes I am resolved to withdraw from the Missionary and Education cause, because I foresee they will be scenes of contention. But then, again, I know they are exposed to evils, and the church is exposed to evils, through the mismanagement of these excellent institutions, which perhaps I may prevent."--_Vol ii., p_. 78.

We doubt whether Dr. Spring's clerical brethren like the following passage; but anyhow, there is a great deal of truth in it:

"There have been spurious revivals in my day, and the means of promoting them are the index of their character. In such seasons of excitement, great dependence is placed on the way and means of _getting them up_, and little of the impression [sic] that not a soul will be converted unless it be accomplished by the power of God. Whatever the words of the leaders may profess, their conduct proclaims, 'Mine own arm hath done this!' There is a familiarity, a boldness, an irreverence in their prayers, which ill becomes worms of the dust in approaching him before whom angels veil their faces. A pious and poor woman, in coming out from a religious service thus conducted, once said, 'I cannot think what it is that makes our ministers _swear_ so in their prayers.' They count their converts, and when they survey their work, there is a triumph, a self-reliant exultation over it, which looks like the triumph of the pagan monarch, when he exclaimed, 'Is not this great Babylon which I have built!' And hence it is that so many of the subjects of such a work, after the excitement is over, find that their own hearts have deceived them, that they are no longer affected by solemn preaching and solemn prayers, that _their past emotions were nothing more than the operations of nature, and that when these natural causes have exhausted their power there is no religion left."--Vol. i., p_. 219.

Dr. Spring gives a curious illustration of the length to which excitement sometimes carries the poor victims of the revivalists, in the case of a Mrs. Pierson, "around whose lifeless body her husband assembled a company of _believers_, with the assurance that if they prayed in faith, she would be restored to life. Their feelings were greatly excited, their impressions of their success peculiar and strong. They prayed and prayed again, and prayed _in faith_, but they were disappointed," vol. i., p. 229.

He is rather free sometimes in his criticisms upon his brother ministers. He listens to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Finney, a noted revivalist, and says that there was nothing exceptionable in it "except a vulgarity that indicated a want of culture, and a coarseness unbecoming the Christian pulpit." He hears a Mr. Broadway preach at sea, and thus records his impressions: "I must say he is a _John Bull_ of a preacher. What a pity that men who need to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God, should undertake to teach others!" We dare say Dr. Spring's judgment of both these gentlemen was sound; but we see no propriety in printing it.

He made several voyages to Europe, and travelled through France, Germany, and Great Britain. Respecting the state of Protestantism in France, he makes some significant admissions:

"Protestantism in France is not what I have been in the habit of considering it. {134} I knew it was in a measure corrupt, but not to the extent in which I actually find it. I do not think that the Romanists, as a body, have much confidence in the Roman religion. But the mischief is that when thinking men throw off the bonds of Romanism, _they relapse into infidelity_. . . . . True religion in France _finds its most bitter and unwearied enemies in Protestants themselves_. The Protestants of this country are high Arians, if not absolute Socinians. There are now [1835] three hundred and fifty-eight Protestant pastors in France, beside their few vacant churches. _But there are comparatively few among them all who love and obey the truth."--Vol, ii., pp._ 260, 361.

The pages devoted to his European tours are remarkable exemplifications of the truth of the old adage, that _coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt_. Wherever he goes, his breadth of vision seems bounded by his own pulpit. The venerable cathedrals of Europe, rich with the noblest memories, and the great historic places haunted by the grandest associations of the past, fill him with no thoughts more elevated than those awakened by the Brick church. He sees everything distorted through the medium of his own inveterate prejudices. If he visits a religious shrine, he can think of nothing but the abominations of the scarlet woman of Babylon. If he sees a convent, he tells us a cock-and-bull story about subterranean passages paved with the bones of infants. If he witnesses some grand and imposing ceremonial, he throws up his eyes, rushes out of the church, and, while he shakes the dust off his feet, groans over the wickedness of the Romish priests and their blasphemous mummeries, farcical shows, and hypocritical disguises. One Sunday, while at Paris, he went with the well-known missionary. Dr. Jonas King, and some other American friends, to visit a hill called Mont Calvaire, near the city, to which numbers of pilgrims were then resorting. They filled their pockets with tracts, which they distributed, right and left, among the thousands that were going up and down the mountain. They even interrupted kneeling worshippers at their prayers to give them tracts. These valuable gifts were received with avidity, for, as the narrator elsewhere explains, our respectable parsons were mistaken for Catholic missionaries. A few days afterward they made another excursion of the same sort to Mont Calvaire. We give the conclusion of the adventure in the words of Dr. King, from whose journal Dr. Spring copies it:

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilder, and Miss Bertau, and Mr. Storrow's children, had gone to Mount Calvary to distribute tracts and Testaments. Dr. Spring and myself, having filled our pockets, and hats, and hands, with tracts and Testaments, set off with the hope to find them. Just as we began to ascend the mountain, we met them coming at a distance. On meeting them, they informed us that they had been stopped by the Commissary of the Police, and that a gendarme, by order of the missionaries (Rom. C. M.), had taken away their tracts and Testaments, and prohibited them in the name of the law to distribute any more on Mount Calvary. Mr. W. advised us not to proceed with the intention of distributing those which we had. We however, went, giving to every one we met, till we came in sight of the _gendarmes_, when we ceased giving, but occasionally let some fall from our pockets, which the wind, which was very high, scattered in all directions, and were gathered up by the crowd. At length we arrived at the top of the mountain, took our stand on the highest elevation near the cross, and there, in our own language, offered up, each of us, a prayer to the God of heaven for direction, and to have mercy on those tens of thousands that we saw around us, bowing before graven images. _I then felt in some degree strengthened to go on, and, taking a tract from my pocket, presented it to a lady who stood near me, and who appeared to be a lady of some distinction._ She received it with thanks, and I was not noticed by the _gendarmes_. Dr. S. let some fall from his pocket, and we made our way down to one of the stations. There he laid some on the charity-box, while I stood before him, to hide what he did. We then went to another station, and I gave ten or twelve to a lady, whom I charged to distribute them."

The heroism of these Presbyterian missionaries, who go up and down hill, dropping divine truth from their coat-tails, reminds us of a crazy old lady {135}so in New York, whose will was lately contested before our courts. She had peculiar ideas of her own on the subject of politics and the war, and used to inscribe her thoughts on great paper kites, and give them to little boys to fly in the Central Park, in the belief that the words would somehow or another be disseminated through the city. Imagine St. Francis Xavier setting sail for the Indies with his hat, and pockets, and hands full of tracts, scattering them broad-cast along the inhospitable shores, or trusting them to the breezes, like those charitable Buddhists Father Huc tells of, who go up a high mountain on windy days, and throw into the air little paper horses, which being blown away are, as they believe, miraculously changed into real horses for the benefit of belated travellers. Suppose Father Matthew, instead of preaching a crusade against drunkenness, had contented himself with sneaking into shibeens and taverns, and, behind the friendly shelter of a companion's back, had deposited little bundles of temperance tracts on the top of every barrel of whiskey, as if he expected them to explode like a torpedo, and fill the air with virtue. Or what would Dr. Spring think if some Sunday, in the midst of his prayer, two or three Catholic priests should march into the Brick church and distribute Challoner's Catechisms up and down the aisles, making the "solemn" Presbyterians get up from their knees to receive them? It would not be a bit more outrageous than the doctor's behavior during the mission on Mont Calvaire.

American travellers in Europe, especially of the fanatical sort, are but too apt to disgrace themselves and their country by their conduct in sacred places. Here is another extract from Dr. Spring's book which no respectable American can read without blushing. The incident occurred in the famous cathedral of Rouen, built by William the Conqueror, and reckoned the finest specimen of Gothic architecture in France:

"A little circumstance occurred here that was somewhat amusing. [!] Mr. Van Rensallear, in order to procure some little relic of the place, instead of gathering some flowers, broke off the _nose_ of one of the marble saints! He hoped to escape the detection of the guide, but unfortunately, on leaving the cathedral, we had to pass the mutilated statue, and were charged with the sacrilege. It was a lady saint whose sanctity our gallantry had thus violated, and we had to meet the most terrific volleys of abuse. A few glittering coins, however, obtained absolution for us, but neither entreaty nor cash could obtain the _nose_."

That must have been a funny scene one Sunday in crossing the ocean, when the doctor and his wife, and the rest of the passengers, held service under difficulties:

"We assembled for praise and prayer. Susan was quite sea-sick, yet she came on deck. The day was cold, and she sat with _a hot potato in each hand to keep her warm_."

This is certainly the oddest preparation for approaching the throne of grace that we ever heard of.

Mrs. Spring is a prominent figure all through the book, giving her reverend husband advice and comfort, and helping him in the work of the ministry, especially with regard to the women of the flock. He laments in his introductory chapter that the death of his "beloved Mrs. Spring must leave a vacuum in these pages which nothing can fill." In the second volume he gives a long and detailed account of her sufferings in child-bed when she "became the mother of a lovely daughter." When she died in 1860, he wrote in his diary as follows:

"I have been her husband and she my wife for four-and-fifty years; our attachment has been mutual, and strong and sweet to the end. I had no friend on earth in whom I had such reliance; no counsellor so wise; no comforter so precious. For the last thirty years we have rarely differed in opinion; when we did, I generally found she was right and I was was wrong; and when I persevered in my {136} judgment she knew how to yield her wishes to mine, and would sometimes say with a smile, 'God has set the man above the woman. You are _king_, my husband; but I am the queen!' In all my ministry, in sickness and in health, at home and abroad, by night and by day, I never knew her own convenience, comfort, or pleasure take the place of my duty to the people of my charge. . . . . I bless God that I had such a wife--that I had her at all, and that I had her so long. . . . My darling wife, I give you joy: but what shall I do without you?"

This last question is soon answered in an unexpected manner. Only eight pages further on, Dr. Spring, aged eighty, records the following passage:

"_April 13th,_ 1865.--My sweet wife was too valuable a woman ever to be forgotten. The preceding sketch furnishes but the outline of her excellences, which I have presented more at large at the close of the sermon commemorative of one who was my first love. I never thought I could love another. But I was advanced beyond my threescore years and ten, partially blind, and needed a helper fitted to my age and condition; no one needs such a helper more than a man in my advanced years. I sought, and God gave me another wife. A few days only more than a year after the death of Mrs. Spring, on the 14th of August, 1861, I was married to Abba Grosvenor Williams, the only surviving child of the late Elisha Williams, Esq., a distinguished member of the bar. She is the heiress of a large Property, and retains it in her own hands. She is intent on her duty as a wife, watchful of my wants, takes good care of me, is an excellent housekeeper, and instead of adding to the expenses of my household, shares them with her husband."--Vol. ii., pp. 91, 92.

With this extract, Dr. Spring may be left to the charity of our readers. We have said nothing of the vanity which allows him freely to quote the commendations of his friends on his efforts in the pulpit and his publications through the press; because, inconsistent as it may be with a very elevated piety, it is a weakness that might be pardoned in such an old man. But we cannot help remarking how on every page he gives evidence of the utter baselessness of the thing he calls religion; the unsubstantial, unsatisfying character of those human emotions which he perpetually mistakes for the operations of the Holy Ghost; and the strangely unreal, unsanctified nature of the fit of mental perturbation which he denotes conversion and labors so hard to produce. The conclusion to which every unprejudiced person must come, on closing the volumes, is that Dr. Spring has lived in vain.

{137}

MISCELLANY.

_Arabian Laughing Plant_.--In Palgrave's "Central and Eastern Arabia" some particulars are given in regard to a carious narcotic plant. Its seeds, in which the active principal seems chiefly to reside, when pounded and administered in a small dose, produce effects much like those ascribed to Sir Humphrey Davy's laughing gas; the patient dances, sings, and performs a thousand extravagances, till after an hour of great excitement to himself and amusement to the bystanders, he falls asleep, and on awaking has lost all memory of what he did or said while under the influence of the drug. To put a pinch of this powder into the coffee of some unexpecting individual is not an uncommon joke, nor is it said that it was ever followed by serious consequences, though an over quantity might perhaps be dangerous. The author tried it on two individuals, but in proportions if not absolutely homoeopathic, still sufficiently minute to keep on the safe side, and witnessed its operation, laughable enough but very harmless. The plant that hears these berries hardly attains in Kaseem the height of six inches above the ground, but in Oman were seen bushes of it three or four feet in growth, and wide-spreading. The stems are woody, and of a yellow tinge when barked; the leaf of a dark green color, and pinnated with about twenty leaflets on either side; the stalks smooth and shining; the flowers are yellow, and grow in tufts, the anthers numerous, the fruit is a capsule, stuffed with greenish padding, in which lie imbedded two or three black seeds, in size and shape much like French beans; their taste sweetish, but with a peculiar opiate flavor; the smell heavy and almost sickly.

_The Congelation of Animals_.--It is generally supposed that certain animals cannot be frozen without the production of fatal results, and that others can tolerate any degree of congelation. Both these views have been shown to be incorrect in a paper read before the French Academy, by M. Pouchet. The writer arrives at the following conclusions: (1.) The first effect produced by the application of cold is contraction of the capillary blood-vessels. This may be observed with the microscope. The vessels become so reduced in calibre that the blood-globules are unable to enter them. (2.) The second effect is the alteration in form and structure of the blood-globules themselves. These alterations are of three kinds: (_a_) the nucleus bursts from the surrounding envelope; (_b_) the nucleus undergoes alteration of form; (_c_) the borders of the globule become crenated, and assume a deeper color than usual. (3.) When an animal is completely frozen, and when, consequently, its blood-globules have become disorganized, it is dead--nothing can then re-animate it. (4.) When the congelation is partial, those organs which have been completely frozen become gangrenous and are destroyed. (5.) If the partial congelation takes place to a very slight extent, there are not many altered globules sent into the general circulation; and hence life is not compromised. (6.) If, on the contrary, it is extensive, the quantity of altered globules is so great that the animal perishes. (7.) On this account an animal which is partially frozen may live a long time if the congelation is maintained, the altered globules not entering into the general circulation; but, on the contrary, it dies if heat be suddenly applied, owing to the blood becoming charged with altered globules. (8.) In all cases of fatal congelation the animal dies from decomposition or alteration of the blood-globules, and not from stupefaction of the nervous system.

_Ordnance and Targets_.--The Admiralty having erected a new target, representing a portion of the side of the _Hercules_, experiments were made at Shoeburyness which proved that a thickness of armor casing had been attained which afforded perfect security against even the largest guns recently constructed. The target has a facing of {138} 9-inch armor-plates, and contains altogether eleven inches thickness of iron. Against this three 12-ton shunt guns were fired, at a distance of only 200 yards, with charges varying from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. of powder. One steel shot, of 300 lbs. weight, 10-1/2 inches in diameter, fired with 60 lbs. of powder, at a velocity of 1,450 feet per second, barely broke through the armor, without injuring the backing. Sir William Armstrong has expressed his conviction, in the _Times_, that the 600-pounder gun will be unable to penetrate this target, and that it will, in fact, require a gun carrying 120 lbs. of powder and steel shot to pierce this massive shield. Mr. W. C. Unwin has pointed out, in a letter to the _Engineer_, that for similar guns with shot of similar form, and charges in a constant ratio to the weight of the shot, the velocity is nearly constant. Then, assuming the resistance of the plates to be as the squares of their thicknesses, it follows that when the diameter of the shot increases, as well as the thickness of the armor, the maximum thickness perforated will (by theory) vary as the cube root of the weight of the shot, or, in other words, as the calibre of the gun; and the weight of the shot necessary to penetrate different thicknesses of armor will be as the cubes of those thicknesses. The ratio deduced from the Shoeburyness experiments is somewhat less than this, being as the 2.5 power and the 5.2 power respectively. Practical formula deduced from experiments are given, which agree with Sir William Armstrong's conclusion, and prove that a gun which can effectively burn a charge of at least 100 lbs. of powder will be required to effectually penetrate the side of the _Hercules_.

