CHAPTER XII.

THE PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL EQUALITY PUT TO THE TEST.

Madame de Meglior continued to reside with her niece, and made herself so agreeable, that the arrangement promised to become permanent.

Euphrasie continued to exhibit the same impassive exterior; in appearance she was but the slave of her mother's will. The duchess regarded her as almost a nonentity, at least after the fears excited by Eugene's religious tendencies had in some measure subsided.

But Annie! "a change had come o'er the spirit of her dream." She, always disposed to romance, was unguarded now. Formerly, Adelaide had acted as a check upon Annie's fondness for equality, fraternity, liberty. Now that that restraint was withdrawn, she imprudently allowed Alfred Brookbank to treat her more and more as an equal. It is doubtful whether, even if she had reflected, she would have foreseen the consequences, for in her most republican moods, she never forgot that she was a Miss Godfrey of Estcourt Hall; and though to amuse herself and pass away the time, she was willing enough to discuss equality and the "rights of man," she certainly expected to receive full credit for the condescension in allowing to an inferior the privilege of such "free discussion" with herself. Home was dull, her sister gone, and her cousin gone too: her mother was always ailing now, and her father, ever newly absorbed by some pet plan, kept his darling Hester {336} constantly at his side. Annie was alone, and somewhat desolate: Alfred Brookbank always on the look out for an excuse to bear her company and amuse her. Annie was becoming accustomed to his attentions, without attaching any more definite meaning to them than she would to the attentions of any one of the numerous dependents of her father's house, when, one day, he took advantage of a private interview to make a formal profession of love. This was indeed a surprise; for, though any one else might have expected it, Annie had never once thought of such a probability. Marriages in her family had always been conducted so differently. Besides, she had never looked on Alfred as other than patronized. She had not dreamt of such presumption, though she had allowed him freely to broach in her presence his doctrine of the "inherent equality" of such individuals as are of equal calibre of intellect, and of the right of all mankind at large to freedom and equality. Her manner of receiving this declaration was certainly not very flattering; for she drew herself up in a somewhat haughty manner, and replied that the proceeding was so unexpected, so uncalled for, that she did not know how to answer it, for Mr. Alfred must be aware that the difference in their social position rendered such a proposal unanswerable.

"To one of ordinary mind, perhaps," said Alfred, somewhat chafed; "but to one like yourself, endowed with an understanding above the petty conventionalities--"

"I am not above recognizing my duty to my family, Mr. Alfred, and you must be aware that no one member of it would consent to this."

"Nay, if you only allowed me to hope I had any interest in you, I am sure Mr. Godfrey would not refuse your wishes."

"I have no wish to trouble him on the subject," was the cold rejoinder, somewhat haughtily expressed.

"I may not hope then--"

"You may hope nothing on this subject whatever. Let it be dropped now and forever. If I can aid your prospects--"

"You will patronize me. Thank you, Miss Annie, but patronage from you would suit my temper badly. I had thought there was one being in the world superior to the influences of prejudice, of conventional distinctions; but you, too, deem me an inferior, because I boast not of paltry wealth or of gentle descent. Inferior as you deem me, you shall yet feel my power--yes, my power!"

His language and his told were those of a madman, and his flashing eyes gave him a frenzied appearance. Trembling with rage, the quondam lover left the presence of his adored, meditating in bitterness the most direful revenge.

Had Annie put any faith in his professions of love to herself, she would have been undeceived by this burst of rage. Love had not animated him--that was apparent enough; his disappointment was but a foiled ambition; yet after permitting upward of two years' attentions, conscience told her he should have met with a less haughty rebuff. The retrospect showed her she had encouraged him. She had then partly drawn upon herself a merited rebuke. She could but acknowledge this, and, humiliated, Annie would willingly have done her part in repairing the evil she had occasioned by promoting his advancement in life but this was beyond her power. The next news she heard was that Alfred Brookbank had prevailed on his father to advance him a large sum of money, and had set sail for America.

Time passed on. Estcourt Hall became duller every day, and beyond the arrival of a new family in the neighborhood there was nothing of interest outside. This family consistent of a dowager Lady Conway, her son and daughter. They had purchased "a place" near the sea for the benefit of Lady Conway's health. Their own estates, or rather the son's estates, were in a neighboring shire. They {337} were not intellectual, but they were wealthy and of good family, and in time an intimacy sprang up between them and the Godfreys, none knew how or why, and in a few months after, to the surprise of every one, "The Morning Post" announced that Sir Philip Conway, Bart., had led to the altar Miss Annie Godfrey, second daughter of E. Godfrey, Esq., of Estcourt Hall.

The marriage was strictly private. Eugene left Cambridge for a day or two to be present at it, but he soon returned to college. Of the nature of his studies no one guessed. He did go in for honors, as his father would have wished. Nevertheless his tutors made a good report of him, and the secluded life he led made many suppose that he was pursuing very deeply some pet hobby of his own.

Indeed, this was partly true; for although at his first return to Cambridge he was much dejected, he soon began to reflect that Euphrasie was very young; that she not only was now completely dependent, but that she was likely to continue so; and that the most unlikely thing that could happen, was the gratification of her wish to enter a convent. He trusted to time to teach her this, and a new hope sprang up within him, and that, too, at the very moment that his friend M. Bertolot, began to hope he had mastered his feelings for Euphrasie, and become reconciled to the inevitable separation.

Eugene spoke not of his love, but with renewed ardor he addressed himself to study the most important relationships that can exist for man. Guided by the counsels of M. Bertolot, he mastered the evidences of Revelation and then assured himself that that revelation, _once given_, was divinely protected: that that which was intended to shed light on the human soul, darkened by sin, was not a dubious _ignis fatuis_, subject to human vagaries, but an unerring guide and an unfailing lamp. We will not follow him through his arguments now, as we shall have occasion to make him speak for himself on a future occasion.

Time passed on. Annie had been married a year or more. Truth to say, she was somewhat _ennuyée_ at present. Her husband resided chiefly on his estate, and this was at some distance from Estcourt Hall. There was little society in the neighborhood, and Sir Philip's tastes corresponded very little with her own.

The young baronet was perfectly well-intentioned, but neither refined nor cultivated. The society of his farm-bailiff, the walk to the fatting-stalls, the talk about the respective fattening qualities of turnips and mangold-wurzels, the speculations on the relative value of farm-yard manure, of guano, or of soot, and dissertations whether each or all should be applied as top-dressing or should be worked into the soil; such were his occupations, and sooth to say, he excelled in the pursuits he had adopted. No beasts at Smithfield could show finer points than Sir Philip's: no farm was in finer model order: his tanks, his barns, his under-drainings, and his irrigations, together with his prize cattle of every description, were the admiration of the agricultural world. He was truly a "lord of the animal creation," and he prided himself on being so. Of intellectual culture he had small appreciation; but as he had great ideas of order, and deemed himself master by right of "the masculine being the most worthy gender," (which was the only idea he retained from his Latin grammar, that had been vainly endeavored to be flogged into him at school,) he would ill have brooked interference with his rights. To him, a wife was a necessary appendage, nothing more; as to allowing a woman to dictate to him, the thing was absurd. He was "a lord of creation," and though he wished the world to pay due respect to Lady Conway, because she was his wife, yet it is questionable whether he himself would have allowed a woman a voice on any {338} subject beyond those connected with domestic economy, and even here he reserved to himself the power of veto. He loved his wife, certainly, because he thought it was a part of his duty to do so; besides, he really had some sort of animal affection for her. Annie was well-made, of good birth, well-educated; to say the least, he was as proud of her as he had been of the animal which had won him the first prize at the Smithfield cattle-show. It was part of his system to have the best specimens of animal existence domesticated on his estate, and Annie did not disgrace his other stock.

But Annie; poor Annie! She was alone in the world, though surrounded by everything that could procure bodily ease or bodily enjoyment. She had horses to ride, she had a carriage to ride in, she had gardens and hot houses, plantations and shrubberies; but to her cultivated mind where was the response? To the poetry that strove within her for expression, where was the listener?

"The thought that cannot speak Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break!"

But Annie's was not a spirit to be easily broken. Naturally expressive, she would have sought interest even among the cottagers, had not her husband's jealousy forbidden it. He was a _magnifico_, and he liked not that his wife should be more popular than himself. He wished to gain the name of being a liberal benefactor to his laborers and cottagers, and would not share his reputation even with the being to whom he had plighted his faith for life. Annie was thus thrown on her own resources. Brought up intellectually, she found a resource in books; and though at times cast down, she rallied again, for youth is buoyant, elastic, hopeful, and a literary taste carries in itself a wonderful power of compensation. But Annie was no dreamer, and the ideas that suggested themselves demanded action, which as yet they were denied: yet Annie read on, and thought on. The time for action will one day surely come, she thought.

"Lady Conway," said Sir Philip one day at the breakfast table, "do you know any thing of a Mr. Alfred Brookbank?"

Annie almost started; she certainly changed color, but Sir Philip was not observing her; so she answered, "Yes--no--yes; that is, Sir Philip, the family lived at Estcourt, and sometimes visited at the Hall."

"He has bought old Gordon's land, and is about to become our dear neighbor."

"Indeed! How did he get the money? He was poor when I knew him."

"He has made very fortunate speculations in America; besides which he succeeds to his father's property".

"Is Dr. Brookbank dead?"

"He is, and has left a considerable sum behind him; he economize unknown to his family, it seems."

"But even so, there is an Elder brother."

"No, he died in America; of this there is certain news."

"In America!" said Annie. "I did not know he was ever there".

"No? Well, it seems he ran off with a neighbor's wife, took her to America, got tired of her, left her, and went off to the woods. There he lived some time, but one day was found at the foot of some rapids, drowned."

"But how did his family know this?"

"Some stranger to that district identified the body and gave evidence before the presiding magistrate, after which they searched the shanty in which the man had lived, and found papers corroborative of his being Walter Brookbank, and these papers, with sundry articles, they sent home to his family, according to the address given by the stranger, and they were found to have belonged to Walter."

"Strange concurrence of events! Who was the stranger?"

"He gave his name as William Jones."

{339}

"Jones! I suppose Smith, Brown, or White would have served his purpose equally as well?"

"Why do you suppose that Jones was not the man's name, my lady?"

"I do not know, only it seems to me a most improbable tale."

"Improbable! Why, the family believe it, at any rate."

"And the second son is to be established in the neighborhood?"

"Yes; he intends to occupy himself in superintending land. I have some thoughts of employing him myself."

"I thought you said he inherited considerable property."

"Yes, but he has determined to let his mother enjoy the income arising from the paternal estate, and has also promised to care for his sisters' fortunes. Dr. Brookbank died intestate, it seems, but this young man says that shall make no difference. He appears to be actuated by very high principle".

Annie did not answer. She was uneasy; especially at the idea of Alfred's managing her husband's affairs. She feared some sinister motive. Her husband noticed the discontented expression of her countenance.

"Do you not like Mr. Alfred Brookbank?" He asked.

"Well, I hardly know," said Annie; "but at least I do not consider him a man of business. He was not when I knew him; besides, he is young for an agent; an older man might suit you better, Sir Philip."

"I am not sure of that; old men are apt to be obstinate and to have plans of their own; I choose to look into my affairs myself, and to make my own arrangements; so that his inexperience signifies but little, provided he is industrious, and that his American success proves him to be."

Annie knew not what objection to offer, and a dark foreboding came over; was this in any way diminished when, some few weeks afterward, Mr. Brookbank was announced, and Sir Philip, instead of receiving him in his library according to his wont with gentlemen visitors, directed him to be shown into the parlor, in which he and Lady Conway were sitting. Annie would have escaped had it been practicable, but as her departure would have attracted Sir Philip's observation, she thought it more prudent to remain.

Alfred entered, and his bearing was so respectful, so distant, that Annie would have been reassured, had she not felt that at intervals, when Sir Philip was not looking, Alfred fixed his eyes upon her with the gaze of a basilisk; and once when she chanced to look at him she thought the expression of his features perfectly demoniacal. What she had to fear she knew not, but that she did fear something was certain.

It was not only Alfred that had come to reside in the neighborhood; his mother and two sisters accompanied him. The rectory of Estcourt had passed to another, and there was no mansion on the paternal acres suited for the refined tastes of the family, so they had come to reside with Alfred in his newly purchased dwelling. A certain degree of visiting between the families would have been necessary for old acquaintance sake, but more soon became inevitable from the ascendency which Alfred shortly obtained over the mind of Sir Philip. He flattered himself into the baronet's good graces, and made himself so agreeable that Sir Philip began to think it impossible to live without him. Annie tried in vain to stem the torrent of intimacy, that threatened almost to domesticate Alfred in her house. Sir Philip was far too wise a man to be governed by his wife, so he listened to none of her remonstrances; and at times there was a look of triumph, as well as of hatred, in Alfred's features, that made her almost tremble in his presence. Annie was naturally strong-minded, yet she could not overcome this sensation, which was almost a martyrdom, particularly as she suspected Alfred was aware of the torment she underwent. She wrote to {340} her aunt, who was still at Durimond Castle, to request that she and Euphrasie would come and spend some time with her, hoping to gain courage in their society, and perhaps protection; but the answer was unpropitious:

"The Duke of Durimond had returned home seriously unwell, and at that moment it would be improper and unkind to leave the duchess without society."

Annie must, then, endure life as best she could. Alfred found himself visiting at Sir Philip's on terms of apparent equality, and often a party was made up of such society as the neighborhood afforded, expressly for the purpose of introducing the family so obnoxious to Annie. Nay, she was in a manner compelled to take her turn in visiting them, repugnant as it was to her feelings.

On these occasions Annie behaved with condescension and politeness, but with nothing more. She received Alfred with the most formal courtesy; he returned her salute with one of apparently the most profound respect. Few more words were interchanged than were absolutely necessary.

It was the current opinion that Lady Conway liked not the society of her inferiors, and Sir Philip, participating in the idea, strove to combat it, although he was no leveller in general; but in Alfred's case he thought the prejudice she entertained ought to yield to such superior merit.

One evening a social party met at Sir Philip's. Singing and dancing were going on; but Alfred was unusually dull, he could not be prevailed upon to join in any amusement. The baronet, fancying his wife's coldness might have had some influence in producing this effect, said to her in the hearing of all the party:

"My lady, was Mr. Brookbank so dull when he visited at Estcourt Hall? Did he never sing to you there?"

"Mr. Brookbank has a very fine voice," was the reply; "I have often heard him sing beautiful melodies."

"Nay, then, call upon him, in memory of 'Auld lang syne,' to sing for you, my lady; no other has the power to arouse him to-night."

Annie turned to Alfred and said in a dignified manner, "You here Sir Philip's request, Mr. Brookbank; will you consider it mine?"

Alfred started, looked at her, and bowed. He answered in a tone so low that only she could hear its purport:

"You have asked for a madman's song, my lady; what else can memory produce?"

Declining the offer of an accompaniment, he seated himself at the piano, and drew forth notes so wild, so terrific, that the whole party were electrified; then assuming the mien and gesture of one crazed in his intellect, his loud and clear voice gave full force to the following:

Oh! bid me not recall the past, Though calm appear my features now Hid though from sight the fevered blast, That caused the spirit's overthrow.

'Tis not in mortal power again Youth's buoyant transport to recall; 'Tis hushed--forever hushed--the strain That could with Schilling the heart enthral.

Visions of truth have passed me by, Mocking the sense, with shapes unreal, Filling each pulse with melody, Thrilling the heart with joys ideal.

And freedom, independence, love. In dreams have risen to my sight-- In dreams essayed my heart to prove. They vanished at return of light.

And earth is all unholy now. Venal its joys!--its highest bliss To lay that false ideal low-- To crush the hope of happiness.

Love gone! one wish doth yet remain-- One thought the maddened brain to whet: Joy vanished! Its fell rival--pain-- Forbids the spirit to forget.

Pain, pain triumphant, speaks of power To seize the serpent's foulest sting. Therewith to bid the tyrant cower. Back to return the poisoned spring.

Yes! I'll unveil those mocking forms, Those shapes of grace, all seat from hell; I will reveal the latent storms That 'neath the placid surface dwell.

Thus proudly I'll unveil deceit; Thus fearfully I'll stifle pain-- The mask torn off--made known the cheat-- Ne'er shall the false one rest again!

With trust destroyed, with pleasure gone, Earth yields the soul no fitting mate; But standing fearless and alone The vengeful spirit lives--_to hate_.

{341}

The emphasis that was given to this wild song struck terror to the hearts of the hearers, especially as the singer himself seemed frantic with excitement When it was finished a pause ensued, as if all present wanted to take breath; and Sir Philip found voice to say:

"Why, where on earth, Brookbank, did you learn such a ditty as that? You have absolutely frightened the young ladies; they think you half mad, yourself."

"It is the lay of a madman in good earnest," said Alfred, "he who composed it was crazed by disappointed love; I sing it now and then as a warning to young ladies not to be too cruel."

He looked round the room for Annie as he spoke; but Annie was no longer there; every line of that song had spoken volumes to her, in telling her what a bitter enemy she had raised, and as the last word vibrated on the singer's lips, she left the apartment. When she returned she was very pale. She felt conscious that Alfred was watching her every movement, and that feeling made her miserable.

TO BE CONTINUED.

From Chambers's Journal.

AUTUMN.

Autumn is dying, alas! Sweet Autumn is near to her death; All through the night may be felt her languid scented breath Coming and going in gasps long-drawn by the shivering trees, Out on the misty moors, and down by the dew-drenched leas.

Autumn is dying, alas! Her face grows pallid and gray; The healthy flush of her prime is momently fading away; And her sunken cheeks are streaked with a feverish hectic red, As she gathers the falling leaves, and piles them about her bed.

Autumn is dying, alas! Her bosom is rifled and bare; Gone is the grain and the fruit, and the flowers out of her hair, Whilst her faded garment of green is blown about in the lanes, And her ancient lover, the Sun, looks coldly down on her pains.

Autumn is dying, alas! She lies forlorn and alone; The little chorusing birds have a broken, unhappy tone As they fly in a crowd to the hedge when the evening mists arise, To curtain the bed of death, and shadow the closing eyes.

Autumn is dying, alas! But to-night the silent cloud, Dropping great tears of rain, will come and make her a shroud, Winding it this way and that, tenderly round and around, Then catch her away in its arms from the damp, unwholesome ground.

Autumn is dead, alas! Why alas? All her labor is done, Perfected, finished, complete, 'neath the wind and the rain and the sun; All the earth is enriched--the garners of men run o'er; There is food for man and beast, and the stranger that begs at the door.

Look to thy life, O man! Swiftly approaches the night; Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might. Labor right on to the end: let thy works go forth abroad; Then turn thy face to the sky, and enter the "joy of thy Lord."

{342}

From The Dublin Review.

PROTESTANT PROSELYTISM IN EASTERN LANDS [Footnote 103]

[Footnote 103: 1. The Gospel in Turkey, being "the Tenth and Eleventh Annual Reports of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society." Published at the Society's Office, 7 Adam Street, W.C.; at Nisbet's; and Hatchard's, London. 1864-5

2. The Lebanon: a History and a Diary. By David Urquhart. London; Newby. 1860.

3. Journal of a Tour in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece. By James Laird Patterson. M.A. London: Dolman. 1852.

4. Prospectus of "the Syrian Protestant College." Issued by "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society." London. 1865.]

There are few impartial and well-informed Protestants who will not confess that their missions throughout the world have invariably proved to be utter failures. No matter to what sect or denomination they belong, or from what country or association their funds are derived, Protestant missionaries, as preachers of that gospel about which they speak so much, never have converted, and we believe never will, convert the heathen save by units and driblets, hardly worthy of mention. In India, in Turkey, in Africa, among the South-Sea Islanders, and the Red Indians of America, the result of Protestant missionary labor is the same wherever it has been tried. The people to whom their missionaries are sent may, and often do, become more or less civilized from intercourse with educated men, and often learn from those who wish to teach them higher matters, some of the arts and appliances of European life. Some few certainly embrace what their preachers deem to be Christianity; and occasionally, but very seldom, small communities of nominal Christians are formed by them. But to bring whole regions of the inhabitants to the foot of the cross--to convert whole nations to Christianity--to prove that their converts have embraced a system in which a man must do what is right as well as believe what is true--are triumphs which have hitherto been reserved for the Catholic Church, and for her alone.

But, even humanly speaking--and quite apart from all considerations of the truth as existing only in the ark which our Lord himself built--can we wonder at these results? Are there any who have sojourned in, or even past through the lands where missionaries of both religions work, and have not compared the Catholic priest with the Protestant minister who has come out to preach the gospel in those countries? Take, for instance, and up-country station in British India. Is there a Protestant missionary in the place? If so, he is a man with considerably more than the mere script and staff of apostolic days in his possession. As wealth goes among Englishmen in the East, he is perhaps not rich; but he is nevertheless quite at his ease, and certainly wanting for nothing. He has his comfortable bungalow; his wife and children are with him; the modest one-horse carriage is not wanting for the evening drive of himself and family; nor is the furniture of his house such as any man of moderate means need despise. He has a regular income from the society he represents; and his allowances are generally such as, with a little care, will allow of his living in great comfort. And, finally, if he falls sick, too sick to remain in the country, the means of taking him home again to England or America are forthcoming at a moment's notice. He is generally a good linguist; for having nothing else to do daring six days of the week, he devotes much of his time to the study of the vernacular. {343} He is respected by the European officers of the station; for he is often the only person they ever see in the shape of a clergyman. He is almost always an honest, upright man, with little or no knowledge of the world, and, if possible, less of the natives to whom he is sent to preach. This, however, does not matter; for, except among his own personal servants, he makes no converts, and has but few hearers. There is no positive harm in him, but as little active good. He is a fair sample of a pious-minded Calvinist, but is certainly no missionary, as Catholics understand the word. So far from having given up anything to come out to India, both he, his wife, and his--generally very numerous--offspring are much better off than if he had remained in his native Lanarkshire or Pennsylvania. If he belongs to the Church of England, he is very often a German by birth, and appears to have "taken orders" in the establishment without having for a moment abandoned his own peculiar theological views. Some few Englishmen--literates, hardly ever University men--are to be found here and there, as English Church missionaries; but these are and far between, nor do their labors often show greater results than those of their Presbyterian fellow-laborers. Even Dr. Littledale [Footnote 104] speaks of "_the pitiful history of Anglican missions to the heathen_;" and he might with great truth have extended his verdict to the missions of every other denomination of Protestantism.

[Footnote 104: See The Missionary Aspect of Ritualism, in the Church and the World. (London: Longmans.)]

In contrast to the Protestant, take the European Catholic missionary in the East, as apart from the native-born priest. He is invariably a volunteer for the work, either a monk or a secular priest, who aspiring to more severe labor in his Master's vineyard, has chosen the hard and rugged path of a preacher of the gospel in pagan lands. As a general rule, you will probably find him living in an humble room in the native bazaar, and depending for his daily bread upon the charity of his flock, or the contributions of any English Catholic officer or civilian who may happen to be in the neighborhood. He is Catholic in his nation as in his creed; for you may find him French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish, Irish, or English. The present writer has met a French nobleman and the son of a wealthy Yorkshire squire laboring and preaching as Jesuit Missionaries to the natives of India and the poor Irish soldiers who form so large a portion of every garrison in that country. Is it, then, to be wondered at if, notwithstanding their superior means and far greater worldly "respectability," the Protestant missionaries do not succeed as ours do; or rather, that whereas our missions are never without fruit, theirs seldom show forth even a few sickly leaves? But the simple fact is, the missionary spirit--or rather the spirit which leads a man, if he believes that duty to God calls him to abandon family, wealth, comfort, health, nay, life itself--never has, and never can be, understood by Protestants, whether climbing the heights of ritualism, or sunk in the depths of Socinianism. Catholics are often angry with Protestants, because the latter are uncharitable respecting monks, priests, and nuns. Catholics are wrong in being angry. Hardly any person who is not a Catholic can understand the spirit which moves men and women to make such sacrifices for the love of God, and counts the loss as so much gain. The very idea of these acts is to him as color to one who has been blind from his birth: he not only cannot understand it, but you cannot explain it to him. This is a truth to which every convert will bear testimony, after his eyes have been opened to the truths of God's one and only Church, and which even few of those who have been Catholic from their youth upward can realize.

But notwithstanding "the pitiful history" of Protestant missions to the heathen, the work of these gentlemen in that direction is not deserving of {344} other sentiment than that of pity. If men will labor in fields where they can bring forth no harvest, and if others will pay them for doing no good, the affair is theirs, not ours. They never can do harm to the Church in those regions, for they achieve neither good nor evil to any one, further than by giving the natives in places where there are no Catholic missionaries a very erroneous idea as to what the duties of a Christian teacher ought to be. Not so, however, in those countries where Protestantism has sent its emissaries to undermine the faith which flourished among the inhabitants centuries before the very name of Protestant was known or heard of. To help such undertakings, "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society" was established and is kept up, and it is to the two reports of that society at the head of the list of works under notice, that we would call the especial attention of Protestants, even more than Catholics, throughout England.

The "Laws and Regulations" of "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society" are divided into nine clauses, and in the second of these we are told that--

"The object of this society is not to originate a new mission, but to aid existing evangelical missions in the Turkish empire, especially the American."

What these "evangelicals" missions are, and to whom the "American" missionaries are sent, we shall see presently. As a matter of course, the society is supported by the very cream of "evangelical" Protestantism, having Lord Shaftesbury for its President, Lord Ebury as Vice-President, and Mr. Kinnaird as Treasurer. The subscriptions are very large indeed, and from the "statement" furnished by the report for 1864-65, we find that no less a sum than £24,672 5_s_, has been sent out to the East for "native agencies" alone, since the commencement of the society, now about eleven years ago; this, of course, being all in addition to the very heavy sums and comfortable salaries furnished by the American society, called the Board of Foreign Missions, by which these missions and missionaries are maintained.

It would appear that the "fields" occupied by these American missions are five in number, and the present condition of them is thus summarized in the eleventh, the latest, annual report, now before us:

[Transcriber's note: The column titles are abbreviated as follows: MS.--Missionaries NA.--Native assistance SAOS.--Stations and Outstations CH.--Churches CM.--Church Members SCH.--Schools ASA.--Average Sabbath Attendance SMF.--Scholars male and female]

Fields MS. NA. SAOS. CH. CM. SCH. ASA. SMF.

Western 45 73 45 19 512 37 1569 1615 Turkey

Central 19 54 27 14 998 26 3125 1717 Turkey

Eastern 21 74 50 14 403 51 2201 1889 Turkey

Syrian 24 37 22 8 200 25 650 548

Nestorian 16 81 36 0 529 0 3000 0

Total 125 320 120 55 2642 139 10545 5100

These "missions" have been at work, some more, some less time; but a fair average for the whole would be about twenty-five years. It will be observed that in the five "fields" there are but 2,642 "church members," or what, among Catholics, would be termed communicants. The individuals who come under the head of "Average Sabbath Attendance," can no more be termed Protestant then his grace the duke of Sutherland can be called a Catholic because he was present at the funeral of Cardinal Wiseman. But we will grant, for the sake of argument, that the 2,642 "church members" are earnest, consistent Protestants. If so, and taking into calculation only the funds furnished by the Turkish Missions-Aid Society, as quoted above, these converts I'm not very valuable, for they have only cost something less than ten pounds each. But if to the £24,672 5_s_., we add all that the American Board of Missions has paid in the same period as salaries for missionaries, for "native assistants," for schoolmasters, rents, building of churches, printing, books, and the passage-money of missionaries and their families to and from the East, we shall find that there is not one of these individuals whose conversion has not one way and another cost around three thousand pounds. At this price {345} they ought to be staunch anti-papists, for their religion has been a very high-priced article.

Let us turn for a moment to the second book on the list at the head of this article. No one who has read a line of the well-known Mr. Urquhart's many writings on political questions, will ever accuse him of Catholic tendency on any subject. He is not a bigot, indeed; nor, again, does he ever defendant the past history of Protestantism, for he is too well read to uphold what every honest man, with the knowledge of an ordinary school-boy, must condemn. In oriental matters, moreover, Mr. Urquhart has his peculiar views; but as these have nothing whatever to do with the questions of Protestant and Catholic, missionary or non-missionary, we may fairly accept what he says on the subject as the testimony of an impartial witness. Here, then, is what he writes respecting the Catholic clergy and the sectarian missionaries in Syria and Mount Lebanon:

"The Roman Catholic regular and secular clergy are established here as in any other Roman Catholic country; that is to say, they are pastors of flocks, and not missionaries, The Protestants have no flocks, and _they are sent with a view to creating them_. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS are yearly subscribed in the United States for that object, and the missionaries come here having to justify the salaries they receive."--_The Lebanon_, vol. ii. p. 78.

The italics in the above quotation are our own, and we have thus marked the words in order to draw attention to what every traveller in the East, not that with the "pure gospel" media, has borne testimony. But let us return once more to the "statement" of the five missionary "fields" occupied by the Americans in the East. Mr. Urquhart would never make an assertion like the above without chapter and verse for what he says; and when the writes that TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDS POUNDS are yearly subscribed in the United States to support their missionaries in the East, we may very safely consider the statement to be true. We cannot, however, suppose that for this enormous sum the missions in Syria only are meant, for then each one of the two hundred "church members" with which that land is blessed would cost a small fortune in himself. But at the same time it is impossible not to allow that he must mean the American missionary establishments in the East generally--the five "fields," of which a "statement" has been copied above, and the total of whose "church members" amounts to 2,642. And even with this calculation it will be seen that every Protestant communicant costs the pretty little _annual_ sum of about £9 10_s_. for his conversion, and subsequent religious instruction. We are given to finding fault, and not unnaturally so, with the cost of the Established Church in Ireland; but what is this when compared with the price of the "Gospel in Turkey"? It is doubtful whether--apart, perhaps, from some other Protestant missionary "field" of which we are yet ignorant--the religious instruction of any people in the known world costs as much. It is as if each ten individuals had a curate entirely to themselves, and each hundred "church members" a very well-paid private Anglican rector of their own. No wonder that we are told the Syrian Protestant converts think highly of their new creed, "the Gospel of Christ," as it is modestly called. In a country where everything is more or less measured by a monetary standard, a convert for whose spiritual well-being £9 10_s_. per annum is paid must believe himself to be in a state of exaltation, considering that had he remained in his own church, his Maronite, Greek, Greek Catholic, or Armenian priest--having to say mass every day, to attend to some one or two thousand parishioners probably scattered over a large district--would consider himself very fortunate indeed if he had a stipend of two thousand piastres a year, or about £20, of which more than half would be paid in corn, oil, or fruits. {346} The fathers of the Jesuit mission in Syria are allowed a thousand francs, £40, for the travelling expenses, clothing, table, etc., of each priest when engaged on missionary work away from the house of his community; how, then, is it that the American missionaries cost so very much more? We will take up our quotation from Mr. Urquhart again, at the point where we left off:

"They (the American missionaries) have town-house and country-house, horses to ride and an establishment and a table which speaks well for the taste of the citizens of the United States. These are results obtained by exertion and combination, and which, affording enjoyment in their possession, prompt to efforts for their retention. The persons thus raised to affluence and consideration in a fine and luxurious climate would have to sink back to hard conditions of life, if not to want and destitution. This relapse presents itself as the consequence of failing in the creating of congregations, or at least of supplying to those who subscribe the funds plausible grounds for expecting that the consummation was near. Looking at the country, nothing can be more painful and more hopeless than the contest: nowhere is an ear open. As to converting the Turks, they might just as well try to convert the Archbishop of Canterbury.

* * * * * *

"As to converting the Jews, it would be much better for the United States to send missionaries to Monmouth-street. There remain, then, but the Maronite, the Greek, the Greek Catholic, Armenian, and Nestorian churches, that is to say Christians, to convert. From the pre-existing animosities among the Christians, the missionaries could not so much as open their mouths to any of the members of these communities on the subject of religion, and therefore it is a totally different course that they have adopted. They have offered themselves as schoolmasters; not as persons depending for remuneration on their claims to the confidence of parents, and on their proficiency; but supplying instruction gratuitously, and adding thereto remuneration to the scholars in various shapes. Their admission in this form has been forced upon the people by the Turkish government. The condition, however, has been appended to it, that they should not attempt to interfere with the religious belief of the pupils. This has been going on for years; the money continuing to be supplied on the grounds that Protestant congregations are being created, and the proceeds enjoyed by the missionaries on their undertaking that they shall not create them.

"The statistical under-current is, however, veiled or disguised from the men (the missionaries) themselves. The one generation has, so to say, succeeded the other. The new men come out occupied with their zeal, not caring critically to examine the position in which they stand, in entering at once on a contest already engaged. They are filled with contempt for everything around them; and to religious zeal, itself a sufficiently active impulse, is superadded the necessity of furnishing reports for public meetings and periodicals in America--reports which, failing to contain statements proselytes secured, have at last to supply narratives of contests undertaken and martyrdom endured."--_The Lebanon_, vol. ii. pp. 79, 80.

Our author has, in the foregoing paragraph, certainly touch most of the weak points of Protestant missionary working. Even a cursory analysis of the reports before thus confirm every word of this quotation from his book. Like every Protestant account of missionary work, the Turkish Missions-Aid Society's Reports are interlarded with scriptural quotations, having always the same significance--that the time for seeing the results of the labor has not yet come, but soon will be; or, as Mr. Urquhart puts it, they supply to those who subscribe the funds, plausible grounds for expecting that the consummation is near.

Some years ago, a grand case of _quasi_ martyrdom was reported that Exeter Hall, and must have been worth much money to the societies who furnish missionary funds for the East, both in England and America. It was the cause of many questions being asked, and much correspondence being furnished, in both Houses of Parliament. Dispatches were written, the Turkish Government threatened, and the life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who was then our representative at the Porte, made a burden to him for a time with extra work. The story was that some American Protestant missionaries, when "preaching the Gospel" on Mount Lebanon, were stoned and otherwise ill-treated, being finally turned out of the village in which they resided; some of them being badly wounded. The tale was well told, but, like other histories of the kind, was allowed to the forgotten {347} as soon as it had served its purpose. Here is Mr. Urquhart's version of the affair, gathered as it was in the country itself, is not unlikely to prove the true version of the story:

"The missionaries arriving at Eden (a village not far from the celebrated cedars of Lebanon, the inhabitants consisting entirely of Maronite Catholics) entered a house, and disposed themselves to occupy it. The master of the house told them that he would not and could not receive them. They persisted, threatening him in the name of the Turkish authorities. A great commotion ensued, and the people, with the fear of the Turkish authorities before their eyes, devised a plan for dislodging the missionaries by unroofing the house. A roof in the Lebanon is not composed of tiles and rafters; to touch a roof is a very serious affair, not to be undertaken in wantonness. The people had the satisfaction of seeing the missionaries mount and depart without any act on their part which would expose them to after-retribution."--_The Lebanon_, vol ii. p. 82.

I said before, Mr. Urquhart is one of the very last men who could be accused of any leaning toward Catholicism, still less of any affection toward the native Christian population of Syria and Lebanon. Of this his volumes bear witness in every chapter. But in a dozen instances he proves what we have so often heard asserted by travellers returned from these regions, that the people do not want, and do not wish for, the American missionaries, and would far rather be without them. Also that wherever these Protestant apostles are located, their presence is a continual source of trouble and annoyance, by causing quarrels among the people, and that their sojourn in the land is most certainly not conducive either to the glory of God on high, or of peace on earth to men of good will. That their so-called mission has been a most complete religious _fiasco_, is pretty well proved by the returns which at page 308 we copy from these reports. If the reader will but turn back to it, he will find that with twenty-four missionaries and thirty-seven native assistants, the number of "church members" in the Syrian "field" amounts to no more than two hundred, and this after the Americans have worked as missionaries in this "field" for the last quarter of a century or more. Surely no clearer proof than this is wanting for endorsing what Mr. Urquhart has said above respecting the way and the reason why these religious undertakings are puffed up, and "plausible grounds" given for expecting that the consummation of "gospel" triumph is at hand.

There is, perhaps, no Christian population in the world more united as a body, more attached to their clergy, more faithful in their holding to the See of Peter, or more orthodox in every particle of their faith, than the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. To illustrate, even in the most superficial manner, the history and ritual of this singular people would extend this paper far beyond our limits. Suffice it to say that upward of ONE THOUSAND years before the discovery of America, the holy sacrifice of the mass was offered up in their churches, and matins, lauds, vespers, and complins sung every morning and evening in their sanctuaries, just as at the present day. Their name is derived from that of St. Maroun, a holy hermit, who, in the fourth century, when the heresies of Eutyches and the errors of Monothelism were so common throughout the East, preserved the inhabitants of Lebanon and the adjacent parts from those influences. "The Maronites," says Mgr. Patterson, in his work, which is the third on our list at the head of this paper,--

"The Maronites maintain that they have never swerved from the Catholic faith, and love to assert that their Patriarch is the only one whose spiritual lineage from St. Peter, in the see of Antioch, has been unbroken by the taint of heresy or schism." (P. 389.)

Their secular clergy number about 1,200, and the regulars, inhabiting sixty-seven monasteries, comprise some 1,400 monks, priests, and lay brothers. They have besides fifteen convents, in which there are about 300 nuns.

{348}

"The blessings of education (continues the same author) are widely diffused among the Maronites. Almost all are able to read and write; and though few even of the clergy can be called learned, they are all sufficiently instructed in the most necessary things, and especially in the practical knowledge of their faith. Offences are rare among them, crimes almost unknown. The number of the Maronites of Lebanon appears to be about 250,000. In 1180, William of Tyre estimated them at more than 40,000; in 1784 Volney placed them at 115,000; and Perrier, in 1840, at 220,000. Elsewhere they are hardly to be found; the largest number I know of is at Cyprus, where there are about 1,500. A few also are found at Aleppo and Damascus, and some at Cyprus.

* * * * *

"There are (among the Maronites of Lebanon) four principal colleges for the education of the clergy. The most ancient is that of Ain Warka, in which between thirty and forty pupils are educated. They are taught Arabic (their vernacular), Syriac, which is the liturgical language of this rite; logic, moral theology, Italian, and Latin. Six exhibitions for the maintenance of as many scholars at the College of Propaganda were attached to this college. At the time of the first French occupation of Rome, the funds which provided for them were seized, and have never been restored; but the pupils still go to Rome, and many of them are to be met with in the higher ranks of the Maronite clergy." (P. 388.)

It is then to turn this people, and these priests, from the faith which they have so long and so honestly held, and from the spiritual paths in which they have walked for at least fifteen hundred years, that respectable black-coated American gentlemen, whose experience of life has been confined to Boston or New York, are sent over and maintained by the funds furnished by the zealous evangelicals of England and the United States. No wonder if those to whom they come would rather be without them. With the people whom they are sent to "convert" they have not a single idea in common. The very vernacular of the country has to be studied and learnt by them (an undertaking of at least two or three years, as Arabic is perhaps the most difficult language in the world for an adult to acquire a proficiency in), before they can preach or even converse with those whom they wish to teach what they themselves deem, the truths of eternal life. Without the most remote approach to a thing like a ritual, and without even the barest liturgy to recommend them, they come among a people who from very very infancy are perhaps more familiar with the meaning and teaching of earnest ritualism than any nation on earth. Mr. Urquhart, in the quotation we have given elsewhere, says of the American missionaries, that "as to converting the Turks, they might just as well try to convert the Archbishop of Canterbury;" might he not have said the same as to the converting of the Maronites? From the 200 "church members," which the returns of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society state as the result of the "missionary" labor on the Syrian "field" during the quarter of a century and more which the work has been going on, if we deduct the personal servants of the twenty-four missionaries, and of thirty-seven native assistants, how many will then be left as real, true, and earnest converts from their own faith to that which the American missionaries would teach them? "It has to be observed," says Mr. Urquhart, "that the proselytism carried on is not, as is supposed in Europe, against unbelievers, but between Christians;" [Footnote 105] and surely here is proselytism of the kind forced upon a people against their will, by the inhabitants of another far-off country, who would do very much better if they spent their yearly £25,000 among themselves, in "converting" the thousands of worse than pagans to be seen daily in the streets of every great town of England and America, and whose "faith" is from time to time shown in their "works."

[Footnote 105: The Lebanon, vol ii. p.79.]

We have no desire to hold up to the ridicule they deserve the absurd canting sentences and so-called scriptural ejaculations with which the of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society is interlarded. All who have perused similar documents must be well acquainted with the way in which {349} verses from Holy Writ are made to serve _£. s. d._ by the writer. Nor do we wish to make our readers laugh I reproduce some of the "pious" anecdotes which are to be met with in these pages. Thus it may, or may not, be true that at Nicomedia "a few years ago all was darkness and bigotry;" but it can hardly be taken what the French would call "_au sérieux_" that two Armenian priests in this locality were "awakened" by reading an Armeno-Turkish translation of The Dairyman's Daughter, and that, since the conversion of these gentlemen, a flourishing church, with a large congregation, has been gathered together, and a home mission formed to carry the Gospel to the towns and villages around. [Footnote 106] Also, from a personal knowledge of the facts, we permit ourselves to doubt whether the so-called "missionary" work in Constantinople has been, to say the least of it, judiciously carried on; and whether, about two years ago, the zeal without knowledge on the part of the missionaries did not very nearly cause a rising of the whole Mahometan population, and a general massacre of all the Christian population in that city. Nor--on the testimony of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and other Protestants--can we subscribe to the eulogium sung in praise of "the excellent Bishop Gobat." We have far more serious matters to deal with as regards the American missions in Syria and the East, and of which, if they are in the least degree consistent, Protestants more than Catholics whom it really does does not concern, would do well to take heed.

[Footnote 106: See Tenth Annual Report of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society. p. 10.]

In the appendix to his "Tour," Mgr. Patterson has, with a fairness and impartiality of judgment which cannot the too highly praised, investigated the question as to what it is that the native Protestants in the East really believe with the process of their so-called "conversion" is complete. And it may not be out of place here to that mention that the present writer, who has lately returned from a residence of nearly ten years in those countries, entirely and to the letter agrees with what this author has stated. Were it allowable to mention names, he could also adduce the authority of many Englishmen who have resided in Smyrna, Constantinople, Beyrout, Damascus, the Lebanon, and other parts of the East, all of them Protestants, most of them attending every Sunday the English ministrations of the American missionaries, and some of them even communicants in their churches. The evidence of these is varied in different points, but, as a whole, certain pages of Dr. Patterson's appendix might serve as a precis of the various opinions which these gentlemen have spoken, and which the writer himself has formed during his prolonged residence in the East. Be it, however, noted, that the objections here raised are not against the American missionaries themselves, but against the result of their labors, as well as against those of other Protestant missionaries-- wherever throughout these lands their labors have produced any fruit whatever in the shape of "converts."

"Most true it is," says Mgr. Patterson, "that though large sums are expended yearly by Protestants for their missions, the result is nevertheless small indeed; but yet a great work is being done (I sincerely think unintentionally) by those establishments. _The faith of hundreds and thousands in their own religion is being shaken, without any other faith being substituted for it_. [Footnote 107] The missionaries' reports are full of expressions to the effect that many persons come to them, declaring their readiness to hear what they had to say, and their disbelief of their own national or common faith; and yet the 'converts' registered by themselves may be told in units, or at most by tens. Accordingly, I never came in contact with 'liberals' in politics or religion, whether Jew, Christian, or Gentile, who did not commence the conversation (on the supposition that I was a Protestant) by declaring their disbelief of this or that current dogma of their faith; and in all such cases I found I was expected, at a _Protestant_ to applaud {350} and admire their lamentable condition of mind. I repeat, most emphatically, that I never saw a single person of this description who had one doctrine to _affirm_. The work of the Protestant missions is simply descriptive. In Turkey it is detaching Mohammedan subjects from their allegiance to their spiritual and temporal head; in Greece it is introducing the mind of youth to the conceit of private judgment; in Egypt it does the same for the Copts; and in Mesopotamia for the Nestorians. The missionaries report that, among the Jews, they prefer to have to do with the rationalists rather than with the Talmudists; and acting on that principle everywhere, they first make a _tabula rasa_ of minds, on which they never afterward succeed in inscribing the laws of sincere faith or consistent practice." (P. 456.)

[Footnote 107: The italics an our own, and we give them to mark the pith of the whole question, with which nearly all Protestants, as well as every Catholic we have met, that have inhabited Syria, Palestine, or the Holy Land for any time, most fully concur.]

Here, then, we have, in a few words, an account of what the teachings of the Protestant missionaries in the East result in. They take away the faith that is in these people, and give them nothing in return. [Footnote 108] In other and plainer words, the end of all this teaching, and preaching, and denouncing of "popish" doctrines, is simple unbelief or infidelity, embellished with Scriptural verses and the current cant of the evangelical school. Do the subscribers to the Turkish Missions-Aid Society contemplate this as one of the results of their liberal donations? Is _this_ what the society put forth so boldly as the "Gospel in Turkey?" Is it for such a change that the traditions mounting to within less than four hundred years of our Lord's sojourn on earth, preserved as they are by a people living in the land which he inhabited, are to be cast off? Surely, even from the most enthusiastic of the evangelical school, these questions can have but one answer. [Footnote 109]

[Footnote 108: An English official who had resided upward of twenty-five years in Syria, and who is a very earnest Protestant, told the present writer exactly the same. "The American missionaries," he said, "destroy the faith these native Christians had, but give them no other in return. The consequence is, that they invariably become more rationalists."]

[Footnote 109: About four years ago, a party of English travelers were journeying over Mount Lebanon. While halting at a roadside "khan," they were accosted by a native who spoke English very well. They asked him who he was, and where he had learnt their language. He said he was, or had been, servant to one of the American missionaries, naming the gentleman, and that he was "a good Protestant." One of the ladies present put a few questions to him, and among others, asked him what he now believed of the Virgin Mary? "_That_ for the Virgin Mary," said the miscreant, spitting at the same time, and using an Arabic gesture indicating the utmost contempt. The lady--an Anglican, not a Catholic--of course dropped the conversation, feeling too disgusted to continue it. Some days afterward she related that anecdote to the wife of an American missionary; but the latter was not at all shocked, merely making the remark. "I guess the the man had got rid of his old superstitions." Is this what they call evangelizing the native Christians?]

And let not the subject be either misunderstood or blinked. Take any dozen Englishmen really conversant with the ways of the country and the ideas of the inhabitants; let them all the Protestants, and even be of those who, finding no other Protestant ministration, attend the chapels of the American missionaries. Of the twelve, certainly nine will tell you that, although well-meaning and honest made in their way, the preaching of the Protestant missionaries in the East holes down but never builds up belief, and that in sober truth the native Protestant "converts" are but so many free-thinkers--theoretical Christians, but practical infidels. There is, with respect to this part of our subject, one more extract from Mgr. Patterson's book, [Footnote 110] which, although somewhat lengthy, we find so much to the purpose, with respect to some of the questions of the day, that we copy it entire:--

[Footnote 110: No one interested in the present spiritual state of the East should be without this volume, and every traveller to Palestine--Catholic or Protestant--should take it with him.]

"The Protestant sects of the West (says our author) are represented in the East by missions of several denominations; but since they all represent but one principle, namely the denegation of spiritual authority as the basis of belief, it is unnecessary to to distinguish them here. At first sight it might appear that the Episcopalians, or representatives of the Anglican establishment, should command a distinct notice, since they have one point (that of episcopal superintendence) in common with the Eastern sects; but when is considered, not merely that the fact of their having real bishops is denied by all sects of the East, [Footnote 111] as well as by the Catholic Church, {351} but that they themselves entirely repudiate any claims which might be founded on their supposed possession of an apostolic commission and authority through the episcopate; and when, moreover, it is remembered that a few persons who think differently on these points are wholly unrepresented in the East, it seems evident that the distinction would be unreal. Further, the Protestant missions in the East are mainly supplied by ministers in the communion of the Establishment in England, but often not episcopally appointed or ordained, and in all cases a perfect the equality is admitted between such as are so appointed and those who are not. Hence the Anglo-Lutheran 'Episcopalians,' the independents, the American Congregationalists, etc., act in unison, and on one principle. They teach that the belief they advocate in certain doctrines is to be acquired by each individual through a perusal of certain writings, and must be held by him as the result of convictions proceeding from his own investigation of those writings, which they assert to be the inspired word of God. This procedure they call 'the right of private judgment.'

[Footnote 111: This, be it remembered, was written in 1852, ten years before the recent attempt at union on the part of certain Anglicans with the Greek Church. What Mgr. Patterson says is the simple truth, and is confirmed by numerous conversations which the present writer had, during a ten years' residence with several patriarchs and numerous bishops, priests, and deacons of the Greek, Armenian, Nestorian, Copt, and Jacobite sects. All these clergy hate the very name of Rome, but they acknowledge she has real bishops and a real priesthood; while one and all deny that the Anglican Church as neither. The English Book of Common Prayer, translated into Arabic, is very often met with throughout the East, but it does not appear to have impressed the Oriental Churches, whether in communion with the See of Peter or not, very favorably respecting the Established Church of this country. The Thirty-nine Articles they regard with especial horror, as showing the church to be heretical at core. Nor have the members of the Anglican Church and Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem done much to remove this impression, but rather the contrary.]

"But the very terms of the Protestant principle, thus represented, involve, not merely a disregard of existing authorities, but also of that which presents that system for the acceptance of Eastern Christians. Those, however, who advocate its claims are not usually to be bound by the laws of consistency in logic. Though they will have every man to read the Sacred Scriptures (that is, _their_ version of them) and to judge for himself, they have also a few doctrines, built on them, as they suppose, to which they attach an importance equal to that ascribed by Catholics to the dogmas of faith. Of these, the chief is what they term 'justification by faith only' the doctrine which teaches that man is accounted (but not made) fit for eternal life in the divine presence, by a _subjective_ act or sentiment of the mind, called by them 'faith.' This 'faith' is not the 'faith' of theological writers, but a persuasion, or enthusiastic feeling, on the part of the individual, that he is saved from eternal death by sacrifice of the cross. Laying such stress as this view does on a persuasion, or feeling of the mind, it might be expected that other acts of the mind would be regarded by those teachers as of cognate importance. With singular inconsistency, however, they regard all such acts, whether of love, hope, or fear, or the like, as not only unimportant or indifferent, but even sinful in fact or tendency. The one operation of the soul to which they attach salvation is that of persuasion that itself is saved. To account for so arbitrary a distinction, they allege that this persuasion is not a natural gift, but a divine grace--or, rather, the divine grace; for in it are contained, and from it flow, all those good results which Catholic writers call 'graces;' such as humility, charity, hope, etc. This extraordinary and almost inexplicable doctrine, they consider not only conveyed in Holy Scripture, but the whole sum and substance of its teachings; and they allege portions of the epistles of St. Paul, in which he declares that man is not justified by works, done irrespectively of the divine sacrifice of the cross, to prove that all works or acts of the mind (saving always the one act of persuasion, which they call 'faith') are valueless and ineffectual to work out salvation. The teachers of this view among us are often pious persons, who act morally from natural good feelings; but the Eastern mind is too consistent and too voluptuous to imitate them. If it is possible, they say, to attain salvation by means of a sentiment so pleasant, we regard it as quite unnecessary to add to it supererogatory performances disagreeable to our inclinations." (P. 453.)

Here, in sober fact, and if we will only give things their right names, is one of the chief reasons of such "conversions" as take place in the East to Protestantism. An oriental mind is difficult to fathom at once; but take any of the professed Protestants in Syria or other parts of Turkey, clear away all the rubbish they have learnt to talk in imitation of their new teachers--separate if you can (and it is merely a matter of time and patience) all the prating about "the Lord Jesus," and "the blessed Scriptures," the "teaching of the Spirit," and suchlike spiritual mouthings, from what are the actual thoughts of the individual and the real reasons for his change, and you will invariably find at the bottom of his mind the all-prevailing idea, that of what use are confession, penance, private prayer, fasting, giving alms, and other good works, when salvation can be accomplished by the far more easy and pleasant process of a mere sentiment of the mind, which any man can train his understanding into believing when he wishes to do so. And these, be it understood, are the best of the converts. As Mgr. Patterson says of them:--

{352}

"Such persons as I am alluding to have really embraced the principle on which Protestantism rests. They have thrown off the authority of their own belief, not to accept the formula of another, but to reject all authority. They are like the German 'philosophic' Protestants, or the French universitaries of the West--their conduct is often irreproachable, but their belief is a blank, and their principles distinctly Antinomian, even when they themselves do not put them in practice. I maintain that to one class or other of these all the proselytes made to Protestanism in the East belong. They are either worthless persons, who are happy to substitute an easy-simulated sentiment for whatever amount of discipline their communion imposed, or they are 'philosophers,' sceptics, and infidels. The reports of these allegations, and the existing state of religious and political parties in the East, give scope for these results." (P. 453.)

There are, however, two other reasons, which also act powerfully upon such natives of the East as come under the influence of Protestant missionary teaching, and of which when they have abandoned their own creed, they take especial pride in the possession. The one is the notion which they imbibe from certain misquotations of Holy Writ, as well as from ill-judged (even looking at it from a Protestant point of view) teaching on the part of their new pastors; namely, that every man is "a priest unto God," and that once a Protestant and a "church-member," they are as high in spiritual rank, and far superior in "saving faith" to those whom they formerly regarded and respected as their clergy. The idea is, of course, utterly false, and childish in the extreme, to our views. But the native mind can only be judged by its own standards of worth, and the fact remains as we have said. That the Protestant missionaries would knowingly foster such notions it would be uncharitable to believe; but that such is another result of their teaching there can be no doubt whatever. The missionaries themselves, however, see very little indeed of their congregations, small as they are, save at prayer-meetings and preachings once or twice in that week. It is a curious fact, but one which has struck many even of those who have not yet found courage to knock and ask for admittance into the Catholic Church, that in proportion has a sect, or people, or nation, stray far from unity of the one true fold, so to their pastors and teachers neglect and despise that visiting and looking after their flocks, which forms with us such a prominent part of every parish priest's or missionary's duty. The High-Church Anglican Protestant clergymen--although still very far short of what is done by our clergy--come next to the Catholic priest in this work; and as we descend the scale of Protestantism, we find the practice more and more rare, until I the Socinians such acts of supererogation on the part of their preachers are never heard of. With Protestant missionaries in the East the practice is exceedingly rare: perhaps it is regarded as an infringement upon true religious liberty?

The third reason which has often--very generally, if not always--influence in making the native of Syria, Palestine, or other Eastern lands embrace Protestantism, is that when he has done so, the fact of his being a proselyte puts him indirectly under the "protection" of the English or American consul, if such an official there is--and there generally is one--within even a couple of days' journey from the convert's place of abode. Not that the individual is at once put on the rolls of the English or American subjects. Such was some years ago the practice; but now for very shame's sake this has been altered. But, as the English consuls-general, consuls, and vice-consuls have a sort of standing order to "protect" all Protestants against the tyranny or ill-usage of the local authorities; and as every native Protestant has nearly always some grievance which he makes out to be an injustice committed on him _because he is_ a Protestant, so his complaint invariably finds its way to the English consulate, and either the chief of the office or one of his native dragomen deems it imperative upon him to interfere, if not officially, at any rate officiously, with the pasha or other authority of the place. {353} As a matter of course the complaint is listened to, and--justice or not justice--the "protected" of the consul gets what he calls justice, but which his opponent often deems the very reverse. For, be it remarked, that, as a general rule in the East, "justice" means obtaining what you want, not what is yours by law or equity. Your complaint, and what in Europe we call justice, _may_ be on the same side. If so, all the better; but if not, you will term your view of the affair "justice" all the same; and, if you don't get what you want, you are unjustly treated. This sort of administration is but too often ruled by the consuls, and the "converts" know full well how to make use of it. No one who has not lived in the Turkish dominions can imagine the power which an European consul or vice-consul has in those countries. Mr. Urquhart has done good service in exposing this evil, which is, in point of fact, one of the chief reasons why the Ottoman Empire has been gradually but surely verging toward ruin since the foreign consular power became virtually far greater than that of the local authority. Of this interference of one country in the affairs of another, Mr. Urquhart says, it presents "a terrible prospect for the human race; for it involves the extinction of each people, and the absorption ultimately of the whole in some one government more dexterous than the rest." All the chief governments of Europe have been more or less guilty of this meddling with the executive of Turkey, but notably England, France, and Russia, in whose hands every local pasha is a plaything, to be tossed here and there at will. England says--or, rather, each English consul says for her--that he most interfere, else French influence would be too powerful in the province or district. France returns the compliment, and declares that England--that is, the English consul--is such a deep diplomat that, unless she uses her influence, England would be paramount in the place. Russia, on the other hand, declares that she must maintain her _prestige_, else the Turks would say of their old enemy that she had fallen in the scale of nations. This interference in the administration of the Ottoman empire is thus described by Mr. Urquhart:

"In other countries it has been known as diplomatic representations made in regard to principles; here (that is, in Turkey) it is administrative. It bears upon the taxes, the customs, the limitation of districts, the administrative functions, the parish business, the selection and displacement of functionaries, the operations of the courts of law--whatever is included under the word 'government' belongs here to 'interference.' This operation is exercised with authority, without control, without responsibility. The discussions in reference thereto are carried on between the functionaries of a foreign government; and as that foreign government can enter upon the field only by an act of usurpation, its position is that of an enemy. Every act is directed to subvert and to disturb; the object of each individual is of necessity to supersede the legitimate authority of the native functionary with whom he is in contact.

"Thus it is that the administrative interference, which has in Syria replaced the diplomatic, is carried on through consuls." (Vol ii. pp. 349, 360.)

Hitherto this work of "interference" has been carried on by our English consuls in Syria in very much the same way as it has by their Russian and French colleagues, no better, but no worse. At any rate, in all matters of influencing religious affairs, directly or indirectly, they have held perfectly aloof. But if we are to judge from a document lately put forth by the Turkish Missions-Aid Society, the title of which stands at the end of the list of books and pamphlets that heads this paper, either an entire change has in this respect come over our policy, or else several of our Anglo-Syrian official must be acting in direct disobedience {354} of the wishes of the Foreign office. We allude to an appeal for the building of "A SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE," together with a prospectus of the same, and a list of the "_Local Board of Managers_," among which, to their shame be it said, appear the names of Mr. Geo. J. Eldridge, her majesty's consul-general in Syria; Mr. W. H. Wrench, her majesty's vice-consul at Beyrout; Mr. Noel Temple Moore, her majesty's consul at Jerusalem; and Mr. E. T. Rogers, her majesty's consul at Damascus. That there can be no real desire or want for such an institution in the country, and that the very appeal for help to found it is about the most outrageous piece of pious impudence that has ever been published, even in the name of sectarian so-called religion, will appear upon a further examination of this document. We will do the American missionaries the justice of saying that no Englishman would, or could, ever have had the _toupé_ to ask for money for such a purpose; the whole document bears the unmistakable impress of "smart" New-England. As we have shown before, from the "summary" of American Missions Statement given elsewhere, copied from the report of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society, the number of Protestant "church members" on the Syrian field is two hundred; this, too, after nearly thirty years of missionary "labor" in the country. And now these same missionaries come forward and modestly tell us that "more than £20,000 have already been secured and invested in the United States" for the building of this proposed "institution," and that "it is proposed to raise an equal amount in England, the income annually going to the support of the College." The president of the proposed college, and _ex-officio_ president of the board of managers, is an American missionary, the Reverend Dr. Bliss, and among the members of the board are the names of some thirteen or fourteen other missionaries of all sorts. The trustees, who "are to have the general supervision of the institution," reside in New York, where we should imagine they will be able, from their proximity to the college in Syria, to supervise the whole affairs exceedingly well. With these, or with such persons as have parted with their money for such a pious folly, we have nothing to do. But as regards the English officials, it is another matter and Protestants, as well as Catholics must agree that men holding the positions they do in a country where religious discord is the bane and curse of the land, have no business to mix themselves up with an undertaking which is purely and wholly got up for the purpose of proselytism. Had the subscription been to build a Protestant chapel or church, or to endow any such establishment for the use of the English residents in Syria, it would have been a very different matter. To lend their names to any such undertaking these gentlemen would you a perfect right; but to give their official sanction to a scheme which is but a renewed campaign on the religion of the country, and as English government officers to say that they--and consequently the government they represent--approved as consul-general and consuls of a wholesale sectarian converting shop, is nothing less than a prostitution of the name of this country in Syria. The "dodge" is a good one; the American missionaries, notwithstanding their "tall" pious talk in missionary newspapers, have actually done nothing toward perverting the native Christians of Syria. Two hundred "church members" in nearly thirty years is at the rate of seven converts a year less than the third of a convert every twelve months for each the twenty-four missionaries. This pay. Even American subscribing "Christians" will, after a time, cease to contribute for what brings forth so little fruit. Something must be done; and therefore they have started the idea of this "Syrian Protestant college," having got the promises of these {355} consular gentlemen to countenance it as they have done.

Did these proselytizing consuls, before they allowed their names to be made use of in this prospectus, read the third paragraph of the document, in which we are coolly told that "THE ENEMIES OF CHRISTIANITY, PROFESSED INFIDELS AS WELL AS PAPISTS, FULLY ALIVE TO THE ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINED FROM THE PRESENT STATE OF THE COUNTRY, ARE ADOPTING BOLD AND ENERGETIC MEASURES TO FORESTALL PROTESTANTISM IN BECOMING THE EDUCATORS OF THIS VAST POPULATION"?

Or, if they _did_ read it, did it not strike them that there was an insolence, as well as an amount of sickening cant and implied falsehood, throughout these words which ought to have prevented them, as _English gentlemen,_ to say nothing of their official character, from countenancing such a concern? Have English consuls in Eastern lands so far lost whatever teaching they may have had as to forget that, taking all her majesty's subjects throughout the world, the "Papists" are very nearly as numerous as the Protestants; and that to class them "infidels," and call them "the enemies of Christianity," is an insult--to say nothing of the loud vulgarity and the utter untruth of the assertion, which there can be no excuse for any English gentleman, far less any English official, to lend his name to? In this, every person with the slightest pretension to the name of gentleman or an educated man, no matter what may be his religious persuasion, must agree with us. And to talk of "Syrian Protestantism," with its two hundred "church members" amidst a population of half a million native Christians, and three times that number of Moslems, being "forestalled" in "becoming the educators of this vast population," is much as if the Mormons in London were to complain that the English Church was "forestalling" them in being the educators of the capital of England. The Latter-day Saints of the metropolis bear a much larger and not at all less respectable proportion to the rest of the population of London, than the Protestant "converts" of Syria do to the rest of their fellow-countrymen.

Three excuses may be put forth in defence of these consular gentlemen who have thus disgraced the country they serve. It may be asserted--1st, That if French, Russian, and Austrian consuls give official protection to Catholic and Greek religious establishments, it is quite lawful for English authorities to do the same to Protestant undertakings. 2dly, That "the Syrian Protestant college" is to be got up for literature, the sciences, jurisprudence, and medicine, and not for religious purposes. And, 3dly, That they have allowed their names to be made use of without reading over the prospectus. Of these the third and last excuse is the only one that will hold water for an instant; and for their sakes we hope it may be true, poor and lame as such a plea would be for official men. As regards the first of these pleas, which we have put into the mouths of the defendants, it is quite true that the French, Russian, and Austrian consuls have and do afford official protection to Catholic and Greek religious establishments, but the cases are by no means parallel.

To quote again the words of Mr. Urquhart:--"The Roman Catholic regular and secular clergy are established here (in Syria) as in any other Roman Catholic countries; [Footnote 112] that is to say, they are pastors of flocks, and not missionaries. The Protestants have no flocks, and they are sent with a view of creating them."

[Footnote 112: The same may be said of the Greek clergy, who have many and very large congregations--in the country--in some parts much more numerous than the Maronites or other Catholic churches.]

We wonder what this writer would have said could he have seen a "Syrian Protestant college" proposed as a means toward this much-desired end, or could he have foreseen that four {356} English consuls could ever have went their names--officially, too--to such a combination of Little Bethel and "smart" American doings. Nor will it suffice to say that this institution is not being got on foot for the express purpose of proselytism, more or less direct. In paragraph number eight we are told that--

"The college will be conducted on strictly protestant and evangelical principles."

What _that_ means, we all know; also--

"It will be open for students from any of the Oriental sects or nationalities who will conform to its laws and regulations."

That is to say, any student belonging to the Latin, [Footnote 113] Maronite, Greek Schismatical, Greek Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian Schismatical, or other Eastern church, will be admitted to this college, provided he attends "Protestant" and "evangelical" preachings and prayers, and is humble-minded enough to hear the faith of his fathers denounced every day as one line of "the enemies Christianity," and "Papists" lovingly asked with "professed infidels." And in the very next sentence we are further informed that--

[Footnote 113: In the East, European Catholics, and all others who use the European or Roman Ritual, are called "Latins;" while the other Oriental churches in communion with the See of Peter are distinguished by their respective names--Maronites, Greek Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Chaldeans, and others. The whole are termed "Catholics," and there is nothing of which they are so proud as their intercourse with Rome and the centre of unity. Of the various schismatical and heretical sects, there is not one that assumes the name of "Catholic" except certain of the "advanced" school English Established Church.]

"It is hoped that a strong Christian influence will always centre in and go forth from this institution; and that it will be instrumental in raising up a body of men who will fill the ranks of a well-trained and vigorous 'native ministry;' become the authors of a native Christian literature; supply the educational wants of the land; encourage its industrial interests; develop its resources; occupy stations of authority, and in a large degree aid in carrying the Gospel and its attendant blessings wherever the Arabic language is spoken."

With the help of one English consul-general, two English consuls, and one English vice-consul, this may be in a certain measure be done: yes, and _will_ be done; for consular influence in those lands is all powerful. But without it, no: without this English state-help the "Syrian Protestant college" will wither, and only bear fruit in such proportion as have done the "Protectant churches" in Syria, with their twenty-four missionaries, their thirty-seven native assistants, and their two hundred communicants, after nearly thirty years labor in the Syrian "field."

After the extracts we have given from the prospectus, can there be any doubt as to the proselytizing intentions of this American-Syrian-Protestant-evangelical institution? or can there be two opinions as to the propriety of English gentlemen and English officials degrading themselves and their office by becoming connected with such an undertaking? We observe, by the way, as a curious coincidence in the prospectus, that the name of the New-York Treasurer to the board of trustees of this proposed college is William E. Dodge; and that the Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, of New York, has been appointed one of the professors. Would it not have been better and more appropriate if her majesty's consuls at Beyrout, Damascus, and Jerusalem had left all this evangelical speculation to men of like name and calling? It is true that when the prospectus was drawn out, and these English officials allowed their name to be made use of, Lord Palmerston was prime minister, and Lord Russell ruled over the foreign office. That the Shaftesbury power with the first, and the well-known tendencies of the author of the Durham letter, may have had some influence with these individuals in their official character is possible, nay, probable; but should gentlemen, English gentlemen, ever have allowed their names to go forth as patrons and directors of this unholy humbug? A private individual may lend his influence to whatever scheme he likes to patronize; but a public servant and above all an English public servant in Turkey--has no right whatever to be so liberal with his patronage.

{357}

One word more ere we have done with the "Syrian Protestant college."

At the head of the list of subscribers to this proposed institution is £1,000 from "The late Syrian asylums' committee." If we are rightly informed, that money was subscribed from the residue of a fund which was instituted in 1860 to afford assistance to the sufferers from the Syrian massacres. To this fund Catholics, Protestants, Greeks, and Jews subscribed, with the express stipulation and understanding that no part or portion of it was to be used for any religious purpose whatever. The fact was, that the chief managers of the fund in Syria were American missionaries, and subscribers to it were afraid that the money would be used for proselytizing purposes. After a time the great misery of the Syrian Christians came to an end, and no further relief was required: but there still remained an unused balance of about £1,200 of this fund in the banker's hands. If what is reported in London be correct--and we have very good reason for believing it to be so--who was it that gave authority for this £1,000 to be given as a donation to the Syrian Protestant college? To question regards not only the Catholics, Greeks, and Jews of London, Manchester, Liverpool, and other towns in England that subscribed to this fund, but also those belonging to a large--and we are thankful to say a very large--class of our Protestant fellow-countrymen, who, however much they may differ from us in matters of faith, are enemies to religion being made a cloak for fraud, and are honest and honorable in their dealings between man and man. If this £1,000 which heads the list of subscriptions in the Syrian Protestant college was really given from the money which in 1860-61 was gathered together as "the Syrian relief fund," a gross and most infamous breach of trust has been committed, and all men should beware how they in future contribute to anything in which the American Oriental missionaries have any influence.

But where have the projectors of this college learned geography? They tell us that the establishment will be "LOCATED IN BEYROUT, the seaport of Syria, a city rapidly growing in size and importance, and OCCUPYING A CENTRAL POSITION IN RESPECT TO ALL THE ARABIC-SPEAKING RACES."

The capitals are our own, for we would note these words as bringing a new light in geographical discovery. That Beyrout is by far the most pleasant, nay the only pleasant, town in Syria to reside in--that there is more society, and particularly what the promoters of this undertaking would call more "Christian" society, we fully admit. That, on account of its proximity to the sea, it is far more healthy than most towns in Syria, and that from the number of its European and native Christian inhabitants it is far safer to reside in, and much more exempt from the chance of any Moslem outbreak taking place, cannot be denied. But that it occupies "a central position in respect to all the Arabic-speaking races," is simply, and very grossly untrue, as a glance at any school-boy's atlas would show. It would be about as correct to assert that Plymouth or Falmouth held "a central position in respect to" the rest of England. If the promoters of "The Syrian Protestant college" are so very anxious to diffuse the great blessings of their faith and literature "wherever the Arabic language is spoken," would not Damascus, Mosul, Aleppo, Antioch, or even Bagdad, be more central than Beyrout? To reside in any of these places would not be so pleasant, but it would be more missionary-like, and would certainly save the money of the subscribers, Beyrout being by far the most expensive town in all Syria to live in.

But men of American sectarian preacher stamp never knew and never will know what a missionary spirit is. It is foreign to their habits as well as to their creed. When we hear of {358} American Protestant missionaries going forth with barely a change of clothes; when we learn that they abandon father, mother, family, house and home to preach the Gospel; when we read of half a score of them undergoing martyrdom, as did two Catholic bishops and eight priests in Corea, an account of which was published in the Times of the 27th August last--when, in fine, we hear of their taking lessons in their work from the Jesuits, the Lazarists, the Capuchins, the Dominicans, or any other of those religious orders which have shed such lustre upon the church in all ages--it may then become a matter of discussion whether, notwithstanding their gross errors in faith, they have not something of the missionary spirit among them. At present we can only look upon them as do all the Moslems, the native Christians, the Jews, and nineteen-twentieths of the European population in the East, namely, that they drive a very flourishing trade, and enjoy very comfortable incomes: but that the work they are paid for doing has neither the self-denial of man nor the blessing of God to make it prosper. Protestant missions throughout the world have ever been, are, and ever will be, most miserable failures. Dr. Littledale was, at any rate, candid when he spoke of "the pitiful history of Anglican missions to the heathen;" but he might with equal truth make mention of the wretched results of Protestant missions throughout the world. That unison of mawkish sentiment and Biblical phrases selected at random, which commonly goes by the name of "cant," may certainly influence weak-minded persons to subscribe to visionary schemes of a Protestant conversion of Oriental Christians. But exposure must come sooner or later, and with it the beginning of the end of subscriptions. Some years ago the American missionaries gave up the "field" they occupied at Jerusalem; would it not be as well if they conferred a similar boon on the Syrian and Lebanon districts? The churches against which they are chiefly engaged in preaching have their own bishops, their own clergy, and their own missionary preachers from Europe. These latter are not engaged in perverting men from another quarter, but--at the request, and with the full concurrence of the native bishops and clergy--they build up and repair the breaches in the sheep-fold, and help in driving away the wolves that would enter. There may be--there are--sheep that go astray from time to time, but considering all things--and particularly now that the sectarian influence of English consuls in Syria has been brought to bear on the "work"--these are few indeed. The Maronites and other sects in communion with St. Peter's successor, form part and parcel of God's one only true and holy Catholic Church, against which, we have His word, the gates of hell shall never prevail. [Footnote 114]

[Footnote 114: The fact of four English consuls allowing their names to go forth as patrons of a Protestant College, which is to be got up for the perversion of native Christians, is so utterly at variance with the general practice of our government, that we must express our surprise it has been overlooked at the Foreign Office. We cannot imagine Lord Stanley lending even a tacit sanction to such an outrage of the feelings of the native Syrian Christians.]

In his work upon "Mount Lebanon," from which we have already quoted, Mr. Urquhart relates a conversation which he had with a certain Maronite bishop, which seems so _apropos_ that we give it entire:--

"I wish you to know [said the bishop] that we are not attached to France. France is to us on oppression from which we would be most happy to escape; we have proved this by acts, but no account is taken of them. How France came to be considered our protector is an old story, into which it is needless to enter. The connection awakened against us the hatred of the Turks and of the Greeks, and to it may be attributed the past suffering of our people from both. Here and in the other parts of Syria, in Egypt and in Cyprus, from the middle of the last century to the close of the campaign of Napoleon, we reckon that the blood of 40,000 Maronites has been shed by the Turks or the Greeks. This is the debt we owe to French protection. When, in 1840, the French government sent to us to require us to support Ibrahim Pasha and Emir Beshir, we gave a flat refusal. {359} M. ---- came to Saida, and sent a message to the Patriarch (of the house of Habesh), who sent his own secretary to give him the answer, which had been decided on by the bishops and chiefs, which was, 'The Maronites have heard much of, but have never seen, the fruit of the protection of France, and could not, in the hope of it, expose themselves to the risks they were now required to run.' Then the English government sent to us an agent (Mr. Wood), accompanied by M. Stendel, on the part of the Austrian government, proposing to us to accept the protection of Austria in lieu of that of France. We declined to make any application for such protection; _and we complained to Mr. Wood of the interference in our religion of the Protestant missionaries which made us look with suspicion on the intentions toward us of the English government. He assured us that the English government was opposed to all missionary schemes, and suggested that we should draw up a petition to the Turkish government, requesting the missionaries to be prohibited from entering the country, promising that the English ambassador would obtain from the Porte an order to that effect. Satisfied with these assurances, we aided in the expulsion of Mehemet Ali, although he had every way favored the Maronites._

_"The promised order respecting the missionaries never came, England set up a Protestant bishop (in Jerusalem), and obtained from the Porte the formal recognition of the Protestants as a body."_(Vol. ii pp. 261, 262.)

The italics in this quotation are our own. They show pretty plainly whether or not the missionaries are welcome to the natives of Syria. But what will these same natives say now, when they see our consuls-general and consuls coming forth as the official patrons and promoters of Protestant missionary proselytism? If it be true--and we have certainly always looked upon it as one of the rules of our government--that the English government "_is opposed to all missionary schemes,_" how is it that the consul-general in Syria, the consul at Jerusalem, and the consul at Damascus, are allowed to take upon themselves the office of "managers" or "local directors" of the Protestant Syrian college?

ORIGINAL.

DELIA.

There is a darkness which is still not gloom, And thou, poor child, whose young but sightless eyes Catch no glad radiance from the summer skies-- Worse, still, neglected in thy blindness, whom Those nurtured like thee in the self-same womb Have cast on strangers, strangers truly wise, Since more than waif of gold such charge they prize-- Hast found a joy what others find a doom. Thou knowest the way unto the chapel door, And, kneeling softly on its blessed floor. Thou art no longer blind; the _Presence_ there Reveals itself to thy adoring prayer; Hours fly with thee that altar's Guest before, Till, cowards, we envy what we would not share.

{360}

Original.

MADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER.

How shall we tell in a few words the story of one whose career extended over sixty-six years? Our heroine's name calls up a picture of the most brilliant period in French history. A thousand images arise of pageantry, of genuine magnificence, of jewelled and gilded wretchedness. Life seemed like a great magic lantern exhibited for her private amusement; scene after scene passed before her eyes with a pomp unknown in these days of tinsel splendor; but most welcome of all, ever returning, never palling, was the slide that presented to her view La Grande Mademoiselle, the contemplated bride of half the sovereigns in Europe.

Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans was born in the palace of the Louvre, May 29th, 1627. Fairies met her on the threshold of the world and endowed her with all earthly goods--boundless wealth, a cheerful temper, keen wit, excellent health, and a fair share of beauty. Was it a kindly or a spiteful fairy who crowned these gifts with a vanity that nothing could undermine or overthrow? This self-love afforded the only unfailing enjoyment of her long life; but as it made her throw aside as unworthy of her every scheme of happiness suited to her rank, and carve out a destiny for herself in defiance of all authority, the fairies must decide the question, not we.

"The misfortunes of my house," she says, "began soon after my birth, for it was followed by the death of my mother, which greatly diminished the good fortune that the rank I hold would have led me to expect. The great wealth which my mother left, and of which I am sole heiress, might well, in the opinion of most people have consoled me for losing her. But to me, who feel now of what advantage her superintendence of my education would have been to me, and her credit in my establishment, added to her tenderness, it seems impossible sufficiently to regret her death."

This passage from her "Mémoires" exhibits several of Mademoiselle's peculiarities: a certain blunt, abrupt mode of expressing her exact meaning, an egotism that makes her lose or gain a test of the importance of events, and a right-minded honesty which saved her from the worst errors of her time.

No unmarried daughter of France had ever enjoyed so magnificent an establishment as was now accorded to the heiress of the house of Montpensier. The Tuileries, where she lodged, being connected by a gallery with the Louvre, the little motherless child was under the supervision of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, as well as of Marie de Medicis, who expended more tenderness upon this grand-daughter than she had ever on her own children. Mademoiselle regarded her royal grandmother with great partiality. She used to say when the Duchess of Guise was quoted: "She is only a distant grandmother, she is not queen."

Marie de Medicis left France in disgrace in 1633, followed by Monsieur, whose career was a series of petty intrigues, from which he invariably emerged unscathed, leaving his accomplices to bear the consequences of their folly. Very different was the spirit of his daughter. At six years old she was taken to see the degradation of Duc d'Elbôeuf and Marquis de {361} la Vienville from the order. On being told that their disgrace was owing to devotion to her father, she wept bitterly, and wished to retire, saying that she could not with propriety witness the ceremony. Ten years later Monsieur supped with her, enlivened by the music of the twenty-four royal violins. She writes: "He was as gay as if MM. de Cinq Mars and de Thou had not been left behind on the road. I confess I could not look at him without thinking of them, and amid my own joy the sight of his contentment pained me." Is not a certain reverence due to this generous daughter of a mean-spirited intriguer, and to one who, with untrammelled liberty, remained virtuous in the court of Louis XIV.? That her unspotted character was not the result of coldness, is proved by her foolish devotion to Lauzun. If pride was her safeguard, at least some human praise should be given to so high an estimate of royal greatness.

The king and queen were untiring in tender attentions to Mademoiselle. She writes: "I was so accustomed to their caresses, that I called the king _petit papa_, and the queen _petit mama_, really believing her to be so, because I had never seen my own mother." After enumerating the various little girls of quality who came to play with her, she adds: "I was never so occupied with any game as to be inattentive if a reconciliation with Monsieur was mentioned. Cardinal Richelieu, who was prime minister and master of affairs, was determined to control this matter; and with proposals so degrading to Monsieur that I could not listen to them without despair. He said that to make Monsieur's peace with the king, his engagement to Princess Marguerite de Lorraine must be broken, that he might marry Mademoiselle de Combalet, the cardinal's niece, now Madame d'Aiguillon. I could not help crying when it was mentioned to me, and in my anger sang, in revenge, all the songs I knew against the cardinal and his niece. It even redoubled my friendship for Princess Marguerite, and made me talk of her incessantly."

Gaston d'Orleans returned to France October 8th, 1634, and his daughter went to Limours to receive him. Wishing to test her filial memory, for he had left her at the age of four or five years, he appeared before her without the _cordon bleu_ which distinguished him from the members of his suite. "Which of these gentlemen is Monsieur?" she was asked, and without hesitation sprung to her father's arms; a proof of fidelity which touched him deeply, that being of all qualities the one most likely to excite his surprise. Nothing was spared for her amusement, even to the gratification of her desire to dance in a _ballet_. A band of little girls of high rank was composed, with a selection of lords of corresponding stature. The magnificent dresses and appointments satisfied even Mademoiselle's ambition. In one figure birds were introduced in cages, and set free in the dancing room. One unlucky songster became entangled in the dress trimmings of Mademoiselle de Brézé, Cardinal Richelieu's niece, who began to cry and scream so vehemently as to introduce a new element of amusement among the assembly. The accident recalls a similar one which occurred at the time of this lady's marriage with the Duc d'Enghien, afterward the great Condé. There was a ball afterward, where Mademoiselle de Brézé, who was very small, fell down while dancing a _courante_, because, in order to make her look tall, they had put such high-heeled shoes upon her feet that she could not walk. Clearly her sphere of success was not destined to be the ball-room. Poor little soul! she played doll for more than two years after her marriage, and was sent to a Carmelite convent to learn to read and write during her husband's absence in Roussillon with the king.

Mademoiselle gives a graphic account of a journey which she took in 1637. The events recalled, with the {362} emotions they excited in her at the time, show an acuteness of perception far beyond that of most children of ten years old. Her sentiments are too virtuous not to demand a brief notice. "Arrived at Champigny, I went first to the Holy Chapel, as a place to which the memory of my predecessors, who had built and founded it, seemed to summon me, that I might pray to God for the repose of their souls." A little later we hear of her at the Convent of Fontevrault. The abbess was a natural daughter of Henri IV., and the nuns lavished every attention upon their guest, delighting to honor her with the title of "Madame's niece." Their devotion bored our princess greatly, and would have made her ill but for a grain of amusement to be derived from the simplicity of the poor ladies. But fortune, Mademoiselle's unfailing friend, soon relieved her from this monotony. Two ladies-in-waiting, Beaumont and Saint-Louis, instead of going into the church, explored the convent court-yards. Terrible cries attracted their notice, and were found to proceed from a poor maniac, confined in a dungeon, according to the ill-judged practice of those days. After amusing themselves with her extravagances, they went to find their little mistress, that she might share the enjoyment. "I broke off a conversation with the abbess and betook myself in all haste to the dungeon, which I did not leave until supper-time. The table was wretched, and for fear of suffering the same treatment the next day, I begged my aunt to let my officers prepare my meals elsewhere. She made use of them after that day, so that we fared better during the rest of our visit. Madame de Fontevrault treated me the next day to a second maniac. As there was not a third, ennui seized upon me, and I went away in spite of my aunt's entreaties." And this was the child who, at five years old, wept over the degradation of two of her father's followers. Through life, her best impulses seem to have had root rather in a sense of her own dignity than in compassion for others.

More easily understood is her enjoyment of the royal hunts, during the days of Louis XIII.'s attachment to the virtuous Madame de Hautefort. "We were all dressed in colors, mounted upon hackneys richly comparisoned, and each lady protected from the sun's rays by a hat covered with plumes. The chase led past several handsome houses, where grand collations were prepared for us, and on our return the king sat in my coach between Madame de Hautefort and me. When in a good humor, he entertained us very pleasantly with many topics. At such times he allowed us to speak freely of Cardinal Richelieu, and proved himself not displeased by joining in the conversation."

His eminence was destined to fall more deeply than ever into disgrace with Mademoiselle in 1638. The dauphin was born at the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 5th of that year; and his cousin, who, like any other little girl, enjoyed being in the royal nursery, used to call him "her little husband." This amused the king exceedingly, but Cardinal Richelieu viewed the matter more seriously. Mademoiselle was sent home to Paris. On the way, she was taken to Ruel to see the minister, and there received a grave reprimand for the indiscretion of her language. "He said I was too old to use such terms; that it was unbecoming in me to speak thus. He said so seriously to me things that might have been addressed to a reasonable person, that, without answering a word, I began to cry; to comfort me, he gave me a collation. None the less did I go away very angry at his words."

If this rebuke had made a deeper impression upon Louise de Bourbon, her biographer's task would be a more grateful one. The naïveté with which she reveals all her matrimonial castles in the air would be incomprehensible if these schemes had not been purely ambitious; as free {363} from sentiment as a military stratagem or a commercial speculation.

At fifteen Mademoiselle met with a great loss in the death of her excellent _gouvernante_, the Marchioness of Saint-Georges. She speaks of this trial with more tenderness and less egotism than one might have anticipated. "I learned, on awaking in the morning, how ill she was, and rose in haste that I might go to her and show by various attentions my gratitude for her noble performance of her duties toward me ever since I came into the world. I arrived while they were applying every possible remedy to revive her, in which they succeeded after repeated efforts. The viaticum and extreme unction were brought, and she received them with every evidence of a truly Christian soul. She responded with admirable devotion to each prayer: no subject of surprise to those who knew bow piously she had lived. This over, she called her children to her, that she might bless them, and asked permission to give me, also, her benediction, saying that the honor she had enjoyed of being with me from my birth made her venture to take the liberty. I felt a tenderness for her corresponding to all that she had shown toward me in the care of my education. I knelt beside her bed, with eyes bathed in tears; I received her sad farewell and kissed her. I was so touched by the thought of losing her, and by the infinite number of good things she had said to me, that I did not wish to leave the room until her death. She begged that I might be taken away, and her children too; she was too much agitated by our cries and tears, _and testified that I alone was the subject of any regrets the was capable of feeling_. I had hardly returned to my own room when the agony began, and she died in fifteen minutes."

Mademoiselle retired to the Carmelite convent of Saint Denis, until Monsieur should select another governess. She requested that the place might be given either to Mademoiselle de Fieique or Mademoiselle de Tillières (both "persons of quality, merit, and virtue, and relations of her own"), hoping earnestly that the choice might fall upon Mademoiselle de Tillières. Her wishes were thwarted, and the Countess de Fiesque entered upon the task with Spartan firmness. An illness of six months' duration vanished miraculously when the news of her appointment was announced, we are told with sarcastic emphasis.

Whether governess or pupil suffered most in this connection, it would be hard to say. Mademoiselle de Fiesque had an aggravating system of petty supervision, and Mademoiselle a fixed determination to elude it. On one occasion when our princess had been shut up in her room by the tyrant's orders, she managed to escape, stole the key of Mademoiselle de Fiesque's private apartment, and locked her in. "She was hours in uneasiness before a locksmith could be found; and her discomfort was all the greater because I had shut up her grandson in another room, and he screamed as if I had maltreated him."

But we should soon tire of these reminiscences, did they not bring upon the stage personages more important than Mademoiselle herself--hard as it would have been for her to think so.

In 1643 we find the _dramatis personae_ much changed and extended. Louis XIII. has passed away, making so good an end, that we wonder at the grace of God to see how noble a death may close an insignificant career. Richelieu has been succeeded in Mademoiselle's ill graces by Cardinal Mazarin. Louis XIV. is a precocious, ignorant child of nine years old. The cabal of the _Importantes_ has arisen and declined, and two seditions in Paris, founded upon slight provocation, have proved the populace ripe for the Fronde. Henrietta Maria and her children are refugees at the French court, and Mademoiselle, with her enormous possessions, is considered an eligible match for the Prince of Wales. As Charles Stuart in the character of an unsuccessful suitor is a novel topic, no {364} apology is needed for introducing at some length the history of his courtship.

The court was at Fontainebleau when his royal highness arrived in France; and their majesties went to meet him in the forest. His mother presented him first to the king and then to the queen, who kissed him, after which he bowed to the Princess of Condé, and to his cousin. "He was only sixteen or seventeen years old; quite tall for his age, with a fine head, black hair, brown complexion, and quite a good figure." One unpardonable sin he had in Mademoiselle's eyes; that, not speaking French in the least, he could not shine in society. Clever talk she enjoyed keenly even in childhood, Monsieur's brilliant conversation had fascinated her.

The Prince of Wales worked diligently to produce an impression upon his cousin's flinty heart, which (shall we confess it?) was wasting itself away in an unrequited attachment for the imperial throne. Many a suitable match did Mademoiselle reject, because the untimely death of two empresses kept her in a fever of hope and expectation. In vain was it represented that the emperor was old enough to be her father; that she would be happier in England or Savoy. She replied disinterestedly that "she wished the emperor, . . . that he was not a young and gallant man; which proved that in good truth she thought more of the establishment than of the person." In vain did Charles Stuart follow her about bareheaded, ministering mutely to her love of importance. In vain did he hold the flambeau this side and that, while the Queen of England dressed her for Mademoiselle de Choisy's ball. His _petite oré_, as they called the dainty appointments of a gentleman's dress in those days, were red, black, and white, because Mademoiselle's plume and the ribbons fastening her jewels were red, black, and white. He made himself torchbearer again while she arranged her dress before entering the ball-room; followed her every step, lingered about her hotel until the door closed behind her: all in vain, because at nineteen our heroine had the discretion to prefer a middle-aged emperor, firmly seated on his throne, to an exiled prince of seventeen.

His gallantry was so openly exhibited as to excite much remark. It lasted all winter, appearing in full force at a celebrated entertainment given at the Palais Royal toward the close of the season. Anne of Austria herself arrayed her niece upon this location, and three whole days were devoted to preparing her costume. The dress was covered with diamonds, and red, black, and white tufts; and she wore all the crown jewels of France, with the few that still belonged to the Queen of England. "Nothing could have been more magnificent than my dress that day," she assures us; "and there were not wanting those who asserted that my fine presence, fair complexion, and dazzling blonde hair adorned me more than all the jewels that glittered on my person."' Mademoiselle does not exaggerate her charms. Though not strictly handsome, her noble bearing and charming coloring produced all the effect of beauty.

The dancing took place in a large theatre, illuminated with flambeaux, and at one end stood a thrown upon a daïs, which was the scene of Mademoiselle's triumphs. "The king and the Prince of Wales did care to occupy the throne; I remained there alone; and saw at my feet these two princes and all the princesses of the court circle. I was not in the least ill at ease in this position, and those who had flattered me on entering the ballroom found matter the next day for fresh adulation. Every one I had never appeared less constrained than when seated on that throne;" and the imperial hopes being at their height, she adds: "While I stood there with the prince at my feet, my heart as well as my eyes regarded him _du haut en bas_. . . The thought of the empire occupied my mind so exclusively, that {365} I looked upon the Prince of Wales only as an object of pity."

The conclusion of this romance belongs really to the interval between the first and second Fronde, but we insert it here for the sake of convenience, pleading guilty of the anachronism. In 1649 we find Mademoiselle again persecuted to marry her cousin, then Charles II. "L'Abbé de la Rivière said that I was right, but that it must be remembered that there was no other match for me in Europe; that the emperor and King of Spain were married; the King of Hungary was betrothed to the Infanta of Spain; the archduke would never be sovereign of the Low Countries; that I would not hear of any German or Italian sovereign; that In France the king and Monsieur (d'Anjou) were too young to marry; and that M. la Prince (Condé) had been married ten years and _his wife was in good health_."

A courier was sent to their majesties to announce the King of England's arrival at Péronne, and the count went forward to meet him at Compiègne. Mademoiselle had her hair curled for the occasion, and was bantered by the regent gently upon the pains she had taken to please her suitor. "Those who have had admirers themselves understand such things," replied her royal highness tartly, referring to the foibles of her majesty's youth.

The royal personages met within a league of Compiègne and alighted from the carriages. Charles saluted their majesties, and then Mademoiselle. "I thought him much improved in appearance since he left France. If his wit had seemed to correspond to his person, he might perhaps have pleased me; but when the king questioned him in the carriage concerning the dogs and horses of the Prince of Orange and the hunting in that country he replied in French. The queen spoke to him of his own affairs, and he made no reply; and being questioned several times about grave matters which greatly concerned himself, he declined answering on the plea of not being able to speak our language.

"I confess that from that moment I resolved not to consent to this marriage, having conceived a very poor opinion of a king who at his age could be so ignorant of his affairs. Not that I could not recognize my own blood by the sign, for the Bourbons are beings greatly devoted to trifles and not much to solid matters; perhaps myself as well as the rest, being Bourbon on both sides of the house. Soon after we arrived, dinner was served. He eat no ortolans, and threw himself upon a huge piece of beef and a shoulder of mutton, as if there had been nothing else on the table. His taste did not seem to me very delicate, and I felt ashamed that he should show so much less in this, than he had displayed in thinking of me. After dinner the queen aroused herself and left me with him: he sat there a quarter of an hour without uttering a syllable: I should like to believe that his silence proceeded from respect rather than from absence of passion. I confess frankly that in this interview I wished he would show less (respect). Feeling rather bored, I called M. de Comminges to be third party and make him speak; in which he fortunately succeeded. M. de la Rivière said to me: 'He looked at you all dinner time, and is still looking at you incessantly.' I answered, 'He will look a long time without attracting me if he does not speak.' He replied, 'Ah! you are concealing the charming things he has said to you.' 'Not at all,' said I. 'Come near me when he is devoting himself, and you will see how he sets about it.' The queen arose; I approached him, and, to make him speak, I asked after several persons of his suite whom I had seen; all which he answered, but _point de douceurs_. The time came for him to go; we all went in a carriage to escort him to the middle of the forest, where we alighted, as we had done on his arrival. He took leave of the king and came to me {366} with Germin (Lord Jermyn), saying: 'I believe that M. Germin, who speaks better than I do, has explained to you my wishes and intentions; I am your very obedient servant.' I replied that I was his very obedient servant, Germin made me a great many compliments, and then the king bowed and left me."

After the battle of Worcester, Charles II. reappeared in Paris and made a third trial for his cousin's hand. "I thought him very well made and decidedly more pleasing than before his departure, though his hair was short and his beard long, two things that change people very much. He spoke French very well." All went smoothly for some time: Mademoiselle received from her royal suitor all the douceurs for which she had formerly listened in vain; and frequent assemblies at her rooms made them very intimate. But her will was too vacillating to allow of her coming to any definite decision, and Charles was at length wearied into giving marked evidence of his displeasure. "The first time I saw the queen after my interview with Germin, she showered reproaches upon me. When her son entered (he had always been accustomed to take a seat in my presence), they brought forward a great chair in which he seated himself. I suppose he thought to make me very angry, but I did not care in the least." Indeed, it would have been an ingenious tormentor who had found a vulnerable spot in Mademoiselles vanity.

As Queen of England, Louise de Bourbon would have found room for the legitimate exercise of her best faculties. As an unmarried princess of immense wealth, she became the tool of men who did not scruple to use her courage, magnanimity, and energy for their own ends, and requite her generosity with neglect. Let us follow her adventures in the days of the second Fronde, and see to what exertions a love of bustle and notoriety could urge a princess accustomed to seek her own ease in all things.

The first Fronde took place in 1648, and was directed by the coadjutor archbishop of Paris, Monsieur M. de Retz, who acted under the influence of two motives: a desire to supplant Mazarin, and rule France himself; and an enthusiasm for constitutional liberty. Our space being limited, we will not pause to reconcile these two aspirations. The court left Paris by night for St. Germain. Mademoiselle accompanied the queen, and made herself useful as a medium of communication with the populace of Paris, who loved her for being a native of their city. She describe the royal destitution with graphic frivolity, and is exceedingly merry over this siege, in which the besiegers starved for want of the luxuries they had left behind them in the beleaguered city.

In the second Fronde, which broke out about two years later (1650-1652), the position of affairs is altered. M. de Retz appears in the character of mediator, and Mademoiselle casts her lot with the rebels. The princes of the house of Condé seize the opportunity to avenge insults offered to them by Mazarin, and Gaston d'Orleans joins the Frondeurs--perhaps in order to avoid the trouble of leaving Paris.

Skilful writers have left accounts so voluminous of those troubled times, that they rise before us rather in a series of living pictures than as historical records. That midnight conference in the oratory, between fair, queenly Anne of Austria and the little dark, misshapen coadjutor; Mazarin threatening Condé; and he, with curled lip and reverential mockery, leaving the ministerial presence with the words, "Farewell, Mars!"--the quelled populace, streaming hour after hour through the king's bedchamber, while his mother's beautiful hand holds back the velvet hangings, that each one may look upon the sleeping boy and know that he has not fled from Paris--all is before us as if it {367} happened yesterday. The chief actors with their talents and foibles are better known to us than to their contemporaries; and the French nation is today as it was then--ready to be won over by any clever bit of scenic effects.

Mademoiselle and Condé, who had hitherto been sworn foes, came to a formal reconciliation in 1651, and being bound together by their detestation of Mazarin, welcomed the outbreak of the second Fronde. Anne of Austria declined the company of her niece on leaving Paris, and she was thus left to the flattery of those who well understood the right use of her folly and her strength.

The golden moment of her career arrived. Orleans must be secured to the Frondeurs, or Condé, coming from Guyenne, would find the line of the Loire cut and the enemy master of the position. Monsieur was firm upon two points: that he would not leave Paris himself, and that his private troops should occupy the position best fitted to protect him if the royal army should attack Paris. His daughter, who had been longing for an opportunity to distinguish herself, offered to go to Orleans in place of the duke, and on Monday, March 25th, 1652, left Paris amid the benedictions of the people. A contemporary MS. journal says: "About noon Mademoiselle's carriages assembled in the court of the Orleans palace, ready for the campaign; she wore a gray habit covered with gold, to go to Orleans. She left at three o'clock, accompanied by the Duke de Rohan, Madame de Bréanté, Countess de Fiesque, and Madame de Frontenac." Monsieur sneered at the project, and said her chivalry would not be worth much without the common sense of Mesdames de Fiesque and Frontenac--her _maréchales de camp_, as they were called between jest and earnest.

Upon the plains of Beauce the young amazon appeared before the troops on horseback, and was received with enthusiasm. "From that time," she says, "I began to give my orders;" and a little later at Toury, where she was joyfully welcomed by a crowd of officers: "they declared that a council of war must be held in my presence. . . . That I must accustom myself to listening to matters of business and war; for henceforth nothing would be done except by my orders."

Arrived before Orleans, Mademoiselle found closed gates and small disposition to grant admittance. The unfortunate city government, pressed on one side by Frondeurs and on the other by royalists, asked only leave to remain neutral. The rebel army had been left at some distance from Orleans for fear of alarming its inhabitants, and _M. le gouverneur_, learning that the attacking party was a lady, sent out a tribute of confectionery, "which seemed to me amusing," remarks Mademoiselle.

At last, tired of waiting upon the governors indecision, her royal highness went out with her ladies for a walk, much against the judgment of her advisers--or ministers, as she called them. The rampart was edged with people, who cried, on seeing her, "Long live the king and princes, and down with Mazarin!" And she answered, "Go to the Hotel de Ville and make them open the gates;" with other exhortations of the same kind, occasionally mingled with threats, "to see if menaces would move them more than friendship."

Now it so happened that before her departure from Paris, M. le Marquis do Vilaine, a noted astrologer, had drawn the princess into Madame's private room, and imparted to her the following prophecy: "All that you shall undertake between Wednesday noon, March 27th, and Friday will succeed; and you shall even at that time accomplish extraordinary things." This prediction was in her pocket, and anxiously as she disclaims all faith in it, we may believe that it encouraged her to make efforts which gave no apparent promise of success. When, toward evening, she stood outside the {368} Porte Brulée, did not M. de Vilaine's horoscope rise in her estimation? The river was crossed and the bank ascended by the aid of some chivalrous boatmen, an improvised bridge of boats, and a little more scrambling than would seem consistent with royal dignity. "I climbed like a cat, grasping at brambles and thorns, and springing over hedges without hurting myself in the least. * * Madame de Bréanté, who is the most cowardly creature in the world, began to cry out at me, and at every one who followed my steps; making great sport for me." Outside the gate, a group of bargemen worked under Mademoiselle's inspiriting direction; inside were citizens, urged on by the Count de Gramont, to tear down the planks; while the guards looked on in armed neutrality. When the two middle planks were torn off from the transverse iron bars, Gramont signed to the princess to come forward. "As there was a great deal of rubbish, a footman took me up and passed me through the hole, where no sooner did my head appear than they began to beat the drums. I gave my hand to the captain and said: 'You will be glad to be able to boast that you let me in.' Cries of 'Long live the king and princess, and down with Mazarin!' were redoubled. Two men took me and placed me in a wooden chair. I don't know whether I sat in the chair or on the arms, the rapture of my delight set me so completely beside myself. Every one kissed my hands, and I was ready to die with laughter to find myself in such a position." And so the city was taken, and Mademoiselle earned the title of Maid of Orleans, all in an afternoon's frolic. If she thought to retain command of Paris in a fashion so amusing, the battle of Porte Saint Antoine must have undeceived her.

The heroine was received with rapture on her return to Paris. She was assured by Condé that the wish of his heart was to see her queen of France, and that no treaty should be concluded without especial consideration for her. No one can be more uninteresting than her royal highness when elated by success, we must confess; but an hour of trial was approaching that should develop for the first and last time in her life, truly grand and heroic qualities. Until the 2d of July, 1652, Mademoiselle had given no signs of feminine feeling except by exhibiting those foibles which are popularly supposed to be especially characteristic of women. But on that day, as she hurried through the streets of Paris, carrying hope to every one she met--consoling poor Guitant, shot through the lungs, pausing to speak a word of comfort to the wretched Rochefoucauld, and putting new heart into the great Condé himself, we recognize sympathies worthy of a better development than they ever received. During a pause in the battle M. le Prince came to her in a pitiable condition, covered with dust and blood, his hair tangled and his cuirass dented with blows. Giving is naked sword to an equerry, he flung himself down upon a seat and burst into tears "Forgive my emotion," he exclaimed; "you see a desperate man before you. I have lost all my friends; Nemours, La Rochefoucauld and Clinchamp are mortally wounded."

Mademoiselle was able to assure him that these reports were greatly exaggerated, and Condé, restored to himself, sprang upon a fresh horse and galloped off to his post. The battle was at its height. Paris had simultaneously attacked at the Porte Saint-Denis and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Inquiring the whereabouts of Turenne, M. le Prince rushed to the faubourg, knowing that where the marshal commanded there must Paris be most in peril. Soon came the tidings that the barricade of Piepus had been forced. At the head of a hundred musketeers he threw himself upon the barricade, and drove the enemy back in its own dust. Never had the conqueror been greater than on that useless, terrible 2d of July.

{369}

The next meeting between Mademoiselle and Condé was full of triumph. They parted, she to betake herself to the towers of the Bastile, he to the belfry of Saint-Antoine. Toward Bagnolet in the valley the princess saw the king's troops gathering for a fresh attack. Having communicated with Condé through a page, she left the Bastile, giving stringent orders that, in case of necessity, its cannon should be turned upon the royal army; and returned to her post near the gate to invigorate the soldiers with wine and brave words.

There was indeed need for encouragement. Frondeurs were falling back in dire extremity--royalists pressing forward, hopeful, and strengthened with reinforcements. The hours of the Fronde seemed numbered--when heights of the Bastile blazed forth a flash of light; the cannon thundered out in quick succession--the royal army paused, reeled, and retreated in amazement. Mademoiselle had saved the day, and "killed her royal husband," as Mazarin expressed it. Henceforth she was to be more than ever an object of distrust to the queen and minister. But though this victory lent a dignity to the last days of the Fronde, there was no principle of stability in the party. Weak policy, quarrels, treachery on their side--opposed to them, Mazarin, whose keen perception told him that temporary withdrawal from the ministry would insured unlimited power in the future; and Turenne, with double the forces of Condé,--nothing was fairly matched except the courage of the two parties.

The Fronde came to an abrupt end, and every one was left to make his own terms. Mademoiselle had shown disinterestedness, courage, and humanity worthy of a better cause. The fruits which she reaped were a notice to leave Tuileries, and the refusal on her cowardly father's part to protect one whom the king had condemned. There appear to have been about eight years and a half enforced banishment from court, which she spent on her numerous estates, amusing herself with writing romances, portraits (then in vogue) and her Mémoires, which she continued until within a few years of her death. M. Sainte-Beuve tells us that the style of her imagination belongs rather to the close of Louis XIII.'s reign, and to the Hôtel Rambouillet, than to the poorer literary period of Louis XIV.

And now, having given a faint delineation of Mademoiselle during her prosperous and fêted youth, and during the days of the Fronde, which we are inclined to regard as the period at which she gave most evidence of kinship with her grandfather, the great Henry; we pass on to a time when fortune ceased to favor her, and the world began to hustle her about, as roughly as it does common mortals. La Grande Mademoiselle, who had hitherto looked upon human griefs and passions as upon a brilliant theatrical spectacle, was destined at last to leave the royal box, and figure on the stage herself for the diversion of her fellow creatures. An amusing afterpiece this exhibition seemed to her contemporaries; but to us, who have not suffered from her airs of superiority, there is a certain pathos in this genuine devotion lavished upon the wrong object at an age when such blindness is simply absurd. That heart of adamant which had looked above kings and princes to covet the imperial crown, fell prostrate in the dust before a colonel of dragoons, a member of the royal household. Alas for pride of race!

Mademoiselle was forty-three years old when the conviction seized her that it would be well to marry, that M. Lauzun was the most attractive person in existence, and that for once it would be pleasant to receive the love of some one worth loving. That M. Lauzun admired her seemed evident, but how to give an opportunity for expression to one whose sense of reverential duty always kept him at a distance?

One day they had an interview in the embrasure of a window, the first of many similar ones, in which she consulted him about her proposed alliance {370} with Prince Charles of Lorraine. The tactics of our modest suitor are worthy of all praise. "By his proud bearing he seemed to me like the emperor of the world," writes Mademoiselle, whose circumstantial account must be pressed into few words. "Why should she marry," he reasoned, "since she had already everything that could embellish life? The position of queen or empress was little more exalted than her own, and would be encumbered with burthensome duties. True, in France she could raise some one to her own rank, and unite with him in untiring devotion to the king, who must ever be her first object in life. It was easy to build a castle in the air, but how to find a companion worthy to share it with her, when no such being existed? A woman of forty-three had three resources: a convent, a life of strict retirement apart from court and city, and finally marriage. Marriage would insure liberty to enjoy the world at any age, but it might be at the cost of her happiness." Hints only plunged him into reverential silence. At last the secret was revealed by writing; then comes incredulity met by protestations, and finally amazed conviction. "What! would you marry your cousin's servant? for nothing in the world would make me leave my post. I love the king too well, I am too much attached to my position by inclination, to leave it even for the honor you would confer upon me." And when she assured him that his devotion to the king only endeared him the more to her (for loyalty appears to have been the mainspring of their attachment), he answered: "I am not a prince; a nobleman I am assuredly, but that will not suffice for you;" and she replies, "I am content; you are all that would become the greatest lord in the kingdom, and wealth and dignities are mine to bestow upon you," etc., etc, etc.

The story is well known. Louis XIV., after much hesitation, gave his consent to the marriage. Mademoiselle was to confer great wealth upon Lauzun, together with the sovereignty of Dombes, the duchy of Montpensier, and the county d'Eu; always with the agreement that he should not resign his post at court, but unite with her in exclusive devotion to the king.

The night before the wedding day Mademoiselle was summoned to his majesty's presence, with directions to pass directly to his room through the in _garde-robe_. '"This precaution not a good omen. Madame de Nogent remained in the carriage. While I was in the _garde-robe_ Rochefort entered and said, 'Wait a moment.' I saw saw that some one was introduced into the king's room whom I was not intended to see. Then he said 'Enter,' and the door was closed behind me. The king was alone, and looked unhappy and agitated. He said, 'I am in despair at what I have to tell you. I am told that the world says I have sacrificed you in order to make Monsieur de Lauzun's fortune. This will injure me in the eyes of foreign powers, and I ought not to allow the affair to proceed. You have good reason to complain of me; beat me if you like, for there is no degree of anger I will not submit to, or do not deserve.' 'Ah!' I exclaimed, 'who do you mean, sire? it is too cruel! but whatever you do to me, I will not fail in the respect due to you. It is to strongly implanted in my heart, and has been too well nourished by Monsieur de Lauzun, who would have given me these feelings if I had not already been actuated by them, for no one can love him without acquiring them,' I threw myself at his feet, saying: 'Sire, it would be kinder to kill me outright than to place me in this position. When I told your majesty of the affair, if you had bade me forgot it. I would have done so, but think how I shall appear in breaking it off now that I have gone so far! What will become of me? Where is Monsieur de Lauzun?' 'Do not be uneasy; nothing will happen to him.' 'Ah! sire, I must fear everything {371} for him and for myself, now that our enemies have prevailed over the kindness you felt toward him.'

"He threw himself on his knees when I knelt, and embraced me. We remained thus three-quarters of an hour, his cheek pressed to mine; he wept as bitterly as I did: 'Oh why did you give time for these reflections? Why did you not hasten matters?' 'Alas! sire, who would have doubted your majesty's word? You never failed any one before, and you begin now with me and Monsieur de Lauzun. I shall die, and I shall be glad to die. I never loved anything before in all my life, and I love, and love passionately, the best and noblest man in your kingdom. The joy and delight of my life was in elevating him. I had thought to pass the rest of my days so happily with him, honoring and loving you as much as I do him. You gave him to me, and now you take him away, and it is like tearing out my heart. This shall not make me love you less, but it makes my grief the more cruel that it comes to me from him whom I love best in the world."

Mademoiselle's suffering in this scene was heightened by the fact that a suppressed cough outside the door revealed to her the presence of an unseen witness. She rightly suspected it to be the Prince de Condé, and reproached the king with just indignation for subjecting her to such a humiliation.

His majesty bore her reproaches very patiently, and dismissed her with the assurance that further discussion would not alter his decision. "He embraced me and led me to the door, where I found I don't know whom. I went home as quickly as possible, and there _je criai des hauts cris_."

Lauzun, sure of his hold upon her royal highness, and fearing to lose ground with the king, yielded with admirable resignation to the royal decree. His favor at court seemed for awhile greater than ever; but suddenly, for reasons never made public, he was disgraced and sent to the Castle of Pignerol. Mademoiselle spent the ten years of his imprisonment in faithful efforts to procure his release, and purchased it finally by an immense donation to the Duke du Maine, a son of Madame de Montespan. It was a success bitterly to be deplored. Any one more odious than Lauzun after his release, it would be difficult to imagine. Peevish, grasping, slovenly, and ungrateful, he hung about Mademoiselle's establishment; using the power which a private marriage had undoubtedly given him with an insolence that turned her love to disgust.

The spirit of a courtier alone remained to recall the Lauzun of former days. When the princess announced to him the death of Marie Thérèse, he cried: "'People deserve to be imprisoned who spread such falsehoods; how dare they say such things of the queen?' . . . At last they showed him the letters, and he had to agree that queens are mortal like other people."

In 1684 Mademoiselle and Lauzun parted in mutual displeasure. She rejected his efforts at conciliation, and the last entry in her Mémoires is the following: "M. de Lauzun was living as usual in obscurity, but exciting notice, and often concerning matters which annoyed me. When I returned from Eu in 1688, my people were dressed in new liveries. One day, when I was walking in the park of----"

"Mademoiselle knew life late," says M. Sainte-Beuve; "but in the end she know it well, and passed through every stage of experience. She felt the slow suffering which wears out love in a heart, the contempt and indignation that crush it, and reached at last that indifference which finds no remedy or consolation except in God. It is a sad day when we find that the being whom we have loved to adorn with every perfection and load with every gift is _so poor a thing_. She had years to meditate upon this bitter discovery. She died in March, 1693, aged sixty-six years."

{372}

Lauzan, with characteristic insolence, appeared at the general in the mourning of a widowed husband. The king sent the Duke of Saint-Aignan to bid him withdraw. "At such a moment I cannot listen to the voice of pride," was the reply; "I am absorbed by my grief, and could wish to see the king more occupied with his own." He remained to the close of the ceremony.

The magnificent obsequies were interrupted by a more serious disturbance. An urn, in which part of the remains were carelessly embalmed, exploded with a tremendous noise, frightening all the assistants. It was said that not even death could come to Mademoiselle without some ludicrous circumstance.

This princess began life with advantages such as fall to the lot of few human beings. What did she leave behind her in the world? A hospital and seminary under the charge of Sisters of Charity; a very fair literary reputation, founded chiefly upon her Mémoires, which, though not elegant in style, are truthful, graphic, and clear; and a character without spot or blemish, in an age when such characters were rare. Her written confessions afford ample material for cutting criticism, but it would be an unkindly task to turn her own artillery upon herself.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION.

BY REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.

II.

The advance of science has thrown some light on a subject of extreme difficulty and abstruseness: the relation of the qualities or accidents of matter to its substance. It is a subject of extreme difficulty, into which it seems not permitted to man to penetrate beyond the surface; but in regard to which much ignorance and misapprehension have been dispelled by the observations and deductions of modern philosophers. There are certain external marks or notes by which we recognize certain material things, as their form, their color, their hardness or softness, etc. One thing we call wood, another iron, a third wax, and so on. These external notes or marks by which we distinguish bodies are called their qualities, accidents, or properties. Underneath them there is the substance of the material thing, of which we have no means whatever of knowing anything. What it is that constitutes the difference between wood and iron, in their substance, must remain for ever a secret to our senses. We can perceive that one is harder, heavier, colder, then the other; but these observations go no further than the external qualities of the two bodies; regarding their absolute substance, or internal constitution, we have no possible means of forming a judgment. For all that we know, it may be the same in all bodies, or it may be as various as the simple elements of matter, now limited by chemists to about sixty, or it may be much more various. It is one of the mysteries of matter which will probably never be disclosed to the eye of man in this life.

Not only is the nature of material substance thus unknown to us, except through the external qualities, or accidents, which represent it; but we are informed by science that most of these qualities are the result of circumstances wholly distinct from their subject. A complete revolution in popular ideas has in part been achieved, in regard {373} to the permanence and immutability of these qualities of matter. Nothing seems more natural than to say that a red rose must be always red, a violet always blue, or that the size, shape, etc., of material bodies are inseparable from their existence. Yet Proteus himself was not more various in his shapes, than are the violet and the rose in the varieties of color of which they are so susceptible. Color, in fact, has no existence at all in the material object which we look at; it is a condition of the ray of light which enters our eye after reflection from the object, or after passing through it. Some objects absorb one or more parts of the three-fold visible ray of white light, and transmit or reflect to our eye only what remains of its constituent parts; some objects send the whole ray, undecomposed to the eye, and we call them white; others absorb it altogether, and they are said to be black. But all bodies, whatever their original color, that is, whatever part of the white ray they send to the eye, after absorbing the rest, may be made to appear of any color, by viewing them under the influence of variously colored light; which proves that their color exists not in themselves, but in the light which falls upon them, and on which their substance acts in some unknown way.

Sir John Herschel's testimony on this subject is very explicit. "Nothing at first can seem a more rational, obvious, and incontrovertible conclusion, then that the color of an object is an inherent quality, like its weight, hardness, etc.; and to see the object, and to see it of its own color, when nothing intervenes between our eyes and it, are one and the same thing. Yet this is only a prejudice; and that it is so is shown by bringing forward the same sense of vision which led to its adoption, as evidence on the other side; for when the differently colored prismatic rays are thrown, in a dark room, in succession upon any object, whatever be the color we are in the habit of calling its own, it will appear of the particular hue of the light which falls upon it: a yellow paper, for instance, will appear scarlet when illuminated by red rays; yellow, when by yellow; green, by green; and blue, by blue rays; its own (so called) proper color not in the least mixing with what it so exhibits." [Footnote 115] In like manner, other qualities of matter have no absolute existence, independent of circumstances. Twenty solid inches of sea water, if subjected to a pressure equal to that at a distance of twenty miles below the surface, would be reduced in volume to nineteen inches. [Footnote 116] A globe, an inch in diameter, consisting of air of the ordinary density at the earth's surface, if it could be removed into space one radius of the earth, say 4,000 miles, would expand into a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of Saturn, as Sir Isaac Newton has calculated. Hence the tail of a great comet, such as that observed in 1843, and which extended from its nucleus 200 millions of miles, [Footnote 117] may, for aught we know, consist only of a very few pounds or even ounces of matter, expanded to a degree of tenuity to our minds almost inconceivable. [Footnote 118] The same agent, heat, modifies the extension and form of matter in totally opposite ways; making clay contract and lose in volume, while expanding water, and still more largely air. Extension, or form, therefore, is subject to great modification by change of circumstances; nor is weight less so. A pound weight of matter at the earth's equator weighs heavier at the poles; or, which is the same thing, a pendulum oscillates faster at the poles than at the equator. If removed to the planet Mars or Mercury, a pound of matter would lose half its weight; if to the surface of Jupiter, it would weigh nearly three times heavier.

[Footnote 115: Discourse, etc. §71.]

[Footnote 116: Somerville's Physical Geography, I., chap. xvi. p. 318.]

[Footnote 117: Hind's Comets, p. 22.]

[Footnote 118: Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xi. §559, note.]

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If there is one quality more than another characteristic of solid rock, it is the immobility of its parts; as mobility is a distinctive feature of water and vapor. Yet experiments in crystallization have demonstrated the existence of mobility even in solid bodies, in an unimaginable degree. Mrs. Somerville remarks, that "we are led, from the mobility of fluids, to expect great changes in the relative position of their molecules, which must be in perpetual motion, even in the stillest water and the calmest air; but we are not prepared to find motion to such an extent in the interior of solids. That their particles are brought nearer by cold and pressure, or removed further from one another by heat, might be expected; but it could not have been anticipated that their relative positions could be so entirely changed as to alter their mode of aggregation. It follows from the low temperature at which these changes are effected, that there is probably no position of inorganic matter that is not in a state of relative motion." [Footnote 119] And elsewhere, in her Physical Geography, the same high authority assures us that "nothing can be more certain than that the minute particles of matter are constantly in motion, from the action of heat, mutual attraction, and electricity. Prismatic crystals of salts of zinc are changed in a few seconds into crystals of a totally different form by the heat of the sun; casts of shells are found in rocks, from which the animal matter has been removed and its place supplied by mineral; and the excavations made in rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if the rock the soft, and in a longer time when it is hard; circumstances which show an intestine motion of the particles, not only in their relative positions, but in space, which there is every reason to believe is owing to electricity; a power which, if not the sole agent, must, at least, have cooperated essentially in the formation and filling of mineral veins." [Footnote 120]

[Footnote 119: Connection of Phys. Sciences, § 14, p. 125.]

[Footnote 120: Phys. Geog. I, ch. xv. pp. 288, 289.]

In the language of the older treatise on science, glass is said to be transparent: gold, coal, etc., opaque, that is, incapable of transmitting light. But there is no substance known to modern discovery which, if sufficiently attenuated, is not capable of being seen through. Opacity, therefore, has no real existence as a quality of matter; it depends only on condition and circumstances. Hardness or softness in like manner, are easily separable from the substance of matter. Clay in its natural state is soft, apply heat to it and it becomes hard; wax is naturally hard, but becomes soft and ductile when warmed. Thus our knowledge of the internal constitution of material substance, through the medium of its external qualities, is in the highest degree uncertain, variable, and often erroneous. For there is not one of those external notes or Marx, which we call qualities, which cannot be changed or modified in such a way as seriously to derange the accuracy of our observations. Enough of accuracy has been secured for the purposes of our daily life; but, like the senses, our knowledge of the relation of quality to substance was never intended to carry us through the boneless field of knowledge, or enable us to pronounce with certainty regarding the nature, the difference, or the identity of substance, merely from the indications given us by its apparent qualities. These are truly accidents; things which do not affect the essence of matter; but connected with it in an evanescent way, liable to sudden change, and totally baffling our attempts to establish any certain criterion of substance by means of our observations on its qualities.

Recent observations in chemistry have still further demonstrated the impossibility of arriving at any knowledge of the internal structure of matter from its appearances. The delicate tests invented by chemists, in order to detect the difference between substances which appear to every human sense the same, though they effect their purpose with marvelous ingenuity, yet fail in indicating the ultimate reason for their efficiency.

{375}

Thus syrup extracted from the sugar-cane, or from plants yielding similar sugar, looks in every respect the same as that extracted from the juice of the grape. The refinements of modern chemistry, however, have pointed out several tests to distinguish one from the other. [Footnote 121] And in a beam of polarized light there is provided a test as subtle as any contributed by the aid of chemistry. In the instance of cane sugar, the plane of polarization revolves to the right; in grape sugar, it revolves to the left. Of this subtle agent, Mrs. Somerville remarks, when stating this interesting fact, that '"it surpasses the power even of chemical analysis in giving certain and direct evidence of the similarity or difference existing in the molecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the permanency of that constitution, or of the fluctuations to which it may be liable." [Footnote 122] The same delicate test of polarization enables us to distinguish reflected light, such as the moon's, from the light which issues from a self-luminous body, like Sirius. But in all these instances, the ultimate rationale of its indications still remains veiled in impenetrable darkness; and with it, any knowledge of the internal substance of matter.

[Footnote 121: Brande's Lectures on Organic Chemistry, p. 153.]was it

[Footnote 122: Connexion of Physical Sciences, § xxii, p. 214.]

It is, however, in the mysterious facts to which chemists have given the names of Isomorphism, Isomerism, and Allotropism, that we perceive the most direct and remarkable contribution of modern scientific research to the defence of Catholic revelation. Chemistry enables us to penetrate further than any other science into the secret operations of Nature; and strange insight has been thus obtained into the identity of substance under two or more external appearances; and of the existence of two or more substances of distinct character under identical appearances. A few words will not be idly devoted to a description of these terms, and of the results associated with them.

Isomorphism expresses the phenomenon in crystallization established by Gay Lussac and Mitscherlich, of different compounds assuming the same crystalline form. The generally received law of this process had hitherto been, that the same substances invariably crystallize in forms belonging to one system, different substances, in forms belonging to another. Cases had indeed been observed, before the discovery of Isomorphism, in which the same element had been seen to crystallize in two forms, belonging to different systems, not geometrically connected. Sulphur, for instance, crystallizing from its solution in the bisulphuret of carbon, assumes a geometrically different crystalline form from sulphur when melted by heat, and allowed to consolidate as it cools. But these and a few other similar cases had been explained as depending on a different arrangement of the particles, due most probably to a difference in the temperature during the operation. They were not thought to interfere with the general law of the same substance always assuming the same crystalline form. The two eminent philosophers just mentioned ascertained beyond a doubt that, in many instances, compound substances, in the process of crystallizing, assume the same or a cognate form, though their elements are totally different. Thus chloride of sodium (sea salt), sulphate of alumina and potash (alum), and many other compound substances equally dissimilar, crystallize in the form of the cube and its congeners. Other crystalline forms also are found to be common to many differently constituted compounds. "To these groups of analogous elements," says Professor Gregory, from whose work, On Inorganic Chemistry, we have abridged this account, "the name of Isomorphous groups has been given, as there is every reason to believe that as elements they possess the same form; and the phenomena of identical form in compounds of different but analogous composition, have received the name of Isomorphism. Two elements {376} are said to be isomorphous, which either crystallize in the same form, or may be substituted for each other in their compounds, equivalent for equivalent (the other elements remaining unchanged), without affecting the form of the compound. We can hardly doubt that not only the salt, but the acids are really isomorphous, and would be found so if we could obtain them all in crystals; and we have the same reason to conclude that the elements of these acids are also isomorphous; that arsenic and phosphorus, sulphur and selenium, for example, crystallize in the same form." [Footnote 123]

[Footnote 123: Inorganic Chemistry, Ed. 1853; pp. 38 _et seq_. ]

The converse of this phenomenon is also included among the discoveries of modern science; the same substance is sometimes observed to crystallize in two different forms not geometrically allied; and the occurrence of this new exception to the received law of crystallization is called Dimorphism.

Isomerism is the term employed to represent another exceptional class of facts, observed by later chemists to interfere with the general rule, that analogy or similarity of composition implies analogy in form and external properties. Two or more compounds, formed of the same element, in the same relative proportions, and having, therefore, the same composition in 100 parts, are often found entirely distinct and unlike in all their properties. Such bodies are called Isomeric. "The discovery of Isomerism," says the same eminent chemist, "however unexpected, is entirely consistent with the atomic theory, of which it is merely a special case. Isomerism is of very frequent occurrence among organic compounds, owing, no doubt, to their unusually large atomic weights, since the numerous atoms of the elements afford much scope for isomeric modifications; and, doubtless, this principle plays an important part in the processes of organic life and growth, as well as in decay." [Footnote 124]

[Footnote 124: Ib. p. 43, 44.]

More remarkable than all of these exceptions to hitherto established laws is the discovery of the existence of simple elements under totally dissimilar forms. Thus sulphur exists under three distinct and incompatible forms, or modifications, called Allotropic. Carbon likewise in three; the diamond, which is crystallized in octohedrons, and is limpid and transparent; graphite, which is black, opaque, and crystallized in prisms; and common charcoal, lamp-black, etc., which is black and quite amorphous. Phosphorus has two allotropic forms: one crystallized, white and transparent, and easily set on fire; the other, deep reddish-brown, amorphous, and inflamed with much less ease. Each of these elementary bodies thus assumes appearances as dissimilar as if they were totally different bodies, possessed of a physical character quite unlike each other. Well may Professor Gregory, after this summary of the subject, add: "the occurrence of such marked differences in the properties of elementary bodies is very remarkable, and of great interest in reference to the molecular constitution of matter; but the subject has not yet been fully investigated." [Footnote 125]

[Footnote 125: Inorg. Chemistry, pp. 44, 45.]

The speculations of another very distinguished chemist, Professor Faraday, in this field of recent observation, are worthy of place in this collective testimony of modern science, to the imperfect acquaintance with the ultimate constitution of material substance attainable by any amount of study of its external properties or appearances. "There was a time," says this eminent philosopher, "and that not long ago, when it was held among the fundamental doctrines of chemistry, that the same body always manifested the same chemical qualities; excepting only such variations as might be due to the three conditions of solid, liquid, and gas. This was held to be a canon of chemical philosophy, as distinguished from alchemy; and a belief in the possibility of transmutation was held to be impossible, because at variance {377} with this fundamental tenet. But we are now conversant with many examples to the contrary; and, strange to say, no less than four of the non-metallic elements, namely, oxygen, sulphur, phosphoros, and carbon, are subject to this modification. The train of speculation which this contemplation awakens within us is extraordinary. If the condition of allotropism were alone confined to compound bodies, that is to say, to bodies made up of two or more elements, we might easily frame a plausible hypothesis to account for it; we might assume that some variation had taken place in the arrangements of their particles. But when a simple body, such as oxygen, is concerned, this kind of hypothesis is no longer open to us; we have only one kind of particle to deal with; and the theory of altered position is no longer applicable. In short, it does not seem possible to imagine a rational hypothesis to explain the condition of allotropism as regards simple bodies. We can only accept it as a fact, not to be doubted, and add the discovery to that long list of truths which start up in the field of every science, in opposition to our most cherished theories and long received convictions." [Footnote 126]

[Footnote 126: Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, pp. 115, 116.]

Those persons who have resisted the evidence of Catholic revelation on the _primâ facie_ ground that sound philosophy and a knowledge of the physical phenomena of nature are directly opposed to some of its doctrines, must begin, we should think, to feel their position a little less impregnable than it seemed before such sentiments as these were warranted by the actually established facts of modern science. With such evidence of its recent fruits, we may be well satisfied to watch with interest and congratulation the progress of philosophical inquiry conducted in such a spirit; not so much for our own sakes, to whom, indeed, no analogies afforded by any human science could add anything in the way of confirmation to what we have been taught by divine testimony, transmitted through the church of Christ to our remote age; but for the sake of the erring and the doubting among the intellectual minds of our fellow-countrymen; with the hope that their attention might be arrested and turned in the direction plainly enough indicated by such analogies. With one more extract, we must take leave of Professor Faraday's highly interesting volume; only begging as many of our readers as are interested in such pursuits to purchase it, and study it for themselves. After pointing out the difference between common and allotropic phosphorus, he continues: "We can scarcely imagine to ourselves a more complete opposition of qualities than is here presented in these two conditions of phosphorus; an opposition not limited by merely physical manifestations of density or crystallographic form, but recognizable through all the phases of solution, thermal demeanor, and physiological effect The metamorphosis has, in fact, been so complete, that we can only demonstrate the allotropical substance _to be_ phosphorus, by reducing it to its original state, and subjecting it to ordinary tests. If the forces determining its constitution had been so balanced that the power of reduction were denied to us, then the substance we now call _allotropic phosphorus_ must necessarily, according to the strictest propriety of logic, have been admitted to be not phosphorus, but some other body. It is impossible, rationally, to deny that such permanent incontrovertibility may not lie within the power of natural laws to effect. That we are not aware of such an example, cannot be accepted as a proof of its non-existence; and analogy, the guidance to which we refer when direct testimony fails, is in favor of the affirmative." [Footnote 127] From the great powers of analysis at the command of this distinguished physicist, directed as much by the courage as by the wisdom and the candid spirit of true philosophy, it is impossible to say {378} what further insight into the constitution of matter may not hereafter be obtained. Such an instance is surely of itself a full justification of our sanguine hopes for the future of science in its relation to what has been revealed by eternal and unchanging truth.

[Footnote 127: Lectures, etc., pp.42, 43.]

Rather by way of indication than of summary of the reflections suggested by these inquiries, we would ask, how is it that the almost illimitable extension of gross material elements should be accepted without hesitation, while the possibility of the spiritual and glorified body of the Lord existing, without division or multiplication of itself, in every Catholic tabernacle, and also in heaven, is regarded as so wildly impossible, and even monstrous a conception, as to be scouted at the bare mention of it? When philosophy expects us to believe that black, crumbling charcoal, and the hard, shining diamond, are one and the same simple substance, why should it be thought in the nature of things so incredible as at once to preclude all further examination of the evidence on which it rests, that the substance of the Child of Bethlehem, of the risen and ascended Lord, and of the most holy eucharist, are one and the same. We are far from saying that the mode of existence is the same in all these instances; we only claim for revelation what is conceded to science; that appearances should not be held, _in limine,_ conclusive of the question, nor be allowed to outweigh or prejudice other evidence; for in every province of the universe of knowledge things are not what they seem. If what exists, or may exist, is to be limited by what human organs of sense can perceive, the boundaries of knowledge shrink into the narrowest compass: the eye and ear of an infant are enthroned as the judges of the constitution of nature; discovery and the progress of science are no more, or would never have been; mankind would yet be sunk in the imbecility of its primitive ignorance.

III.

Next to the fallacious testimony of the human senses, and the hidden nature of material substance, the subtle influences at work in the physical world seem very remarkably to indicate some curious analogies between the constitution of matter in its finer forms, and the nature of spiritual agencies. Recent analysis of the solar beam, for instance, has revealed rays hitherto unknown, because invisible to the acutest vision unaided by the appliances of science, and for long concealed even from its piercing scrutiny, but yielding at last to the refinements of modern investigation. These invisible rays have been proved to exercise most important functions in nature; in the germination and vegetation of plants, and other widely multiplied physical processes. There are few who have not heard much of the magnetic and electric currents which permeate every portion of the surface of the globe and its surrounding atmosphere; but we imagine that not so many are aware of the powerful influence which they possess in the economy of our planet. "There is strong presumptive evidence," says Mrs. Somerville, "of the influence of the electric and magnetic currents on the formation and direction of the mountain masses and mineral veins; but their slow persevering action on the ultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond a doubt by the formation of rubies, and other gems, as well as various other mineral substances by voltaic electricity." [Footnote 128] And, in another place, in the same instructive work, she remarks, that "it would be difficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through the complicated mazes of magnetism and electricity; the action of the electric current on the polarized sunbeam, one of the most beautiful of modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto unsuspected between that power and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible influences on solar light, by {379} one of which nature has recently been made to paint her own likeness." [Footnote 129] These influences, for all their subtlety, have a real, appreciable existence, and fulfil a definite and beneficent end. A curious example of the subserviency of the invisible magnetic current to the wants of men is mentioned by Humboldt as having occurred to himself, in one of his voyages off the west coast of South-America. Bad weather had prevailed for several days, so as to shut out all view of land, or of the sun and stars. The crew were in expectation of making a particular port on that coast: on consulting his dip-needle, the scientific passenger discovered that the ship had passed the latitude of its destined port; the ship's course was altered, and much delay and, probable, danger avoided. [Footnote 130] Nor are the agencies destructive to human life less subtile or recondite. Various miasmata of a pestilential character defy every refinement of chemical analysis to detect the cause of their mischievous operation, or the difference of their elementary constitution from that of pure and wholesome air. The most universal, and, as far as our knowledge serves, the most important of all physical influences, that of gravitation, is also the subtlest and most occult; traversing the vast regions of space with instantaneous speed, and pervading the remotest fields of the great universe of matter; penetrating without sensible interval of time to distances far beyond the utmost reach of human thought, with a force which maintains the stars of heaven in their courses, and gives stability to every known material system.

[Footnote 128: Physical Geography, II., chap. xxii. pp. 92.]

[Footnote 129: Physical Geography, II., xxxiii. pp. 400, 401.]

[Footnote 130: Cosmos, I. 171; III. 139.]

If these occult agencies in the material world are recognized as fulfilling their mission, for all their secrecy and subtlety, or rather, by means of these very characteristics, why is the possibility of a hidden yet efficient agency in the spiritual world denounced as a heresy against common sense and sound philosophy? The physical system of things has its great laboratory of decomposition and reconstruction kept in operation by these unseen influences; it is indebted to them for the maintenance of its existence. Science rejoices to measure them by their admirable results, to detect their operations in their sensible effects. Why must the sacramental system revealed in the spiritual world be with equal justice refused its claim to an agency hardly more subtle? Philosophers admit the truth of observations in these occult natural agencies, and have no doubt of their real existence; why do they so contemptuously regard the result of our observations in those which are secret and spiritual, when our observations are as numerous, and their evidence as good?

IV.

The whole question of the relation of space and time becomes one of vast interest and importance, in connection with a common objection made to the possibility of our holding communication with the saints and angels in heaven, as Catholics are taught to believe they may. Across a space of such unknown vastness, it is alleged that the idea of transmitting a wish or a prayer is contrary to every principle of philosophy. Now, assuming, what indeed has never been proved, that the heaven of the blessed is as remote from our daily path as some maintain it to be, and without entering here into the abstract question as to whether the idea of space or of time is the older and simpler, some considerations are suggested by the study of modern scientific principles, which may throw light on the objection just staled, and may help us to ascertain its real worth.

It is evident that time and space may be made a measure of each other. The distance from one point in space to another may be expressed in so many units of time, say a minute, an hour, or a day, required to traverse the intervening distance at a given velocity. Hence, if velocity of motion {380} from point to point be represented by the simple formula of (Space/Time) we obtain two other formulas representing; time and space, respectively, in terms of each other.

Thus, if Velocity = Space/Time

Then, Time = Space/Velocity

and Space = Time X Velocity. [Footnote 131]

[Footnote 131: For example, call Velocity 40 miles and hour, and Time 10 hours; then Space = 40 X 10 = 400 miles; or call Space 400 miles, Velocity being the same, then Time = 400/40 = 10 hours.]

There is a little instrument much valued by philosophical observers, but of no great intricacy in itself, which is at once an unerring measure of space and time; we mean a common pendulum oscillating seconds in a given level, say of London, at a given level, say of the sea, other conditions, as of the thermometer, etc., being the same. This instrument, beating seconds, is an invariable measure of length; in the latitude of London, for example, at the level of the sea, with thermometer at 62° Fahr., it is invariably 39.1393 inches long. And, conversely, provide such an instrument of the length just mentioned, and set it a-going; its oscillations will exactly measure out one second of time. Further, as a measure of length, it enables us to ascertain the weight of a cubic inch of water, in parts of a pound troy, whence the imperial standards of weight and capacity are derived. Hence a pendulum is a constant representative of space, in its length; and of time, in its oscillation. At any point on the surface of the globe, a rod of a certain given length will invariably, in similar circumstances, beat seconds; and a rod, beating seconds as it swings, will invariably measure a certain fixed length, according to the latitude. Why it does so, does not enter into our arguments now; it is enough that the fact is ascertained, and is one of the very commonest application to practise. Every good house-clock is evidence of it In the same town, for instance, the seconds' pendulums of all regularly-going clocks are of equal length to the minute fraction of an inch; and all pendulums, of the same length exactly, keep the same time exactly. In other words, space is made a measure of time, and time is a measure of space.

We said, just now, that space may be represented in terms of time, and time in those of space, the rate of Velocity being given. London is said to be ten hours from Edinburgh, when the transit is made at the rate of forty miles an hour. "As long as it would take to go to London," may be given as an expression equivalent to ten hours, at the same rate of motion. But vary that rate, and the terms used instantly represent very variable quantities. Ten hours from London, at the rate of a pedestrian travelling his four miles an hour, represent an insignificant distance of only forty miles; "as long as it would take to go to London" now expresses a period of a hundred hours, or more than four days. But take the wings of light, and instantly the distance supposed, if expressed in terms of time, dwindles to a minute portion of a second; even this is long, if you measure the space by the flash transmitted along the electric wire. Leaving the comparatively insignificant spaces on the surface of the globe for those vaster distances which divide planet from planet and from the sun, the time of 8 minutes 3.3 seconds, which the solar light takes to travel from its source to our globe may be taken as an expression of its distance from that luminary. Nay, there is a rate of velocity surpassing all these, bridging over the vast span of Neptune's orbit, for example, or the vaster diameter of a comet's path, in a unit of time too minute for the subtlest human instruments or calculations to appreciate. We mean the force or influence of gravitation, which, ever since the first moment when the sun and the planets were created, has been passing instantaneously from the centre of the solar system to every part, {381} even the most distant, of his wide empire, and back again from its furthest point to his centre.

Now, it is evident that if you undertake to express the distance of sun from planet in terms of the time, at this rate of velocity, it is reduced to nothing. The sun is as effectually present, for instance, in his all-important gravitating influence, at every instant of time, in the planet Neptune, nearly three thousand millions of miles away, as the hand of the schoolboy is present at the end of his sling, while he whirls it round his head, and retains the stone in its place by the string. Cut the string, and the stone flies off; suspend for an instant the influence, or force, or attraction, or whatever you please to call it, which binds Neptune to the sun, and he flies off in a path more eccentric than any comet's.

There are two ways of spanning distance: one by actual, bodily transit; another by the transmission of an impulse or wave, propagated and repeated along the space intervening, in some medium more or less mobile or subtle. The planetary motions are good examples of the actual translation of bodies through space: this earth of ours sweeping along, in its orbit round the sun, at a rate of something like nineteen miles in a second, or 68,000 miles in an hour, besides its rotatory motion on its axis of 24,000 miles every day. The planet Venus exceeds this velocity, travelling at the rate of 80,000 miles an hour; while Mercury, in the same time, accomplishes 109,360 miles. Even this inconceivable velocity is far surpassed by the comet of 1843, which, with a tail two millions of miles long, and a nucleus apparently larger than our globe, swept round the sun, at its perihelion, at the rate of 366 miles, or nearly the distance from Edinburgh to London, in one second. [Footnote 132]

[Footnote 132: Outline of Astronomy, §590, 593.]

Velocities of impulse exceed those of bodily translation; that is, supposing we may class among examples of wave motion the transmission of sound, light, electricity, and perhaps gravitation. Dr. Lardner mentions his having, on one occasion, in company with Leverrier, written a message by electric telegraph, at a distance of more than a thousand miles, and at the rate of 19,500 words in an hour, or of 5.5 words in a second. [Footnote 133] At a similar distance, and indeed at a much greater, a steel bar may be made to vibrate fourteen thousand miles in a second. [Footnote 134] Such a velocity evidently far surpasses the power of human comprehension. Even in regard to the less rapid transmission of light, the eminent astronomer Bessel candidly confesses that "the distance which light traverses in a year is not more appreciable to us, than the distance which it traverses in ten years. Therefore, every endeavor must fail to convey to the mind any idea of a magnitude exceeding what is accessible on the earth." [Footnote 135]

[Footnote 133: Museum of Science and Art, part viii. p. 116.]

[Footnote 134: Ib., Part ix. p. 201.]

[Footnote 135: Quoted, Cosmos, iii. 85.]

Now, even supposing that we are acquainted with all the methods which exist in nature for spanning vast distances, and if, as we have shown, distance may be expressed in terms of the time taken to travel over it, or transmit a communication across it, the thought forcibly occurs. What is distance, if viewed apart from the means at disposal for overpassing it? A friend in the next room is not nearer us than another in the next continent, if in the same interval of time we can communicate with either. To be sure, one of them we might see sooner than the other, but sight is no necessary means of communicating; the blind are forever debarred from it. Man can communicate with man, even materially, without either sight or hearing; and far beyond the range of either.

But who shall be bold enough to say that other and subtler methods of communication may not exist in the material universe? or that the world of spirit has none more vivid than those subtle currents which permeate the world of matter? To a generation or two ago, the means of transmitting intelligence, which are now quite familiar to us, would have seemed fabulous; a little further back in the history of Europe, their discovery might have involved the penalty due to witchcraft. If the passage of a material impulse across the wide orbit of Neptune unites him intimately at every moment with the sun, is there any distance that can be said absolutely to present an impassable gulf to the intercourse of spirit with spirit? Or, can it be said that some such means of communication do not, and cannot exist, because human senses do not perceive them, nor human intelligence comprehend them? Transmission by impulse surpasses in velocity every known instance of actual, bodily translation: why must what we yet know of the former be fixed as the limit of what is possible? Why may there not be some means of communication surpassing in swiftness the flash of the lightning, or the influence of gravitation, as far as it exceeds the sweep of the comet or the slow progress of the pedestrian? Why must it be pronounced an idle dream, that we may hold one end of a chain of impulses vibrating from earth to heaven, lying along the future track of our emancipated and purified spirits?

And pursuing analogy one step further, it is no severe demand on the imagination to conceive that the universal presence of God, which embraces and interpenetrates the immensity of space, may be, to the subtle and vivid impulses from spirit to spirit, what, in another order of things, the elastic ether of the planetary and sidereal spaces is to vibrations of material creation; that it may fulfil for those similar functions of propagation and transmission. In him who is everywhere, at every instant, and forever, intelligence may easily be conceived to pass between the remotest points of space, with a speed not slower than coexistence itself; for any him there is no passage or motion either in time or space; he is the one indivisible Eternal, here and now.

V.

We are forcibly struck, while referring to the discoveries of modern science, with the very slender ground on which the mass even of educated persons accept their most astonishing and improbable results. How many persons of all those who talk, with much fluency and show of knowledge on subjects of physical science, have tested, by their own observation, the truth of one of the phenomena which they converse about? How many persons, for instance, who tell us that light and heat in the same ray have been separated, have actually proved it by personal experiment, or even seen it proved by another? How many persons are there at this moment in England and Scotland who have verified by their own observation and calculation the size and figure of the earth, or its distance from the sun and moon; not to mention other more intricate problems in physics, of which they have no personal knowledge whatever? The mass of mankind are content to receive these things on sufficient testimony of men competent, or whom they deem competent, to inform them on such subjects. Here, at least, in the domain of science, there is no exaltation of private judgment, no rebellion against scientific authority; and it is a wise and a just arrangement that it should be so. There are not many men, in any age, furnished with the intellectual outfit necessary for such verifications; a lifetime would not be sufficient to enable one man to accomplish them all. Sir John Herschel has the following admirable remarks, which are very much to our present purpose. "What mere assertion will make any one believe, that in one second of time, in one beat of a pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000 Miles, and would therefore perform the tour {383} of the world in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a Swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so remote from us that a cannon ball shot directly toward it would be twenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the earth by its attraction in an appreciable instant of time? But what are these to the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly occurring at equal intervals, no less than five hunted millions of millions of times in a single second? That it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see; nay, more, that it is the frequency of their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of color. That, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times; of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions of times; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions of times in a second. These are nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained."

If Theology, or the science of God and his revealed will, is, as might have been expected, not less, but more recondite than any other, as its objects are vaster, more remote from human understanding, than those of any other science; surely, on philosophical principles, it is not unreasonable that authority should have its weight here, also, and equal measure at least to be dealt to all. Yet the modern world is agreed in ridiculing and denouncing the principle of authority in religious matters, as the bane of human society; and in exalting private judgment and opinion, as the Christian's only ultimate appeal in the matter. Apply this principle of independence to any other science, to any subject of human knowledge, or to any object of intelligent inquiry; and a race of sciolists, pedants, and sceptics would inevitably result. The authority of great names in science would lose all its just honor; there would be no system, no progress in observations; thousands of persons, incompetent to do more than deny the conclusions of the learned and the able, would refuse their assent to these, till the impossible time should arrive, when, by actual and personal investigation, they should be pleased to pronounce judgment on the accuracy of these conclusions; life would be consumed in negation; mutual trust and deference to superior knowledge and capacity would be annihilated. Whether in this incompatibility of private judgment with its best interests, and even with its stability, Revelation is very different from Science, we leave to the study of our readers, and to their observation of the fine gradations of independent judgment which conduct from Luther to Strauss; the former of whom began by denying the pope, and the latter ended by impugning the divinity of Jesus Christ.

VI.

The principle of authority and its correlative, subordination and dependence, is represented, in a remarkable manner, in the constitution of physical nature, especially in the province of astronomy. It is a remark of Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, [Footnote 136] "that the relations among the planets is uniformly, not co-ordinate, but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence of their primaries; primaries to that of the central sun; the central sun itself to a higher and more distant centre; in a sublimer material hierarchy, ascending in gradations of {384} immense numerical magnitude; and thus while insuring the stability of the whole planetary and stellar systems, ultimately, as every analogy teaches us, making one grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a point of space whose distance we cannot even imagine."

[Footnote 136: Bohn's Edition, p. 175.]

In his remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the squares of the times of planetary revolution round the sun are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from that central luminary, Sir J. Herschel has the following pertinent observations, "Of all the laws to which induction from pure observation has ever conducted man, this third law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly be regarded as the most remarkable, and the most pregnant with important consequences. When we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system, from the point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere analogy which strikes us--no longer a general resemblance among them, as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the sun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it by its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a true _family_ likeness; they are bound up in one chain--interwoven in one web of mutual relation and harmonious agreement--subjected to one pervading influence, which extends from the centre to the furthest limits of that great system; of which all of them, the earth included, must henceforth be regarded as members." [Footnote 137 ]

[Footnote 137: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix §489.]

The remarks of the same great philosopher on the systems of double stars, in a later part of his work on astronomy, bear still more directly on the view we are proposing. "It is not with the revolutions of bodies of a planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that we are now concerned; it is with that of sun round sun--each, perhaps, at least in some binary systems, where the individuals are very remote, and their period of revolution very long, accompanied with its train of planets and their satellites, closely shrouded from our view by it the splendor of their respective suns, and crowded into a space bearing hardly a greater proportion to the in enormous interval which separates them, than the distance of the satellites of our planets from their primaries bear to their distances from the sun itself. A less distinctly characterized subordination would be incompatible with the stability of their systems, and with the planetary nature of their orbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their immediate superior, the sweep of another sun in its perihelion passage round their own might carry them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly incompatible with the conditions necessary for the existence of their inhabitants. It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and novel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is not easy to avoid luxuriating in." [Footnote 138]

[Footnote 138: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi. § 847.]

