Chapter V.

Robert's first wish had been to send Aimée away, but she shrank from the idea, and as Dr. Bruce considered the risk of infection had already been run, he did not press the point. He was careful to take her out as much as possible into the open air, and to prevent the silence and gloom of the house from depressing her. Mr. Morton's life was in the utmost danger, and therefore, do what they would, they could not be so cheerful as before. Hitherto the lovers had, by a tacit consent, avoided the mention of Aimée's uncle; for the six months that had elapsed since she had entered his doors had made no difference apparently in Mr. Morton's feelings toward her. He was as icy as ever; and when her engagement was announced, he never wished her joy or seemed glad of it for her sake. Cold and hard he naturally was, but Aimée could not but feel that he had an actual dislike to her; for he would smile now and then at Mr. Hulme's jokes, and his manner to Robert often verged on cordiality. With her only he was invariably silent, stern, and freezing; and poor Aimée's heart, so full of affection, so ready to be grateful for the little he did for her, felt deeply pained. But now Robert and she spoke anxiously of that soul which was hanging in the balance between life and death. He had lived without God, in open defiance of his laws, in avowed disbelief of the very existence of his Maker, and now was he, without an hour's consciousness, without any space for repentance, to be hurried into the presence of his Judge? They shrank in horror from the thought; and many were their prayers, many were the Masses offered up that God in his mercy would not cut off this man in his sins. Their prayers were granted; he did not die, and after three weeks of intense anxiety, the crisis passed, and he began to mend. Mental improvement was not to be perceived with returning health. No expression of gratitude for having escaped death crossed his lips--apparently the shadow of death had not terrified him--he rose up from his sick-bed as hard, as cynical, as icy as before. And Aimée's fond hope that at last he would thaw to her was disappointed. As soon as Mr. Morton could leave his room, Dr. Bruce prescribed change of air; and it was arranged that Robert and Aimée should accompany him. Mrs. Connell was so thoroughly used up with nursing that she was to be sent to take a holiday among her friends in Ireland.

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It was hard work to persuade Mr. Morton to go at all, still harder to find a place to suit him; he moved from spot to spot, till at last, to his companions' surprise, he seemed to take a fancy for a wild spot on the North Devon coast, and there settled down for some weeks. It was a most out-of-the-way spot, and the only place in which they could reside was a homely village inn. It pleased him, however, and day by day he rapidly regained his strength. Robert and Aimée were well contented; the beauty and quiet of the place were delightful, and not a mile from it was a Catholic church, which happened to be served by a priest who had known Robert in his boyhood. Great was Aimée's pleasure in listening to their laughing reminiscences of bygone years, and greater still was her happiness when she chanced to be left alone with Father Dunne, and he spoke of Robert, of his innocent childhood, his holy life, the bright example he set in his position, and assured her that few women had won such a prize as she had for life. Then Aimée's heart swelled with joy and pride. On one lovely day in June, Aimée was specially happy; for her uncle's improvement was so marked, Robert had been asking her to fix an early day in July for their wedding. Mr. Hulme and Mrs. Connell could join them, and they could be married at this little church, which had become dear to them, and Father Dunne could pronounce the nuptial benediction. Aimée greatly preferred this to being married in London, and her heart was very light. That morning she had knelt by Robert's side at communion. She could not help observing the rapt, almost celestial expression of his face afterward. It was the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and Father Dunne had Benediction early in the afternoon.

As they walked to church together, their conversation turned on religious subjects, and Robert spoke in a more unreserved way than he had ever done before. He spoke of Heaven, the rest it would be after earth's toils, of the sweetness of sacrifice, of the joy of God's service. Aimée was silent. He looked down into her face.

"Well," he said, smiling, "is it not true?"

"O Robert!" she cried, "your love is heaven to me now! Is not, oh! is not mine so to you?"

"No, my Aimée," he answered, gravely yet sweetly; "my heart's darling, God first, then you."

"I cannot!" she answered, in a stifled voice.

"You will soon, darling, never fear. I prayed this morning that our love might be sanctified, might draw us closer to God--and I feel it will be so. Pray with me for it at Benediction."

So they went and knelt before the altar, and their Lord blessed them as they bent before him. Passing out of church, Father Dunne joined them, and remarked on the beauty of the evening.

"We shall go with my uncle on the cliff," said Aimée, "and watch the coast."

"And perhaps I shall meet you there," answered the priest, "for I have a sick call from which I can return in that direction." So saying, he turned into another road.

Mr. Morton was ready when they returned to the inn, and the three passed up on the cliff and wandered on far beyond their usual distance. They came to a part where the cliff was one sheer sheet of rock descending to the beach, save one large crag which jutted out, and on one side obscured the view. {170} Aimée had a great horror of looking down any steep place, and shrank back from the cliff, while Mr. Morton, who despised her weakness, always chose to walk at the very edge.

"See here, little one," said Robert, "here is a safe place for you." An iron stanchion had been thrust into the ground, and a thick rope was carelessly coiled round it. "It must be used for throwing signals to the boats below," said Robert, "but you can lean against it, Aimée."

"I think I shall step on that crag, Robert," said Mr. Morton, "if you will lend me an arm. I want to catch the whole view at once."

"O uncle!" said Aimée, in a tone of terror.

"Do you think it is very prudent, sir?" remarked Robert. "It is none too wide to stand on."

"Oh! very well," said Mr. Morton testily, "if you are afraid, I shall go by myself." Robert's merry laugh was the only answer, and, giving his arm to Mr. Morton, they both descended.

Aimée hid her face, sick with terror. She heard their voices for a minute, then, O horror! what was that? A crash, a rush, a sudden shout of pain! She rushed to the edge to see the crag detach itself from the rock, and the two figures falling. She saw both clutching for some support--she saw both catch hold of different bits of rock jutting out--she knew, for her senses were sharpened by fear, that they could not long sustain their weight. She thought of the rope, rushed for it, uncoiled it, and ran back. All was the work of one moment. An unnatural activity seemed to possess her. She was like one in a dream. She saw the rope would not reach both; she must choose between them; and Another could see her! But on the still evening air, with her ears quickened unnaturally, she heard oaths from one; from the other, "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Aimée threw the rope to Mr. Morton, and saw him catch it. The next instant she heard another crash--a dull _thud_, as of something falling--and nature could bear no more. Aimée fell on the ground insensible just as Father Dunne, and some laborers alarmed by the shout in the distance, came running to the spot.

When Aimée woke to consciousness, she was in her own bed at the inn. Her first thought was, that she had been dreaming; but she started back, the landlady was walking by her, and now came forward, trying to put on an appearance of composure.

"My uncle?" said Aimée.

"Lies in bed, miss, and going on well," answered the good woman hurriedly.

Aimée gave one searching look into Mrs. Barton's face, and sank back on her pillow. In another moment the door opened, Mrs. Barton disappeared, and Father Dunne stood by her side. The silent look at him was all she gave.

"Yes, my child," he said, "your sacrifice has been accepted, and Robert is with those who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." And then, sitting down beside her, the priest drew out the truth which, by a sudden instinct, he had all but guessed. No one but he ever knew it; it was generally believed that Robert had failed to catch the rope when thrown to him--he had fallen on the beach, and was dashed to pieces. Aimée could not look upon his form or kiss for the last time the pale, cold face. He had passed in one brief instant from her sight for aye. In the heat of noonday her sun had gone down.

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From this fresh shock to his constitution Mr. Morton could not rally; he was fearfully shaken and bruised, but he lingered many weeks, and Aimée waited on him with a daughter's care. And at last the stern heart was softened, and Mr. Morton implored mercy from the God he had so long offended. He died a sincere penitent; and the grief for Robert's death caused a salutary change in Mr. Hulme also. Aimée had now become a great heiress, but money cannot heal a broken heart. She would fain have remained in the little village where the tragedy of her life had been worked out, and devote herself to the poor; but Father Dunne would not allow it, and to him she now looked for guidance and help. He made her go to Italy and Rome in company with some quiet friends of his own for two years; and time and the sight of the woes of others gradually softened Aimée's grief. And by degrees a great peace stole over her spirit; a love deeper than hers for Robert took possession of her heart; and the hour came when she acknowledged that in sacrifice lay much sweetness. She did not live many years; she distributed her large fortune among various good works. A fair church replaces the humble building in which Robert and she for the last time prayed together, and a convent stands near the spot where he breathed out his last sigh to God. And when her work was done, death came to Aimée; and, with a smile on her lips, and joy in her eyes, she went to meet again those fondly loved, so strangely lost on earth.

Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.

Abbot Pambo once asked Abbot Antony what he should do. The venerable man replied: Do not rely too much upon your own sanctity; never have useless regrets for what has passed, and always be watchful over your tongue and your appetite.

Saint Gregory used to say: God requires these three things of every man who has been baptized; strong and living faith, moderation in speech, and chastity of body.

Abbot Joseph the Theban said: There are three classes of men who are pleasing in the sight of the Lord. The first are those who, though weak, accept temptations with a thankful heart. The second are those who perform all their actions before God with purity of heart and without human motives. The third are those who subject themselves to the commands of their spiritual Father and entirely renounce their own will.

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Abbot Cassian narrates of Abbot John that, when he was on his deathbed and preparing to depart with joyful soul, his brethren stood around him and earnestly besought that he would leave them as an heritage a compendium, as it were, of sanctity, by means of which they might rise to that perfection which is in Christ. Then he with sighs replied: I have never done my own will, nor have I ever taught any one anything which I have not previously done myself.

Abbot Pastor said: To be watchful, to examine one's self, to be discreet, are the three great duties of the soul.

They tell of Abbot Pambo that, when about to die, he said to those holy men who stood near: From the time when I first came to this place and built my cell and dwelt therein, I do not remember to have eaten bread that I did not gain by the labor of my hands, nor have I ever repented of any thing that I have said up to this very hour. And thus I go to the Lord, I who have not even begun to serve God.

Abbot Sisois said: Be abject and cast pleasures away; be free and secure from the cares of the world, and you shall have rest.

A brother once asked a father how one may acquire a fear of the Lord. And he replied: If a man practise humility and poverty, and judge not another, he shall surely fear the Lord.

A certain father used to say: If thou hate one who speaks ill of thee, speak ill of no one; if thou hate him who calumniates thee, do not calumniate anyone; if thou hate him who injures thee or takes away what is thine, or does any thing of a like nature, do none of these things to any one. He who can observe this rule shall be saved.

All Souls' Day.

1866.

On every cross or slab, a wreath--on some, Two, three, or more--of radiant autumn leaves, Mingled with gold and white chrysanthemum; Even the nameless, unmarked grave receives Some pledge from mortal love Unto peace-parted souls, we trust, with God above.

The choral chaunt is hushed, the Mass is said: Noon, but already the last pilgrim gone: Brief visits pay the living to the dead, But once a year we meet o'er those we mourn. I wait unwatched, alone, To muse o'er some once loved, o'er many more unknown.

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That cross of marble, with its sculptured base, Guards the blest ashes of a friend whose form Was half my boyhood; his arch, laughing face-- The last you'd take to front a coming storm, Or dare what none else durst: Read how he fell, of all the best and bravest, first!

Another pastor near him lies asleep, Fresh wreaths, love-woven, mark the newer sod; Each lettered white cross bids me pause to weep Some lost companion or some man of God. Beneath this sacred ground, More friends I number than in all the world around.

There, side by side, far from the forfeit home For which they vainly bled, three soldiers rest, In sight of the round peak, whose bannered dome Crowns the defiles wherein the fiery crest Of a dead nation paled Before the heights, where erst the great Virginian failed.

Westward, a little higher up the steep, Rests a young mother--on her cross, a bar Of golden music: since she fell asleep The world she left has somehow seemed ajar; Those patient, peaceful eyes, With which she watched the world, diffused sweet harmonies.

For she was pure--pure as the snows of Yule That hailed her birth: pure as the autumnal snow That flecked her coffin: she was beautiful, Heroic, gentle: none could ever know That face and then forget: Though vanished years ago, her smile seems living yet.

And near her, happy in that nearness, lies The world-worn consul by his best-loved child-- The first rest of a life of sacrifice: The native stars, that on his labors smiled So rarely, o'er the wave Beckoned him to the peace of home--and of the grave.

Here, too, a relic of primeval ways And statelier manners, mingled with the grace Of Israel: in the evening of her days, Baptized at fourscore--strongest of her race, Yet twice a child--that rain Supernal leaving all those years without a stain.

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And thou, young soldier, teach me how to turn From earth to heaven, as in the solemn hour Thy soul was turned. Ah! well for thee to learn So soon that festal board and bridal flower May foil the out-stretched hand: That life's best conquest is the holy afterland.

Holding the very summit of the slope, A pointed chapel, girt with evergreen And frailer summer foliage--still as hope-- Watches the east for morning's earliest sheen: Beneath it slumbers one For whom the tears of unextinguished grief still run.

A twelve-month mourned, yet deeper now the loss Than when first fell the slowly sudden doom, And on her pale breast lay the unmoving cross: Lone tenant of that solitary tomb, Love's daily widowed prayer Still craves reunion in thy chambered sepulchre.

The sunset shadow of this chapel falls Upon a classmate's grave: a rare delight Laughed in his youth: but, one by one, the halls Of life were darkened, till, amid the night, A single star remained-- Bright herald of the paradise by tears regained.

High in the bending trees the north wind sings, The shining chestnut to my feet is rolled The shivering mountains, bare as bankrupt kings, Sit beggared of their purple and their gold: The naked plain below Sighs to the clouds, impatient of its robe of snow.

Death is in all things: yet how small it seems, God's chosen acre on this mountain-side: A speck, a mote: while yonder cornland gleams With hoarded plenty, stretching far and wide. A hundred acres there Content not one: one acre serves a thousand here.

Ah! we forget them in our changing lot-- Forget the past in present weal or woe; But yet, perchance, more angels guard this spot Than wander in the living fields below: And, as I pass the gate, The world without seems strangely void and desolate.

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The Function of the Subjective in Religion. [Footnote 25]

[Footnote 25: This Paper was read before the Academia of the Catholic Religion, in London, June 11, 1867, by Very Rev. W. H. Anderdon, D.D., M.A. Oxon.]

Any one not a Catholic, but fairly acquainted with the church's past and present, if he had to define by a term her prevailing character, would use some such word as _unchangeable_. He might use it with admiration, as historians have done; or with vexation and anger, as controversialists do. He might regard it as a quality that raised the church above, or kept it behind the age; made it venerable and noble, or deprived it of all progressive and free spirit. But, with evil report or good report, and in whatever contrast with the communions around it, which rise and fall, are modified and melt away, he would confess the church to be unchangeable.

The Catholic accepts this statement, and completes it by adding the cause of the church's preternatural sameness. He calls it "the pillar and ground of the truth;" the perpetual home and impregnable fortress of the divine revelation. The characteristics of the one faith, he says, follow those of the one Lord, as the shadow attends the substance which projects it. The mystical spouse is immutable in faith and morality, because with her divine Lord there is "no change nor shadow of vicissitude." The passage of centuries, phases of human society, rise, progress, and dissolution of theories and religious opinions leave her where they found her; because "Jesus Christ is yesterday and to-day, and the same forever." "_Tempus non occurrit Ecclesiae_;" because He is "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end," "who inhabiteth eternity."

This is but to say that religion is essentially objective. Religion, if true, is divine; if divine, above the recipient; if above him, authoritative; if authoritative, over him, uninfluenced by him. It is the mould and matrix in which he is to be cast and receive shape; not the material on which his mind is to work by process of individual judgment. This objective character enters so completely into the idea of revelation, that the wonder is, how the term "private judgment" should have found place in the language of professing Christians. When did it arise? Who was its author? Was it pre-Lutheran? May we not rather say, it was pre-Adamite? He who led our parents astray in Paradise, by a suggestion of private judgment, had already inaugurated what he has since taught men to call the "right" of exercising it, when he revolted against the foresight given to him of his Maker's future incarnation. And the apostle, more closely to our point, condemns all subjective religious opinions when he says, "If thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge." To judge implies superiority of intelligence, better means of knowing, and the capacity of a teacher: to learn is the acknowledgment of inferiority, and the submission of desiring to receive. But if revelation could be modified by the mind of the receiver, that is, if faith could be subjective, the disciple would be exalted into a critic, and private judgment would occupy the position of faith. The "doer of the law" and the "judge" would change places. This breaks up the whole tribunal, and implies a revolt against the primary authority of revelation.

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Hence, nothing is more common with us than to say, that the revelation which comes from God, and is proposed by the church, admits of no criticism short of absolute rejection. To one, indeed, who has never yet received this full revelation, to criticise is a necessary act, and lies on the way toward accepting. The case of the Bereans is here in point, and of those Athenians who believed when St. Paul preached on Mars' Hill. Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris criticised equally with the Epicureans and Stoics, to show the apostle was a "babbler;" though with a different result. But to one who has inherited the faith, or has been brought by private judgment, guided by the notes of the church, which are _preambula fidei_, up to the threshold, and then by an act of supernatural belief has passed within, every after-criticism means rejection. True religion must ever refuse to be treated by its disciples as opinion. If faith, it is not opinion; if it were opinion, it would cease to be faith. The choice as to revelation is a simple alternative: accept the whole and believe; reject the whole and disbelieve. _Ou Catholique, ou Déiste_, as Fénélon said long ago.

No one, then, can retain his Catholic sense, and speak of accommodating faith, or subjective religion. We have lately heard one voice from out of doors uttering incoherent words about a "maximum" and a "minimum," which are supposed to have some undefined point of junction and cohesion. [Footnote 26] But such invitations and embassies of peace sound to us like the uncouth attempts of the Thracian ambassador, in the ancient comedy, to explain in something like Greek a message into which his native tongue largely enters. It is hard to make such a foreign dialect intelligible to those who are accustomed to the pure Attic of the church's voice.

[Footnote 26: Dr. Pusey lately, in a letter to one of the public newspapers, reported a conversation which he had held with a foreign layman, who expressed his opinion that the Anglican _maximum_ and the Catholic _minimum_ might be found to coincide sufficiently to form the basis of some kind of union. In his _Eirenicon_, also, pp. 17, 18, he quotes some words from Du Pin, Dr. Doyle, an another, in proof of what he calls "the large-hearted statements of Roman Catholics of other days."]

So far we have advanced by negation. There can be nothing subjective in a revelation propounded by omniscience, and through an infallible organ. To suppose criticism or modification of dogma in the mind of the recipient, is like supposing motion during a process of photography, or of crystallization. It implies free agency indeed; but it destroys the truth and accuracy of the whole process. "Be still, and see that I am God." In this stillness, which is passiveness in one sense, and this intuitive gaze upon truths revealed, consists the high prerogative of faith. This forms its noble attribute, and lifts it to a sovereignty over all other acts of the human intelligence.

On the other hand, what place is to be found in true religion for the _subjective_ principle? In what department does or can the Catholic system adapt itself to the manifold diversities between men, enter into their idiosyncrasies, and speak to them individually? Can it become to each of us the personal and intimate thing, which may converse with us as a friend while we submit to it as an authoritative guide? Does it take account of me, with my turn of character and peculiar needs, while it promulgates canons and definitions for my acceptance, in common with the two hundred millions who own its sway? Granted that Catholicity is objective in its essence, is it subjective in any of its qualities or manifestations?

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To see the breadth of this question, it should be viewed in connection with the acknowledged needs of human nature. The first requisite to a soul is truth; and it may be said, its first act is an act of desire after truth, even abstract. But as primary, too, is man's need of some one above himself to inspire a reverential and a personal love. In order to love, indeed, he must first know; for neither will nor affections can go forth toward the utterly unknown. Still, in religious truth, love is the perfection of knowledge. "The end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith." We are created, not like the heavenly bodies, to move by unerring laws; nor like plants, to receive form and tincture undistinguishably, specimen from specimen; nor like the inferior orders of animal life, that build, migrate, seek their prey, by an instinct inherited and invariable. Man is a creature of idiosyncrasies. His thoughts, tastes, and bent, his mode of apprehending truths recognized and believed, assimilating them into himself, and developing them in action, constitute each individual a being diverse, in all that _can_ be subjective, from his brother and nearest friend. In all that can be subjective: for the very turn of these remarks will show that I would carefully guard myself within the limits of that expression. Now, the true religion appeals to man as man; and is herein distinguished from every other, which addresses a side or a section only of the human character and needs. The spirit of true religion is neither the pseudo-enthusiasm of the non-conformist, nor the surface-uniformity of the establishment, nor the false mysticism of the Society of Friends. Her appeal, like herself, is Catholic: to the four quarters of the globe, to the race that peoples earth and occupies ages, and for whom Christ died.

While, therefore, religion exacts the unquestioning assent of all, whatever their antecedent systems, modes of thought, or training, we might expect even beforehand that she would come with some adaptive power that would appeal to each. Objective to the intelligence and faith, we are permitted to desire that she should also manifest herself as subjective to the spiritual affections. For her mission is neither to reduce the individual to a machine nor to fuse her multitudes into one uniform, undistinguishable mass. She claims their unreserved and interior assent to _dogma_; for she is the embassadress of the Most High, sent into all the world, to preach the gospel to every creature. "There are no speeches nor languages" where that voice is not heard: nor any where it falters or gives an uncertain sound. But she wins the objects of her mission, meanwhile, one by one, to _devotion_, by adapting herself to the characters and specialties of her millions and races. The church knows how to modulate her authoritative tone, till it sinks into the whisper of a mother teaching her child to lisp its first prayer.

We seem now to have arrived at the distinction of which we are in search. It is surely no play of words nor mere subtlety to say that true religion must possess both the characteristics we have named: it must be objective and subjective together. Man, let us repeat, finds in himself a twofold desire to know and to love. His great desire after truth was the first and prevailing temptation under which he fell: "You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." {178} Having in his fall grasped at the shadow and let go the substance, he lost his perception of the true light and his hold upon the true love. Ignorance and concupiscence came in together. But he retained his yearning after the two-fold inheritance he had thus forfeited: an attraction to truth and a need of love. Hence the various and contradictory systems of mythology which overran the heathen world, under their double aspect (if we may so use the terms) of doctrine and devotion. Out of the depths of their debasement, and amid all their extravagance, they witnessed to the agonized desire after truth in which, says the apostle, the whole creation groaned and travailed in pain together.

Now, what was lost in the first Adam has been abundantly restored in the second. The "grace and truth" which "came by Jesus Christ" is the divine remedy for this twofold loss by the original fall: it restores light to man, the light of revelation; and love, the supernatural love of Divine Goodness. It is "faith that worketh by charity." And let us observe, between light and love there is an obvious difference: light may be described as objective, love as subjective; light is universal, love is personal; light is received upon the eye, whereas love springs up in the heart; and while light is diffused indiscriminately, love varies with the individual. In the future perfection of the glorified soul, light and love will be commensurate. "When he shall appear," says the apostle, "we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Here, in pilgrimage and imperfection, the members of the church militant possess three gifts in unequal degrees. Light is perpetually outstripping love, and we know more than we practise. Still, the efforts of the church are ever exerted to preserve to her children each of these great gifts, light and love; to perpetuate and extend the one, to heighten and intensify the other. She is "the light of the world." By her creeds, canons, definitions of doctrine, by her schools of theology, her doctorate and censorship, by the vigilance of the sacred office, by the perpetual exercise of that instinct of truth which is her attribute and inheritance, she preserves, whole and undefiled, "the faith once delivered to the saints." Her multiplied prayers, each enriched with its special indulgence, various, yet blending in one harmony and one whole like the chords of a lute or the flowers in a parterre, provide abundantly not for the mere and absolute needs of her children's souls, but, moreover, for what may be called their religious tastes and special turn of devotion. For example, the faithful laity are invited, if they have an attraction for it, to unite with her clergy and religious in reciting the canonical hours, which form her chief prayer. This is their "common prayer-book," if you will; but common only to those who prefer to communicate in it. To others of a different attraction, there is still supply for the demand.

We need only transport ourselves into the heart of some great Catholic city, to see with what unrestrained variety our brethren of the one communion unite in prayer. Let us go to Rome, "the mother of us all," the heart and centre of Christendom. In that great seat and organ of life, of vital functions and warmth, whose pulsations thrill to the extremities of the mystical body, what is practically going on? what meets the eye and ear? You pass under the walls of some monastic choir, from which the deep voices of a score of monks or the slenderer tones of cloistered nuns arrest you. {179} They have been trained, not by art, but simply by long practice of united prayer, to recite the divine office, as if theirs were not several voices blending, nor several intelligences and souls woven, in a devotion, but, like the early church, "one heart and one soul." You enter; it is not in the retrochoir alone, nor behind the grate, that the work of prayer and praise is going on. The church is more or less filled for vespers; it is a feastday; and a certain proportion, with their vesper-books in the ancient language or in their own familiar tongue, follow the words. A secular priest has turned in at the open door, on his way to some avocation, and is whispering another portion of his breviary. Near him kneels a child saying the penance for its last confession, or an old woman with her beads. Others examine their consciences and make their acts of contrition, for the confessionals will be occupied when vespers are over. Throughout the nave move three or four, quietly following the stations of the cross. On this side is an altar to the sacred heart; a member of the confraternity kneels before it: he is saying some of the prayers indulgenced for that devotion. A childless mother with slow steps passes on to pray for her dead child at the altar for the souls in purgatory. She does not distract others there, who are praying for their parents, or for the poor souls in general, or the most abandoned, the most rich in merits, or the nearest to its release. Her next neighbor offers up her own sick child to an image of the Mother of Compassion. You make way for a small tradesman leaving the church for his evening meal; he will then hasten to take his hours of night-watching and prayer in some closed sanctuary, before the Most Holy, exposed day and night for the _Quarant' ore_. By his side, sharing his night-watch, will kneel a nobleman of ancestral name, whose family has furnished popes to the Christian world. These two men are members together of the association for perpetually adoring the Blessed Sacrament; and they meet there before the Supreme, in the true "liberty, equality, fraternity" which the world aims at and the church alone produces. What is that sound of hymns coming down the street? A procession headed by a cardinal bearing a large and rude cross: he is followed by the brothers of another distinct confraternity, "the lovers of Jesus and Mary," and a miscellany of devout people. They are on their way to the Colosseum, where they, too, will make the stations of the cross, and chant their hearty and almost passionate strophes of contrition in the old consecrated amphitheatre. All is movement, all is affectionate liberty, warmth, and ease. You turn into any church that occurs, and transport your chair from part to part of the building; for you are free of the whole by the birthright of your baptism into the one body. Go from this altar to that; range, as it were, up and down the creed, now in meditation, now in vocal prayer, now alone with God, now cheered on and animated by the presence of those who pray with you. Now it is _latria_, now _hyperdulia_; now again _dulia_, then back again to _latria_; then contemplation, then any of the former resumed. Your guardian angel is at your side; you recognize it and address him. Your patron saint, the patrons of your friends for whom you are anxious, St. Peter, St. Joseph, our Lady; and the Divine Guest in the tabernacle; all are there, each (if I may say it) awaiting you in turn. {180} Whatever the feeling of the moment, or your bent of character, or special needs, there is your yearning met, and your soul's food and remedy supplied. "Thou didst feed thy people with the food of angels, and gavest them bread from heaven, prepared without labor; having in it all that is delicious, and _the sweetness of every taste_. For thy sustenance showed thy sweetness to thy children, and, serving every man's will, it was turned to what every man liked." [Footnote 27] And this unity in variety, this elasticity and freedom, change, and appropriation, and trustful individuality, is it or is it not the [Greek text] which the apostle recommends?

[Footnote 27: Wisd. xvi. 20, 21.]

Rising, again, from the manifold devotions pursued by the faithful for themselves to that in which the priest stands for them all in the most holy place, the central devotion round which all others revolve, the adorable sacrifice of Mass, we see the same unity in the same variety. There is still a subjective action of the individual heart, grounded on an objective dogma embraced by all. Faith and love are coincident; we adore in our own way what is independent of our adoration, though presented to it. The words I am about to quote are put in the lips of one who is defending the faith, newly found by him, against the objection of some of his former friends that the Mass is a formal, unreasonable service.

"To me," he answers, "nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words--it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. It is not the invocation merely, but, if I dare use the word, the evocation of the Eternal. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the scope and the interpretation of every part of the solemnity. Words are necessary, but as means, not as ends. They are not mere addresses to the throne of grace; they are instruments of what is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on, as if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go: the whole is quick; for they are parts of one integral action. Quickly they go; for they are awful words of sacrifice: they are a work too great to delay upon. Quickly they pass; because, as the lightning which shineth from one part of the heaven to the other, so is the coming of the Son of Man. ... As Moses on the mountain, so we too 'make haste and bow our heads to the earth, and adore.' So we, all around, each in his place, look out for the great advent, 'waiting for the moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart, with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant, watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in its consummation; not painfully and hopelessly following a hard form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet harmony, we take our part with God's priest, supporting him, and yet guided by him. There are little children there, and old men, and simple laborers, and students in seminaries, priests preparing for Mass, priests making their thanksgiving; there are innocent maidens, and there are penitent sinners; but out of these many minds rises one eucharistic hymn, and the great action is the measure and the scope of it." [Footnote 28]

[Footnote 28: Newman's _Loss and Gain_, pp. 265-7.]

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This union of a changeless creed with an adaptive devotional system, of dogmatic authority with elasticity and play, and of unquestioning submission with the freest choice, has one obvious consequence. It renders the church unintelligible to the world, and to all professors of the world's many religions. A casual observer, looking on the Catholic system from without its pale, is at a loss to reconcile attributes which to him appear inconsistent. Why, he asks, should the church be so unswerving under one aspect, yet so pliant under another? If she will not yield one jot or tittle of doctrine, why allow so large an oscillation in forms of devotion? or, if she aims at accommodating and condescending in the latter, why remain inflexible in the former? He would perhaps add: The Catholic system has advantages over others in virtue of this her spirit of adaptation, so far as it reaches. But it is partial! The same economy and consultation for individual minds should extend into the sphere of its dogma; then the character of the church would be consistent, its response to the demands of the age would be satisfactory, and its triumph might be complete.

We are here only concerned with one side of this supposed theorist's difficulty. The answer is surely as follows:

1. On one hand, the church is objective, or what he would call unaccommodating in her teaching, because she is the guardian and depository of supernatural truth. All truth is objective, because it is the reflection of the mind of God, and the subject-matter of his revelation. Hence, in spite of the infidel's sarcasm that between Homoousion and Homoiousion there is but an iota, and an iota (he adds) that divides the Christian world, the church will neither add to nor take from the "form of sound words" committed to her by that one small letter. That jot, that tittle stands against the return and salvation of countless souls till they shall themselves erase it; for the question involved is nothing less than the fulness of the truth and revelation of God. Human statements in religion aim at a compromise; the church, like Job under trial, "still continues in her simplicity." They would avoid extremes; she is zealous for the full and explicit enunciation of the whole deposit of faith. Whatever portions of dogmatic teaching can still be retained, apart from the faith, are in constant process of disintegration and fusion: _diminutae sunt veritates a filiis hominum._ But, on the other hand, if there can be degrees and measures where all is essential truth, the church may be said to become more dogmatic, and so, if possible, more objective, as her life proceeds. This, it is plain, is a simple result from her office of perpetual teacher; it is the fulfilment of the primary commission, "[Greek text]." She must expand her teachings to the needs of the day, and meet emergent heresies by fresh definitions. Hence, to take some salient points history presents to us, the objectivity of _Homoousion_ against Arius, of _Theotokos_ against Nestorius, of _Filioque_ against the heresies of the East, of _Transubstantiation_ against Luther and others, of the _Immaculate Conception_ in our own day.

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2. All this being so, and being one great ground of objection against the church, why is her system so _subjective_, all the while, in other departments? She seems to men to err as much on the other side by overcondescension and adaptation. We need not linger over such charges as that of Macaulay, who, following perhaps in the steps of the _Provincial Letters_, accuses certain theologians of accommodating even the moral law to retain men within the Catholic unity; as thinking, unless I misquote him, "that, if a man must needs be a libertine, that was no reason for his being a heretic besides." An impression less hurtful certainly, and less gratuitous, though equally false, pervades much that we find in other non-Catholic writers. The church seems to them to lay herself out in her devotional functions, to captivate the senses and the imagination. We might adduce a _catena_ of passages to prove this impression of theirs, from controversialists assuming the fact and reasoning upon it, down to tourists recording their personal experiences of the Continent. A leading article in a prominent journal on some recent celebrations at Boulogne, and, with a deeper personal impression, the descriptions of newspaper correspondents on the late centenary and canonizations in Rome, contribute their quota to swell this great tradition or popular belief. The church, according to such theorists, is wide enough to compensate for the inflexibility of her dogma by pliancy, adaptation, and attractiveness in all besides. Like the old Roman tyrants, they would say, whose home and whose spirit she has inherited, she is prodigal to her subjects of the _Panem et Circenses_, that take off their attention from the thraldom in which they are held. There is a story of Bolingbroke being present at high Mass in the Chapel Royal, in Paris. Struck with the majesty of the function, he turns to a friend and whispers, "If I were king of France, I would allow no one to perform this but myself." The anecdote is no unfair sample of the popular impression made by Catholic ceremonies on those who misunderstand them, because they disbelieve the truths which they clothe. They are taken to be the result of a design and deliberation to arrest the imaginative faculty, and thus to maintain supremacy over the will. That the will owns the church's supremacy is a patent fact; the supposed captivity of the imagination through eye and ear is, to such thinkers, one chief _rationale_ of it. She leads captive, they say, the intellect of her votaries, but she has the art to gild their chains by the richness and beauty of her ceremonial.

To consider this assertion for a moment. May we not advance the direct contrary? May it not be said that, if, apart from experience, we were to speculate on the probable ceremonies with which the church would surround the adorable sacrifice, and the solemn administration of her sacraments, our anticipations would outrun what she actually has decreed? Let us instance the ceremonies of the Mass. What is here that does more than _carry_, so to say, the great mystery round which they cluster? Give it as a problem to a political theorist, to a Bolingbroke, or to a minister of public worship, to invent and combine certain ceremonies, in order to express the highest act of a nation's worship. The function is to be one that shall symbolize such a belief as the Catholic belief in the adorable sacrifice. I think it may safely be said, the result produced would be something of more outward show, more complicated, and more arresting to the eye and the imagination, than is seen in the ceremonies of solemn high Mass.

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To meet more broadly the assertion that the devotional system of the church is unduly subjective, that is, overpliant to the varieties of her children. She condescends, she adapts herself, she seems to mere spectators to be one great economy. We accept the charge, not in their sense. Why should the church not be so? The changelessness of the faith being first secured, her problem then is, the greatest devotion of the greatest number. "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." This is her mission: to attract souls, to win them, and to save them. She would not attract them, were she not beautiful; nor gather them in, were she not all-sided; nor save the mass of them, were she not elastic. There is no stiffness about the church, or she would not work with breadth and freedom. It is St. Peter's net, and is drawn, as the prophet says, "with cords of Adam." She is not antiquarian, or she would only affect the mind of each age as a venerable record or curious relic of the past. The church is not primitive, mediaeval, or modern; not Celtic, Teutonic, southern, classical, barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free, in any exclusive sense. She is simply Catholic; that one title interprets all. And being the church of the "great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and languages, and peoples, and tongues," she authorizes their popular devotions by sanction and permission.

When we grant or assert that the church in her devotional aspect is adaptive, elastic, or (to return to our term) subjective, what is this but to say that she has _life_? Life as distinct from machinery, stereotype, or routine. It is saying that she has a living intelligence, spiritual instinct, a faculty to discriminate between essentials and non-essentials in her worship, and a versatility and a resource to apply, to modify, to expand the non-sacramental and therefore accidental channels of grace to her children. Because she is thus alive with the indwelling life of the Paraclete who abides with her for ever, and thus animated with a supernatural wisdom and maternal charity, she is prompt to seize occasions, and to extemporize combinations _to the greater glory of God_. Hers is an ever quick and energizing power, exerted over man as man, and over all men indifferently. In the inspired words of the wise man: "Being but one, she can do all things; and remaining in herself the same, she reneweth all things, and through nations conveyeth herself into holy souls." Wisd. vii. 27. What the philosopher claimed as being man, she claims as being the church of men: _Nihil humanum a me alienum puto._ She raises no question on the form of government or previous training, any more than on the clime or color of the "Trojans or Tyrians" within her realm. She translates her prayers, and imparts her indulgences in as many tongues as were found in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. In the political sphere she will bless the banners and chant a _Te Deum_ on the triumphs of every righteous cause, whether the tricolor and stripes of a republic or the blazonings of an ancient monarchy. And so in her devotional element, finding more stability of character in some provinces of her kingdom, more versatility and impulse in others, some of her children more given to contemplation, some to a larger amount of vocal prayer, she accepts these differing conditions without disturbance or hesitation. Wise householder and faithful stewardess, as the gospel declares her to be, the church brings out from her treasury things new and old. {184} She adopts and sanctions every new devotion that has been inspired into her saints: the rosary of St. Dominic, the scapular of St. Simon Stock, the discipline of St. Peter Damian, the meditations of St. Benedict, the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius and his systematized methods of prayer. Nothing is a dangerous novelty, while she has inerrancy of judgment. No dubious expression or practice can spread, or even live, while in her hand is the sword of the Spirit, [Greek text]. No fervor can lead to ill-regulated enthusiasm while she exercises the twofold office, to animate and to control.

In direct contrast with this divine adjustment and harmony stand the arrangements of that communion in the midst of us which has so long claimed the title of a church. England, as represented by her rulers, three hundred years ago, breaking from the centre of unity, and disowning every link with St. Peter's chair, isolated thenceforward and self-contained, had before her a three-fold task. She was to extemporize at once doctrine, discipline, and devotion. The process was in many ways remarkable. But its chief feature for our present purpose is one especial travesty and reversal of the due order of things which was then exhibited. While doctrine, by the necessity of the case, became subjective, the formularies or "common prayer" were stereotyped or frozen into a form that was well named _uniformity_, and might in a kind of perverse sense be called objective. The Anglican communion is the reed where the Catholic Church is the oak; but _en revanche_, she is stiff and wooden where the church is pliant and tender. She has bent to every breath of doctrine: then, as if in tribute to the principle of stability, has bound down her children to pray, at least, by rule. She does not pipe to them that they may dance, and mourn to them that they may lament. There is no modulation in her pastoral reed; no change of expression in her fixed uniformity of demeanor. An exception must here be made for the ritualist exhibitions of these later years; but it is an exception which proves the rule. Ritualism is a protest against the cold negations of the Establishment. It is in turn protested against with more energy by the indignant good sense of the country, and, so far as they venture, by the country's bishops. The clergy appear in colored stoles, and are met by a mandate to "take off those ribbons." Decorations must be removed from the communion-table before consecration of the church can take place. Each opening flower is nipped by the breath of episcopal authority,

"'Et mox Bruma recurrit iners."

Not to speak, then, of ritualism, but of the genuine spirit of the establishment. This holds the even tenor of its way, undisturbed by signs and seasons, and days and years. The established church does not quench her tapers on Good Friday because she does not light them on Easter morning; has no rubric for stripping her altars, and gives no encouragement for their decoration. She sprinkles no ashes on Ash-Wednesday, sings no alleluias for the Resurrection, lights no candles, says no Mass on Candelmas. Like something learned by rote and spoken by a machine, her ministers address their flocks in the self-same language, whether the morning usher in the annual solemn fast or the queen of festivals. Their form most truly styles itself, "The Order for Morning and Evening Prayer, daily to be said and used throughout the year." {185} This is the objectivity of the established church, as "authorized by act of Parliament, holden in the fifth and sixth years of our said late sovereign lord, King Edward the Sixth, ... with the alterations and additions therein added and appointed by this statute," "_Primo Elizabethae._"

Nor was this stereotyped, unelastic method optional with them. It was a necessity of the position of the establishment from its beginning. Having torn down the altar and set up the reading-desk, abolished the daily sacrifice, and made the lion and unicorn stand in the holy place, converted the priest into a minister, and succeeded, under the hydraulic pressure of royal mandates, in forcing two sets of doctrines to coexist within the space of one communion, the framers of the new order of things had, as a chief part of it, to invent a form of prayer. This form must be comprehensive as to doctrine, uniform as to expression; subjective in the first, quasi-objective in the latter. It was to provide for Catholics in heart who had not fortitude for martyrdom, and for honest sacramentarians kneeling with them at the same communion-rail. After several alterations, therefore, in which the presence of the Most High was affirmed or denied, and, as far as man could affect it, was restored or taken away, as now a higher, now a lower school prevailed, the new religion welded together two forms of administration--the Catholic and the Zwinglian--and simply left the choice of doctrine to the receiver. It was a process that brings to mind the ancient punishment of chaining the living prisoner to the corpse of his dead comrade; and the language ever since of those in the Anglican communion who have aspired after something nearer to God than a memorial rite has been: "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

Want of space prevents our drawing out a contrast which here naturally presents itself. It would be, on one side, the solemn and heart-stirring functions of the church during her round of fast and festival: the day that ushers in her Lent, the _Gloria_ hushed, organ and alleluias silent, the wailing _Tenebrae_, the strange, disjointed Mass of the pre-sanctified on Good Friday, which is Calvary, with the rocks rent and the sun hidden; then the burst of Easter morning, when all is light and triumph; or again, the three Masses of Christmas, symbols of our Lord's triple nativity. These, and much that might be added, would form an epitome of _Durandus_, and writers who have followed him, on the symbolism of the church's functions. What would appear on the other side? Silence is perhaps its best description, lest a thing in its own nature so fearful to contemplate as man's attempts to create in opposition to his Creator should present too forcibly its ludicrous aspect. It does not appear to have been very attractive, even in its cradle, to judge from the act, which sets forth that "all and every person and persons ... shall diligently and faithfully ... endeavor themselves to resort to their parish church, ... where common prayer and such service shall be used, ... and then and there to abide orderly and soberly during the time of common prayer, preachings, or other service of God there to be used and ministered, upon pain of punishment by the censures of the church, and also upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence, to be levied by the church-wardens of the parish where such offence shall be done, ... of the goods, lands, and tenements of such offender, by way of distress."

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No wonder they who love the established church should fix their special admiration on the feature of her simplicity. The act of uniformity enforced by Procrustes was as simple a process, and with as simple a result. In both cases, it was a cutting down, paring away, shortening, disjointing, dislocating. Only, as they who decreed the form and measurements of the new religion, unlike Procrustes, had to reconstruct as well as simply to wrench and amputate, they added that other process to their labor; and under difficulties which have excited the compassion of their disciples in all later time for a system of theology and theological devotion is as complex and delicate, to say the least, as the human frame: you cannot give back the sinews and organs you have removed, nor restore action to the joints you have sundered. We have lived to see the result of such simplifying as went on in the sixteenth century. After a career which has given time for irreconcilable schools to exhibit their full divergence, the communion so arranged seems likely to fall to pieces on the very question of ritualism. "We never, sir," says a popular clerical writer to the _Times_ newspaper, "we never shall have peace again in the church until some plain order of conducting the service is made more or less imperative, confused rubrics relaid down in clear language, and some court established, easy of access, cheap, and speedy in process, by which it may be adjudged, as well in the case of clergy as of bishops, whether the parties accused of false teaching or false practice are guilty according to a rational, legal interpretation of our formularies in the spirit in which for three centuries they have been conducted." [Footnote 29]

[Footnote 29: "S.G.O." in the London _Times_, June 10, 1867.]

The simplicity of the church of England has steered too precise a mean between the symbolism and suggestive ceremonies of the church that believes, and the absence of all form on the part of those who do not. Her preamble, "of ceremonies, why some be abolished and some retained," like other compromises, aims at pleasing everybody and ends in pleasing no one. With one party, as Milton says in an expressive line,

"New Presbyter is but old priest writ large."

With the other, the minister must be a priest, the communion, Mass, and the Catholic service restored. This comes of inventing a religion in a hurry, patching up a provisional government by rebels who have disowned a time-honored throne. This comes of arraying one's self in the shreds of what one's self has rent from the seamless garment. So much for aiming at what a prelate of that communion has recently called "a satisfying amount of ritual," which is to clothe no idea, stand for nothing beyond itself, and soothe the senses without appealing to the faith. So much for the arrogance of deciding that the "godly and decent order of the ancient fathers had been altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain stories and legends, with a multitude of responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and synodals;" not to speak of the "hardness of the rules called the _Pie_, and the manifold changings of the service."

We shall wait to see the result of that "satisfying amount of ritual" in which it is proposed to invest a service purely Protestant; whereabout on the scale the satisfaction is to be placed, and so, whom it is intended to satisfy. One ritual system alone has a gift from heaven to answer and fulfil the yearnings of the soul. {187} One act of uniformity alone is worthy of a thought to the worshipper. The creed rehearses it: "I profess that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law instituted by our Lord, and necessary for the salvation of mankind." Then, "I also receive and admit the received and approved ceremonies of the Catholic Church in the solemn administration of the aforesaid sacraments." It is to express the invisible, and to fence round what is all sacred, and to respond by the tribute of man to the gift of God, that the church has ordained these details of beauty and solemnity. It is essentially as an homage and a reverence to her Lord. This does not contradict what has been said above either of the variety or of the adaptive character of Catholic devotions. For we are here speaking not of devotions as voices of human expression toward God, but of sacraments, the channels of his communications with man.

Let me now only mention two other chief instances of the subjectivity of the church's dealings with her children. The whole theory, then, of intentions in prayer is a proof of the adaptive character of Catholic devotion. The _Pater, Ave, Gloria, Credo, the Veni Creator, Miserere, Memorare_, these are, as it were, so many notes in the church's scale. Let me here adopt, though I should also modify, the words of a great writer on a kindred subject. They apply, partly at least, to that on which our thoughts are turned:

"There are seven notes in the scale; make them thirteen, yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings so much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master in it create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game or fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning? We may do so; and then, perhaps, we shall also account the science of theology to be a matter of words; yet, as there is a divinity in the theology of the church which those who feel cannot communicate, so is there also in the wonderful creation of sublimity and beauty of which I am speaking. ... Is it possible that that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound, which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? ... No; they have escaped from some higher sphere; ... they are echoes from our home; they are the voice of angels, or the _Magnificat_ of saints, or the living laws of divine governance, or the divine attributes; something are they besides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter." [Footnote 30]

[Footnote 30: Newman's _Sermons before the University of Oxford_. 2d edition, pp. 349, 350.]

The beauty of this extract, from perhaps one of the greatest passages of its eminent author, may be my apology for its length. What Dr. Newman here says of the evolution of musical harmony from simple elements may be applied to the vast fabric of intentions, reaching to no less than three worlds, the church militant, triumphant, and purifying, which we are taught to build out of such few brief prayers as a child might utter.

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Once more: the variety of the religious orders, congregations, institutes, existing in the church, and marked by her approval, afford a further proof of her adaptation to the various needs and characters of men. The system which recognizes the sanctity of marriage by elevating it to the rank of a sacrament proclaims also the superiority of the "best part" chosen by Mary, "which shall not be taken from her;" and, within this first great principle of classification among the church's children, separating between the secular and the religious life, and strictly subjective in the sense in which the word has here been used, we find an almost endless diversity of what are technically called "religions." The cloistered and the uncloistered; and among the former, the eremitic and the conventual, with their subdivisions; among the latter, a devotion special and concentrated upon every malady to which man is heir. Brothers of the hospitals, brothers of Christian doctrine, communities devoted to the leper, the lunatic, the ordinary sick, the hopelessly diseased, the poor as such, the young, the orphan, the ignorant, the upper classes, the middle rank, the homeless pauper, the pilgrim, the penitent, the convict, the galley-slave, the felon condemned to die.

This very glory of the King's daughter, her beauty in the variety with which she is surrounded, the subjective provisions she makes for each of her children called to religion, has been made by writers of more than common shallowness an argument against her unity. It is difficult to treat with gravity a distortion of the truth so perverse. "Look," says a platform orator--"look at the divisions of the Church of Rome. She taunts us with our dissensions. It is true, we have our high church, and our low, and our broad; there are those amongst us who hold the sacramental principle, and those who deny it. But Rome, too, has her divisions, as deep and as fundamental. Has she not her Franciscans and her Dominicans, her Benedictines and her Seculars, her Jesuits, and I know not who besides? Have not her religious orders and her secular canons, in times past, carved grotesque caricatures of each other in the gargoyles and _misereres_ of their respective churches? And yet, with her characteristic effrontery, she dares to tell us that she is one!"

It was well answered. You might with equal reason argue that an army was not one, not one in its operations and campaign, nor moving at the nod of one commander, because it had its several branches and "arms" of the service; its light horse, troops of the line, skirmishers, cavalry for the charge, heavy artillery. Rather, the essential unity of the whole is all the more demonstrated by the distinct lines and modes of operation belonging to each department. Herodotus is at much pains to detail the different nationalities and customs of warfare in the army of Xerxes before he proceeds to narrate their combined descent upon Greece. And to return to our thesis: the objective unity of the religious orders throughout the church's long life, in all that ever concerned her faith and essential teaching, has been enhanced, made conspicuous, and shown to be supernatural, by their acknowledged subjective diversity in much beside.

But we are not here in need of a Catholic apologist. A vivid and popular writer, if not of history, yet of widely accepted historical romance, had the intelligence to perceive this very characteristic of the church. {189} He has thrown no little power into developing the truth, that the Catholic system is thus universally subjective, has a place for every one, rejects none of earth's children, and can retain them, find them employment, and communicate to them happiness, within the ample breadth of her unity.

He describes the merely local characters of the Church of England, and her consequent inability to make way in foreign missions. He has a fling at what he calls the polity of the Church of Rome as the very masterpiece of human wisdom. It is, he says, a system of tactics to be regarded with reluctant admiration. Then more particularly: "She thoroughly understands, what no other church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts. In some sects, particularly in infant sects, enthusiasm is suffered to be rampant. In other sects, particularly in sects long established and richly endowed, it is regarded with aversion. The Catholic Church neither submits to enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses it. She considers it as a great moving force, which in itself, like the muscular powers of a fine horse, is neither good nor evil, but which may be so directed as to produce great good or great evil, and she assumes the direction to herself. ... She knows that, where religious feelings have obtained the complete empire of the mind, they impart a strange energy, that they raise man above the dominion of pain and pleasure, that obloquy becomes glory. She knows that a person in this state of enthusiasm is no object of contempt. He may be vulgar, ignorant, visionary, extravagant; but he will do and suffer things which it is for her interest that somebody should do and suffer. She accordingly enlists him in her service, assigns to him some forlorn hope, and sends him forth with her benedictions and her applause."

Then, after showing how the Anglican system expels from itself the enthusiasm it can neither wield nor control, he proceeds to draw his contrast:

"Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant enthusiast whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy, and, whatever the polite and learned may think, a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. She bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse, dark stuff, ties a rope round his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the resources of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual character and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches not exactly in the style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of uneducated hearers; and all his influence is employed to strengthen the church of which he is a minister. To that church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the cardinals whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in herself all the strength of establishment, and all the strength of dissent. With the utmost pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of the voluntary system below. It would be easy to mention very recent instances in which the hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged from her by the selfishness, sloth, and cowardice of the beneficed clergy, have been brought back by the zeal of the begging friars. At Rome the Countess of Huntingdon would have a place in the calendar as St. Sabina, and Mrs. Fry would be foundress and first superior of the blessed order of Sisters of the Gaols. {190} Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford: he is certain to become the head of a formidable secession. Place John Wesley at Rome: he is certain to be the first general of a new society devoted to the interests and honor of the church. Place Johanna Southcote at Rome: she founds an order of barefooted Carmelites, every one of whom is ready to suffer martyrdom for the church; a solemn service is consecrated to her memory; and her statue, placed over the holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger who enters St. Peter's."

Such thoughts as I have endeavored to suggest will not be vain, if they lead us to recognize the attributes and credentials of the church in her mission to the world, not less in the comparison of part with part among her manifestations, than in the harmony of the whole. She is as divine, as Catholic, as faithful to her trust, and as unerring in her functions, in the subjective character of her devotions, as in the objectivity of her teaching. Nothing surely can be more attractive to the imagination, more winning to the heart, or more persuasive to the will than the condescension and personal care of that which is all the while lofty in its attributes and authoritative in its claims and power. The church is a mother while she is a queen, and we her children no less than her subjects and disciples. She teaches us to pray while she commands us to believe; and gives a personal experience of her science in the one, while affording abundant proof of her embassy and her inerrancy in the other. Thus, while I am enlightened by her truth, I am fostered by her charity. The need of which I am conscious in myself, _das Ich_, for something on which to feed the faculty within me for supernatural love and personal devotion, is as completely met and fulfilled as any craving for a truth above myself, _das nicht Ich_, which comes down to me from heaven that it may raise me thither. "Descendit" says St. Augustine, "_misericordia, ut ascendat miseria._"

Imogen.

She was all compact of beauty, Like the sunlight and the flowers; One of those radiant beings That prove this world of ours Not utterly forsaken By the angel host of God, Since now and then its valleys By their holy feet are trod. If her hair was black and glossy Or golden-hued and bright, Or if her eyes were azure, Or dark and deep as night, I know not--this truth only Do I know or care to know; Never a lovelier maiden Blest this weary world below. In the castle ruled her father, And his lands stretched miles away _Mine_ toiled down in the hamlet For his daily bread each day; Too far apart were we. Too high wert thou for me, O Lady Imogen!

{191}

When the meadow was all golden With the cowslips' May-day bells, And the sweet breath of the primrose Came up from fragrant dells; When the blackbird and the throstle Whistled cheerly in the morn, And the skylark, quivering upward, Rose singing from the corn; Then when the blessed spring-time Filled with beauty all the earth, From her father's lordly castle Would this maiden wander forth, Where the violets were blooming In unfrequented dells; O'er the mead where zephyrs pilfered Fragrance from the cowslips' bells. Wheresoever beauty lingered, There this radiant maiden strayed, And beauty by her presence More beautiful was made; The sunshine looked more golden As it gleamed around her head; And the grass more green and living Rose up beneath her tread; And the flowers more bright and fragrant To greet her coming grew; And mad with love and music The birds about her flew. Oh! she was the loveliest maiden That ever eye did see; She was sunshine, she was music, She was all the world to me. But she never knew the passion That set my soul aflame; That hid me by the hedge-row To watch whene'er she came, To see her glorious beauty, Like a star from heaven, go by. Oh! to see her but one moment God knows that I would die, O peerless Imogen!

{192}

They bore her to the abbey With the pomp of princely woe, With steeds and hearse and snowy pall, And white plumes drooping low: And high, proud heads were bending In her funereal train, And princely eyes were weeping Heavy tears like summer rain. I far off followed slowly, No tears were in mine eye; 'Twas not for one so lowly To weep for one so high; But, oh! since she hath vanished, With her have seemed to go All the beauty, all the music, Of this weary world below! Dead, dead, and buried, Imogen!

E. Young.

The Jesuits In North America. [Footnote 31]

[Footnote 31: _The Jesuits in North America, in the Seventeenth Century_. By Francis Parkman. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1867.

_History and General Description of New France_, By the Rev. P. F. X. de Charlevoix, S.J. Translated with notes, by John Gilmary Shea. In six vols. Vols. i. and ii. New York: John Gilmary Shea. 1866

_History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States_ By John Gilmary Shea. New York: Edward Dunigan & Brother. 1855.]

The illustrious Society of Jesus, which has sanctified by its martyrs every corner of the earth, has reaped more glory probably in North America than any other missionary order, though it was not the first to enter the field. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, and other devoted soldiers of the cross who followed in the footsteps of the Spanish adventurers in the south, established flourishing missions, some of which have lasted to this day. They labored with a zeal and singleness of purpose which could not be surpassed, and a large proportion of them gave up their lives for the faith; but unfortunately the crimes of their countrymen have been permitted, by the prejudice of modern writers, to tarnish the renown of these heroic preachers, and the cruelties of a Cortez are better remembered than the virtues of the Spanish Dominicans. The Jesuits in the northern parts of the continent have received more justice in history. About their character and achievements there is only one voice. Oppression and outrage have fortunately kept away from their path. {193} It was, moreover, their practice to live almost wholly aloof from their own countrymen, and to compose their Christian settlements entirely of Indian converts. They may not have surpassed their brethren of other orders in devotedness or in perseverance; but they have a renown in modern Protestant literature which has no equal except in the glorious record of the early Christian persecutions.

When the Jesuits first came to Canada, the Franciscans had been before them, but there was little trace left of the Christianity which they had planted. The capture of Quebec by the English, in 1629, almost wholly obliterated the mission, and it was not until the colony was restored to France, in 1632, that the history of missionary enterprise in that part of America really begins. One of the first steps of the French government then was to secure a body of priests, to labor in their recovered possessions. The work was offered to the Capuchins, but they declined it. It was then given to the Jesuits, and on the 18th of April, 1632, two priests, Le Jeune and De Nouë, with a lay-brother named Gilbert, set sail from Havre for Quebec. It was but a cheerless home in which, after a three months' tempestuous voyage, they set about installing themselves. Their predecessors had left on the outskirts of the settlement two wretched wooden buildings, thatched with long grass and plastered with mud. One of them had been half-burned by the English, and was still in ruins. Here the three missionaries fixed their home, and prepared for the reception of the brethren who were soon to follow them. One of the buildings was converted into a store-house, stable, work-shop, and bakery. The other contained four principal rooms. One was fitted up as a rude chapel, one as a refectory, one as a kitchen, and the fourth as a sleeping-room for workmen. Four small rooms, the largest eight feet square, opened off the refectory, and here, when the rest of the little band arrived, six priests were lodged, while two lay-brothers found shelter in the garret. The whole establishment was surrounded by a palisade. About the end of May, Champlain arrived, to resume the command of Quebec, and with him came four more Jesuits--Brébeuf, Masse, Daniel, and Davost. The superior of the little community was Father Le Jeune. Of the others, Masse, whom by reason of his useful qualities they nicknamed "Le Père Utile," had been in America before. His special duty was to take care of the pigs and cows, upon which the missionaries relied for a great part of their sustenance. De Nouë had charge of the eight or ten laborers employed about the "residence." All the fathers, in the intervals of leisure left from their duties of preaching, saying mass and vespers, hearing confessions at the fort of Quebec, catechising a few Indians, and striving to master the enormous difficulties of the Algonquin and Huron languages, worked with the men, spade in hand.

To learn the language was at first the greatest of all their troubles. There were French interpreters in the colony, fur traders who had spent years among the tribes, and were almost as savage as the Indians themselves. But these men were no friends to the Jesuits, and one and all refused their assistance. Father Le Jeune gives an amusing description of his perplexity, as he sat with an Indian child on one side, and a little negro boy left by the English on the other, neither of the three able to understand the language of the others. {194} Convinced that there was little to be taught and little to be learned in that way, he set off one morning to visit a band of Indians who were fishing on the St. Lawrence. He found their bark lodges set up by the brink of the river, and a boy led him into the hut of an old squaw, his grandmother, who hastened to give him four smoked eels on a piece of birch bark. There were several other women in the lodge, and while they showed him how to roast his eels on a forked stick, or squatted around the fire, eating their rude meal, and using their dogs as napkins, the good father made strenuous attempts to talk a little broken Algonquin, eking out his defect of words with such pantomime as he could invent. All, however, was in vain. If he trusted to what he could pick up from straggling fishing parties, it might be years before he could fairly begin to preach the gospel to these poor tribes of the wilderness. In his difficulty he had recourse to the saints. It was not long before what he deemed the direct interposition of Providence came to his aid. Several years before an Indian who had been converted by the Recollects, and baptized by the name of Pierre, had been taken to France and partially educated. He had lately returned to Canada, and not only relapsed into his old savage way of life, but apostatized from the faith. Nothing was left of his French education save a few French vices and a knowledge of the French language. He often came to the fort begging drink and tobacco, but he shunned the Jesuits, of whose rigid virtue he stood in horror. But one day, about this time, Pierre incurred the displeasure of the French commandant, and the fort was closed against him. Repulsed by a young squaw whom he wanted to make his wife, and unfitted by his French education for the hard and precarious life of a hunter, he went to the priests for food and shelter. Le Jeune hailed him as a gift from heaven in answer to his prayers. He installed the poor wretch in the mission-house, begged for him at the fort a suit of cast-off clothes, and set zealously to work to learn from him the mysteries of the Algonquin language. "How thankful I am," wrote Le Jeune, "to those who gave me tobacco last year! At every difficulty I give my master a piece of it to make him more attentive."

The terribly severe winter was passed in studies such as these, in practising with snow-shoes, and teaching Indian children. Bands of savages often encamped near the mission-house in the course of their hunting journeys, and Le Jeune, whenever they appeared, would take his stand at the door and ring a bell. The children would gather round him, and leading them into the refectory, which also served as a school-room, he would teach them the Pater, Ave, and Credo, with an Indian prayer which he had composed with the assistance of Pierre, show them how to make the sign of the cross, and explain portions of the catechism. The exercises closed with the singing of the Lord's prayer in Algonquin rhymes, and after that each pupil was rewarded with a porringer of peas. As spring approached, Pierre began to bethink himself of the fasting and prayers of Lent, and ran off one day to a party of Englishmen, at Tadoussac, where he drowned in liquor the small remnant of his Christianity. Then he joined his two brothers, one a famous hunter named Mestigoit, the other the most noted sorcerer or "medicine-man" of the tribe.

{195}

The next autumn Father Le Jeune was invited by the Indians to join a hunting party, in which these three brothers were included; not that they valued the good missionary's company, but they were shrewd enough to suspect that, if he went with them, he would be well supplied with provisions. Father de Nouë had gone on a similar expedition in the winter, and returned nearly dead; but Le Jeune resolved to risk it, and in the latter part of October, with twenty Indians, embarked in canoes on the St. Lawrence. Landing after a while, and being joined by two other bands, they spent five months trudging through the trackless and snow-covered wilderness; sleeping by night in the stifling huts which they made by digging holes in the snow and building over them a covering of poles and birch bark; hunting by day the beaver, the moose, and the caribou; often half-starved when game failed, and holding the most disgusting orgies of gluttony when it was plenty. Somebody had unfortunately put among the priest's stores a small keg of wine. Pierre stole it and got drunk, and when Mestigoit had sobered him by a liberal application of scalding water, which took all the skin off his face and breast, the apostate (as Le Jeune always calls him) vowed to revenge himself by killing the missionary whose strong drink had brought him into trouble. The poor father fled to the woods until Pierre's frenzy had passed away, and there, he says, "though my bed had not been made up since the creation of the world, it was not hard enough to prevent me from sleeping." We have no space to follow the narrative of this hard winter. The days were spent in hunger and exhausting toil, the nights in frightful discomfort. The huts, in a space some thirteen feet square, were made to accommodate nineteen savages, men, women, and children, not to speak of a number of wild and hungry dogs. A fire of pine-knots in the centre filled the place with a blinding, acrid smoke, and at times they could breathe only by lying flat on their faces with their mouths to the cold ground. In this horrible den, the dogs fought for his food, and the savages, instigated by the sorcerer, loaded him with insults and shocked his ears with their filthy conversation. The sorcerer, whose pretensions he ridiculed, and whose influence he lost no opportunity of undermining, hated him with an especially malignant animosity. Under pretence of teaching him Algonquin, he palmed off upon the priest the foulest words in the Indian language, so that poor Father Le Jeune's attempts to explain the mysteries of the faith were often interrupted by shouts of laughter. On Christmas day there had been a great scarcity of game, and the party were in danger of famishing. The incantations of the medicine man had failed. In despair the savages came to Le Jeune, and begged him to try his God. The sorcerer showed some gleam of faith. Even Pierre gave signs of repentance. The missionary was filled with hope. He wrote out two prayers in Algonquin. He hung against the side of the hut a crucifix and a reliquary, and bade the Indians kneel before them and repeat the prayers, promising to renounce their superstitions and obey Christ if he would save them from perishing of hunger. Then he dismissed the hunters with his blessing. At night they came back successful. A feast was ordered. In the midst of the repast, Le Jeune arose to remind them of their promise; but Pierre, who had killed nothing, was sulky and incredulous. He said, with a laugh, that it was not the crucifix and prayers which had brought them luck. {196} The sorcerer cried out to the missionary, "Hold your tongue! you have no sense!" And the multitude, whose good disposition had vanished with their hunger, took their cue from him, as usual.

All this was discouraging enough, nor was it the worst; and when Father Le Jeune, at three o'clock one April morning, knocked at the door of his humble mission-house, and was received in the arms of his brother apostles, it was with the melancholy reflection that his painful and perilous journey had been, except as a tour of observation, little more than a failure. An absolute failure, however, it certainly was not. Careful reconnoissances must always precede great campaigns. It was only by pushing out into the heart of the pagan realm which they had come to conquer, that the soldiers of Christ could determine where they might best make their main assault and in what quarter a victory ensured the most glorious results. The missionaries were but a handful; the field before them was immense; they could only cultivate such portions of it as promised the richest harvest. They had now learned that the Algonquins were comparatively few in number, and of little influence or importance among the North American tribes. Wandering to and fro as they did from year's end to year's end, it was impossible to establish among them the sort of Christian settlements or missions which the Jesuits proposed founding as centres from which the light of truth might radiate through the wilderness. But further westward, on the shores of the great lakes, dwelt numerous stationary tribes, among whom strongholds of the faith might be erected. The conversion of any considerable part of these people would affect many kindred tribes, and so it might be possible to found in the heart of the forest a great Christian empire. As the first basis for their operations, they chose the Hurons, on the lake which bears their name. These people, they learned, had populous villages, knew how to till the ground, and carried on some trade with neighboring nations. Their ferocity exceeded that of the Algonquins. A prisoner who bore the torture bravely was cooked and eaten, that his captors might increase their own courage; and the missionaries spoke of the Huron country as the chief fortress and donjon-keep of the demon, "_une des principales forteresses et comme un donjon des démons_." The distance to be traversed, by the only route it was possible to follow, was about nine hundred miles. The way was dangerous and painful. The goal to be reached was possibly martyrdom--certainly continuous suffering of body and mind. Three missionaries, Brébeuf, Daniel, and Davost, offered themselves for the enterprise. Le Jeune's duties as superior obliged him to confine his labors to the neighboring Algonquins. It was not easy, however, for the little band of apostles to carry their heroic purpose into execution. Every year a company of several hundred Hurons used to visit Quebec, to barter their furs and tobacco for kettles, hatchets, knives, cloth, beads, and other commodities. It was resolved that the priests should return with them when they made their next annual journey. The Hurons came in July, 1633, six or seven hundred of them, with a hundred and forty canoes. They staid four days, trading, gambling, feasting, and holding a council with the French officers at the fort. Champlain introduced the three missionaries, and commended them to the care and friendship of the Indians. {197} They were received at first with acclamations of delight, and the chiefs of different villages disputed for the honor of entertaining them. But before the hour of departure came, they changed their minds. The Indians went away and the priests returned to the mission-house. Here they spent a year studying the Huron language. At the end of a twelvemonth, the Indians came again. A second time they were besought to take the Jesuits back with them. They consented, wavered, refused, hesitated, the missionaries begging to be received, as if the hardships they would have to suffer were the greatest of privileges. At last Father Brébeuf made a vow to St. Joseph. At once, he says, the Indians became tractable, and the whole party embarked in the frail canoes for the shores of Lake Huron. Their route was up the Ottawa river, through Lake Nipissing, down French river, and along the shores of the great Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The voyage occupied thirty days. The three missionaries were in separate canoes, barefoot, lest their shoes should injure the vessel, toiling laboriously at the paddle, wading often through the rapids and pushing or pulling up their barks, and doing their share of the burden of transportation at the long and frequent portages. They had no food but a little corn crushed between two stones and moistened with water. The Indians treated them with great harshness, stole or threw away a part of their baggage, including most of their books and writing materials, and finally deserted Father Daniel and Father Davost on the way. When Brébeuf reached the end of the voyage, on the shores of Georgian Bay, his Indian companions threw his baggage on the ground, left him to his own resources, and trudged off to their villages, some twenty miles distant. Brébeuf, however, was not disheartened. He threw himself upon his knees and thanked God who had preserved him so far. Then he proceeded to examine the country. He knew the spot well, for before the suspension of the Canada missions which followed the capture of Quebec, he had passed three years among the Hurons of this region, at an Indian town which had since been burned. Hiding his baggage and the sacred vessels in the woods, he set off in search of the new town, which he knew had been built a few miles from the site of the old one. It was evening when he reached it. A crowd who recognized his tall, soldier-like figure and black robes ran out to meet him, shouting for joy at his return. They took him to the lodge of one Awandoay, the richest and most hospitable of the Hurons. After many days his two lost brethren rejoined him. Daniel had been picked up by another party of Indians. Davost had been left among the Algonquins on Allumette Island, and now appeared half-dead with famine and fatigue. With them came four French laymen from Quebec. Awandoay received them all, and as soon as they had determined to make this village, which the natives called Ihonatiria, the headquarters of their mission, all the inhabitants of the place, as well as the people of the neighboring town of Wenrio, fell to and built them a house. It was a structure of sapling poles and sheets of bark, thirty-six feet long, and about twenty feet wide, built after the Huron fashion; but the priests, with the aid of their tools, made several improvements of the interior, which were to the savages a never-failing source of wonder and admiration. They divided their dwelling into three rooms. The first was a store-house; the second, a sleeping chamber, kitchen, workshop, refectory, and school-room, all in one; the third was the chapel.

{198}

Thus the Huron mission, which had been founded several years previously, and broken up before it was thoroughly established, was opened anew. Other priests soon came out from France to join it. Garnier, Chaumonot, Chabanel, and the illustrious martyr Isaac Jogues were among the Jesuits who gathered around this lodge in the wilderness in the course of the next few years. In the summer-time, when most of the Indians were away on their hunting or trading excursions, and the villages were quiet, the missionaries renewed their strength for labor and suffering by the exercise of the annual retreat according to the instructions of St. Ignatius. It was in winter that their hardships were the greatest. By day they trudged long, weary miles through the snow and wet to visit neighboring villages; by night their short rest was disturbed and their ears shocked by the horrible orgies, incantations, and superstitious rites in which the Hurons used to pass their winter leisure. There were the hideous ceremonies by which their sorcerers pretended to cure the sick; the licentious practices by which they sought to propitiate the demons of pestilence and famine; sometimes the awful tortures of captives taken in war, and their agonizing deaths, in which the good fathers, though every nerve shuddered with horror at the dreadful sight, sometimes found consolation in making a convert of the dying wretch, and washing out his sins at the last moment in the saving waters of baptism. At every opportunity they collected the children of the village at their house; and Brébeuf, vested in surplice and cap, led them in chanting the _Pater Noster_, translated into Indian rhymes, taught them the Hail Mary, the Creed, and the Commandments, taught them to make the sign of the cross, and gave a few simple instructions. A present of two or three beads, or raisins, or prunes sent them away happy and ensured their coming again. Once in a while the adults were induced to listen to instruction, and invited to discuss the principal points of religious doctrine. They grunted "Good" or "That is true" at every proposition, but for a long, long time very few were willing to embrace the faith to which they gave so ready an assent. Like the fishes who listened to St. Anthony's sermon,

"Much delighted were they, But preferred the old way."

Still, they were ready enough to visit the hut of the missionaries, and examine their marvels of ingenuity and skill, the fame of which had gone abroad throughout the whole Huron nation. They would sit on the ground by the hour, watching the clock and waiting for it to strike. They thought it was alive, and dignified it with the title of "Captain." "What does the Captain say?" they would often ask.

"When he strikes twelve times," the Jesuits answered, "he says, 'Hang on the kettle;' and when he strikes four times he says, 'Get up and go home.'"

So at noon visitors were never wanting to share the Captain's hospitality; but at the stroke of four they all departed, and the missionaries gathered round the fire and discussed the intricacies of the Huron language. Among the other wonders of the lodge there was a hand-mill which the savages were never tired of turning. A magnet proved a great puzzle to them; and there was a magnifying-glass which transformed a flea into a frightful monster, and, we may suppose, filled them with alarm. {199} They conceived an overpowering respect for the wisdom and supernatural powers of the black-gowns, and had for them also, upon the whole, a genuine good will; but there were moments when their influence, and even their safety, were endangered by the violence of the Indian superstitions. Once in a season of drought a "rain-maker" persuaded the Hurons that the red color of the cross which stood before the Jesuits' dwelling frightened away the bird of thunder. It was about to be cut down. The priests begged them to paint it white, and see if the thunder would come. It was done, but rain still kept aloof.

"Your spirits cannot help you," said the fathers; "ask the aid of him who made the world, and perhaps he will hear your prayers."

The Indians were induced to promise obedience to the true God. Nine masses were offered in honor of St. Joseph, and every day there were solemn processions and prayers. In a few days there were heavy falls of rain, and the Hurons conceived an exalted idea of the power of French "medicine." But alas for their promises! They were soon forgotten.

In the autumn and winter of 1636, the Huron towns were swept by a contagious fever, accompanied by the small-pox. Three of the Jesuits--Jogues, Garnier, and Chatelain--were seized with the fever, but the protection of Providence raised them up for the relief of their poor red-skinned brethren. In the depth of winter the missionaries went from village to village, visiting every hut, tending the sick, bringing them such few delicacies as their scanty stores afforded, and pressing their religious instructions at every available occasion. But it was hard to make an impression on the stolid hearts of the savages. They comprehended the pains and fires of hell, but they could not understand the happiness of heaven. They had no wish to go after death to a place where there would be neither war nor hunting, and where, they feared, the French would give them nothing to eat. Nor, when the Huron had at last been persuaded that heaven was good for Indians as well as Frenchmen, was it easy to produce in him the proper dispositions for baptism. He felt no contrition, for he believed that he had never committed sin. "Why did you baptize that Iroquois?" asked a dying neophyte; "he will get to heaven before us, and when he sees us coming he will drive us out." This was disheartening; but once for a few days there was a gleam of consolation. The whole village of Ossossané resolved to embrace the faith of the black-robes, to give up their superstitions, and to reform their manners. One of their principal sorcerers proclaimed in a loud voice, through the streets of the town, that the God of the French was henceforth their Master. Nine days afterward a noted sorcerer came to Ossossané, and the Indians held a grand medicine feast, hoping to secure the aid of God and the devil at once. The superstitious rites were all renewed; the nights grew hideous with yells of incantation, and magic figures to drive away the demon of pestilence were put up on every house. The danger to the missionaries now became imminent. When they left their hut in the morning, it was with a well-grounded doubt whether they should ever return. The sacrament of baptism, which it was a part of their daily labor to administer to dying children, came to be looked upon as a pestiferous charm. {200} They could only give it by stealth, sometimes letting fall a drop from a spoonful of sugared water, with which they pretended to cool the patient's parched lips, or else touching the skin with a moist finger or the corner of a wet handkerchief. The mysterious black-robed magicians were now regarded as the cause of the pestilence; and had it not been for the awe in which they were held by the savages, their lives would quickly have been at an end. As it was, they were everywhere repulsed and insulted. Children pelted them from behind huts, friends looked at them askance, and the more violent of their enemies clamored for their death. The picture of the last judgment which hung in their chapel was taken to be a charm of direful power. The litanies which they chanted together were incantations pregnant with plague and famine. The clock was a malignant demon, and the poor "Captain" had to be stopped. In August, 1637, a great council of the Hurons, including deputations from four nations, was held to deliberate upon the affairs of the confederation. The chief, whose office it was to preside over the feast of the dead, arose, and in a set speech accused the Jesuits of being the cause of the calamities that afflicted them. One accuser followed another, Brébeuf replying to their charges with ingenuity and boldness. The debate continued through the night. