Chapter IV.

The Feast of Blood.

About the year ninety-two of the Christian era, Domitian visited the theatre of the Dacian war. Not daring to show himself to the rebel army, he plundered the towns and cities which were left unprotected. Fire and fury surrounded his march; and desolation left its smoking trail behind him. Carrying with him the wealth of the pillaged villages, he returned to Rome. The tact and bravery of Julian, who directed the war against the Dacians, in a few months brought that warlike race to terms. Officially informed of their surrender, Domitian, who had never appeared on the battle-field, decreed himself a triumph such as in by-gone ages were awarded only to the conquerors of great nations. He pompously ordered the temple of Janus to be closed for the third time, we believe, in his reign. Its gates were left open in time of war. Its closing was a sign that universal peace prevailed over the vast area of the Roman empire.

The temple of Janus was closed. But the peace its silent sanctuary represented was like the calm of the sea before being lashed into fury by the flapping wings of the tempest. The surface of the social system, undisturbed by the rebellion of warring tribes or by the clash of arms, was outwardly quiet and even. But the quiet and the evenness were those of the stagnant ocean described by the poet as being overhead covered with smiling ripples and silver sunshine, but underneath filled with filth and corruption and the nameless things bred thereof. Taking the point of view chosen by a great saint, we may well exclaim: "What a spectacle presented itself to the eye of the all-seeing Creator as he gazed downward over that vast empire! What corruption of truth and justice, of morality and religion filled society and corroded its vitals in all its parts! Rotten and rotting systems of philosophy and the monstrous principles and practices born thereof swarmed and spread on every side. It was only natural that the whole corrupted mass would swell and boil with fury as the little yeast of Christian truth destined to impregnate and cure it was being infused."

The temple of Janus was closed. But the man who directed the destinies of the empire was ill at ease. The legions in Gaul and Asia were clamoring for increased pay. He had already, in order to secure their fidelity, raised it from three to four aurei, (about $5.25.) The gigantic and shapeless temples and other structures he erected, together with the enormous outlay on public games and festivals, were a continual drain on the treasury. To procure money he had appointed officials of his own choosing to superintend, increase, and collect the taxes in the provinces and in the city of Rome; creatures like Arthus, who ground the people with iron heel until they bruised out the last cent from their pockets. Arthus was one of the principal of these tax-imposers and tax-gatherers in the city: ambitious of rising higher and higher in the imperial favor, and of out-distancing his fellow-financiers in the neighboring districts, he spent all his time and attention which were not engaged in building up and pulling down parts of the labyrinthine temple, of which we have in the last chapter spoken, in devising plans for raising money. {816} After bath and dinner he was to be seen each day for hours with his hand upon his head concocting schemes as to the best and most expeditious way of putting his hand in the pockets of the poor, plundered plebeians. The client who came to propitiate the great man by a money-offer was received with courteous words and slippery smiles. But if it were a wretched wife pleading for a husband and family, whose last obolus was given already, she was received with insult and turned, if not kicked, from the door, carrying with her the fear of the unrelenting tyrant hanging like midnight upon her soul!

The Jews in these as in our own times had more than an ordinary repute for, and possessed more than an ordinary share of, the money-bags. Arthus had suggested a tax to be levied on them for the right of residence in Rome. This proved a mine of supply during many years for the emperor. Another suggestion of Arthus had been an edict of persecution against the Christians, which would at once enable the cunning official to seize on and confiscate all their property. The exhausted condition of the treasury, together with what we are about relating, combined in bringing forth the edict.

At an early hour of the day, in the morning of which we have seen Aurelian at the Christian meeting, he sought the imperial palace. He had not changed his dress of the day before, and he betrayed by his hurried step and restless eye the deep excitement of his feelings.

When admitted into the emperor's presence, he described what he had witnessed in the catacombs. The number and the rank in society of those present at the Christian assemblage were painted in colors heightened by his imagination and fears. The words of consecration which he had heard were instanced as undeniable proof of the truth of the rumors circulated about the murder of infants and participation of human blood and flesh by the Christians, The marriage of Flavia and Vitus, as Aurelian believed, was depicted, as well as the part which Theodore, Priscilla, and Clement took in solemnizing it. The emperor seemed wholly overwhelmed. By nature and habit of a very nervous temperament, he was overcome with vague terrors on discovering himself surrounded in his very palace and family by traitors. Vitus and Priscilla! the two most trusted inmates of his household, the most punctual in the discharge of their duties, and the most faithful, as he thought, to his own person! They to be infected with this Christian poison, and principal sharers in these bloody orgies! After them it was easy to belive that many more of his servants and friends were followers and supporters of Christ. Perhaps at that very moment the plots planned in those sacred meetings were at work against his life and crown! Might it not be a clever manoeuvre to have thus entrapped and drugged Flavia in order that, through her popularity and that of her uncle, the Roman people would willingly see the sceptre wrested from his hand and placed in that of the Christian whom she would espouse? Such were the reflections of Domitian in listening to Aurelian's narrative. His full, red face grew fuller and redder; his eyebrows lowered and drew the small eyes deeper under; and his voice, always husky and rough, sounded more huskily and roughly as it fell in short syllables on the ear:

"By the gods--who guard the Roman capitol and state--Aurelian--we must burn out this nest of insects--crawling in the earth--and seeking to sting us in our very palace--" He paused for breath, which came and went in asthmatic style, between groups of three or four words. Striking a gong, he ordered one of the courtiers to send for Arthus. But that obsequious functionary was already in attendance at the palace and soon appeared. With a peculiar, twitching motion of the hands, and feet, and head, and with dress swaying in unison with the nervous motion of his body, Arthus approached and knelt before Domitian.

{817}

"Arthus!" said the latter, "before the vesper hour--let the edict already drafted against the Christians--be posted in the plain of Mars and let copies of it be sent to the Asiatic, Gallic, and African cities!" Then addressing Aurelian, "We shall ourselves--send a guard for the ladies--Theodora and Flavia--as well as for Clement and the others--you mentioned, and have them with Vitus and Priscilla--examined and punished in our own presence."

On the evening of the 25th of December, the tablets on which the edict was graven were placed in the Campius Martins. Then there arose through the city sounds of commotion and woe, such as might arise if it were besieged by a hostile army, or if the Gauls were once again calling for the surrender of its keys. There was a hurrying to and fro of citizens in fear or in fury, of soldiers and civic officials, of informers, accusers, and accused, many of whom were before night dragged from their peaceful hearths and families to the public tribunals. Many Christians were also put to death. Through the darkness, as it fell like a pall on that scene of excitement and suffering, the yelling of the mob was heard for many miles as they surged through the streets and assailed the houses of the suspected. The thirst for plunder and for blood, the awful rumors afloat, and believed, of the Christian assemblies, and the thousand petty motives of jealousy, envy, and hatred by which wicked men are often influenced against their honest, virtuous neighbors, gave energy to the infuriate passions of the populace. Throughout the night and the following days they did not rest from their unhallowed work. Women and children as well as men were seized and carried before the prefect or into the chamber of tortures, where the brute-crowd shouted and cheered as they saw the martyrs writhing on the rack or on the gridiron! However, in these crowds were many of the faithful, who watched the death-scene, treasured each word that passed between the judge and the condemned, and carried away either a sponge soaked in, or a vial filled with, their blood, or some other relics. These trustworthy witnesses wrote down the history of the martyrdom on parchment-rolls, which they gave to the secretaries appointed to revise and take care of them. Thus the first Christian Acts of Martyrs were compiled and preserved.

As soon as the edict was posted, troops on horseback and in vehicles were seen hastening through the streets and gates, and directing their courses along the Appian, Flaminian, and other roads leading to the north, south, east, and west. They carried copies of the edict for the magistrates of the cities on their routes, to be set up in the forums and market-places. Some travelled without stopping, save only for rest or refreshment at the military _stationes_, or halting-places along the roads at intervals of twenty or thirty miles. The _pagi_, or outlying smaller villages built about central forts or places of defence, were seldom visited by these couriers; because the _pagani_, or inhabitants of these country villages, were the last to embrace Christianity, and comparatively few of them had been at this early period converted. Quickly and steadily did these messengers of persecution speed on, until the seaports or the mountains were reached. Counting the places at which they rested for the night, from ancient itineraries of the great highways north and south and west, we may compute that in ten days the edict was promulgated at Marseilles, in fifteen at Corinth, in nineteen in Algiers, and in twenty-four in Ephesus and the remote cities of Asia Minor. Quickly and steadily these messengers of woe sped from Rome to the four quarters of the empire; and, as they passed, confusion, agony, and bloodshed were left behind them. Like a stone dropped into calm waters, the bloody edict fell upon the empire in an interval of peace. {818} The circle of consternation and persecution, like the commotion caused by the stone falling into the tranquil waters, became wider and wider as the imperial couriers travelled on, until it surged to the far boundaries of the empire. But, although the servants of the temporal sovereign were thus fleet and active, the messengers of the Lord of hosts were not slow or idle. Ignotus, the Jewish beggar of the Appian Way, was the first to bring word to Pope Clement and the missionaries assembled in the catacombs. The pope had already made his arrangements; the city had been divided into fourteen districts corresponding with its partition under the first emperors; and priests, deacons, laymen, and even women were appointed to watch over the several parts, to find admission, if possible, to the imprisoned confessors and administer the sacraments and other consolations of religion, to note down carefully what took place at their trials and at their execution, and to obtain their bodies, and, if not, whatever relics they could, in order to their decent preservation in the subterranean vaults. Others, principally those who were lame or otherwise maimed, or could easily assume the role of mendicants, were appointed to act as messengers between the city and the catacombs. The more zealous who sighed for martyrdom were restrained and ordered to prepare the niches for the bodies of the martyred. The anxieties of the holy pope and missionaries were not for the preservation of their own lives, but for the perseverance of the faithful and the conversion of the unbelievers. Prayers for this double purpose were appointed to be constantly offered in the collects of the mass and at other times. Oh! how those unselfish, heroic men yearned for the time when the cross of Jesus would be emblazoned on the capitol as a sign that the countless nations and tribes subject to the Roman sway bowed their stubborn necks to the mild yoke it symbolized. Health, wealth, life were nothing in their esteem compared with this glorious result. Clement, in his care of Rome, did not forget the other churches. To the priest Andronicus, who was setting out for his post at Ephesus, he entrusted a letter to the people of Corinth with regard to practices and schisms, which, despite the efforts and letters of St. Paul, still cropped up amongst them. Ignotus, the beggarman of the Appian and Latin Crossway, had meantime turned his face toward Ostia, and long before the moon had crossed the meridian he had warned many Christian communities to prepare for the combat. The messengers of Domitian rested for the night; but Ignotus never stopped day or night until he reached the mines outside Ostia, where many Christians were employed. Before the official announcement of the persecution reached the sea, the docks and vessels were watched by anxious believers, clad in many guises of concealment. Many availed themselves of the earliest craft to cross to Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor. In the same way the Christian dwellers beyond the Alps and Pyrenees had due warning before the edict arrived. One herald, like Ignotus, was in every place through which he passed, a centre from which other messengers, like radii, branched out. Thus zeal and charity gave wings to the humble followers of Christ, with which the wealth and power of imperial Rome were not able to arm its servants. Thus, too, Christendom was prepared, as well as it could be, before the vultures pounced upon its entrails. That preparation consisted to a great extent in secreting the rolls of the sacred Scriptures and the consecrated vessels, so that the persecutors might not seize on or desecrate them.

After leaving the Christian assemblage, Sisinnius with his two companions returned to Aurelian's villa, and retired to take a few hours' rest. When he awoke, he was told that Aurelian had driven to Rome. {819} Returning alone, he mused, as he passed through the fields between the Latin and Appian roads, on the events of the previous evening, and determined to say nothing, until he saw how things went on, to his wife or Flavia about what he had witnessed. He found both in the family parlor. There was nothing in their appearance to betray their vigils of the night before, no sign of weariness or excitement. Flavia wore on her head the white veil, and on her finger the ring, with which Clement had invested her. A spirit of peace, joy, and happiness indescribable beamed, like a light through a lamp, through her face and whole being. Theodora seemed also happy. As the husband opened the door of the room, he saw her on her knees, and heard his own name mentioned in earnest tones by her as she supplicated God for his conversion and salvation. Standing for a moment in the half-open door-way, he gazed with a feeling of veneration on his young wife and her companion, as the rays of the sun slanting through a window fell upon their earnest faces and surrounded their kneeling figures with a balmy radiance. Silently and instinctively he joined them in spirit, asking for full light to know and believe the truth.

Neither Sisinnius nor the inmates of his house had heard anything about the persecution until twilight, when they were visited by a troop of the imperial guard, led by Arthus. With his usual hurried gait and style, that functionary explained how he had been commissioned by the emperor to escort Theodora and Flavia to Domitian's palace. Sisinnius expressed his surprise that it was deemed fitting or necessary to send a guard for noble ladies, when an invitation or a message would have sufficed.

"Excuse me, noble Sisinnius, if I arouse your fears or pain your feelings. You are not aware, perhaps, that an edict against the Christians has been this afternoon promulgated from the capital and on the plain of Mars. The two noble dames have been accused of belonging to the Christian conspiracy, and having been present early this morning at their secret meeting!"

This was said by Arthus in a tone of malicious insolence, which Sisinnius at another time would have subdued with contempt. But the tidings fell like a lightning-stroke upon him, paralyzed his self possession, and filled him with vague fears for his wife and her young friend.

"Please to rest," he said to Arthus, "for a few minutes in the atrium while the ladies get ready to accompany you." Then re-entering the parlor, he cautiously broke to them the news. But it had no effect on them as it had on him. They glanced smilingly at each other, and exclaimed, "Thanks to God," and announced their readiness to depart. Sisinnius urged Flavia to change her dress; but she declined.

"But this dress," he urged, "will witness against you and be your condemnation."

"Then I shall retain it. It is my bridal dress: is it fitting for the bride to leave it aside when going to meet her spouse?"

Addressing himself to Theodora, he found her of the same mind as Flavia.

"Alas! my poor wife!" he exclaimed, embracing her, "you too are resolved to die! Our lives have hitherto flowed along purely and musically as two streams which unite their currents and go laughing through the summer meadows. But we have reached the edge of a precipice, and may be separated for ever by death. I know the tiger-nature of Domitian. But I must gird myself to propitiate him. Oh! tell me that you will renounce this Christian sect! otherwise I have little hope."

"You know not, dear Sisinnius, what, you ask. Death shall not separate those who share in the future resurrection to a glorious immortality. Would you wish your wife to lose her hopes thereof in order to avoid a little temporal punishment? O my husband! I should die happily if I knew that you, too, had acknowledged the one true God and the Saviour of mankind who died to save us from sin and shame. I shall pray with my last breath, with my blood, that God may reveal himself to you. {820} Then we would be again united in the world beyond the grave, never, never to be separated! For there is One above"--she looked and pointed upward, and Sisinnius imagined that there was something more than mortal about her--"there is One above who shall hereafter command the elements and force them to deliver up the portions of these mortal bodies that will have passed into their possession. Fire and water, earth and air, shall obey his order; and the ashes from the urn and the mould in the coffin, and the gaseous vapors in which our burned or corrupting flesh may evaporate will be restored; the bones shall stand up joint over joint in the tombs, and the flesh and nerves and sinews shall reclothe them, and the souls shall enter the arisen tenements of our bodies, and ascend like Jesus, triumphant, after having despised the sting of temporal death and achieved victory over the grave, to enjoy the unending, ineffable bliss prepared for those especially who by their blood confess him before men. Dear Sisinnius, if you be true to your own nature, if you do not stubbornly prevent the light from sinking into your mind and heart, I feel a presentiment that you shall know him, and shall then appreciate the littleness of earthly sufferings and death when endured for his love! Gladly do I proceed to resign the life of my body in order to secure that of my soul, particularly when it is given for him who for me, and for you, too, my husband, permitted himself to be nailed on a cross. With my very blood I shall beseech him to show you how great joy there is in suffering for his name, his person, and his cause. Dearest Lord Jesus!" she fervently prayed, sinking on her knees, "grant your unworthy servant this grace, and strengthen us in the hour of trial and combat to win the martyrs' fadeless palm!"

Sisinnius was affected to tears as he saw such proof of sincere devotion to himself, and at the same time to the religion of Christ. He thought that it could not be the religion it was described to be, when it could thus win and fill with happiness spirits so pure, so high, so unconscious of wickedness as those of Theodora and Flavia Domitilla.

Arthus was impatient. Impatient also was the Emperor Domitian. He was waiting in a large chamber of his palace, where, on an ivory altar, edged with gold, were placed two statues, one of Jupiter and the other of himself. A smoking censer swung in front of the altar, sustained on silver chains attached by a pulley to the ceiling. Soldiers with drawn swords stood in files along the sides of the room, while nearer to the altar were stalwart men, naked to the waist, and holding instruments of torture in their hands. These were Domitian's favorite gladiators, to utter a word against any of whom was certain death. Round their arms the veins and muscles swelled like twisted cords. The emperor was seated on a rich throne, the steps of which he at intervals descended and nervously paced the room. Terror sat on many faces as they saw his sunken eyes and knit brows. Terror, too, was in his own heart as he conjured up before his imagination the wide-spread and the hidden nature of the Christian conspiracy against his throne. Such he assumed it to be. Hence he had now surrounded himself with the gladiators, to whose fidelity and prowess he entrusted his safety against the dagger or the poisoned cup. Aurelian had been commissioned to lead a body of soldiers to the Appian Way, and to arrest Pope Clement and those with him. But he had returned without finding any trace of them, to the great chagrin of himself and the emperor. Those present heard the latter grinding his teeth like small wheels in machinery, and muttering broken curses with livid lips.