_The Moa's Egg_.--Since our last issue a splendid specimen of the egg of the Dinornis has been exhibited in this country, put up to auction, and "bought in" by the proprietors for £125. Some interesting details concerning the history of gigantic birds' eggs have been supplied by a contemporary, and we quote them for our readers: In 1854, M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy some eggs of the Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The larger of these was 12.1 inches long, and 11.8 inches wide; the smaller one was slightly less than this. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris also contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put up for sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the shorter 7 inches. In the discussion which followed the reading of M. de St. Hilaire's paper, M. Valenciennes stated it was quite impossible to judge of the size of a bird by the size of its egg, and gave several instances in point. Mr. Strickland, in some "Notices of the Dodo and its Kindred," published in the "Annals of Natural History" for November, 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous egg, which held "_thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid_." The natives stated that the egg was found in the jungle, and "observed that such eggs were _very, very rarely_ met with." Mr. Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so. Allowing a pint and a half to each of the so-called "quarts," the egg would hold 19-1/2 pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire held 17-1/2 pints, as he himself proved. The difference is not so very great. A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, a nest "of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and two feet eight inches high." (Kerr's "Collection of Voyages and Travels," xiii. 318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the south coasts of New Holland, in King George's Bay. In his "Voyage, etc.," London, 1818, he says: "They were built upon the ground, from which they rose above two feet, and were of vast circumference and great interior capacity; the branches of trees and other matter of which each nest was composed being enough to fill a cart."--_The Reader_.

_The Birds of Siberia_.--In an important treatise, published under the patronage of the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, and which is the second of a series intended to be issued on Siberian zoology, the author, Herr Radde, not only records the species, but gives an account of the period of the migration of Siberian birds. He {139} gives a list of 368 species, which he refers to the following orders: Rapaces, 36; Scansores, 19; Oscines, 140; Gallinaceae, 18; Grallatores, 74; and Natatores, 81. Concerning the migration of birds, Herr Radde confirms the result arrived at by Von Middendorf in his learned memoir, "Die Isepiptesen Russlands;" the most important of them being, (1) that the high table-land of Asia and the bordering ranges of the Altai, Sajan, and Dauria retard the arrival of the migratory birds; (2) eastward of the upper Lena, toward the east coast of Siberia, a considerable retardation of migrants is again noticeable; and (8) the times of arrival at the northern edge of the Mongolian high steppes are altogether earlier than those of the same species on the Amoor.

_Plants within Plants_.--In one of the recent numbers of the "Comptes Rendus," N. Trécul gives an account of some curious observations, showing that plants sometimes are formed within the cells of existing ones. He considers that the organic matter of certain vegetable cells can, when undergoing putrefaction, transform itself into new species, which differ entirely from the species in which they are produced. In the bark of the elder, and in plants of the potato and stone-crop order, he found vesicles full of small tetrahedral bodies containing starchy matter, and he has seen them gradually transformed into minute plants by the elongation of one of their angles.

_The Extract of Meat_.--Baron Liebig, who has favored us with some admirable samples of this excellent preparation, has also forwarded to us a letter in which he very clearly explains what is the exact nutritive value of the _extractum carnis_: "The meat," says the baron, "as it comes from the butcher, contains two different series of compounds. The first consists of the so-called albuminous principles (albumen, fibrin) and of glue-forming membrane. Of these, fibrin and albumen have a high nutritive power, although not if taken by themselves. The second series consists of crystallizable substances, viz., creatin, creatinin, sarcin, which are exclusively to be found in meat; further, of non-crystallizable organic principles and salts (phosphate and chloride of potassium), which are not to be found elsewhere. All of these together are called the extractives of meat. To the second series of substances beef-tea owes its flavor and efficacy, the same being the case with the _extractum carnis_, which is, in fact, nothing but solid beef-tea--that is, beef-tea from which the water has been evaporated. Beside the substances already mentioned, meat contains, as a non-essential constituent, a varying amount of fat. Now neither fibrin nor albumen is to be found in the _extractum carnis_ which bears my name, and gelatine (glue) and fat are purposely excluded from it. In the preparation of the extract the albuminous principles are left in the residue. This residue, by the separation of all soluble principles, which are taken up in the extract, loses its nutritive power, and cannot be made _an article of trade_ in any palatable form. Were it possible to furnish the market at a reasonable price with a preparation of meat containing both the albuminous and extractive principles, such a preparation would have to be preferred to the _extractum carnis_, for it would contain all the nutritive constituents of the meat. But there is, I think, no prospect of this being realized." These remarks show very clearly the actual value of the extract. It is, in fact, concentrated beef-tea; but it is neither the equivalent of flesh on the one hand, nor an imperfectly nutritive substance on the other. It is, nevertheless, a most valuable preparation, and now commands an extensive sale in these countries and abroad; and it is, furthermore, the only valuable form in which the carcases of South American cattle (heretofore thrown away as valueless) can be utilized.--_Popular Science Review_.

{140}

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LIFE OF THE MOST REVEREND JOHN HUGHES, D.D., First Archbishop of New York. With Extracts from his Private Correspondence. By John R. G. Hassard. Pp. 519. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.

Mr. Hassard is one of our most promising writers. He contributed several excellent articles to "Appleton's Cyclopaedia," edited "The Catholic World" with judgment and good taste for several months at its first establishment, and since that time has occupied the position of editor of the Chicago "Republican." This is his first literary essay of serious magnitude, and a more delicate or difficult task could not well have been confided to his hands. He has fulfilled it with care, thoroughness, and impartiality. The style in which it is written is remarkably correct and scholarly, and exhibits a thorough acquaintance with the English language as well as a pure and discriminating taste in the choice of words. It is a kind of style which attracts no attention to itself or to the author, but is simply a medium through which the subject-matter of the work is presented to the reader's mind; and this, in our view, is no small merit. The subject-matter itself is prepared and arranged in a methodical, accurate, and complete manner, which leaves nothing in that regard to be desired. The work belongs to that class of historical compositions which chronicle particular events and incidents, relate facts and occurrences as they happened, and leave them, for the most part, to make their own impression. The author has endeavored to take photographs of his illustrious subject, and of the scenes of his private and public life, but not to paint a picture or his character and his times. Those who are already familiar with the scenes, the persons, and the circumstances brought into view in connection with the personal history of the archbishop, and who were personally acquainted with himself, could ask for no more than is furnished in this biography. We have thought, however, in reading it, that other readers would miss that filling up and those illuminating touches from the author's pen which would make the history as vivid and real to their minds as it is made to our own by memory. A graphic and complete view of the history of the Catholic Church, so far as Archbishop Hughes was a principal actor in it, and of the results of his labors in the priesthood and episcopate, is necessary to a just estimate of his ecclesiastical career, is still a _desideratum_. In saying this, we do not intend to find fault with Mr. Hassard for not supplying it. He has accomplished the task which he undertook in a competent manner, and produced a work of sterling merit and lasting value. We could wish that the biographies of several other distinguished prelates, of the same period, might be written with the same minuteness and fidelity, and, above all others, those of Bishop England and Archbishop Kenrick. Very few men could endure the ordeal of passing through the hands of a biographer so coldly impartial as Mr. Hassard. But those who are able to pass through it, and who still appear to be great men, and to have lived a life of great public service, may be certain that their genuine, intrinsic worth will be recognized after their death, and not be thought to be the coinage of an interested advocate, or the furbished counterfeit whose glitter disappears in the crucible. Moreover, the reader of history will be satisfied that he gets at the reality of things, and the writer of history that he has authentic data and materials on which to base his judgments of men and events. No doubt this species of history would disclose many defects and weaknesses, many human infirmities and errors, in the individuals who figure in it, and lay bare much that is unsightly and repulsive in the state of things as described. This is true of all ecclesiastical history. Truth dissipates many romantic and poetic illusions of the imagination, which loves to picture to itself an ideal state of perfection and ideal heroes far different from the real world and real men. Nevertheless, it manifests more clearly the heroic and divine element really existing and working in the world and in men, and manifesting itself especially in the Catholic Church. {141} We believe, therefore, that the divinity of the Catholic religion would only be more clearly exhibited, the more thoroughly its history in the United States was brought to light. We believe, also, that the character and works of its valiant and loyal champions will be the more fully vindicated the more dispassionately and impartially they are tried and judged.

A calm consideration of the condition of Catholicity, thirty-five or forty years ago in this country, in contrast with its present state, will enable us to judge of the work accomplished by the men who have been the principal agents in bringing about the change. Let us reflect for a moment what a difference it would have made in the history of the Catholic religion here, if some eight or ten of the principal Catholic champions had not lived; and we may then estimate the power and influence they have exerted. Leaving aside the numerical and material extension of the Catholic Church under the administration of its prelates and the clergy of the second order, we look at the change in public sentiment alone, and the vindication of the Catholic cause by argument at the bar of common reason, where it has gained a signal argumentative triumph over Protestantism and prejudice, through the ability and courage of its advocates and the soundness of their cause. The principal men among the first champions of the Catholic faith who began this warfare were, in the Atlantic states, Dr. Cheverus, Dr. England, Dr. Hughes, and Dr. Power. We speak from an intimate and perfect knowledge of the common Protestant sentiment on this matter, and with a distinct remembrance of the dread which these last three names, and the veneration which the first of them, inspired. Every one who knows what the almost universal sentiment of the Protestant community respecting the Catholic religion and its hierarchy was, is well aware that it was a sentiment of intense abhorrence mingled with fear. It was looked upon as a system of preternatural wickedness and might, and yet, by a strange inconsistency, as a system of utter folly and absurdity, which no reasonable and conscientious man could intelligently and honestly embrace. The priesthood were regarded as a species of human demons, and those among them who possessed extraordinary ability, were believe to have a diabolical power to make the worse appear the better reason and the devil an angel of light. Those whose sanctity was so evident that it broke down all prejudice, as Bishop Cheverus, were supposed not to be initiated into the mysteries of the Catholic religion, but to be at heart really Protestants, blinded to the errors of their system by education, and duped by their more cunning associates, like "Father Clement" in the well-known tale of that name. The Catholic clergy were shunned and ostracised, looked on as outlaws and public enemies, worthy of no courtesy and no mercy. Their religion was regarded as unworthy of a hearing, a thing to be scouted and denounced, trampled upon like a noxious serpent and crushed, _if possible_. _Contempt_ would be the proper word to express the common estimation of it, if there had not been too much fear and hatred to make contempt possible. Its antagonists wished and tried to despise it and its advocates, but could not. Every sort of calumny and vituperation was showered upon them by the preachers, the lecturers, and the writers for the press who made Catholicity their theme. Some, perhaps many, honorable exceptions, which were always multiplying with time, must be understood, particularly in Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. John Hughes, the poor Irish lad, who had knelt behind the hay-rick on his father's farm to pray to God and the Blessed Virgin to make him a priest, who had come to this country with no implement to clear his way to greatness but the pick and shovel which he manfully grasped, was one of those who were chosen to lead the van in the assault against this rampart of prejudice. That he vanquished his proud and scornful antagonists is an undoubted fact. Beginning his studies, as a favor reluctantly conceded to him on account of his importunity, at a later period than usual, with a grammar in one hand and a spade in the other, he was first a priest, faithful to his duty among many faithless, courageous and enterprising among many who were timid, strong among many weak, staunch and unflinching in a time of schism, scandal, and disaster, and bold enough not only to lay new foundations for the church of Philadelphia, which others have since built upon, while the old ones were half crumbled, and to repress mutiny and disorder in the ranks of his own people, but to {142} attack, single-handed, the enemies who were exulting over the discord and feebleness which they thought foreboded the disruption of the Catholic body. This, too, almost without encouragement, and with no hearty support from those who were older and more thoroughly trained and equipped in the service than himself. He became the coadjutor and successor of the very man who had refused his first application to be allowed to purchase the privilege of studying under him, by his daily labor. He died the metropolitan of a province embracing all New York, New Jersey, and New England, and including eight suffragan bishoprics with more than a million of Catholics; confessedly the most conspicuous man among his fellow-bishops in the view of Catholics and Protestants alike, one of the most trusted and honored of his compeers at the See of Rome, well known throughout Catholic Christendom, a confidential adviser and a powerful supporter of the United States government, a recognized illustrious citizen of the American republic as well as one of the ornaments of his native country, with all the signs and tributes of universal honor and respect at his funeral obsequies which are accorded to distinguished personal character or official station. Let the most severe and impartial critic apply his mind to separate, in this distinguished and useful career, the personal and individual force impelling the man through it, from the concurrence of Divine Providence, the aid of favorable circumstances and high position, the supernatural power of the character with which he was marked, and of the system which he administered, and the strength and volume of the current of events on which he was borne, and, if we mistake not, he will find something strong enough to stand all his tests. An ordinary man might have worked his way into the priesthood, fulfilled its duties with zeal and success, attained the episcopal and metropolitan dignity, won respect by his administration, and left a flourishing diocese to his successor. But an ordinary man could never have gained the power and influence possessed by Archbishop Hughes. Our early and original impressions of his remarkable power of intellect and will have been strengthened and fixed by reading his biography, and the greatness of the influence which he exerted in behalf of the Catholic religion is, to our mind, established beyond a doubt. His chivalrous and valiant combat with John Breckinridge, at Philadelphia, was a victory not only decisive but full of results. We know, from a distinct remembrance of the opinions expressed at the time, that Mr. Breckinridge was generally thought, by Protestants, to have been discomfited. We have heard him speak himself of the affair with the tone of one who had exposed himself to a dangerous encounter with an enemy superior to himself, for the public good, and barely escaped with his life. We remember taking up the book containing the controversy, from a sentiment of curiosity to know what plausible argument could possibly be offered for the Catholic religion, and undergoing, in the perusal, a revolution of opinion, which rendered a return to the old state of mind inherited from a Puritan education impossible. This we believe is but an instance exemplifying the general effect of the controversy upon candid and thinking minds, not hopelessly enslaved to prejudice. We remember hearing him preach in the full vigor of his intellectual and physical manhood, in the cathedral of New York, soon after his consecration, and the impression of his whole attitude, countenance, manner of delivery, and cast of thought is still vivid and _unique_. Those who have seen the archbishop only during the last fifteen years, have seen a breaking-down, enfeebled, almost worn-out man, incapable of steady, vigorous exertion, and oppressed by a weight of care and responsibility which was too great for him. To judge of his ability fairly it is necessary to have seen and heard him in his prime, before ill-health had sapped his vigor. And to appreciate the best and most genial qualities and dispositions of the man, it is necessary to have met him in familiar, unrestrained intercourse, apart from any official relation and away from his diocese--or, at least, in those times when all official anxieties and cares of government were put aside and his mind relaxed in purely friendly conversation. That he was a great man, a true Christian prelate, and accomplished a great work in the service of the church, of his native countrymen, and of the country of his adoption, is, we believe, the just verdict of the most competent judges and of the public at large upon the facts of his life. He will not be forgotten, for his life and acts are too closely {143} interwoven with public history and his influence has been too marked to make that possible. We trust that those who enjoy the blessings of a securely and peacefully established Catholic Church will not be disposed to forget the men who, in more troubled times, have won by their valor the heritage upon which we have entered. The record of their lives and labors is of great value, and this one, in particular, is worthy of the perusal of every Catholic and every American, and has in it a kind of romantic charm and dramatic grouping which does not belong to the life of one who has been more confined to the seclusion of study or the ordinary pastoral routine.

We regret the mention made of Dr. Forbes's defection, and the publicity which is again given to painful matters which had become buried in oblivion. It appears to us that, as Dr. Forbes has not publicly assailed either the church or the late archbishop, it was unnecessary to allude to him in any way, and it would have been more generous to have suppressed the remarks made in the archbishop's private correspondence. The mechanical execution of the work is in good style, and we recommend it to our readers as necessary to every Catholic library.

AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By Noah Webster, LL.D. Thoroughly Revised and Greatly Enlarged and Improved, by Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Late Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and also Professor of the Pastoral Charge in Yale College, and Noah Porter, D.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College. Royal quarto, pp. 1840. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Meiriam. 1866.

There have been published, within the last twenty-five years, several editions of "Webster's Dictionary," but the present one, the title of which is given above, seems to be the crowning effort of dictionary making. It surpasses all other editions of the same work both in its typography, its illustrations--some 3,000 in number--and its philological completeness. "Webster's Dictionary" has always been of high authority in this country, and is now held in great repute in England, where it is accepted by several writers as the best authority in defining the English language. The present edition is a most beautiful one, and contains all the modern words which custom has engrafted upon our language. It also contains, in its pronouncing table of Scripture proper names, a supplementary list of the names found in the Douay Bible, but not in King James's version. In fact, care has been taken to make this edition as free as possible from partisan and theological differences in regard to the definitions of certain words which heretofore got a peculiarly Protestant twitch when being defined. The publishers deserve great praise for the manner in which they have done their portion of the work; it is a credit and an honor to the American press.

THE CRITERION; OR, THE TEST OF TALK ABOUT FAMILIAR THINGS: A Series of Essays. By Henry T. Tuckerman. 12mo., pp. 377. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

Mr. H. T. Tuckerman is a man of letters, and we thought he would not be likely to put his name to anything discreditable to an enlightened author; but, to judge from many things in the above production, we think he has missed his vocation, and would find more appropriate employment as a contributor to the publications of the American Tract Society, or the magazine put forth, monthly, by the "Foreign and Christian Union." Else, why is every pope "shrewd," every priest an "incarnation of fiery zeal?" why "the lonely existence and the subtle eye of the Catholic?" why "the medical Jesuit, who, like his religious prototype, operates through the female branches, and thus controls the heads of families, regulating their domestic arrangements, etc.?" why "Bloody Mary" and "Rom_ish?_" why is "superstition the usual trait of Romanists?" and this: "One may pace the chaste aisles of the Madeleine, and feel his devotion stirred, perhaps, by the dark catafalque awaiting the dead in the centre of the spacious floor; and then what to him is the doctrine of transubstantiation?" (!) We are truly sorry to see these indications of a spirit with which we think the author will find very little sympathy outside the clique of benighted readers of the publications above quoted.

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CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Vicar of Doncaster. 18mo., pp. 269. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. 1865.

This beautiful little volume contains twelve sermons, or rather religious essays, written in a pleasing style, but altogether too lengthy and too exhaustive in character. We have no doubt but that the author is a good preacher, and if these essays were ever preached by him as sermons, they were listened to with pleasure. But in their present shape, enlarged, systematized, and--shall we say--almost too carefully prepared for the press, they are a little tiresome. One feels in reading them how much the naturalness, as well as the elegance of diction, is marred by the vague evangelical phraseology, "coming to Christ," "laying hold on Christ," etc., which occurs so constantly in these pages. The author, being a Low Evangelical Churchman, gives us, of course, "justification by faith" and the Calvinistic view of the Fall. Yet, in the latter half of the volume he seems to speak more like one who imagines that man has something to do for his own justification, and takes a higher and nobler view of humanity. We give the following passage from the last sermon, entitled "Cast out and found," as a good specimen of what we should call practical preaching. "When Jesus found him, he said unto him. Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 'Thou!' The word is emphatic in the original, 'Thou--believest thou?' We are glad to escape into the crowd, and shelter ourselves behind a church's confession. But a day is coming, in which nothing but an individual faith will carry with it either strength or comfort. It will be idle to say in a moment of keen personal distress, such as probably lies before us in life and certainly in death and in judgment, 'Every one believes--all around us believe--the world itself believes in the Son of God:' there is no strength and no help there: the very object of Christ's finding thee and speaking to thee is to bring the question home, 'Dost _thou_ believe?' A trying, a fearful moment, when Christ, face to face with man's soul, proposes that question! Perhaps that moment has not yet come to you. You have been fighting it off. You do not wish to come to these close quarters with it. The world does not press you with it. The world is willing enough that you should answer it in the general; and even if you ever say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,' it shall be in a chorus of voices, almost robbing the individual of personality, and making 'I' sound like 'we.' But if ever your religion is to be a real thing, if ever it is to enable you to do battle with a sin, or to face a mortal risk, if ever it is to be a religion for the hour of death, or for the day of judgment, you must have had that question put to you by yourself, and you must have answered it from the heart in one way. Then you will be a real Christian, not before!"

The book is elegantly got up in the style and care for which the publisher is noted.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. New York: Nos. 18, 19, and 20 of Darras' History of the Church.

From P. Donahoe, Boston: The Peep o' Day; or, John Doe, and the Last Baron of Crana. By the O'Hara Family. 12mo., pp. 204 and 243.

From Hon. Wm. H. Seward. Secretary of State, Washington, his speech on the "Restoration of the Union," delivered in New York, Feb. 22, 1866.

From Peter F. Cunningham, Philadelphia: The Life of Blessed John Berchmans, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the French. With an Appendix, giving an account of the Miracles after Death which have been approved by the Holy See. From the Italian of Father Boreo, S.J. 1 vol. 12mo., pp. 358.

From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore: The Apostleship of Prayer. A Holy League of Christian Hearts united with the Heart of Jesus, to obtain the Triumph of the Church and the Salvation of Souls. Preceded by a Brief of the Sovereign Pontiff Plus IX., the approbation of several Archbishops and Bishops and Superiors of Religious Congregations. By the Rev. H. Ramiero, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the latest French Edition, and Revised by a Father of the Society. With the approbation of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding. 12mo., pp. 393.

From Kelly & Piet, Baltimore: Life in the Cloister; or, Faithful and True. By the author of "The World and Cloister." 12mo., pp. 224.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. III., NO. 14--MAY, 1866.

[ORIGINAL.]

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

INTRODUCTION.

We wish to state distinctly and openly, at the outset of this work, that the solution given of the problems therein discussed is a solution derived from the Catholic faith. Its sole object will be to make an exposition of the doctrines of the Catholic faith bearing on these problems. By an exposition, is not meant a mere expansion or paraphrase of the articles of the Creed, but such a statement as shall include an exhibition of their positive, objective truth, or conformity to the real order of being and existence; and of their reasonableness or analogy to the special part of that universal order lying within the reach of rational knowledge. In doing this we choose what appears to us the best and simplest method. It differs, however, in certain respects, from the one most in vogue, and therefore requires a few preliminary words of explanation.

The usual method is, to proceed as far as possible in the analysis of the religious truths provable by reason, to introduce afterward the evidences of revealed religion, and finally to proceed to an exposition of revealed doctrines. We have no wish to decry the many valuable works constructed on this plan, but simply to vindicate the propriety of following another, which is better suited to our special purpose. We conceive it not to be necessary to follow the first method in explaining the faith of a Christian mind, because the Christian mind itself does not actually attain to faith by this method. We do not proceed by a course of reasoning through natural theology and evidences of revelation to our Christian belief. We begin by submitting to instruction, and receiving all it imparts at once, without preliminaries. The Christian child begins by saying "Credo in Unum Deum." This is the first article of his faith. It is proposed to him, by an authority which he reveres as divine, as the first and principal {146} article of a series of revealed truths. If that act is right and rational, it can be justified on rational grounds. It can be shown to be in conformity to the real order. If it is in conformity to the real order, it is in conformity also to the logical order. The exposition of the real order of things is the exposition of truth, and is, therefore, sound philosophy. A child who has attained the full use of his reason and received competent instruction, either has, or has not, a faith; not merely objectively certain, but subjectively also, as certain and as capable of being rationally accounted for, though not by his own reflection, as that of a theologian. If he has this subjective certitude, a simple explication of the creditive act in his mind will show the nature and ground of it in the clearest manner. If he has not, children and simple persons who are children in science, _i.e._, the majority of mankind, are incapable of faith--a conclusion which oversets theology.

We have now indirectly made known what our own method will be; namely, to present the credible object in contact or relation with the creditive subject, as it really is when the child makes the first complete act of faith. Instead of inviting the reader to begin at the viewing point of a sceptic or atheist, and reason gradually up from certain postulates of natural reason, through natural theology, to the Catholic faith, we invite him to begin at once at the viewing point of a Catholic believer, and endeavor to get the view which one brought up in the church takes of divine truth. We do not mean to ask him to take anything for granted. We will endeavor to show the internal coherence of Catholic doctrine, and its correspondence with the primitive judgments of reason. We cannot pretend to exhibit systematically the evidence sustaining each portion of this vast system. It would only be doing over again a work already admirably done. We must suppose it to be known or within the reach of the knowledge of our readers, and in varying degrees admitted by different classes of them, contenting ourselves with indicating rather than completing the line of argument on special topics.

The Catholic reader will see in this exposition of the Catholic idea only that which he already believes, stated perhaps in such a way as to aid his intellectual conception of it. The Protestant reader, accordingly as he believes less or more of the Catholic Creed, will see in it less or more to accept without argument, together with much which he does not accept, but which is proposed to his consideration as necessary to complete the Christian idea. The unbeliever will find an affirmation of the necessary truths of pure reason, together with an attempt to show the legitimate union between the primitive ideal formula and the revealed or Christian formula, binding them into one synthesis, philosophically coherent and complete.

II.

RELATION OF THE CREDIBLE OBJECT AND THE CREDITIVE SUBJECT.

Let us begin with a child, or a simple, uneducated adult, who is in a state of perpetual childhood as regards scientific knowledge. Let us take him as a creditive subject or Christian believer, with the credible object or Catholic faith in contact with his reason from its earliest dawn. Before proceeding formally to analyze his creditive act, we will illustrate it by a supposed case.

Let us suppose that, when our Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth, he went to visit a pagan in order to instruct him in the truths of religion. We will suppose him to be intelligent, upright, and sincere, with as much knowledge of religious truth as was ordinarily attainable through the heathen tradition. Let us suppose him to receive the instructions of Christ with faith, to be baptized, and to remain ever after a firm and undoubting {147} believer in the Christian doctrine. Now by what process does he attain a rational certitude of the truth of the revelation made by the lips of Christ?

In the first place, the human wisdom and virtue of our Lord are intelligible to him by the human nature common to both, and in proportion to his own personal wisdom and goodness. Having in himself, by virtue of his human nature, the essential type of human goodness, he is able to recognize the excellence of one in whom it is carried to its highest possible perfection. The human perfection visible in Jesus Christ predisposes him to believe his testimony. The testimony that Jesus Christ bears of himself is that he is the Son of God. This declaration includes two propositions. The chief term of the first proposition is "God." The chief term of the second proposition is "Jesus Christ." The first term includes all that can be understood by the light of reason concerning the Creator and his creative act. The second term includes all that can be apprehended by the light of faith concerning the interior relations of God, the incarnation of the Son, or Word, the entire supernatural order included in it, and the entire doctrine revealed by Christ. The idea expressed by the first term is already in the mind of the pagan, as the first and constitutive principle of his reason. His reflective consciousness of this idea and his ability to make a correct and complete explication of its contents are very imperfect. But when the distinct affirmation and explication of the idea of God are made to him by one who possesses a perfect knowledge of God, he has an immediate and certain perception of the truth of the conception thus acquired by his intelligence. God has already affirmed himself to his reason, and Christ, in affirming God to his intellect, has only repeated and manifested by sensible images, and in distinct, unerring language, this original affirmation.

It is otherwise with the affirmation which Christ makes respecting the second term. God does not affirm to his reason by the creative act the internal relations of Father and Son, completed by the third, or Holy Spirit, and therefore, although it is a necessary truth, and in itself intelligible as such, it is not intelligible as a necessary truth to his intellect. The incarnation, redemption, and other mysteries affirmed to him by Christ, are not in themselves necessary truths, but only necessary on the supposition that they have been decreed by God. The certitude of belief in all this second order of truths rests, therefore, entirely on the veracity of God, authenticating the affirmation of his own divine mission made by Jesus Christ. We must, therefore, suppose that this affirmation is made to the mind of the pagan with such clear and unmistakable evidence of the fact that the veracity of God is pledged to its truth, that it would be irrational to doubt it. Catholic doctrine also requires us to suppose that Christ imparts to him a supernatural grace, as the principle of a divine faith and a divine life based upon it. The nature and effect of this grace must be left for future consideration.

These truths received on the faith of the testimony of the Son of God by the pagan are not, however, entirely unintelligible to his natural reason. We can suppose our Lord removing his difficulties and misapprehensions, showing him that these truths do not contradict reason, but harmonize with it as far as it goes, and pointing out to him certain analogies in the natural order which render them partially apprehensible by his intellect. Thus, while his mind cannot penetrate into the substance of these mysteries, or grasp the intrinsic reason of them after the mode of natural knowledge, it can nevertheless see them indirectly, as reflected in the natural order, and by resemblance, and rests its undoubting belief of them on the revelation made by Jesus Christ, attested by the veracity of God.

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In this supposed case, the pagan has the Son of God actually before his eyes, and with his own ears can hear his words. This is the credible object. He is made inwardly certain that he is the Son of God by convincing evidence and the illustration of divine grace. This is the creditive subject, in contact with the credible object. It exemplifies the process by which God has instructed the human race from the beginning, a process carried on in the most perfect and successful manner in the instance we are about to examine of a child brought up in the Catholic Church.

The mind of the child has no prejudices and no imperfect conceptions derived from a perverted and defective instruction to be rectified. Its soul is in the normal and natural condition. The grace of faith is imparted to it in baptism, so that the rational faculties unfold under its elevating and strengthening influence with a full capacity to elicit the creditive act as soon as they are brought in contact with the credible object. This credible object, in the case of the child, as in that of the pagan, is Christ revealing himself and the Father. He reveals himself, however, not by his visible form to the eye, or his audible word to the ear, but by his mystical body the church, which is a continuation and amplification of his incarnation. The church is visible and audible to the child as soon as his faculties begin to open. At first this is only in an imperfect way, as Jesus Christ was at first only known in an imperfect way to the pagan above described. As he merely knew Christ at first as a man, and in a purely human way, so the child receives the instruction of his parents, teachers, and pastors, in whom the church is represented, in regard to the truths of faith, just as he does in regard to common matters. He begins with a human faith, founded in the trusting instincts of nature, which incline the young to believe and obey their superiors. As soon as his reason is capable of understanding the instruction given him, he is able to discover the strong probability of its truth. He sees this dimly at first, but more and more clearly as his mind unfolds, and the conception of the Catholic Church comes before it more distinctly. Some will admit that even a probability furnishes a sufficient motive for eliciting an act of perfect faith. This is the doctrine of Cardinal de Lugo, and it has been more recently propounded by that extremely acute and brilliant writer, Dr. John Henry Newman. [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: Since the above was written the author has seen reason to suspect that he misunderstood Dr. Newman. The point will be more fully discussed hereafter.]

According to their theory, the undoubting firmness of the act of faith is caused by an imperate act of the will determining the intellect to adhere firmly to the doctrine proposed, as revealed by God. There are many, however, who will not be satisfied with this, and we acknowledge that we are of the number. It appears to us that the mind must have indubitable certitude that God has revealed the truth in order to a perfect act of faith. Therefore we believe that the mind of the child proceeds from the first apprehension of the probability that God has revealed the doctrines of faith to a certitude of the fact, and that, until it reaches that point, its faith is a human faith, or an inchoate faith, merely. The ground and nature of that certitude will be discussed hereafter. In the meantime, it is sufficient to remark that the child or other ignorant person apprehends the very same ground of certitude in faith with the mature and educated adult, only more implicitly and obscurely, and with less power to reflect on his own acts. Just as the child has the same certainty of facts in the natural order with an adult, so it has the same certainty of facts in the supernatural order. When we have once established the proper ground of human faith in testimony in general, and of the certitude of our rational judgments, we have no need of a particular application to the case of {149} children. It is plain enough that, so soon as their rational powers are sufficiently developed, they must act according to this universal law. So in regard to faith. When we have established in general its constitutive principles, it is plain that the mind of the child, just as soon as it is capable of eliciting an act of faith, must do it according to these principles.

The length of lime, and the number of preparatory acts requisite, before the mind of a child is fully capable of eliciting a perfect act of faith, cannot be accurately determined, and may vary indefinitely. It may require years, months, or only a few weeks, days, or hours. Whenever it does elicit this perfect act, the intelligible basis of the creditive act may be expressed by the formula, _Christus creat ecclesiam_, [Footnote 25] In the church, which is the work of Christ and his medium or instrument for manifesting himself, the person and the doctrine of Christ are disclosed. In the first term of the formula, _Christus_, is included another proposition, viz., _Christus est Filius Dei_. [Footnote 26] Finally, in the last term of the second proposition is included a third, _Deus est creator mundi_. [Footnote 27] The whole may be combined into one formula, which is only the first one explicated, _Christus, Filius Dei, qui est creator mundi, creat ecclesiam._[Footnote 28]

[Footnote 25: Christ creates the Church.]

[Footnote 26: Christ Is the Son of God.]

[Footnote 27: God is the creator of the world.]

[Footnote 28: Christ, the Son of God, who is the creator of the world, creates the Church.]

In this formula we have the synthesis of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology, of nature and grace. It is the formula of the natural and supernatural worlds, or rather of the natural universe, elevated into a supernatural order and directed to a supernatural end. In the order of instruction, _Ecclesia_ comes first, as the medium of teaching correct conceptions concerning God, Christ, and the relations in which they stand toward the human race. These conceptions may be communicated in positive instruction in any order that is convenient. When they are arranged in their proper logical relation, the first in order is _Deus creat mundum_, including all our rational knowledge concerning God. The second is _Christus est Filius Dei_, which discloses God in a relation above our natural cognition, revealing himself in his Son, as the supernatural author and the term of final beatitude. Lastly comes _Christus creat ecclesiam_, in which the church, at first simply a medium for communicating the conceptions of God and Christ, is reflexively considered and explained, embracing all the means and institutions ordained by Christ for the instruction and sanctification of the human race, in order to the attainment of its final end. In the conception of God the Creator, we have the natural or intelligible order and the rational basis of revelation. In the conception of the Son, or Word, we have the super-intelligible order in its connection with the intelligible, in which alone we can apprehend it. God reveals himself and his purposes by his Word, and we believe on the sole ground of his veracity. The remaining conceptions are but the complement of the second.

All this is expressed in the Apostles' Creed. In the first place, by its very nature, it is a symbol of instruction, presupposing a teacher. The same is expressed in the first word, "Credo," explicitly declaring the credence given to a message sent from God. The first article is a confession of God the Father, followed by the confession of the Son and the Holy Ghost. After this comes "Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam," with the other articles depending on it, and lastly the ultimate term of all the relations of God to man, expressed in the words "Vitam aeternam."

Having described the actual attitude of the mind toward the Creed at the time when its reasoning faculty is developed, and the method by which {150} instruction in religious doctrines is communicated to it, we will go over these doctrines in detail, in order to explain and verify them singly and as a whole. The doctrine first in order is that which relates to God, and this will accordingly be first treated of, in the ensuing number.

From The Dublin University Magazine

GLASTONBURY ABBEY, PAST AND PRESENT,

THE RISE OF THE BENEDICTINES. [Footnote 29]

[Footnote 29: Authorities.--Acta Sanctoram: Butler's Lives of the Saints; Gregory's Dialogues; Mabillon Acta Sanct.; Ord; Benedicti; Zeigelbauer's Hist. Rei Liter.; Fosbrooke and Dugdale.]

As Glastonbury Abbey was one of the chief ornaments of the Benedictine Order; as that order was one of the greatest influences, next to Christianity itself, ever brought to bear upon humanity; as the founder of that order and sole compiler of the rule upon which it was based must have been a legislator, a leader, a great, wise, and good man, such as the world seldom sees, one who, unaided, without example or precedent, compiled a code which has ruled millions of beings and made them a motive-power in the history of humanity; as the work done by that order has left traces in every country in Europe--lives and acts now in the literature, arts, sciences, and social life of nearly every civilized community--it becomes imperatively necessary that we should at this point investigate these three matters--the man, the rule, and the work:--the man, St. Benedict, from whose brain issued the idea of monastic organization; the rule by which it was worked, which contains a system of legislation as comprehensive as the gradually compiled laws of centuries of growth; and the work done by those who were subject to its power, followed out its spirit, lived under its influence, and carried it into every country where the gospel was preached.

Far away in olden times, at the close of the fifth century, when the gorgeous splendor of the Roman day was waning and the shades of that long, dark night of the middle ages were closing in upon the earth; just at that period when, as if impelled by some instinct or led by some mysterious hand, there came pouring down from the wilds of Scandinavia hordes of ferocious barbarians who threatened, as they rolled on like a dark flood, to obliterate all traces of civilization in Europe--when the martial spirit of the Roman was rapidly degenerating into the venal valor of the mercenary--when the western empire had fallen, after being the tragic theatre of scenes to which there is no parallel in the history of mankind--when men, aghast at human crime and writhing under the persecutions of those whom history has branded as the "Scourge of God," sought in vain for some shelter against their kind--when human nature, after that struggle between refined corruption and barbarian ruthlessness, lay awaiting the night of troubles which was to fall upon it as a long penance for human crime--just at this critical period in the world's history appeared the man who was destined to rescue from the general destruction of Roman life the elements of a future civilization; to provide an asylum to which art might flee with her choicest treasures, where science might labor in safety, where {151} learning might perpetuate and multiplied its stores, where the oracles of religion might rest secure, and where man might retire from the woe and wickedness of a world given up to destruction, live out his life in quiet, and make his peace with his God.

That man was St. Benedict, who was born of noble parents about the year 480, at Norcia, a town in the Duchy of Spoleto; his father's name was Eutropius, his grandfather's Justinian. Although the glory of Rome was on the decline, her schools were still crowded with young disciples of all nations, and to Rome the future saint was sent to study literature and science. The poets of this declining age have left behind them a graphic picture of the profligacy and dissipation of Roman life---the nobles had given themselves up to voluptuous and enervating pleasures, the martial spirit which had once found vent in deeds with whose fame the world has ever since rung, had degenerated into the softer bravery which dares the milder dangers of a love intrigue, or into the tipsy valor loudest in the midnight brawl. The sons of those heroes who in their youth had gone out into the world, subdued kingdoms, and had been drawn by captive monarchs through the streets of Rome in triumph, now squandered the wealth and disgraced the name of their fathers over the dice-box and the drinking cup. Roman society was corrupt to its core, the leaders were sinking into the imbecility of licentiousness, the people were following their steps with that impetuosity so characteristic of a demoralized populace, whilst far up in the rude, bleak North the barbarian, with the keen instinct of the wild beast, sat watching from his lonely wilds the tottering towers of Roman glory--the decaying energies of the emasculated giant--until the moment came when he sallied forth and with one hardy blow shattered the mighty fabric and laid the victors of the world in abject slavery at his feet. Into this society came the youthful Benedict, with all the fresh innocence of rustic purity, and a soul already yearning after the great mysteries of religion; admitted into the wild revelry of student life, that prototype of modern Bohemianism, he was at once disgusted with the general profligacy around him. The instincts of his youthful purity sickened at the fetid life of Rome, but in his case time, instead of reconciling him to the ways of his fellows, and transforming, as it so often does, the trembling horror of natural innocence into the wild intrepidity of reckless license, only strengthened his disgust for what he saw, and the timid, thoughtful, pensive student shrank from the noisy revelry, and sought shelter among his books.

About this time, too, the idea of penitential seclusion was prevalent in the West, stimulated by the writings and opinions of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. It has been suggested that the doctrine of asceticism was founded upon the words of Christ, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." [Footnote 30] St. Gregory himself dwells with peculiar emphasis upon this passage, which he expounds thus, "Let us listen to what he said in this passage--let him who will follow me deny himself; in another place it is said that we should forego our possessions; here it is said that we should deny _ourselves_, and perhaps it is not laborious to a man to relinquish his possessions, but it is very laborious to relinquish _himself_. For it is a light thing to abandon what one has, but a much greater thing to abandon what _one is_." [Footnote 31] Fired by the notion of self-mortification imparted to these words of Christ by their own material interpretation, these men forsook the world and retired to caves, rocks, forests, anywhere out of sight of {152} their fellow-mortals--lived on bitter herbs and putrid water, exposed themselves to the inclemency of the winter and the burning heats of summer.

[Footnote 30: Matt. xvi. 24.]

[Footnote 31: St. Greg. Hom, 32 in Evangel.]

Such was the rise and working of asceticism, which brought out so many anchorites and hermits. Few things in the history of human suffering can parallel the lives of these men.

As regards conventual life, that is, the assemblage of those who ministered in the church under one roof, sharing all things in common, that may be traced back to the apostles and their disciples, who were constrained to live in this way, and, therefore, we find that wherever they established a church, there they also established a sort of college, or common residence, for the priests of that church. This is evident from the epistles of Ignatius, nearly all, of which conclude with a salutation addressed to this congregation of disciples, dwelling together, and styled a "collegium." His epistle to the Church at Antioch concludes thus, "I salute the sacred College of Presbyters" (Saluto Sanctum Presbyterorum Collegium). The Epistle ad Philippenses, "Saluto S. Episcopum et sacrum Presbyterorum Collegium"--so also the epistles to the Philadelphians, the Church at Smyrna, to the Ephesians, and to the Trallians.

But when St. Benedict was sent as a lad to Rome, the inclination toward the severer form of ascetic life, that of anchorites and hermits, had received an impulse by the works of the great fathers of the church, already alluded to; and the pensive student, buried in these more congenial studies, became imbued with their spirit, and was soon fired with a romantic longing for a hermit life. At the tender age of fifteen, unable to endure any longer the dissonance between his desires and his surroundings, he flood from Rome, and took refuge in a wild, cavernous spot in the neighboring country. As he left the city he was followed by a faithful nurse, Cyrilla by name, who had brought him up from childhood, had tended him in his sojourn at Rome, and now, though lamenting his mental derangement, as she regarded it, resolved not to leave her youthful charge to himself, but to watch over him and wait upon him in his chosen seclusion. For some time this life went on, St. Benedict becoming more and more attached to his hermitage, and the nurse, despairing of any change, begged his food from day to day, prepared it for him, and watched over him with a mother's tenderness. A change then came over the young enthusiast, and he began to feel uneasy under her loving care. It was not the true hermit life, not the realization of that grand idea of solitude with which his soul was filled; and under the impulse of this new emotion he secretly fled from the protection of his foster-mother, and, without leaving behind him the slightest clue to his pursuit, hid himself among the rocks of Subiaco, or, as it was then called, Sublaqueum, about forty miles distant from Rome. At this spot, which was a range of bleak, rocky mountains with a river and lake below in the valley, he fell in with one Romanus, a monk, who gave him a monastic dress, with a hair shirt, led him to a part on the mountains where there was a deep, narrow cavern, into which the sun never penetrated, and here the young anchorite took up his abode, subsisting upon bread and water, or the scanty provisions which Romanus could spare him from his own frugal repasts; these provisions the monk used to let down to him by a rope, ringing a bell first to call his attention. For three years he pursued this life, unknown to his friends, and cut off from all communication with the world; but neither the darkness of his cavern nor the scantiness of his fare could preserve him from troubles. He was assailed by many sore temptations.

One day that solitude was disturbed by the appearance of a man in the {153} garb of a priest, who approached his cave and began to address him; but Benedict would hold no conversation with the stranger until they had prayed together, after which they discoursed for a long time upon sacred subjects, when the priest told him of the cause of his coming. The day happened to be Easter Sunday, and as the priest was preparing his dinner, he heard a voice saying, "You are preparing a banquet for yourself, whilst my servant Benedict is starving;" that he thereupon set out upon his journey, found the anchorite's cave, and then producing the dinner, begged St. Benedict to share it with him, after which they parted. A number of shepherds, too, saw him near his cave, and as he was dressed in goat-skins, took him at first for some strange animal; but when they found he was a hermit, they paid their respects to him humbly, brought him food, and implored his blessing in return.

The fame of the recluse of Subiaco spread itself abroad from that time through the neighboring country; many left the world and followed his example; the peasantry brought their sick to him to be healed, emulated each other in their contributions to his personal necessities, and undertook long journeys simply to gaze upon his countenance and receive his benediction. Not far from his cave were gathered together in a sort of association a number of hermits, and when the fame of this youthful saint reached them they sent a deputation to ask him to come among them and take up his position as their superior. It appears that this brotherhood had become rather lax in discipline, and, knowing this, St. Benedict at first refused, but subsequently, either from some presentiment of his future destiny, or actuated simply by the hope of reforming them, he consented, left his lonely cell, and took up his abode with them as their head.

In a very short time, however, the hermits began to tire of his discipline and to envy him for his superior godliness. An event then occurred which forms the second cognizance by which the figure of St. Benedict may be recognized in the fine arts. Endeavors had been made to induce him to relax his discipline, but to no purpose; therefore they resolved upon getting rid of him, and on a certain day, when the saint called out for some wine to refresh himself after a long journey, one of the brethren offered him a poisoned goblet. St. Benedict took the wine, and, as was his custom before eating or drinking anything, blessed it, when the glass suddenly fell from his hands and broke in pieces. This incident is immortalized in stained-glass windows, in paintings, and frescoes, where the saint is either made to carry a broken goblet, or it is to be seen lying at his feet. Disgusted with their obstinacy he left them, voluntarily returned to his cavern at Subiaco, and dwelt there alone. But the fates conspired against his solitude, and a change came gradually over the scene. Numbers were drawn toward the spot by the fame of his sanctity, and by-and-bye huts sprang up around him; the desert was no longer a desert, but a colony waiting only to be organized to form a strong community. Yielding at length to repeated entreaties, he divided this scattered settlement into twelve establishments, with twelve monks and a superior in each, and the monasteries were soon after recognized, talked about, and proved a sufficient attraction to draw men from all quarters, even from the riotous gaieties of declining Rome.

We will mention one or two incidents related of St. Benedict, which claim attention, more especially as being the key to the artistic mysteries of Benedictine pictures. It was one of the customs in this early Benedictine community for the brethren not to leave the church immediately after the divine office was concluded, but to remain for some time in silent mental prayer. One of the brethren, however, took no delight in this holy {154} exercise, and to the scandal of the whole community used to walk coolly out of the church as soon as the psalmody was over. The superior remonstrated, threatened, but to no purpose; the unruly brother persisted in his conduct. St. Benedict was appealed to, and when he heard the circumstances of the case, said he would see the brother himself. Accordingly, he attended the church, and at the conclusion of the divine office, not only saw the brother walk out, but saw also what was invisible to every one else--a _black boy_ leading him by the hand. The saint then struck at the phantom with his staff, and from that time the monk was no longer troubled, but remained after the service with the rest.

St. Gregory also relates an incident to the effect that one day as a Gothic monk was engaged on the border of the lake cutting down thistles, he let the iron part of his sickle, which was loose, fall into the water. St. Maur, one of Benedict's disciples--of whom we shall presently speak--happened to be standing by, and, taking the wooden handle from the man, he held it to the water, when the iron swam to it in miraculous obedience.

As we have said, the monasteries grew daily in number of members and reputation; people came from far and near, some belonging to the highest classes, and left their children at the monastery to be trained up under St. Benedict's protection. Amongst this number, in the year 522, came two wealthy Roman senators, Equitius and Tertullus, bringing with them their sons, Maurus, then twelve years of age, and Placidus, only five. They begged earnestly that St. Benedict would take charge of them, which he did, treated them as if they had been his own sons, and ultimately they became monks under his rule, lived with him all his life, and after his death became the first missionaries of his order in foreign countries, where Placidus won the crown of martyrdom. Again, St. Benedict nearly fell a victim to jealousy. A priest named Florentius, envying his fame, endeavored to poison him with a loaf of bread, but failed. Benedict once more left his charge in disgust; but Florentius, being killed by the sudden fall of a gallery, Maurus sent a messenger after him to beg him to return, which he did, and not only wept over the fate of his fallen enemy, but imposed a severe penance upon Maurus for testifying joy at the judgment which had befallen him. The incident of the poisoned loaf is the third artistic badge by which St. Benedict is to be known in art, being generally painted as a loaf with a serpent coiled round it. These artistic attributes form a very important feature in monastic painting, and in some instances become the only guide to the recognition him the subject. St. Benedict is sometimes represented with all these accompaniments--the broken goblet, the loaf with the serpent, and in the background the figure rolling in the briers. St. Bernard, who wrote much and powerfully against heresy, is represented with the accompanying incident in the background of demons chained to a rock, or being led away captive, to indicate his triumphs over heretics for the faith. Demons placed at the feet indicate Satan and the world overcome. Great preachers generally carry the crucifix, or, if a renowned missionary, the standard and cross. Martyrs carry the palm. A king who has resigned his dignity and entered a monastery has a crown lying at his feet. A book held in the hand represents the gospel, unless it be accompanied by pen and ink-horn, when it implies that the subject was an author, as in the case of Anselm, who is represented as holding in his hands his work on the incarnation, with the title inscribed, "_Cur Deus Homo_," or it may relate to an incident in the life, as the blood-stained book, which St. Boniface holds, entitled "De Bono Mortis," a work he was devotedly fond of, always {155} carried about with him, and which was found after his murder in the folds of his dress stained with his blood. But the highest honor was the stigmata or wounds of Christ impressed upon the hands, feet, and side. This artistic pre-eminence is accorded to St. Francis, the founder of the order which bears his name, and to St. Catharine, of Siena. A whole world of history lies wrapped up in these artistic symbols, as they appear in the marvellous paintings illustrative of the hagiology of the monastic orders which are cherished in half the picture galleries and sacred edifices of Europe, and form as it were a living testimony and a splendid confirmation of the written history and traditions of the church.

Although, at the period when we left St. Benedict reinstalled in his office as superior, Christianity was rapidly being established in the country, yet there were still lurking about in remote districts of Italy the remains of her ancient paganism. Near the spot now called Monte Cassino was a consecrated grove in which stood a temple dedicated to Apollo. St. Benedict resolved upon clearing away this relic of heathendom, and, fired with holy seal, went amongst the people, preached the gospel of Christ to them, persuaded them at length to break the statue of the god and pull down the altar; he then burned the grove and built two chapels there--the one dedicated to St. John the Baptist and the other to St. Martin. Higher up upon the mountain he laid the foundation of his celebrated monastery, which still bears his name, and here he not only gathered together a powerful brotherhood, but elaborated that system which infused new vigor into the monastic life, cleared it of its impurities, established it upon a firm and healthy basis, and elevated it, as regards his own order, into a mighty power, which was to exert an influence over the destinies of humanity inferior only to that of Christianity itself. St. Benedict, with the keen perception of genius, saw in the monasticism of his time, crude as it was, the elements of a great system. For five centuries it had existed and vainly endeavored to develop itself into something like an institution, but the grand idea had never yet been struck out--that idea which was to give it permanence and strength. Hitherto the monk had retired from the world to work out his own salvation, caring little about anything else, subsisting on what the devotion of the wealthy offered him from motives of charity; then, as time advanced, they acquired possessions and wealth, which tended only to make them more idle and selfish. St. Benedict detected in all this the signs of decay, and resolved on revivifying its languishing existence by starting a new system, based upon a rule of life more in accordance with the dictates of reason. He was one of those who held as a belief that to live in this world a man must do something--that life which consumes, but produces not, is a morbid life, in fact, an impossible life, a life that must decay, and therefore, imbued with the importance of this fact, he made labor, continuous and daily labor, the great foundation of his rule. His vows were like those of other institutions--poverty, chastity, and obedience--but he added labor, and in that addition, as we shall endeavor presently to show, lay the whole secret of the wondrous success of the Benedictine Order. To every applicant for admission, these conditions were read, and the following words added, which were subsequently adopted as a formula: "This is the law under which thou art to live and to strive for salvation; if thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." No sooner was his monastery established than it was filled by men who, attracted by his fame and the charm of the new mode of life, came and eagerly implored permission to submit themselves to his rule. Maurus and Placidus, his favorite disciples, still {156} remained with him, and the tenor of his life flowed on evenly.

After Belisarius, the emperor's general, had been recalled, a number of men totally incapacitated for their duties were sent in his place. Totila, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne, at once invaded and plundered Italy; and in the year 542, when on his triumphant march, after defeating the Byzantine army, he was seized with a strong desire to pay a visit to the renowned Abbot Benedict, who was known amongst them as a great prophet. He therefore sent word to Monte Cassino to announce his intended visit, to which St. Benedict replied that he would be happy to receive him. On receiving the answer he resolved to employ a stratagem to test the real prophetic powers of the abbot, and accordingly, instead of going himself, he caused the captain of the guard to dress himself in the imperial robes, and, accompanied by three lords of the court and a numerous retinue, to present himself to the abbot as the kingly visitor. However, as soon as they entered into his presence, the abbot detected the fraud, and, addressing the counterfeit king, bid him put off a dress which did not belong to him. In the utmost alarm they all fled back to Totila and related the result of their interview; the unbelieving Goth, now thoroughly convinced, went in proper person to Monte Cassino, and, on perceiving the abbot seated waiting to receive him, he was overcome with terror, could go no further, and prostrated himself to the ground. [Footnote 32] St. Benedict bid him rise, but as he seemed unable, assisted him himself. A long conversation ensued, during which St. Benedict reproved him for his many acts of violence, and concluded with this prophetic declaration: "You have done much evil, and continue to do so; you will enter Rome; you will cross the sea; you will reign nine years longer, but death will overtake you on the tenth, when you will be arraigned before a just God to give an account of your deeds." Totila trembled at this sentence, besought the prayers of the abbot, and took his leave. The prediction was marvellously fulfilled; in any case the interview wrought a change in the manner of this Gothic warrior little short of miraculous, for from that time he treated those whom he had conquered with gentleness. When he took Rome, as St. Benedict had predicted he should, he forbade all carnage, and insisted on protecting women from insult; stranger still, in the year 552, only a little beyond the time allotted him by the prediction, he fell in a battle which he fought against Narses, the eunuch general of the Greco-Roman army. St. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, who had become a nun, discovered the whereabouts of her lost brother, came to Monte Cassino, took up her residence near him, and founded a convent upon the principles of his rule. She was, therefore, the first Benedictine nun, and is often represented in paintings, prominent in that well-known group composed of herself, St. Benedict, and the two disciples, Maurus and Placidus.

[Footnote 32: "Quem cum a longe sedentem cerneret, non ausus accedero sese in terram dedit."--St. Greg. Dial., lib. ii., c. 14.]

It appears that her brother was in the habit of paying her a visit every year, and upon one occasion stayed until late in the evening, so late that Scholastica pressed him not to leave; but he persisting, she offered a prayer that heaven might interpose and prevent his going, when suddenly a tempest came on so fierce and furious that he was compelled to remain until it was over, when he returned to his monastery. Two days after this occurrence, as he was praying in his cell, he beheld the soul of his beloved sister ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, and the same day intelligence was brought him of her death. This vision forms the subject of many of the pictures in Benedictine nunneries. One short month after the decease of this affectionate sister, St. {157} Benedict, through visiting and attending to the sick and poor in his neighborhood, contracted a fever which prostrated him; he immediately foretold his death, and ordered the tomb in which his sister lay in the church to be opened. On the sixth day of his illness he asked to be carried to it, where he remained for some time in silent, prayerful contemplation; he then begged to be removed to the steps of the high alter, where, having received the holy viaticum, he suddenly stretched out his arms to heaven and fell back dead. This event took place on Saturday, the 21st March, 543, in the 63d year of his age. He was buried by the side of his sister Scholastica, on the very spot, it is said, where he threw down the altar of Apollo. In the seventh century, however, some of his remains were dug up, brought to France, and placed in the Abbey of Fleury, from which circumstance it took the name of St. Benoit, on the Loire. After his death his disciples spread themselves abroad over the continent and founded monasteries of his name and rule. Placidus became a martyr, and was canonized; Maurus founded a monastery in France, was also introduced to England, and from his canonized name, St. Maurus, springs one of the oldest English names--St. Maur, Seymaur, or Seymour.

Divesting this narrative of its legendary accompaniments, and judging of St. Benedict, the man, by the subsequent success of his work, and the influence of his genius upon the whole mechanism of European monasticism, and even upon the destinies of a later civilization, we are compelled to admit that he must have been a man whose intellect and character were far in advance of his age. By instituting the vow of labor, that peculiarity in his rule which we shall presently examine more fully, he struck at the root of the evils attending the monasticism of his times, an evil which would have ruined it as an institution in the fifth century had he not interposed, and an evil which in the sixteenth century alone caused its downfall in England.

Before proceeding to examine the rule upon which all the greatness of the Benedictine order was based, it will be necessary to mention the two, earliest mission efforts of the order. The first was conducted under the immediate direction of St. Benedict himself, who in the year 534 sent Placidus, with two others, Gordian and Donatus, into Sicily, to erect a monastery upon land which Tertullus, the father of Placidus, had given to St. Benedict. Shortly after the death of the saint, Innocent, bishop of Mans, in France, sent Flodegarde, his archdeacon, and Hardegarde, his steward, to ask for the assistance of some monks of St. Benedict's monastery, for the purpose of introducing the order into France. St. Maurus was selected for the mission, and, accompanied by Simplicius, Constantinian, Antony, and Faustus, he set out from Monte Cassino, and arrived in France the latter end of the year 543; but to their great consternation, upon reaching Orleans, they were told that the Bishop of Mans was dead, and another hostile to their intentions had succeeded him. They then bent their steps toward Anjou, where they founded the monastery of Glanfeuil, from whose cloisters issued the founders of nearly all the Benedictine institutions in France. From these two centres radiated that mighty influence which we shall now proceed to examine.

As we have in a former paper sketched the internal structure of the monastery, we will before going further fill each compartment with its proper officers, people the whole monastery with its subjects, and then examine the law which kept them together.

The abbot was, of course, the head and ruler of the little kingdom, and when that officer died the interval between his death and the installation {158} of his successor was beautifully called the "widowhood of the monastery." The appointment was considered to rest with the king, though the Benedictine rule enjoined a previous election by the monks and then the royal sanction. This election was conducted in the chapter-house: the prior who acted as abbot daring the time the mitre was vacant summoned the monks at a certain hour, the license to elect was then read, the hymn of the Holy Ghost sung, all who were present and had no vote were ordered to leave, the license was repeated--three scrutators took the votes separately, and the chanter declared the result--the monks then lifted up the elect on their shoulders, and, chanting the _Te Deum_, carried him to the high altar in the church, where he lay whilst certain prayers were said over him; they then carried him to the vacant apartments of the late abbot, which were thrown open, and where he remained in strict seclusion until the formal and magnificent ceremony of installation was gone through. In the meantime the aspect of the monastery was changed, the signs of mourning were laid aside, the bells which had been silent were once more heard, the poor were again admitted and received relief, and preparations were at once commenced for the installation. Outside also there was a commotion, for the peasantry, and in fact all the neighborhood, joined in the rejoicings. The immense resources of the refectory were taxed to their utmost, for the installation of the lord abbot was a feast, and to it were invited all the nobility and gentry in the neighborhood. On the day of the ceremony the gate of the great church was thrown open to admit all who were to witness the solemn ceremony, and, as soon as the bells had ceased, the procession began to move from the cloisters, headed by the prior, who was immediately followed by the priest of the divine office, clad in their gorgeous ceremonial robes; then followed the monks, in scapulary and cowled tunic, and last of all the lay brethren and servants; the newly elect and two others who were to officiate in his installation remained behind, as they were not to appear until later. The prior then proceeded to say mass, and just before the gospel was read there was a pause, during which the organ broke out into strains of triumphant music, and the newly chosen abbot with his companions were seen to enter the church, and walk slowly up the aisle toward the altar. As they approached they were met by the prior (or the bishop, if the abbey were in the jurisdiction of one), who then read the solemn profession, to which the future abbot responded; the prior and the elect then prostrated themselves before the high altar, in which position they remained whilst litanies and prayers were chanted; after the litany the prior arose, stood on the highest step of the altar, and whilst all were kneeling in silence pronounced the words of the benediction; then all arose, and the abbot received from the hands of the prior the rule of the order and the pastoral staff, a hymn was sung, and, after the gospel, the abbot communicated, and retired with his two attendants, to appear again in the formal ceremony of introduction. During his absence the procession was re-formed by the chanter, and, at a given signal, proceeded down the choir to meet the new abbot, who reappeared at the opposite end bare-footed, in token of humility, and clad no longer in the simple habit of a monk, but with the abbot's rich dalmatic, the ring on his finger, and a glittering mitre of silver, ornamented with gold, on his brow. As soon as he had entered he knelt for a few moments in prayer upon a carpet, spread on the upper step of the choir; when he arose he was formally introduced as the lord high abbot, led to his stall, and seated there with the pastoral staff in his hand. The monks then advanced, according to {159} seniority, and, kneeling before him, gave him the kiss of peace, first upon the hand, and afterward, when rising, upon the month. When this ceremony was over, amid the strains of the organ and the uplifted voices of the choir, the newly proclaimed arose, marched through the choir in full robes, and, carrying the pastoral staff, entered the vestiary, and then proceeded to divest himself of the emblems of his office. The service was concluded, the abbot returned to his apartments, the monks to the cloisters, the guests to prepare for the feast, and the widowhood of the abbey was over. The sway of the abbot was unlimited--they were all sworn to obey him implicitly, and he had it in his power to punish delinquents with penances, excommunication, imprisonment, and in extreme cases with corporal punishment--he ranked as a peer, was styled "My Lord Abbot," and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries kept an equal state and lived as well as the king on the throne: some of them had the power of conferring the honor of knighthood, and the monarch himself could not enter the monastery without permission. The next man in office to the abbot was the prior, [Footnote 33] who, in the absence of his superior, was invested with full powers; but on other occasions his jurisdiction was limited--in some monasteries he was assisted by sub-priors, in proportion to the size of the institution and number of its inmates.

[Footnote 33: Heads of priories were priors also, but they were equally subject to their respective abbeys.]

After the prior in rank came the precentor or chanter, an office only given to a monk who had been brought up in the monastery from a child. He had the supervision of the choral service, the writing out the tables of divine service for the monks, the correction of mistakes in chanting, which he led off from his place in the centre of the choir; he distributed the robes at festivals, and arranged processions. The cellarer was intrusted with the food, drink, etc., of the monastery, also with the mazers or drinking cups of the monks, and all other vessels used in the cellar, kitchen, and refectory; he had to attend at the refectory table, and collect the spoons after dinner. The treasurer had charge of the documents, deeds, and moneys belonging to the monastery; he received the rents, paid all the wages and expenses, and kept the accounts. The sacristan's duties were connected with the church; he had to attend to the altar, to carry a lantern before the priest, as he went from the altar to the lecturn, to cause the bell to be rung; he took charge of all the sacred vessels in use, prepared the host, the wine, and the altar bread. The almoner's duty was to provide the monks with mats or hassocks for their feet in the church, also matting in the chapter-house, cloisters, and dormitory stairs; he was to attend to the poor, and distribute alms amongst them, and in the winter warm clothes and shoes. After the monks had retired from the refectory, it was his duty to go round and collect any drink left in the mazers to be given away to the poor. The kitchener was filled by a different monk every week in turn, and he had to arrange what food was to be cooked, go round to the infirmary, visit the sick and provide for them, and superintend the labors of his assistants. The infirmarer had care of the sick; it was his office to administer to their wants, to give them their meals, to sprinkle holy water on their beds every night after the service of complin. A person was generally appointed to this duty who, in case of emergency, was competent to receive the confession of a sick man. The porter was generally a grave monk of mature age; he had an assistant to keep the gate when he delivered messages, or was compelled to leave his post. The chamberlain's business was to look after the beds, bedding, and shaving room, to attend to the dormitory windows, and to have the chambers swept, and the straw of the beds changed once every year, and under his {160} supervision was the tailory, where clothes, etc., were made and repaired. There were other offices connected with the monastery, but these were the principal, and next to these came the monks who formed the convent with the lay brethren and novices. If a child were dedicated to God by being sent to a monastery, his parents were required to swear that he would receive no portion of fortune, directly or indirectly; if a mature man presented himself, he was required to abandon all his possessions, either to his family or to the monastery itself, and then to enter as a novitiate. In order to make this as trying as possible, the Benedictine rule enjoined that no attention should be at first paid to an applicant, that the door should not be even opened to him for four or five days, to test his perseverance. If he continued to knock, then he was to be admitted to the guests' house, and after more delay to the novitiate, where he was submitted to instruction and examination. Two months were allowed for this test, and if satisfactory, the applicant had the rule read to him, which reading was concluded with the words used by St. Benedict himself, and already quoted: "This is the law under which thou art to live, and to strive for salvation. If thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." The novitiate lasted one year, and during this time the rule was read and the question put thrice. If at the end of that time the novice remained firm, he was introduced to the community in the church, made a declaration of his vows in writing, placed it on the altar, threw himself at the feet of the brethren, and from that moment was a monk. The rule which swayed this mass of life, wherever it existed, in a Benedictine monastery, and indirectly the monasteries of other orders, which are only modifications of the Benedictine system, was sketched out by that solitary hermit of Subiaco. It consists of seventy-three chapters, which contain a code of laws regulating the duties between the abbot and his monks, the mode conducting the divine services, the administration of penalties and discipline, the duties of monks to each other, and the internal economy of the monastery, the duties of the institution toward the world outside, the distribution of charity, the kindly reception of strangers, the laws to regulate the actions of those who were compelled to be absent or to travel; in fine, everything which could pertain to the administration of an institution composed of an infinite variety of characters subjected to one absolute ruler. It has elicited the admiration of the learned and good of all subsequent ages. It begins with the simple sentence: "Listen, O son, to the precepts of the master! Do not fear to receive the counsel of a good father, and to fulfil it fully, that thy laborious obedience may lead thee back to him from whom disobedience and weakness have alienated thee. To thee, whoever thou art, who renouncest thine own will to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and takest in hand the valiant and glorious weapons of obedience, are my words at this moment addressed." The first words, "Ausculta, O fili!" are often to be seen inscribed on a book placed in the hands of St. Benedict, in paintings and stained glass. The preamble contains the injunction of the two leading principles of the rule; all the rest is detail, marvellously thorough and comprehensive. These two grand principles were obedience and labor--the former became absorbed in the latter, for he speaks of that also as a species of labor--"Obedientiae laborem;" but the latter was the genius, the master-spirit of the whole code. There was to be labor, not only of contemplation, in the shape of prayer, worship, and self-discipline, to nurture the soul, but labor of action, vigorous, healthy, bodily labor, with the pen in the scriptorium, with the spade in the fields, with the hatchet in the forest, or with the trowel on the walls. Labor of some sort there must be daily, but no idleness: that was branded as "the {161} enemy of the soul"--"Otiositas inimica est animiae." It was enjoined with all the earnestness of one thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the great Master, who said, "Work whilst it is yet day, for the night cometh, when no man shall work;" who would not allow the man he had restored to come and remain with him--that is, to lead the life of religious contemplation, but told him to "go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee!" That is the life of religious activity. The error of the early monasticism was the making it solely a life of contemplation. Religious contemplation and religious activity must go together. In the contemplation the Christian acquires strength, in the activity he uses that strength for others; in the activity he is made to feel his weakness and driven to seek for aid in contemplation and prayer.

But, beside being based upon divine authority and example, this injunction of labor was formed upon a clear insight into and full appreciation of one of the most subtle elements of our constitution. It is this, that without labor no man can live; exist he may, but not live. This is one of the great mysteries of life--its greatest mystery; and its most emphatic lesson, which, if men would only learn, it would be one great step toward happiness, or at least toward that highest measure of happiness attainable below. If we can only realize this fact in the profundity of its truth, we shall have at once the key to half the miseries and anomalies which beset humanity. Passed upon man, in the first instance, by the Almighty as a curse, yet it carried in it the germ of a blessing; pronounced upon him as a sentence of punishment, yet there lurked in the chastisement the Father's love. Turn where we may, to the pages of bygone history or to the unwritten page of everyday life, from the gilded saloons of the noble to the hut of the peasant, we shall find this mysterious law working out its results with the unerring precision of a fundamental principle of nature. Where men obey that injunction of labor, no matter what their station, there is in the act the element of happiness, and wherever men avoid that injunction there is always the shadow of the unfulfilled curse darkening their path. This is the great clue to the balance of compensation between the rich and the poor. The rich man has no urgent need to labor; his wealth provides him with the means of escape from the injunction, and there is to be found in that man's life, unless he, in some way, with his head or with his hands, works out his measure of the universal task, a dissonance and a discord, a something which, in spite of all his wealth and all his luxury, corrupts and poisons his whole existence. It is a truth which cannot be ignored--no man who has studied life closely has failed to notice it, and no merely rich man lives who has not felt it and would not confess to its truth, if the question were pressed upon him. But in the case of the man who works, there is in his daily life the element of happiness, cares flee before him, and all the little caprices and longings of the imagination--those gad-flies which torment the idle--are to him unknown. He fulfils the measure of life; and whatever his condition, even if destitute in worldly wealth, we may be assured that the poor man has great compensations, and if he sat down with the rich man to count up grievances would check off a less number than his wealthier brother. Whatever his position, man should labor diligently; if poor he should labor and he may become rich, and if rich he should labor still, that all the evils attendant upon riches may disappear. Pure health steals over the body, the mind becomes dear, and the little miseries of life, the petty grievances, the fantastic wants, the morbid jealousies, the wasting weariness, and the terrible sense of vacuity which haunt {162} the life of one-half of the rich in the world, all flee before the talisman of active labor; nor should we be discouraged by failure, for it is better to fail in action than to do nothing. After all, what is commonly called failure we shall find to be not altogether such if we examine more closely. We set out upon some action or engagement, and after infinite toil we miss the object of that action or engagement, and they say we have failed; but there is consolation in this incontrovertible fact, that although we may have missed the particular object toward which our efforts have been directed, yet we have not altogether failed. There are many collateral advantages attendant upon exertion which may even be of greater importance than the attainment of the immediate object of that exertion, so that it is quite possible to fail wholly in achieving a certain object and yet make a glorious success. Half the achievements of life are built up on failures, and the greater the achievement, the greater evidence it is of persistent combat with failure. The student devotes his days and nights to some intellectual investigation, and though he may utterly fail in attaining to the actual object of that search, yet he may be drawn into some narrow diverging path in the wilderness of thought which may lead him gradually away from his beaten track on to the broad open light of discovery. The navigator goes out on the broad ocean in search of unknown tracts of land, and though he may return, after long and fruitless wanderings, yet in the voyages he has made he has acquired experience, and may, perchance, have learned some fact or thing which will prove the means of saving him in the hour of danger. Those great luminaries of the intellectual firmament--men who devoted their whole lives to investigate, search, study, and think for the elevation and good of their fellows--have only succeeded after a long discipline of failure, but by that discipline their powers have been developed, their capacity of thought expanded, and the experience gradually acquired which at length brought success. There is, then, no total failure to honest exertion, for he who diligently labors must in some way reap. It is a lesson often reiterated in apostolic teaching that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;" and the truth of that lesson may be more fully appreciated by a closer contemplation of life, more especially this phenomenon of life in which we see the Father's love following close upon the heels of his chastisement. The man who works lives, but he who works not lives but a dying and a hopeless life.

That vow of labor infused new vitality into the monks, and instead of living as they had hitherto done upon the charity of the public, they soon began not only to support themselves, but to take the poor of their neighborhood under their own especial protection. Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they chose the most barren, deserted spot they could find, often a piece of land long regarded as useless, and therefore frequently given without a price, then they set to work, cleared a space for their buildings, laid their foundations deep in the earth, and by gradual but unceasing toil, often with their own hands, alternating their labor with their prayers, they reared up those stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. In process of time the desert spot upon which they had settled underwent a complete transformation--a little world populous with busy life sprang up in its midst, and far and near in its vicinity the briers were cleared away--the hard soil broken up--gardens and fields laid out, and soon the land, cast aside by its owners as useless, bore upon its fertile bosom flowers, fruit, corn, in all the rich exuberance of heaven's blessing upon man's toil--plenty and peace smiled upon the whole scene--its halls were vocal with the voice of praise and the incense of charity arose {163} to heaven from its altars. They came upon the scene poor and friendless--they made themselves rich enough to become the guardians of the poor and friendless; and the whole secret of their success, the magic by which they worked these miracles, was none other than that golden rule of labor instituted by the penetrating intellect of their great founder; simple and only secret of all success in this world, now and ever--work--absolute necessity to real life, and, united with faith, one of the elements of salvation.

Before we advance to the consideration of the achievements of the Benedictine order, we wish to call attention to a circumstance which has seldom, if ever, been dwelt upon by historians, and which will assist us in estimating the influence of monachism upon the embryo civilization of Europe.

It is a remarkable fact that two great and renowned phases of life existed in the world parallel to each other, and went out by natural decay just at the same period: chivalry and monasticism. The latter was of elder birth, but as in the reign of Henry VIII. England saw the last of monasticism, so amid some laughter, mingled with a little forced seriousness, did she see the man who was overturning that old system vainly endeavoring to revive the worn-out paraphernalia of chivalry. The jousts and tournaments of Henry's time were the sudden flashing up of that once brilliant life, before its utter extinction. Both had been great things in the world--both had done great things, and both have left traces of their influence upon modern society and modern refinement which have not yet been obliterated, and perhaps never will be. It may then be interesting and instructive if we were to endeavor to compare the value of each by the work it did in the world. The origin of monasticism we have already traced; that of chivalry requires a few comments. Those who go to novels and romances for their history, have a notion that chivalry existed only in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the periods chosen for the incidents of those very highly colored romances which belong to that order of writing. There is also a notion that it sprang out of the Crusades, which, instead of being its origin, were rather the result of the system itself. The real origin of chivalry may be fairly traced to that period when the great empire of the West was broken up and subdivided by the barbarians of the North. Upon the ruins of that empire chivalry arose naturally. The feudal system was introduced, each petty state had a certain number of vassals, commanded by different chiefs, on whose estates they lived, and to whom they swore fealty in return for their subsistence; these again looked up to the king as head.

By-and-bye, as the new form of life fell into working order, it became evident that these chiefs, with their vassals, were a power in themselves, and by combination might interfere with, if not overthrow, the authority of the king himself. Their continued quarrels amongst themselves were the only protection the king had against them, but gradually that ceased, and a time came when there was no occupation for the superfluous valor of the country; retainers lay about castleyards in all the mischief of idleness, drunken and clamorous; the kings not yet firmly seated on their thrones looked about for some current into which they might divert this dangerous spirit. The condition of things in the states themselves was bad enough; the laws were feebly administered; it was vain for injured innocence to appeal against the violence of power; the sword was the only lawgiver, and strength the only opinion. Women were violated with impunity, houses burned, herds stolen, and even blood shed without any possibility of redress for the injured. This state of things was the foundation of chivalry. {164} Instinctively led, or insidiously directed to it, strong men began to take upon themselves the honor of redressing grievances, the injured woman found an armed liberator springing up in her defence, captives were rescued by superior force, injuries avenged, and the whole system--by the encouragement of the petty kings who saw in this rising feeling a vent for the idle valor they so much dreaded--soon consolidated itself, was embellished and made attractive by the charm of gallantry, and the rewards accorded to the successful by the fair ladies who graced the courts. Things went on well, and that dangerous spirit which threatened to overturn royalty now became its greatest ornament. In process of time it again outgrew its work, and with all the advantages of organization and flatteries of success, it once more became the tenor of the crowned heads of Europe. At this crisis, however, an event occurred which, in all probability, though it drained Europe of half her manhood, saved her from centuries of bloodshed and anarchy; that event was the banishment of the Christians and the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens. Here was a grand field for the display of chivalry. Priestly influence was brought to bear upon the impetuous spirits of these chevaliers, religious fervor was aroused, and the element of religious enthusiasm infused into the whole organization; fair ladies bound the cross upon the breasts of their champions, and bid them go and fight under the banners of the Mother of God. The whole continent fired up under the preaching of Peter the Hermit; all the rampant floating chivalry of Europe was aroused, flocked to the standards of the church, and banded themselves together in favor of this Holy War; whilst the Goth, the Vandal, and the Lombard, sitting on their tottering thrones, encouraged by every means in their power this diversion of the prowess they had so much dreaded, and began to see in the troubles of Eastern Christianity a fitting point upon which to concentrate the fighting material of Europe out of their way until their own position was more thoroughly consolidated. The Crusades, however, came to an end in time, and Europe was once more deluged with bands of warriors who came trooping home from Eastern climes changed with new ideas, new traditions, and filled with martial ardor. But now the Goth, the Vandal, and the Lombard had made their position secure, and the knights and chieftains fell back naturally upon their old pursuit of chivalry, took up arms once more in defence of the weak and injured against the strong and oppressive. That valor which had fought foot to foot with the swarthy Saracen, had braved the pestilence of Eastern climes and the horrors of Eastern dungeons, soon enlisted itself in the more peaceable lists of the joust and tournament, and went forth under the inspiration of a mistress's love-knot to do that work which we material moderns consign to the office of a magistrate and the arena of a quarter sessions.

It was in this later age of chivalry, when the religious element had blended with it, and it was dignified with the traditions of religious championship, that the deeds were supposed to be done which form the subject of those wonderful romances;--that was more properly the perfection of the institution; its origin lay, as we have seen, much further back.

As regards the difference between the work and influence of chivalry and monasticism, it is the same which always must exist between the physical and the moral--the one was a material and the other was a spiritual force. The orders of chivalry included all the physical strength of the country, its active material; but the monastery included all its spiritual power and thinking material. Chivalry was the instrument by which mighty deeds were done, but the intellect which guided, directed, and in {165} fact used that instrument was developed and matured in the seclusion of the cloister. By the adoption of a stringent code of honor as regards the plighted word, and a gallant consideration toward the vanquished and weak, chivalry did much toward the refinement of social intercommunication and assuaging the atrocities of warfare. By the adoption, also, of a gentle bearing and respectful demeanor toward the opposite sex, it elevated woman from the obscurity in which she lay, and placed her in a position where she could exercise her softening influence upon the rude customs of a half-formed society; but we must not forget that the gallantry of chivalry was, after all, but a glossing over with the splendors of heroism the excrescences of a gross licentiousness--a licentiousness which mounted to its crisis in the polished gallantry of the court of Louis XIV. Monasticism did more for woman than chivalry. It was all very well for _preux chevaliers_ to go out and fight for the honor of a woman's name whom they had never seen; but we find that when they were brought into contact with woman they behaved with like ruthless violence to her whatever her station may have been--no matter whether she was the pretty daughter of the herdsman, or the wife of some neighboring baron, she was seized by violence, carried off to some remote fortress, violated and abandoned. Monasticism did something better, it provided her when she was no longer safe, either in the house of her father or her husband, with an impregnable shelter against the licentious pursuit of these _preux chevaliers_; it gave her a position in the church equal to their own; she might become the prioress or the lady abbess of her convent; she was no longer the sport and victim of chivalrous licentiousness, but a pure and spotless handmaiden of the Most High--a fellow-servant in the church, where she was honored with equal position and rewarded with equal dignities--a far better thing this than chivalry, which broke skulls in honor of her name, whilst it openly violated the sanctity of her person. It may be summed up in a sentence. Monasticism worked long and silently at the foundation and superstructure of society, whilst chivalry labored at its decoration.