VII.

The phenomena of nature or suggest an interesting view all of law in general, which we shall in a few words faintly outline. It is constantly urged as an objection to the doctrine of revelation regarding the Blessed Eucharist, for example, that it is contrary philosophy, inasmuch as it assumes and implies the suspension of a universal law, which connects certain definite accidents or qualities of matter invariably with their corresponding substance; for in the Holy Eucharist the properties, qualities, or accidents of one substance are attached to another.

By a "_Law_" in physics no more can be understood than a deduction from a sufficiently large series of observed facts, establishing, from long and tearful and extensive observation, a uniformity of result in the same given circumstances. Some laws are said to be "empirical," which though derived from careful noting of invariably {385} recurring phenomena, enunciate no principle, or rationale, but merely the numerical result of observation. Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, and Bode's law of planetary distances from the sun, are instances of law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of gravitation is said to furnish the principle which is involved in Kepler's formula of details; because once Newton's law is admitted as governing planetary motion, what Kepler observed of the movements of the planets, can be deduced by calculation. It would be perhaps more philosophical, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard even the most apparently elementary and fundamental law as only empirical, and the ultimate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this view, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would be said to lie only one step nearer the ultimate principle than the earlier and more empirical. Probably there is no ultimate principle nearer than the divine volition.

In fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philosophers as something short of the ultimate solution of material attraction and repulsion; they are groping their way, at this moment, to something more universal than that law, as may be gathered from the following observations of Sir J. Herschel: "No matter from what ultimate cause the power which is called gravitation originates--be it a virtue lodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without, or the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids, magnetic or electric ethers, or impulses--still, when finally brought under our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy, its direction is _from_ many points on all sides _toward_ the sun's centre." [Footnote 139]

[Footnote 139: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. §490.]

Whence is this uncertainty about the probable nature of this force? Because, universal as it has been thought, it fails in certain circumstances, as in some electrical conditions, and within very small distances; when the relation of material particles to one another is one of repulsion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is called, that fluids will always rise as high as their source, and no higher. The phenomena of capillary attraction prove that this law does not hold in all cases. The chemical law of atomic combination is sometimes found signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like these, are good only as far as they go; there are limits to their application.

Why may not this be true in regard to the law which is said to militate against the doctrine of the blessed Eucharist? It may hold good for a thousand instances, and may fail in the next, like other physical laws; and that instance may be the very one of this revealed doctrine. _Exceptio probat regulam_ is a sound rule in a certain sense; it tells the other way, however, when the absolute impossibility even of an exception is maintained in regard to any physical law.

But, in fact, we see that this law of relation between quality, or accident, and substance, is very uncertain in its application to many conditions of matter. Modern discovery has much diminished the number of the properties, or qualities, of matter; and has proved that even these are by no means constant in the same substance, nor always variable in different substances; so that one substance often looks to every sense, like another, wholly different; and "behaves," like it, in a variety of ways; while the same substance has sometimes more than one mode of appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity between material substance and its properties; if there is any law on the subject, it is the other way; and the result of discovery seems clearly to demonstrate that we know absolutely nothing of the nature of substance.

VIII.

Closely connected with this view of law is the interesting subject is {386} throughout nature, but especially in the motions and temporary disturbances in the heavenly spaces, and which afford, in fact, the best evidence of the stability of the vast system of creation. A variation is observed in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for instance, of which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's motion round her primary; it might seem as if, at some vastly remote period in future time, the total derangement of our planetary system must ensue; but calculation has assured us that there is a point, far short of that, at which there will occur a change; and in the lapse of ages things will return to their original condition. Thus beyond an exception to law there is still Law existing supreme, regulating the conditions and the term of such exceptional existence. In a similar manner, the law of storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion of definite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the tropical hurricane; so definite, and so completely under the control of observed rule, that navigators are provided with certain instructions for evading the overwhelming force of those terrible visitations. We think of these cycles of apparent exception and departure from established order, in the physical world, when we hear objections made against this or that apparent anomaly in the spiritual and moral government of God; till the principles and laws of one government are proved wholly unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular variation not impossible in the one as it actually exists in the other; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the outward glory of his church, the prevalence of her enemies against her, for a longer or a shorter time; the exile of her chief pastor; the triumph of iniquity in her glorious capital; convinced that erratic trains of events like these are subject to law in the permission of him who governs as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an act of his sovereign and omnipotent will.

IX.

From what has preceded, one or two general reflections occurred to an intelligent mind, somewhat to this effect. It seems that the horizon of science has never been long stationary, and is now opening wider then at any former period. Every science has passed through many strange phases of empiricism, before reaching the philosophical basis on which it now rests. All of them are disclosing facts and analogies undreamed of by our grandfathers. A very few years make a book on chemistry or physiology old and out of date. We are posting on to further knowledge; strange and unimagined relations between matter and matter, and still stranger between matter and mind, are no doubt awaiting the detection of future discoverers; our children, or their children, will know more than we. A single sentence of Professor Faraday's reflections on the subject of Allotropism, is sufficient to open a wide view of the possible career of science. "The philosopher ends," he says, "by asking himself the questions, In what does chemical identity consists? In what will these wonderful developments of allotropism end? Whether the so-called chemical elements may not be, after all, mere allotropic conditions of purer universal essences? Whether, to renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may the only so many mutations of each other, by the power of science naturally convertible? There was a time when this fundamental doctrine of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies; _it is now no longer opposed to them, but only some stages beyond their present development._" [Footnote 140]

[Footnote 140: Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.]

Is it safe to trust to what are considered to be indications of physical truth in a contest with moral evidence when the limits of physical knowledge are so floating and ill defined? Is it safe to erect barriers of supposed physical laws against the entrance of conviction regarding the truths of {387} revelation, when recent discovery has established so much that tells on the side of faith; when it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to it; when future discovery may, and seems likely to push the advantage of revelation still further into the domain of matter; when its indications have so many analogies to the doctrines of revealed truth? We are sure, at least, that future discovery can take from us no advantage which we at present derive from our knowledge of physical laws; it cannot fail widely to extend that advantage, by enlarging our acquaintance with the laws of nature.

X.

The natural termination of our reflections is the consideration of how short a way we yet see into the constitution of Nature; how far we are still from reaching the secrets of her vast operations. "After all, what do we see?" asks Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial Objects_. "Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular) universe, our own, and all which optical assistance has revealed to us, may be only the outlines of a cluster immensely more numerous. The millions of suns we perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There are no bounds to infinitude; and the boldest views of the elder Herschel only placed us as commanding a ken whose radius is some 35,000 times longer than the distance of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace exclaim, 'That which we know, is little; that which we know not, is immense.'" [Footnote 141] If, on the one hand, the discoveries of man in every department of material knowledge prove him to be in genius and intelligence only "a little lower than the angels," the boundless expanse of undiscovered worlds of investigation in his own and distant systems may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest philosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in part.

[Footnote 141: Vol. ii. Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.]

If so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine government can never be a safe or a philosophical guide to direct us in accepting or rejecting whatever comes to us claiming to be from the author and sustainer of that government, as revelation does. It can never be safe even as a preliminary guide; as an ultimate rule to test the value of revelation, it is totally disqualified. Till we know all, we can say nothing of what is possible or impossible, probable or the reverse. We can understand a person to whom the claims of revelation on his assent were new and strange, hesitating to accept it at all, till its credentials had been examined, and their evidence ascertained; but once that process is concluded, and a revelation established, we cannot understand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of human knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum of revealed truth what seems to it intelligible, and accepting that, while rejecting whatever it considers to be the reverse; and maintaining that, because it cannot comprehend the mysterious things of revelation, therefore they cannot be from God. The only course, at once safe and philosophical, is to accept the whole of what is presented to us, without questioning its coincidence, or otherwise, with our previous views of what is likely or befitting; with our present notions of what is intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem in its doctrines unintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even contradictory: clouds of doubts may seem to hover over it; storms of conflicting principles and laws and assumptions, subversive, as we think, of the course of nature, may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-top, and the clouds are left far beneath; the roaring of the storm cannot be heard so high. Descend a little way into the deep, and the agitation of its surface ceases; silence and order and everlasting rest are established there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of God, as manifested in his material government, or the higher we ascend in contemplating his modes {388} of action in nature, the nearer we shall approach to the vision of that perfect harmony and nice adjustment of every part of his vast creation, the full disclosure of which will recreate our intelligence in the light of his eternal beauty. It cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every new step in science, at every discovery of the secret powers of nature. We welcome the advance of physical science as a pioneer of the ultimately victorious progress of revealed truth, which shall demonstrate its intimate harmony with all that is known of the divine operations in the constitution of nature.

Meanwhile, we can afford to wait "till the day breaks and the shadows flee away." The veil will one day be withdrawn, and we shall see, eye to eye. Influences and agencies which it has not yet been given to man even to imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us; as when the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, and he beheld his master surrounded with chariots of fire and horses of fire. Things will then be seen as they are, in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. We can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us, already, much that we cannot account for, on natural principles; strong presentiments, and instincts of the supernatural and eternal order of things, are ever and ever crossing our path, stirring us with strange and sudden and mysterious power; disposing us for the revelations of the final day. A day of wonder; a day of benediction; but not for those who have refused to believe because they could not see, but for Christ's simple little ones, who were content to believe before, or without seeing; for whom it was enough that the great Creator had spoken to them by his Son, and since by his church; more than enough, that, even here, they could recognize the subservience of philosophy to faith; that they could perceive "in outward and visible things the type and evidence of those within the veil."

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN.

Copied from a print of the Blessed Virgin in a Catholic Village in Germany. Translated into English by E. T. Coleridge.

Dormi, Jesu! mater ridet Quae tam dulcem somnam videt, Dormi, Jesu! blandule! Si non dormis, mater plorat, Inter fila cantans orat, Blande, veni, somnule.

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling: Mother sits beside thee smiling; Sleep, my darling, tenderly! If thou sleep not, mother mourneth, Singing as her wheel she turneth; Come, soft slumber, balmily!

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Original.

CELTIC ANTHOLOGY AND POETIC REMAINS.

There is no people, the annals of which may not be separated into three distinct periods, namely: the period of heroes and epico-poetic narration; the period of myth, fable, and apotheosis; and the period of realistic and definitive history. Or, to range the whole in the order of historical sequence, the three distinctive phases of race-annals may be formulated as follows:

1. The period of myth and apotheosis--which, among the European races especially, constitutes the beginning of history.

2. The period of heroes and poetic annals--which forms a kind of transition period.

3. The period of realistic definitive history, untinted with imaginative glories--the beginning of which indicates the point in race-history at which literary civilization commences.

To the analysis of the first we apply the term _mythology_; but for the second it happens that there is no term--unless we may be permitted so to deepen the sense of the word _anthology_ as to include within its sweep of definition, not only poetic extracts, but poetic material and the logical analysis of that material. For the purposes of this paper, therefore, the word will be used in the sense suggested, as including the poetic material of a people, and the discussion of any anthological idiosyncrasies therein manifested.

The use of the word being permitted--it happens that, however intricate and various in details, the _essential_ data of anthology are everywhere the same in classification, and everywhere susceptible of the same logical analysis. Without here pausing to specify reasons, which may be more conveniently specified hereafter--this division into classes of _data_, needful because as yet no logicalization has been here attempted, may be effected with tolerable precision by recurring to the usual analysis of a people's poetic material. The analysis of these _data_--anthological because imaginative and poetic--may, therefore, be exhibited thus:

1. Mythology and semi-historical or moralistic fable.

2. Poetic annals and ancient waifs of ballad and song.

3. Household legends, fairy stories, and superstitions.

In the region of mythology the data have been collected and collated with considerable thoroughness, especially by German _savans_; in the region of poetic annals, only the general details have been subjected to analytic scrutiny; and in that of household lore and legend, saving the collection of the Brothers Grimm, little has been effected in comparison with the importance of the subject. Enough has been done, however, to demonstrate, not only the applicability of the fore-made classification, but also the singular analogical resemblance in minute details which exists between the household legends of any one people as compared with those of any other, and which, in analogy at least, points to the original historical unity of the human race.

Nor is the analogy which bespeaks this unity to be limited to the general analysis of class. Amid the vagaries of mythology and apotheosis, amid the epic-annals of heroes and demi-gods, and, in short, amid the more minute imaginings and superstitions {390} of every people may be traced curious and often startlingly singular analogical resemblances.

The Edda, weird, Northern and Gothic in the _ensemble_ of its imaginings, reproduces, otherwise nomenclated, the mythology of the Greek and of the Roman; the dim bat-winged Athor of mystical Egypt, who presided under the shadows of the pyramids over the creation of beauty, reappears, less mystically aureola'd, in the classical _mythos_ of Venus; and the ghoul of the desert-inhabiting Saracen--most Arabic of all Arabs--haunts the woodlands and waste-places of Germany, as illusive and wine-dispensing Elle-maid; in short, in all forms of superstition and in all moods of anthology there is an essential unity--a unity having its root in the general unity of the human imagination. For, the imagination, however through the operation of local causes its dreams may be tipped with rainbow-tints or imbued with shadowy sublimity--is one in the ever-varying rhythm of its creations, and one in the vague palaces of fantasy which it uprears. Valleys and palaces of ideal loveliness it may evoke--visions to which Poe weds expression in the weird imagery of his Haunted Palace:

"And travellers in that happy valley, Through two luminous windows, saw Spirits moving musically To a lute's well-tunéd law;"

Or, again, valleys and palaces of lunatic ghastliness and superstition--visionary lunacies, which Poe graphically, though somewhat metaphorically, depicts in his own modification of the above rhythm-painting:

"And travellers now within that valley. Through the red-litten windows, see Vast forms that move fantastically To a discordant melody."

But, whether the music be discordant or well-tuned, the humanity of its note cannot be mistaken; and whether the creations of the human intellect be palaces of loveliness or pagodas of ghastliness, they still bear the unmistakable impress of man's toiling after the ideal--of the vague, restless, and unsatisfied yearning for the lost ideal of his being, to compass which he toils and struggles and dreams. In this essential unity of human imagination is grounded the essential unity of the _data_ of anthology, and hence its marvellous and minute analogical resemblances.

Anthology having never been reduced to definitive system, it happens that no little of its critical material exists only in lumbering and uncollated masses. Indeed, not a little of that which might have been valuable as material has been permitted to rot in mildewed manuscript--for need of appreciation of its real value on the part of scholars--instead of having been (as it should have been) treasured and preserved, as the pabulum of thought and science; and yet more remains uncollected, and will so remain until a more valid comprehension of its value shall have been impressed upon the minds of spectacled professors who are usually the last to comprehend that in the comprehension of which they ought to be first. But, notwithstanding this apparent apathy and neglect on the part of the learned, there are, still, certain problems of history which can only be unriddled with this key--that of comparative anthology--as, for instance, the exploits of Joan d'Arc; a hundred riddles of mental philosophy there are, which can not be unravelled without it; and, in every language, multitudes of words are based, as to their peculiar shades of significance, upon anthological criticism. Thus the _nightmare_ is the _demon which haunts the night_; the _Huguenots_ were _imps of the woods_--from _Hugon_, the demon of the woodlands;--and not not as a learned dean supposes the _people eidgenossen_; and a _seer_ is simply a _see-er_, that is, one who has the gift of the second sight.

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A minute knowledge of anthology--we here use the term to denote that blossoming of events and moral ideas into imaginative forms, which constitutes most of that which we denominate the poetic material of a people, is, therefore, in the highest degree necessary to the proper comprehension of--

1. Historical criticism. 2. Comparative philology. 3. Mental philosophy--especially in those moods of mind of which modern civilization furnishes no examples.

To take a familiar illustration. It has been over and over demonstrated that, unless we deny the validity of the common principles of historical evidence, to admit the existence of that peculiar imaginative faculty denominated "second sight" is a necessity. Nor is the faculty, if its existence be admitted, necessarily to be accounted a preternatural gift--being simply the logical result of the cultivation of certain impulses of human intellect seldom, in the experiences of modern society, evoked into activity; being, in fact, the logical deduction of that scenery which surrounded the Highlanders of Scotland, and of that mood of mind which was their prevailing habit. Civilization develops no sublimity of mental strength, except in the region of reason. Moral sublimity is not developed by communion with streets and avenues. Neither is imaginative insight--that which, in ultimate deduction, is inspiration--an inhabiter of palaces. Born of crags, of' mountains, and of the lurid and ghastly grandeur of the tempest--the imaginative insight is the lightning of the mind, and like the lightning at midnight reveals that which to the moon and stars is wrapped in darkness. To educe the principle: the imaginative forms (anthology) into which primitive moral ideas, rude reasonings, and epic-events blossom, are essentially modified by two ever-active causes, namely: idiosyncrasies of race and scenic surroundings. And hence, in reducing the fragmentary imaginings of a people to scientific system, we are compelled to keep constantly in view the idea of answering to the conditions of three problems:

1. Given the scenery of a country and the idiosyncrasies of its people, and we may, in a general way, indicate its anthology; or

2. Given the anthology and idiosyncrasies, and we may, with tolerable accuracy, indicate the leading peculiarities of the scenery; or

3. Given the scenery and anthology, and we may indicate, with exactitude, the leading idiosyncrasies of the people.

Having indicated, by way of preface, the general scope of anthology and the value of its _data_, we shall devote the remaining portion of this paper to the anthological relics of the Irish race, and especially to its elfin and poetic phases.

Fairies are (among the Irish peasantry) still believed to exist, and to exercise no little influence over the affairs of mortals. They are generally represented as pigmies, and are, so runs the superstition, often seen dancing around solitary thorns, which are believed to be among their most frequented haunts. Hence the veneration of the peasantry for old solitary thorns--the peasantry believing that if these thorns are cut down or maimed, the fairies are thereby provoked, and will either maim the person who has cut the tree, cause his cattle to sicken and die, or otherwise injure his property. Places supposed to be haunted by fairies are termed gentle, as likewise are several herbs, in gathering which a strange ritual is observed. If provoked by any person, it is believed that the fairies will steal and carry away that which is dearest to that person, as his wife, or especially any members of his family in babyhood and before baptism. The castles in which the fairies dwelt were generally believed to be movable at the pleasure of the proprietor, invisible to human eyes, and usually built in ancient forths or raths. Among the principal fairy kings were Firwar, whose castle was at Knock Magha, and Macaneantan, {392} whose fairy palace was at Sgraba. Whistling Hill (Knock-na-feadalea), in the county of Down, is still visited by hundreds of the peasantry, who, especially on the last night in October, which is observed with singular ceremonials, aver that they can hear the music of the fairies issuing from the hill. The following verses include the names of the principal places fabled to be inhabited by fairy kings:

"Around Knock-Grein, and Knock-na-Rae, Bin Builvia, and Keis Korain, To Bin Eakhlan and Lokh Da-ean, And thence north-east to Sleive Guilin. They trod the lofty hills of Mugarna. Round Sleive Denard and Beal-at-an-draigh. Down to Daudrin, Dundroma, and Dunardalay, Right forward to Knock-na-Feadalea."

Which was the route of procession on the night of the last of October, when aërial spirits were supposed to be peculiarly active. The following legend of Whistling Hill we extract from a collection of these legends in the original Irish made by Rev. William Neilson, D.D., and printed by Hogan, No. 15 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin, in 1808:

"There was au honest, pious man, who lived formerly near the river, by the side of the hill (Whistling Hill); and the vestiges of his house may yet be seen. His name was Thady Hughes; and he had neither wife nor family--his mother, an aged woman, keeping his house.

"Thady went out on a Hallow-eve night to pray, as he was in the habit of doing, on the bank of the river; and looking up to observe the stars, he saw a dusky cloud from the south moving toward him as if impelled by a whirl-wind, and heard the sound of horses just as if a troop of cavalry were tramping along the valley. Thady noticed that they all came over the ford and round the mountain.

"Remembering that he had often heard it said, 'if you cast the dust under your feet against the cloud, if the fairies have any human being with them they are compelled to release him,' Thady seized a handful of the gravel which was under his feet and hurled it, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, against the whirlwind: whereupon fell down a strange lady, weak, faint, and wearily moaning.

"Thady started, but, imagining that the voice of the strange lady's moaning was human, went to the spot where she fell, spoke to her, and took her in his arms and carried her to his mother, who gave her food--the lady eating but little.

"They asked her few questions that night, knowing that she came from the fairy castles. Besides, she appeared to be sick and sorrowful, and did not seem to be in any mood for talking. The next morning, however, she related her story, having first enjoined secrecy, which Thady and his mother promised.

"The strange lady's name was Mary Rourke, and she had formerly lived in the county of Galway, where she was married to a young man named John Joyce, who lived hard by Knock Magha. One year after her marriage with Joyce, King Firwar and his host carried her away to the fairy castle of Knock Magha, leaving something in the form of a dead woman in her place which bulk was duly waked and buried.

"She had been in Knock Magha nearly a year and was daily entertained with dances and songs, notwithstanding she was in sorrow at having been parted from her husband. At length the host of the castle told her that her husband had married another woman; that, therefore, she ought to indulge in grief no longer; and that Firwar and his family were about to visit the province of Ulster, and intended to take her with them. They set out at dawn from Knock Magha forth, both Firwar and host; and many a fairy castle they visited from dawn till fall of night, traveling all mounted on beautiful winged horses.

"After they lost Mary, the fairies did not halt; for they were to feast that Hallow-eve in the fairy castle of Sgraba, with the fairy king, Macaneantan."

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The story adds that Thady Hughes married Mary Rourke, and that a difficulty subsequently arose between Thady and John Joyce, who, having heard of the escape of the strange lady from the fairies, went to Thady's cottage and claimed her as his wife. The matter afterward came before the bishop for adjudication, who adjudged that as Mary had, to all appearances, died and been buried as the wife of John Joyce, she was under no obligation to be his wife after her death. And thus ends the legend.

The general similarity of the fairies as depicted in this legend to those of Germany as illustrated in Goethe's Erl King, is obvious, and seems to argue either historical kin or identity of origin. In Goethe's ballad a corpse is left in the arms of the father. The version subjoined is an anonymous newspaper version, but is so far superior to that of Mrs. Austin, that we quote it in preference:

"Who rideth so late through the night wind lone? Yet is a father with his son.

"He foldeth him fast; he foldeth him warm; He prayeth the angels to keep from him harm.

"' My son, why hidest thy face so shy?' "' Seest thou not, father, the Erl King nigh?

"'The Erlen King with his train, I wist?' "'My son, it is only the fog and mist.'

"'Come, beautiful one, come away with me, And merry plays will I play with thee!

"'Ah! gay are the blossoms that blow by the shore, And my mother hath many a plaything in store.'

"'My father, my father, and dost thou not hear What the Erlen King doth say in my ear?'

"'Be still my darling, be still, my son, Through the withered leaves the winds howl lone.'

"'Come, beautiful one, come away with me, My daughters are fair, they shall wait on thee!

"'My daughters their nightly revellings keep, They shall sing, they shall dance, they shall rock thee to sleep.'

"' My father, my father, and seest thou not The Erl King's daughters in yon wild spot?'

"'My son, my son, I see, I wist, It is the gray willow down there in the mist.'

"'I woo thee; thy beauty delighteth my sense. And, willing or not, shall I carry thee hence.'

"'O father, the Erl King now puts forth his arm! O father, the Erl King, he doeth me harm!'

"The father rideth, he rideth fast And faster rideth through the blast.

"He spurreth wild, through the night wind lone, And dead, in his arms, he holdeth his son."

Of this topic--the folks-lore of the Irish peasantry--we shall here take leave, merely hazarding the opinion that there is some remote historical connection between the Irish traditions of the idiosyncrasies and doings of elves and those of the Germanic races--a connection probably dating from the Danish occupation of the country about the seventh or eighth century. In the Irish poetic annals, which antedate the Danish occupation by several hundred years, no traces of elfin traditions can be detected; and the same is true of the Ossianic ballads which McPherson has rather imperfectly collated, and between which and the several Celtic manuscripts there is a singular resemblance.

The collation of McPherson, valuable in many respects, is amenable to almost fatal criticism, in that the sublimity of the Gaëlic composition is marred by being twisted from the parallelism (which, in the original, is analogous to the Hebraic) into the form of prose: the parallelism being in English--as in Gaëlic, Celtic, and Hebrew--the most effective form into which sublimity can be wrought. And to demonstrate the truth of this proposition we need only to put portions of McPherson's prose version into the parallelistic form, and shall adopt for this purpose Fingal's interview with the spirit of Loda, than which, uniquely considered, a poem of more overwhelming sublimity was never written or conceived. Subjoined is McPherson's version:

"A blast came from the mountain: on its wings was the spirit of Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like flames in his dark face: his voice is like distant thunder. Fingal advanced his spear in night, and raise his voice on high. 'Son of night retire: call thy winds, and fly! Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms? Shall I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of clouds; feeble is that meteor thy sword! The blast rolls them together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of night! call thy winds and fly!'

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"'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice. 'I turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations, and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad on the winds; the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is calm above the clouds; pleasant are the fields of my rest.'

"'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' says the king. 'Let Comhal's son be forgotten. Have my steps ascended from my hills into thy peaceful plains? Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of dismal Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why shake thine airy sphere? Thou frownest in vain: I never fled from the mighty in war; and shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? No--he knows the weakness of their arms.'

"'Fly to thy land,' replied the form; 'take to the wind, and fly! The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is mine. Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath!'

"He lifted high his shadowy spear! he bent forward his dreadful height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless into air."

Now, let us put this in the form of the parallelism--a form into which the sententious sublimity of the composition naturally falls, and in which nearly all these ancient Gaëlic and Celtic epics occur in the original:

"A blast came from the mountain: On its wings was the spirit of Loda. He came to his place in terrors, And shook his dusky spear. His eyes appear like flame in his dusky face: His voice is like distant thunder. Fingal advanced his spear into the night, And raised his voice on high. Son of night, retire; Call thy winds, and fly! Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms? Shall I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of Loda? Weak is thy shield of clouds; Feeble is that meteor, thy sword. The blast rolls them together: And thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of night! Call thy winds, and fly!' 'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice. 'I turn the battle in the field of the brave, I look on the nations and they vanish: In my nostrils is the blast of death. I came abroad on the winds: The tempests are before my face, But my dwelling is calm above the clouds; Pleasant are my fields of rest.' 'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' said the king. 'Let Comhal's son be forgotten. Have my stops ascended from my hills into thy peaceful plains? Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of the dismal Loda? Why dost thou frown on me? Why shake thy dusky spear? Thou frownest in vain; I never fled from the mighty in war; And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? He knows the weakness of their arms.' 'Fly to thy land,' replied the shadow; 'Take to the wind, and fly! The blasts are in the hollow of my hand The course of the storm is mine. Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, Or feel my flaming wrath!' He lifted high his shadowy spear: He bent forward his dismal height Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of the dark-brown Luno. The gleaming path of steel winds through the gloomy ghost. The form fell shapeless in air."

For vague sublimity, for weird, dismal, ghastly, and phantasmagoric grandeur of conception and effect, the imagery of the above episode of Ossian has never been exceeded in the vast domain of fantasy-weaving; and this effect is vastly heightened by the sententious step of the sentences and the shadowy cadence of the parallelism--a cadence which is the natural expression of sublimity, and to compass which in ordinary blank verse it is impossible. Compare, for instance, the following imagery of similar _ensemble_, from Milton's "Paradise Lost":

"O'er many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous; O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp; Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death-- A universe of death."

Or the following rhythmical painting of more than Miltonic massiveness and magnificence of imagination, from the "Orion" of R. H. Horne--a poem of more idiosyncratic merit than most poems upon the classical model. Orion thus describes the building of a palace for Hephaistos (Vulcan):

"So that great figures started from the roof, And lofty coignes, or sat and downward gazed On those who stood below and gazed above-- I filled it; in the centre framed a hall; Central In that a throne: and for the light Forged mighty hammers that should rise and fall On slanted rocks of granite and of flint. Worked by a torrent, for whose passage down A gape I hewed. And here the god could take, Midst showery sparks and swathes of broad gold fire, His lone repose, lulled by the sounds he loved: Or, casting back the hammer-heads until they stopped The water's ebb, enjoy, if so he willed, Midnight tremendous, silence, and iron sleep."

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Both of which, though in their manner unparalleled, are, in a less degree, imbued with that which we may term POETIC ILLUMINATION; that which constitutes the felicitous sublimity of Ossian; in short, that for which only one simile, and that an impossible one--namely, shooting of a sun athwart the heavens at midnight--be adduced.

But--the seasons here specified being deemed insufficient--if further reasons be necessary for the adoption of of the parallelistic form in treating the ancient Gaëlic and Celtic compositions, these necessary reasons are fluent from the original form of those compositions, and from the fact that the parallelism is the only poetic form adapted to their style; which may be demonstrated by comparing the rhythmical collocation of a single poem, the Songs of Deardra, a Celtic poem in manuscript which will form the basis of the remainder of this paper, with the collocation of the parallelistic English rendering. Adopting phonographic equivalents for the Irish letters, the initial stanza of Deardra's song improvised as a farewell to Scotland, runs as follows;

"Ionmuin lioni an tio ud shoin, Alba cona hionghantuio; Nokha tliucfuinn aisde de, Muna dtioefuinn re Noise."

And the parallelistic rendering, line for line, as follows:

"Dear to me that eastern shore; Dear is Alban, land of delights. Never would I have forsaken it, Had I not come with Naesa."

Thus the translation is rendered exact, conveying not only the matter but, also, the manner of the original--without which last any translation is and must be defective. The song is thus continued:

"Dear are Dunfay and Dunfin, And dear are the hills around them; Dear is Inis-drayon, In dear to me Dunsaivni.

"Coilcuan, sweet Coilcuan! Where Ainii and where Ardan came. Happy passed my days with Naesa, In the Western vales of Alban.

"Glenlee, O Glenlee! Amidst thy thickets have I slept, And amidst thy thickets feasted, With my love in Glenlee.

"Glenmessan, O, Glenmessan! Sweet were thy herbs and bright thy greens, Lulled by the falling stream we slept, On Inver's banks in Glenmessan.

"Gleneikh, bright Gleneikh! Where my dwelling first was fixed, The woods smiled when the rising sun Shoots yellow arrows on Gleneikh.

"Glenarkhon, dear Glenarkhon! Fair is the vale below high Dromkhon. Sportive were my days with Naesa, In the blooming vales of Glenarkhon.

"Glendarua, O Glendarua! To me were thy people dear. The birds sang sweetly on the bending boughs That shaded over Glendarua.

"Dear to me is that spreading shore; Dear the sandy-margined streams. Never would I have forsaken them, Had I not come with Naesa."

The events celebrated in these manuscript songs, now mustily rusting in the Dublin University collection, occurred during the first century, A. C. Deardra was the daughter of Macdoil, the historian of Ulla (Ulster); Concovar being at that time king. The plot may be briefly described:

1. At the birth of Deardra it is foretold that she shall be the cause of many calamities; but the king, unappalled by omens and predictions, causes her to be taken from Macdoil and reared under persons whom he appoints; proposing to make her queen of Ulla.

2. The beautiful Deardra conceives a passion for Naesa, one of the sons of Usna; and, with the assistance of his brothers, Ainli and Ardan, elopes with him to Alban, (Scotland,) in the western part of which Naesa has large estates.

3. A messenger arrives from Concovar conveying the king's solicitation that they return to Ulla, and bearing tokens of the king's forgiveness to Naesa and Deardra.

4. Disregarding the forebodings of Deardra, the sons of Usna accept the king's hospitality; and on the voyage Deardra sings the pathetic farewell to Alban just quoted, as if foreboding the events which follow.

5. As the vessel moors in the haven Deardra ceases to sing; but, still foreboding ruin to Naesa, advises him to place himself under the protection of Cuculiin, who has his residence at Dundalgan. Naesa's confidence in the honor of Concovar, however, prevails; and they proceed to Emana, the royal seat--Deardra foretelling their fate both in conversation and in frequent prophetic song.

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6. They are received by Concovar with the semblance of kindness, and placed in the castle of the Red Arm with guards to wait upon them; while a body of mercenaries are sent to rescue Deardra and burn the castle--the troops of Ulla having refused to imbrue their hands in the blood of the heroes.

7. Naesa, Ainli, and Ardan effect their escape with Deardra; but, being pursued, are overwhelmed by the king's mercenaries and slain. Deardra sings the following lament, calling to mind every circumstance which endeared her to Naesa, and reflecting with self-tormenting ingenuity upon those transient interruptions which, occasioning uneasiness at the moment, now serve to aggravate her unavailing sorrow:

"Farewell for ever, fair coasts of Alban; Your bays and vales shall no more delight me. There oft from hills with Usna's sons, I viewed the hunt below.

"The lords of Alban met in banquet. There were the valiant sons of Usna: And Naesa gave a secret kiss To the fairest daughter of Dundron.

"He sent her a bind from the hill, And a fawn beside it running; He left the hosts of Inverness, And turned aside to her palace.

"My soul was drunk with madness When this they told me--told me I set my boat upon the sea, To sail away from Naesa.

"Ainli and Ardan brave and faithful. Valiantly pursued me, And brought me bark again to land, And back again to Naesa.

"Then Naesa swore an oath to me; And thrice he swore upon his arms. That never would he cause me pain. Until unto the grave they bore him.

"The maid of Dundron swore an oath; Thrice swore the maid of Dundron, That long as Naesa dwelt on earth No lover else should claim her.

"Ah, did she hear this night. That Naesa in his grave was laid, High would be her voice of wailing, But seven times fiercer shall be mine."

8. Standing by the grave of Naesa, Deardra concludes her lamentations with the following funeral song and panegyric, which having: sung, she springs into the grave and falls dead upon his breast:

"Long is the day to me: the sons of Usna are gone. Their converse was sweet; But as raindrops fall my tears. They were as the lions on the hills of Emana.

"To the damsels of Breaton were the dear. As hawks from the mountain they darted on the foe. The brave knelt before them, And nobles did them honor.

"Never did they yield in battle. Ah! woe is me that they are gone. Sons of the daughter of Caifa. A host were ye in the wars of Cualna.

"By careful Aifa were they reared. The countries round paid them tribute. Bursting like a flood in battle, Fought the valiant youths of Sgatha

"Uatha taught them in their youth. The heroes were valiant in fight. Renowed sons of Usna, I weep, for ye have left me.

"Dark-brown were their eyebrows; Their eyes were fires beneath; And their faces were as embers-- As embers ruddy with flame.

"Their legs as the down of the swan-- Light and active were their limbs; Soft and gentle were their hands, And their arms were fair and manly.

"King of Ulla, king of Ulla! I left thy love for Naesa. My days are few after him. His funeral honors are song.

"Not long shall I survive my love; Think not so king of Ulla. Naesa, Ainli, and Ardan, I desire not life when you are gone.

"Life hath no joy. My days are already too many. Delight of my soul, A shower of tears shall fall upon your grave.

"Ye men that dig their grave. Dig it wide and dig it deep. I will rest on the breast of my love My sighs shall resound from his tomb.

"Oft were their shields their pillow, And oft they slept upon their spears: Lay their strong swords beside them, And their shields beneath their heads.

"Their dogs and hawks,-- Who will now attend them? The hunters are no more on the hills; The valiant youths of Connai Cairni.

"My heart, it groans--it groans. When I see the collars of their hounds. Oft did I feed them. But I weep when they are near.

"We were alone in the waste. We were alone in the woodlands; But I knew no loneliness, Till they dug thy grave.

"My sight begins to fail. When I view thy grave, my Naesa. My soul hastes to depart: And my voice of wailing to be hushed."

Thus ends one of the most pathetically beautiful tales, founded upon original history, which the epico-poetic annals of any people afford. It is far superior to any single poem amid the Svethico-Gothic remains rendered famous by the masterly translations of Longfellow. In fact, to him who shall {397} happily combine the requisite anthological learning with the requisite skill as a translator, no literary Golconda, more prolific in the rubies and scintillant glories of poesy, could be unlocked, except with the Aladdin-key of almost angelic invention, than is afforded in the mouldering, mildewed, and musty masses of manuscript, in queer Celtic letters, which have been permitted to rot for ages in the library of Dublin University. Had they been English, they would have been magazinistically vaunted as masterpieces in the piquant pages of "Blackwood," or amid e dreary sermonoids of the "Westminster." Being Celtic, they are, so being, neglected.

Albeit, there are to be Longfellows and Tennysons hereafter who shall be cosmopolitan, and neither exclusively English, exclusively American, nor exclusively Japanese; and men of learning there are to be hereafter, who shall be citizens of the world (in a literary sense), and not especially citizens of England, or of France, or of America, who will seek for the beautiful in strange places beyond the narrow limits of London, Paris, or New-York.

Meantime, it has been the object of this paper to play the lamp to the gem-seeking Aladdin--suggesting that something may be done, rather than doing it. Hence what has been said and what might have been more cleverly and elaborately said, has here been curtly said upon the subject of Celtic anthology--using the term in a sense that suited the purposes and scope of this paper.

ORIGINAL

"QUARE TRISTIS ES ANIMA MEA, ET QUARE CONTURBAS ME?"

Why, O my soul! art thou, ofttimes, So faint and sad? Life shows to thee its brightest side; Why not be glad?

Is not the earth most beautiful, What wouldst have more? Filled is thy cup with life's best gifts And running o'er.

And all the grandeur and the grace Of noble art-- Do they not beautify thy life, And cheer thy heart?

And love, most heavenly gift of all-- Is it not thine? Yes, truly; yet I cannot say Content is mine.

I feel a sadness of the soul, A weariness, A constant longing of the heart; What meaneth this?

{398}

I know that once, when journeying far, I felt like this, But then they only called my grief A home-sickness.

And so, with every gift of God, With nought amiss, My heart is longing, longing still; What meaneth this?

Why is it that my soul is sad, What meaneth this? It panteth after thee, O God! Thou art its bliss.

From the Reader.

THE LAKE DWELLINGS. [Footnote 142]

[Footnote 142: The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other Parts of Europe. By Dr. Ferdinand Keller, President of the Antiquarian Association of Zurich. Translated and arranged by John Edward Lee, F.S.A., F.G.S. (London: Longmans.)]

Since 1854, when Dr. Keller published his first report on pile-dwellings in Lake Zurich, he, and other Swiss archaeologists stimulated by his example and guided by his counsel, have zealously explored many other Swiss lakes, and have succeeded in discovering more than two hundred similar settlements, and in collecting tens of thousands of relics of the people who during many centuries occupied them. Six reports on the "wonderful Pfahlbauten" have been published by Dr. Keller; but, being written in German, they are less known than the compilation in French by Fred. Troyon, who has absorbed Dr. Keller's facts, and mingling them with fancies of his own, has given a sensational character to his work. Excellent notices have, however, appeared, written by Wylie, Lubbock, Lyell, and others, and translations of some original memoirs have been printed in the Smithsonian Reports. Stripped though the subject be, in some degree, of novelty, the present translation of Dr. Keller's work is not the less welcome; it is indeed right, that he who gave the first exposition of these structures should tell the story of their discovery, and picture forth the state of society which their remains reveal. In this work we have a general description of the structure of these dwellings; notices of the various settlements which have been discovered, with an account of others on the Italian side of the Alps, and of the Crannoges in Ireland and Scotland; chapters on the remains of plants, by Dr. Heer, and of animals, by Professor Rütimeter; and ninety-nine plates and several woodcuts give graphic, but sometimes rough drawings of the dwellings, and of the various objects found in them. As a storehouse of facts, illustrating the character and progress of an ancient people, this work is invaluable; it will aid other archaeologists in their researches; and we think, too, that the cautious and philosophical manner in which Dr. Keller reasons from his facts will help to correct some hasty and fanciful speculations.

{399}

For the construction of pile-dwellings, Swiss lakes afford favorable sites, as along the shores there is generally a considerable breadth of shallow water. Some pleasant bay, protected by well-wooded hills, abounding in game, was selected for such settlements; and at a little distance from the land piles of various kinds of would, generally entire stems with with their bark on, but sometimes split, and from fifteen to thirty feet in links and three to nine inches in diameter, were driven into the bottom all the late, the heads of the piles rising from two to four feet above the water. At the Wangen settlement there were 40,000 piles, but all may not have been driven down at the same period. Across this substructure other stems of trees ten of twelve feet long were laid, and fastened by wooden pegs; and above them split boards were similarly fastened, for me a solid, even platform, which was covered by a bed of mud or loam. The platform of a few, which Dr. Keller calls _fascine dwellings_, was supported not on piles, but on layers of sticks and small stems built up from the bottom of the lake, being similar to some of the Scottish Crannoges. The boards and planks had been imperfectly fitted together, for numerous objects which had slipped through the chinks of the floor are scattered over the lake bottom; but quantities of broken implements, pottery, and animal and vegetable refuse, heaped together on particular spots, show that spaces had been left in the platform, through which rubbish had been thrown into the water, thus for me heaps analogous to the kitchen-middings of Denmark. Huts were erected on the platform, having a framework of piles and stakes, with waddle or hurdlework of small branches woven between the upright piles, and covered over with a thickness of from two to three inches of loam or clay, evidence of which has been found in pieces of half-burnt day retaining the impression of the wattle-work. As some pieces have a curve, Troyon concluded that the huts were circular, and from nine to twelve feet in diameter; but Dr. Keller shows that the curve had probably been produced by the great heat to which the clay covering was exposed before it fell into the water, while also pieces of different curves are found promiscuously on the same spot with others perfectly flat, no piece indeed exceeding twelve inches across. It is now pretty certain that most, if not all the huts, were rectangular; those at Robenhausen and Niederwyl were found to be twenty-seven feet by twenty-two feet. They stood close to but apart from each other, and were thatched with straw and reeds. From the almost universal prevalence of clay weights for weaving, it may be inferred that every one was furnished with a loom. A narrow platform or bridge resting on piles, of which a few remains have been found, connected these dwellings with the land. Room enough there was in and around these huts for all the operations of daily life, as well as for the manufacture of every implement used in household economy; and in short, this was the place where every craft or art known to the settlers was brought into play. Even domestic animals were stalled on the platform, as at Robenhausen the remains of the litter of these animals has been found.

Such sites for dwellings are not unknown to history. Hippocrates describes similar habitations on the stagnant, quiet-flowing river Phasis in Armenia, and Herodotus others on Lake Prasias in Thrace. The Crannoges in Ireland were inhabited as recently as 1645, but rather as places of refuge; and at the present time there are analogous structures in the Eastern Archipelago. Security against the attack of enemies seems to have been the chief reason of selecting such peculiar sites for dwellings, at a period when society was in a divided state, {400} and when war of tribe against tribe was frequent. Similar conditions were indicated by the numerous hill-forts of the ancient Britons, and even by the pele towers of the border-land in mediaeval times. From the great labor bestowed on the pile structures, and the vast number of instruments of all kinds found in the "relic bed" of the lakes, it is clear that they had not been temporary places of refuge, but permanent habitations, which had been occupied during many generations; and the relics, scattered abundantly beneath these pile-dwellings, furnish important evidence relating to different eras of civilization.

In a considerable number of these dwellings--thirty at least--no trace of metal has been discovered, the instruments having been made of stone, bone, and wood; in a much larger number bronze, without a trace of iron, has been found; and in a few, it is clear that iron has been extensively used. The three ages of stone, bronze, and iron are here established by better evidence than from any other groups of remains; for the great number and variety of relics which these lake habitations have yielded, give a broad basis for true inductive reasoning on prehistoric conditions. Yet there is evidently no sudden break in these periods, such as would prove that superior and conquering races had introduced higher civilization. "It is very certain that, at least in Switzerland," says Dr. Keller, "there was no hard line of demarcation between the three periods, but that the new materials were spread abroad like any other article of trade, and that the more useful tools gradually superseded those of less value." We have here, therefore, _continuity_ and _progress_; and it may be reasonably inferred, that the advance in art from the use of stone to that of bronze, and then to iron, was made by the same race who originally took up their abode on these lakes; for during the long time the pile habitations were occupied, extending over several thousands of years, there was no essential change in the structure of the dwellings or in the mode of life. Doubtless, when these lake-dwellers first arrived in Switzerland, they had the germs of civilization; they had domestic animals from the first, such as sheep, though the flesh of wild animals was more used for food; they could spin, weave, and make cordage from beast or vegetable fibre, rude pottery they could make, some of which was even painted with graphite and rubble; fishers they were, using nets and hooks made of bone; from serpentine, flint, horns and bones they made their weapons and tools; they had brought with them cereals, and cultivated the soil with very inefficient instruments made of stag's horns and crooked branches of trees, and raised wheat and and barley, which they ground by mills of the primitive form, consisting of a round stone as a corn-crusher, and a mealing-stone with a hollow in which the corn was bruised. The stone weapons and implements are similar to those of Denmark; but several show in an interesting manner how the stone celts or chisels, which were small, from one to eight inches in length, were hafted. Some were first inserted into a piece of stag's horn, and then set in a shaft or club; others were inserted into clefts of branches and fastened by cord and asphalt. During this early age, it was the most important of all instruments, and was used for various purposes; fixed at the end of a pole, it was a lance; set into wood, it was a war-club or domestic axe; placed in horn, it was the poor man's knife; it served to skin animals, to cut flesh and hides, and to make all instruments of horn and wood.

The evidences of commercial intercourse with other people are but slight; but a bluish glass bead, in a stone age dwelling on the little reedy or "moor-lake" of Wauwyl, may show some connection with the Egyptians or Phoenicians; and knives, arrow-heads, and other implements, made of flints, not found in Switzerland, but derived from distant parts of France and Germany, {401} may indicate a barter trade with the north and west. Possibly, too, Nephrite, of which the most valuable celts were made, and which does not occur in Europe, but in Egypt, China, and other parts of Asia, may point to intercourse with the east, unless we suppose the Nephrite implements had been brought from the east by the lake-dwellers, when they first settled in Switzerland.

Not a few of the stone-age dwellings had been burnt by accident or by an enemy, and wore not rebuilt; but others had a continued existence through both the stone and bronze periods; and hence we see settlements in a transitional state, and trace a gradual advance in civilization. At Meilen, where a vast number of stone relics have been found, there appear one bronze armilla and one bronze celt; but at Robenhausen we probably see the commencement of the metallurgic art, for amid a profusion of stone relics belonging to three different platforms, crucibles have been found, with lumps of melted bronze, and one lump of pure unmelted copper. It may be that the lake-dwellers became first acquainted with metal through traders; but, as Dr. Keller remarks, "May we not venture to assume that the colonists, by their intercourse with strangers who were acquainted with the nature of metals, were incited to search their country for copper ore, and try to melt and cast it? Copper ore is found on the south side of Mürtschenstock, on the Lake of Wallenstadt." The age which was dawning blends itself with the age which was setting; for we find that the new instruments of bronze were copies of the old forms in stone. Even the bronze ornaments were but improved copies of analogous objects in own, showing indeed the sameness of race in both periods, and the similarity of their tastes and customs. The gradual introduction of metal gave to the lake-dwellers new powers, which enabled them to improve their condition; dwellings were now erected in deeper water; larger piles were used, and better sharpened and squared, fastened with cross beams, and strengthened by stones heaped up; pottery was better made, more elegant in form, and sometimes painted black or red, or ornamented with tin-foil plates. The bronze implements which had been made by native artisans were of excellent workmanship and form, especially the spear and javelin-heads, which prove great proficiency in casting. The swords with short handles and curved knives and armillae resemble those which have been found in Denmark; but we observe none of the graceful leaf-shaped swords which occur in Britain and Ireland. Varied, peculiar, and sometimes beautiful is the ornamentation of the period, consisting of zigzag lines, points, triangles, spiral and lozenge forms.

A transitional state there was, too, between the bronze and the iron periods. Morges settlement on Lake Geneva may be regarded of the bronze age; for not only have one hundred and thirty bronze objects been found there, but also moulds for casting bronze winged celts, showing that such implements had been made on the spot; yet here there occurs an iron poniard. But in the lake-dwelling of Marin, one of the lost occupied, the number of iron objects is surprisingly great, exhibiting to view weapons, agricultural and domestic implements, and ornaments made of iron, which in the older dwellings had been made of stone or bone or bronze. Of these iron relics the most remarkable are the swords, of which fifty and more have been found at Marin, some with and others without sheaths, all, with one exception, of iron, and every one being peculiarly yet differently ornamented. These swords are masterpieces of the smith's art, and were probably produced at large manufactories, when there were division of labor and every practical appliance, for some of them bear upon them makers' marks. They are, however, the product of Celtic art, and correspond in form and ornamentation with those of the later Celtic period of northern nations; and {402} this view is confirmed by the discovery of similar swords in the ditches of the fortress of Alesia, where a conflict had taken place between the Romans and Helvetians when it was besieged by Caesar. Less striking to the eye, however, is the connection between the productions of the bronze and of the iron age; but our author remarks:

"There are, indeed, some forms of implements which remind us of the previous age. But, on the whole, when the Marin objects were made, iron had taken full possession of the field, and all the implements, including ornaments, which could be made out of iron, a metal both firmer and more pliable, were manufactured out of this material. But the form of these specimens had in some measure undergone a change, for the working of iron is a totally different matter from that of bronze; and the hammer of the smith and the moulds of the founder cannot produce the same forms. The remains of the settlements of pure stone, bronze, and iron ages indicate, therefore, epochs of civilization among the inhabitants, separated by long intervals, while the end for which the lake-dwellings were erected--namely, the security of person and property--and their construction remained the same."

Of the religion of the lake-dwellers there is no certain information; but some relics made of stone and pottery, somewhat crescent-shaped, found in bronze-age settlements, Dr. Keller thinks may be representative of the crescent moon, and, therefore, probably objects of worship. According to Pliny, the Druids gathered the mistletoe with great solemnity on the sixth day of the moon; and hence it is inferred that the moon images were sacred emblems, having power to avert and cure diseases. This, however, is but a fancy, for it does not appear from Caesar that the Celts worshipped the heavenly bodies.

The fauna and flora of the lake-dwellings afford interesting information to naturalists, and throw some light on the questions as to the origin, the development, and distribution of species. During the stone age, the _bos primigenius_ and _bos bison_ were abundant, but they disappear after the introduction of metallic weapons; the former is now only found on the marshes of the North Sea. A very large ox, with great semilunar horns, bent forward from the frontal plane (_bos trochoceros_), and which had been contemporaneous with the mammoth and hippopotamus, appears to have been domesticated at Concise and Chevreaux. It is now extinct; but the marsh cow (bos brachyceros), which was most abundant in the stone age, has continued to exist to the present time, and now occupies the mountainous parts of Switzerland and its wild mountain valleys. In the earlier periods, several races of swine ran wild, which were subsequently domesticated. The fox was abundantly eaten; but the hare was not used for food, even the traces of its existence are few; neither domestic false, nor rats, nor mice appear. Wild animals predominate in the stone age, but they gave way in subsequent period. to domestic animals.

The seeds and other parts of plants lying in the lake mud, or buried under several feet of peat, have been so well preserved, that their characters can be determined. The small-grained six-rowed barley and the small lake-dwelling wheat (_triticum vulgare antiquorum_) were, from the earliest period, the most generally cultivated of farinaceous seeds; and, notwithstanding the rudeness of the husbandry implements, the quality of the produce was apparently equal to that of modern times; the spelt (_triticum spelta_), now one of the most important cereals of Switzerland, did not appear till the bronze age; while rye was entirely unknown, thus showing a connection with the countries of the Mediterranean, the lake colonists having the same cereals as the Egyptians. Cakes of unleavened bread have been found, made of millet and wheat, which had been baked on the hearthstone in the dwellings. Barley seems to have been used boiled or parched; but as corn-crushers and mealing-stones have been found in most of the settlements, grain had been extensively used for food The latest settlement, dating backward {403} not less than 2,000 years, and the older going some 3,000 years and more further backward still, it is interesting to observe what change this long lapse of time produced on plants:

"The dense, compact wheat and the close, six-rowed barley have undergone no perceptible change, yet it must be confessed that most of them agree with no recent forms sufficiently to allow of their being classed together. The small Celtic beans, the peas, the small lake-dwelling barley, the Egyptian and small lake-dwelling wheat, and the two-rowed wheat, or _emmer_, form peculiar and apparently extinct races; they are distinguished for the most part from the modern cultivated kinds by smaller seeds. Man has, therefore, in course of time produced sorts which give a more abundant yield, and these have gradually supplanted the old varieties."

With wild plants the case is different:

"The flora of the lake-dwellings announces to us that all the plants which come in contact with man become changed up to a certain point, and man participates in the great transformations of nature, while the wild plants, which surround us at the present day, still grow in the same forms as they did three or four thousand years ago, and do not exhibit the slightest change."

The final abandonment of these lake-dwellings, about the beginning of the Christian era, would result from an improved civilization and a more united and orderly state of society; but how long before that time they had been occupied has not yet been definitely determined; our chronology is still relative rather than absolute. Peat has accumulated over some settlements, but as its rate of growth varies under different conditions, we are only told by it that the stone-age dwellings lasted many centuries. At Robenhausen peat moor, there are remains of three settlements of the stone age, one over the other; two of which had been destroyed by fire, and the last had been abandoned, probably on account of the increase of peat. Between the first and second settlement there are three feet of peat and one foot of other deposit, both containing relics; between the second and third settlements the deposits are the same in character and sickness, and over the last dwelling are two feet of peat and half-a-foot of mould; so that during the stone age there had been a slow growth of eight feet of peat, and the deposit of three and a half feet of other matter. Other means have been used to obtain more definite results; the most remarkable of which is that of Professor Morlot, who from an examination of a cone of gravel and alluvium, connected with deposits of the stone, bronze, Roman, and recent periods, and gradually built up by the torrent of Teniere where it falls into Lake Geneva, concludes that the age of bronze has an antiquity of from 3,000 to 4,000 years, and that of stone from 5,000 to 7,000 years--no very startling estimate, when we remember the high antiquity which has been assigned to the drift and cave men.

Of the physical characters of the lake-dwellers, Dr. Keller gives us little information; that they had small hands is probable from the shortness of their sword-handles. Few human bones, and those chiefly of children, have been found. No crania of the stone age have been seen, but a few out of the bronze period, one of which from Meilen differs little from the skulls of the existing Swiss. It is, therefore, mainly from the relics found that we can form any guess as to the origin and relationship of the lake-dwellers, and by those it is shown that they belonged to the very people who at the same time lived on the mainland. Dr. Keller concludes "that the builders of the lake-dwellings were a branch of the Celtic population of Switzerland, but that the earlier settlements belong to the pre-historic period, and had already fallen into decay before the Celts took their place in the history of Europe."

The history of the lake-dwellers opens a hopeful prospect for those races who are now in a degraded condition; for here they start with a low degree of civilization, and yet there is a gradual rise upward to that point where great skill was reached {404} in metallurgic and other arts; but even this was only a step onward to that high cultivation of intellect and morals among their descendants the Swiss people. Why should not other races pass through the same stages, especially when influenced by intercourse with modern civilized nations?

ORIGINAL

PEA-BLOSSOM.

I hear a faltering footstep Crossing the matted floor, And a little knock low down On the panels of the door. A small hand is uplifted To raise the iron latch, And entrance claimed in a silvery tone No nightingale could match.

Away with books and papers! Enter, my fairy bright; Sweep the dim cobwebs from my brain, And let in air and light. Close the dull portals of history, Unclasp that magic door That leads to the jewelled caverns Of fiction and fairy lore: The legend of Cinderella, Of knights and maidens small. Of princely frogs and pigmy dogs. And my lady's golden ball.

Good-night, my white-robed enchantress. My blue-sashed, sunny-haired muse; Perfection thou art, from that topmost curl To the tips of thy dainty shoes. Watch her well, angel-guardian! Pray for her, crowned saint. That when the time for the cross shall come, Her spirit grow not faint; That she may go to her last repose With a heart unspotted by sin-- That this face of lustrous purity May mirror the soul within.

{405}

ORIGINAL

A MONTH AT A FRENCH WATERING-PLACE.

BY AN OLD BACHELOR.

I always had a great veneration for the disciples of Esculapius, but never so as when my considerate doctor decided that a sea voyage was absolutely necessary for my my health. Being unblessed by those sweet cares, a wife and children, I determined to show my obedience to his commands, and at the same time to ratify my long-cherished plan of visiting the old world. Be reassured, readers, I have no intention of harrowing your gentle spirits by a description of sea-sickness, nor of wearying you with my experiences at custom-house or railroad dépôt, but desire to transport you at once to the good little watering place of V----, which had been recommended to me as the very place for the exorcising of that tyrant devil, dyspepsia.

It was a lovely evening in July that I took a carriage from D----, for the said watering-place, for railroads have not as yet invaded the primitive simplicity of the village; hotels have, however, and much to my satisfaction I found myself, after a charming hour's drive, seated in a cozy room with an excellent dinner before me. My Hostess I soon discovered to be quite a character; a raw-boned, fast-talking Frenchwoman, with a suspicious darkness on her upper lip. When I had finished my repast, this worthy dame informed me that it was the custom of all good "Seigneurs" to repair to the beach after dinner; so giving me my hat and cane, she showed me the way, and I in all obedience departed.

The moon was then full, and cast a deliciously deceptive light on all around; even the wretched huts wherein the French peasantry contentedly huddle, mellowed by its light, looked picturesque and quaint. Looking around, I found that the village nestled between two hills, and that I was at the moment in the principal street, which cuts it in two, and from which smaller streets diverge in all directions. Tempted by the quiet of the evening I turned from the main road, and soon found myself in one of the prettiest winding lanes imaginable; at that quiet hour, with the moonlight streaming through the interlacing trees, I know of nothing more charming than a walk along the winding paths which form a network around the village; what in the day time might be simply pretty, borrowed from the lovely night a charm and mystery that was irresistible; and so I wandered on, a luxurious feeling, half melancholic, half pleasurable, soothing my spirit, until I was abruptly reminded that all things sweet in this life are short, by finding myself at the end of my pretty lane, and once more landed in the village street. Here my landlady's admonition was brought to my mind, by seeing several parties of red-hooded, red-cloaked personages all going one way; these were evidently some of the good bathers, and them I followed. In a few minutes I found myself in quite a small crowd of strangers, who made the beach look like a gaden of poppies. I, who had formed my ideas of watering-places from Newport and Long Branch, looked in amazement at this beach, which is nothing more or less than a break in the high white cliffs, which stretch on either side at far at the eye can {406} reach; however, though small, it seemed convenient, and I looked at the rippling water in eager anticipation of the morrow's bath. Seating myself on the stones, which form a poor substitute for the firm white sand of Newport, I proceed as is my custom, to observe my companions, and from their trifling actions to form an opinion of their different natures. A number of groups attracted my attention, but as I merely discovered that the ladies of the parties were industriously occupied in trying to out-babble--talk it hardly was--each other, and that the men carelessly reclined near them smoking, in utter despair of otherwise making use of their mouths, I was beginning to think that there was not much food for my observations, when my attention was suddenly arrested by the familiar sound of a few English words. Turning around, I saw at a few steps from me a party which I had not yet observed. The centre figure of this new picture at once arrested my attention; evidently this lady considered herself of great importance, for she was laying down the law to the various persons around her, with a volubility that a French woman only can attain. Her dress was an extraordinary caricature of rural finery; it was a pity, I thought, that the face under that peculiarly youthful, flower-ornamented hat, should be that of a plain woman of fifty. Her court was principally composed of various feeble imitations of herself, but my attention was soon entirely occupied by two figures at the extreme verge of the group, a young lady and a gentleman; the young lady seemed to be giving an English lesson to her listless companion, who appeared almost too indolent to turn around in admiration of the girl's sprightliness; a second glance convinced me that I was near one of my own countrywomen; the delicate profile, fragile form, and rather nervous manner could belong to none but an American. My interest was now excited to the highest pitch, for when an ocean rolls between a man and his country, all that reminds him of that country has an irresistible charm, especially when that something happens to be a pretty girl. But my observations were cut short, for the whole party arose a few minutes after, and left the beach. I soon followed, and learned from my voluble landlady that I had been observing fellow-boarders; that the strangely attired lady was the most important personage of V---- that she patronized sea-bathing every summer, and that she rejoiced in the name of Madame la Baronne d'Agri. The handsome young monsieur with the beard, proved to be her nephew, and the "Charmante Americaine" was with with her mother, an invalid for whom sea air had been ordered. Then followed a long description of the other members of the party, a Mr. and Mrs. Poirier and their daughter, by young artist and several other personages, to which description I fear I was but indifferently attentive.

Next morning it rained--rain forming a part of nearly ever day's programme, as I afterward discovered. Not yet having become hardened to the fact, I was dolefully looking from the hotel door, vainly endeavoring to discover a patch of blue sky, when I was joined by Madame la Baronne's nephew. Remarks on the weather were followed by a polite offer of a cigar, whose genial fragrance soon induced a more interesting conversation. A few chance words brought out the fact that my young companion was quite an amateur chemist, and as, in my college days, chemistry had been a sort of passion with me, we were soon launched in an animated discussion. I was much interested to hear what rapid strides the French had recently taken in that and other positive sciences. From chemistry we passed to politics, philosophy, and finally religion. While listening to this young man's clear, strong exposition of his sentiments on these various subjects, I found myself wondering at this, to me, new, new phase of the French character, as unlike the light, {407} frivolous, gay-hearted Frenchman of the novel and stage, as possible. I must say it pleased me even less; the down-right scepticism, the well-turned sophisms, the extreme materialism, were easily traced to the teachings of Voltaire. I am well pleased to think that this young man is the representative of but a comparatively small class, but unfortunately that class is composed of much of the brain of the country, and consequently carries with it great influence. On all American questions M. Louis d'Agri (for so the young man was called) showed a curious interest; of our great war his opinion had been biassed by Southern influence--not unnaturally, since his only American associates had been from that portion of our country; these associates had also given him their ideas on the subject of slavery, but a few facts, put in the simple, plain way which seemed best to suit his turn of mind, convinced him, or seemed to convince him, that, in that particular at least, his judgment was in error. He asked many questions on the present state of affairs in our country, of the possible future of the South, of the treatment of Jefferson Davis, etc., etc., all of which I answered apparently to his satisfaction. Indeed, not only in his case, but in many others, I have noticed that there is a great curiosity felt about everything American; to tell the truth, I think that the war brought to their minds that a vast and important country really does exist on the other side of the broad ocean, a fact of which before they were but dimly conscious. Even now, the strange ignorance of our customs, people, and especially our geography, even among the educated classes, would bring forth the astonishment and indignation of any American fifth-form school-boy. The French are singularly devoid of our go-ahead qualities in everything; they travel but little, and being perfectly convinced that France is the only country of any real importance on the globe, trouble themselves but little about any other, especially should that other be separated from them by an ocean.

From American politics we turned to those of France, a subject which brought out the young man's most bitter anathemas; dissatisfied with the form of government, with the people, and especially with the emperor, he expressed himself with much more freedom than any other Frenchman I had yet conversed with. Most of them answer any objections with a shrug of the shoulders, and a furtive glance about them; they often praise the emperor for the good he has done their beloved Paris, but with an air which says: "I like not the man, but admire his sagacity." Very few Americans, however, could have expressed more republican, more anti-aristocratic sentiments than M. d'Agri, who, as I learned afterward, is the last direct representative of a decayed but noble house. On all religious topics he proved to be an utter sceptic, avowedly believing in nothing, and regarding as either knaves or dupes all those who did not stoop to his own degrading materialism: singular that a mind so clear should be so perverted. We had merely broached the last subject, when the ladies of the party, enticed by the sun which was beginning to brighten the sky, descended, and proposed going down to bathe. M. d'Agri, advancing toward the young lady I had observed the night before, said:

"_Mees Fannee_, I have just been having an interesting conversation with a countryman of yours."

The young lady's face brightened, and with a frankness that is certainly a charm peculiar to American girls, extended her hand, saying in English:

"Is it possible! Americans in a foreign land can scarcely be strangers!" and so, from that moment, I was considered as one of the party. Mrs. Hayne, the invalid mother, I found belonged to that rather extensive class of ladies who, from having some slight {408} nervous ailment, nurse and pet it till it grows to be a real malady, which makes them fretful, wrinkled and miserable. As we walked to the beach I was made the honored recipient of the good lady's woes, and being a tolerable listener was immediately taken into her favor.

We found the beach already lively with the indefatigable bathers, who seize on all tolerably sunshiny days to search for health in the luxurious water. Several groups of people, who either had bathed or were going to bathe later, were seated on the stones, watching with interest the extraordinary looking figures that emerged from the long row of cabins. Notwithstanding my eagerness for a good swim, I stood for nearly half an hour watching also; many of the ladies who went into their cabins majestic in width of skirt and flowing drapery, emerged from them reduced to a mere ghost of their former grandeur. To all whom it may concern, I give it as my decided opinion, that oil-silk caps and scant bathing dresses are generally not becoming, and that a young man must be of a peculiarly susceptible disposition to become enamored of these sea-nymphs.

One thing let me observe, there is a regard for personal safety here of which we are too devoid. I noticed in the water two black-clothed individuals, whose only business seemed to be to exercise those ladies and children who did not swim, so that they might not catch cold; to give lessons to beginners in the noble art of swimming, and to have an eye to the safety of the bathers generally. When the bath is over, the well-cared-for person is well wrapped up and hurried to the cabin, where a hot foot-bath is in readiness; to this latter arrangement I give my most cordial approval.

As I turned around, after these various observations, intending in my turn to appropriate one of the cabins, I was met by Madame d'Agri, who, in an eccentric bathing-dress, was tripping down to the water. Stopping me, she overwhelmed me with voluble patronage, assuring me that her nephew had spoken of me in the highest terms, and that all his friends were hers; and finally pointing to the largest cabin on the batch, over which the family arms floated ostentatiously, informed me that in that cabin they often retired from the vulgar herd, and invited me, whenever I felt annoyed by the plebeians around me, to join them, that a chair would always be at my disposal. Bowing my thanks, I beat a hasty retreat, out of breath for very sympathy.

After my bath, which I enjoyed as only veteran swimmers can enjoy it, I sallied forth to verify or destroy the impressions my moonlight stroll of the night before had given me. To some extent, at least, they were destroyed; in the moonlight the low, thatched huts --cottages they could scarcely be called--looked picturesque; in the broad daylight they looked simply squalid; dirt and discomfort reigned supreme. In many of these huts there seemed to be but one, unfloored, wretched-looking room, serving as kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, to a swarming family of dirty children, with their dirtier parents. Yet I an told that many of these peasants, who are content to live in these hovels year after year, and subsist on crabs, periwinkles, and such trash, are often comparatively well off, some of them being in actual receipt of rents amounting to ten and fifteen thousand francs a year; but as their fathers live so do they live, and the natural consequence is that they are an ill-favored, withered-looking set. I looked in vain for a fresh, blooming girl, there seemed to be no age between twelve and fifty; even the children looked withered, and the old people were fairly bent double; yet they lived on, contented enough, because dreaming of no other possible life, and enjoying the bustle of an occasional fête with a zest which our more phlegmatic people would disdain. While making these {409} reflections, I again found myself in one of those charming lanes which had so pleased me the night before. These, at least, were unspoiled by the misery around; what a blessing that man cannot degrade nature, however he may degrade himself! By my side murmured and gurgled the prettiest little brook, dignified here by the name of "petite rivière," which I ever saw; clear as crystal, swift and cold, it lends beauty and freshness to the whole country around. An American farmer would laugh at the tiny stream scarcely more than a mile in length, but an artist would revel in its beauty.

And so, what with bathing, walking, driving, and chatting, time passed quietly but pleasantly at the little village of V----. Meanwhile I grew more and more interested in watching my companions, especially two of them; I often found myself, while seeming to listen to the Baronne's endless tales of her house's past grandeur, or to poor Mrs. Mayne's recital of her troubles, closely observing my young countrywoman and M. Louis d'Agri. Knowing as I did his ideas on serious subjects, and feeling, too, the influence which a mind like his, strong, cool, and calculating, could scarcely fail to exercise over a sensitive and impulsive nature like hers, I found myself growing more and more uneasy. Evidently accustomed to that sort of flirting and freedom which is entirely prohibited to French girls, Miss Hayne delighted in taking her lazy cavalier unawares, and obliging him, with the most innocent air possible, to give up his dear comfort--now to fetch a chair, again to hold her worsteds while she wallowed them; a sort of treatment to which the gentleman was evidently unaccustomed, and which, perhaps for the very novelty of the thing, seemed to create not an unpleasant sensation. But, on the other hand, he was fond of bringing out all her girlish and unsophisticated ideas, and quietly leveling at them his battery of cold-hearted sophisms, in order to destroy them one by one; at first she would battle bravely, but an impulsive girl, untrained to analyze her own convictions, has but a poor chance against a clear-headed, determined man, and I noticed, with pain, that after every such discussion she would seem uneasy and depressed. Then her opponent would lazily settle himself in his chair, and allow his rival, the young artist, whom I have strangely slighted heretofore, to bring his gallantries into play. This young man was a sort of _protégé_ of Madame d'Agri's, and an entirely different type of man from Madame's nephew; all the arts and graces, compliments and "petits soins" which the latter despised, M. Dubois employed with true French art. He had from the first been struck by Miss Hayne's pretty face, which he sedulously introduced into all his sketches, paying her, whenever he was permitted, most unremitting attentions; but I noticed that, though the native coquetry which seemed to be this girl's principal fault, induced her to encourage him, a word, or even a look from M. Louis d'Agri, would draw her away from him to the piano, or oftener to the chess-board, where she invariably received severe lectures on her neglect of the rules of that noble game. You may, in the mean time, wonder what became of the other young girls of the party, for there were several; they looked at _Mees Fannee_, and her freedom of speech and action, in ill-concealed horror, and remained near their mothers, chattering fast enough among themselves, but scarcely venturing to answer "yes" or "no," when addressed by their elders, especially if those elders happened to be of the other sex. Indeed, M. Louis informed me in confidence that his young countrywomen, "s'ennuyent bien, et ma foi! elles ennuyent joliment les autres" before marriage, but after--bah! and an expressive wave of the hand finished the sentence.

One morning as I was lounging about, thinking with a certain degree of _ennui_ that doing nothing was, after all, the hardest sort of work, I was met {410} by Madame d'Agri, who accosted me with one of her sweetest smiles.

"O Monsieur! I was just wondering where I should find you--so delighted, really so charmed--you must go with us, indeed you must! now, no excuse; positively I will accept none; this time you must allow my will to be law."

"Madame, I am your most obedient; but in what particular am I required to show my duty?"

"Mon Dieu! and have I not told you? what a giddy thing I am; indeed my poor husband" (whom I am sure she talked to death) "always said I was giddy! We are going to C----, where there is to be a fête, and on the way we can see see a chateau or two, not much, you know, but pretty well for these degenerate times. Yes, we are all going--that is, no, not all, for poor Madame Hayne has the migraine: dear! dear! how that poor woman suffers! So the charming _Mees Fannee_ has accepted me as her chaperone--interesting girl, is she not? Well, as I was saying, Madame Hayne has the migraine, and Madame Poirier has the toothache and will not that her daughter go without her; so the party will be reduced to Madame Duchemin and her daughter, _Mees Fannee_, my nephew, M. Dubois--has he not a charming talent--and myself; and you really must join us--plenty of room I assure you, plenty of room. We shall go in one of those vehicles they call an 'Americaine'--I fancy it got its name from the hospitality with which it holds so many people--so like your delightful country!"

After some little delay occasioned by the ladies, who, as might be expected, all forgot something at the last woman's, we started. It was a fresh, breezy morning, just such a one as to excite high spirits, and make one appreciate every trifling incident. The road was excellent, indeed it made me blush for some of our own ill-made, ill-kept roads; but of this I said nothing, for every American feels bound, when abroad, to represent all concerning his country "couleur de rose." The scenery was charming; nothing perhaps striking and grand and vast, like the scenery we are most accustomed to, but a pleasing alternation of hill and dale, with well-cultivated fields, villages nestling in groves of fine trees, and above all occasional glimpses of the blue ocean, to delight the eye and to give one a genial and pleasing sense of the beautiful, without calling forth rapturous, and let me add, fatiguing expressions of admiration. When we reached the first chateau we all agreed that we were tired of the "Americaine," and that it was absolutely necessary for our happiness to wander about for half so hour or so.

"M. d'Agri!" exclaimed Miss Hayne "you once promised me a sketch; here is my album, and yonder chateau is the very subject for a drawing; so, sir, please, to sit down and obey my command."

"Obedience was never my principal virtue, _Mees Fannee_, and I feel particularly lazy this morning."

But a little imperious gesture, accompanied by a half smile, had their effect, and the young man, perhaps too indolent to make further objections, took the proffered album, and seeking the softest grass-plot, sat down. I noticed that the artist, of whose arm the Baronne had taken possession, looked around angrily, as though this time M. d'Agri were in reality trespassing on his ground; but that gentleman, himself quite a clever draughtsman, proceeded with most imperturbable _sang froid_. The view he chose was really pretty. The chateau, a large, irregular edifice, stood at the end of a noble avenue of horse-chestnuts, whose broad leaves made a dense shade; the country immediately around was charming; a little stream somewhat resembling that of V----, only larger, was seen in the distance, wandering through shrubbery and trees, until lost behind a hill which rose more abruptly than most of the hills in this part of Normandy. On the other hand, fields of wheat and oats extended for some {411} distance, ended by a dark belting of woods; not far from us stood one of those large wayside crosses so often seen in Catholic countries, near which a shepherd was tending a flock of sheet.

When the sketch was finished Madame d'Agri came up, and admiring it loudly, thanked _Mees Fannee_, with many caresses, for having made that lazy nephew of hers exert himself, and during the rest of the ride showered even more than her ordinary share of condescensions on the young girl. This brought to my mind various other trifling circumstances, and I said within myself: "French titles are often accompanied by French poverty; this girl is rich, and Madame la Baronne knows it. I will watch."

It was late in the afternoon when we reached the village; leaving our tired horses at the inn, we walked to the market place. Here, a number of booths, gay with flags and ribbons, stood temptingly displaying their wares; most of them were filled with second-rate, but highly colored china, for which unlucky wretches were induced to try their chance, through the agency of a particularly dirty pack of cards. Gambling on a small scale, for pieces of dusty gingerbread, seemed to be another favorite mode of parting with sous. On the other side, the beating of drums and clanging of cymbals announced that in a certain tent the unsophisticated mind could be rejoiced by extra-ordinary theatrical representations for the moderate sum of three sous; dust, noise, and bustle reigned supreme, and the peasant's in their holiday clothes seemed to be at the very height of enjoyment. Altogether it was a gay and picturesque scene, but I was content to view it at a respectful distance. Not so Madame d'Agri; she patronized the peasants, who looked at her eccentric costume in bewildered admiration; chucked the children under the chin, scolded the parents, and in short acted out the "grande dame" of the fête to her heart's content. As night approached, a large building in the centre of the place, used, I believe, as a sort of flour dépôt on market days, was lighted by Chinese lanterns and flaring tallow candles; here the youth of both sexes enjoyed a rollicking, laugh-abounding dance, to the sound of a cracked fiddle. Madame was just insisting on forming a quadrille of her own, to encourage the peasantry, who, by the way, seemed but little in need of encouragement, when her nephew represented to her that we should not get home till late as it was, and that the moon would not serve after a certain hour. Reluctantly she yielded, and we settled ourselves once more in our "Americaine," tired but pleased. The conversation was soon monopolized by M. d'Agri and Miss Fanny, who, whatever might be their fatigue, always seemed to have some point of dispute.

After this excursion my vigilance increased, and my observations were not pleasing; two or three little circumstances brought out in M. d'Agri's character an insensibility to the pains and sufferings of others, and a certain cruelty of thought and action, which, notwithstanding the interest his fine intellect excited in me, brought a feeling of distrust, and at times of dislike.

One rather misty day, on which but few bathers ventured into the water, I, feeling a need of exercise, determined to enjoy my customary swim. The cabin I happened to take stood next to the large one of Madame d'Agri. When I returned, dripping and glowing from my bath, I noticed that the lady was seated in it sewing, and that her nephew was lounging by her, reading the paper. As I was luxuriating in the delicious feeling which I believe sea-bathing alone can give, I was startled by a few words which came distinctly to my ears; so far the conversation had not risen above an occasional, monotonous hum, but suddenly I found myself in the awkward position of a forced listener, as the thin wooden partition proved but a slight {412} obstruction to the heightened voices of the speakers.

"My good aunt, let us not broach that subject again."

"My good nephew, I must and will; the welfare of our noble house--"

"Fiddlesticks!" (this is a mild translation.) "Listen rather to this account of the transactions at Vienna.

"Louis, you are mad. If you will not be moved by higher considerations, think at least of your own comfort--that comfort that you love so well. You are poor, too high born to work, what then is left you but a wealthy marriage?"

"There you have touched my only vulnerable point, my comfort; but then, my dear aunt, what becomes of your aristocratic scruples? would you have the noble blood of the d'Agris contaminated?--"

"But, Louis, Americans are not like others; it is true they do say her father made his money in commerce, but then, I read somewhere or other that Americans consider themselves all as sovereigns; besides, we want money, and if it is said that you married a foreigner, people will not trouble themselves about the origin of her money-sacks, as they would if she were the daughter of a French roturier. Come, my boy, be reasonable; remember that you are the last representative--"

"I remember, rather, that champagne is dear, and so are cigars: what do you want of me?"

"I want you to marry this rich girl; no hard task--you seem to like her well enough--"

"My good aunt, everything in life bores me. When I was a child, my playthings bored me; later, school and college proved almost intolerable bores; my rank bores me; Paris bores me, the country still more so; society is an insufferable bore, but above all, French girls bore me. Now, this _Mees Fannee_ is original or seems to me so; she stirs me a little with her quickness, her coquetry, and her _outré_ ideas. But remember that has not yet lasted long; a few weeks more, and she too probably, will bore me--and then for a whole lifetime . . . good aunt, that is a consideration to make a man tremble!"

"Nonsense, Louis; yon will have to marry some time or other."

"Yes, I suppose so; but French girls are brought up with a becoming sense of the submission due from wives to husbands; now, this girl would prove rebellious I know, and, however democratic I may be in my theory of the government of nations, my theory of the government of the 'menage' is that of despotism. Besides, I have a remnant of humanity left in me, and would not condemn that bright young creature to the misery of being my wife; no, no, let her marry some Quixotical American, who will place her on a high pedestal and pass his life in admiring her and letting her henpeck him."

I could not help smiling at this resume of an American husband's chivalric devotion.

"Very well, you will pass your life as you have commenced it; you will deny yourself all sorts of luxuries because they are expensive; that Rembrandt you covet so, will remain unpurchased; you want to travel, but you will stay at home, because travelling costs money; and finally you will marry some girl as poor as yourself, or with a dôt, which she will spend, together with more than half your pittance, in buying silks and satins to outshine Madame this or Madame that--"

"Hold!"

"On the other hand, you might, by marrying this charming _Mees_, decorate your house with pictures and statutes, go everywhere, see everything, and take your place among the enlightened patrons of art and science; all this you reject because you are afraid this little _Mees_ will prove stronger of will--"

{413}

"Stronger of will than I!" and M. Louis sprang from his chair; the Baronne was no fool after all. "Diable! there are few women I could not bend to my will. My aunt, I will try my luck with this little _Mees_; win her, wed her, and conquer her, too?"

"There spoke a d'Agri; but, my dear boy, you should pay her court more assiduously, compliment her--"

"Pshaw! I understand your charming sex better than you do yourself; if flattery could have won her, I should long ago have been beaten by that soft-headed, smooth-tongued artist. No, the surest way to win a woman is to make her feel that you can master her, and that if you bow before her, it is only because you choose to do so."

"So you are not afraid of ultimate success; you think she loves you?"

"No, but I think she is fascinated, mesmerized, what you will, by me, which answers the same purpose; what I have to do is to hasten matters, and that is what I mean to do. I think she has gone to the 'Source' for one of her eccentric, solitary rambles. An revoir, ma bonne Tante!" and the young man sprang from the cabin with an energy which I had never before noticed in him. Soon after, Madame gathered up her work apparently, and I heard no more. My toilet finished I also took my departure, and thoughtfully turned my steps toward the hotel.

On my way I met Miss Fanny just returning from her walk; evidently M. Louis had missed her. Ascertaining that she was not tired, I begged her to accompany me to a particularly pretty spot on the hill, from which the village was seen to advantage; on the way the conversation was desultory, though I tried gradually to lead it to the subject I meant soon to attack. Once seated under the trees, I changed my tone, and looking at her earnestly, said:

"Miss Fanny, will you pardon me if the interest I feel in you, as a countrywoman, and as a guileless girl, leads me to speak plainly to you? Remember that I am more than twice your age; come, have I permission to make myself disagreeable?"

"I do not understand you"--and she looked up startled; then, perhaps reading a part of my thoughts in my face, she said with a blush, "Yes, you may speak."

I then, as gently as possible, told her what I had observed, and dwelt on the young man's unsound religions principles, on his want of sympathy for others, etc., and finally related the conversation I had just heard, softening some parts, but giving a detailed account of others. She bent her head, and seemed considerably moved.

"And now, my child," I continued, "give me the satisfaction of feeling that I have done right, that you are glad to know this, that your heart is not as yet so engaged in this affair as to bring you any real unhappiness; if I thought I had unwittingly wounded any deep and honest sentiment of yours, if I thought you felt for this young man that sort of love which hallows its object, and often purifies it from evil, I could not easily forgive myself."

"You need not fear, my good friend; I thank you for your interest in me," and she extended her hand, smiling faintly through her tears. "I have done wrong I know, but this is how it happened: at first, ennuyed by the quietness of this place, which seemed so dull after Newport, I commenced a sort of flirtation with this M. Louis d'Agri, merely because I craved excitement."

"Precisely; in other words you are an example of our as yet imperfect system of education. In France young girls are kept in severe restraint, from which they rebound after marriage, often causing much misery; ours is the other extreme--there is an almost unlimited degree of liberty among our young people, which is so far good that it creates a feeling of chivalric honor among the men, and of self-sustaining strength among the women; but at the same time this freedom creates also a longing for excitement, a {414} fear of ennui, which finds vent in an immense amount of flirting, generally innocent enough, but which becomes a part of the character of almost every young person, especially every young girl--is it not so?"

"Perhaps it is; at all events the peculiar character of this young man soon interested me; I felt piqued at his indolent, indifferent manner, and continued the flirtation; gradually, as I came to know him better, he acquired over me, I scarcely know how, a sort of influence from which I could not rid myself; but never once did I mistake the feeling which prompted me to crave his society, for love."

"Then you do not think he could have succeeded in--"

"I do not know; had I not been made aware of his base, mercenary motives, he might have strengthened that influence so far as to blind me to its nature, and make me think it love; but--"

"But now you are warned."

"But now I defy M. Louis d'Agri and his fascinations," and her eyes flashed.

"Still, do you not think that you would feel more comfortable away from his society?"

"I feel no fear, but shall be glad to leave this place. Fortunately, mother was complaining this very morning of the cold sea-winds, and I can easily persuade her that it is necessary to go further south. Is your mind easy now? I see you have but little faith in my resolution."

"Pardon me. I have, but I think that the Baronne would find means to make a longer residence here disagreeable, did she perceive the change which your manner must necessarily undergo."

Our conversation lasted some little time longer, and ended by most kindly expressed thanks, and hopes for some future meeting, which hopes I most cordially reciprocated, for the girl's frank and simple manner during the past conversation had much heightened my esteem of her.

That evening there arose a perfect storm of regrets, and expressions of surprise at Mrs. Haynes suddenly expressed determination. "It was not possible! Madame's health had improved so perceptibly," which assertion the worthy lady repudiated with as much energy as though it had been an insult. "We shall feel so deserted after she and _Mees Fannee_ have gone," etc., etc. _Mees Fannee_ said nothing, but a heightened color, and a quiet, determined manner new to her, seemed to strike M. Louis forcibly; he darted a quick look at me, but whether he really ever suspected my agency in the transaction or not, I never knew. If he did, I believe that after the first feeling of anger had passed, he felt grateful rather than not, for his better nature, I am glad to think, really revolted at the idea of the contemplated meanness.

At eleven the next morning the old-fashioned diligence carried _Mees Fannee_ and her mother away, leaving the hotel _triste_ indeed. A little while after I saw Madame la Baronne and her nephew walking up and down the little garden, the lady gesticulating violently, and the young man quietly smoking a cigar, and answering his excited relative with an occasional shrug of the shoulders.

Soon after I also took my departure, for I found the interest of the place strangely diminished, and the evenings at the "plage" stale, flat, and unprofitable; so leaving the good French ladies and their daughters discussing the coming winter's fashions with voluble interest, the indefatigable Baronne eagerly looking out for another heiress, and the nephew lazily indifferent to her success, I made my adieux. Thus ended my month at a French watering-place.

{415}

AVE MARIA SINE LABE CONCEPTA.

BY REV M. MULLIN.

Hail, Mary, our Mother! Hail, Virgin the purest! Hail, Mary, the Mother of mercy and love! Hail, Star of the Ocean, serenest and surest That ever shone brightly in heaven above! 'Mid the shadows of death stretching down o'er the nations, Thy children have always rejoiced in your fame. Oh! proudly we witness in our generations The last crowning halo that circles thy name.

Tradition, which, joined with its sister evangel, God placed upon guard at the door of his bride. Tradition, which beams like the sword of the angel, As flame-like, it "turneth on every side," Tradition shoots up o'er the ages victorious-- Its summit in heaven, its base upon earth-- Like a pillar of fire, far-shining and glorious, And shows thee all sinless and pure in thy birth.

As fair as the rose 'mid Jerusalem's daughters. As bright as the lily by Jordan's blue wave, As white as the dove, and as clear as the waters That flowed for the prophet and circled his grave; As tall as the cedar on Lebanon's mountain, As fruitful as vine-tree in Cades' domain. As straight as the palm by Jerusalem's fountain. As beauteous as rose-bush on Jericho plain;

As sweet as the balm-tree diffusing its odor, As sweet as the gold-harp of David the king, As sweet as the honeycomb fresh from Mount Bodor, As sweet as the face veiled by Gabriel's wing: The silver-lined sky o'er the garden of Flora, The rainbow that gilds the dark clouds within view, The star that shines brightest, the dawning Aurora-- More chaste than the moon, and more beautiful too.

The glass without stain, and the radiance immortal, The ever-sealed fount in the city of God, The garden enclosed, on whose sanctified portal None e'er but the King of the angels hath trod: The sign that appeared in mid-Heaven--a maiden With the moon 'neath her feet, and twelve stars on her head, Sun-clothed, going up from the desert to Eden; Such Mary, the Queen of the living and dead.

{416}

Oh! such are the words of the saints now in glory, Whose voices are heard o'er the dark waste of time, Like sentinels set through the centuries hoary, Proclaiming her free from original crime; Of the prophets and pontiffs, and doctors and sages, Who once in this dark vale of misery trod, Like lamps hanging out on the mist-covered ages To light up the ways of the city of God.

We see by their light with a swelling emotion The bark of the church, as it onward doth ride, Through tempest and gloom, where the Star of the Ocean Doth brightly illumine its path o'er the tide; Where clouds become thicker and hurricanes fleeter, And threaten to shut out its radiance from view, We see through the darkness the figure of Peter As he points it out still b the sailors and crew.

We hear the loud ring of the multitude's paean By the nations in triumph exultantly sung, From the cliffs of the north to the distant AEgean, As Celestine silenced Nestorius' tongue: In Ephesus' temple--the temple of Mary-- The fathers hold council by Peter's command, In Ephesus' streets, long expectant and weary, The crowds stand with joybells and torches in hand.

We see the grand figure of Cyril before us, Where John, her adopted, before him had trod, As pontiffs and people swell loud the glad chorus, That Mary our Mother is Mother of God. And oh! that we've witnessed the last shining lustre, That Star of the Stars, in her diadem set, The first in existence, last placed in the cluster. To shine through a long line of centuries yet;

There were journeys by land, there were ships on the ocean, That bore Judah's princes to Sion's bright walls; The people have heard with a thrilling emotion The voice of the high priest, as on them it calls. Oh! bless them, dear Mother, we pray with emotion. And bless this green island, that looks up to thee; For this, dearest Mother, is gem of the ocean, And thou art immaculate Star of the Sea.

December 8,1864.

{417}

ORIGINAL.

WOMAN. [Footnote 143]

[Footnote 143: Essays on Woman's Work, by Bessie R. Parkes. The higher Education of Woman, by Emily Davis. Woman's Work in the Church, by J. M. Ludlow. London and New York: Alex. Strahan.]

Among the social topics of the day, that of the present position and future prospects of woman holds a prominent place. This is the less to be wondered at, in that the course of civilization, the force of public opinion, together with the effect of the progress of machinery upon labor, have materially altered the duties which were once esteemed peculiarly her own.

We have three small books before plus, all from England, and all bearing on this one topic. The first ("Essays on Woman's Work") delineates very forcibly the fact, that the actual work of women, independently of that performed within the domestic circle, is (relatively to the employment of numbers) immense. Our authoress calls it "the great revolution which has been so little noticed amidst the noise of politics and the clash of war--the withdrawal of women from the life of the household, and the suction of them by the hundreds of thousands within the vortex of industrial life." Page 20 she says: "I was told in Manchester, by one of the most eminent and thoughtful women in England, that the outpouring of a mill in full work at the hour of dinner was such a torrent of living humanity that a lady could not walk against the stream. I was told the same thing at Bradford by a female friend." (Page 22)--"It is clear then, since modern society will have it so, women must work." But not women only; "young female children are winding silk for twelve clear hours a day beneath a hot African sun, in a charitably economical institution," (27) and "mothers have left the hearth and the cradle, and the young girls and the _little_ children themselves have run to offer their feeble arms; whole villages are silent, while huge brick buildings swallow up thousands of living humanity from dawn of day until twilight shades." (33)--"There are to be seen the obvious results of the absence of married women from their homes, in discomfort, etc., and in the _utter_ want of domestic teaching and training during the most important years of youth; besides the sure deterioration of health consequent on long confinement." Well may Miss Parkes consider it "a purely economical and selfish tendency, acting by competition alone and casting aside unprofitable material. Women are more and more left to provide for themselves, and society takes hardly any trouble to enable them to do so, either by education or by opening the doors to salaried employment. The great overplus of the female sex in England, caused chiefly by the wholesale emigration of men to the colonies, increases the difficulty tenfold." "In fact, the general freedom and _laisser aller_ of English political and social life, while it serves many admirable purposes in the general economy of the nation, allows the weaker classes, those who are in any way unfitted for the race, to go to the wall, while the others pass by. I believe the very _poor_ to suffer far more in England than elsewhere; and I am sure there is no country on earth where so many women are allowed to drift helplessly about, picking up the scanty bread of insufficient earnings." "We are at present in an extraordinary state of social disorganization." (Pp 37, 38.)

This is but a dismal result of progress, of civilization; modern society with all its boasting seems to have {418} achieved little for happiness. After this witness for the uneducated class, Miss Parkes proceeds to show the difficulties that encompass the educated strivers after bread, and here difficulties seem to increase, from the danger incurred by exposing young women to intercourse with a corrupted social state; "it is better," says Miss Parkes, "to be starved in body than made worse in the moral and spiritual life," and in this we can but agree with her, as also in the conclusion that this fact renders many an occupation ineligible which would otherwise be good in itself. The lady's remarks on the changes of eighty years are interesting, as her accounts of "educated destitution" are graphic and painful in their truth. Her remarks are sensible, and her plans proposed are so modest and unassuming they seem rather suggestions, "helps to thought," than projects, and as such we cordially recommend them; for though American society is not yet in the state depicted of the superabundant populations of Europe, we cannot fail to recognize that if the _same principles_ are exercised on this side of the Atlantic as have been exercised on that, the same results will follow when population becomes denser; it behooves us, then, to be wise in time, and acknowledge some higher law than that provided by an inexorable system of political economy, if we would be happy. Men and women are not necessarily blind agents of capitalists, mere creators of a wealth which they do not share in due proportion to their intelligence and their industry. They are moral beings, if they would but know it, if they would but exercise and cultivate their moral powers; beings capable of controlling themselves, and, by enlightened industrial arrangements, of providing for themselves and for their neighbors. The tendencies of Miss Parkes are evidently to the formation of joint-stock societies, making the laborer at once a worker and a capitalist. This _might_ be so contrived as to form another style of "guild" of auld lang syne, when Catholic workmen protected each other from want. Christian love, and earnest thought, endeavoring, to form associations for mutual interchange of kind offices, and for encouraging each other in practices of piety and good will to men, are essentially Catholic; it is only when based on a purely selfish motive, and with purely earthly aims, that they lose their charm and best security. We confess that for ourselves we do not expect to see any great improvement in the condition of the worker, whether male or female, in Europe or elsewhere, by combination or otherwise, while the effort for improvement is unsustained by a recurrence to first principles, and unbased on _positive_ religious forms and dogmas. As long as the _world_ is unchristian it must remain _selfish_, and the weakest will go to the wall, in every form of of civilization, whether named co-operative or competitive. But once recognize that man's most essential life resides in his _soul_, and that he is bound to provide for the wants of that soul as his first object, "guilds" take form and shape, and the _laborer_, rising in dignity, performing his labor as an ordinance of God, "loving his neighbor as himself," establishes, or may establish, associations, in which the weaker shall be protected, and the poor recognized as the representatives of Christ. This we shall see exemplified on another page in speaking of the "_Rosines_" instituted by Rosa Governo, who had been a servant.

Miss Davis's book on the Higher Education of Woman, is addressed more especially to the middle classes, for whom she requires education has a means of obtaining a livelihood. The discrepancies between the education accorded to English girls and boys are greater than those existing between American boys and girls; still there is much room for improvement. Girls are too apt to be superficial, "to read too much, and think too little;" and even here in free America, some may be found who think they should lose {419} caste being useful, thorough, and energetic. To such as these we particularly recommend Miss Davis's book, for it sifts all such fallacies, and regards the question of woman's place in the social order, primarily considering them as "children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven; and, secondarily, as wives, mothers daughters, sisters" (p. 36). Miss Davis writes modestly, suggestively, not dogmatically; feeling her way as it were at every step. Her descriptions are of course English, but much that she says of the _necessity_ of suitable employment for woman, not only for a maintenance but for _healthy existence_ as a moral and intellectual being, is applicable to every nation, and will afford useful hints to any one who has pondered seriously on woman's present position and future prospects.

We regret that we cannot speak so favorably of the tone of Mr. Ludlow's book, valuable as is the information it affords as to what the collective energy of women can effect when strong religious motive is the prompter of their actions. The author gives a consecutive account of the work of women in the church from the time all the apostles to the present era, tracing their usefulness, their power of varying their action according to the exigencies of the day in which they lived; the devotedness of the ancient deaconesses the learning of the nuns, when the world was the prey of the Goths and Vandals and their successors; the intellectual activity that characterized the communities while the outer world was sunk in barbarism; the books they spent their lives in copying, and the works they themselves composed. Then he gives an account of the active orders, or, perhaps, rather associations, as of the Béguines--

"who, without renouncing the society of men or the business of life, or vowing poverty, perpetual chastity; or absolute obedience, yet lead, either at their own homes or in common dwellings, a life of prayer, meditation, and labor. Matthew Paris mentions it as one of the wonders of the age for the year 1250, that 'in Germany there rose up an innumerable multitude of those continent women who wish to be called Béguines, to that extent that Cologne was inhabited by more than 1,000 of them.' Indeed, by the latter half of this century, there seems to have been scarcely a town of any importance without them in France, Belgium, Northern Germany, and Switzerland." (P. 118.)

"The first of these fellowships was composed of weavers of either sex; and so diligent were they with their work, that their industry had to be restricted, lest they should deprive the weavrers' guilds of their bread. Wholly self-maintained at first, they rendered moreover essential service in the performance of works of charity. As soon as a Béguinage became at all firmly established, there were almost invariably added to it hospitals or asylums for the reception, maintenance, or relief of the aged, the poor, the sick. To this purpose were devoted the greater part of the revenues of the sisterhood, however acquired, another portion going to the maintenance of the common chapel. The sisters moreover received young girls to educate; went out to nurse and console the sick, to attend death-beds, to wash and lay out the dead; were called in to pacify family disputes." (P. 118.).

"The Béguines had no community of goods, no common purse for ordinary needs. Nevertheless, those among them who were wholly destitute, or broken down with infirmities, were maintained at the public expense, or out of the poor fund; mendicancy was never allowed, unless in the extremely rare case of the establishment not being able to relieve its poorest members." (P. 120.)

This is refreshing testimony to woman's powers, and were a similar _devoted principle_ now at work, many of the problems troubling earnest, thoughtful female minds might be solved. "The striking feature of her self-maintenance by labor" is a very valuable evidence, for now that machinery is called in to _help_ the race, we cannot believe that under its rightful application, Christian women could effect _less_ at the present time than they did in ancient days. A similar devotedness, a similar idea of the duty of living for God, a similar appreciation of the divine institution of industry as a means of sanctification, would produce equal or even superior effects, since intelligence is more diffused now than formerly, and mechanical assistance more within the reach of the many. {420} That which is needed is simply the spirit of _godliness_, and to him that _asketh_ this is _promised_. Shall we then longer look calmly on the evils that beset the sex, when the means are at hand to remedy them, whenever we sincerely wish for them?

Mr. Ludlow proceeds to trace the educational fellowships, the Ursulines, Angustinians, and others. He says that in the sixteenth century female orders generally devoted themselves to education, even when founded on the old Franciscan basis of manual labor. Then comes the enumeration of the charitable sisterhoods, in all their varied modes of assuaging human misery or diminishing temptation to sin; in all their efforts for succoring the poor, the sick, the infirm, and for recalling the lost sheep to the fold. The information contained in the volume renders the book valuable in spite of Mr. Ludlow's prejudices, broadly and oftentimes coarsely expressed. We dare not repeat his blasphemies relative to the adoration of the blessed eucharist, to the vow of chastity, or to other dogmas; they are introduced, as he acknowledges, to free the author from the imputation of Romanizing tendencies, to which the involuntary testimony he bears to the _right action_ of the church has subjected him. We pity him, that he did not see the force of his own evidence, that he was not led to the truth, rather than to the vilifying it. We give but _one_ instance of the manner he has adopted in order to prove himself no Romanist; it will suffice to show the want of candor which reigns throughout the book when the _Romish_ Church is touched upon. Having described, _con amore_, the institution of the Béguines as "being exempt from almost all the inconveniences of a _convent life_" (to which he appears to entertain an insuperable objection), he attributes at first their fall to the jealousy of the regular congregations. Yet after a while, the innate force of truth compels him to confess that the institution fell by its own fault. The free fellowships departed from the _spirit_ of their foundation. "In place of the self-supporting industry and active charity which at first characterized them, there crept in the opposites of these--reliance upon others' alms and indifference to good works! So complete was the change that the very term Béghard, _prayer_, surviving in our 'beggar,' has come to designate clamorous pauperism" (pp. 136, 137) He continues on another page:

"But the Béguine sisterhoods of the north were too numerous, too useful, too much in harmony with the spirit of their age and country, too deeply rooted in the affections of the people, to perish before the canons of the council or a papal bull. Nor, indeed, it was soon seen, did Rome's safety require that they should perish. The existence of free _brotherhoods_ was, indeed, inconsistent with that of Romanism itself; for every community of men, not bound by rule or vows, not subject to a clerical head, must be of necessity an asylum of free thought, such as a monastic church with an infallible head could not, without the greatest danger, allow. Sisterhoods, on the other hand, although equally unbound by vow or rule, might safely be tolerated; since, through the priestly director or confessor, generally an essential part of the organization of any Béguinage, they could be kept in dependence, tempted on into monachism. And thus, parallel with the current of censure against Béghardism and Béguinism as a system, there begins to flow another current of toleration, and even, as the danger diminishes, approval, for those 'faithful women who, having vowed continence, or even without having vowed it, choose honestly to do penance in their hospitals, and serve the Lord of virtues in spirit of humility.'"

The Béguines were finally absolved from censure by the Council of Constance, 1414 (pp. 139, 140). The mind which does not see in this account that one set of Béguines were suppressed on account of disorder and that the others were retained from the desire of promoting virtue, is singularly blinded by prejudice, notwithstanding that he walks, as he says himself (p. 139), "in the brightness of Luther's most blessed name."

The Béguines, according to our author, were eventually merged into {421} Tertiaries, or more regularly organized religious bodies, of whom he gives so interesting an account that we can but wonder and admire the more that the account comes, from such a source. There is, however, in the author's mind, a notable ignorance of the "purity of intention" enforced by the church as necessary to the sanctification of good works, and this accounts for much misconception on his part. He says that when Madame de Miramon, a young widow, began her religious life in works of active charity, "her director exhorted her to make a 'retreat' for a year, in order to devote herself to her own perfection, without exercising her charity toward her neighbor." This Mr. Ludlow styles "a trait characteristically Romish," in which we must presume he is right, for if he represents the anti-Romish party, we must say, judging by his book, there is little apprehension shown by that party that "good good works," to be acceptable, to be sanctifying to the agent, must be wrought in God, and therefore that a year spent in the repression of self-seeking, in acts of humiliation and self-abasement, might be and probably was necessary to insure that the future acts of the pious lady should be performed in that "pure intention" which would draw down upon them the fructifying blessing of divine grace. We are fain to confess that this is, as "the gentleman says, characteristically Romish;" and much we rejoice at so beautiful a characteristic of our faith.

We cannot follow Mr. Ludlow through all his accounts, which we regret the more as he gives important evidence to the fact, that in every age of the church pious women have been found to comprehend the needs of the age in which they live, and to associate with the special purpose of providing the assistance necessary. In a barbarous age, when vandalism overturned human learning, "nunneries, like monasteries for men, became schools or store houses of learning, sometimes even centres of intellectual activity. At the beginning of the sixth century, the nunnery founded by St. Cesarius at Arles contained two hundred nuns, mostly employed in copying books. Their rule bound them to learn 'human letters' for two hours a day, and to work in common, either in transcribing or in female labor" (p. 106). The convents of Tours, founded in the sixth century by Queen Radegund, and the Swabian nunnery of Gaudesheim, in the latter half of the tenth century, the glory of female monachism, were specially centres of intellectual activity. In the latter dwelt the poetess Hrotsvitha, herself not the first authoress of her convent, whose Latin plays seem to have especial attraction for Mr. Ludlow, for his panegyric is couched in these words, "Hrotsvitha, at least, was no hooded Pharisee" (pp. 119, 111).

During the Crusades and European wars, the communities of the Tertiarian hospitaller nuns, under various names, excite his admiration, though he thinks "the worship of these nuns may not be the highest and best, but it is surely genuine" (p. 142). Thanks even for that admission, Mr. Ludlow. The Béguines, of whom we have already spoken, and the educational nuns spring up at the hour of need, and for the present day "the institute of 'Rosines' of Turin presents an interesting feature." These latter have no vows, no seclusion. They are a genuine working association of women, only with a strong religious element infused in their work. They were founded by Rosa Governo, who had been a servant. There Mrs. Jameson found (see Communion of Labor) "nearly four hundred women, from fifteen years of age upwards, gathered together in an assemblage of buildings, where they carry on tailoring, embroidery, especially of military accoutrements for the army, weaving, spinning, shirt-making, lace-making, every trade, in short, in which female ingenuity is available. They have a well-kept garden, a school for the poor children of the neighborhood, an infirmary, including a ward for the aged, a capital dispensary, with a small medical library. {422} They are ruled by a superior, elected from among themselves; the work-rooms are divided into classes and groups, each under a monitress. The rules of admission and the interior regulations are strict; any inmate may leave at once, but cannot be readmitted. Finally, they are entirely self-supporting, and have a yearly income of between 70,000f. to 80,000f., that is, about from £2,800 to £3,200. No female organization is more pregnant with hope than this" (p. 181). With this we conclude our notice of Mr. Ludlow's book, although he has also accounts of some few Protestant associations, imitated and modified from the foregoing.

We cannot but rejoice at so much welcome testimony, from an outsider, to the benefits flowing from the female religious institutions of the church of Christ, and feel encouraged to believe that whatever may be the necessities of the times, bands of holy women will rise up to administer thereunto.

It is refreshing, too, as an evidence that the gratitude which woman owes to the church, she is willing to repay in self-devotedness to the _wants_ of the members of that church. No woman who has ever reflected for one brief hour on the emancipation from slavery that has been wrought for her by the ministry of the church, can fail to recognize that in the Church alone is her _real_ protection, her true safety. The pagan woman--what was she? You may see her type in the Eastern harem, the Hindoo suttee, the Indian burden-bearer. The few women of antiquity who broke their chains did so at a fearful cost. The Aspasias, the Diotemes, the Semiramises, the Zenobias, the Cleopatras--alas! a cloud obscures their greatness; and even heathenism condemns while it admires them. Respectable women were _slaves_; if not nominally so, yet slaves in intellect, slaves by inferior position, slaves through _ignorance_; slaves because their _souls_ could find no scope for exertion. And now what are the tendencies of the age? I fear we must confess that they are purely materialistic, that they point rather to the reign of physical power than that of moral force; and if so, what must woman expect save a return in some shape, modified by existing machinery, to the old idea of enslavement under another name? The laws of the church are already annulled by society in respect of marriage. The power of easy divorce exists in the Eastern states, and polygamy flourishes in Utah. These are matters calculated to make Catholic women reflect ere they march too readily with the tendencies of the age. The church, and the church only, raised the standard of woman, and that incidentally, by proclaiming that she had a _soul_ to save, and that the powers of the soul were will, memory, and understanding. Christian men were obliged to concede to her the exercise of these powers, by the same authority through which they claimed the right to exercise them for themselves. But now, the world is for the most part not Christian, and we must look well to the principles that it puts forth; its associations or co-operations, if founded on a merely selfish principle, must end in disorder. It requires the strong religious element spoken of by Mrs. Jameson as existing among the Rosines, and the "pure intention" which induced Madame de Miramon to obey her director and make the year's retreat he prescribed, in order that her future acts might be begun, continued, and ended in God, to insure that a community life or association shall produce good. That joint-stock companies may for a while flourish and contribute to the wealth of the shareholders is doubtless true; but if the wealth thus obtained is made merely to contribute to material enjoyment, it will rather injure than profit the possessor, whether that possessor be man or woman. Strong moral power is produced by exercise, by endurance, renunciation, rather than by gratification. {423} Strong intellectual power is produced by deep thought, head study, unremitting exertion, as strong physical power is produced by labor, continuous activity, hard fare, and unluxurious habits. We must not lose sight of these facts when we seek to improve the condition of either man or woman; and desirable as are associations for mutual benefit, we must not forget that if they are to be permanent, they most aim at something higher than improving in temporalities. The union of the natural law with the supernatural law should form the especial study of every thinking member of the church; and to women's associations it seems a study peculiarly desirable, as woman owes her present improved condition entirely to the effects produced by that supernatural action on her previous condition. If we might be allowed to suggest a subject of thought to such Catholic women as see the evils depicted by Misses Parkes and Davis, and wish to assist in their removal, it would be that they should meditate and study the practical bearing of the ancient associations of the church to mitigate the then existing evils, and having caught the spirit of devotedness from the many examples therein presented, should proceed to consider what form of devotedness is demanded by the present needs--and in the spirit of the church assemble to promote the needful work.

That there is much to be done, all must confess; but in what way it is to be done is not altogether so evident. Only tracing from all history "that woman's work in the church" is to see the difficulties of the times, to enter with warm sympathy into its distresses, and having purified the human tenderness with which she is gifted by casting it into the furnace of divine love, to direct that tenderness, enlightened by intellectual culture and strengthened by acetic practice, into the channels needing assistance. We can but feel confident that Catholic women will now as heretofore ponder over the position of their sex with regard to labor and intellectual culture, and that to meet its requirements such institutions will be formed as will push forward "progress" in the most approved system compatible with the solemn duties of _Catholicity_: that is, uniting the human privilege to the far higher and loftier privilege involved in being a member of the church of Christ.

ORIGINAL.

MY TWO MITES.

"This poor widow hath cast in more than they all."

Widowed of the world, that once did me betroth. Unto the treasury of God brought I, In after days, A heart and mind--my all--two mites in worth, And cast them in. What wealth, if they should buy Such priceless praise!

{424}

MISCELLANY.

_A most Important Discovery in Photography_.--That photographic productions cannot be relied upon as permanent appears a fact only too well established. The public have been convinced of it by seeing folios of choice productions and scores of treasured portraits pass gradually into "the sere and yellow leaf" of their age, and finally disappear. A few years, more or less, generally works the change. Photographers, too, have lost all faith in the absolute permanence of their productions, and have long been looking for this desirable quality in some ideal process for which their experimentalists were industriously striving and working, and for which they were most anxiously looking, rather than to any modification of the old silver process, which they have now wrought up to such a pitch of perfection. This fading has been pretty clearly shown to be, at least mainly, due to the action of the hyposulphites. The print lasts a longer or shorter time in proportion to the degrees in which the fixing agent--hyposulphite of soda--has been removed from the paper; but the slightest trace of it will assuredly bring about the destruction of the photograph. The only chance of absolute permanence appears to be in its complete elimination, although even then there are other elements of evil which may be suspiciously regarded. We have hitherto relied for this purpose upon the mechanical action of water, and some able men have run counter to the general experience by affirming that absolute permanence could be obtained by proper and sufficient washing. Mr. Carey Lea, for instance, asserted, about a year since, that he had tested properly-washed prints with a very delicate and certain test for the hyposulphites without discovering their trace, and in prints which he considered had been properly washed. This test was that of placing a few drops of an alcoholic solution of iodine in several ounces of water, and applying the same with a camel's-hair brush to photographs on starch-sized paper. The presence of the starch, if freed from the hyposulphite by sufficient washing, was indicated by a violet or purple stain where the solution was applied; but in prints not thus washed the presence of hyposulphite was indicated by the absence of such stain, which could be at once removed from the well-washed print by plunging it into a solution of hyposulphite. On the other and, Mr. Dawson, of King's College, in a recent number of The British Journal of Photography denies the power of more washing to give permanence, "unless the prints have been soaked for some time in hot water so as to remove _all_ the size--even then, supposing the paper non-albumenized, the elimination of the whole of the hyposulphite is problematical." He adds--"Some photographers, we are aware, do treat their prints with a final wash in hot water; but this, of course, although unquestionably conducive to the permanence of the proof, does not remove the whole of the size in which the hyposulphite is locked up; and if it did, the paper would be as little cohesive as blotting-paper, and prints would lose much in vigor and brilliancy. In the case of prints on albumen, or albumenized paper, hot water, we may reasonably suppose, has no more powerful effect in removing hyposulphite from albumen than cold water, if, indeed it has so much; and it can only be by acting on the texture of the paper itself, and removing the size therefrom, that it can exercise a beneficial influence at all." To demonstrate the truthfulness of his ideas on this subject, some prints which had been washed in cold running water, and with the utmost care and attention, for over twenty hours--and the final drippings from which, when subjected to the tincture of iodine test, displayed no trace of the hyposulphite--were experimented with, and still gave up to boiling water, in which they were steeped, at least one-fortieth part of a grain of the destructive element to the half sheet of paper, clearly showing that the cold water had not really removed it all, although it had eliminated all that it could reach or had influence over. Now whether Mr. Dawson and his supporters or Mr. Lea and his supporters be right, {425} whether photographs fade so universally because they are rarely or never sufficiently washed after the process of fixing, or because it is impossible to remove all trace of the hyposulphites from the paper by washing, it is certain that they do fade, and few dispute the final cause of such a fading. Therefore, a discovery which destroys these mischievous agents altogether cannot but be regarded as most important, and such a discovery is our pleasing duty to announce as having been recently published by Dr. Angus Smith, F.R.S., in the pages of The British Journal of Photography, from which we quote: "Considering that the cause of the destruction of photographs, apparently by the action of time only, was in reality caused by the amount of hyposulphite remaining in the paper, D. Reissig, of Darmstadt, contrived a mode of washing it out by centrifugal force. For indicating the presence of sulphur assets, he used a small galvanic arrangement with one cell, and decomposing the acid, had the sulphur thrown on a piece of polished silver, which became readily blackened in the solution. Dr. Theodore Reissig, my assistant, examined several faded photographs for me by his brother's method, which, however, appeared unnecessarily delicate, as it was found the amount of sulphur was very large, and roughly, we thought, in proportion to the amount of decay. I did not determine how much was hyposulphite and how much sulphate. As I had been interesting myself in bringing into use some of the remarkable properties of peroxide of hydrogen in oxidizing metals and organic bodies in fluids, it seemed to me that we might readily use it for oxidizing the hyposulphites. I am supposing that the sulphate alone will not be injurious." Dr. Smith then shows how this powerful, oxidizing agent may be used to convert the mischievous hyposulphites into the innocuous sulphate, and Mr. Dawson, in the same number of the journal, gives the following experimental illustration: "Dissolve in a wineglass any quantity of sulphate of soda, and add to the solution a few drops of tincture of iodine. The solution will remain permanently discolored, showing that sulphate of soda does not dissolve iodine. In another wine-glass, half filled with plain water, drop sufficient tincture of iodine to strike a permanent dark sherry color throughout the liquid; then add, drop by drop, a weak solution of hyposulphite of soda till the color is discharged, taking care to add as little excess of hyposulphite as possible. So far this experiment shows that iodine is soluble in hyposulphite of soda. Now, fill up the glass with an aqueous solution of peroxide of hydrogen, and observe the effects. After a few minutes the iodine is no longer held in solution, and the liquid will resume the dark sherry color it had before adding the hyposulphite of soda." Every chemist will readily explain this. To apply this new chemical agent to this new use, take the print, after fixing and washing, and soak it for a short time in a solution of the peroxide of hydrogen of the strength of say one ounce of a ten-volume solution in forty ounces of water.--_Popular Science Review_.

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ORIGINAL.

NEW PUBLICATIONS

PASTORAL LETTER OF THE SECOND PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. The Archbishops and Bishops of the United States, in Plenary Council Assembled, to the Clergy and Laity of their charge. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 8vo pamphlet. For sale by L. Kehoe, New York.

This is the first official utterance of the Archbishops and Bishops of the United States in Plenary Council assembled, to the clergy and laity of their charge. As such it will be listened to with an attention due to the importance of the subjects on which it speaks, and to the character and motives of the august assembly from which it proceeds. It is the warning voice of the shepherds of the people, raised after long and matured deliberation to remind the flock of its duties, pointing out the dangers which threaten, the quarters from which they spring, and the means by which they are to be avoided. It is the herald of that full legislation which in a few months will be promulgated for the Catholics of the United States. The outlines of that {426} legislation are traced with rapid pen in this document; the details, which have been already filled in, will, after having received the approval of Rome, be presented to the public stamped with the seal of the Fisherman. The great object of this Pastoral Address is to impress upon the minds and hearts of Catholics those cardinal principles and duties of cheerful obedience to the divinely constituted authority of the "bishops placed to rule the Church of God;" in order that when the decrees of the Council are published, all--bishops, priests, and the laity--may co-operate in heart and hand in giving them practical effect. _All_ are members of the same mystical body of Christ, the Church; and therefore _all_ should in their respective positions and functions unite in harmonious action for the well-being of the whole, according to the order established by the divine head and founder. "For there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh in all; and hath set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him" (Cor. xii. 1).

Such being the object of the Pastoral Letter, it very naturally commences (Sec. I.) with the "Authority of Plenary Councils;" and (Sec. II.) with "Ecclesiastical Authority" in its general relations, and with the correlative obedience thereto binding on the Christian conscience. As human policy and human action have, even in secular matters, their religious as well as their civil aspects, the principles are laid down which mark out the boundary line between the civil and ecclesiastical powers (Sec III.); a boundary line which notwithstanding the experience and lessons of past centuries, is often obliterated or lost sight of. After having, in brief and emphatic language, called attention to these general truths relating to authority and consequent obedience founded on the natural and divine laws, the episcopal legislators devote several sections to the more prominent questions and wants which affect the Catholic Church in the United States. Sec. IV. calls attention to the afflicted condition of the Pope and to the obligation incumbent on his spiritual subjects, for whom he daily prays and works, of relieving him. Sec. V. to the "Sacrament of Matrimony," that great and sacred link by which society is in its nearest and dearest associations held together, but which is so much exposed to be severed, if not wholly destroyed, in our days. Sec VI. to the press, that giant engine for good or for evil, wielded, alas! with such fatal efficacy against the faith and morals of the "little ones and the weak ones" of the fold, and yet which, properly directed might be made the instrument most powerful for truth and for good. Sec. VII. deals with the "education" of youth, on which indeed the future of society and religion depends. Sec. VIII. with the subject of '"Catholic Protectories and Industrial Schools." Sec IX. with the necessity of cultivating "vocations" in the ministry. Secs. X. and XI. are addressed, respectively, to the "Laity" and the "Clergy." Sec XII. points to the condition of the emancipated slaves, and to the means to be used by the Church in ameliorating it. Sec XIII. glances at those most favored spots in the bosom of the Church, where the sun shines most brightly, and the fairest lilies spring to be woven as a garland in her triumphant crown--to "Religious Communities." The "conclusion" epitomizes the whole by saying:

"We have taken advantage of the opportunity of the assembling of so large a number of bishops from every part of our vast country, to enact such decrees as will tend to promote uniformity of discipline and practice among us, and to do away with such imperfect observance of the rites and approved ceremonies of the church as may have been made necessary by the circumstances of past times, but which no length of prescription can ever consecrate, and thus to give the services of our religion that beauty and dignity which belong to them, and for which we should all be so zealous.

"For the furtherance of these important objects, we have caused to be drawn up a clear and compendious series of statements upon the most essential points of faith and morals, with which we have embodied the decrees of the seven Provincial Councils of Baltimore, and of the first Plenary Council, together with the decrees enacted by us in the present Council, which, when they have been examined and approved of by the Holy See, will form a compendium of ecclesiastical law for the guidance of our clergy in the exercise of their holy ministry.

"The result of our labors, when thus returned to us, will be promulgated more fully in our Provincial Councils and Diocesan Synods and we will then take advantage of the opportunity to bring more fully under the notice of the clergy, and the people committed to our pastoral charge, the details of what we have done, and the exact nature of the means {427} by which we hope to give increased efficiency to the whole practical system of the church in this country.

"We have also recommended to the Holy See the erection of several additional episcopal sees and vicariates apostolic, which are made necessary by our rapidly increasing Catholic population and the great territorial extent of many of our present dioceses."

It does not become us to review, but only two direct attention to this most remarkable and important document. Abstracting from the authority of those from whom it emanates, and viewed merely as the pronouncement of so many men distinguished for learning, experience, and piety, it will be read with respectful consideration by the educated portion of our community, whether Catholic or Protestant. On the former, however, it has a higher and holier claim--as the legislative exponent of those appointed to keep garrison on the watch-towers of Israel, to give timely warning of danger, from whatever part of the horizon it approaches, to lead and guide them in their journey through this earthly desert to the promised land of heaven. In some of the plenary councils (for instance, of Africa about the time of St. Cyprian or of St. Augustine, or of Asia before that of St. John Chrysostom) a greater number of bishops were assembled. In plenary councils, too, weightier matters may have come under consideration; as, for example, doctrinal questions at the Council of Orange, not, however, to be finally settled without the after-sanction all the Infallible Church. But never, we may venture to say, has any provincial council in other parts of the church been called to legislate for so vast a territory, more on questions of discipline and practice affecting the present and future prospects of a population so widespread and so varied in its origin, its habits, and its pursuits. Some of the bishops traveled by sea and land over thousands of miles, and were heard to facetiously say that "as they had come so far it were a little thing to step across and see the Pope at Rome." They were all, as we said, picked men, "chosen among hundreds" of learned and pious priests; actuated solely by the motive of doing the best their collective prudence suggested for their people. Hence their opinions on questions with which they were all practically acquainted in their respective dioceses, merit to be heard by all classes with the deepest respect. Doctrinal matters were not discussed at Baltimore; these are reserved for the supreme authority of general councils and of the Holy See. But practical remedies are suggested for social and moral evils in a quiet, calm, and steady tone, which sounds upon the ears of Catholics like the voice of the Holy Spirit, and wakens in the hearts of the well-minded children of the church an echo such as we may imagine the gentle voice of the divine Master to have awakened in those who listened to his sermon on the mount. The council does not confine itself to the enunciation of general principles, but enters into minute, practical details on each subject. Had we space we would wish to quote much; but we confine ourselves to what it says on the section on the press:

"We cheerfully acknowledge the services the Catholic press has rendered to religion, as also the disinterestedness with which, in most instances, it has been conducted, although yielding to publishers and editors a very insufficient return for their labors. We exhort the Catholic community to extend to these publications a more liberal support, in order that they may be enabled to become more worthy the great cause they advocate.

"We remind them that the power of the press is one of the most striking features of modern society; and that it is our duty to avail ourselves of this mode of making known the truths of our religion, and removing the misapprehensions which so generally prevail in regard to them.

"In connection with this matter we earnestly recommend to the faithful of our charge the Catholic Publication Society, lately established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted clergyman. Besides the issuing of short tracts, with which this society has begun, and which may be so usefully employed to arrest the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will allow to read larger works, this society contemplates the publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit and the interests of religion appear to require. From the judgment and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such tracts and books as have already been issued by this society, we are encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many of our fellow-citizens. For this it is necessary that a generous co-operation be given, both by clergy and laity, to the undertakings which is second to none in importance among the {428} subsidiary aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for the diffusion of Catholic truth."

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CURIOUS QUESTIONS. By Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 272. Newark, N. J.: J. J. O'Connor & Co., 59 and 61 New street. 1866.

This attractive-looking, well-printed volume reflects great credit on the enterprise and taste of the publishers, who, we hope, will be rewarded and encouraged by an extensive sale. We may remark, by the way, that some of our publishers would do well to imitate the Messrs. O'Connor in their style of binding and lettering, which is neat and tasteful but perfectly plain. The flashy style of late adopted in some cases is in most wretched taste, especially when the book treats of grave and serious topics; and it is especially displeasing to all scholars. The only fault in the mechanical execution of the book before us is, that the margin of the page is somewhat too large.

The book itself treats of much more weighty and important topics than the title would suggest. It is an analysis and resume of some of the principal topics treated of in our philosophical text-books. The author has studied attentively and with understanding, and has presented us with an abstract of his studies, expressed in a clear, terse, and methodical style. There are, nevertheless, occasional infelicities of diction, which could easily be corrected, and which are pardonable in a young and unpractised author. The use of the word "conscience" for consciousness appears to us decidedly objectionable, and likely to mislead the English reader not familiar with the Latin word "conscientia," of which it is too verbal a translation. Such an expression as "secundum quid beings" is awkward and quite unnecessary. The same word sometimes recurs too frequently for euphony, and some sentences are carelessly constructed or unfinished. These faults are, however, comparatively slight and infrequent, and do not enter into the texture of the style and diction itself, which is of good and serviceable fabric.

The author follows the school of Plato, St. Augustine, Gerdil, Leibnitz, Gioberti, and the modern ontologists, taking the Abbé Branchereau as his more immediate guide. The general principles and drift of the system of philosophy contained in the prelections of the last-named author we regard as sounds, and we are therefore well pleased to see this system in part reproduced by one who has mastered it, and has also illustrated it from his studies in other authors. There is a certain confusion and incompleteness, however, in the statements and explanations of M. Branchereau upon one or two important points, and the same reappears in the work before us. One of these points relates to the activity of the intellect in its intuition of being. M. Branchereau does not speak distinctly upon the point, but Dr. Brann expresses the opinion that the intellect is active, in contradiction to Gioberti. If by this is meant that the intellect has an active power to originate the intuition of infinite, eternal, necessary being, we apprehend that consequences might be deduced from this statement not in accordance with the Catholic doctrine. Another point relates to the universals, or genera and species. On this point the language both of M. Branchereau and of our author seems not to be sufficiently precise and accurate to guard against the appearance of maintaining the untenable proposition that genera and species are contained in God.

There is one more point of very great importance, where our author has either misapprehended the doctrine of the great writers of whose system he is the expositor, or has intentionally deviated from it, and, as we think, without due consideration. He maintains (p. 255) that material substance is radically spiritual and intelligent. Leibnitz, who is followed by a great number of the ablest philosophers of our day, taught that the ultimate components of matter are simple and indivisible, and so far similar in essence to spiritual substances. Branchereau has very ably sustained this doctrine in his philosophy, and we regard this portion of his treatise as one of the most valuable of his contributions to science. He draws the line, however, in common with all other Catholic writers with whom we are acquainted, sharply and distinctly between material and spiritual substances, as, we think, sound philosophy requires. The theory of our author opens the way to the Darwinian theory of the evolution of all the {429} entities of the universe from identical ultimate elements. We think he would have shown more judgment by abstaining from the expression of an immature speculation of his own on such an extremely difficult and abstruse question. A little less of positive assertion, and a little more diffidence of manner, and deference toward others, throughout the whole volume, would be more graceful in an author just at the outset of his career; especially as he is treating of those profound and momentous questions which task and often baffle the mightiest and most veteran leaders in the intellectual warfare.

Having finished the ungracious part of our critical task, we take pleasure in giving our judgment, that the design of the author in the work before us is one that is praiseworthy, and the manner of its execution such as to make it really valuable to the class of readers he has in view. It is worthy of their attentive perusal, and could not fail to benefit them if they would read and consider it with care. It is an exposition of principles and doctrines in philosophy far deeper, sounder, and more satisfactory to the intellect than is usually found in the English language; and makes accessible to those who are unacquainted with our best Catholic authors a portion of that treasure of thought which is locked up in them out of the reach of the majority of even educated men. We should like to have this book read by our students and literary men generally, and even by our professors of metaphysics in the colleges of the United States. It presents the outlines of a system far superior to that jejune psychologism of the Scottish school which is usually talked, and ought to be welcome to those who are in search of something more solid. It will also be valuable to students of philosophy in our own colleges as a companion to their text-books, as well as to English readers generally who have taste and capacity for relishing on philosophical subjects. We wish it success and a large circulation, and we trust the author will continue his contributions to literature and science.

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THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE By Nathaniel Holmes. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 601. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

Mr. Holmes attempts, in this finely printed volume from the Riverside Press, to prove that the works of Shakespeare are not Shakespeare's, but Francis Bacon's. His argument is: Shakespeare did not write them because he could not; Francis Bacon, my lord Verulam, did write them because he could. To which it may be replied: Shakespeare could write them, because he did; Bacon did not, because he could not. That Bacon could not, is evident from the character of the man and what we know of his acknowledged writings; that Shakespeare did is the uniform tradition from their first appearance down to the present, and must be presumed until the contrary appears.

Mr. Holmes has proved, what all competent judges have always held, that the author of the works received as Shakespeare's must have had more learning and greater scientific and linguistic attainments than his biographers supposed Shakespeare to have had, but has not proved that he must have had more than Shakespeare might have had. Few persons capable of appreciating the wonderful productions attributed to Shakespeare can doubt that he was up to the scientific lore of his age; knew enough of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and perhaps Spanish, to read and understand works written in those languages; had some general knowledge of medicine; was familiar with many of the technicalities of English law; was a profound philosopher, with more than an ordinary knowledge of Christian theology and morals. But who can say that Shakespeare might not have had all the learning and science here supposed?

We in reality know next to nothing of the facts of Shakespeare's life. We know the place and date of his birth and death, the age at which he was withdrawn from the grammar-school, and of his marriage; we know that he was in London about the age of thirty, where he chiefly resided till within two or three years of his death, as an actor, play-wright, manager, and a large stockholder in a London theatre. These, and some few business transactions and his retirement, after having accumulated a handsome property, to his native place, where his family appear to have resided, constitute nearly all that we know of William Shakespeare outside of his works; and in these facts there is nothing that proves it impossible or even difficult, {430} with the genius, ability, and quickness the author of Shakespeare's works must have had, for him to acquire all the learning and science those works indicate in their author.

Ben Jonson says Shakespeare had "little Latin and less Greek," but Jonson was a pedant, and his assertion meant simply no more than that he was not profoundly or critically learned either as a Greek or Latin scholar; and there is no necessity of supposing that he was. Latin and Greek were taught in the grammar-schools of his time, and as it is said he was fourteen when called home from school, it is no violent supposition to suppose that he learned enough while at school to read and understand Latin and Greek books, at least sufficiently for his purposes as a poet. We know not how or where he spent the sixteen years between leaving school, or the twelve years between his marriage and his appearance in London, but he might, for aught we know, have easily acquired during those years all the learning and knowledge of modern languages indicated by his earliest plays. It could not take a man of his genius and ability many weeks' study to master as much of law and medicine as his works indicate; and as to his theology and metaphysics, we must remember that he lived before Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke had enfeebled theology and philosophy in the English mind, and obliterated from the memory of Englishmen all traces of Catholic tradition. Shakespeare, if not a Catholic himself, had been trained to a greater or less extent in Catholic principles, and he rarely, if ever, deviates in his philosophy, his theology, or theoretic morals from Catholic tradition, still in his time retained to a great extent in spite of Protestantism by the main body of the English people.

Bearing in mind that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the stage, to be acted, and that he used without scruple any materials from whatever quarter gathered that he could lay his hands on, there is nothing wonderful in their production, except the unrivalled genius of their author. There are many self-educated men, even in our own country, who in the learning and science acquired from the study of books equal Shakespeare, but in that which comes from within no one self-educated or university-educated has ever equalled him; and not unlikely the fact that his genius had never been cramped by the pedantic rules of the university, nor his time frittered away in learning minutiae that never come into play in practical life, and which the student forgets as soon as he goes forth into the world, was in his case are great advantage--at least no disadvantage.

But we cannot forgive the author for his sacrilegious attempt to transfer of the glory of Shakespeare to Francis Bacon, a different and altogether an inferior man. Shakespeare was infinitely superior to Bacon. Even if Bacon had been great enough to write Shakespeare's plays--of which there is no evidence--he was not philosopher enough to do it. Shakespeare is always in accord with the best philosophical tradition which comes down from the ancients through the fathers and doctors of the church, as well as with the dictates of experience and common sense; Bacon begins a rupture with tradition, and places philosophy on the declivity to sensism and materialism, whose logical terminus is universal nullity. Shakespeare's philosophy is Catholic, Bacon's is Protestant, and has produced the same anarchy in science that Protestantism has in religion and morals. There is nothing like in the spirit and tone of the two men. Their _morale_ is quite different; neither may have been blameless in life, but Shakespeare, if he sinned, did so from high spirits, joviality, heedlessness; while Bacon sinned, we we know, from sordidness, and left his name stamped with the infamy that belongs to a judge that takes bribes. Bacon, intentionally or not, has favored modern doubt and unbelief, while Shakespeare crushes the incipient doubt of his age in Hamlet and in several other of his place, and he could never have said with Bacon, atheism is better, socially and politically, than superstition. But enough. Mr. Holmes deserves no thanks for what he has done, and we do not think that he has proved his theory is not a "crazy theory."

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FAMILIAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. By Sir John Herschel. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.

This volume contains, among others, essays on the Sun, Earthquakes and Volcanoes, Comets, Celestial Measurement, Light, Force, and Atoms. The author, although upward of seventy years of {431} age, still writes with the enthusiasm, vigor and sprightliness of a young votary of science, and of course with the profundity, range of thought, weight of judgment, and vastness of learning belonging only to one who has grown gray scientific studies. The topics he discusses are among the most important and interesting in science. To their absorbing intrinsic interest is added the charm of Sir John Herschel's method and style of exposition. In literary merit and beauty of style this series of lectures exceeds any of the productions of the professors of physical science with which we are acquainted, and is equal to our best English classics. There is a pleasant playfulness also about the ancient astronomer, which must have made his lectures, as he delivered them, most delightful to listen to. The religious and moral tone of the lectures is elevated and wholesome. Without any set and formal attempts at moralizing or preaching, the illustrious author naturally and forcibly presents, on fitting occasions, the irresistible evidence afforded by the stupendous order of the universe of the infinite wisdom and goodness of God. Some few disparaging remarks about Catholic superstition occur in his pages; but not so many as we frequently meet with in similar works by English Protestants, who seem to be incapable of abstaining for a very long time from their favorite amusement--one which has as much popularity with the English public as the national game of "Aunt Sally."

Notwithstanding these little specimens of religious squibbery, which can do no harm to any intelligent Catholic, whether child or adult, we recommend this book most cordially to all our readers. It is a great advantage and pleasure to those intelligent and educated readers who have not had time or opportunity to study scientific text-books, to have the grand results of science placed before them in an intelligible and readable form. We cannot think of anything more desirable for the interests of general education, than a complete series of lectures, like those of the volume before us, on all the principal topics of the several grand divisions of physical science. The field of knowledge is now so vast, and includes so many distinct, richly cultivated enclosures, that even students must confine themselves to the thorough study of a few specialties. Yet, education ought to include a general survey of the universal domain of knowledge. Therefore, it becomes important to have generalizations, compendiums, the condensed cream of science, prepared by the hands of masters in the several branches of knowledge. We are grateful to Sir John Herschel for devoting his old age to the task of making the sublime discoveries of astronomical science intelligible to ordinary readers. His charming volume should be in every library, and read by every one who takes pleasure in solid knowledge communicated in the clearest and most agreeable manner.

THE RISE AND THE FALL; OR, THE ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL. In three parts. Part I. The Suggestion of Reason. II. The Disclosure of Revelation. III. The Confirmation of Theology. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

A very thoughtful, sensible, calmly written book, pervaded by a high tone of moral and religious sentiment. The modest, anonymous author may be called an orthodox Protestant semi-rationalist. He takes Scripture as furnishing certain revealed data on which the individual reason must construct a rational theorem of religion. Revelation, as apprehended by the individual reason, being a variable quantity, of course dogmas are reduced to mere hypothesis more or less probable, according to the force of the argument which sustains them. We have, accordingly, about as ingenious and plausible an hypothesis of original sin as any one can well make who does not begin with the true conception as given him by the Catholic dogma. The author's hypothesis is, that Adam, having been created in the intellectual, but not in the moral order, was elevated to the moral order through his own act, thereby contracting a liability to sin as incidental to moral liberty, which he transmitted together with the moral nature to his posterity. In this way sin entered into the world through Adam, not by an imputation or infusion of his sin into his descendants, but as an incidental consequence of the transfer of human nature into the sphere of moral obligation. The transgression of Adam and Eve the author considers not to have been a sin at all, but an act {432} without any moral character, like that of a young child climbing to the roof of a house; a bold experiment which the inexperience of infant man led him to hazard without regard to the unknown consequences.

We consider the effort to determine the questions discussed by the author, from the data admitted by him, to be as impossible a task as to calculate the distance of a fixed star which makes no parallax. The oscillation of the ground, of the building, and of the instrument used by the astronomer, and the apparent or proper motions of the stars, may deceive him by an apparent parallax, from which he will make a plausible but illusory calculation. The application suggests itself. We have already discussed the same questions, from the data furnished by revealed Catholic dogmas, and are now engaged in discussing them in the series of articles entitled "Problems of the Age;" and it is, therefore, superfluous to enter here into a new discussion of the same topics.

We are glad to see these questions discussed, and always read with interest what is written by a candid, earnest, well-informed, and able writer like the author of this book. With many of his views we cordially agree, and recognize the justice, force, and beauty of many of his observations. We like him particularly for his clear views of the goodness and justice of God, the freedom of man, the negative character of evil, the worth and excellence of moral virtue; and for his denial of physical depravity, of a dark, inevitable doom preceding all personal existence or accountability, and similar fatalistic doctrines of the old Protestant theological systems. While, however, the moderate rationalism of the author avails so far as to refute certain systems or doctrines which are contrary to reason, and to furnish certain fragmentary portions of a better system, it is not sufficient to make a complete synthesis between reason and revelation. Catholic philosophy alone is competent to achieve this mighty and, indeed, superhuman task.

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED, comprising some remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and on Mr. J. S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy. By H. L. Mansel, B.D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in the University of Oxford. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1886

The philosophy of Sir William Hamilton has been the subject of an animated controversy for some time in England and Scotland. It has been attacked from two opposite sides--some of the principal critics upon it having been themselves pupils of the distinguished Scottish baronet, whose system they have undertaken to combat. On the one side, Mr. Calderwood has assailed it, as deficient in affirming the principle of certitude respecting ideal truth, and on the other, Mr. Mill, as affirming too dogmatically the same principle. These assaults have called out other champions in defense of their great master, among whom Mr. Mansel is one of the most conspicuous. Those who desire to know what can be said in favor of the Hamilton system will find this volume worthy of their perusal. The author brings learning, no mean ability, and very good temper to his task. We are no admirers of the system he undertakes to defendant, but still less of that of his antagonist. The first we regard as inadequate to the need which exists of a true Christian philosophy, the second as subverting the very basis of all philosophy and all religion. In this controversy our sympathy and respect are given to the Oxford professor, as one who is striving to uphold the belief in God and the Christian revelation, albeit with insufficient weapons. We find, also, very much that is admirable in particular portions of his essay.

It is needless to say anything in praise of Mr. Strahan's publications, so far as the beauty of their mechanical execution is concerned. The volume before us is a perfect specimen of British typographical art, just such a book as delights the eye of the literary amateur.

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BOOKS RECEIVED.

From the Author: "The Life of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Colombia and Peru, Father and Founder of Bolivia: carefully written from authentic and unpublished documents." By Doctor Felipe Larrazabal. Vol. 1, 8vo., pp. 410.

Anniversary Address and Poem, delivered before the society of the Alumni of the Detroit High School, August 30th. 1886. Address by H. E. Bust; Poem by Miss M. F. Buchanan.

From the American News Company: "Utterly Wrecked." A Novel, by Henry Morford; paper.

{433}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD

VOL. IV, NO. 22.--JANUARY, 1867.

ORIGINAL.

A CHRISTMAS SONG.

A carol of joy, a carol of joy, For the glorious Christmas time; While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad. Let the merry bells sweetly chime. Let us seek the crib where our Saviour lies-- See, the shepherds are kneeling there; Let us offer, with Mary and Joseph, Our worship of love and prayer.

A carol of praise, a carol of praise, With the angels let us sing; Let us welcome with notes of rapturous joy Our Saviour, our God and King. Oh! would we could offer him worthy gifts, Oh! would that our hearts could love, With some equal return, the Holy Child, Who for us left his throne above!

A carol of joy, a carol of joy, Let the whole earth gladly shout; She has waited long for this promised day. Let the glorious song flow out. A carol of praise, a carol of joy. Let us sing for the Christmas time. While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad, And the merry bells sweetly chime.

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{434}

ORIGINAL.

CHARITY AND PHILANTHROPY.

There is no denying that our age, in its dormant tendency, places philanthropy above charity, and holds it higher praise to call a man philanthropic than to call him charitable. In its eyes charity is to philanthropy as a part to the whole, and consists, chiefly, in giving the beggar a penny or sending him to the poor-house, and in treating error and sin with even more consideration than truth and virtue. Could anything better indicate the distance it has fallen below the Christian thought, or its failure to grasp the principle of Christian morals?

Philanthropy, according to the etymology of the word, is simply the love of man; charity, according to Christian theology, is the love of God, and of man in God. Philanthropy is simply a natural human sentiment; charity is a virtue, a supernatural virtue, not possible without the assistance of grace--the highest virtue, the sum and perfection of all the virtues, the fulfilment of the whole law, the bond of perfectness which likens and unites us to God; for God is charity, _Deus est caritas_. It does not exclude but includes the love of man, our neighbor or our brother; "for if any man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For if he loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?" Whoever loves God must necessarily love his brother, for his brother is included in God, as the effect in the cause, and he who loveth not his brother proves clearly thereby that he doth not love God. But charity, though it includes philanthropy, is as much superior to it as God is to man.

The natural sentiments are all good in their origin and design, as much so since as before the fall; and man would be worthless without them; would be a monster, not a man. But in themselves they are blind. Each one tends, when left to itself, to become exclusive and excessive, and hence comes that internal disorder, anarchy, or war of conflicting sentiments of which we are all more or less conscious, and in which originate all life's tragedies. Even when developed, restrained, and directed by the understanding, as they all need to be, they are not even then moral virtues, meriting praise. Moral virtue is a rational act, an act of free will, done for the sake of the end prescribed by the law of God; but in the sentiments there is no free will, except in restraining and directing them, and man acts in them only as the sun shines, the rain falls, the winds blow, or the lightnings flash. There may the beauty and goodness in them, as in the objects of nature, but there is no virtue, because the spring of all sentimental action is the indulgence or gratification of the sentiment itself, not the will to do our duty, or to obey the law by which we are morally bound.

Indeed, what most offends this age--perhaps all ages--and for which it has the greatest horror, is duty or obedience; for duty implies that we are not our own, and, therefore, are not free to dispose of ourselves as we please; and obedience implies a superior, a lord and master, who has the right to order us. It, therefore, sets its wits to work and racks its brains to invent a morality that excludes duty, and exacts no such hateful same as obedience. It has found all that it is far nobler to act from love than from duty, and to do a thing because we are prompted to do it by our hearts, then because God, in his law, commands it. {435} In other words, it is nobler, more moral, to act to please ourselves, than it is to act to please God. This passes for excellent philosophy, and you may hear it in conversation of many young misses just from boarding-school, read it in most popular novels and magazines, and be edified by it from the pulpit of more than one professedly Christian denomination.

This philosophy sets the so-called heart above the head, that is, it distinguishes the heart from the understanding and will, and places it, as so distinguished, above them. Hence we find the tendency is to treat faith, considered as an intellectual act, and consequently the Christian dogmas, with great indifference; and to say, if the heart is right, it is no matter what one believes, and, it may be added, no matter what one does. What one does is of little consequence, if one only has fine sentiments, warm and gushing feelings. Jack Scapegrace is hard drinking a gambler, a liar, a rake, and seldom goes near a church; but for all that he is a right down good fellow--has a warm heart. He gives liberally to the missionary society, and makes large purchases at charity fairs. Hence a good heart, which at best means only quick sensibilities, and which is perfectly compatible with the grossest self-indulgence, and the most degrading and ruinous vices, constitutes the sum and substance of religion and morality, atones for the violation of every precept of the Decalogue, and supplies the absence of faith and Christian virtue.

All errors are half truths. Certainly, love is the fulfilling of the law, and the heart is all that God requires. "My son, give me thy heart." But the "heart" in the scriptural sense is reason, the intellect, and the will; and the love that fulfils the law is not a sentiment, but a free act of the rational soul, and, therefore, a love which it is within our power to give or withhold. It is a free, voluntary love, yielded by intelligence and will. In this sense, love cannot be contrasted with duty; for it is duty, or its fulfilment, and indistinguishable from it; the heart cannot be contrasted with the head, in the scriptural or Christian sense of the word; for in that sense it includes the head, and stands for the whole rational soul--the mistress of her own acts. To act from the promptings of one's own heart, in this sense, is all right, for it is to act from a sense of duty, from reason and will, or intelligence and free volition. In souls well constituted and trained, or long exercised in the practice of virtue, no long process of reasoning or deliberation ever takes place, and the decision and execution are simultaneous, and apparently instantaneous, but the act is none the less an act of deliberate reason or free will.

Plato speaks of a love which is not an affection of the sensibility, and which is one of the wings of the soul on which she soars to the Empyreum; but I can understand no love that contrasts with duty, except it be an affection of the sensitive nature, what the Scriptures call "the flesh," which is averted by the fall from God, and, as the Council of Trent defines, "inclines to sin"--"the carnal mind," which, St. Paul tells us, is at enmity with God, is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Christianity recognizes an antagonism between the flesh and the spirit, between the law in our members and the Law of the mind, but none between the love she approves and the duty she enjoins, or between the heart which God demands and the head or the understanding. Love by the Christian law is demanded as a duty, as that which is due from us to God. We are required to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. This is our duty, and therefore the love must be an act of free will--a love which we are free to yield or to withhold, for our duty can never exceed our liberty. The Christian loves duty, loves self-denial and sacrifice, loves the law, and delights in it after {436} the inner man; but in loving the law he acts freely from his own reason and will, and he obeys it not for the sake of the delight he takes in it, but because it is God's law; otherwise he would act to please himself, not to please God, and his act would be simply an act of self-indulgence.

The age, in its efforts to construct a morality which excludes duty and obedience, tends to resolve the love which Christianity demands into an affection of the sensibility, and thence very logically opposes love to duty, and holds it nobler to act from inclination than from duty, to follow the law in our members than the law of the mind. It may then substitute, with perfect consistency, the transcendentalist maxim, Obey thyself, for the Christian maxim. Deny thyself!

But this is not all. The age, or what is usually called the age, not only resolves virtue, which old-fashioned ethics held to be an act of free will done in obedience to the Divine law, into a sentiment, or interior affection, of the sensibility, but it goes further and resolves God into man, and maintains that the real sense of the mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, is that man is the only actual and living God, and that beyond humanity there is only infinite possibility, which humanity in its infinite progress and evolution and absorption of individual life is continually actualizing, or filling up. So virtually teaches Hegel, inconsiderately followed by Cousin, in teaching that _das reine Seyn_, or simply possible being, arrives at self-consciousness first in man. So teach the Saint Simonians, Enfantin, Bazard, Carnot, and Pierre Leroux; and so hold the school or sect of the Positivists, followers of Auguste Comte, who have actually instituted _un culte_ or service in honor of humanity. The Positivists are too modest to claim to be themselves each individually God, but they make no bones of calling humanity, or the great collective man, God, and offering him, as such, a suitable worship. This is taught and done in France, the most lettered nation in Europe; and the principle that justifies it pervades not a little of the popular literature of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States.

If man or humanity is God, of course the highest virtue is and must be philanthropy, the love of all men in general, and of no one in particular. Resolve now God into man, and philanthropy or the love of man into an affection of the sensibility or sensitive nature, and you have in a nutshell the theology, religion, and morality to which the age tens, which the bulk of our popular literature favors, which our sons and daughters inhale with the very atmosphere they breathe, and which explains the effeminacy and sentimentalism of modern society. It is but a logical sequence that the age, since women are ordinarily narily more sentimental than men, places woman at the head of the race, and holds woman--if young, beautiful amiable, sentimental, and rich--to be the most perfect and adorable embodiment of the divinity. The highest form of philanthropy is the love of woman. I would say, philogyny, only that might be taken to imply that the highest virtue is the love of one's wife, or wifehood, which is to old-fashioned, unless by wife is meant the wife of one's neighbor. But, my dear young lady, be not too vain of the homage you receive; it will be withheld with the first appearance of the first wrinkle or the first gray hair. It is better to be honored as a true woman than to be worshipped as a goddess or even as an angel.