When Sisinnius and his party arrived, they were confronted by Vitus and Priscilla.

{821}

"Flavia Domitilla and Vitus," said the emperor, "stand forth! Is it true, Vitus, that, despite our known will, you have espoused our ward and cousin in the Christian assembly? Can it be that you, so favored, so honored by us, have become a traitor to our throne and person?"

"My sovereign lord!" said Vitus, stepping boldly into the centre of the hall and making obeisance to the emperor, "I am not a traitor. On the contrary, I am bound by every motive of loyalty and religion to serve you in all things lawful. I appeal to your own experience of me in the past, if I have not hitherto acted as became a Roman and an officer of the household. Neither, most exalted emperor, is it true that the Lady Flavia and I have plighted troth. My troth and faith are plighted to one higher and more beautiful than she is; to one who can never know speck, or stain, or wrinkle, who has been washed to a spotless whiteness in the blood of the Lamb!" As he said this he turned toward Flavia, as if deprecating a seeming want of courtesy.

At this moment, Aurelian, excited and travel-stained, entered, accompanied by the troop of the guard he had led to arrest Pope Clement. The only prisoners he brought back were Damian, the missionary from Britain, and Lucius, one of his own slaves. He had met these two wandering among the tombs, but got no trace of others.

Domitian, motioning Aurelian to a place near Vitus and Flavia, asked the latter:

"Is this true, Flavia Domitilla, which Vitus says?"

"It is, my lord!" she answered, in a low, tremulous voice.

"What sayest thou, Senator Aurelian? I trust you have not, through jealousy, led us to offer indignity to gentle ladies of rank! If so, by our crown, the high favor in which you have stood shall not save you from due atonement."

Aurelian was confused and confounded by this address, the cause of which he did not well comprehend. One circumstance, however, worked in his favor: Flavia's white veil. The emperor, remarking it, asked:

"What mean these flowing robes of white? They seem more a festive costume than an evening dress."

She answered not. But Aurelian, having recovered his presence of mind, said:

"Was I not right, O mighty potentate? This is the bridal garment she wore last night when she was married to Vitus, after being drugged with a cup of human blood! See! the influence of that drug is upon her yet."

"Answer me, Flavia Domitilla, truly. Have you been in the secret meeting of the Christians last night?"

"I have," she replied, with firm voice and unflinching eye.

"Have you withdrawn the faith you gave Aurelian by our desire, and bestowed it on another?"

"I have."

"To whom? to Vitus?"

"No! but to One more beautiful, more lovable, more glorious than Vitus, or than any earthly being; to One whose wisdom outdistances the accumulated lore of sages and philosophers; to One whose years are not counted by the sands on the ocean's shores, by the grass blades clothing the earth, or the water-drops in the encircling seas; yet whose youth is greener, fresher, softer, and more lovely than the eye of man has rested on or the fancy of poet has pictured; to One whose sceptre rules the nations of the earth and all things therein, the islands of the deep and all things thereon, whose messengers guide the stars in their courses, whose beauty and majesty are faintly mirrored in the universe, and whose love for me is so great that he left all these aside and became a servant in order that he might suffer and die for me, and thus free me from the clutches of a tyrant! Yes, O emperor! I have plighted my faith, and hope, and love, my body and my soul, my present and my future, to my God and my Redeemer, Jesus Christ! He is my glorious spouse, and I am his accepted bride. {822} Behold the garments in which I have been betrothed to him!" As she spoke her face became animated, her voice grew strong and eloquent, her eye flashed with courage, her whole bearing gave proof of a soul raised by the excitement of unusual happiness to heroic daring. She stood before the cruel tyrant, with hand uplifted to heaven, and the white Ionic veil waving round her face like a shifting glory; and might, in the eyes of the heathen soldiers, have passed for the goddess Juno, as described by Virgil, or for Iris freshly descended from Olympus. But Domitian was not moved by her youth, her eloquence, or her beauty, but bounded from his throne as if stung by a serpent when he heard her thus mention the Saviour's name.

"What! In my presence--to my face--declaring yourself the bride of my worst enemy. By the manes of Vespasian and Titus! If you do not offer sacrifice to Jupiter and to my divinity, and renounce all connection with this Crucified Jew, your head, with all its attractions, shall not long remain upon those rounded shoulders!" He waved his sceptre and directed the soldiers to bring her toward the altar. But she would not raise her hand toward the incense.

"Never! never!" she exclaimed, "by word or act, shall I deny the Lord of lords, the God of gods, and acknowledge by the supreme worship of sacrifice a demon that has usurped his place, or a creature to be a god because he sits on an earthly throne. You may force my hand, but you cannot force my will!"

Domitian was frantic: "Away with her! away with her! Her family have always crossed my path. Let not her head," he turned to the gladiators, "remain an instant on her body, that her tongue may no longer insult me!"

A smile rippled over the face of the virgin confessor.

"See! she smiles, she mocks me! Off with it! off with it! Craven cowards! do you hesitate before a mere woman? Give me that executioner's sword and I shall make short work of it. By heavens she is smiling still and calling on Jesus. Where is he now, God of gods, as you name him? Why does he not come forward at his beloved's bidding to resist the power and stay the arm of Domitian?"

Aurelian interposed nervously:

"Most powerful monarch and irresistible deity! she is smiling in joy under the infatuating belief that, when her head is severed from her body, she shall be out of your power, freed wholly from my claims upon her, and received into the kingdom which Jesus promises to all who die for him. Do not allow him to triumph over you, do not gratify her desire of martyrdom; but entrust her to me, that I may make her my own; and then both you and I shall have triumphed over those who have driven her into this madness."

"Be it so! Ha, ha! I believe you have taken the right view. See the tears glisten in her eyes, and her joy is changed to sadness. But take her hence, never to enter my presence, lest her words excite me to gratify her insane longings. Who are those that drugged her?"

"Behold them!" said Aurelian, pointing to Vitus, Priscilla, Theodora, and Damian. "There were others, too, who took a leading part in the ceremony, but we have not been yet able to arrest them."

"Vitus! come forward and offer sacrifice to the gods!"

"I cannot, O mighty emperor! Because there is but one God to whom the honor of sacrifice may be paid, and that is Jesus Christ, true God and true Man."

"Are you, my ladies," the emperor turned to Priscilla and Theodora, "of a like disposition?"

"Yes," was the low but firm answer.

"Executioners, advance and do your duty by these recusants!"

Sisinnius fell upon his knees before the emperor and pleaded hard for his wife's life, pleaded his own long services and fidelity to the imperial family, pleaded her youth and innocence.

{823}

Domitian at length relaxed.

"I shall spare her life as I have spared that of Flavia Domitilla, until such time as will show whether she will return to a better sense or not; but both must be under the surveillance of a guard, whom I shall appoint. As to those others," he said pointing to Priscilla and Damian, "the traitors of my household, I shall make an example of them." He gave orders in a voice which was not to be disobeyed for the execution of Priscilla and Vitus, Damian and Lucius, (strangers in whom no one seemed interested;) and the command was obeyed.

As Domitian saw the heads severed from the shoulders, he gloated over the scene with the savage cruelty peculiar to him. Theodora and Flavia covered their faces and prayed for the victory of the martyrs, managing to saturate pieces of cloth in the blood.

Original.

The Wasted Vigil

Alas! what dire mischance is wrought? A Friend was here who gently sought An entrance to my humble cot, Whilst I--O sorrow!--heeded not. In meekest guise he came and went, And I, on trifles vain intent, The joyful greeting still forbore While he was knocking at my door.

For me he left a regal throne, And came in silence, and alone; No shining guard his steps attend: O earth! hadst ever such a friend? And yet I did not rise to meet Those wearied, patient, wounded feet, Nor did I shield that kingly head On which the chill night-dews were shed.

Oh! did I wake, or did I sleep, That midnight vigil not to keep? I knew, and yet I heeded not; Methought I heard, and then forgot That he had warned of swift surprise, And only termed the _watchers_ "wise."

Dear Bridegroom of my soul! return! Bereft of every joy, I mourn: Return! my house, at last, is swept, And where thy feet have stood, I wept. Beloved Guest! I call--I wait; Hope whispers, "It is not too late." Be then that hope no more deferred, Speak to my soul the pardoning word, Then will I list in rapture sweet, And dwell for ever at thy feet!

Marie. Beaver, Pa.

----

{824}

From Chambers's Journal.

Old Paris.

As with men, so with cities. Whenever one of the latter becomes famous, and the eyes of the world are fixed upon it, we desire to know more of it than what is presented on the surface. A thousand little details, trifling, perhaps, in themselves, share in the interest attaching to the whole to which they belong. And as the most interesting biographies of great men are those which not merely make us acquainted with the prominent features of their lives--with the great exploits which they achieved--but also follow them into their solitude or home-life, so the most attractive chronicles of states and cities are those which enter into the seemingly unimportant minutiae, neglected by the general historian and the compiler of the guide-book.

Lutetia (_civitas_) Parisiorum is first mentioned in Caesar's Commentaries. Lutetia has had various derivations assigned to it, but most probably it is the Latinized form of _Loutouhezi_, the Celtic for "a city in the midst of waters," it having been built on an island in the Seine. In the fourth century it received the name of the people whose chief city it was. During the middle ages it was supposed that Francus, a son of Hector, founded Paris, and also Troyes in Champagne, giving to the former the name of his uncle. In all likelihood, it comes from the Celtic _par_ or _bar_, a frontier.

Christianity, according to Gregory of Tours, was first preached to the Parisians by St. Dionysius, or Denis, in the year 250; and the first synod held in Paris took place in 360, which seems to prove that the Christian missionaries had already made numerous converts there. Paganism, however, was not wholly uprooted until the episcopate of St. Marcellus, who died in 436, and who, according to a legend, is said to have hurled into the Seine a frightful dragon which desolated the city, and which, perhaps, was the emblem of heathenism.

Julian the Apostate had a great liking for Paris, and spent five winters there. He praises its inhabitants for their intelligence and good conduct, and the surrounding vineyards for their excellent produce. An edifice, improperly called the Thermes de Julien, still exists in the Rue de la Harpe, which perpetuates his memory, and possibly served as his residence. In his time, the Montagne Ste. Geneviève was a sort of Campus Martius; the gardens of the Luxembourg were occupied by a Roman camp, and Roman villas lined both sides of the Seine.

The Merovingians made Paris their capital, and Clovis constantly resided there. His sons, while dividing his states, judged the possession of Paris of so great importance that they shared it among themselves, and agreed that none of them should enter it without the consent of the others. Under this dynasty, several of the Parisian churches were founded. Childebert built the church of St. Vincent, afterward St. Germain des Prés, the vaulting of each window in which was supported by costly pillars of marble. Paintings, decorated with gold, covered the ceiling and the walls. The roof, composed of plates of gilded bronze, when struck by the rays of the sun, dazzled the eyes of beholders with its brilliancy.

Under Louis VI. and Louis VII. Paris became celebrated for its schools. The best known were the Cathedral School, the school of St. Germain des Prés, and that of Ste. Geneviève. At the first mentioned, Guillaume de Champeaux taught theology, and counted among his pupils the well-known Abélard, at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the twelfth century. {825} In 1118 Abélard opened on the Montague Ste. Geneviève his famous school, which soon eclipsed all the others, and at which no less than ten thousand scholars attended.

Philip Augustus, judging that Paris was not sufficiently protected by its walls, caused a tower to be built outside them, on the site of a _Louveterie_, or wolf-hunting establishment, from which it received the name of the Louvre. It served at once for a royal residence, a fortress, and a state-prison, and was completed, according to the original plan, in 1204. It was under this monarch that the streets of Paris were first paved. One day, while standing at a window of his palace in the city, the mud or filth in the street, shaken by some vehicles which were passing, exhaled an unbearable stench, which invaded the royal nostrils. It was then that Philip conceived the project of paving the streets. The work was done at the expense of the town, the pavement consisting of rough flagstones, about three feet and a half square, and six inches in thickness.

It was in this reign, in 1182, that the legate of the holy see consecrated the cathedral of Notre Dame, begun in 1163 by Maurice de Sully, Bishop of Paris. This immense edifice, however, was not finished till the reign of Charles VII. in the fifteenth century. The original flooring of Philip Augustus was lately found at eight or nine feet below the surface; and the thirteen steps which in his time, it is said, led to the entrance have disappeared. It was under Philip that the municipality of Paris received its first developments, and assumed a regular form. Besides the provost, who, as officer of the king, presided over the courts of justice, there was the syndic, nominated by the community of merchants, whose duty it was to protect the commercial interests of the town. He was afterward called the provost of the merchants, and was assisted by _echevins_, who formed his council. Under Philip, this officer acquired many new rights. The police, the streets, the care of public edifices, the administration of the lands belonging to the town, passed from the provost of Paris to this functionary.

Philip was also the patron of learning. He instituted schools in the Rue du Fouarre. _Fouarre_, or _foare_, from which is derived the existing _fourrage_, (forage,) is an old French word signifying straw. The scholars in those simple ages sat upon bundles of straw during the lectures, and as this custom naturally resulted in the frequent appearance of that material in the neighborhood of the schools, the street received its title from it. During the middle ages, no traffic was permitted in this street, in order to obviate any disturbance to the students.

Philip the Fair founded the parliament of Paris. It held its sessions in the king's palace, (Palais de Justice,) which, in the middle of the fifteenth century, was entirely abandoned to it. In this palace was the vast hall which served for receiving the homage of vassals, giving audience to ambassadors, public festivities, and other occasions of national interest, at one of the extremities of which was an enormous marble table, round which sovereigns alone were permitted to sit; and upon which, at certain times of the year, the society of _clercs de la basoche_ (lawyers' clerks) gave dramatic entertainments of a farcical character.

In the fourteenth century, as now, Paris was celebrated as the seat of fashion in dress, though those dazzling _magasins de nouveautés_ which we now admire there did not then exist. Wearing apparel, as well as other merchandise, was generally sold by criers in the streets. "They do not cease to bray from morning till night," writes Guillaume de Villeneuve. Venders of all classes swelled the discordant concert. To cry goods for sale was the daily special occupation; among others, of the three hundred blind men supported by the king, St. Louis. These unfortunates, it seems, were in the habit of performing their duties without guidance, and the consequence was that they frequently came in collision, and gave each other severe contusions.

{826}

The first stone of the famous Bastille was laid by the provost of Paris, in the reign of Charles V., 1369. That formidable edifice was built for the purpose of protecting the king, who had seen his authority braved by the Parisians while residing in his palace in the city, which on that account he quitted. He frequently dwelt in the Louvre, of which the Bastille was a pendant, and of which M. Vitet gives the following picturesque description as it was in the fourteenth century:

"The king caused to be raised outside the moats a number of buildings, useful and ornamental, of a middling height, forming what were then called _basses-cours_, and united to the chateau by gardens of considerable extent. One cannot imagine all the various objects that were heaped together in these dependencies and gardens. Besides lodgings for the officers of the crown, there were a menagerie of lions and panthers, bird-rooms, aviaries for the king's parrots, fish-ponds, basins, labyrinths, tunnels, trellises, leafy pavilions--the favorite decoration! of gardens in the middle ages. These parterres, cut in symmetrical compartments, and thrown in the midst of buildings varying in form and elevation; that chaos of towers and turrets--the former rising heavily from the moats, the latter as if suspended from the walls; that pell-mell of pointed roofs, here covered with lead, there with varnished tiles, some crested with heavy vanes, some with tufts of various colors--all this has no resemblance to a modern palace; but that disorder, these contrasts, which seem to us only barbarously picturesque, appealed quite differently to the imagination in those days, and were not without their grandeur and majesty. These were the bright days of the feudal Louvre, when it was living, peopled, and well cared for."

The space of ground which, until lately, formed the Marché des Innocents, was, in the middle ages, the principal cemetery of Paris. It was surrounded by a sort of vaulted gallery, which was reserved for the corpses of distinguished persons and for dress-makers' shops. Here, in the year 1424, the English, who were then masters of Paris, gave a grand fete of rejoicing for the battle of Verneuil, and indulged in a frightful "dance of the dead" over the level tombstones. In the middle of the cemetery rose an obelisk, surmounted by a lamp, which alone feebly illumined at night the field of the dead, and animated its solitude. But at sunrise all was changed--daylight brought back with it noise, luxury, and pleasure.

Victor Hugo, in the chapter of his romance, Notre Dame de Paris, entitled _Paris à vol d'oiseau_, (book iii. chapter ii.,) gives a vivid description of the town as it was in the fifteenth century. Paris, according to him, was at that time divided into three distinct parts--the city, the university, and the town. The city, occupying the island, was the oldest and smallest, and was the mother of the other two. "It stood between these," he says, "like a little, old woman between two tall, handsome daughters." The university was on the left bank of the Seine, stretching between points which at present correspond with the Halles aux Vins and La Monnaie. The town, the largest of the three divisions, was on the right side of the river. Each of the divisions formed a town, depending for its completeness upon the others. The city had churches; the town, palaces; the university, colleges.