When we mention the fact that the history of the mere literary achievements of the Benedictine order fills four large quarto volumes, printed in double columns, it will be readily understood how impossible it is to give anything like an idea of its general work in the world in the space of a short summary. That book, written by Zeigelbauer, and called "Historia Rei Literariae Ordinis Sancti Benedicti," contains a short biography of every monk belonging to that order who had distinguished himself in the realms of literature, science, and art. Then comes Don Johannes Mabillon with his ponderous work, "Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti." These two authorities gave a minute history of that marvellous institution, of whose glories we can only offer a faint outline.

The Benedictines, after the death of their founder, steadily prospered, and as they prospered, sent out missionaries to preach the truth amongst the nations then plunged in the depths of paganism. It has been estimated that they were the means of converting upwards of thirty countries and provinces to the Christian faith. They were the first to overturn the altars of the heathen deities in the north of Europe; they carried the cross into Gaul, into Saxony and Belgium; they placed that cross between the abject misery of serfdom and the cruelty of feudal violation; between the beasts of burden and the beasts of prey--they proclaimed the common kinship of humanity in Christ the Elder Brother.

Strange to say, some of its most distinguished missionaries were natives of our own country. It was a {166} Scottish monk, St. Ribanus, who first preached the gospel in Franconia--it was an English monk, St. Wilfred, who did the same in Friesland and Holland in the year 683, but with little success--it was an Englishman, St. Swibert, who carried the cross to Saxony, and it was from the lips of another Englishman, St. Ulfred, that Sweden first heard the gospel--it was an Englishman and a Devonshire man, St. Boniface, who laid aside his mitre, put on his monk's dress, converted Germany to the truth, and then fell a victim to the fury of the heathen Frieslanders, who slaughtered him in cold blood. Four Benedictine monks carried the light of truth into Denmark, Sweden, and Gothland, sent there in the ninth century by the Emperor Ludovicus Pius. Gascony, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Pomerania, are all emblazoned on their banners as victories won by them in the fight of faith; and it was to the devotion of five martyr monks, who fell in the work, that Poland traces the foundation of her church.

It is a remarkable fact in the history of Christianity, that in its earliest stage--the first phase of its existence--its tendency was to elevate peasants to the dignity of apostles, but in its second stage it reversed its operations and brought kings from their thrones to the seclusion of the cloister--humbled the great ones of the earth to the dust of penitential humility. Up to the fourth century Christianity was a terrible struggle against principalities and powers: then a time came when principalities and powers humbled themselves at the foot of that cross whose followers they had so cruelly persecuted. The innumerable martyrdoms of the first four centuries of its career were followed by a long succession of' royal humiliations, for, during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, in addition to what took place as regards other orders, no less than ten emperors and twenty kings resigned their crowns and became monks of the Benedictine order alone. Amongst this band of great ones the most conspicuous are the Emperors Anastasius, Theodosius, Michael, Theophilus, and Ludovicus Pius. Amongst the kings are Sigismund of Burgundy, Cassimir of Poland, Bamba of Spain, Childeric and Theodoric of France, Sigisbert of Northumberland, Ina of the West Saxons, Veremunde of Castille, Pepin of Italy, and Pipin of Acquitaine. Adding to these their subsequent acquisitions, the Benedictines claim up to the 14th. century the honor of enrolling amongst their number twenty emperors and forty-seven kings: twenty sons of emperors and forty-eight sons of kings--amongst whom were Drogus, Pipin, and Hugh, sons of Charlemagne; Lothair and Carlomen, sons of Charles; and Fredericq, son of Louis III. of France. As nuns of their order they have had no less than ten empresses and fifty queens, including the Empresses Zoa Euphrosyne, St. Cunegunda, Agnes, Augusta, and Constantina; the Queens Batilda of France, Elfreda of Northumberland, Sexburga of Kent, Ethelberga of the West Saxons, Ethelreda of Mercia, Ferasia of Toledo, Maud of England. In the year 1290 the Empress Elizabeth took the veil with her daughters Agnes, queen of Hungary, and the Countess Cueba; also Anne, queen of Poland, and Cecily, her daughter. In the wake of these crowned heads follow more than one hundred princesses, daughters of kings and emperors. Five Benedictine nuns have attained literary distinction--Rosinda, St. Elizabeth, St. Hildegardis, whose works were approved of by the Council of Treves, St. Hiltrudis, and St. Metilda.

For the space of 239 years 1 month and 26 days the Benedictines governed the church in the shape of 48 popes chosen from their order, most prominent among whom was Gregory the Great, through whose means the rule was introduced into England. Four of these pontiffs came from the original {167} monastery of Monte Cassino, and three of them quitted the throne and resumed the monastic life--Constantine II., Christopher I., and Gregory XII. Two hundred cardinals had been monks in their cloisters--they produced 7,000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, fifteen of whom took off their mitres, resumed their monks' frock, and died in seclusion; 15,000 abbots; 4,000 saints. They established in different countries altogether 87,000 monasteries, which sent out into the world upwards of 15,700 monks, all of whom attained distinction as authors of books or scientific inventors. Rabanus established the first school in Germany. Alcuin founded the University of Paris, where 30,000 students were educated at one time, and whence issued, to the honor of England, St. Thomas à Becket, Robert of Melun, Robert White, made cardinal by Celestine II., Nicholas Broakspear, the only Englishman ever made Pope, who filled the chair under the title of Adrian IV., and John of Salisbury, whose writings give us the best description of the learning both of the university and the times. Theodore and Adrian, two Benedictine monks, revived the University of Oxford, which Bede, another of the order, considerably advanced. It was in the obscurity of a Benedictine monastery that the musical scale or gamut--the very alphabet of the greatest refinement of modern life--was invented, and Guido d'Arezzo, who wrested this secret from the realms of sound, was the first to found a school of music. Sylvester invented the organ, and Dionysius Exiguus perfected the ecclesiastical computation.

England in the early periods of her history contributed upwards of a hundred sons to this band of immortals, the most distinguished of whom we will just enumerate--St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, whose life Bede has written, and whose "Ordinationes" and "De Vita Monastica" have reached to our times. St. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of St. Peter and St. Paul, at Wearmouth and Jarrow, a nobleman by birth, and a man of extraordinary learning and ability, to whom England owes the training of the father of her ecclesiastical history, the Venerable Bede. St. Aldhelm, nephew of King Ina, St. Wilfrid, St Brithwald, a monk of Glastonbury, elevated to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury, which he held over thirty-seven years. His works which have come down to us are a "Life of St. Egwin, bishop of Worcester," and the "Origin of the Monastery of Evesham." Tatwin, who succeeded him in the archbishopric. Bede the Venerable, who was skilled in all the learning of the times, and; in addition to Latin and Greek, was versed in Hebrew; he wrote an immense number of works, many of which are lost, but the best known are the greater portion of the "Saxon Chronicle," which was continued after his death as a national record; and his "Ecclesiastical History," which gives to England a more compendious and valuable account of her early church than has fallen to the lot of any other nation. He was also one of the earliest translators of the Scriptures, and oven on his death-bed dictated to a scribe almost up to the final moment; when the last struggle came upon him he had reached as far as the words, "But what are they among so many," in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and the ninth verse. St. Boniface, already alluded to as the apostle of Germany, was a native of Devonshire. He was made Archbishop of Mentz, but being possessed with an earnest longing to convert the heathen Frieslanders, he retired from his archbishopric, and putting on his monk's dress took with him no other treasure than a book he was very fond of reading, called "De Bono Mortis," went amongst these people, who cruelly beat him to death in the year 755; and the book stained with his blood {168} was cherished as a sacred relic long after. Alcuin, whom we have already mentioned as the founder of the University of Paris, was a Yorkshireman, and was educated under Bede. He lived to become the friend of Charlemagne, and next to his venerable master was the greatest scholar and divine in Europe; he died about the year 790. John Asser, a native of Pembrokeshire, is another of these worthies. It is supposed that Alfred endowed Oxford with professors, and settled stipends upon them, under his influence, he being invited to the court of that monarch for his great learning. He wrote a "Commentary" upon Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae, the "Life of King Alfred," and the "Annals of Great Britain." St. Dunstan, a monk of Glastonbury, the best known of all these great Englishmen, died Archbishop of Canterbury; but as we shall have much to say of him hereafter we pass on to St. Ethelwold, his pupil, also a monk at Glastonbury, distinguished for his learning and piety, for which he was made abbot of the Monastery of Abingdon, where he died in the year 984. Ingulphus, a native of London, was made Abbot of Croyland, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1075. A history of the abbey over which he presided has been attributed to him, but its authenticity has been gravely disputed. Alfric, a noted grammarian. Florence, of Worcester, was another great annalist, who in his "Chronicon ex Chronici" brings the history down to the year 1119, that in which he died; his book is chiefly valuable as a key to the "Saxon Chronicle." William, the renowned monk of Malmesbury, the most elegant of all the monastic Latinists, was born about the time of the Norman Conquest. His history consists of two parts, the "Gesta Regum Anglorum," in five books, including the period between the arrival of the Saxons and the year 1120. The "Historia Novella," in three books, brings it down to the year 1142. He ranks next to Bede as an historic writer, most of the others being mere compilers and selectors from extant chronicles. He also wrote a work on the history of the English bishops, called "De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum," in which he speaks out fearlessly and without sparing: also a treatise on the antiquity of Glastonbury Abbey, "De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae;" his style is most interesting, and he is supposed to have written impartially, separating the improbable from the real, and gives us what can readily be appreciated as a fair and real picture of the state of things, more especially of the influence and policy of the Norman court, and the opening of the struggle between the two races. Eadmer was another contemporaneous celebrity with William of Malmesbury; he was the author of a history of his own times, called "Historia Novorum sive Sui Secula," which is spoken of very highly by William of Malmesbury; it contains the reigns of William the Conqueror and Rufus, and a portion of that of Henry I., embracing a period extending from 1066 to 1122. Matthew Paris, another historian who lived about the year 1259, closes our selection from the long list of British worthies who were members of the Benedictine order.

When we reflect that all the other monastic systems, not only of the past, but even of the present day, are but modifications of this same rule, and that it emanated from the brain, and is the embodiment of the genius of the solitary hermit of Monte Cassino, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the results which have sprung from so simple an origin. That St. Benedict had any presentiment of the future glory of his order, there is no sign in his rule or his life. He was a great and good man, and he produced that comprehensive rule simply for the guidance of his own immediate followers, without a thought beyond. But it was blessed, {169} and grew and prospered mightily in the world. He has been called the Moses of a favored people; and the comparison is not inapt, for he lead his order on up to the very borders of the promised country, and after his death, which, like that of Moses, took place within sight of their goal, they fought their way through the hostile wilds of barbarism, until those men who had conquered the ancient civilizations of Europe lay at their feet, bound in the fetters of spiritual subjection to the cross of Christ. The wild races of Scandinavia came pouring down upon southern Europe in one vast march of extermination, slaying and destroying as they advanced, sending before them the terror of that doom which might be seen in the desolation which lay behind them; but they fell, vanquished by the power of the army of God, who sallied forth in turn to reconquer the world, and fighting not with the weapons of fire and sword, but, like Christian soldiers, girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, they subdued these wild races, who had crushed the conquerors of the earth, and rested not until they had stormed the stronghold, and planted the cross triumphantly upon the citadel of an ancient paganism. Time rolled on, and the gloom of a long age of darkness fell upon a world whose glory lay buried under Roman ruins. Science had gone, literature had vanished, art had flown, and men groped about in vain in that dense darkness for one ray of hope to cheer them in their sorrow. The castle of the powerful baron rose gloomily above them, and with spacious moat, dense walls, and battlemented towers, frowned ominously upon the world which lay abject at its feet. In slavery men were born, and in slavery they lived. They pandered to the licentiousness and violence of him who held their lives in his hands, and fed them only to fight and fail at his bidding. But far away from the castle there arose another building, massive, solid, and strong, not frowning with battlemented towers, nor isolated by broad moats; but with open gates, and a hearty welcome to all comers, stood the monastery, where lay the hope of humanity, as in a safe asylum. Behind its walls was the church, and clustered around it the dwelling-places of those who had left the world, and devoted their lives to the service of that church, and the salvation of their souls. Far and near in its vicinity the land bore witness to assiduous culture and diligent care, bearing on its fertile bosom the harvest hope of those who had labored, which the heavens watered, the sun smiled upon, and the winds played over, until the heart of man rejoiced, and all nature was big with the promise of increase. This was the refuge to which religion and art had fled. In the quiet seclusion of its cloisters science labored at its problems and perpetuated its results, uncheered by applause and stimulated only by the pure love of the pursuit. Art toiled in the church, and whole generations of busy fingers worked patiently at the decoration of the temple of the Most High. The pale, thoughtful monk, upon whose brow genius had set her mark, wandered into the calm retirement of the library, threw back his cowl, buried himself in the study of philosophy, history, or divinity, and transferred his thoughts to vellum, which was to moulder and waste in darkness and obscurity, like himself in his lonely monk's grave, and be read only when the spot where he labored should be a heap of ruins, and his very name a controversy amongst scholars.

We should never lose sight of this truth, that in this building, when the world was given up to violence and darkness, was garnered up the hope of humanity; and these men who dwelt there in contemplation and obscurity were its faithful guardians--and this was more particularly the case with that great order whose foundation we {170} have been examining. The Benedictines were the depositaries of learning and the arts; they gathered books together, and reproduced them in the silence of their cells, and they preserved in this way not only the volumes of sacred writ, but many of the works of classic lore. They started Gothic architecture--that matchless union of nature with art--they alone had the secrets of chemistry and medical science; they invented many colors; they were the first architects, artists, glass-stainers, carvers, and mosaic workers in mediaeval times. They were the original illuminators of manuscripts, and the first transcribers of books; in fine, they were the writers, thinkers, and workers of a dark age, who wrote for no applause, thought with no encouragement, and worked for no reward. Their power, too, waxed mighty; kings trembled before their denunciations of tyranny, and in the hour of danger fled to their altars for safety; and it was an English king who made a pilgrimage to their shrines, and prostrate at the feet of five Benedictine monks, bared his back, and submitted himself to be scourged as a penance to his crimes.

Nearly fourteen hundred years have rolled by since the great man who founded this noble order died; and he who in after years compiled the "Saxon Chronicle" has recorded it in a simple sentence, which, amongst the many records of that document, we may at least believe, and with which we will conclude the chapter--"This year St. Benedict the Abbot, father of all monks, went to heaven."

From The Month.

SAINTS OF THE DESERT,

BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Some old men came to Abbot Antony, who, to try their spirits, proposed to them a difficult passage of Scripture.

As each in turn did his best to explain it, Antony said: "You have not hit it."

Till Abbot Joseph said: "I give it up."

Then cried Antony: "_He_ has hit it; for he owns he does not know it."

2. When the Abbot Arsenius was at the point of death, his brethren noted that he wept. They said then: "Is it so? art thou too afraid, O father?"

He answered: "It is so; and the fear that is now upon me has been with me ever since I became a monk."

And so he went to sleep.

3. Abbot Pastor said: "We cannot keep out bad thoughts, as we cannot stop the wind rushing through the door; but we can resist them when they come."

4. Abbot Besarion said, when he was dying: "A monk ought to be all eye, as the cherubim and seraphim."

5. They asked Abbot Macarius how they ought to pray.

The old man made answer: "No need to be voluble in prayer; but stretch forth thy hands frequently, and say, 'Lord, as thou wilt, and as thou knowest, have mercy on me.' And if war is coming on, say, 'Help!' And he who himself knoweth what is expedient for thee, will show thee mercy."

6. On a festival, when the monks were at table, one cried out to the servers, "_I_ eat nothing dressed, so bring me some salt."

Blessed Theodore made reply: "My brother, better were it to have even secretly eaten flesh in thy cell than thus loudly to have refused it."

7. An old man said: "A monk's cell is that golden Babylonian furnace in which the Three Children found the Son of God."

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[ORIGINAL]

CHRISTINE:

A TROUBADOUR'S SONG,

IN FIVE CANTOS.

BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 34]

[Footnote 34: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by Lawrence Kehoe, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.]

(Continued)

THE THIRD SONG.

I.

Fronting the vine-clad Hermitage,-- Its hoary turrets mossed with age, Its walls with flowers and grass o'ergrown,-- A ruined Castle, throned so high Its battlements invade the sky, Looks down upon the rushing Rhone. From its tall summits you may see The sunward slopes of Côte Rotie With its red harvest's revelry; While eastward, midway to the Alpine snows, Soar the sad cloisters of the Grande Chartreuse.

And here, 'tis said, to hide his shame, The thrice accursed Pilate came; And here the very rock is shown. Where, racked and riven with remorse, Mad with the memory of the Cross, He sprang and perished in the Rhone. 'Tis said that certain of his race Made this tall peak their dwelling place. And built them there this castle keep To mark the spot of Pilate's leap.

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Full many the tale of terror told At eve, with changing cheek, By maiden fair and stripling bold, Of these dark keepers of the height And, most of all, of the Wizard Knight, The Knight of Pilate's Peak. His was a name of terror known And feared through all Provence; Men breathed it in an undertone. With quailing eye askance, Till the good Dauphin of Vienne, And Miolan's ancient Lord, One midnight stormed the robber den And gave them to the sword; All save the Wizard Knight, who rose In a flame-wreath from his dazzled foes; All save a child, with golden hair. Whom the Lord of Miolan deigned to spare In ruth to womanhood, And she, alas, is the maiden fair Who wept in the walnut wood.

But who is he, with step of fate, Goes gloomily through the castle gate In me morning's virgin prime? Why scattereth he with frenzied hand The fierce flame of that burning brand, Chaunting an ancient rhyme? The eagle, scared from her blazing nest, Whirls with a scream round his sable crest. What muttereth he with demon smile. Shaking his mailed hand the while Toward the Chateau of La Sône, Where champing steed and bannered tent Gave token of goodly tournament, And the Golden Dolphin shone? "Woe to the last of the Dauphin's line, When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine Bound the towers of Pilate's Peak! Burn, beacon, burn!"--and as he spoke From the ruined towers curled the pillared smoke, As the light flame leapt from the ancient oak And answered the eagle's shriek. Man and horse down the hillside sprang And a voice through the startled forest rang-- "I ride, I ride to win my bride. Ho, Eblis! to thy servants side; Thou hast sworn no foe Shall lay me low Till the dead in arms against me ride."

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II.

Deliciously, deliciously Cometh the dancing dawn, Christine, Christine comes with it, Leading in the morn. Beautiful pair! So cometh the fawn Before the deer. Christine is in her bower Beside the swift Isère Weaving a white flower With her dark brown hair. Never, O never, Wandering river. Though flowing for ever, E'er shalt thou mirror Maiden so fair!

Hail to thee, hail to thee, Beautiful one; Maiden to match thee, On earth there is none. And there is none to tell How beautiful thou art: Though oft the first Rudel Has made the Princes start, When he has strung his harp and sung The Lily of Provence, Till the high halls have rung With clash of lifted lance Vowed to the young Christine of France.

Ah, true that he might paint The blooming of thy cheek. The blue vein's tender streak On marble temple faint; Lips in whose repose Ruby weddeth rose. Lips that parted show Ambushed pearl below: Or he may catch the subtle glow Of smiles as rare as sweet, May whisper of the drifted snow Where throat and bosom meet. And of the dark brown braids that flow So grandly to thy feet. Ah, true that he may sing Thy wondrous mien.

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Stately as befits a queen, Yet light and lithe and all awing As becometh Queen of air Who glideth unstepping everywhere. And he might number e'en The charms that haunt the drapery-- Charms that, ever changing, cluster Round thy milk-white mantle's lustre,-- Maiden mantle that is part of thee. Maiden mantle that doth circle thee With the snows of virgin grace; Halo-like around thee wreathing, Spirit-like about thee breathing The glory of thy face.

But these dark eyes, Christine? Peace, poet, peace, Cease, minstrel, cease! But these dear eyes, Christine? Mute, O mute Be voice and lute! O dear dark eyes that seem to dwell With holiest things invisible, Who may read your oracle? Earnest eyes that seem to rove Empyrean heights above, Yet aglow with human love. Who may speak your spell? Dear dark eyes that beam and bless, In whose luminous caress Nature weareth bridal dress,-- Eyes of voiceless Prophetess, Your meanings who may tell! O there is none! Peace, poet, peace. Cease, minstrel, cease, For there is none! O eyes of fire without desire, O stars that lead the sun! But minstrel cease, Peace, poet, peace. Tame Troubadour be still; Voice and lute Alike be mute, It passeth all your skill!

Sooth thou art fair, O ladye dear. Yet one may see The shadow of the east in thee;

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Tinting to a riper flush The faint vermilion of thy blush; Deepening in thy dark brown hair Till sunshine sleeps in starlight there. For she had scarce seen summers ten, When erst the Hermit's call Sent all true Knights from bower and hall Against the Saracen. Young, motherless, and passing fair, The Dauphin durst not leave her there, Within his castle lone, To kinsman's cold or casual care, Not such as were his own: And so the sweet Provençal maid Shared with her sire the first Crusade. And you may hear her oft, In accents strangely soft. Still singing of the rose's bloom In Sharon,--of the long sunset That gilds lamenting Olivet, Of eglantines that grace the gloom Of sad Gethsemane; And of a young Knight ever seen In evening walks along the green That fringes feeble Siloë.

Young, beautiful, and passing fair-- The ancient Dauphin's only heir, The fairest flower of France,-- Knights by sea and Knights by land Came to claim the fair white hand, With sigh and suppliant lance; And many a shield Displayed afield The Lily of Provence. Ladye love of prince and bard Yet to one young Savoyard Swerveless faith she gave-- To the young knight ever seen When moonlight wandered o'er the green That gleams o'er Siloë's wave. And he, blest boy, where lingers he? For the Dauphin hath given slow consent That, after a joyous tournament, The stately spousals shall be.

Christine is in her bower That blooms by the swift Isère, Twining a white flower With her dark brown hair.

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The skies of Provence Are bright with her glance, And nature's matin organ floods The world with music from the myriad throats Of the winged Troubadours, whose joyous notes Brighten the rolling requiem of the woods. With melody, flowers, and light Hath the maiden come to play, As fragile, fair, and bright And lovelier than they? O no, she has come to her bower That blooms by the dark Isère For the bridegroom who named the first hour Of day-dawn to meet her there: But the bridal morn on the hills is born And the bridegroom is not here. Hie thee hither, Savoyard, On such an errand youth rides hard. Never knight so dutiful Maiden failed so beautiful: And she in such sweet need, And he so bold and true!-- She will watch by the long green avenue Till it quakes to the tramp of his steed; Till it echoes the neigh of the gallant Grey Spurred to the top of his speed.

In the dark, green, lonely avenue The Ladye her love-watch keepeth, Listening so close that she can hear The very dripping of the dew Stirred by the worm as it creepeth; Straining her ear For her lover's coming Till his steed seems near In the bee's far humming. She stands in the silent avenue, Her back to a cypress tree; O Savoyard once bold and true, Late bridegroom, where canst thou be? Hark! o'er the bridge that spans the river There cometh a clattering tread, Never was shaft from mortal quiver Ever so swiftly sped. Onward the sound, Bound after, bound, Leapeth along the tremulous ground.

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From the nodding forest darting. Leaves, like water, round them parting. Up the long green avenue, Horse and horseman buret in view. Marry, what ails the bridegroom gay That he strideth a coal black steed, Why cometh he not on the gallant Grey That never yet failed him at need? Gone is the white plume, that clouded his crest, And the love-scarf that lightly lay over his breast; Dark is his shield as the raven's wing To the funeral banquet hurrying. Came ever knight in such sad array On the merry morn of his bridal day? The Ladye trembles, and well she may; Saints, you would think him a fiend astray. A plunge, a pause, and, fast beside her. Stand the sable horse and rider. Alas, Christine, this shape of wrath In Palestine once crossed thy path; His arm around thy waist, I trow, To bear thee to his saddle-bow. But thy Savoyard was there. In time to save, tho' not to smite, For the demon fled into the night From Miolan's matchless heir. Alas, Christine, that lance lies low-- Lies low on oaken bier!

Low bent the Wizard, till his plume O'ershadowed her like falling doom: She feels the cold casque touch her ear, She hears the whisper, hollow, clear,-- "From Acre's strand, from Holy Land, O'er mountain crag, through desert sand, By land, by sea, I come for thee. And mine ere sunset shalt thou be! Dost know me, girl?" The visor raises-- God, 'tis the Knight of Pilate's Peak! As if in wildered dream she gazes, Gazing as one who strives to shriek. She cannot fly, or speak, or stir, For that face of horror glares, at her Like a phantom fresh from hell. She gave no answer, she made no moan; Mute as a statue overthrown. Her fair face cold as carved stone, Swooning the maiden fell.

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The sun has climbed the golden hills And danceth down with the mountain rills. Over the meadow the swift beams run Lifting the flowers, one by one, Sipping their chalices dry as they pass, And kissing the beads from the bending grass. The Dauphin's chateau, grand and grey, Glows merrily in the risen day; His castle that seemeth ancient as earth, Lights up like an old man in his mirth. Through the forest old, the sunbeams bold Their glittering revel keep, Till, in arrowy gold, on the chequered wold In glancing lines they sleep. And one sweet beam hath found its way To the violet bank where the Ladye lay. O radiant touch! perchance so shone The hand that woke the widow's son.

She sighs, she stirs; the death-swoon breaks; Life slowly fires those pallid lips; And feebly, painfully, she wakes, Struggling through that dark eclipse. Breathing fresh of Alpine snows, Breathing sweets of summer rose. Murmuring songs of soft repose, The south wind on her bosom blows: But she heeds it not, she hears it not; Fast she sits with steady stare. The dew-drops heavy on her hair, Her fingers clasped in dumb despair, Frozen to the spot: While o'er her fierce and fixed as fate, The fiend on his spectral war-horse sate. A horrible smile through the visor broke, And, quoth he, "I but watched till my Ladye woke. Get thee a flagon of Shiraz wine, For the lips must be red that answer mine!" Cleaving the woods, like the wind he went. His face o'er his shoulder backward bent, Crying thrice--"We shall meet at the Tournament!"

Clasping the cypress overhead, Christine rose from her fragrant bed. And a prayer to Mother Mary sped. Hold not those gleaming skies for her The same unfailing Comforter? And those two white winged cherubim, She once had seen, when Christmas hymn Chimed with the midnight mass, Scattering light through the chapel dim, Alive in me stained glass--

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What fiend could harm a hair of her. While those arching-wings took care of her? And our Ladye, Maid divine, Mother round whose marble shrine She wreathed the rose of Palestine So many sinless years, Will not heaven's maiden-mother Queen Regard her daughter's tears! Yes!--through the forest stepping slow, Tranquil mistress of her woe, Goeth the calm Christine; And but for yonder spot of snow Upon each temple, none may know How stem a storm hath been. For never dawned a brighter day, And the Ladye smileth on her way, Greeting the blue-eyed morn at play With earth in her spangled green. A single cloud Stole like a shroud Forth from the fading mists that hid The crest of each Alpine pyramid; Unmovingly it lingers over The mountain castle of her lover; While over Pilate's Peak Hangs the grey pall of the sullen smoke, Leaps the lithe flame of the ancient oak And the eagle soars with a shriek. Full well she knew the curse was near. But that heart of hers had done with fear. By St. Antoine, not steadier stands Mont Blanc's white head in winter's whirl Than that calm, fearless, smiling girl With her bare brow upturned and firmly folded hands.

Back to her bower so fair Christine her way, is wending; Over the dark Isère Silently she's bending, Thus communing with the stream. As one who whispers in a dream: "Waters that at sunset ran Round the Mount of Miolan; Stream, that binds my love to me, Whisper where that lover be; Wavelets mine, what evil things Mingle with your murmurings; Tell me, ere ye glide away. Wherefore doth the bridegroom stay? Hath the fiend of Pilate's Peak Met him, stayed him, slain him--speak!

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Speak the worst a Bride may know, God hath armed my soul for woe; Touching heaven, the virgin snow Is firmer than the rock below. Lies my love upon his bier, Answer, answer, dark Isère! Hark, to the low voice of the river Singing '_Thy love is lost for ever!_' Weep with all thy icy fountains, "Weep, ye cold, uncaring mountains, I have not a tea! Stream, that parts my love from me, Bear this bridal rose with thee; Bear it to the happy hearted, Christine and all the flowers have parted!"

They are coming from the castle, A bevy of bright-eyed girls, Some with their long locks braided, Some with loose golden curls. Merrily 'mid the meadows They win their wilful way; Winding through sun and shadow, Rivulets at play. Brows with white rosebuds blowing, Necks with white pearl entwined. Gowns whose white folds imprison Wafts of the wandering wind. The boughs of the charmèd woodland Sing to the vision sweet. The daisies that crouch in the clover Nod to their twinkling feet. They see Christine by the river, And, deeming the bridegroom near, They wave her a dewy rose-wreath Fresh plucked for her dark brown hair. Hand in hand tripping to meet her, Birdlike they carol their joy. Wedding soft Provençal numbers To a dulcet old strain of Savoy.

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THE GREETING.

Sister, standing at Love's golden gate. Life's second door-- Fleet the maidentime is flying. Friendship fast in love is dying, Bridal fate doth separate Friends evermore.

Pilgrim seeking with thy sandalled feet The land of bliss; Sire and sister tearless leaving, To thy beckoning palmer cleaving-- Truant sweet, once more repeat Our parting kiss.

Wanderer filling for enchanted isle Thy dimpling sail; Whither drifted, all uncaring. So with faithful helmsman faring, Stay and smile with us, awhile, Before the gale.

Playmate, hark! for all that once was ours Soon rings the knell: Glade and thicket, glen and heather, Whisper sacredly together; Queen of ours, the very flowers Sigh forth farewell.

Christine looked up, and smiling stood Among the choral sisterhood: But some who sprang to greet her, stayed Tiptoe, with the speech unsaid; And, each the other, none knew why. Questioned with quick, wondering eye. One by one, their smiles have flown. No lip is laughing but her own; And hers, the frozen smile that wears The glittering of unshed tears. "Ye nave sung for me, I will sing for ye, My sisters fond and fair." And she bent her head till the chaplet fell Adown in the deep Isère.

THE REPLY.

Bring me no rose-wreath now: But come when sunset's first tears fall. When night-birds from the mountain call-- Then bind my brow,

Roses and lilies white-- But tarry till the glow-worms trail Their gold-work o'er the spangled veil Of falling night

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Twine not your garland fair Till I have fallen fast asleep; Then to my silent pillow creep And leave it there--

There in the chapel yard!-- Come with twilight's earliest hush, Just as day's last purple flush Forsakes the sward.

Stop where the white cross stands. You'll find me in my wedding suit, Lying motionless and mute, With folded hands.

Tenderly to my side: The bridegroom's form you may not see In the dim eve, but he will be Fast by his bride.

Soft with your chaplet move. And lightly lay it on my head: Be sure you wake not with rude tread My jealous love.

Kiss me, then quick away; And leave us, in unwatched repose, With the lily and the rose Waiting for day!

But hark! the cry of the clamorous horn Breaks the bright stillness of the morn. From moated wall, from festal hall The banners beckon, the bugles call, Already flames, in the lists unrolled O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold. A hundred knights in armor glancing. Hurry afield with pennons dancing, Each with a vow to splinter a lance For Christine, the Lily of Provence. "Haste!" cried Christine; "Sisters, we tarry late. Let not the tourney wait For its Queen!" And, toward the castle gate, They take their silent way along the green.

TO BE CONTINUED

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From The Literary Workman.

JENIFER'S PRAYER.

BY OLIVER CRANE.

IN THREE PARTS.