The sentimental worship of humanity, or the reduction of the virtue of charity to the sentiment of philanthropy, necessarily weaken and debases the character; and whatever we may say under various aspects and praise of our age, and however strong our confidence that God in his providence will turn even its evil tendencies to good, we cannot deny its moral weakness; and it is doubtful if {437} the debasement of individual character was greater, even in the Lower Empire, or that men were more dishonest or fraudulent, more sordid or venal. Other ages have been marked, perhaps, by less refinement of manners, more violent crimes, and great criminals, but few are found less capable either of great virtues or great expiations. This need not surprise us, for it is only the natural effect of substituting sentiment for virtue, and sentimental for moral culture, which we are constantly doing.

Many, perhaps, will be disposed to deny that we have substituted sentimental for moral culture, and it must be concluded that the didactic lessons given in our schools throughout Christendom, for the most part, remain very much as they have been ever since there was a Christendom, and in general accord with pure Christian ethics. There are few, if any, schools for children and youth, in which the sentimental and humanitarian morality, or rather immorality, is formally taught. But we should remember that the didactic lessons of the school-room do very little toward forming the character of our youth, and that the culture that really forms it is given by the home circle, associations, the spirit and tone of the community in which they are brought up. There is a subtle influence, what the Germans call _der Welt-Geist_, which pervades the whole community, and affects the faith, the morals, and character of all who grow up in that community without any formal instruction or conscious effort of any one. So far as formal lessons and words go, the culture of our children and youth is, for the most part, Christian; but these lessons and words receive a practical interpretation by _der Welt-Geist_, what I call s spirit of the age, and should, "the prince of this world," which deprives them of their Christian sense, takes from them all meaning, or gives them an anti-Christian meaning. It is one of the striking peculiarities of the age that it inculcates the baldest infidelity, the grossest immorality in the language of Christian faith and virtue. It is this fact which deceives so many, and that makes the assertion of sentimental for moral culture appear to be a total misstatement, or, at least, a gross exaggeration of the fact.

It will, no doubt, also be said that a decided reaction in our popular literature against sentimentalism has already commenced. The realism of Dickens and the Trollopes is opposed to it, Bulwer Lytton, in his late novels at least, is decidedly hostile to it, and Thackeray unmercifully ridicules it. These and other popular writers have undoubtedly reacted against one form of sentimentalism, the dark and suicidal form placed in vogue by Goethe in his Sorrows of Werter, and now nearly forgotten; but they have not ridiculed or reacted against the form of sentimentalism which substitutes the sentiment of philanthropy for the virtue of charity. They encourage humanitarianism, and make the love of man for woman or woman for man the great agent in developing, enlarging, and strengthening the intellect, the spring of the purest and sublimest morality. The hero of popular literature is now rarely an avowed unbeliever or open scoffer, and in all well-bred novels the heroine says her prayers night and morning, and the author decidedly patronizes Christianity, and says many beautiful and even true things in its favor; but, after all, his religion is based on humanity, is only a charming sentimentalism, embraced for its loveliness, not as duty or the law which it would be sin to neglect; or it is introduced as a foreign and incongruous element, never as the soul or informing spirit of the novel.

The fact is undeniable, whether people are generally conscious of it or not, and we see its malign influence not only on individual character, but on domestic and social life. It has nearly broken up and rendered impossible the Christian family in the easy and educated classes. {438} Marriage is, it is said, where and only where there is mutual love, and hence the marriage is in the mutual love, is lawful between any parties who mutually love, unlawful between any who do not. Love is an interior affection of the sensibility, a feeling, and like all the feelings independent of reason and will. All popular literature makes love fatal, something undergone, not given. We love where we must; not where we would nor where we should, but where we are fated to love. It needs not here to speak of infidelity to the marriage vows, which this doctrine justifies to any extent, for those vows are broken when broken from unreasoning passion or lust, not from a theory which justifies it. I speak rather of the misery which it carries into married life, the destruction of domestic peace and happiness it causes. Trained in the sentimentalism of the age, and to regard love as a feeling dependent on causes beyond our control, our young people marry, expecting from marriage what it has not, and cannot give. They expect the feeling which they call love, and which gives a roseate hue to everything they look upon, will continue as fresh, as vivid, and as charming after marriage as before it; but the honeymoon is hardly over, and they begin to settle down in the regular routine of life, before they discover their mistake, the roseate hue has gone, their feelings have undergone a notable change, and they are disappointed in each other, and feel that the happiness they counted on is no longer to be expected. The stronger and more intense the mutual feeling the greater the disappointment, and hence the common saying: Love matches are seldom happy matches. Each party is disappointed in the other, frets against the chain that binds them together, and wishes it broken.

This is only what might have been expected. Nothing is more variable or transitory than our feelings, and nothing that depends on them can be unchanging or lasting. When the feelings of the married couple change toward each other, the marriage bond becomes a galling chain, and is felt to be a serious evil, and divorce is desired and resorted to as a remedy. It is usually no remedy at all, or a remedy worse even than the disease; but it is the only remedy practicable where feeling is substituted for rational affection. Hence, in nearly all modern states, the legislature, in direct conflict with the Christian law, which makes marriage a sacrament and indissoluble, permits divorce, and in some states for causes as frivolous as incompatibility of temper. It is easy to censure the legislature but it must follow and express the morals, manners, sentiments, and demands of the people, and when these are repugnant to the divine law, it cannot in its enactments conform to that law; and if did, it's enactments would be resisted as tyrannical and oppressive, or remained on the statute book a dead letter, as did so much wise and just legislation inspired by the church in the middle ages. The evil lies further back, in the humanitarianism of the age, which reverses the real order, puts the flesh in the place of the spirit, philanthropy in the place of charity, and man in the place of God, and which promotes an excessive culture of the sentiments, at the expense of rational conviction and affection. There is no remedy but in returning to the order we have reversed, to the higher culture of reason and free will, not possible without faith in God and the Christian mysteries.

But passing over the effects of sentimental morality on individual character, the private virtues, and domestic happiness, we find it no less hostile to social ameliorations and reforms in the state. The age is philanthropic, and wages war with every form of vice, poverty, and suffering, and is greatly shocked at the evils it finds past ages tolerated without ever making an effort to remove them, hardly even to mitigate them. {439} This is well as far as it goes; but in an age when the sensitive nature is chiefly cultivated, when physical pain is counted the chief evil, and sensible pleasures held to be the chief good, practically, if not theoretically, many things will be regarded as evils which, in a more robust and manly age, were unheeded, or not counted as evils at all. Many things in our day need changing, simply because other things having been changed, they have become anomalous and are out of place. What in one state of society is simple poverty, is really distress in another; and poverty, which in itself is no evil, becomes a great evil in a community where wealth is regarded as the supreme good, and the poor have wants, habits, and tastes which only wealth an satisfy. The poorer classes of today in civilized nations would suffer intensely if thrown back into the condition they were in under the feudal régime, but it may be doubted if they do not really suffer as much now as they did then. Perhaps such wants as they then had were more readily met and supplied than are those which they now have. In point of fact, Christian charity did infinitely more for the poor and to solace suffering in all its forms, even in the feudal ages, than philanthopy does now; and we find the greatest amount of squalid wretchedness now precisely in those nations in which philanthopy has been most successful in supplanting charity.

Philanthropy effects nothing except in so far as it copies or imitates Christian Charity, and its attempted imitations are rarely successful. It has for years been very active and hard at work in imitation of charity; but what has it effected? what suffering has it solaced? what crime has it diminished? what vice has it corrected? what social evil has it removed? It has tried its hand against licentiousness, and licentiousness is more rife and shameless than ever. It has made repeated onslaughts on the ruinous vice of intemperance, and yet drunkenness increases instead of diminishing, and has become the disgrace of the country-. It has professed great regard for the poor, but does more to remove them out of sight than to relieve them. It treats poverty as a vice or a crime, looks on it as a disgrace, a thing to be fled from with all speed possible, and makes the poor feel that wealth is virtue, honor, nobility, the greatest good, and thus destroys their self respect, aggravates their discontent, and indirectly provokes the crimes against property become so general and so appalling. What a moral New York reads us in the fact that she makes her commissioners of "Public Charities" also commissioners of "Public Corrections!" Philanthropy rarely fails to aggravate the evil she attempts to cure, or to cure one evil by introducing another and a greater evil. Her remedies are usually worse than the disease.

Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and other philanthropists have made serious efforts to reorganize society so as to remove the inequalities or the evils of the inequalities of wealth and social position; but have all failed, because they needed, in order to succeed, the habits, character, and virtues which, on their own theories, can be obtained only from success. As a rule, philanthropy must succeed in order to be able to succeed.

Philanthropy--humanitarianism--has been shocked at slavery, and in our country as well as in some others it formed associations for its abolition. In the West India Islands, belonging to Great Britain, it succeeded in abolishing it, to the ruin of the planters and very little benefit to the slave. In this country, if slavery is abolished, it has not been done by philanthropy, which served only to set the North and the South by the ears, but by the military authority as a war measure, necessary, or judged to be necessary, to save the Union and to guard against future attempts to dissolve it. Philanthropy is hard at work to make abolition a blessing to the freedmen. It talks, sputters, {440} clamors, legislates, but it can effect nothing; and unless Christian charity takes the matter in hand, it is very evident that, however much emancipation may benefit the white race, it can prove of little benefit to the emancipated, who will be emancipated in name, but not in reality.

The great difficulty with philanthropy is, that she acts from feeling and not reason, and uses reason only as the slave or instrument of feeling. Wherever she sees an evil she rushes headlong to its removal, blind to the injury she may do to rights, principles, and institutions essential to liberty and the very existence of society. Hence she usually in going to her end tramples down more good by the way than she can obtain in gaining it. She has no respect for vested rights, regards no geographical lines, and laughs at the constitutions of states, if they stand in her way. Liberty with us was more interested in maintaining inviolate the constitution of the Union and the local rights of the several states, than it was even in abolishing negro slavery, and hence many wise and good men, who had no interest in retaining slavery, and who detested it as an outrage upon humanity, did not and could not act or sympathize with the abolitionists. They yield in nothing to them in the earnest desire to abolish slavery, but they would abolish it by legal and peaceful means--means that would not weaken the hold of the constitution and civil law on conscience, and destroy the safeguards of liberty. The abolitionists did not err in being opposed to slavery, but in the principles on which they sought its abolition. Adam did not sin in aspiring to be God; for that, in a certain sense, he was destined, through the incarnation, one day to become. His sin was in aspiring to be God without the incarnation, in his own personal right and might, and in violation of the divine command, or by other means than those prescribed by his Creator and Lawgiver, the only possible means of attaining the end sought.

Philanthropy commits the same error whatever the good work she attempts, and especially in all her attempts at political reforms. She finds herself "cabined, cribbed, confined" by old political institutions, and cries out, Down with them. She demands for the people a liberty which she sees they have not and cannot have under the existing political order, and so proceeds at once to conspire against it, to revolutionize the state, deluges the land in blood, and gets anarchy, the Reign of Terror, or military despotism for its pains. Never were there more sincere or earnest philanthropists than the authors of the old French Revolution. The violent revolutions attempted in modern Europe in the name of humanity, have done more harm to society by unsettling the bases of society and effacing in men's minds and hearts the traditional respect for law and order, than any good they could have done by sweeping away the social and political abuses they warred against. The French are not politically or individually freer to-day than they were under Louis Quatorze.

There are, no doubt, times when an old political order, as in Rome after Marius and Sulla, has become effete, and can no longer fulfil the duties or discharge the offices of a government, in which a revolution, like that effected under the lead of Julius an Augustus Caesar, may be desirable and advantageous, for it establishes a practicable and a real government in the place of a government that can no longer discharge the functions of government, and is virtually no government at all. The empire was a great advance on the republic, which was incapable of being restored. But revolutions properly so-called, undertaken for the subversion of an existing order and the introduction of another held to be theoretically more perfect, have never, so far as history records, been productive of good. No doubt England is to-day in advance of what she was under the Stuarts, but who dares say that she is in advance of {441} what she would have been had she not expelled them, or that she has become greater under the Whig nobility than she might have been under the Tory squirarchy?

There has been, I readily concede, a real progress in modern society, at least dating from the fifth century of our era; but, as I read history, the progress has been interrupted or retarded by modern socialistic or political revolutions, and has in no case been accelerated by philanthropy as distinguished from Christian charity. Moreover, in no state of Christendom has charity ever been wholly wanting. Nations have cast off the authority of the church, and have greatly suffered in consequence; but in none has divine charity been totally wanting, and the influence of Christianity on civilization, even in heretical and schismatic nations, is not to be counted as nothing. I am far from believing that the nations that broke away from the church are not better than they would have been if they had not had the benefit of the habits formed under her teaching and discipline. I know that _extra ecclesiam nulla sit salus_; but I know also that the church is as a city set on a hill, and that rays from the light within her may and do extend beyond her walls, and relieve in some degree the darkness of those who are outside of them. How much the church continues to influence nations once within her communion, but now severed from it, nobody is competent to determine, nor can any one but God himself say how many, in all these nations, though not formally united to the body of the church, are yet not wholly severed from her soul. The Russian Church retains the Orthodox faith and the sacraments, and is officially under no sentence of excommunication from the body of Christ, and only those who are individually and voluntarily schismatic, are guilty of the sin of schism; and in other communions, though undoubtedly heretical, there may be large numbers of baptized persons who do really act on Christian principles, and from purely Christian motives. All I mean to deny is, that society or humanity ever gains anything from violent or sentimental revolutions.

The impotence of philanthropy without charity, or pure humanism, is demonstrable _à priori_, and should have been foreseen. It is opposed to the nature of things, and implies the absurdity that nothing is something, and that what is not can act. It is an attempt to found religion, morals, society, and the state without God; when without God there is and can be nothing, and consequently nothing for them to stand on. It assumes that man is an independent being, and suffices for himself; which, whether we mean by man the individual or humanity, "the universal man," "the one man" of the Transcendentalists, or "the grand collective Being" of the Positivists, we all feel and know to be not the fact. Man in either sense is a creature, and depends absolutely on the creative act of God for his existence; and let God suspend that act, and he sinks into the nothing he was before he was created. Therefore it is in God _mediante_ his creative act he lives and moves and has his being. Hence it is, whether we know it or not, that we assert the existence of God as our creator in every act we perform, every thought we think, every resolution we take, every sentiment we experience, and every breath we draw, for no human operation--physical, intellectual, or moral--is possible without the divine creative act and concurrence.

Philanthropy, or the love of man, separated from charity, or the love of God and of man in God, is therefore simply nothing, a mere negation, for it supposes man separated from God is something, and separated from God he is nothing. Hence St. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, says: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have {442} all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." This is so not by virtue of any arbitrary decree or appointment of the Almighty, even if such decree or appointment is possible, but in the very, nature of things, and God himself cannot make it otherwise. God is free to create or not to create, and free to create such existences as he pleases; but he cannot create an independent self-sufficing being, for he cannot create anything between which and himself there should not be the relation of creator and creature. The creature depends wholly, in all respects whatever, on the creator, and without him is and can be nothing. The creature depends absolutely on the creator in relation to all his acts, thoughts, and affections, as well as for mere existence itself. God could not, even if it were possible that he would, dispense with charity and count the love of man as independent of God, as something, because he is truth, and it is impossible for him to lie, and lie he would were he to count such supposed love something, for independent of him there is no man to love or to be loved. Man can love or be loved only where he exists; and as he exists in God, so only in God can we possibly love him, that is, we can love our neighbor only in loving God. The humanitarian love or morality is, therefore, a pure negation, simply nothing.

Man is, indeed, a free moral agent, and he would not be capable of virtue or a _moral_ action, if he were not; but he can act, notwithstanding his moral freedom, only according to the conditions of his existence. He exists and can exist only by virtue of a supernatural principle, medium, and end. He exists only by the direct, immediate creative act of God, and God in himself and in his direct immediate acts, always and everywhere, is supernatural, above nature, because its creator, and, as its creator, its proprietor. The maker has a sovereign right to the thing made. The creature can no more be its own end than its own principle or cause. Man cannot take himself self as his own end, because he is not his own, but is his creator's, and because independent of God who he is nothing. So God is both his principle and end. But the end is not possible without a medium that places it in relation with the principle, as theologians demonstrate in their dissertations on the mystery of the ever blessed Trinity, and as common sense itself teaches. As the principle and end are supernatural, so the medium must be supernatural, for the medium must be on the plane of the principle and end between which is the medium. The medium, in the moral or spiritual order, the gospel teaches us, is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which infused by the Holy Ghost into the soul elevates her to the plane of her supernatural destiny, and strengthens her to gain or fulfil it. Hence, as says the apostle, _Ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia_--things are from him, and by him, and to or in him. These are the essential conditions of all life, alike in the natural or physical order, and in the moral or spiritual. In all orders God is the principle, medium, and end of all existence, of all action.

In the moral or spiritual order, not in the natural or physical order, man is a free agent, and acts from free will, as Pope sings:

"God, binding nature fast in fate, Leaves free the human will."

Grace assisting, man can conform to the essential conditions of his existence--conditions determined and unalterably fixed by his relation to God as his creator--by the free act of his own will; and by doing so he lives morally, or has moral life. He can also, by virtue of his liberty or freedom, refuse to conform, or in theological language, to obey God, but he cannot so refuse and live in the moral order. This refusal is not a living act, it is simply {443} the negation of moral life, and therefore is moral death, as the Scriptures call it. He does not necessarily cease to exist in the natural or physical order, for in that order he cannot sever himself from God, even if he would; he may kill his body, but not the physical life of the soul, immortal, except by the will of its creator. But he can extinguish his moral life, or refuse to live a moral life, which is moral or spiritual death; and death is not a positive existence, but the negation of existence, and therefore, nothing. Hence life and death in the moral order are set before us, and we are free to choose which we will. To choose, grace assisting, life, and freely of our own will to conform to the conditions of life, to God as our principle, medium, and and, is precisely what is meant by Christian charity, a virtue that fulfils all the conditions imposed by our relation to God as his creatures, the whole law of our existence, and unites our will with the will of God, and by so doing makes us morally or spiritually one with God. He who refuses charity, or has it not, voluntarily renounces God, separates himself morally, and so far as his own will goes even physically, from God; and as severed from God he exists not at all; and therefore says the apostle, "Without charity I am nothing." He only declares what is real, what is true in the nature of things, and which God himself cannot alter.

Philanthropy is, therefore, necessarily impotent, for it tends to death, not life; and as there is no action, physical or moral, that does not tend to a real end, it is not action, but a negation of action, and is therefore in itself nothing positive. All the sentiments for this reason are negative, simple wants of the soul. The soul may exert her powers to satisfy them, or to fill up the void in her being, which they all indicate, but they are in themselves nothing. They indicate not what the soul has, but what she wants or needs to complete herself; and that can never the obtained from the creature save in God, for the creature out of God, separated or turned away from God, is nothing; it is something only in God. Any morality, then, built on the sentiments is as unsubstantial as castles in the air, and as unreal as "the baseless fabric of a vision." The sentiments being wants, negative, with nothing positive in themselves, are necessarily impotent. They are unsatisfied wants, and incapable of attaining to anything that can satisfy them. They are a hungering and thirsting of the soul for what it is not and has not. Here is the explanation of the misery and wretchedness of a sentimental age, why it is so ill-at-ease, so restless, so discontented in the midst of material progress, and the accumulations of sensible goods. It explains, too, why the damned, or those who fail in their destiny, must suffer for ever. Death and hell are not positive existences or positive creations of God, but are the want of spiritual life, are the unsatisfied wants, the endless cravings of the soul for what can be had only in God, and the lost have turned their backs on God.

Charity is not negative, not a want, but a power; and it is easy, therefore, to understand that while philanthropy is impotent it is effective. Charity grasps, as do all the rational affections, her object, and is effective because she is positive not negative, living not dead; and living, because she conforms to the real conditions of life, and participates, through his creative act, in the life of him who is life himself. She is less pretentious and more modest in her proceedings and promises than philanthropy, but makes up for it in the richness and magnificence of the results she obtains. She works slowly and with patience, for she works for eternity, not time--without pomp or parade, in obscurity and silence, for she seeks the praise of God, not the praise of men. To the onlooker she seems not to move, any more than the sun in the heavens; but after a while we find that she has moved, and has transformed the world. {444} Broad in her love and expansive as the universe, and embracing all ages and nations in her affections, she yet wastes not her strength in vague generalities, nor in manifold projects of reform or progress of the race in general, from which no one in particular has anything to expect; but takes men in the concrete as she finds them, does the work nearest at hand and most pressing to be done, and proceeding quietly from the individual to the family, from the family to society and the state, she works out the regeneration of all in working out the regeneration of each. She works as God works, without straining or effort, for her power is great and never fails. Power needs make no effort; it speaks and it is done, commands and it stands fast. Let there be light, and there is light. It is weakness that must strain and tug, as we see in the feeble literature of the day, and philanthropy seems to the observer to be always more in earnest and far harder at work than charity, and attracts far more attention; but while she fills the world with her hollow sounds, charity, unheeded and unheard, fills it with her deeds.

History is at hand to confirm the conclusions of reason, though the full history of charity has never been written, and the greater part of her deeds are known only to him whose eye seeth all things, and will be revealed, only at the last day. But something has been recorded and is known. We in our day think we are doing much to relieve the poor and oppressed, to console the suffering, and to bind up the broken-hearted; but the best of us would be put to shame were we to study what charity did during the decline and fall of the Roman empire and the barbarous ages that immediately followed. We have boasted, and perhaps justly, of the services rendered to humanity during our late civil war by our Christian Commissions and Sanitary Commissions; but what was done by them during four years is nothing in comparison with what was done daily by Christian charity to relieve suffering and distress far greater than were experienced by those even who suffered most from the ravages of our civil war, and that not for four years only, but for four centuries. I have here no room for details, or even for the barest outline of what charity did during the long agony of the old world and the birth of the new; but this much must be said, that it was everywhere present and energetic, and seemed everywhere to renew the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes; and when that old world had passed away, it was found that a new world on a far broader and more durable foundation had taken it's place. Charity had to deal with poverty and want, with sickness and sorrow, and she relieved them; with captives and prisoners of war, and she ransomed them even with the plate from the altar; with barbarians whose highest vision of heaven was to sit in the halls of Valhalla, and quaff from human skulls the blood of their enemies--she tamed, humanized, and civilized them, and made them the foremost nations of the world; with slaves, for Europe was covered over with them--and she mitigated their lot, lightened their oppression, secured for them the moral rights of Christians, and finally broke their chains and made them, not freedmen only, but freemen, Christian freemen, and brothers of the noblest and proudest.

What if it took centuries to abolish slavery? It did not take her centuries to christen the slaves, to bring them spiritual freedom, and provide for their souls. She did not wait till she had abolished the slavery of the body before abolishing the far more grievous slavery of the soul, teaching the slaves the truth that liberates, incorporating them into the church of God, and making them free and equal citizens of the commonwealth of Christ. With this spiritual freedom, of which philanthropy knows nothing, but which is the basis of all real freedom, and with ample provisions for the wants of the soul, {445} the slave could wait in patience for the day of deliverance from bodily servitude. That day might be long in coming, come it surely would; and it did come, and peaceably, without civil war, social convulsion, industrial or economical disturbance. But, unhappily, with us only a feeble portion of the slaves were really Christianized, and by their moral and spiritual training as free and equal members of the church, which makes no distinction between the bond and the free, the white and the black, fitted to take their position and play there are parts as free and equal members of civil society Moreover, we have not been able to emancipate them peaceably; we have done it only by a terrible civil war, in the midst of the clash of arms, as a means of saving the life of the nation, or of perpetuating the union of the states; and the most difficult problem remains to be solved, which the humanitarians flatter themselves will be solved without trouble by political economy, or the general law of demand and supply; but which they will find it will need more Christian Charity than the nation has hitherto possessed to solve, without the gradual extinction in this country of the negro race. The last thing to be relied on for adjusting any social question, elevating any class to social or civil equality, or making freedmen really freemen, is political economy, which treats man not as a free moral agent, or as a social being, but simply as a producing, distributing, and and consuming machine, placed in the same category with the steam-plough, patent reaper, spinning-jenny, and the power-loom. If the question, What shall be done with our freedman? be left to politics, political economy, or philanthropy, without the intervention of Christian charity, emancipation will only have changed the form of their slavery, or given them all the cares and burdens of freedom with none of its blessings.

It is the same in all human affairs. No measured of reform or progress, individual or social, domestic or political, ever succeed or succeed without an overbalance of evil, unless inspired and directed by charity. They may and do succeed without perfect charity, but never without the principle of charity. Philanthropy is man's method, and leads to nothing; charity is God's method, and conducts to its end. But we must not confound charity with weakness or effeminacy of character, for that would be to confound it with sentimentalism. Charity is not credulity or mental imbecility; it is always robust and manly, the rational soul raised above itself by divine grace, and endowed in the spiritual order with superhuman power.

Charity loves peace, but follows after the things which make for peace, and shrinks not from following after them, when need is, even through war. Modern peace-societies are founded by philanthropy, not by charity, and though they have been in existence for half a century, and proudly boasted that there would be no more war, yet there have been more wars and bloodshed during the last twenty years than during any period of equal duration since modern history began. Charity founds no anti-hangman societies for the abolition of capital punishment in all cases whatsoever, or prisoners' friends societies to convert our prisons into palaces; yet recoils from all cruelty or undue severity, and seeks to prevent punishment by preventing crime. She never forgets justice, nor sacrifices in her love for individuals the protection of society or the safety of the state. Her great care is to save the soul of the criminal, and to this end she visits the most loathsome cells, takes her stand on the scaffold by the side of the condemned, and will not give him up till she has made his peace with God. She fills the soul with love for enemies and forgiveness of injuries, but they are _my_ enemies she bids me love, and my personal injuries she bids me forgive. I cannot forgive injuries, done to my neighbor, to society, or to my country, for they are not mine; and she herself bids me, when summoned by the proper authority, to shoulder my musket and march to the battle-field to defend public right and repress public wrong. Charity is never weak, sentimental, lackadaisical, or cowardly. It is the principle of all true greatness and manliness, and the most charitable are the strongest, bravest, the most heroic, wherever duty calls them to act as well as to suffer.

{446}

From the London Society.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE BARON.

A RATHER REMARKABLE FAIRY TALE.

Once upon a time--fairy tales always begin with once upon a time, you know--once upon a time there lived in a fine old castle on the Rhine, a certain Baron von Schrochslofsleschshoffinger. You won't find it an easy name to pronounce; in fact, the baron never tried it himself but once, and then he was laid up for two days' afterward; so in future well merely call him "the baron," for shortness, particularly as he was rather a dumpy man. After having heard his name, you won't be surprised when I tell you that he was an exceedingly bad character. For a German baron, he was considered enormously rich; a hundred and fifty pounds a year wouldn't be thought much over here; but still it will buy a good deal of sausage, which, with wine grown on the estate, formed the chief sustenance of the baron and his family. Now, you'll hardly believe that, notwithstanding he was the possessor of his princely revenue, the baron was not satisfied, but oppressed and ground down his unfortunate tenants to the very last penny he could possible squeeze out of them. In all his exactions he was seconded and encouraged by his steward, Klootz, an old rascal who took a malicious pleasure in his master's cruelty, and who chuckled and rubbed his hands with the greatest apparent enjoyment when any of the poor landholders couldn't pay their rent, or afforded him any opportunity for oppression. Not content with making the poor tenants pay double value for the land they rented, the baron was in the habit of going round every now and then to their houses, and ordering anything he took a fancy to, from a fat pig to a pretty daughter, to be sent up to the castle. The pretty daughter was made parlor-maid, but as she had nothing a year, and to find herself, it wasn't what would be considered by careful mothers an eligible situation The fat pig became sausage, of course. Things went on from bad to worse, till at the time of our story, between the alternate squeezings of the baron and his steward, the poor tenants had very little left to squeeze out of them. The fat pigs and the pretty daughters had nearly all found their way up to the castle, and there was little else to take. The only help the poor fellows had was the baron's only daughter, Lady Bertha, who always had a kind words, and frequently something more substantial, for them, when her father was not in the way. Now, I'm not going to describe Bertha, for the simple reason that if I did, you would imagine that she was the fairy I'm going to tell you about, and she isn't. However, I don't mind giving yon a few outlines. In the first place, she was exceedingly tiny--the nicest girls, the real lovable little pets, always are tiny--and she had long silken black hair, and a dear, dimpled little face, full of love and mischief. Now then, fill out outline {447} with the details of the nicest and prettiest girl you know, and you'll have a slight idea of her. On second thoughts, I don't believe you will, for your portrait wouldn't be half good enough; however, it'll be near enough for you. Well, the baron's daughter, being all your fancy painted her, and a trifle more, was naturally much distressed at the goings on of her unamiable parent, and tried her best to make amends for her father's harshness. She generally managed that a good many pounds of the sausage should find their way back to the owners of the original pig; and when the baron tried to squeeze the and of the pretty parlor-maid, which he occasionally did after dinner, Bertha had only to say, in a tone of mild remonstrance, "Pa!" and pa dropped the hand like a hot potato, and stared very hard the other way, instantly. Bad as the disreputable old baron was, he had a respect for the goodness and purity of his child. Like the lion, tamed by the charm of Una's innocence, the rough old rascal seemed to lose in her presence half his rudeness; and though he used awful language to her sometimes (I dare say even Una's lion reward occasionally) he was more tractable with her than with any other living being. Her presence operated as a moral restraint upon him, which possibly was the reason that he never stayed down stairs after dinner, but always retired to a favorite turret, where he could get comfortably tipsy, which, I regret to say, he had got so in the way of doing every afternoon, that I believe he would have felt unwell without.

The hour of the baron's afternoon symposium was the time selected by Bertha for her errands of charity. Once he was fairly settled down to his second bottle, off went Bertha, with her maid beside her carrying a basket to bestow a meal on some of the poor tenants, among whom she was always received with blessings. At first these excursions had been undertaken solely from charitable motives, and Bertha thought herself plentifully repaid in the love and thanks of her grateful pensioners. Of late, however, another cause had led her to take even stronger interest in her walks, and occasionally to come in with brighter eyes and a rosier cheek than the gratitude of the poor tenants had been wont to produce. The fact is, some months before the time of our story, Bertha had noticed in her walks a young artist, who seemed to be fated to be invariably sketching points of interest in the road she had to take. There was one particular tree, exactly in the path which led from the castle gate, which he had sketched from at least four points of view, and Bertha began to wonder what there could be so very particular about it. At last, just as Carl von Sempach had begun to consider where on earth he could sketch the tree from next, and to ponder seriously upon the feasibility of climbing up into it, and taking it from _that_ point of view, a trifling accident occurred, which gave him the opportunity of making Bertha's acquaintance, which, I don't mind stating confidentially, was the very thing he had been waiting for. It so chanced, that on one particular afternoon the maid, either through awkwardness, or possibly through looking more at the handsome painter than the ground she was walking on, stumbled and fell. Of course the basket fell too, and equally of course, Carl, as a gentleman, couldn't do less than offer his assistance in picking up the damsel and the dinner.

The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to drop; and handsome Carl and our good little Bertha were fairly over head and ears in love, and had begun to have serious thoughts of a cottage in a wood, et caetera, when their felicity was disturbed by their being accidentally met, in one of their walks, by the baron. Of course the baron, being himself so thorough an aristocrat, had higher views for his daughter than marrying her to a "beggarly artist," and accordingly he stamped and swore, and threatened Carl {448} with summary punishment with all sorts of weapons, from heavy boots to blunderbusses, if ever he ventured near the premises again. This was unpleasant; but I fear it didn't _quite_ put a stop to the young people's interviews, though it made them less frequent and more secret than before.

Now, I'm quite aware this wasn't at all proper, and that no properly regulated young lady would ever have had meetings with a young man her papa didn't approve of. But then it's just possible Bertha mightn't have been a properly regulated young lady; I only know she was a dear little pet, worth twenty model young ladies, and that she loved Carl very dearly. And then consider what a dreadful old tyrant of a papa she had! My dear girl, it's not the slightest use your looking so provokingly correct; it's my deliberate belief that if you had been in her shoes (they'd have been at least three sizes too small for you, but that doesn't matter) you would have done precisely the same.

Such was the state of things on Christmas Eve in the year----stay! fairy tales never have a year to them; so on second thoughts I wouldn't tell the date if I knew--but I don't. Such was the state of things, however, on the particular 24th of December to which our story refers--only, if anything, rather more so. The baron had got up in the morning in an exceedingly bad temper; and those about him had felt its effects all through the day. His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and Teufel, had received so many kicks from the baron's heavy boots that they hardly knew at which end their tails were; and even Klootz himself scarcely dared to approach his master. In the middle of the day two of the principal tenants came to say that they were unprepared with their rent, and to beg for a little delay. The poor fellows represented that their families were starving, and entreated for mercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last found so fair an excuse for venting his ill-humor. He loaded the unhappy defaulters with every abusive epithet he could devise (and being called names in German is no joke, I can tell you); and, lastly, he swore by everything he could think of that if their rent was not paid on the morrow, themselves and their families should be turned out of doors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches deep on the ground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the baron became so exasperated that he determined to kick them out of the castle himself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer door, when fresh fuel was added to his anger. Carl, who as I have hinted, still managed, notwithstanding the paternal prohibition, to see fair Bertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a merry Christmas, chanced at this identical moment to be saying good-by at the door, above which, in accordance with immemorial usage, a huge bush of mistletoe was suspended. What they were doing under it at the moment of the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly; but his wrath was tremendous! I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in the extreme. He swore till he was mauve in the face; and if he had not providentially been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the coal-scuttle--mistaking it for a three-legged stool--it is impossible to say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him. Carl and Bertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not much the worse for his accident. In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed to have done him good; for, having sworn a little more, and Carl having left the castle, he appeared rather better. After having endured so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be wondered at that the baron required some consolation; so, after having changed his tr--s-rs, he took himself off to his favorite turret, to allay by copious potations the irritation of his mind. Bottle after bottle was emptied, and pipe after pipe was {449} filled and smoked. The fine old Burgundy was gradually getting into the baron's head; and altogether he was beginning to feel more comfortable. The shades of the winter afternoon had deepened into the evening twilight, made dimmer still by the aromatic clouds that came, with dignified deliberation, from the baron's lips, and curled in floated up to the carved ceiling of the turret, where they spread themselves into a dim canopy, which every successive cloud brought lower and lower. The fire, which had been filed up mountain-high earlier in the afternoon, and had flamed and roared to its heart's content ever since, had now got to that state--the perfection of a fire to a lazy man--when it requires no poking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself hollow, and then tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and then settles down to a genial glow, and gets hollow and tumbles in again. The baron's fire was just in this delightful "da capo" condition, most favorable of all to the enjoyment of the "dolce far niente." For the little while it would glow and kindle quietly, making strange faces to itself, and building fantastic castles in the depths of its red recesses, and then the castles would come down with a crash, and the faces disappear, with a bright flame spring up and lick lovingly the sides of the old chimney; and the carved heads of improbable men and impossible women, hewn so deftly round the panels of the old oak wardrobe opposite, in which the baron's choicest vintages were deposited, were lit up by the flickering light, and seemed to nod and wink at the fire in return, with the familiarity of old acquaintances.

Some such fancy as this was disporting itself in the baron's brain; and he was gazing at the old oak carving accordingly, and emitting huge volumes of smoke with reflective slowness, when a clatter among the bottles on the table caused him to turn his head to ascertain the cause. The baron was by no means a nervous man; however, the sight that met his eyes when he turned round did take away his presence of mind a little; and he was obliged to take four distinct puffs before he had sufficiently regained his equilibrium to inquire, "Who the--Pickwick--are you?" (The baron said "Dickens," but as that is a naughty word we will substitute "Pickwick," which is equally expressive, and not so wrong.) Let me see; where was I? Oh! yes. "Who the Pickwick are you?"

Now, before I allow the baron's visitor to answer the question, perhaps I had better give a slight description of his personal appearance. If this wasn't a true story, I should have liked to have made him a model of manly beauty; but a regard for veracity compels me to confess that he was not what would be generally considered handsome; that is, not in figure, for his face was by no means unpleasing. His body was in size and shape not very unlike a huge plum-pudding, and was clothed in a bright-green tightly fitting doublet, with red holly berries for buttons. His limbs were long and slender in proportion to his stature, which was not more than three feet or so. His head was encircled by a crown of holly and mistletoe. The round red berries sparkled amid his hair, which was silver-white, and shone out in cheerful harmony with his rosy jovial face. And that face! it would have done one good to look at it. In spite of the silver hair, and an occasional wrinkle beneath the merry laughing eyes, it seemed brimming over with perpetual youth. The mouth, well garnished with teeth, white and sound, which seemed as if they could do ample justice to holiday cheer, was ever open with a beaming genial smile, expanding now and then into hearty jovial laughter. Fun and good-fellowship were in every feature. The owner of the face was, at the moment when the baron first perceived him, comfortably seated upon the top of the large tobacco-jar on the table, nursing his left leg. The baron's {450} somewhat abrupt inquiry did not appear to irritate him; on the contrary, he seemed rather amused than otherwise.

"You don't ask prettily, old gentleman," he replied; "but I don't mind telling you, for all that. I'm King Christmas."

"Eh?" said the baron.

"Ah!" said the goblin. Of course you've guessed he was a goblin.

"And pray what's your business here?" said the baron.

"Don't be crusty with a fellow," replied the goblin. "I merely looked in to wish you the compliments of the season. Talking of crust, by the way, what sort of a tap is it you're drinking?" So saying, he took up a flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass. Having held the glass first to one side and then the other, winked at it twice, sniffed it, and gone through the remainder of the pantomime in which connoisseurs indulge, he drank it with great deliberation, and smacked his lips scientifically. "Hum! Johannisberg! and not so _very_ bad--for you. But I tell you what it is, baron, you'll have to bring out better stuff than this when _I_ put my legs on your mahogany."

"Well, you are a cool fish," said the baron. "However, you're rather a joke, so now you're here we may as well enjoy ourselves. Smoke?"

"Not anything you're likely to offer me!"

"Confound your impudence!" roared the baron, with a horribly complicated oath. "That tobacco's as good as any in all Rhineland."

"That's a nasty cough you've got, baron. Don't excite yourself, my dear boy; I dare say you speak according to your lights. I don't mean Vesuvians, you know, but your opportunities for knowing anything about it. Try a weed out of my case, and I expect you'll alter your opinion."

The baron took the proffered case, and selected a cigar. Not a word was spoken till it was half consumed, when the baron took it for the first time from his lips, and said gently, with the air of a man communicating an important discovery in the strictest confidence, "Das ist gut!"

"Thought you'd say so," said the visitor. "And now, as you like the cigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what _I_ call wine. I must warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce effects you are not accustomed to."

"Bother that, if it's as good as the weed," said the baron; "I haven't taken my usual quantity by four bottles yet."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you, that's all. I don't think you'll find it unpleasant, though it is rather strong when you're not accustomed to it." So saying, the goblin produced from some mysterious pocket a black, big-bellied bottle, crusted apparently with the dust of ages. It did strike the baron as peculiar, that the bottle, when once produced, appeared nearly as big round as the goblin himself; but he was not the sort of man to stick at trifles, and he pushed foreword his glass to be filled just as composedly as if the potion had been shipped by Sandeman, and paid duty in the most commonplace way.

The glass was filled and emptied, but the baron uttered not his opinion. Not in words, at least, but he pushed forward his glass to be filled again in a manner that sufficiently bespoke his approval.

"Aha, you smile!" said the goblin. And it was a positive fact; the baron was smiling; a thing he hadn't been known to do in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. "That's the stuff to make your hair curl, isn't it?"

"I believe you, my b-o-o-oy!" The baron brought out this earnest expression of implicit confidence with true Paul Bedford unction. "It warms one--_here!_"

Knowing the character of the man, one would have expected him to put his hand upon his stomach. But he didn't; he laid it upon his _heart_.

{451}

"The spell begins to operate, I see," said the goblin. "Have another glass."

The baron had another glass, and another after that. The smile on his face expanded into an expression of such geniality that the whole character of his countenance was changed, and his own mother wouldn't have known him. I doubt myself--inasmuch as she died when he was exactly a year and three months old--whether she would have recognized him under any circumstances; but I merely wish to express that he was changed almost beyond recognition.

"Upon my word," said the baron, at length, "I feel so light I almost think I could dance a hornpipe. I used to once, I know. Shall I try?"

"Well, if you ask my advice," replied the goblin, "I should say, decidedly, don't. 'Barkis is willing,' I dare say, but trousers are weak, and you might split 'em."

"Hang it all," said the baron, "so I might; I didn't think of that. But still I feel as if I must do something juvenile!"

"Ah! that's the effect of your change of nature," said the goblin. "Never mind, I'll give you plenty to do presently."

"Change of nature! what do you mean, you old conundrum?" said the baron.

"You're another," said the goblin, "But never mind. What I mean is just this. What you are now feeling is the natural consequence of my magic wine, which has changed you into a fairy. That's what's the matter, sir."

"A fairy! me!" exclaimed the baron. "Get out; I'm too fat."

"Fat! oh! that's nothing. We shall put you in regular training, and you'll soon be slim enough to creep into a lady's stocking. Not that you'll be called upon to do anything of the sort; but I'm merely giving you an idea of your future figure."

"No, no," said the baron; "me thin! that's too ridiculous. Why, that's worse than being a fairy. You don't mean it, though, do you? I do feel rather peculiar."

"I do, indeed," said the visitor. "You don't dislike it, do you?"

"Well, no, I can't say I do, entirely. It's queer, though, I feel so uncommon friendly. I feel as if I should like to shake hands, or pat somebody on the back."

"Ah!" said the goblin, "I know how it is. Rum feeling, when you're not accustomed to it. But come; finish that glass, for we must be off. We've got a precious deal to do before morning, I can tell you. Are you ready?"

"All right," said the baron. "I'm just in the humor to make a night of it."

"Come along, then," said the goblin.

They proceeded for a short time in silence along the corridors of the old castle. They carried no candle, but the baron noticed that everything seemed perfectly light wherever they stood, but relapsed into darkness as soon as they had passed by. The goblin spoke first.

"I say, baron, you've been an uncommon old brute in your time, now haven't you?"

"H'm," said the baron, reflectively, "I don't know. Well, yes, I rather think I have."

"How jolly miserable you've been making those two young people, you old sinner! You know who I mean."

"Eh, what? You know that, too?" said the baron.

"Know it; of course I do. Why, bless your heart, I know everything, my dear boy. But you have made yourself an old pig in that quarter, considerably. Ar'n't you blushing, you hard-hearted old monster?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said the baron, scratching his nose, as if that was where he expected to feel it. "I believe I have treated them badly, though, now I come to think of it."

At this moment they reached the door of Bertha's chamber. The door opened of itself at their approach.

{452}

"Come along" said the goblin, "you won't wake her. Now, old flinty-heart, look there."

The sight that met the baron's view was one that few fathers could have beheld without affectionate emotion. Under ordinary circumstances, however, the baron would not have felt at all sentimental on the subject, but to-night something made him view things in quite a different light to that he was accustomed to. I shouldn't like to make affidavit of the fact, but it's my positive impression that he sighed.

Now, my dear reader--particularly if a gentleman--don't imagine I'm going to indulge your impertinent curiosity with an elaborate description of the sacred details of a lady's sleeping apartment. _You're_ not a fairy, you know, and I don't see that it can possibly matter to you whether fair Bertha's dainty little bottines were tidily placed on the chair by her bedside, or thrown carelessly, as they had been taken off, upon the hearth-rug, where her favorite spaniel reposed, warming his nose in his sleep before the last smouldering embers of the decaying fire; or whether her crinoline--but if she did wear a crinoline, what can that possibly matter, sir, to you? All I shall tell you is, that everything looked snug and comfortable; but somehow, any place got that look when Bertha was in it. And now a word about the jewel in the casket--pet Bertha herself. Really, I'm at a loss to describe her. How do you look when your'e asleep?--Well, it wasn't like _that_; not a bit! Fancy a sweet girl's face, the cheek faintly flushed with a soft warm tint, like the blush in the heart of the opening rose, and made brighter by the contrast of the snowy pillow on which it rested; dark silken hair, curling and clustering lovingly over the tiniest of tiny ears, and the softest, whitest neck that ever mortal maiden was blessed with; long silken eyelashes, fringing lids only less beautiful than the dear earnest eyes they cover. Fancy all this, and fancy, too, if you can, the expression of perfect goodness and parity that lift up the sweet features of the slumbering maiden with a beauty almost angelic, and you will see what the baron saw that night. Not quite all, however, for the baron's vision paused not at the bedside before him, but had passed on from the face of the sleeping maiden to another face as lovely, that of the young wife, Bertha's mother, who had, years before, taken her angel beauty to the angels.

The goblin spoke to the baron's thought. "Wonderfully like, is she not, baron?" The baron slowly inclined his head.

"You made her very happy, didn't you?" The tone in which the goblin spoke was harsh and mocking. "A faithful husband, tender and true! She must have been a happy wife, eh, baron?"

The baron's head had so upon his bosom. Old recollections were thronging into his awakened memory. Solemn vows to love and cherish, somewhat strangely kept. Memories of bitter words, and savage oaths, showered at a quiet uncomplaining figure, without one word in reply. And last, the memory of a fit of drunken passion, and a hasty blow struck with a heavy hand; and then of three months fading away; and last, of her last prayer--for her baby and him.

"A good husband makes a good father, baron. No wonder you are somewhat chary of rashly entrusting to a suitor the happiness of a sweet flower like this. Poor child! it is hard, though, that she must think no more of him she loves so dearly. See! she is weeping even in her dreams. But you have good reasons, no doubt. Young Carl is wild, perhaps, or drinks, or gambles, eh? What! none of these? Perhaps he is wayward and uncertain, and you fear that the honied words of {453} courtship might turn to bitter sayings in matrimony. They do, sometimes, eh, baron? By all means guard her from such a fate as that. Poor tender flower! Or who knows, worse than that, baron! Hard words break no bones, they say, but angry men are quick, and a blow is soon struck, eh?"

The goblin had drawn nearer and nearer, and laid his hand upon the baron's arm, and the last words were literally hissed into his ear. The baron's frame swayed to and under the violence of his emotions. At last, with a cry of agony, he dashed his hands upon his forehead. The veins were swollen up like thick cords, and his voice was almost inarticulate in its unnatural hoarsness.

"Torturer, release me! Let me go, let me go and do something to forget the past; or I shall go mad and die!"

He rushed out of the room and paced wildly down the corridor, the goblin following him. At last, as they came near the outer door of the castle, which opened of itself as they reached it, the spirit spoke:

"This way, baron, this way; I told you there was work for us to do before morning, you know."

"Work!" exclaimed the baron, absently, passing his fingers through his tangled hair; "oh! yes, work! the harder and the rougher the better; anything to make me forget."

The two stepped out into the courtyard, and the baron shivered, though, as it seemed, unconsciously, at the breath of the frosty midnight air, The snow lay deep on the ground, and the baron's heavy boot sank into it with a crisp, crushing sound at every tread. He was bareheaded, but seemed unconscious of the fact, and tramped on, as if utterly indifferent to anything but his own thoughts. At last, as a blast of the night wind, keener than ordinary, swept over him, he seemed for the first time to feel the chill. His teeth chattered, and he muttered, "Cold, very cold."

"Ay, baron," said the goblin, "it is cold, even to us, who are healthy and strong, and warmed with wine. Colder still, though, to those who are hungry and half-naked, and have to sleep on the snow."

"Sleep? snow?" said the baron. "Who sleeps on the snow? why, I wouldn't let my dogs be out on such a night as this."

"Your dogs, no!" said the goblin; "I spoke of meaner animals--your wretched tenants. Did you not order yesterday, that Wilhelm and Friedrich, if they did not pay their rent tomorrow, should be turned out to sleep on the snow? a snug bed for the little ones, and a nice white coverlet, eh? Ha! ha! twenty florins or so is no great matter, is it? I'm afraid their chance is small, nevertheless. Come and see."

The baron hung his head. A few minutes brought them to the first of the poor dwellings, which they entered noiselessly. The fireless grate, the carpetless floor, the broken window-panes, all gave sufficient testimony to the want and misery of the occupants. In one comer lay sleeping a man, a woman, and three children, and nestling to each other for the warmth which their ragged coverlet could not afford. In the man, the baron recognized his tenant, Wilhelm, one of those who had been with him to beg for indulgence on the previous day. The keen features, and bones almost starting through the pallid skin, showed how heavily the hand of hunger had been laid upon all. The cold night wind moaned and whistled through the many flaws in the ill-glazed, ill-thatched tenement, and rustled over the sleepers, who shivered even in their sleep.

"Ha, baron," said the goblin, "death is breathing in their faces even now, you see; it is hardly worth while to lay them to sleep in the snow, is it? They would sleep a little sounder, that's all."

{454}

The baron shuddered, and then, hastily pulling the warm coat from his own shoulders, he spread it over the sleepers.

"Oho!" said the goblin, "bravely done, baron! By all means keep them warm to-night, they'll enjoy the snow more to-morrow, you know."

Strange to say, the baron, instead of feeling chilled when he had removed his coat, felt a strange glow of warmth spread from the region of the heart over his entire frame. The goblin's continual allusions to his former intention, which he had by this time totally relinquished, hurt him, and he said, rather pathetically, "Don't talk of that again, good goblin, I'd rather sleep on the snow myself."

"Eh! what?" said the goblin, "you don't mean to say you're sorry? Then what do you say to making these poor people comfortable?"

"With all my heart," said the baron, "if we had only anything to do it with."

"You leave that to me," said the goblin, "your brother fairies are not far off, you may be sure."

As he spoke he clapped his hands thrice, and before the third clap had died away the poor cottage was swarming with tiny figures, whom the baron rightly conjectured to be the fairies themselves.

Now, you may not be aware (the baron wasn't until that night) that there are among the fairies trades and professions, just as with ordinary mortals. However, there they were, each with the accompaniments of his or her particular business, and to it they went manfully. A fairy glazier put in new panes to the shattered windows, fairy carpenters replaced the doors upon their hinges, and fairy painters, with inconceivable celerity, made cupboards and closets as fresh as paint could make them; one fairy housemaid laid and lit a roaring fire, while another dusted and rubbed chairs and tables to a miraculous degree of brightness; a fairy butler uncorked bottles of fairy wine, and a fairy cook laid out a repast of most tempting appearance. The baron hearing a tapping above him, cast his eyes upward and beheld a fairy slater rapidly repairing a hole in the roof; and when he bent them down again, they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a cordial for the sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson who, not having any present employment, contented himself with rubbing his hands and looking pleasant, probably ably waiting till somebody might want to be christened or married. Every trade, every profession or occupation, appeared, without exception, to be represented; nay, we big pardon, with one exception only, for the baron used to say, when afterward relating his experiences to bachelor friends, "You may believe me or not sir, there was every mortal business under the sun, _but devil a bit of a lawyer_."

The baron could not long remain inactive. He was rapidly seized with a violent desire to do something to help, which manifested itself in insane attempts to assist everybody at once. At last, after having taken all the skin off his knuckles in attempting to hammer in nails in aid of the carpenters, and then nearly tumbling over a fairy housemaid, whose broom he was offering to carry, he gave it up as a bad job, and stood aside with his friend the goblin. He was just about to inquire how it was that the poor occupants of the house were not awakened by so much din, when a fairy Sam Slick who had been examining the cottager's old clock, with a view to a thorough repair, touched some spring within it, and it made the usual purr preparatory to striking. When lo and behold, at the very first stroke, cottage, goblin, fairies, and all disappeared into utter darkness, and the baron found himself in his turret-chamber, rubbing his toe, which he had just hit with considerable force against the fender. As he was only in his slippers the concussion was unpleasant, and the baron rubbed his toe for a good while. {455} After he had finished with his toe he rubbed his nose, and finally, with a countenance of deep reflection, scratched the bump of something or other at the top of his head. The old clock on the stairs was striking three, and the fire had gone out. The baron reflected for a short time longer, and finally decided that he had better go to bed which he did accordingly.

The morning dawned upon the very ideal, as far as weather was concerned, of a Christmas day. A bright winter sun shone out just vividly enough to make everything look genial and pleasant, and yet not with sufficient warmth to mar the pure unbroken surface of the crisp white snow, which lay like a never-ending white lawn upon the ground, and glittered in myriad silver flakes upon the leaves of the sturdy evergreens. I'm afraid the baron had not had a very good night; at any rate, I know that he was wide-awake at an hour long before his usual time of rising. He lay first on one side, and then on the other, and then, by way of variety, turned on his back, with his magenta nose pointing perpendicularly toward the ceiling; but it was all of no use. Do what he would, he couldn't get to sleep, and at last, not long after daybreak, he tumbled out of bed, and proceeded to dress. Even after he was out of bed his fidgetiness continued. It did not strike him, until after he had got one boot on, that it would be a more natural proceeding to put his stockings on first; after which he caught himself in the act of trying trying to put his trousers on over his head (which, I may mention for the information of lady readers, who of course, cannot be expected to know anything about such matters, is not the mode generally adopted). In a word, the baron's mind was evidently preoccupied; his whole air was that of a man who felt a strong impulse to do something or other, but could not quite make up his mind to it. At last, however, the good impulse conquered, and this wicked old baron, in the stillness of the calm bright Christmas morning, went down upon his knees and prayed. Stiff were his knees and slow his tongue, for neither had done such work for many a long day past; but I have read in the Book of the joy of the angels over a repenting sinner. There needs not much eloquence to pray the publican's prayer, and who shall say but there was gladness in heaven that Christmas morning?

The baron's appearance down-stairs at such an early hour occasioned quite a commotion. Nor were the domestics re-assured when the baron ordered a bullock to be killed and jointed instantly, and all the available provisions in the larder, including sausage, to be packed up in baskets, with a good store of his own peculiar wine. One ancient retainer was heard to declare, with much pathos, that he feared master had gone "off his head." However, "off his head" or not, they knew the baron must be obeyed, and in an exceedingly short space of time he sallied forth, accompanied by three servants carrying the baskets, and wondering what in the name of fortune their master would do next. He stopped at the cottage of Wilhelm, which he had visited with the goblin on the previous night. The labors of the fairies did not seem to have produced much lasting benefit, for the appearance of everything around was as wretched as could be. The poor family thought that the baron had come himself to turn them out of house and home; and the poor children huddled up timidly to their mother for protection, while the father attempted some words of entreaty for mercy. The pale, pinched features of the group, and their looks of dread and wretchedness, were too much for the baron. "Eh! what! what do you mean, confound you? Turn you out! Of course not: I've brought you some breakfast. Here! Fritz--Carl; where are the knaves? Now then, unpack, and don't be a week about it. Can't you see the people are hungry, ye villains? Here, lend me the corkscrew." This last {456} being a tool the baron was tolerably accustomed to, he had better success than with those of the fairy carpenters; and it was not long before the poor tenants were seated before a roaring fire, and doing justice, with the appetite of starvation, to a substantial breakfast. The baron felt a queer sensation in his throat at the sight of the poor people's enjoyment, and had passed the back of his hand twice across his eyes when he thought no one was looking; but his emotion fairly rose to boiling point when the poor father, Wilhelm, with tears in his eyes, and about a quarter of a pound of beef in his mouth, sprang up from the table and flung himself at the baron's knees, invoking blessings on him for his goodness. "Get up, you audacious scoundrel!" roared the baron. "What the deuce do you mean by such conduct, eh! confound you?" At this moment the door opened, and in walked Mynheer Klootz, who had heard nothing of the baron's change of intentions, and who, seeing Wilhelm at the baron's feet, and hearing the latter speaking, as he thought, in an angry tone, at once jumped to the conclusion that Wilhelm was entreating for longer indulgence. He rushed at the unfortunate man, and collared him. "Not if _we_ know it," exclaimed he; "you'll have the wolves for bedfellows to-night, I reckon. Come along, my fine fellow." As he spoke he turned his back toward the baron, with the intention of dragging his victim to the door, the baron's little gray eyes twinkled, and his whole frame quivered with suppressed emotion, which, after the lapse of a moment, vented itself in a kick, and _such_ a kick! Not one of your Varsoviana flourishes, but a kick that employed every muscle from hip to toe, and drove the worthy steward up against the door, like a ball from a catapult. Misfortunes never come singly, and so Mynheer Klootz found with regard to the kick, for it was followed, without loss of time, by several dozen others, as like it as possible, from the baron's heavy boots. Wounded Lyons proverbially come badly off, and Fritz and Carl, who had suffered from many an act of petty tyranny on the part of the steward, thought they could not do better than follow their master's example, which they did to such a good purpose, that when the unfortunate Klootz did escape from the cottage at last, I don't believe he could have had any _os sacrum_ left.

After having executed this little act of poetical justice, the baron and his servants visited the other cottages, in all of which they were received with dread, and dismissed with blessings. Having completed his tour of charity, the baron returned home to breakfast, feeling more really contented then he had done for many a long year. He found Bertha, who had not risen when he started, in a considerable state of anxiety as to what he could possibly have been doing. In answer to her inquiries he told her, with a roughness he was far from feeling, to "mind her own business." The gentle eyes filled with tears at the harshness of the reply; perceiving which, the baron was beyond measure distressed, and chucked her under the chin in what was meant to be a very conciliatory manner. "Eh! what, my pretty? tears? No, surely. Bertha must forgive her old father. I didn't mean it, you know, my pet; and yet, on second thoughts, yes I did, too." Bertha's face was overcast again. "My little girl thinks she has no business anywhere, eh! Is that it? Well, then, my pet, suppose you make it your business to write a note to young Carl von Sempach, and say I'm afraid I was rather rude to him yesterday, but if he'll look over it, and come and take a snug family dinner and a slice of the pudding with us to-day--" "Why, pa, you don't mean--yes, I do really believe you do--" The baron's eyes were winking nineteen to the dozen. "Why, you dear, dear, dear old pa!" And at the imminent risk of upsetting the breakfast table, Bertha rushed at the baron, and flinging two soft white arms about {457} his neck, kissed him--oh! how she _did_ kiss him! I shouldn't have thought, myself, she could possibly have had any left for Carl; but I dare say Bertha attended to his interests in that respect somehow.

* * * * *

Well, Carl came to dinner, and the baron was, not very many years after, promoted to the dignity of a grandpapa, and a very jolly old grandpapa he made. Is that all you wanted to know?

About Klootz? Well, Klootz got over the kicking, but he was dismissed from in the baron's service; and on examination of his accounts, it was discovered that he had been in the habit of robbing the baron of nearly a third of his yearly income, which he had to refund; and with the money he was thus compelled to disgorge, the baron built new cottages for his tenants, and new-stocked their farms. Nor was he the poorer in the end, for his tenants worked with the energy of gratitude, and he was soon many times richer than when the goblin visited him on that Christmas-eve.

And was the goblin ever explained? Certainly not. How dare you have the impertinence to suppose such a thing? An empty bottle, covered with cobwebs, was found the next morning in the turret chamber, which the baron at first imagined must be the bottle from which the goblin produced his magic wine; but as it was found, on examination, to be labelled "Old Jamaica Rum," of course that could not have had anything to do with it. However it was, the baron never thoroughly enjoyed any other wine after it; and as he did not thenceforth get drunk, on an average, more than two nights a week, or swear more than eight oaths a day, I think King Christmas may be considered to have thoroughly reformed him. And he always maintained, to the day of his death, that he was changed into a fairy, and became exceedingly angry if contradicted.

Who doesn't believe in fairies after this? I only hope King Christmas may make a few more good fairies this year, to brighten the homes of the poor with the light of Christmas charity. Truly we need not look far for almsmen. Cold and hunger, disease and death, are around us at all times; but at no time do they press more heavily on the poor than at this jovial Christmas season. Shall we shut out, in our mirth and jollity, the cry of the hungry poor? or shall we not rather remember, in the midst of our happy family circles, round our well-filled tables, and before our blazing fires, that our brothers are starving out in the cold, and that the Christmas song of the angels was, "Good-will to men?"

Original.

EPIGRAM.

"Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing."

Dear heart! and is it thus thou didst lament His absence for a day? How different Thy grief from mine! Absent from Him for years, I sorrowed not: and only found my tears In finding Him. Then, to my bitter cost, I knew the priceless treasure I had lost!

{458}

Original.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE.

Christmas comes but once a year; 'Tis come at last, O glorious day! Let every cross that mortals bear Be for the moment flung away.

"Yes," says the cricket from his hole Beside the flame-lit kitchen hearth, "It is a time for every soul To give himself to joy and mirth,"

"Christmas comes but once a year," Returns the timid pantry mouse. "The cat has told me not to fear; To-night I'll scamper through the house."

So, blow ye winds, and you, Jack Frost, Come in the dark and do your worst; How wild soe'er the night may be, It shall not stir my Christmas Tree.

Then let us dance and laugh and sing, And form in all one happy ring; The Yule log never burned so bright. Hurrah! hurrah! 'tis Christmas night.

It is a time to seek the poor, And bid them welcome round our door; The alms we give, to Christ are given. And hung on Christmas Trees in heaven.

The Christmas Tree is evergreen: The hand of time may change the scene, The child a gray-haired man may be, But memory keeps the Christmas Tree.

W.S., Jr.

{459}

ORIGINAL.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONVERSION. [Footnote 144]

[Footnote 144: Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism, etc. By L. Stillman Ives, LL.D. Boston. 1865.

The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By Peter H. Burnett. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1866

The Convert; or, Leaves from my Experience. By O. A. Brownson. New York. 1857.

Apologia pro Vita Sua: being a Reply, etc. By John Henry Newman, D.D. New York. 1865.]

It is a fact, to which the Catholic heart cannot recur without emotions of the deepest gratitude, that Christ's holy church is ever gathering some of the select out of the mad waves of heresy and schism around us into the safety of her maternal bosom. It is a fact, too, which every conscientious and thoughtful Protestant must view with feelings of disquietude and insecurity, that men of unimpeachable piety and learning are thus ever leaving the external wilderness where they have walked with him, and seek and find true refuge in the Catholic ark of God.

The number of these converts it seems almost impossible to estimate. There can be but little doubt, however, that it far exceeds the reckonings of the denominations out of which they come, and equally surpasses our own most sanguine calculations. Reliable statistics show us that within the last fifty years no less than forty-one clergymen of the American Episcopal Church alone have laid down the honors and emoluments they there enjoyed, and have espoused poverty and insignificance with the Catholic faith. [Footnote 145] Many of these were men of eminence in their former sphere of action, and one, at least, held the highest and most responsible position which his co-religionists could bestow upon him. Some of them have risen since their conversion to posts of ecclesiastical dignity and power. Others have died and rest with God. All of them, with but few exceptions, have remained faithful, and have endorsed, in life and in death, the wisdom and sincerity of that step which brought them, after many wanderings, into the apostolic fold.

[Footnote 145: See Church Review, July, 1860, p. 254. There have been several conversions from the Episcopal clergy since that date.]

How far the clerical ranks of other sects of Protestants in the United States have been invaded by God's converting grace, no data that we can command are able to determine. Our personal recollections of their various ministers, who at one time and another have laid down their own will for the will of Christ, lead us to the belief that the number from each will fall little short of that contributed by the denomination to which we first referred. And as for laymen, they have come to us from every known religious name and creed, and full as often from no name and creed at all, until the throng has swelled from hundreds into tens of thousands, and gone beyond the possibility of our enumeration or discovery. [Footnote 146]

[Footnote 146: Judging from the statistics of the past few years in the dioceses of New York, the number of converts in the United States must exceed 30,000.--Ed. C.W.]

Moreover, this work is on the increase. Year by year, almost, the church is doubling on herself in these triumphs of her toil. Where individuals once tremblingly isolated themselves from old associations, and cut the vital cord of earthly friendships and familiarities by submitting to her guidance, now families and communities fly together to her arms for safety; while those upon whose personal decisions her labors and the grace of God seemed to make no impression, have ceased to persecute and almost ceased to ban those who have followed {460} her, and recognize conversion from Protestantism to Catholicity as a change equally legitimate and rational with conversion from idolatry to God. Nay, more: the very brain of Protestant America itself is sloughing off the narrow coils of illogical and degrading error which three hundred years of folly and of falsehood had woven round it under the name of Christian doctrine; and, in spite of its self-conceived antagonism between "_Rome or Reason_," is drinking in long draughts of Catholic theology, and pouring out broadcast over this great hemisphere the fundamental tenets of the Roman faith as the indisputable truths of human reason and divine philosophy.

The tide of popular prejudice thus turning, and the way thus opened to the American intellect by the instrumentality of those who claim to be her adversaries, it is no arrogation of prophetic foresight to predict that the progress of the church in this country must, in the future, be rapid beyond all precedent, and that the age may not be far distant when this vast "_Continent of Mary_" shall, with one heart and under one name, obey the Holy Spouse of Mary's Son.

When such realities are around us and such possibilities before us, the study of those mental and moral changes in the individual by which all has been done that is done, and by which also all that shall be done must be accomplished, cannot be uninteresting or unprofitable. No religious subject of so much practical importance to non-Catholics is, probably, so little understood among them; and of none have more false definitions been given or more inaccurate theories been entertained. Even Catholics themselves have generally failed in their attempts to realize the logical processes through which the Protestant mind must, consciously or unconsciously, find its way before it can receive Catholic truth with the dear, living faith of a Catholic heart. It is to correct these errors and to scatter these difficulties, as well as to justify seeming inconsistencies, and above all, to assist, if possible, the wavering minds of some who long for a light which they know not how or where to find, that we devote these pages to a discussion of those changes in the human soul which make up the actual conversion from Protestantism to the Catholic Church.

The materials for this discussion are both abundant and satisfactory The first of the four works upon our list is from the pen of Dr. Ives, who was for more than twenty years the Protestant Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of North-Carolina, and one of the acknowledged leaders of the High church party in the United States. It is a concise and luminous rehearsal of the reasons which led him to abandon his exalted ecclesiastical station for that of a mere layman in the Catholic church, and presents a vivid picture of the "trials" and perplexities which extreme Tractarians must inevitably undergo, when the incompatibility of their position with their principles is once fully apprehended. The second is a voluminous and formal treatise on the rules of evidence as applicable to revelation, and on those fundamental axioms which underlie all legislation, human or divine. It is, obviously, what the title-page professes, the work of a legal mind which views the whole question of religion as open two, and able to abide the most thorough tests of reason and philosophy, and brings the great issues which it raises, in every case, to actual demonstration for denial. The writer, now a Catholic, was formerly a member of the so-called "_Disciples;_" a sect which lies on the outskirts of Christianity, and from which to Catholicity the path must have been almost as long and devious as that from infidelity itself. The author of the third is Dr. Brownson, one of the most _positive_ of modern men; whose range of doctrinal experience has reached from Deism to an ultramontane Catholicism, and who in every phase of his religious life, has {461} been a living power, dealing with realities, and stripping all imaginations and delusions from the realities with which he dealt. The last is Dr. Newman's, than whom no one knows better, none can describe so well, that _Via Dolorosa_ which all converts tread? To these, if we would, the works of Manning, Wilberforce, and others might be added, each a reflection of the changes which the inner lives of their writers underwent in the great struggle after ultimate, unquestionable truth; while, beyond even these, the inexhaustible volume of experience remains; a volume in which the dark things of these books find an infallible interpreter, and on whose hidden leaves the hand of God has written the same history of which these human pages are the reflection and the shade.

It is not an unreasonable hope, that, out of such materials, we may be able to construct an accurate definition of that work of grace which, in the convert's memory, has overshadowed and embraces all other gifts of God.

Before proceeding, however, with our examination of that change, by which alone the word "_conversion_" can be properly defined, it will be necessary to consider and refute those definitions of it which are false. Conversion is a transformation in itself so simple, yet involving so many and such vast collateral changes in the inner and exterior man--it is at once so definite in its own nature, and yet as widely and, in point of time, so intimately knit together with its antecedents and its consequences, that a clear view of it apart from these is almost impossible, until, by a process of negation, it is separated from its surroundings, and stands out alone, defined as well by what did is _not_ as by what it _is_. And this is, above all, important, when we desire to present this subject to the understandings of non-Catholics. The lines between their religious bodies are so faintly drawn, and depend so much upon the social and political circumstances by which the members of those bodies are controlled, that conversion from one denomination to another is not regarded as reaching to the very marrow of the spiritual being, or compassing the salvation or destruction of the soul. Such changes are often matters of taste or policy or friendship; sometimes of personal pride and pique, and sometimes, but more rarely, of actual principle; though even this principle never rests upon higher ground than individual points of faith or systems of ecclesiastical organization. It thus seems almost impossible that, left to their own definitions of that to which we give the technical name "_conversion_," persons outside the church could ever arrive at an appreciation of its extent and power. And this is especially true in this country, where the Catholic Church externally occupies the position of a sect among sects; the most numerous, perhaps, certainly the most prosperous and aggressive of them all, but in their view ranking as but one of many forms of Christianity, and but one of many branches of Christ's earthly fold. No care that we can take can be superfluous, no precision we can use can be in vain when we attempt to define the position of the church on any question which interests our age, or to delineate the relations which she occupies to that great chaos of religions in the midst of which she dwells. At the risk, therefore, of consuming time unnecessarily for some, we feel it none the less our duty to leave upon the minds of others no doubt upon this subject which we can remove, and no obscurity around it which it is in our power to thrust away.

(1.) First, then, the adoption of the articles of the Catholic faith into the individual's creed is not conversion.

The idea of conversion entertained by nine-tenths of Protestants is precisely that which we have here denied. It has hardly ever been our lot to meet one, either in print or conversation, whose arguments and reasonings with {462} us did not presuppose this definition to be true. It is very natural, for the reasons before mentioned, that this should be so. From Unitarian to Methodist, from Methodist to Anglican, is but a journey from one set of doctrines to another. The same grand underlying features of Christianity remain. The organic existence is an accident arising from substantial doctrinal affinity. And, judging by their own experience and observations, Protestants almost invariably conclude that we became converts to Catholicity as a logical result of our faith in individual Catholic doctrines; and that a so-called Protestant, who holds any or all of these distinctive dogmas, is not a Protestant in reality, and has no right or title to the name. Of how much petty persecution this mistake has been the cause, and how many parishes and pastors it has kept in perpetual commotion during the past thirty years, hundreds of the unfortunate victims can remember.

Yet no definition of conversion could be more totally erroneous. Belief in Catholic doctrines is often chronologically precedent to a real conversion; but it is not always so. It certainly operates as a powerful antagonist of prejudice, and determines the interest and sympathies of the believer toward the church. Candor, humility, and earnestness being equal, such a believer is far more likely to become a Catholic than another who does not believe. But, for all that, such faith does not result in conversion as its necessary, scarcely as its probable, consequence. We have in our memory, just now, a clergyman who has for years openly professed his firm belief in transubstantiation, purgatory, and other equally extreme Catholic articles of faith. He goes into our churches, and adores the holy eucharist upon our altars. He venerates the Mother of our Lord, and supplicates God's mercy on the faithful dead. In all these he is perfectly sincere, and of the truth of what he believes, and of the piety of what he does, he is as well convinced as any Protestant can ever be. Still he is not a Catholic, and we are almost satisfied he never will become one. Years have found him and left him as we find him now, and other years will probably work no change upon him in the nature of conversion. Nearly the same maybe said of Dr. Pusey. His symbolism in many, if not in most, particulars is Catholic. His tastes and sympathies are Catholic. Those who have been his nearest and dearest friends are Catholics. If similarity of doctrine were all that constitutes conversion, the venerable father of Tractarianism would long ere this have found the rest we tremble now lest he should never find. But his life rolls away, and years and honors multiply upon his head; yet who can say that he is nearer than in the distant and more hopeful days, when his, now our, "_beloved_" struggled and prayed with him for the light of God? The reasons for this are perfectly apparent to us, and will be reached and dealt with by-and-bye. At present it suffices, by these statements and illustrations, to have made it clear that belief in Catholic doctrine is not conversion to the Catholic Church. No, not if a man can tell over on his fingers, one by one, the definitions of the councils and the traditions of the fathers, and pronounce a _credo_ over every one of them, is he necessarily a Catholic, nor must he have passed through that vital transformation without which there never has been and never can be a true conversion.

(2.) Second: the adoption of our extreme ritualism in worship is not conversion.

There is but one denomination of Protestants among whom this false definition is likely to obtain. That one is the Episcopal; and by large numbers of its members (if we may judge their opinions from their words), it is actually believed that a fondness for rites and ceremonies is evidence of Catholicity. Some years ago the church of the Holy Innocents, and the {463} Madison Street mission chapel of New York, and the church of St. James the Less, Philadelphia, were, by this class of persons, uniformly regarded and denounced as Romanizing; as the church of St. Albans in this city and some others are to-day. Candles and flowers upon the altar, crosses and paintings on the walls, the bowed head at the name of Jesus, the cassock-skirted coat, and other innumerable minutiae, are to these people indubitable evidence of Popery, and have often served, as they do now, for a sufficient cause of congregational disunion and parochial decline. It would seem foolish, in a discussion like the present, to notice an error so shallow and so reasonless as this, were it not for the magnitude of its results, and were it not, also, that so many of these very ritualists themselves imagine that, in mimicking Catholic forms and ceremonies, they have secured in Anglicanism all that the Catholic Church can give.

But ritualism is not Catholicism: nor is Catholicism so vitally connected with ritualism that it may not exist in the entire fulness of its powers and graces independent of external magnificence and show. St. Antony in his desert, St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar, were as true Catholics as St. Ambrose in his basilica, or St. Leo on his throne. Even the public worship of the church, when stripped to its essentials, is almost devoid of any outward sign or sound that can properly be characterized as ceremonial. And the same priest who stands today before the gorgeous altar of a metropolitan cathedral amid clouds of incense, will start to-morrow on a year's missionary journey through the wilderness, with all the "_pomp and circumstance of Romanism_" contained within the narrow limits of his carpet-bag. Ritualism is a means used by the church to accomplish certain ends; and so used, because the example of the divinely instituted Jewish church, and her own ages of experience, have convinced her that by it those ends can most surely be attained. But it is no more an essential element of her being than royal robes are of the being of a king; and the weak caricature of her stately ceremonial, in which some Protestant experimentalists indulge, converts them into Catholics as little as the tinsel crown and sceptre of the stage gives royal birth and power to the actor in a play.

(3.) Third: union with the visible body of the Catholic Church is not conversion.

This is the definition which most of those who are born Catholics would give. Unconscious, as they happily are, of the religious state of mind in which pure Protestantism rears its children, it is difficult for them to imagine that a man can be, or can become, nominally Catholic for any other reason than the simple one that binds them to their faith; and this habitude of thought leads them inevitably to confound the outward consequence of an internal change with that internal change itself.

They also are in error. External union with the church is the best possible _primâ facie_ evidence of conversion, but it alone is not conversion. That men have came into the body of the Catholic Church from motives of business, or of politics, or of family sympathy there can be no doubt. But in these cases there was no real conversion. The deep, radical changes which so thoroughly unmake and then remake the spiritual man, never could have taken place in such souls as these. Their outward act was perfect, their visible communion with us was all we could demand; but in their inmost heart they were as much Protestants as ever; and, when they went, acted on the same principles as when they came. Such examples are not numerous, it is true; but still they are sufficient to demonstrate that "_joining the church_" is not conversion, and to deny the minor premise of those who argue the church's incapacity to satisfy our nature from the fact that these have tried her and found her wanting. {464} When one man can be cited who, in his soul of souls, has undergone the work of grace which we now pass on to consider, and who, in calmness and in piety, and not in rashness _or in mortal sin_, has voluntarily apostatized, and who, in life and in death, has adhered to his apostasy, and has died in the confident and humble hope of heaven; then, and not till then, can such an argument be worth our while to meet.

The change we call "_conversion_" thus residing neither in the transfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth of ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption of Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere of action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet explored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls of men. "_Give me thine heart_," is her, is his demand, confident that if this be given all else is also gained. The change she seeks in those whom God would make her children is a change, not of opinion, not of tastes, not of behavior, but of _heart and will_; a change which reaches to the citadel of life, and thoroughly and permanently converts the man. With nothing less than this can she be satisfied. On nothing less than this can she securely build.

And this change is conversion.

Protestantism, so far forth as it is a religious system, is based upon two principles, from which have been developed all its influence and power, and to which may be traced the numerous and immeasurable evils whereof for many ages it has been a fruitful source. The first of these is: That the church, founded by our Lord, is an _invisible_ church, to which every man who believes he is saved by Christ is _by that sole belief_ united, whatever else his creed and religious observance may be. The second is: That every man, by his own reason working on the text of Scripture, is able to, and must determine for himself what his religious faith and moral code shall be. The inevitable consequence of the first principle is--that the doctrine and moral law of one man, so long as they embrace the Saviourship of Christ in any sense whatever, are matters in which his brother Christian can have no concern. The inevitable consequence of the second is--that the self-eliminated creed and rule of observance of each Christian are as correct and reliable as those of any or even of all others, and will be the only standard of his judgment at the bar of God.

This first principle and its logical deductions have resulted in simple religious individualism. "_The communion of saints_," in that sense in which St. Paul describes it, as a Christian society, whose members mutually depend upon each other, think the same things, believe the same things, speak the same things, preserving the unity of the Spirit as well as the bond of peace, has been rendered practically impossible; while for it has been substituted an ideal "_Christian union_" which consists either in the abnegation of all distinctive doctrines as mere human opinions, or in the toleration of them all as different methods of expressing the same religious truth. And even this "_union_" which might be possible if pride and self-will were eradicated from the heart of man, has become so far from a reality, that the very theories on which it is based have sected and bisected the original divisions of Protestant Christianity, until from five they have become five hundred, with every prospect of a similar multisection to the end of time.

This principle has done more. It has entered the bodies of the sects themselves, and repelled member from member, minister from flock. It has destroyed, in the collective sect, all sense of responsibility for the faith and conduct of its members; and, in the members, all sense of responsibility for their personal belief and morals to the sect at large. It has overturned {465} every tribunal established for the preservation of Christian discipline, and has abrogated "_church authority_" as wholly incompatible with purity of conscience and religious freedom. It has reduced the conditions of admission to the ecclesiastical fellowship to "_the minimum of Christianity_" and has abolished "_terms of communion_" and "_professions of faith_" as utterly subversive of denominational integrity. [Footnote 147] In this way it has made each man not only _de jure_, but _de facto_ a spiritual autocrat, and has erected him into an isolated, independent religious body, depriving the sect of all real organic life, and degrading it from a church with head and members to a mere aggregation of discordant particles.

[Footnote 147: _Vide_ New Englander for July, 1866, pages 477 to 487 et seq.]

The individual, being thus debarred of all external aid, is thrown upon his own resources for religious guidance. There is no living man upon the earth from whom he can receive an an authoritative enunciation of eternal truths. There is no set of men upon whose teachings he can rely as more perfect for more ultimately certain than his own. The common mouth of Christendom utters no voice that puts to rest the questions of his soul. All stand, like him, upon one level plain of human fallibility; a fallibility which no diffusion, however universal, can ever make infallible. All, whether singly or collectively interrogated, can answer his appeal for light only by giving their own human judgments in exchange for his.

And hence arises the necessity for that second principle on which, as well as on the first, the foundations of Protestant Christianity were laid; a principle which recognizes the intrinsic individualism that the first produces, and perfects it by removing from man every hope but one. That one hope is the Bible; a dead and speechless book; a body whose spirit hides itself in the interminable labyrinth of languishes long since unspoken; a star which gathers its reflected rays through paraphrases and translations as chromatic as the intellects that framed them or the pens that wrote them down.

"_The Bible, and the Bible only_," has been the banner-cry of Protestantism from the dawn of its existence. The first work of Luther, after his apostasy, was the publication of such parts of the New Testament as he considered best suited to his purposes; and the great aim of his successors, in all countries and in all ages, has been to flood the world with copies of the Scriptures, in such guise and such proportions as should soonest and most surely undermine the principles of church authority, and establish their version of the Bible as the sole acknowledged teacher of the truth of God. From the beginning, also, as a part of the same work, they have denied that God has furnished to mankind other interpreters of his revelation than the unaided intellect of man, and have declared the private judgment of the individual to be his all-sufficient and his only guide to the true meaning of the written law. It will not, therefore, nay, it cannot be disputed, that every man to whom the name of Protestant belongs, depends entirely for his knowledge of the truth which God commands him to believe, and of the laws which God commands him to obey, upon what he can learn, unled by note or comment, from that collective translation of ancient books to which he gives the name "[Greek text]," or "_The Bible_."

Now, were it certain that the Bible contained the entire canon of holy scripture, with every book and paragraph complete; were it certain that that Scripture was in every syllable the utterance of God; were it certain that no error in translation had modulated the clear voice which spoke from heaven; were it certain that no pride of self-opinion, no prejudice of early education, no ignorance of the true meaning and construction of the language, were able to distort the {466} spiritual vision; then might this principle, to some extent, subserve the purposes which Protestants allege it to fulfil. But, while no evidence, by them admissible, can determine beyond cavil the completeness of their canon, while divine inspiration remains a fact beyond the power of human testimony to establish; while that confusion of tongues which the centuries of barbarian incursion wrought has rendered more or less questionable all translations from ancient Greek or Hebrew to a modern dialect; while human pride and prejudice have lost none of their hold upon the heart of man; it is not in our nature to believe that God has left us to such a guidance as this principle asserts, and still holds us responsible for the truth of our opinions and the purity of our conduct at the peril of our eternal damnation. And thus each of these principles practically affirms and corroborates the other, and both unite to overthrow all definite revealed religion, and to prostrate at the feet of human reason the _dicta_ of the everlasting God.

The state of heart and will which these principles engender no lengthened paragraphs are needed to describe. Previous to the age of discretion, the Protestant child, in spite of these principles, is compelled to recognize, in religion, an authority external to himself. His parents, his masters, his catechisms are, in his sight, equally with the Bible, the teachers of divine truth; and, by their aid and influence, he arrives at maturity with certain more or less distinctly formed notions of Christian doctrine, and with certain rules of life grained into his character by the long course of years. At this period he is emancipated, in theory, from all external direction, and placed under the sole guidance of his reason and the Bible. That sacred book he opens. It has no voice to him of its own. Its pages offer to him the same words as to all men before him; but those words contain no meaning independent of the meaning that he gives them. It places before him the formal statement of all doctrine; but teaches him, as absolutely and infallibly true, no one specific dogma which, whether consistent with his present views or not, he must receive. That which interprets, not that which is interpreted, is ever the real teacher; and, in his case, his privates judgment, trained and biassed by the prejudices and conclusions of a lifetime, utters the only voice and defines the only doctrine which it is possible for him to hear or to receive. The Scripture does not teach him new and otherwise undiscoverable truth. It rather confirms and expresses the truth, which is already accepted and declared. The oracle, whose utterance is the indisputable law, speaks from the depths of his interior being. The Bible is a mere "phrase-book," in which it finds the words and symbols fitted to convey its thought. The divine authority dwells in the _man_, not in the _volume_. He holds the sacred book before the mirror of his reason. The image it presents, however imperfect or deformed, becomes to him the truth of the Eternal Word. He casts the pure wheat of God between the millstones of his human judgment and his human loves. The grist they grind is all the bread he has whereon to feed his soul. It is not difficult to see that, by the process of investigation, every man must become the worshipper of a God who is as truly his own handiwork as is the brazen idol of the Hindoo or the living Buddha of Sha-Ssa.

Some of the better class of Protestant minds have perceived this. A few of the most fearless have declared it, and received, in consequence, the name of "_infidels_" from their less logical and less consistent brethren. "_Belief_," says Mr. Emerson, "consists in the acceptance of the affirmations of the soul; unbelief in their denial." The English language might be exhausted and no better definition given of Protestant belief than this. When once the soul--that is, the reason, {467} the affections, and the will--when once the _soul_ affirms; when once those affirmations are _expressed in Scripture phraseology_, no Protestant can venture to pronounce them ultimately untrue without destroying the hold principle on which his own faith has been built. That many have done so is only evidence that the grace of God within them rebels against this degradation of a Gospel which the Eternal Son died in order to inaugurate, and which his church has battled earth and hell for fifty generations in order to preserve.

The office which the heart and will perform in this religious work is simply one of _choice_. The element of submission to divine authority is only so far exercised as consists in the acceptance of Scripture phrases as the vehicle of individual conclusions. To no extent is the _formal, detailed idea_ indebted for existence to other than the intellect, the affections, the will of the believer. He _chooses_ his dogma for his precept according to the dictates of his reason; receiving this, denying that, on the sole ground of their consistency with preconceived ideas; and, anon, discarding old faiths and adopting new as time and circumstances operate upon his heart and mind. And it is nothing singular to see him wandering from Tractarianism down to Unitarianism--from Calvinism to Universalism--and back again, stopping perchance at Methodism or Congregationalism on the way; clinging to his Bible all the while, triumphantly pointing to this paragraph as proving that he is right at last, and as triumphantly declaring the reverse when a few steps forward have landed him upon the other side. All this and more--unless, indeed, his inner life lays at the door of his professions the charge of conscious falsehood, and underneath his soul is bent the arm of an authority whose very existence his theory has totally denied.

No truer definition, no better example of _heresy_ than such a spectacle affords, has any age of Christianity presented. "[Greek text]" meant "choice." The grand distinction between the heretic and the Christian resides in this: that the one chooses doctrine to suit himself, the other receives doctrine on the authority of God. That Protestantism is choice--nay, that it logically _compels_ choice to every individual in it, cannot admit a question. It is, therefore, heresy; not, perhaps, in the most odious sense of the word, but still in that strict etymological signification which is the best clue to the appropriate application of the name. Like all other heretics, of whatever sect, the Protestant relies upon himself. He is his own Bible-maker, his own doctrine-monger, his own law-giver. Faith and theology and moral law are only the result of his own private judgment and divine command, moulded and digested into one confused and contradicting mass of good and evil.

It is to his deliverance from this spiritual state that the name _conversion_ alone properly belongs.

Catholicity, on the other hand, is also based upon two principles, which are the logical postulates of its existence, and whose necessary developments will account for the immeasurable contrast which its severe and holy tranquillity presents to the seething and tumultuous incoherency around it. The first of these is this: that the truths with which alone revealed religion deals, are in their nature _above_ human reason, and though never _contradicting_ it, cannot by it be estimated, comprehended, or discerned, but rest upon the sole veracity of a revealing God. The second is: that God has chosen and appointed, as the medium of this unerring revelation, a visible, organized society, founded by Jesus Christ, presided over by the Holy Ghost, perpetuated through all ages by his own impregnable decree; and that this society is the Catholic Church. The inevitable consequence of the first principle is: that revealed truth, as such, is ultimately and infallibly true, and whether or not consistent {468} with private judgment, prejudice, and present conviction, must be received and heartily believed. The inevitable consequence of the second is: that whatever the church teaches as revealed truth, is so revealed, is therefore ultimately true, and must be rested on implicitly as the infallible utterance of God.

The result of this first principle has been that the wonderful, and often ludicrous, admixture of divine and human truth, which may be found in the religion of many Protestants, is utterly impossible to Catholics. With all the questions of natural religion, as distinguished from revealed; with all the theorems of science and of art; with the dark mysteries of nature and the still darker mysteries of man; nay, even with those inferences from divine truth which make up systems of theology, reason is competent to deal. It may pierce the glittering nebulae of the Milky Way; it may fathom the recesses of the ocean and cleave the crystal bowels of the world; it may climb the dizzy heights of intellectual philosophy; it may conquer the vast problems of political and social happiness. But here its journey ends. When it stands beside that boundless sea which rolls between the finite and the infinite, it finds no bark to bear it outward. Of all that lies beyond, its eye, its ear, its touch remains insensible. It can but sit down on the hither shore and wait for light--the light of revelation. [Footnote 148]

[Footnote 148: The able writer of this article certainly does not intend to deny the competence of reason to judge of the evidence of revelation, or to judge that any proposition evidently contradictory to reason cannot be a revealed truth.--Ed. Catholic World.]

Reason is limited from above. Revelation is limited from below. In the mysteries of God, in the supernatural, and in questions of _faith_, her voice is law: and where it is law, it is absolute, unconditional, indisputable. Free as the thought of God is man's thought everywhere but there. There he must put his shoes from off his feet and listen and obey. The ground he treads is holy. The voice he hears is that which spoke of old out of the burning bush. He cannot gainsay God.

And thus it is that, practically, Catholics are so free in all matters except those pertaining to religion. The line is drawn so clearly and so definitely between what _is_ and what _is not_ of faith, that not in one mind in ten thousand is there ever the slightest doubt as to what must be received and what may be disputed. The consolation given by this simple maxim: "_If God has not revealed it, I need not believe it; but if God has declared it, whether or not I understand it, it is surely true_."--when once incorporated into the guiding principles of the heart, as in the case of every true Catholic it entirely is, repays the soul for those dark hours of Protestant doubting and perplexity, by contrast with which it can alone be truly valued.

The result of the second of these principles has been the perfect unity of Catholics in doctrine and in morals. The voice of the church is the voice of God. She is a living teacher. She does not hide her truths in languages whose meaning sages only can unfold. She speaks to every man _in his own vernacular_, and proposes to him not only the _formularies_, but _the exact ideas_ which make up the Christian faith. She is not confined to general statements, under whose vague phraseology notions the most opposite may be concealed. She enters into all the infinite details which every proposition of divine truth embraces, and prints it in the same unvarying form upon the souls of men. With the millions who are gone before she has thus labored. With the millions who are yet alive she is thus laboring to-day. And all, in their submission to her teaching, have found that perfect concord of doctrine which the gospel promised to the faithful flock of Christ, and testify to the eternal wisdom of that God who placed his church upon the earth to set at naught the foolishness of man.

{469}

In a religion such as this there can be no room for _choice_. To the church heresy is evermore a name of execration and of horror. The heart and will of her disciples have but one exercise, and that is submission. Unconditionally, unquestioningly, unprotestingly, they bow before her voice and echo its decrees. Reason is quiescent. Where it cannot comprehend, it passes by. Faith grasps the mystery and lays it on the heart to be its law for ever. The soul has but one inquiry for every dogma, for every precept: "_Teacher of God, what hast thou spoken?_" The teacher answers and the soul obeys.

Such is Catholicity. It is the antithesis of Protestantism. Whatever similarity may exist in certain of their doctrines, in their ultimate, essential natures they are simple opposites. The void between them is as vast as that through which the First-born of the morning fell; the dividing lines as sharp and as precipitate as the high cliffs which bound the tides of Acheron. That "_via media_," along which the easy traveller may walk secure, rejoicing in the sunlight of both earth and heaven, is a fond, foolish dream. The church knows but two modes of existence in reference to herself, submission and rebellion; and even reason teaches that her judgment, on this point, is unimpeachable.

Through all that weary journey which lies between these nether worlds of spiritual being the convert's feet must tread. When God's grace finds him, he is a Protestant--perhaps so pure and logical as to be standing on the shores of rationalism and looking at his own soul as his source of light--perhaps so inconsistent and so self-deceived as to acknowledge an authority which his fundamental Protestantism denies. But whether from the external Saharas of Christian scepticism, or whether from beneath the shadow of the truth itself, the path he follows leads him to one goal, the goal of unconditional submission. Conversion may come to him through the successive adoption of Catholic dogmas, through fondness for external rites and forms, through personal friendship and familiarity, through any of those myriad ways by which God leads the steps of his elect toward heaven; but, when it comes, it is the same change for each, for every one--the abnegation of all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection of the heart and will to the obedience of faith. Then, and then only, is the work ended and conversion made complete. What the church teaches is, from that hour, the faith of that Christian heart. What the church commands is the law of that Christian will. Doubt and hesitation and self-following are of the days gone by, and his devotion to the church, as God's teacher, is only rivalled by his love for her as the home of God's elect. The waters of the deluge roar and dash around his mighty ark of safety, and men and women, as they clamber up the rugged mountains of their own devices, laugh at him for his ignorance and folly; but he abides in peace, when the dark waves have overtopped them and engulfed them, and will live to offer sacrifice on Ararat when the days of divine searching have passed by.

The utter falsehood of those definitions of conversion which we have denied, becomes apparent from this description of what conversion is. There is no inherent impossibility that a pure Protestant, exercising to the fullest extent the right of private judgment, should arrive at doctrines identical with those which the church teaches, and should, as a result of this identity, accept even her formularies as expressive of his faith. The mystery of the Trinity, than which no mystery is greater, is thus received by the majority of Protestants; and there is nothing in the doctrines of Transubstantiation. Purgatory, and the like, which is unreachable by the same process of scriptural investigation, unaided by the conscious teachings of the {470} church. There can be no doubt that men have, by this method, approximated closely to Catholic doctrine, who yet were wholly actuated by Protestant principles, and never dreamed of submitting heart and will and reason to the dictation of any authority whatever.

These men apparently hang over the church, ready to drop like ripe fruit into her open bosom. Nevertheless, whatever of her symbolism they may cherish, they cherish, not because it is _hers_, but because it is _their own_. It is not truth which _she_ has taught them; _they_ have discovered it themselves. It brings them no nearer to her in heart. It does not subject their _will_ to hers. On the contrary; it often begets in them an arrogance of her divine security, as if their similarity to her constituted them her equals in the authority of God. Such men are not with the church, whatever proximity they seem to have. Their boast of Catholicity deceives many, and most frequently themselves, but can delude none who realize to what humility her true children must descend, and how unquestioningly, when God speaks, man must hear. The prayers of the faithful are more needed for such souls than for any others, that God would send them the disposition, as well as the light of faith.

Of the various corollaries which might be drawn from this demonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which time and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole question between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not primarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated and proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith and morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no source of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture, interpreted and judged by reason. On the other side, it is claimed that whatever God has revealed must be received without question or contradiction, and that the organized society known as the Catholic Church is the mouthpiece and medium of that revelation. This covers the whole point in issue. If, as a matter of fact, the first assertion is correct, Protestants are secure in their acceptance or denial of any or of all articles of specific Christian doctrine. If the second is true, the teachings of the Catholic Church must be received implicitly, under peril of disobedience to God. The question of the truth of particular dogmas, or of the obligation of certain codes of law, is entirely foreign to this issue. If the church is right, transubstantiation, the immaculate conception, the seven sacraments, are matters not to be _discussed_ or _proven_, but to be _believed_. If she is wrong, they are simply of no consequence whatever. Any investigation which escapes this only real point in controversy will be in vain. Inquiry must begin here and end here, or else result in making men either bad Catholics or stronger Protestants than ever.

This "question of questions" is to be answered by logical demonstration based on certain facts. As a historical work, the Bible is a sufficient witness of the visible and audible facts which it records; and the miracles of of Christ therein related establish his personal divine commission and the entire reliability of the declarations which he made. As historical works also, the writings of his immediate disciples are a sufficient witness of their understanding of his teachings, and of the actions which, in pursuance of that understanding, they performed. If Christ stated that doctrines and precepts are _not_ conditions of salvation, and placed in the hands of man the book known as the Bible, with the assurance that he could safely follow whatever interpretation thereof his human judgment might give, and if, as so directed, his disciples did _not_ insist on specific creeds and laws, and _did_ receive and circulate the Bible as the only organ of revealed truth, then that fact can be ascertained. If, on {471} the other hand, Christ revealed a certain system of doctrine, and established certain laws of conduct; if he founded a church and conferred on her the authority to teach and the right to be obeyed; and if his followers recognized such an institution, and uniformly submitted to its authority as divine, then this, as a fact, can, in its turn, be proved.

To a fair, candid, and complete investigation of this question, in the light of history, the Catholic Church invites all Protestants throughout the world; confident that, by the good help of God's grace, this simple examination, properly conducted, would lead the many hundred jarring sects of Christendom into a Catholic unity of spirit and into the bond of a true gospel peace.

From Once a Week.

CHRISTMAS BELL.

In broken notes of sound, The voice of distant bells Falls fitfully around, Borne o'er the rimy dells. Anon in wailing tones It breaks against the breeze, Or in sad accents moans Amidst the shivering trees. In fragments o'er the glades It falls, or floats aloft; Then trumulously fades In echoes low and soft. But other, nearer chimes, In laughing octaves run, In memory of old times. And what the days have done. Then changing, clang and wail Up in their prison high. And sob and groan and rail At their captivity.

Ringing:--flinging wild notes everywhere! Clanging:--hanging discord in the air! Chiming:--rhyming words from brazen throat! Pealing:--stealing o'er the meadows and the moat! Dying:--sighing gently as a child! Floating:--gloating o'er their tumult wild! Swinging:--springing suddenly to life! Surging:--urging nature into strife! Laughing:--quaffing the sweet and eager air! Groaning:--moaning in a weird note of despair!

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Yes, how they sigh, And seemed to die: But like expiring ember, At slightest breath They leap from death, And wrestle with December!

Oh, 'tis strange How they change, In rhythmus and in measure, Now tolling sad. Now almost mad, With throbbing pulse of pleasure.

But not long thus,--the ringers soon Will catch the proper metre, Staccato first; then rippling tune Grows every moment sweeter.

Away, away, the music flies. O'er mead and wold and river, Arpeggio movement shakes the skies. And makes the belfry quiver.

Away, away, the cheerful sound Flies with its Christmas greeting. And laughs along the icy ground. Where snow-drops pale are peeping.

The crocus, hearing chimes of mirth. Puts on her brightest yellow, What cares she for the frosty earth. When peals ring out so mellow?

The blackbird, in a love-lorn mood, Is pecking at red berries. But hark! those joy-bells make her food As sweet as summer cherries.

In truth all nature hears the strains, With heart of honest gladness; They ring surcease of human pains, And ring--a death to sadness.

They ring of friendship, and the grasp Of hands in manly greeting; They ring the softer tender clasp Of Love and Psyche meeting.

They ring oblivion of the years Whose sunset was in sorrow; They drown in waves of sound, the fears That cloud the dawn to-morrow.

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They ring the affluent table spread. They ring of that sweet maiden Who comes, with modest silent tread, With gifts for poor folk laden.

They ring in tones more sweet than all Of hopes the Cross has given, And then their glad notes rise and fall. Like Christmas bells in Heaven.

ORIGINAL.

THE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.