In 1539, Francis I., having given permission to the Emperor Charles V. to traverse France, entertained the idea of receiving him at the Louvre, which underwent, on that account, a general restoration, according to the style of the renaissance; but as soon as the emperor departed, Francis, perceiving that the new works were merely of a temporary character, resolved to build a new palace on the same site as the former one, and confided its erection to Pierre Lescot. {827} The building, begun in 1541, was continued till the death of Henry II. It is the finest portion of the Louvre; the south-west angle. When Catherine de Médicis came into power, she dismissed Lescot, engaged an Italian architect, and caused that wing to be built which advances toward the river.

In 1564, tired of the Louvre, Catherine bought a piece of ground called the _Salbonière_, covered with pottery-works, the _Tuileries Saint Honoré_, and commenced the palace which received its name from the fabrics which had occupied its site. For six years, the new edifice steadily progressed; but Catherine, having learned from her astrologer, Ruggieri, that it was her fate to die under the ruins of a house near St. Germain, suddenly gave up the works of the Tuileries, because it was in the parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and built the Hôtel de Soissons, on the site of the present corn-market.

The famous Pont-Neuf was begun in 1578, Henry III. laying the first stone.

The Place Royale was completed in 1612. Here Cardinal Richelieu soon afterward built a palace, which he called the Palais Cardinal, but which, in a spirit of regal munificence, he presented to his king, Louis XIII. Thenceforth it became the Palais Royal. Numerous hotels of the _noblesse_ sprang up in the same quarter, and with them first appeared there the warehouses for _bijouterie_ and other fancy goods, for which the Palais Royal is at present so celebrated. A writer of that time severely blames the merchants of these shops for permitting their wives to flirt with customers--"all to induce them to buy a fashionable collar, a child's purse, a drachm or two of perfume for the perruques or a boy's wooden sword." Speaking of perruques, we must not omit to mention that they reached their full development at the time of Louis Quatorze. Their most celebrated maker was a M. Binet, from whom they sometimes were called _binettes_. They weighed several pounds, sometimes cost a thousand crowns, and rose five or six inches above the brow. The word _binette_ still exists in the language of the Paris _gamin_, designating a person with a droll countenance.

The last insurrection at Paris before the revolution was that called the _Fronde_, (sling.) This revolt received its name in a singular manner. In the moat of the town, near Saint Roch, the little boys of the quarter used to fight with slings. When the constable appeared, they all took to their heels. In the disputes of the parliament, a young counsellor, Bauchaumont, observed the modesty and docility of the members in the presence of the king, and their turbulence in his absence. "They are quiet just now," said he, "but, when he is gone, they will sling (_on frondera_) with a will." The word remained. The Fronde soon gained the whole town, which eagerly took the side of the insurgents, as the first cause of the troubles was a new tax on houses built outside the walls. Afterward, when the rebellion was quelled, the Parisians paid dearly for their share in it. Their privileges were abolished, a royal garrison took the place of their civic guards, and magistrates dependent on the crown, that of the municipal authorities.

Deprived of its independence, it became the sole glory of Paris to be the stage on which the splendors of the court of Louis XIV. were revealed. In 1662, that king gave an idea of what his reign would cost by the famous _fète du carrousel_, which has left its name to the vast _place_ between the Louvre and the Tuileries. It cost 1,200,000 francs. Gold and silver were employed in so great profusion on the trappings of the horses, that the material of which they were made could not be distinguished from the embroidery with which it was covered. The king and the princes shone with the prodigious quantity of diamonds with which their arms and the harness of their horses were covered. {828} About the same time the Tuileries and the Louvre were completed, and a garden was designed for the former by Le Nôtre. The former garden of the Tuileries, like other ancient French gardens, comprised a strange medley; among other objects, it contained a pretty little abode, beside the quay, and mysteriously concealed by a thick grove, which Louis XIII. had given to his valet-de-chambre, Renard, who had furnished it with rare and costly articles, and had made it a secret rendezvous for young seigneurs, and the scene of luxurious _petits soupers_.

It was in 1669 that Soliman Aga, the Turkish ambassador at the French court, introduced the use of coffee into Paris. The first café was opened at the _foire_ St. Germain, which was then one of the most frequented and fashionable places of resort in the town, and the suppression of which, toward the end of the eighteenth century, went far to destroy the industry and commerce of the left bank of the river, to the profit of the right. An Armenian named Pascal afterward established a _café_, which was much in vogue, called the Manouri, upon the Quai de l'Ecole; and, in 1689, a Sicilian, Procopio, opened the Café Procope in the present Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, which was for long the favorite place of reunion for the _savans_ and _beaux-esprits_ of the period.

But the café reminds us that we are leaving Paris in old times for the Paris of the present, and that we are close upon that blood-written page, the revolution, which divides the chronicles of the former from those of the latter. These notes must not be brought to a conclusion without the acknowledgment that from M. Malte-Brun's laborious compilation, La France Illustrée, they derive whatever archaeological interest they possess.

Original.

The Churches of Ireland--Ancient and Modern.

Students of Irish topography are sometimes at a loss to account for so many names of places in that island bearing the prefix "Kil." The explanation of this seeming want of inventive nomenclature is that the word Kil is an abbreviation or corruption of the vernacular _Cill_, a church; thus, Kilkenny means the church of St. Canice, or Kenny; Kilmore, the great church, _more_ meaning, in the Irish, great or large; Kildare, church of the oak, from _daire_, oak. In the early ages of Christianity the church or abbey was to the people of Ireland what the feudal castle or walled town was to the inhabitants of the continent of Europe, at once a rallying point in case of danger, and a common centre where learning, trade, and the mechanical arts found teachers and patrons.

The Irish, before and long after their conversion, were essentially an agricultural people, caring little for large towns; and, though insular, seem to have neglected foreign commerce, except such as flowed from their periodical incursions in Britain and Gaul, or which necessarily arose out of their emigration from the north of Ireland to Scotland. Hence we find that, while most of the inland cities and towns bear the name of some favorite saint or church, the seaports generally owe their origin and name to the Danes and Anglo-Normans.

{829}

The first Catholic churches erected in Ireland, of which we have any authentic account, were three in number, built in the present counties of Wicklow and Wexford, by Palladius, A.D. 430. It seems that this missionary landed on the Wexford coast in that year, accompanied by four priests, but, having met with opposition from the Druids and persecution from the local chiefs, he returned the following year to Britain, leaving, however, behind him some converts under the care of two of his assistants. We are told by the annalists that, before his departure, he deposited in the church of Cellfine, some relics of Sts. Peter and Paul and other saints, the sacred books, and his own writing-tablets, all of which were preserved with great veneration for many years afterward.

But the great church planter in Ireland was Patrick, the son of Potitus, who commenced his task of a nation's conversion, with all the advantages of a personal knowledge of the people and their language, a matured judgment, profound learning, piety chastened by exile and long-suffering, and an unconquerable faith. His first convert after landing, in 432, was a chief named Dicho, who in proof of his sincerity built, at his own expense, a church near Lecale, in Down, which was called _Sabhall Padruic_, (Patrick's Barn.) Thence the saint proceeded to Tara, in Meath, where, as it is well known, he appeared before the monarch Leogaire, and, though his preaching made no impression on the heart of that stern pagan, he baptized many of the Druids, poets, and courtiers. By St. Patrick's direction two churches were built in the neighborhood, one at Drumcondrah, and the other at Drumshallon, near the present town of Drogheda. Having thus stormed the enemy's citadel, he advanced confidently to capture the outworks. He passed westward through Connaught to the sea; thence returning to Ulster, he spent some time in Down, Antrim, Ardmagh, and other northern counties; he next visited the different parts of Leinster, and finally entered the populous province of Munster, then a separate kingdom, and planted the standard of the cross in the royal city of Cashel. He remained about seven years in Munster, when, his mission having been successfully completed, he retraced his steps to his favorite place in Down, in 452. Three years afterward he founded the metropolitan see of Armagh, erected a cathedral on land given him for that purpose by Daire, and thus laid the foundation of the primacy of Ireland, and the city of that name. "Suitable edifices were annexed to the cathedral for the accommodation of the clergy, and adjacent to it were several religious retreats, in which members of both sexes, forsaking the world, made a sacrifice of all to the Great Author of their existence." [Footnote 300]

[Footnote 300: Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Brenan.]

The extraordinary success of this great missionary is without a parallel in the history of the church. In the course of twenty years a whole people, rulers and princes, men and women, were won over to Christianity, without the shedding of a drop of human blood, or even any serious opposition. Sees were founded in all parts of the island, churches and monasteries built, bishops consecrated and priests ordained, and, in fact, the moral and social condition of the entire population revolutionized. Nor was this a triumph over weak-minded or stolid barbarians, for we find that from his neophytes St. Patrick chose his bishops and priests almost exclusively--men whose genius and ability became in the service of the church second only to his own. It might also be supposed that impressions so suddenly produced would be transitory, did we not know how irradicably fixed in the Irish heart is the faith he taught and the doctrine he expounded.

The sees of Ardagh, Clogher, Emly, and Elphin were founded during the life-time of St. Patrick, and fifteen others of lesser note before the close of the century. {830} The cathedral of Kildare, second only in extent and magnificence to that of Armagh, was built about the year 490, and belonged jointly to the diocesan and the nunnery of St. Brigid. It is described as having been divided by a partition beyond the sanctuary; the bishop and clergy entering the church by a door on the north, and the abbess and her community by a door on the south side. In all the sees thus founded, cathedrals, churches, monasteries, schools, and nunneries were erected. History records the building of twenty-one monasteries and schools of great celebrity in the fifth century, besides many others of minor reputation. The schools of Emly at one time contained six hundred scholars; those of Louth are said to have educated one hundred bishops and three hundred priests, while the great institution of Mungret contained within its walls six churches, and, besides its scholars, fifteen hundred religious, equally divided into learned preachers, psalmists, and persons devoted to contemplation and works of charity. At this time, also, St. Brigid founded several nunneries, the most celebrated of which was that of Kildare.

The following century saw seventeen more sees founded and cathedrals built, including those of Dromore, Ossory, Tuam, Clonfert, and Down; while, to meet the growing demand for Christian education, four principal colleges were erected in different parts of the kingdom--Clonard in Meath, Clonfert in Galway, Clonmacnois in Kings county, and Bangor in Down. The number of students educated in the last mentioned was at one time not less than three thousand. Forty-four new monasteries and abbeys are named in the annals of the sixth century, besides many others forgotten in history. Even the place whereon stood the famous monastery of Inniscathy, established at the mouth of the Shannon at this period, is now only marked by a small portion of the ruins of its round tower, while that of Glendaloch, perhaps from its romantic surroundings, is somewhat better preserved. Speaking of the ruins of the latter as seen some years since, the learned author of the Ecclesiastical History of Ireland says:

"The venerable ruins of Glendaloch, even at this day, present an awful and an interesting picture to the mind of the curious and contemplative stranger. Among these must be noticed the church of the Trinity, standing on a rising ground north of the abbey. The seven churches, which in former days were the pride and glory of Glendaloch, and for which it will be celebrated even when the vestiges now remaining are no more. The Cathedral church, with its curious doors, jambs and lintels, and its round tower, one hundred and ten feet high, rising up in its ancient grandeur amidst the prostrate ruins which surround it. Our Lady's church, the most westward of the seven, and nearly opposite the cathedral, is in ruins; but these very ruins speak volumes, and the scattered monuments, crosses, and inscriptions refresh the memory, and fill the mind with new and painful thoughts. St. Kevin's kitchen, so called, and undoubtedly one of the seven churches, is entire; together with its architraves, fretted arches, and round belfry, forty-five feet high. The finger of time alone and of human neglect seem to have wrought the work of desolation in this part of the building. The Rhefeart, or the Sepulchre of Kings, is rendered famous for having seven kings interred within its walls. The Ivy church stands to the westward, with its unroofed walls overgrown with ivy. The Priory of St. Saviour is a complete ruin. Tampull-na-Skellig, in the recess of the mountain, was formerly called the Temple of the Desert, and whither the austere fathers of the abbey were wont to retire on vigils and days of particular mortification. The celebrated bed of St. Kevin, on the south side of the lough, and hanging perpendicularly at a frightful height over the surface of the waters, is another object in which the mind of the antiquary would be much gratified; and on the same side of the mountain are to be seen the remains of a small stone building, called St. Kevin's cell."

The next two centuries added Ferns, Cork, Killaloe, and eleven other sees, with their cathedrals and churches, and fifty-five principal schools, monasteries, and abbeys. During the ninth and tenth centuries we find only two sees created, and no mention of additional monasteries or schools. This may be accounted for by the continual incursions of the Northmen, a swarm of barbarians whose native element seems to have been the ocean and whose only end and object were bloodshed and rapine. {831} From 807 until the decisive battle of Clontarf in 1012, they perpetrated an uninterrupted series of raids on Ireland, and even sometimes held the larger portion of the country in subjection. Landing from their ships at remote and undefended points on the coast, they marched stealthily into the interior, marking their paths with the blood of the defenceless inhabitants, sparing neither age, sex, nor condition in their fury, and bearing off or destroying every species of property. Churches were given to the flames, the relics of the saints stolen or scattered to the winds, monks, nuns, and students put to the sword without mercy or remorse. In one of those incursions Bangor was plundered and nine hundred monks slaughtered. Armagh was sacked and its cathedral destroyed. Cork, Ferns, and Taghmon shared the same fate, while the city of Kildare, its cathedral and nunnery were razed, and their inhabitants massacred or carried into slavery. Clonmacnois was thirteen times plundered, and scarcely a religious house on the island but received at least one visit from the sacrilegious invaders.

After a long and brilliant career an eclipse seemed to have fallen on the church in Ireland, her monasteries were in ruins, her priesthood slaughtered, and her schools deserted. But the genius of one great man was put forth to save the people. Brian, surnamed Boroimhe, King of Munster, and monarch of Ireland, after repeated victories drove the Danes out of his kingdom, and, finally, by his last great battle, destroyed their power for ever in Ireland. The remnant of the once dreaded enemy, embracing the faith of their conquerors, were permitted, upon paying tribute, to settle along the coast for the purpose of foreign traffic. This great king during his long reign did much to reinstate the church in possession of her property, and to repair the damages of two centuries of organized plunder, and his successors continued to follow his example. Even the converted Danes imbibed the prevailing spirit of restitution. The see of Dublin was established in 1040, and its cathedral, consecrated to the Holy Trinity, (now Christ's church,) was built by Bishop Donatus. The see of Waterford was founded in 1096, and its splendid cathedral, also under the invocation of the Holy Trinity, erected by Malchus, its first bishop; and the celebrated priory of Selsker, in Wexford, was established by the new converts some few years afterward. The see of Ardfert was founded in the middle of the eleventh century, and that of Derry about one hundred years subsequently.

It is reasonable to infer that most of the early Irish ecclesiastical structures of any magnitude were of wood, with perhaps a stone tower or stronghold to serve as a depository for sacred vessels, libraries, etc., and for defence in case of actual attack. Dr. Petrie, in his great book on Round Towers, produces convincing proofs that these curious specimens of architecture, some seventy of which still remain more or less well preserved, were intended for these purposes. Ireland at the time of Saint Patrick was densely wooded, oak being predominant, and where so many extensive buildings had to be erected in so limited a time no more convenient and suitable, though certainly very destructible, material could be used. This, as well as the ravages of time and foreign invasion, will explain the fact that so many of the sites of our primitive edifices are recognized only by local tradition. The art of building in stone was indeed known in the country before the introduction of Christianity, but it was not generally applied to church purposes till about the beginning of the twelfth century.

When Cormac McCulinan was appointed to the see of Cashel, it is recorded that he built a cathedral in that city in the latter part of the ninth century, which, according to the annals of the priory of the Island of all Saints, was not long after rebuilt and consecrated with great ceremony. {832} Whether the beautiful ruin now called Cormac's chapel owes its origin to the warrior bishop or to a successor of the same name is a mooted question among antiquarians, as the records of the succession in this diocese are very imperfect. However, it must have been erected at an early age, for we find that in 1170 Donald O'Brian, King of North Munster, built the cathedral of St. Patrick in his royal city of Cashel, and the former church of Cormac was converted into a chapter-house, on the south side of the choir. Bishop O'Heden in 1420 repaired and beautified St. Patrick's and erected a hall for the vicars choral. In the same year that Donal O'Brian built St. Patrick's he also caused to be constructed the beautiful cathedral of St. Mary's in Limerick, endowing it liberally, and it existed in great splendor until the Reformation, when it shared the general fate of all such noble institutions.

The cathedral of St. Patrick, in Down, was rebuilt on the site of the old one by St. Malachy in 1138, and forty years afterward was enlarged by one of his successors and a namesake. About this time it was dedicated to St. Patrick, having been formerly consecrated to the Most Holy Trinity, a favorite name, it would appear, for cathedrals in the early centuries of Christianity.

St. Mary's, at Tuam, was built in 1152, by O'Connor, King of Ireland, and Bishop O'Hoisin, the first archbishop of that see; in 1260 it was enlarged and a new choir added. Finally, it was given over by Henry VIII. to an apostate named Bodkin.

St. Columba's, in Derry, was built in 1164, by King Maurice MacLaughlin. It also had to succumb to the reformers who settled in Ulster, and the present Protestant cathedral of that town was built on its ruins, by the "London Company," in 1633.

The majestic cathedral of Kilkenny, dedicated to St. Canice, was commenced in 1178, by Bishop Felix O'Dullany, and was finished by Bishop St. Leger in 1286. Some years later it was altered and beautified by Bishop Ledred, and at the time of the Reformation was considered one of the most beautifully situated buildings in Europe.

The cathedral of the Holy Trinity, in Waterford, was built about the beginning of the eleventh century. Its subsequent fate is thus related by a recent Protestant writer: [Footnote 301]

[Footnote 301: Ireland and her Churches, by James Godkin.]

"The old cathedral, or rather the oldest part of the first cathedral of Waterford, was built in 1096, by the Ostmen, on their' conversion from paganism; and about two centuries later it was endowed by King John, a dean and chapter having been appointed under the sanction of Innocent III. Endowments of various kinds had accumulated from age to age, till the Reformation, when the old altars were thrown down and the ornaments defaced. During the rebellions and wars that followed, its most costly treasures were carried away, with the brass ornaments of the tombs, the great standing pelican which supported the Bible, the immense candlesticks, six or seven feet high, the great brazen font, which was ascended by three stairs made of solid brass, and various gold and silver-gilt vessels. In 1773 the dean and chapter pronounced the old building so much decayed as to be unsafe for public worship, and unfortunately resolved that the whole pile should be taken down and replaced by a new edifice."

It will be seen that some of those lasting monuments of Irish skill and piety were raised subsequent to the English invasion, but the advent of the Norman soldiers was destined soon to dry up the springs of public munificence, if not to exterminate the old race, and obliterate the faith of St. Patrick. The Anglo-Norman of the twelfth century, though professing Christianity, was at heart as much a pagan as the race from which he sprung. He was brave, cunning, cruel, and rapacious. His greediness could not withstand any inducement to plunder, even though sacrilege had to be added to robbery; and he generally had courage and skill enough to carry out his intentions. He was neither an Englishman nor a Frenchman, but a compound of elements common to the worst classes of both races, super-induced on the genuine, old northern barbarism. He was, in fact, the prototype of the modern filibuster, and, though given to fighting, preferred the spoils to the glory of warfare. {833} Like most of his class in every age and country, he substituted superstition for religion, and became only generous of his goods when death threatened to snatch them from his grasp. When reduced to Protestantism by act of parliament, it is unnecessary to say that even the check of remorse, weak as it was, was removed, and the spoliation of gifts given to God and his poor sat as lightly on his conscience as his coronet or crown sat on his head. Consequently, from the landing of Strongbow and his friends until the Reformation, the wars which ensued against the natives were occasionally diversified by the plunder of a rich abbey, or the burning of a church, while now and then we read of an institution being founded by some repentant lord of the Pale, from which all "mere Irish" were excluded.

There were, indeed, a few men who came into Ireland in the track of its invaders, who were men of true piety. Among these may be classed John Cornin, archbishop of Dublin. It was he who, in 1190, built St. Patrick's collegiate church in that city, and repaired and beautified Holy Trinity; St. Lawrence O'Toole having, eighteen years before, added to its original dimensions by building a choir, belfry, and three chapels. Those two noble buildings are still in use by the Protestants of Dublin, and but little changed since their Catholic days. St. Patrick's has been renovated and improved through the liberality of a public-spirited merchant. Though ever dear to the Catholic hearts of Dublin for its old memories; its fame, since it has fallen into the possession of its present occupants, rests only in its association with the name of the gifted and eccentric Swift, whose flashes of wit and sly sarcasms were wont to arouse his drowsy congregation.

Notwithstanding the impoverished condition of the people, and the insecurity of life and property, during the wars of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and early part of the fifteenth centuries, we find the following religious houses established throughout the country: Priories of the Canons Regular of St. Augustin, 20; abbeys of the Cistercian order, 29; convents of the Dominican order, 23; of the Franciscan order, 56; of the Augustan order, 21; of the Carmelite order, 24; commanderies of Knights Templar, 11. This latter order was suppressed about the middle of the fourteenth century, and its property given to the Hospitallers.

But a new era now commenced in the history of the church. To the bitterness of national hate were to be added bloody persecution and wholesale confiscation. Henry VIII. had commenced his quarrel with the pope, and, with the vain intention of revenging himself on his holiness, he turned reformer, initiated a state religion, and unanimously elected himself head of the same. But Henry Tudor had method in his madness, and knew well that the best way to convert his Anglo-Irish subjects was by appealing to their old passion for plunder. Accordingly, his lord deputy, St. Ledger, in 1536, summoned, what was in that age called a parliament, and this assembly, representing nobody but the hirelings about the deputy, with one fell swoop confiscated three hundred and seventy monasteries and abbeys, whose yearly value amounted to £32,000, while their movables amounted to more than three times that amount. A year or two later all religious houses were suppressed and their property turned over to the king.

That this atrocious spoliation of the patrimony of the church and the property of the poor had not even the pretext of being perpetrated to replenish the treasury of an impoverished, state may be inferred from the words of Ware, who, in his life of this new Defender of the Faith, says: "Henry soon after disposed of the possessions of the religious orders to his nobles, courtiers, and others, reserving to himself certain revenue or annual rents." {834} This exhibition of royal magnificence at once convinced the aforesaid "nobles and courtiers" that Henry was the veritable Head of the Church, not only in England, but in Ireland also, and they hastened to accept his gifts and his new religion with equal alacrity. The cathedrals and churches had now to be disposed of. That portion of the laity described as nobles and courtiers was well provided for, and the clergy had to be satisfied; a new religion, Henry wisely thought, would not look well without churches and a hierarchy. Pliant tools of the school of Cranmer and Cromwell were sent over from England, who shielded by the military power of the deputy, and aided by a few apostates of native growth, were fraudulently inducted into Irish sees. While Brown, who had become archbishop of Dublin, was burning in the public streets the sacred image of our crucified Redeemer, taken from the abbey of Ballibogan, and the crosier of St. Patrick, rifled from Holy Trinity; the lord deputy was "gutting" the old cathedral of Down, violating the graves of Ireland's three greatest saints, and destroying their sacred relics. As these acts did not bring enlightenment to the minds of the benighted Catholics, a more general system of devastation was adopted. All the churches were seized and their sacred vessels and ornaments appropriated as legitimate spoils, by the "reformed clergy," while such of the buildings as were not required for the preachers of the new evangel were converted into barracks or stables. The people, though decimated and dispirited by long and disastrous wars, were too much attached to the ancient faith not to resist those iniquitous proceedings; but fire, sword, famine, and pestilence pursued them everywhere, martyred their priests, and laid their homes and their fields desolate.

What Henry commenced, his son, and worthy daughter Elizabeth, followed up; Cromwell's troopers nearly left the country a desert; and the vacillating and treacherous Stuarts added, if possible, to its already degraded condition. So abject was the state of the population in the time of William of Orange, that his penal laws, and those of the house of Hanover subsequently enacted, though in themselves most atrocious, were comparatively harmless, so well had the scythe of persecution been wielded by their predecessors. Even as late as the middle of the last century, the Catholics, still the bulk of the population, were sunk in the most pitiful misery and prostration; their priests churchless and outcasts before the laws, their monks and nuns banished or fled the country; or, if any remained of the once splendid institutions of piety and charity, they were to be found secreted in the purlieus of the larger towns, stealthily attending the sick and consoling, if unable to relieve, the wants of the poor. "No places of public worship were permitted," says the author of the History of Dublin, "and the clergyman moved his altar-books and everything necessary for the celebration of his religious rites from house to house among such of his flock as were enabled in this way to support an itinerant domestic chaplain; while for the poorer part some waste house or stable in a remote or retired situation was selected, and here the service was silently and secretly performed, unobserved by the public eye." Indeed, in many counties the people suffered worse; children were unbaptized, men and women unmarried, the dying deprived of the last consolations of religion, and the poor and infirm left to the cold charity of an unfeeling and hostile minority. The force of persecution could go no further. The experiment of conversion by force had been tried with a vengeance, and had signally failed. It was evident that utter extermination or reaction must follow.

Fortunately for the honor of humanity it was the latter. God was with his people in their afflictions and hearkened to their prayers. Slowly the light of toleration broke upon the darkened minds of the dominant Protestant party, and, though but the merest glimmer at first, gradually and steadily gained in intensity. {835} One hundred and twenty years ago the first chapel tolerated by law was publicly opened in Dublin; the more atrocious of the penal laws fell into disuse; chapels, poor indeed, and monasteries, feeble in their very sense of insecurity, commenced to raise their humble heads. Protestant gentlemen of liberal views found a voice in the Irish and English parliaments. Maynooth and Carlow colleges were established; a great and fearless Catholic, O'Connell, arrayed his coreligionists in solid phalanx in defence of their rights; and, finally, the British government, abashed at the scorn of Christendom, and yielding to fears of internal revolution, consented to emancipation. Of the many causes which led to this tardy act of justice the moral effect of religious freedom in the United States and the conduct of our Catholic immigrants during the revolution were not among the least effective.

Turning from the past with all its varied trials and defeats, it is pleasant to dwell on the condition of Catholic Ireland of to-day, with its churches, monasteries, colleges, and schools innumerable. Of the city of Dublin, where the Reformation made its first attacks, and where, at the beginning of the century, there were but a few poor chapels and "friaries," we find the following picture drawn by one who, though not a Catholic nor of Catholic sympathies, is too clear-minded to shut his eyes to the actual condition of affairs around him. He says: [Footnote 302]

[Footnote 302: Ireland and Her Churches. By James Godkin. This very able book has just been published in England, and, though written by a Protestant and a devoted believer in the opinions of that sect, is full of very valuable information regarding the present condition of the Catholics of Ireland.]

"There are now thirty-two churches and chapels in Dublin and its vicinity. In the diocese the total number of secular clergy is 287, and of regulars, 125; total, priests, 412. The number of nuns is 1150. Besides the Catholic university, with its ample staff of professors, there are in the diocese six colleges, seven superior schools for boys, fourteen superior schools for ladies, twelve monastic primary schools, forty convent schools, and 200 lay schools, without including those which are under the National Board of Education. The Christian Brothers have 7000 pupils under their instruction, while the schools connected with the convents in the diocese contain 15,000. Besides Maynooth, which is amply endowed by the state, and contains 500 or 600 students, all designed for the priesthood, there is the college of All Hallows, at Drumcondra, in which 250 young men are being trained for the foreign mission. The Roman Catholic charities of the city are varied and numerous. There are magnificent hospitals, one of which especially-- the Mater Misericordiae--has been not inappropriately called 'The Palace of the Sick Poor'--numerous orphanages, several widows' houses, and other refuges for virtuous women; ragged and industrial schools, night asylums, penitentiaries, reformatories, institutions for the blind and deaf and dumb; institutions for relieving the poor at their own houses, and Christian doctrine fraternities almost innumerable. All these wonderful organizations of religion and charity are supported wholly on the voluntary principle, and they have nearly all sprung into existence within half a century."

Miss Fannie Taylor, an English lady, in a recent work entitled Irish Homes and Irish Hearts, admirably describes, from personal and minute examination, the efficiency, success, and untiring devotion of the numerous orders of holy women, whose houses everywhere are to be found in and around the capital. Every conceivable want, every ill that flesh is heir to, finds at their busy and gentle hands an alleviation and a soothing remedy. The daughters of the rich are taught their duties to themselves and to society; the children of the poor are gratuitously trained in all the necessary arts of life; the orphan has a refuge; the sick are visited and comforted; even the outcast woman, the loathing of the worldly of her own sex, is taken by the hand and gently led back to the path of virtue. Hospitals; asylums for the blind, the deaf and dumb, have been built by them, generally out of their own slender means; and even the raving maniac and drivelling idiot find a shelter and a home. Wherever death, sickness, poverty, ignorance, crime, or affliction is, there also is to be found the "sister," consoling, helping, teaching, admonishing, always gentle, patient, and cheerful. {836} "I would speak," said the writer, in her introductory chapter, "of that marvellous net of religious institutions spread over the land, and of those deeds of charity which in reality form a powerful element in Irish life." Words as truthful as they are applicable.

Following Mr. Godkin in what he calls his "Inspection of Bishoprics," (Protestant of course,) we come to the diocese of Ferns, embracing the county of Wexford. "Here, then," says the inspector, "is a population that seems naturally fitted in a preeminent degree for the reception of Protestantism;" but he found himself mistaken. In the very cradle of Catholicity in Ireland he could not find even one out of every ten who even professed to be Protestants. He is equally surprised at the respect and veneration in which our blessed mother was held in this diocese of "industrious, self-reliant, and independent" men, and acknowledges his astonishment gracefully enough:

"I had plenty of proofs of this in the town of Wexford, where there are two splendid new churches, with grand towers, built almost exactly alike, in cathedral style; erected also at the same time, and chiefly through the exertions of the same priest. One of them is called the church of the Immaculate Conception, and the other the church of the Assumption; both, therefore, specially dedicated to the Virgin Mary. There could be no mistake about this in the mind of any one visiting these splendid places of worship, which are fitted up admirably with seats to the very doors, finished in the most approved style, and with a degree of taste that would do honor to the best cathedrals in England. Behind the high altar there is a very large window of stained glass, and a similar one of smaller dimensions at each side. To the right is Mary's chapel, with an altar brilliant and gorgeous in the extreme. There is a beautiful statue of the Virgin and Child, before which three lamps were burning during the day, and in the evening eight or nine dozen of candles are lighted, while ten or twelve vases are filled with a variety of flowers, kept constantly fresh, and producing the most brilliant and dazzling effects for the worshippers, who are nearly all attracted to this favorite altar, the beauty and splendor of which throw the altar of Christ completely in the shade. Generally, indeed, the Saviour appears only agonized on the cross, his hands fastened with nails, and the blood flowing from his pierced side, or else lying dead and ghastly in the sepulchre. It is only the Virgin that appears arrayed in beauty, crowned with majesty, and encircled with glory. Her altar in the Wexford church of the Assumption is decorated in the same style as the Immaculate Conception, but not with so much elaboration. Great local sacrifices must have been made for the erection and furnishing of these two churches, with their magnificent towers and spires, but much of the money came from Great Britain and the colonies; and to a question which I put on the subject to my guide, I received for answer that it came 'from all parts of the habitable world.'

"But, beautiful as those two new churches are, they are surpassed in internal decorations by the Franciscan church of this town. This is a perfect gem in its way so elegantly painted and ornamented, and so nicely kept, so bright and cheering in its aspect, and evincing such regard to comfort in all its arrangements, that we can easily conceive it to be a very popular and fashionable place of worship. It is not cruciform, but built in the shape of an L. To the left of the principal altar, at the junction of the two portions, stands in impressive prominence the altar of the Virgin Mary, which is covered by an elevated canopy, resting upon white and blue pillars with golden capitals. Upon the altar stands a beautiful marble statue of the Virgin. Three lamps burn constantly before it. One hundred candles are lighted round it in the evening with half a dozen gas-burners. Floral ornaments are in the greatest profusion and variety. There are four large stands on the altar floor, two others higher up on the pedestal, and a number of small vases with bouquets ranged on the altar. The friary attached to the church presents a picture of order, neatness, and cleanliness which seemed to be a reflection of the characteristics of the 'English baronies,' showing how national idiosyncrasies and social circumstances affect religion. In fact, a community of Quakers could not keep their establishment in better order than these Franciscans keep their friary. I observed a great contrast in this respect in the Roman Catholic establishments of Waterford and Thurles. Wexford, indeed, is quite a model town in the Roman Catholic Church. There are three other places of worship besides those already mentioned--the college chapel and the nunnery chapels, and certainly there are no people in the world, perhaps, not excepting the Romans themselves, more abundantly supplied with masses. There is a mass for workingmen at five o'clock in the morning, there are masses daily during the week at later hours, and no less than six or seven on Sundays in each of the principal chapels, or churches as they are now generally called. The college is a large building, and in connection with it is the residence of the bishop, Dr. Furlong."

{837}

What has here been remarked of Dublin and Ferns may be said with equal justice of other parts of Ireland. Kildare and Leighlin has its splendid cathedral, the corner-stone of which was laid in Carlow in 1828, by the celebrated Dr. Doyle. Cork has its fine churches, schools, and monasteries. Of the cathedral of the diocese of Kerry, Miss Taylor says:

"The great ornament of Killarney is the cathedral, the only one I have seen in Ireland worthy of the name. It is one of Pugin's happiest conceptions. The tower is not yet built, and this of course greatly detracts from the beauty of the exterior; but within, the great height of the roof, the noble pillars, the sense of space and grandeur, made one think of some of the beautiful cathedrals of old of our own and foreign lands."

In the archdiocese of Tuam, where some years since the Most Rev. Dr. Kelly, the predecessor of the present patriotic prelate, said that out of one hundred and twenty-one places of worship one hundred and six "were thatched cabins," there are now three hundred and eighty-seven churches, three hundred and eighty-two clergymen, and fifty-four religious houses.

Armagh has again risen from the ashes of the past, and again a beautiful metropolitan cathedral appears on the spot hallowed by St. Patrick. The corner-stone of this beautiful building was laid by the Most Rev. Dr. Crolly, primate, on the 17th of March, 1840. The increase of churches in this diocese from 1800 to 1864 has been ninety-three; convents and schools, twenty-four.

Such is the outward visible sign of the progress of the church in Ireland for the last hundred years. What though the wind sighs mournfully through the broken arches of many a church and cloister, made sacred by the saintly men who prayed and taught fourteen centuries ago; though the fern and the ivy grow up and cement a thousand crumbling ruins, which in their desolation attest at the same time man's passion and his impotence; let them be as silent teachers of the past and of its glorious memories and bitter persecution. But the people of Ireland have the present, they are working not only for themselves, but for the future; and they, too, will be known to after generations by the monuments they are now building as their forefathers built; by their churches, convents, and colleges, which shall exist, even though in ruins, in the grateful memories of coming ages.

{838}

From The Dublin Review.

John Tetzel. [Footnote 303]

[Footnote 303: Tetzel und Luther, oder Lebensgeschichte und Rechtfertigung des Ablasspredigers und Inquisitors, Dr. Johann Tetzel, aus dem Predigerorden. Von Valentin Gröne, Doctor der Theologie. Soest und Olpe. Verlag der Nasse'schen Buchhandlung. 1853. (pp. 237.)]

Of all Luther's contemporary opponents none experienced so much of his foul-mouthed vituperation as the Dominican preacher of indulgences, John Tetzel--a vituperation which Protestant writers, down to the present day, have not ceased, with unmitigated virulence, to heap upon his memory.

Nor have Catholic writers done much to defend Tetzel's calumniated reputation. On the contrary, they have in general allowed themselves to be deluded by Protestant prejudice, and so to have abstained from referring, in his behalf, to original sources of information. This unworthy course they have pursued as though they viewed Tetzel in the light of a personage not worth quarrelling about, whom, without detriment to the church, they might safely abandon to the enemy, nay, whom it might perhaps be as well thus to abandon. They were fully aware that it was not for preaching Pope Leo's indulgence that Luther really attacked Tetzel. The indulgence was but the pretext seized by Luther for openly broaching the heretical opinions which, ever since the year 1515, he had secretly formed. Neither did Luther owe his success to the alleged abuses of the papal indulgence. He owed his success to the wide-spread moral corruption of his times. Had Leo X. proclaimed no indulgence at all, Luther's calamitous Reformation could hardly have been prevented.

Three Protestant biographies of John Tetzel have been written in Germany. The earliest, written by Godfried Hecht in Latin, appeared in 1707. About the same time a Life of Tetzel, in German, was published by Jacob Vogel. The third, a compilation of both, is by Friedrich Hoffmann, and appeared at Leipsic in 1844. They are all three, more or less, just such _ex parte_ productions as might be expected, full of obloquy founded on garbled quotations and falsified facts. The most virulent is Hoffmann's book, the least so Hecht's. In copiousness of original research, Vogel far surpasses Hecht and Hoffmann. As a counterpoise to these biographies the Catholic party produced nothing till the year 1817. An anonymous work then appeared at Frankfort-on-the-Main, entitled Vertraute Briefe zweier Katholiken über den Ablass Streit Dr. Martin Luthers wider Dr. Johann Tetzel. This work is supposed to have been written by a Jesuit, and, although it contains many strong points in vindication of Tetzel's injured character, it would not seem to have had this object so much in view as the defence of the doctrine of indulgences against the attacks made on it by reason of the year 1817 being the tercentenary year of the Reformation, and celebrated as such throughout Protestant Germany. What Audin in his Life of Luther says in favor of Tetzel proceeds more from feeling than historical research, and is consequently of inferior importance. Under these circumstances it is gratifying to meet with such a book in defence of Tetzel as Dr. Valentine Gröne has produced, in which, while he exhibits the vilified Dominican as an able, pious, and devoted champion of the holy see, in a manner that establishes, his title in future to that character on a solid basis, he also contributes to the history of Luther and the Reformation a most interesting fund of knowledge and reflection.

{839}

The true date of Tetzel's birth appears to be unknown. It is conjectured to have fallen a little later than the middle of the fifteenth century. He was a native of Leipsic, where his father was a citizen and goldsmith. Dr. Gröne has much to say about the etymology of his family name. But this we may pass over as superfluous. Of Tetzel's boyhood and youth nothing is recorded until the year 1482. It was the year of his matriculation as a student of the Leipsic university. He is now said to have shown superior abilities and great application. For the art of rhetoric he soon evinced a strong predilection. Not content with attending the lectures of Conrad Kimpina on the theory of declamation, he sought to gain a practical knowledge of it by assiduously frequenting the sermons of the Dominicans. This led to his forming an attachment to the order of which, in 1490, he became a member. Two years before, he had received his bachelor's degree, being the sixth on a list of fifty candidates.

In the seclusion of the Dominican convent of St. Paul's, at Leipsic, Tetzel renounced the study of humanities in order to devote himself all the more zealously to the writings of the fathers and doctors of the church.

This course he adopted as the surest means of qualifying himself to become a preaching friar in the true spirit of St. Dominic. "The goldsmith's son," says Jacob Vogel, "possessed every requisite to form a public speaker, a clear understanding, a good memory, an eloquent tongue, an animated delivery, a manly and sonorous voice, the charm of which was enhanced by a tall and slender figure."

His first essays as a preacher were confined to the church of his convent. Their effect was such that his prior, Martin Adam, soon gave him permission to preach beyond the convent walls, at the different places belonging to its jurisdiction. In Tetzel's day it was still customary not to confer holy orders until, according to ancient canonical rule, the candidate had reached the age of thirty years. This age Tetzel attained before the close of the century. He was then ordained priest by Philo von Trotha, Bishop of Merseburg. About the same time Pope Alexander VI. proclaimed the great jubilee. It was the eighth proclamation since the first by Boniface VIII. Tetzel received from his superiors the appointment to preach the jubilee indulgence. He preached it at Leipsic, Zwickau, Nüremberg, Magdeburg, Görlitz, Halle, and other towns. So well did he perform his duty, that he established his fame as one of the most powerful popular preachers that had ever appeared in Germany. "By reason of his extraordinary eloquence," says Godfried Hecht, "he acquired great authority over the people, and rose higher and higher in renown." Dr. Gröne adverts to various contemporary attestations of Tetzel's surprising success with the masses. It was ascribed to his resounding voice, his richly metaphorical language, and logical clearness.

In 1504, Pope Julius II. proclaimed an indulgence in favor of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, whom the Russians and Tartars had reduced to great straits. On this occasion Tetzel was again chosen to preach, along with Christian Baumhauer, of Nüremberg. He preached the indulgence in Prussia, Brandenburg, and Silesia. At the same time the Dominican priory of Glogau, becoming vacant, was offered to him. He was little more than thirty years old. "What stronger proof," says Dr. Gröne, "could be given him of the high veneration in which he was held by his order?" But he did not accept the dignity. In the early part of 1507 he returned to Leipsic. On his way he preached for the Teutonic Knights at Dresden. So great was the desire to hear him that the largest church in the city was found too small for the congregation. {840} Duke George of Saxony caused him, in consequence, to preach from a window of his palace. The same zealous duke, on Tetzel's arrival at Leipsic, received him outside the gates at the head of the clergy, the civic authorities, and dignitaries of the university, and conducted him in solemn procession to St. Paul's convent. Here Tetzel again retired, a simple friar, to the seclusion of his cell. In 1510, he was employed to preach an indulgence of a peculiar sort, granted in aid of building a bridge, with a chapel on it, over the Elbe at Torgau. The Saxon princes, being themselves short of funds, and finding the people unwilling to contribute the money for nothing, had obtained in 1491 from Innocent VIII. the indulgence in question, by which all the faithful in Saxony who should give the twentieth part of a gold florin toward the bridge and chapel at Torgau were permitted to eat butter and drink milk in lent, on the rogation days, and the vigils of feasts, for a term of twenty years. In 1510, Pope Julius II. renewed this indulgence for another twenty years. Such indulgences were not unfrequent in the middle ages. In 1310. Pope John XXII., as Dr. Gröne tells us, granted an indulgence of forty days toward the erection of the bridge at Dresden. When Julius II. died in 1513, the great aspiration of his successor, Leo X., was to complete the magnificent temple of Christendom, St. Peter's basilica, begun by Julius in 1506. But Leo found that the wars waged by his high-minded predecessor in defence of St. Peter's patrimony, and the independence of Italy, had exhausted the papal treasury. Julius having raised the funds for laying the foundations of St. Peter's by means of an indulgence, Leo resolved to do the like toward the expenses of finishing the work. The bull which he accordingly issued, granting a plenary indulgence to all Christendom, reached Germany in 1515. The commission to preach it was given to the Franciscans. For Saxony and the north of Germany this commission was divided between the guardian of the Franciscans of Mentz and Albert of Brandenburg, the newly installed archbishop of the city. But the guardian of the Franciscans declining to act, the entire commission passed into the hands of the archbishop. It was merely as a special favor that he had been included in the commission at all. His grace, in fact, had been obliged to contract a heavy debt with the Fuggers of Augsburg, the Rothschilds of the day, in order to pay the fees on his pallium, which, for an archbishop of Mentz, amounted to no less a sum than thirty thousand gold florins. As it was not customary for the archbishops to pay this sum out of their privy purse, it had to be levied on the faithful of the diocese. But this had been done twice within the last ten years for the immediate predecessors of Albert of Brandenburg, namely, Archbishops Berthold and James Uriel. To raise the sum a third time under such circumstances seemed impossible without assistance. Wherefore, in order to afford relief to his flock, Archbishop Albert had obtained leave from Rome to appropriate a portion of the proceeds of the papal indulgence in his province toward the payment of his debt. This fact suffices, in Dr. Gröne's opinion, to clear the archbishop from the reproach of avarice cast at him by Protestant writers, who have also not failed to impute all sorts of unworthy motives to him for making choice of the Dominican, John Tetzel, as his chief sub-commissioner, or quaestor, in preaching the indulgence. But, says Dr. Gröne, is not the archbishop's choice of Tetzel tantamount to a refutation of the calumnies heaped upon him as one of the vilest, not only of friars, but of men? Archbishop Albert proceeded with the greatest caution, and issued very clear and exact instructions, both on the nature of the indulgence, and the manner in which it should be preached. Had Tetzel really been the notoriously bad monk Protestant writers say he was, how could the archbishop, with the knowledge of such a fact, have ventured to choose him at all? {841} How could Tetzel be expected to preach with any effect, if, as is asserted, he was a disgrace to his order, a man who did not scruple openly to perpetrate the worst excesses? But Archbishop Albert of Mentz had, as we have seen, very particular reasons of his own for promoting as much as possible the success of Pope Leo's indulgence, and, accordingly, he made choice of Tetzel as his chief quaestor, not because he thought a coarse, sordid monk of infamous reputation the likeliest person he knew of to stir up the religious fervor of the people, but because he judged this might best be done by one who, while eminent alike for piety and for zeal in the cause of the church and the holy see, enjoyed the renown of being one of the most eloquent preachers then living in Germany. What motive could be more natural, more just, more obvious than this?

Tetzel entered on his duties as preacher of the papal indulgence for the Archbishop of Mentz with his accustomed zeal and ability. What he had to announce in virtue of the Instructio Summaria of the archbishop was substantially this: That all persons who repented of, and confessed, fasting, their sins, who received holy communion, said certain prayers in seven different churches, or before as many altars, and contributed according to their means a donation toward St. Peter's basilica, should obtain full remission of the temporal punishment due to their sins, once for their lives, and then as often as they should be in danger of death; that this indulgence might be applied by way of intercession to the souls in purgatory, while bedridden people were to be able to obtain it by devoutly confessing and communicating in their chambers before a sacred image or picture.

In the entire document, says Dr. Gröne, there does not occur a thought which the church at the present day would hesitate to subscribe. The Instructio Summaria further declares, that those who cannot afford a pecuniary donation are not, therefore, to be denied the grace of the indulgence, which seeks not less the salvation of the faithful than the advantage of the basilica. "Let such as have no money," it says, "replace their donations by prayer and fasting, for the kingdom of heaven must not stand more open to the rich than the poor." What a refutation have we here of the slanderous clamor against Pope Leo's indulgence as an alleged traffic in sin! With respect to the conduct of Tetzel himself and his subordinates, they are admonished to lead an exemplary life, to avoid taverns, and to abstain from unnecessary expense. That cases of levity nevertheless took place, Dr. Gröne admits, but he strenuously denies that Tetzel gave cause for animadversion. Finally, the Instructio Summaria directed that all indulgences of a particular or local kind should be declared, in virtue of the pope's bull, as suspended for eight years in favor of the one now granted by his holiness; a declaration which did not fail to excite a bitter spirit of opposition and jealousy, especially among the religious orders and confraternities, of which Tetzel had to bear the brunt.

In the church of All Saints, at Wittenberg, there was a costly shrine of relics resented by the reigning elector Frederic, afterward surnamed the Wise. At his request Pope Leo X., so recently as 1516, had attached to this shrine an indulgence for the yearly festival of All Saints. The offerings which this indulgence would produce Frederic designed to apply for the benefit of the university which he had founded. Hence, he regarded the papal indulgence for St. Peter's at Rome as a grievance, and, but for an imperial mandate requiring all the German princes to throw no impediment in its way, he would have forbidden its being preached in his territories.

{842}

Frederic, moreover, had a grudge against Rome on the following grounds: The holy see had, in compliance with his request, consented to confer on his natural son the coadjutorship to a benefice _in commendam_. But the commendator himself dying when the diploma conferring the coadjutorship had just been completed, a new diploma conferring the vacant commendatory had to be prepared instead, entailing on Frederic, who was of a very parsimonious disposition, the vexatious necessity of having to pay the fees twice over. This he ruminated upon in his sullen way, and set it down in his mind as a conclusive proof of that grasping, overreaching spirit which the enemies of the church in that age accused her of in such exaggerated terms. Frederic the Wise was also involved in a dispute with the archbishop of Mentz respecting certain territorial rights at Erfurth.

The Augustinian hermits of Wittenberg sympathized with their munificent patron the elector. He permitted them to make use of the funds accruing from the local indulgence of All Saints toward the expenses of a new convent and church which they had in course of erection. But the temporary suspension of the latter indulgence in favor of the one preached by John Tetzel for Pope Leo X. and Archbishop Albert inconvenienced and annoyed them all the more, as their buildings were on the point of completion. Neither was their ill-will toward Tetzel the less that, in his character as a Dominican, he was their ardent opponent in the scholastic and theological disputes of the day; and, besides being a preacher of such talent and influence, was a dignitary of the court of Inquisition at Cologne, where, of course, the Dominicans presided.

In spite of all obstacles, Tetzel preached the indulgence with signal success at Leipsic, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Berlin, and other places. At length, about the end of October. 1517, he arrived at Yüterbock, near Wittenberg, just at the time for gaining the special indulgence of All Saints. In vain the Augustinians secretly did what they could to prevent the people from flocking to hear him. The very students of the new Wittenberg university, expressly founded as it was as a rival to that of Leipsic, deserted the lecture-halls in such numbers that the professors were filled with alarm and indignation. In particular, Dr. Martin Luther was exasperated to find himself so completely eclipsed by the proximity of Tetzel, against whom he fruitlessly inveighed in the temporary church of the Augustinian hermits. Even his own penitents, regardless of his admonitions and refusals of absolution, forsook his confessional to obtain the indulgence proclaimed at Yüterbock. All at once they seemed to forget the maxims he had taken so much pains to instil into their minds respecting divine grace and good works! Long had he waited for an opportunity to broach his new doctrine openly, and he and his disciples resolved that now or never was the time to do so.

Accordingly, on the 31st of October Luther posted up his famous ninety-five theses at the door of All Saints' church in Wittenberg, and challenged all the world to dispute with him on the doctrine they maintained. Ostensibly they were levelled against the alleged abuses of the papal indulgence. But attacks on the doctrine itself, as well as on the authority of the pope, were insidiously intermingled with them.

"Not the affair of the indulgence, not Tetzel, not the corruption and ignorance of the clergy, not the decay of discipline," says Dr. Gröne, "but the circumstance that Luther, previous to the posting up of his theses, was a heretic, and found support in the Elector Frederic--this it was that gave rise to the great schism in the church."

Dr. Gröne substantiates his assertion by authenticated facts, and a critical examination of Luther's ninety-five theses, which, says he,

"Were the point of transition from secret to open from timid to obstinate, heresy. They were the seed which, sown in the soil, contains, not only virtually, but really, all that, as germ and plant, it has a right to contain. They were the result, the production of Luther's mental life, corroded, as it was, by error and learned self-conceit; they were as intimately united with it as the stem is with the root, therefore they could only be abandoned in case the author himself transformed his entire interior life. Hence, too, is to be derived the obstinacy with which Luther clung to them, with which he would still have clung to them, even if they had not earned him general applause; hence the circumstance that, in defending them, he involved himself deeper and deeper in heresy."

{843}

By means of the press Luther's theses were soon spread all over Germany. Tetzel, seeing the riotous applause they met with from the enemies of the church generally, and from his own enemies in particular, suspended his preaching; and, with the concurrence of the archbishop of Mentz, repaired for advice to his former preceptor, Dr. Conrad Wimpina, at that time rector of the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. Wimpina advised him to answer Luther's challenge with a series of antitheses. Tetzel did so, and published against Luther's ninety-five theses a hundred and six antitheses. They obtained for him the degree of doctor of divinity. In the clearest manner they set forth the true Catholic doctrine of the absolute necessity of repentance, confession, and satisfaction for the pardon of sin, affirming that, though an indulgence exempts the sinner from the vindicatory penalties of the church, it leaves him just as much bound as ever to submit to her medicinal and preservative ones; that it does not derogate from the merits of Christ, since its whole efficacy is due to the atoning passion of Christ; as also that the pope has power only by means of suffrage to apply the benefits of an indulgence to the souls in purgatory. Moreover, to say the pope cannot absolve the least venial sin is erroneous; and equally so to deny that all vicars of Christ have the same power as Peter had: rather to assert that Peter, in the matter of indulgences, had more power than they, is both heretical and blasphemous. One of the many slanders on Tetzel is, that he was not the author of the antitheses that he published, but that Dr. Wimpina wrote them for him. Luther himself flung this taunt in his face, and so gave it the prestige among his party of an undoubted fact. Dr. Gröne enters fully into the case, and terminates his inquiry with "venturing to believe that, by his vindication, he has annihilated every substantial ground for doubting that Tetzel was the real author of the antitheses in question." They did not, of course, silence Luther, who replied to them with a popular compendium in German of his ninety-five theses in twenty articles. Tetzel rejoined with twenty others, also in German. In the nineteenth he declares of Luther's doctrine, in the tone of a prophet, that, in consequence of it, "many people will contemn the authority and power of his holiness the pope and the Roman see, will intermit the works of sacramental satisfaction, will no longer believe their pastors and teachers, but will explain, every one for himself, the sacred Scriptures according to private fancy and whim, and believe just what every one chooses, to the great detriment of souls throughout Christendom."

At a time when all the most learned men in Germany regarded the matter as nothing but a scholastic dispute, when many even in Rome deemed it a mere monkish quarrel, Tetzel, by thus pointing out in such clear and concise terms what Luther's principles really involved, what fatal results they would produce, evinced, in Dr. Gröne's opinion, a more than ordinary penetration of mind.

Luther's fundamental thought in attacking indulgences was this: That indulgences are not of faith, because not taught in the Bible, not taught by Christ and his apostles; they emanate, he said, only from the pope. Now, if this thought was an erroneous one, if the pope in questions of faith and morals is infallible, if he alone possesses the right to decide the true sense and meaning of Scripture, every Catholic is bound on all such questions to submit to him; and Luther, if he persisted in maintaining his doctrine, passed sentence on himself as an apostate and a heretic, cut himself off from all__ escape, and had no other choice left than that of either being punished as a heretic, or making a recantation. {844} Hence, in order to drive him from the field, it was requisite to prove that, besides the truths explicitly declared in holy writ, there are other truths in the church which we are equally bound to believe; and that they comprise all those doctrines relating to faith which are defined as such by the holy see. By setting up those propositions the dispute would be raised to one of principle, and Luther would be compelled to speak out on the pope's authority in matters of faith and practice.

These considerations spurred Tetzel on to issue against Luther's fifty theses on the power of the pope; for, indeed, it had not eluded his observation that much the greater part of the applause received by Luther was owing far more to his insidious attacks on the authority of the holy see than to his reprobation of the indulgence. Tetzel's fifty theses, published about the end of April, 1518, maintained, therefore, that the highest power having been received by the pope exclusively from God, cannot be extended or limited, either by any man or by the whole world, but only by God alone. That in his power of jurisdiction the pope stands above all other bishops separate or united. That, although, as a private man, the pope may hold, on a point of faith, a wrong opinion, yet, when he pronounces judgment on it _ex cathedrâ_, he is infallible. That indulgences cannot be granted by the rest of the prelates, whether collectively or singly, but only by the "Bridegroom of the whole church," namely, the pope. That what is true and of faith about indulgences, only the pope can decide. That the church has many Catholic truths, which are neither expressly declared in the canon of Scripture, nor explicitly stated by the holy fathers. That all doctrines relating to faith, and defined as such by the apostolic see, are to be reckoned among Catholic truths, whether or not they are contained in the Bible. As a warning for the elector of Saxony, Tetzel declares that all those who patronize heretics, and use their power to prevent them from being put upon their trial before the lawful judge, incur excommunication.

These fifty theses of Tetzel's were strictly in the spirit of the scholastic theology in vogue, a spirit which the experience of such councils as those of Basle, Constance, and Florence had contributed not a little to evoke.

Luther at once perceived what a stumbling-block Tetzel had thrown in his way. He did not attempt to dispute the fifty theses. Had he done so he must have plainly acknowledged himself a heretic. As matters stood this would have been premature, would have spoiled all, would have ruined him and his cause. Tetzel had not designated Luther personally as a heretic. But Luther chose to assume that he had done so, and forthwith let loose a storm against him of such brutal and malignant invective as Luther alone was capable of. Adopting the tone of an injured man, a man shamefully misunderstood, he filled Germany with hypocritical asseverations of his orthodoxy and his devotion to the see of Peter. All his party, all Tetzel's opponents, followed in his wake. The heathen-minded humanists, in particular, singled out Tetzel as the butt of their ribald satire, holding him up to scorn and execration as the very impersonation of every imaginable monastic abuse and scandal. The persecuted man found little or no shelter from the tempest. The friends of religion and the church were intimidated, confounded, paralyzed; apathy, indecision, cowardice, delusion, prevailed among the guardians of the faith, prevailed among the German bishops. Rome herself was slow and lenient in her measures. Although she cited Luther to come and answer for himself to her, she consented, in the persons of Cajetan and Miltiz, to go to him. Cajetan, all patience and condescension, allowed himself to be trifled with and duped. Miltiz truckled to Luther, reviled Tetzel, betrayed his trust. {845} In vain did Hermann Rab, provincial of the Saxon Dominicans, address a touching letter in Tetzel's defence to Miltiz. It is dated at Leipsic, January 3d, 1519, and is quoted in full by Dr. Gröne:

"Truly I should not know where to find a man (observes Hermann Rab in this letter) who has done and suffered, who still suffers so much for the honor of the apostolic see, as our venerable father, Magister John Tetzel. If his holiness only knew it, I doubt not but that he would distinguish him in a worthy manner. With what lies and slanders beyond number he is overwhelmed, all the street-corners, where they resound in your ears, attest. I only wish your excellence had heard the sermon he preached on the feast of our Lord's circumcision, for then you would not have failed to convince yourself what his sentiments are, and always have been, toward the holy see."

Miltiz commanded Tetzel to retire to his cell at Leipsic. He obeyed. His career was now terminated. He never ascended the pulpit again. The fatigues and excitement he had undergone; the persecution he had suffered; his deserted and forlorn condition; above all, the course of events, so ominous for the church and the papacy, to which he clung with all his soul; these things preyed upon his mind and body to such a degree that his health gave way, and he died in a state of profound melancholy in the month of August of the above-mentioned year. He is supposed to have been about sixty years old:

"Tetzel could not have set up a better monument to his own character (writes Dr. Gröne) than he did in the grief and affliction which hastened his end. The ruin of the church, the wild infidelity, and unspeakable disorders which the triumph of Luther must needs entail on Germany--this was the worm that gnawed his vital thread. It broke his heart to be forced to see how the sincere champions of the old church truths were left alone, were slandered, despised, and misunderstood by their own party, while the mockers and revilers of the immutable doctrine won applause on all sides."

In a chapter devoted to a refutation of the infamous calumnies and profane anecdotes recorded of Tetzel, it is shown by Dr. Gröne that they were mostly borrowed from the Decameron of Boccaccio and a congenial German production, styled Der Pfaffe Amis. For example: Tetzel, being anxious to impart extraordinary interest to the indulgence he had to preach, once told the people he would show them a feather which the devil, in combating with the archangel Michael, had plucked from the archangel's wing. But a couple of godless wags, entering his chamber during his absence, stole the feather out of the box in which it was kept, and put some coals from the fireplace in its stead. Tetzel, ignorant of the theft, mounts the pulpit, box in hand, and declaims with great fervor on the wonderful qualities of his heavenly feather. Then opening the box, finds it full of coals. Nothing abashed, he cries out, "What wonder if, among so many relic-boxes as I possess, I have taken the wrong one?" And forthwith he extols the miraculous power of the very coals on which St. Lawrence was broiled.

Another merry tale of the sort is the following: "Tetzel," they, say, "once desired to lodge with the sacristan at Zwickau. But the sacristan excused himself as being too poor to entertain so renowned a guest. 'We'll see that you have money enough,' said Tetzel, 'only look what saint it is in the calendar to-morrow.' The sacristan found the name of Juvenalis. 'A very unlucky name, he regretted to say, because it was so little known.' 'But we'll make it known,' replied Tetzel. 'Ring the bells to-morrow as if for a festival, and let high mass be sung.' The sacristan obeyed, and the people throng the church. After the gospel Tetzel ascends the pulpit, and speaks: 'Good people, to-day I have something to tell you which, if I were to withhold it, would be the very ruin of your salvation. Hitherto, you know, we have always invoked such and such saints, but now they have grown old, and are tired of hearing and helping us. To-day you commemorate Juvenalis, and although until now he has been unknown, let us none the less honor him with all our hearts. {846} For as he is a new saint, he will be all the more indefatigable in praying for us. Juvenalis, my friends, was a holy martyr, whose blood was innocently shed. Now, if you would also participate in his innocence before God, let each of you put an offering on the altar during mass. And do you, ye great and rich ones, precede the rest with your good example.'"

Again, in 1512, Tetzel, after having preached at Zwickau, had got all his money packed up, and was about to depart. But the parish priest, with his chaplain and clerk, came running to him, bitterly complaining that, while he had provided so splendidly for himself, they had not got as much by the indulgence as would pay for one jolly day. "Truly I am very sorry," answers Tetzel, "but why did you not tell me sooner? However, ring the bells again to-morrow; there may still, perhaps, be something left for you." No sooner said than done. The people all came flocking to church, and Tetzel, ascending the pulpit, begins: "Dearly beloved, true I had intended to depart this very day, but last night I heard in your church-yard a poor soul moaning and weeping miserably, and imploring some one to come to her relief, and deliver her out of purgatory. This caused me to remain here to day, to have mass said and offerings made for this poor soul. Now, whoever among us should neglect to make an offering would thereby prove that he has no compassion on the poor soul, or else that he must either be a fornicator or an adulterer, whose conscience tells him he is not worthy to take part in this good work. And that you may know what an urgent case it is, I myself will be the first to present my offering."

Of course all the people hasten to follow so edifying an example, they even borrow money from one another, for no one wishes to be thought a fornicator or an adulterer.

In citing such absurd stories as the above, along with many others of a still more profane description, Dr. Gröne shows that, in several instances, they were the same as were employed to slander the character of Bernardin Samson, the Franciscan preacher of Pope Leo's indulgence in Switzerland. He also cites two contemporary documents, one of them signed by the authorities of the town of Halle, the other by John Pels, prior of the Dominican convent of Nevenwerk, denying in emphatic terms that Tetzel, in his sermons, ever blasphemed the Blessed Virgin in the shocking way he was accused of doing. In fine, had he really been the monster of depravity, the shameless drunkard, swindler, liar, blasphemer, and adulterer his enemies make of him, it is but too obvious that, instead of opposing, he would have joined Luther, whose earliest and most ardent disciples were principally degenerate monks, in love with the Lutheran doctrine of the futility of good works--monks, in a word, corresponding in every respect to the Protestant descriptions, but opposite in character as day and night to the true nature of John Tetzel.

{847}

From Once a Week.

The Bride of Eberstein.

A Legend of Baden.

Four hours distant from the city of Baden, near the market village of Malsch, on a bold, projecting wood-crowned eminence in the Black Forest, stood the Castle of Waldenfels. It is now a heap of ruins, and scarcely can the traveller discover the spot which was formerly the residence of an opulent and powerful family.

In the thirteenth century, Sir Beringer, last of his race, inhabited the castle of Waldenfels. His lately departed consort had bequeathed him an only daughter, Rosowina by name. In bygone years Sir Beringer had ofttimes felt distressed that he would leave no male heir to propagate the name and celebrity of his ancient stock; and, in this feeling, he had adopted Heinrich von Gertingen, an orphan boy, the son of an early friend and companion in arms, and the representative of an ancient but impoverished house, to whom he purposed to bequeath his inheritance and his name. Not long, however, after this event, his daughter was born. And as Rosowina, after her mothers early death, advanced in the blossom of youth, she became the pride and happiness of her father's age, and never caused him sorrow, save in the reflection that some day she would leave the paternal for the conjugal hearth. All now that troubled him was his adopted son. The growing boy, while manifesting a becoming taste for knightly accomplishments, and obtaining success in their display, nourished in his breast the germ of fiery passions, which, while they caused distress and anxiety to the Lord of Waldenfels, impressed his daughter with terror and revolted feeling. At length, when Rosowina had attained her sixteenth year, she became to Heinrich the object of a wild and desperate devotion. He repressed the sentiment awhile, but at length yielded himself its slave. He persecuted Rosowina with his ill-timed and terrible addresses; and one day, having found her alone in the castle garden, he cast himself at her feet, and swore by all that was holy and dear that his life was in her hand, and that without her he must become the victim of an agonizing despair. Rosowina's terror and confusion were boundless; she had never experienced the smallest feeling of affection for the youth, but rather regarded him with aversion and alarm. She knew not at the moment how to act or what to say. At that instant her father appeared. The confusion of both sufficiently discovered what had occurred: in a burning rage Sir Beringer commanded the unhappy youth instantly to quit the castle for ever. With one wild glance at Rosowina, Heinrich obeyed; and muttering, "The misery thou hast brought upon my life come upon thine own!" rushed despairingly away. Next morning his body was found in the Murg, his countenance hideously distorted, and too well expressing the despair with which he had left the world. Efforts were made, so far as possible, to conceal the horrid truth from Rosowina, but in vain; time, however, softened the features of the ghastly memory. She had now completed her seventeenth year, and was already celebrated as the beauty of the surrounding country. And not only was her beauty the subject of universal praise; her maidenly modesty, her goodness of heart, her prudent, thoughtful, intelligent cast of mind, were the theme of commendation with all who had enjoyed the privilege of her society.

{848}

A few hours' distance from the Castle of Waldenfels, in the pleasant valley through which rush the clear waters of the Alb, stood the monastery of Herrenalb. The Holy Virgin was patroness of the foundation, and the day on which the church celebrates the festival of her nativity was annually observed as the grand holiday of the convent, when the monks, to do honor to this occasion, exhibited all the splendor and magnificence which Christian bounty had placed at their disposal, and spared no expense to entertain their guests in the most hospitable and sumptuous manner. And now Sir Beringer of Waldenfels had promised his Rosowina to ride over to Herrenalb with her the next St. Mary's day. He was ever a man of his word; how should he now be otherwise, when that word assured a pleasure to the darling of his heart?

Bright and genial rose the autumnal morning when Sir Beringer and Rosowina, with a small retinue, rode over the hills to Herrenalb. The knight and his daughter were courteously and hospitably received by the abbot and his monks. The presence of the noble heiress of Waldenfels excited much interest and observation in the minster church; but the maiden herself appeared unconscious of the fact. Seldom, however, as she found herself disturbed by worldly thoughts in her devotions in the castle chapel at Waldenfels, the splendor of the monastic church and services, and the innumerable hosts of worshippers, were to her so new, that she felt tempted, from time to time, to give a momentary glance around her. On one occasion her gaze encountered a pair of eyes which seemed to rest on the attraction of her countenance with an earnest yet respectful expression, and, inexperienced as she was, she was at no loss to comprehend its meaning. The gazer was a stately youth, who was leaning against a pillar. His strong-built and well-proportioned frame, his noble and expressive countenance, and even his rich and tasteful apparel, were well adapted to fix the attention of a youthful maiden of seventeen, while his whole demeanor convinced her how deeply he was smitten with the power of her charms.

The service over, the worshippers dispersed, and the sumptuous abbey opened its hospitable gates to all who could advance any claim to entertainment. A sister of Rosowina's mother was a nun in the cloister of Frauenalb, and Rosowina was permitted occasionally to visit her, and had here enjoyed the opportunity of making the acquaintance of several noble young ladies of the neighborhood. She met some of them on this occasion, whom she accompanied into the spacious garden of the convent. Among these was the young Countess Agnes of Eberstein, with whom as she was sauntering through an avenue of umbrageous beeches, suddenly there stood before her the abbot of the convent and the young man who had attracted her attention in the church, who, side by side, had emerged from a side-way path into the main walk. Rosowina trembled in joyful alarm as she recognized her admirer: her first thought was to return or retreat, but, without a manifest discourtesy, this was now impossible. Neither was the Countess Agnes at all willing to escape, but rather forced forward the reluctant Rosowina, welcoming at the same time the youthful stranger as her beloved brother, the Count Otto of Eberstein. After mutual salutations, Agnes introduced Rosowina to her brother, who was delighted to recognize in the object of his admiration the friend of his sister. He made advances toward a conversation, but the abbot, whose heart was less sensible to beauty, would not, even for a few short minutes, postpone the subject of their discussion. At the banquet, however, which followed, it was easy for the Count of Eberstein, from his high connection with the monastery, to choose his place, and he placed himself opposite Sir Beringer and his daughter. {849} The knights had met occasionally before, and a nearer acquaintance was soon made. To an engaging person Sir Otto united the attractions of polished manners, of knowledge extensive for that period, acquired by residence in most of the courts of Europe, and of a lively conversational talent, which rendered him everywhere a welcome addition to society. With so many claims on her regard, it was little wonderful that Rosowina should accept with pleasure the homage of the count, and encourage in his breast the most delightful of hopes.

About that time the Counts of Eberstein had built a new castle above the beautiful valley of the Murg, not far from the family residence of their ancestors. The splendor of Neueberstein was the subject of universal conversation, and all who had the opportunity of seeing the new palace were eager to embrace the privilege. An invitation from Count Otto to the Knight of Waldenfels and his daughter was only natural, and was no less naturally accepted with especial welcome.

Warm and mild shone the bright autumn sun on the lovely valley of the Murg, as Sir Beringer and his daughter rode on beside the crystal stream; nor could Rosowina suppress the thought how she might ere long ascend the steep winding pathway to the castle no longer its visitor, but its mistress. Sir Otto met his guests at the castle-gate, and, with eyes beaming with joy, more especially as he saw the joy was mutual, lifted Rosowina from her palfrey. After brief rest and refreshment, the inspection of the castle began. Halls and chambers were duly examined, and at last the party ascended the rampart of the loftiest tower, whence an enchanting prospect met the eye. Far below them the Murg rolled its restless waters, now flowing peaceful between banks of lively green, now toilsomely forcing its passage between wild masses of rock. On either side the dusky hills towered above the scene; and here and there now glimmered out of the shadow of the forest a solitary mountain village, now a mass of mighty cliffs; and as the eye descended the rapid mountain stream, it rested on the blooming plain of the Rhine, where, in the violet tints of distance, arose the awful barrier of the Vosges. Lost in the magnificent spectacle stood Rosowina, unable to satiate her eye on the glorious picture, and unaware that Otto was close beside her, contemplating with secret pleasure the beautiful spectatress. At length the involuntary exclamation escaped her, "A paradise indeed!"

Then found she herself softly clasped in a gentle arm, and her hand affectionately pressed, while a well-known voice uttered softly, "And would not Rosowina make this place 'a paradise indeed,' were she to share it with me!"

Unable now to suppress her feelings, Rosowina replied by a glance more expressive than any words. She returned that evening with her father to Waldenfels the happy affianced bride of Count Otto of Eberstein.

On a bright spring morning, symbolizing well the feelings of the lovers, the marriage solemnity was held at the Castle of Neueberstein, with all the pomp and state of the period, which few understood better than Otto to display. From towers and battlements innumerable banners, with the Eberstein colors and blazonry, floated gallantly in the morning breeze, and the portal, adorned with wreaths and arras, cast wide its hospitable gates. Toward noon appeared, in the midst of a glittering pageant, the bride, magnificently arrayed, but brighter in her incomparable beauty; and all praised the choice of Otto, and agreed that he could have selected no worthier object to grace his halls. Rosowina, however, felt unaccountably distressed. It was not the confusion of maiden modesty it was not the embarrassment of the bride that troubled the serenity of her heart. She knew not herself what it was; but it weighed upon her mind like the foreboding of a threatening misfortune. {850} An image, moreover, arose to her thought which long had seemed to have vanished from her memory, even that of the unhappy Heinrich von Gertingen. She endeavored to repress her anxiety, and succeeded so well that the happy bride-groom saw not the cloud of sorrow that shaded the fair brow of his bride. But when the priest had spoken the words of blessing, the last spark of gloomy foreboding was extinct, and with untroubled tenderness she returned her bridegroom's nuptial kiss, reproaching him smilingly, and yet seriously, for exclaiming, as he did, with solemn appeals, that all the joys of paradise and all the bliss of heaven were poor and insipid pleasures in comparison of the happiness which he enjoyed in calling her his own.

The nuptial banquet followed. It was served with profuse splendor; but when the joy was at its height, and the castle resounded with jubilant voices, and the dance was about to begin, a page announced a stranger knight, who wished to speak to the bridegroom; and forthwith a figure walked into the hall. The stranger's armor and mantle were black, and he wore his visor down. He proceeded with stately advance to the place where the newly wedded pair were seated at the table, made a low reverence, and spoke with a hollow and solemn tone:

"I come, honored Count of Eberstein, on the part of my master, the powerful monarch of Rachenland, [Footnote 304] to whose court the celebrity of this occasion and of your bride has come, to assure you of the interest which he takes in your person, and his gratification in the event of this day."

[Footnote 304: _Anglicè_, "The Land of Vengeance."]

His speech was interrupted by a page, who, kneeling, presented him with a goblet of wine. But the stranger waved aside the honor, and requested, as the highest favor that could be shown him, that he might lead the first dance with the bride. None of the company had heard of Rachenland; but the knowledge of distant countries was not then extensive, and the representative of a mighty prince could not be refused the usual courtesy. Rosowina, however, at the first appearance of the stranger knight, had experienced an unaccountable shuddering, which amounted almost to terror, as, leading her forth to the dance, he chilled her whole frame with the freezing touch which, even through his gauntlet, seemed to pierce her very heart. She was forced to summon all her strength to support herself during the dance, and was painfully impatient for its conclusion. At length the desired moment arrived, and her partner conducted her back to her seat, bowing courteously, and thanking her. But at that instant she felt even more acutely the icy coldness of his hand, while his glowing, penetrating eye, through his visor, seemed to burn for a moment into her very soul. As he turned to leave, a convulsive pang rent her heart, and, with a shriek, she sank lifeless on the floor. Instant and universal was the alarm; all rushed to the scene of the calamity; and in the confusion of the moment the stranger knight vanished.

Inexpressible was the grief of all. In the bloom of beauty and rich fulness of youth lay the bride, cold and inanimate, a stark and senseless corpse. Every conceivable appliance was tried to recall departed life; but departed it had for ever, and all attempts were vain; and when it was ascertained beyond a doubt that not the smallest hope remained, the guests in silence left the house of mourning, and the inhabitants of the castle were left alone with their sorrow.

Three days had now passed away. The corpse of Rosowina rested in the vault of the castle chapel, and the mourners, after paying the last honors to the dead, had again departed. Otto, left alone at Eberstein, refused all human consolation. The first stupefaction of sorrow had now given place to a clamorous and boundless despair. {851} He cursed the day of his nativity, and in his wild desperation cried aloud that he would readily sacrifice the salvation of his soul, and renounce his claim on eternal happiness, were it only granted him to spend the rest of life at Rosowina's side.

Before the door of the vault in which the young countess slept the wakeless sleep, Gisbrecht kept watch and ward. Gisbrecht was an old man-at-arms of the house of Eberstein, which he had served faithfully for more than forty years. He was a warrior from his youth, and had stood loyally at the side of his master, and of his master's father and grandfather, in many a bloody conflict; fear, except the fear of God, which he diligently cultivated, was a stranger to his soul. With slow and measured tread he paced up and down at his station, meditating the sudden death of the young and beautiful countess, and thence passing in thought to the instability and nothingness of all human things. Often had his glance fallen on the entrance to the vault; but now--what was that? Scarcely did he trust his eyes; yet it was so. The gate opened, and a white-robed figure came forth from the depths of the sepulchre. For a while, Gisbrecht stood motionless, with bated breath, but fearless, while the apparition approached him. But when he gazed nearer on the pale, ashy countenance, and recognized beyond a doubt the features of Rosowina, the horrors of the spirit-world came upon him; and, impelled by an unutterable terror, he rushed up the steps, and along the corridor which led to his lord's chamber, unheeding the call of the white figure, which followed close upon his track.

Count Otto, in his despair, was turning himself from side to side upon his bed, when he heard a heavy knock upon the door; and, as he rose and opened it, there stood old Gisbrecht, pale, trembling, with distorted features, and scarcely able to stammer out from his trembling lips:

"O my lord count! the Lady of Waldenfels--"

"Art mad, Gisbrecht!" cried the count, astonished at the manner and words of the old man.

"Pardon me, lord count," continued Gisbrecht, stammering; "I meant to say the young departed countess--"'

"O Rosowina!" exclaimed the count, with an involuntary sigh.

"Here she is--thy Rosowina!" cried a pallid female form, which, with these words, precipitated herself into the count's embrace.

The count knew not what to think. He was overpowered with astonishment. Was it a dream? was it an apparition? or was it Rosowina indeed? Yes, it was indeed she. It was her silver voice. Her heart beat, her lips breathed, the mild and angelic features were there. It was Rosowina indeed, whom, wrapt in the cerements of the grave, he held in his embrace.

On the morrow, the wondrous tale was everywhere told in the castle and the neighborhood. The Countess Rosowina had not died; she had only been in a trance. The sacristan, fortunately, had not fastened the door of the vault, and the countess, on awakening, had been enabled by the light of the sepulchral lamp to extricate herself from the coffin, and to follow the affrightened sentinel to his master's chamber.

And now at Castle Eberstein once more all was liveliness and joy. But boundless as had been the despair of the count at his loss, he did not feel happy in his new good fortune. It seemed as though a secret unknown something intervened between him and his youthful bride. He found no more in her eye that deep expression of soul that so oft had awakened his heart to transports of joy; the gaze was dead and cold. The warm kiss imprinted on her chilly lips met never a return. Even her character was opposite to all he had expected. As a bride, loving and gentle, trustful and devoted, open and sincere, now was she sullen, testy, and silent. Every hour seemed these peculiarities to unfold themselves more; every day they become mere unendurable. {852} Often was his kiss rejected, sometimes with bitter mockery; if he left her awhile through annoyance, she reproached him, and filled the castle with complaints of his neglect and aversion; when business called him abroad, she tortured him with the most frightful jealousy. Even in her manners and inclinations the Countess of Eberstein was an actual contrast to the heiress of Waldenfels; all in her was low, ignoble, and mean; one habit was chiefly remarkable in her, always to cross her husband, to distress and annoy him, to embitter all his joys, to darken all his pleasures. And soon it became the common saying of the neighborhood: "The Count of Eberstein thought he had been courting an angel, but he had brought home a dragon from an opposite world."

With inexhaustible patience, with imperturbable equanimity, Count Otto endured these annoyances. No complaint, no reproach, ever passed his lips. He had loved Rosowina too faithfully, too entirely, to let the conduct of her whom he now called his wife so soon extinguish the passion of his heart. But these disappointed hopes, this perpetual struggle between love and despised self-esteem, and this concealment of the sharpest pangs of his soul, gnawed at the very germ of life, and destroyed it at its core. A slow fever seized him, and he was now visibly decaying, and approaching the grave. One morning he was found unexpectedly in the death-struggle. He asked for the chaplain of the castle, in order to make his dying confession; but the holy man only arrived in time to witness his last most agonizing groans. At the same moment a frightful crash shook the foundations of the castle, the doors of the burial-vault sprang open, and some of the domestics saw the spectral form of Rosowina sweep into it, and vanish in the darkness.

The deserted castle of Neueberstein sank in ruins, uninhabited for many centuries; the popular belief being that Otto and Rosowina continued to appear in its haunted apartments, and to set forth thereby the solemn lesson, that _he makes the most foolish and wicked of bargains, who gains even the whole world, if he lose his own soul._

From The Lamp.

The Miner.

From The German of Novalis.

In a room of a clean inn sat a group of men, partly travellers, partly persons that had entered to drink a glass of beer, who conversed with each other on various subjects. The attention of the company was particularly directed to an old man in strange attire who was seated at a table, and answered in a friendly manner all the questions which were put to him.

"He came from foreign parts," he said; and was a native of Bohemia. From early youth he had had a vehement longing to know what was hidden within the mountains whence the water gushed up into the springs, and where we found the gold, silver, and precious stones, which have attractions so irresistible for man. In the church of the neighboring monastery he had often gazed upon the solid brilliancy of the images and reliquaries, and wished that they could speak and tell him of their mysterious origin. {853} He had heard sometimes that they came from far distant lands; but he had asked himself why these treasures and gems should not be found in his own district. Not without a purpose were the mountainous regions so vast, and preserved so securely; so it seemed to him, as sometimes on the hills he found bright and glittering stones. He had often clambered into clefts and caverns, and beheld with unspeakable pleasure those primeval halls and vaults. At length he once met a traveller who advised him to become a miner, by which means he might gratify his curiosity. He had told him that there were miners in Bohemia; and that, if he followed the downward course of the river, he would after ten or twelve days' journey arrive at Eula; there he had only to speak, and he might at once become a miner. He had not sought for further information; but the next day had set out on his journey.

"After a fatiguing walk of several days," he continued, "I arrived at Eula. I cannot express the joy I felt when from the summit of a hill I saw large piles of stones, overgrown with shrubs, and upon which stood little wooden huts; and when in the valley below I saw clouds of smoke rolling over the wood, a distant noise increased the eagerness of my expectation. With wonderful curiosity, and full of silent devotion, I stood upon one of the stone mounds before the black abyss, which, from the interior of the hut, led down straight into the mountain. Then I hastened down the valley, where I met some darkly-clad men with lamps, who, as I rightly supposed, were miners. With bashful anxiety I mentioned my design to them; they listened to me with kindness, and bade me go to the melting house and inquire for the surveyor, who would at once inform me whether or not my offer would be accepted. They thought that my wish would be fulfilled, and told me the usual words of salutation, '_Glück auf!_' with which I should accost the surveyor. Full of joyful expectation, I left them, and could never cease repeating to myself the novel salutation, so full of significance.

"I found a venerable old man, who, when I told him my history, and had informed him of my eager desire to learn his curious and mysterious art, promised in a very friendly manner to grant my request. I seemed to please him; and he kept me in his house. With impatience I waited for the hour when I should descend into the mine, and see myself clothed in the costume which had so great a charm in my eyes. That evening he brought me a suit of miner's clothes, and taught me the use of several instruments, which he kept locked up in a room.

"In the evening several miners came to him; and although for the most part their language and the subjects of their conversation were unintelligible and novel to me, I endeavored not to miss a single word of what was said. The little, however, which I fancied I understood increased my curiosity, and suggested strange dreams to me during the night.

"I awoke betimes, and was soon with my new host, around whom the miners gradually assembled to receive his orders. A room in his house was fitted up as a chapel. A monk appeared, who said mass, and afterward recited a solemn prayer, in which he besought the Almighty to take the miners into his holy keeping, to support them in their perilous toil, to shield them from the assaults and malice of evil spirits, and richly to bless their labors.

"Never before had I prayed with so much fervor, or felt in so lively a manner the high significance of the divine office. My future companions seemed to me, as it were, subterranean heroes who had to surmount a thousand dangers, but whose lot was enviable from the wonderful knowledge they possessed, and who, through their solemn and silent acquaintance with the primeval caverns of nature, were in her dark and marvellous chambers endued with heavenly gifts and blissfully raised above all the annoyances of the world.

{854}

"At the close of the service the surveyor gave me a lamp and a small wooden crucifix, and went with me to the shaft, as we call the steep entrance to the subterranean abode. He showed me the manner of descent, and instructed me in the names of the numerous objects and their divisions. Holding a rope, which was attached by a knot to a side-post, with one hand, and a lighted lamp with the other, he began to descend. I followed his example; and, proceeding at a somewhat rapid pace, we soon arrived at a considerable depth.

"A feeling of deep solemnity pervaded my mind, and the light which moved before me seemed, as it were, a fortunate star which guided me to the secret treasuries of nature. We reached below a labyrinth of paths; and my friendly master was never wearied answering all my questions, and instructing me in his art.

"The murmur of the water, the distance from earth's inhabited surface, the darkness and intricacy of our route, and the sound from afar of the miners at work, filled me with extraordinary pleasure, and I felt with joy that I was now in full possession of that which it had ever been my earnest desire to possess. It is impossible to explain and describe the full satisfaction of an inborn desire--that wonderful pleasure one finds in things which have some secret connection with one's inmost being, and in occupations to which one is called, and for which from his cradle his nature is adapted. Perhaps to most people these might appear obscure, vulgar, or repulsive, but to me they seemed as necessary as air or food.

"My aged master was much pleased with my genuine satisfaction, and predicted that my zeal and attention would insure success. With what rapture did I see for the first time in my life, now more than five-and-forty years ago, the king of metals lying in delicate leaves in the clefts of the rock! It seemed to me as though he were here kept in close imprisonment, and shone with pleasure upon the miner who with so much danger and labor had cloven his way to him through strong walls to bring him to the light of day, so that he might be honored in royal crowns and vessels and holy reliquaries, and might lead and govern the world in valued and well earned coin.

"Thenceforth I remained at Eula, and rose by degrees to the grade of _hewer_--who alone among the miners carries on the work on the rock itself from carrying out the loose metal in baskets, to which work I had been at first appointed.

"On the day when I became a hewer my aged master laid his hand on his daughter's head and on mine, and blessed us as bride and bridegroom. On the same day before sunrise I had cut open a rich vein. The duke gave me a gold chain with his likeness on a large medal, and promised me my step-father's situation. What happiness was mine when on our wedding-day I hung it round the neck of my bride, and all eyes were fixed upon her! Our old father lived to see several grandchildren, and at length passed in peace from the dark mine of this world to await the great day of general retribution."

Here the old miner paused awhile and wiped away some tears from his eyes.

"Oh!" he at last exclaimed, God's blessing must needs rest upon the miner's labors; for there is no craft which makes its workers more fortunate and more noble-minded, which tends more to excite faith in God's wisdom and providence, and which preserves purer innocence and youthfulness of heart than that of the miner. Poor is he born into the world, and poor he leaves it. It is his high joy to discover where the potent minerals are to be found, and to bring them to light; but their dazzling brilliancy has no influence over his heart. {855} Free from all perilous covetousness, his pleasure is rather derived from their wonderful formation, the singularity of their origin and their _habitats_, than from their possession, though it promises all things. They have no greater charm for him than if they were common wares; and he would rather seek for them through toil and danger in the deep fastnesses of the earth, than strive for them on its surface by illusive and fraudulent arts. That toil keeps his heart fresh and his mind courageous; he enjoys his scanty pay with genuine thankfulness, and ascends every day from the dark scenes of his calling with renewed pleasure in life. He alone knows the real charm of light and repose, the beneficent influence of the fresh air and the prospects which meet his eye. With what zest and thankfulness does he eat his daily bread, and with what friendly feelings does he associate with his fellows and taste the pleasures of familiar conversation! In his solitude he thinks with hearty good-will of his companions and his family, and feels ever renewed in his mind the mutual needfulness and relationship of men. His calling teaches him unwearied patience, and never permits him to waste his attention on unprofitable thoughts. He has to deal with wonderfully hard and inflexible power, which can only be overcome by obstinate labor and constant vigilance.

"But what a splendid plant he finds growing and blooming in these dreadful depths! It is real trust in his heavenly Father, whose hand and providence are daily made visible to him by unmistakable signs. How often have I sat down in my place of work and contemplated by the light of my lamp my rude crucifix with the truest devotion! There for the first time did I rightly comprehend the holy significance of that mysterious symbol; there has my heart felt its noblest impulses, which have been of continual use to me.

"Truly he must have been a godlike man who first taught the miner's craft, and hid in the bosom of the rocks that solemn emblem of human life. Here the vein discloses itself wide and unworked but valueless. There the rocks confine it within a narrow obscure cleft; but there it is found of the noblest proportions. Other veins running into it debase it, until it is joined by one of a similar nature, which finally enhances its value. Often it breaks before the miner in a thousand fragments; but he is not discouraged. He pursues his work quietly, and presently sees his perseverance rewarded as it stretches itself before him in increased dimensions. Sometimes an illusive fragment leads him astray, but, soon perceiving his mistake, he vigorously breaks through it till he finds the vein leading to the true ore. How well acquainted is the miner with all the humors of chance! but how thoroughly does he understand that zeal and perseverance are the only real means to manage them and to take from them their obstinately defended treasures!"

{856}

Miscellany.

_Photographs of Churches in France._--This year's issue of transcripts from ancient Gothic buildings and portions of buildings by the Architectural Photographic Association is unusually interesting, not only on account of the beauty and clearness of the sun-pictures of which it consists, but of the subjects that have been chosen for the camera. These contain no renaissance examples or specimens of sixteenth century craft in imposing semi-barbarous fronts on noble Gothic churches of earlier date, as in the works at Belloy, Luzarches, and Verteuil. These changes had remarkable interest of their own, and were acceptable to the student who cared to see how great was the debt of the remodelling architect to his middle age forerunner. The studies now before us range from St. Georges de Boscherville, founded in 1050 by Ralph de Tancarville, chamberlain to William the Conqueror, to the very beautiful and interesting west front of the church at Civray, which, like its greater neighbor, Notre Dame de Grande, at Poitiers, also represented here, dates from the first half of the twelfth century, through the curious rather than important early church of St. Ours, at Loches, at the door of which stands a Roman altar that appears to have been used as a font; the superb portals of Notre Dame, at Chartres, of which we have five admirable photographs; St. Julien, at Le Mans; the interior of the church of St. Pierre, at Lisieux, the west front of the same, with its unequal but beautiful towers; and the church of St. Riquier, near Abbeville, which may be said to have been discovered by Dr. Whewell, and is a splendid Flamboyant work, with certain elements of decoration that assimilate it with those of perpendicular. Of this church we should very much enjoy a good interior view, on account of its value in illustrating the happy union of early French Gothic with much later Flamboyant. To these must be added a view of the very fine Flamboyant west front of St. Wulfram, at Abbeville, an admirable example of its kind, and the west front of the cathedral of St. Gatien, at Tours, a work which was begun in 1440, and brought to perfection in 1500, under Robert de Lenoncour, then archbishop. We can only find one fault in this series, that is, the excessive number of doorways it contains. A doorway, or series of portals, is one of the happiest fields for architectural art; but there is a disproportion in this respect here, where, out of twenty-two examples, we have but one interior view, that of St. Pierre, at Lisieux, and three general views, two of which comprise portals.

St. Georges de Boscherville is one of the best known examples of the early Norman churches, and remarkable for the extreme simplicity of its exterior, its fine proportions, beautiful central tower, and high octagonal spire. Interiorly, the building is much richer than without, and comparatively light in style; the west front is among the most highly ornamented examples of its kind and date in Normandy, and comprises a round-headed arch with five concentric roll-mouldings, with as many shafts in the side of the entrance, and is decorated with beaked heads, frets, cables, and chevrons to an unusual degree, and capital in design. The apse of this church, which is shown in the view before us, is very curious. The western turrets are works of the thirteenth century.

Notre Dame, at Poitiers, is too well known to the artist and antiquary to need commendation or description here; the design is a noble one, and happily illustrates the Romanesque of Poitou. It has been remarked that the window, which resembles that at Civray in position, has been converted from the original round form to a tall shape, and that this was done to admit the introduction of painted glass. We believe this is a mistake, and the window retains its pristine form. The window at Civray was certainly never circular. The canopied niches of fifteenth century work, at the sides of this window, which once disfigured the façade, have been removed by late restorers of the edifice, obviously to the improvement of the design. We do not see in the two views of the church of St. Ours, at Loches, enough to demand a double illustration: one better selected view than either of those which appear here would be enough. {857} A general prospect of the church would have been valuable as an illustration of its four tourelles, with their roofs of stone, after the manner of those in the west front of Notre Dame, at Poitiers. Doubtless the low porch of the church at Loches, which is not shown in the photograph, prevented the selection of a more powerful effect of light and shade, and interfered with the choice of points of view. Mr. Petit has carefully analyzed this church in his Architectural Studies of France. We have also a view of the details of the doorway exterior representing the carvings of what may be called the imperfect capitals of the jambs. The glorious porches of Chartres, especially that magnificent one on the south side, are admirably represented in five photographs. These give the south doorway, north doorway, details of the north doorway, doorways of the west front; the last represents the long-robed statues of the royal saints and other features of the Porte Royale, (so called, probably because Henry the Fourth entered by it to his coronation,) after they left the restorer's hands, and is a fine, clear photograph.--_Athenaeum_.

_Newspaper Zoölogy_.--The Pall Mall Gazette has published the following interesting note: "The Courier de Saigon reports some extraordinary items of natural history from the land of the Anamites. There is a certain fish, called Ca-ong in the language of the country, which has distinguished itself to that degree that the king has bestowed upon it the proud title of 'Nam hai dui bnong gnan,' which, as everybody knows, means 'Great General of the South Sea.' It appears that this laudable fish is in the habit of quietly paddling round the ships near the coast until somebody tumbles overboard. He then seizes him instantly, and, instead of eating him, gently carries him in his mouth to the shore. At Wung-tau, near St. James's Cape, they keep a skeleton of this extraordinary philanthropist. It is about thirty-five feet long, possesses front teeth like an elephant, very large eyes, a black skin very smooth, a tail like a lobster, and two wings on the back."

_Mechanics of Flight_.--An extremely interesting paper on this subject was read by Mr. Wenham to the Aeronautical Society. The subject is too difficult and complex to be explained briefly, and therefore we will only say that Mr. Wenham has brought into the explanation of flight the effect of the forward motion in retarding descent. Imagine a parallelogram 10 ft. long by 2 ft. broad, weighing 20 lbs. Such a body would descend in still air at the limiting rate of 1320 ft. per minute, the resistance of the air put in motion by the plane balancing at that velocity the effect of gravity. If now a force be applied horizontally so as to carry the plane with its long side forward at a speed of thirty miles per hour, then the motion of the plane being both downward and forward, a great volume of air will pass under the front margin of the plane, and will be carried downward before leaving the hinder margin. The weight of air thus put in motion will be enormous, and the descending velocity of the plane proportionately reduced. Mr. Wenham calculates that the velocity of descent would in these circumstances be reduced to one fifteenth of the passive rate of descent, or would not exceed 83 ft. per minute. Each particle of air would then be moved downward eight tenths of an inch by the passage of the plane, and conversely, if this inclination were given to the plane, it would move forward without descending. Mr. Wenham finds that few birds can raise themselves vertically in the air, the exertion in that case being excessive. The eagle can only lift itself from the ground by running with outstretched wings till its velocity having become sufficient, it glides into the air as if sliding on a frictionless plane.--_Popular Science Review_.

_A New Volcano in the South Seas_.--From a letter forwarded by the English consul at Navigators' Islands, we learn that a volcano has just broken out at Manua, about two miles from the islands of Oloscqa. It was preceded by a violent shock of earthquake, which commenced on the 5th of September, and on the 12th dense thick smoke rose out of the sea. Lava was thrown up, discoloring the water for many miles round, and destroying large quantities of fish. Wherever the ashes fell on the adjacent island, they destroyed all vegetation. Up to the middle of November dense smoke was still being thrown up. It is said that the smoke rose higher than the neighboring island, which is over 2000 feet high. The consul has been unable to ascertain whether there is any bank thrown up in the water.

{858}

_A Chemical Method for effectually Cleaning Glass_ is given in a recently published work on one of the processes of photography. It is simple, reliable, and completely efficient, and will, we doubt not, be found very useful by our readers. It is as follows: Dilute the ordinary hydrofluoric acid sold in gutta-percha bottles, with four or five parts of water, drop it on a cotton rubber, (not on the glass,) and rub well over, afterward washing till the acid is removed. The action is the same as that of sulphuric acid when used for cleaning copper; a little of the glass is dissolved off, and a fresh surface exposed. The solution of the acid in water does not leave a dead surface on the glass, as the vapor would; if a strong solution is left on long enough to produce a visible depression, the part affected will be quite bright. This method is recommended in some cases for cleaning photographic plates.

_Nature of the Earth eaten by the People of Borneo_.--The Chemical News gives us the composition of the clay which is eaten so extensively by the natives of Borneo. It states that some years ago the manager of the Orange-Nassau colliery, near Zandjermasin, in the island of Borneo, found that many of his work-people (natives) consumed large quantities of a kind of clay; a sample of this material was forwarded to Batavia for analysis, and the following is the result in 100 parts:

Pitcoal resin, (organic matter volatile at red heat,)----15.4

Pure carbon,----14.9

Silica,----38.3

Alumina,----27.7

Iron pyrites,----3.7

Total,----100.0

_Photography at the Paris Exhibition_.--On the whole, the art-science of photography plays its part well at the great French International Exhibition, and in the collective displays of various nations we find its numerous and diverse applications, improvements, and modifications fairly represented. The Austrian collection is a very attractive one, and contains some of the very best specimens of photo-lithography yet produced; its specimens of portraiture from life-size downward are of a very excellent character, and, like those of France, Prussia, and Russia, are decidedly superior to the English. In the Darmstadt contributions are some interesting specimens by Dr. Reissiz, exhibited to illustrate his theory of photogenic action. In the Prussian department a large portrait lens attracts attention; it is fourteen inches in diameter, and covers a square of thirty inches. The French department contains some interesting specimens of photographic-engraving process, of enamelled photographs, and of enlargements from microscopical photographs, amongst which is one of a flea enlarged to the size of a small pig. Amongst the novelties and applications of photography to decorative art are photographs of a singular character, illustrative of a new process called "Chrysoplasty." They represent goldsmiths' work, ancient armor, draperies embroidered with gold and silver, bronze statuary, philosophic instruments, etc., and are apparently in the same metals as the originals. This process is a secret one, but the inventor, Mr. Boeringer, is prepared to produce such photographs from any negatives which may be sent him for that purpose. He is at present making a large collection of specimens from antique curiosities and works of art in metal dispersed in the public and private museums of various nations, and with this end in view appeals to the owners and guardians of such collections, and those who have negatives of the required description, to render him assistance. In photographic portraiture, by universal consent, the French stand prominently foremost, so much so that, as The Times says, "amongst those articles which are specially called _articles de Paris_, a good photographic portrait is now to be placed." In the English department we miss most of our foremost photographers, amongst them Mr. O. G. Reglandes, Mr. T. R. Williams, and but too many others. Mr. Mayall, M. Claudet, Lock and Whitfield, Ross, and other of our chief portraitists exhibit largely, but all show but weak and mean when contrasted with their rival portraitists as represented in the French collection. As landscapists English photographers, like English painters, carry off the palm. Why landscapes by English operators so far surpass others we cannot explain, but no one with any artistic taste or judgment would hesitate to attribute the superiority of the French portraits purely and simply to a more refined taste and greater knowledge of pictorial science in their producers. {859} The English photographs display little merit beyond such as belongs exclusively to the skilful management of good tools, while the French photographers are evidently, as a rule, artists studying such things as lighting, posing and arranging, exposing and developing with considerable artistic knowledge and preconceived design, the former with a view to putting a picture before the lens, and the latter with a view to its faithful reproduction in the operating room. Two of the great secrets of their greater success will, we believe, be found to reside in the much longer exposures they give their plates in the camera, and in the use of a developer not so rapid in its action as to escape control during development. The great cry in England has been for short exposures and powerful developers, things which war against the subtle delicacies of gradations from light to dark, and from darks into reflected lights, which constitute one of the most special and striking peculiarities of the best French portraits. Refer back to past volumes of the English photographic journals, and this craving for extraordinary rapidity coupled with frequent mention of the extraordinary long exposures given on the continent, where the light is more powerful and the atmosphere more pure, will be found. You will also perceive that, while articles tending directly and indirectly to give mechanical manipulation and good tools all the credit of increased success crowd their pages to a wearying degree of sameness and repetition, papers of a truly art-educational character are extremely rare, in consequence, we have been informed, of the little real appreciation they meet with from English photographic students. Hence probably the inartistic and tasteless character displayed by their photographs when contrasted with those of our more artistic and tasteful neighbors.--_Popular Science Review._

Original.

New Publications.

Melpomene Divina; or, Poems' on Christian Themes. By Christopher Laoinedon Pindar. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1867.

This is an elegant little volume, but not a volume of elegant poetry. We feel unwilling to speak adversely of the effusions of a youthful author, (we suppose his youth from several poems given as "youthful efforts" as late as the year 1861,) but the truth must be honestly told, if told at all, both for young and old; and the truth is, that this book contains many easy rhymes, but very little poetic thought. The verses, too often faulty in rhythm, abound with sentences that can hardly be called good English, as, for instance, (p. 90:)

"He gazed and gazed, and deeper still The soft attachment grew, And nearer to the charmful maid His loving soul him drew."

And again, (p. 172;)

"Only pray I thee, whom first saint In America God chose, Grant that countless maids may rival In my land thee, heavenly Rose!"

In a little translation entitled The Fisher's Wife we find a verse which will illustrate the desire we now express that the writer had husbanded his poetical ability, and allowed it to find expression in a lesser number of poems more carefully worded. He might then have given us a volume of some merit. We quote:

"'O horror and woe! now breaks my poor heart! Out must I to gain relief!' She cries, and rushes from out the house, The mother in fear and grief.

"And silently drifts a corse to the shore Strewn with trees and sedge and tan; There lies he all naked on the black sand: 'O merciful God! my man!'"

{860}

With so many evidences of the author's acquaintance with the classic poets upon these pages, we are surprised to meet with such words as "bluey," "bleaky," "browny," and the like; together with elisions, as "'T" for "it," to begin a line; "need'd" for "needed;" and such unwarrantable extensions as giving three syllables to words like "Christian," "solely," etc. We feel so much pleased, however, with his modest introduction to the volume that we will allow him to speak here for himself: "That the book is very imperfect, I am fully convinced of; that it be but taken by another as a spur to elicit a more perfect one in illustration of a similar theme, is my earnest desire. The many and almost unceasing demands of a higher order have allowed me to bestow only a few 'tempora subseciva' on a work to which I would have gladly devoted day and night. As such it can hardly be anything else than deficient in many respects. Yet if I be the cause of giving to but one person the pleasure of a moment in perusing these pages, and still more, if one be thence inspired to send a whisper of love to the saintly beings carolled in them, I shall consider myself happy, and my labors more than sufficiently repaid."

----

The Two Roads, Gabriel, Martha, Bread Of Forgiveness, Flowers From Heaven, Fragments Of Correspondence. P. O. Shea, Publisher, New York.

This is a series of beautiful stories, from the French, on the beatitudes. They are well translated, and published in good style.

----

Science Of Happiness; or, The Beatitudes in Practice. By Mader Bourdon. P. O. Shea, New York.

This volume contains the stories mentioned above bound together, so as to make another book.

----

Studies In The Gospels. By Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D. New-York: Charles Scribner & Co.

The author of this volume is well known from his valuable philological works. This volume of Studies is composed of sixteen chapters of expository notes on different parables and events recorded in the gospels. He has made free use of the standard commentaries, both Catholic and Protestant. We cannot attach any critical value to the work, as we observe that, where Maldonatus and the fathers go against the system to which he is committed, he passes over what they have said, and gives us instead the opinion of Calvin or his own. The volume contains, however, many suggestive thoughts, clothed in pure, good English. The typographical appearance of the volume is remarkably good.

----

Mr. P. F. Cunningham, Philadelphia, has in press, and will soon publish, The new Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, edited by Edward Healy Thompson, and which has just appeared in London. It will make a volume of about four hundred pages.

Messrs. Benziger Bros., New York and Cincinnati, are about to publish Rome and the Popes: translated from the German of Dr. Karl Brandes, by Rev. W. T. Wiseman, Professor of Church History in Seton Hall Seminary.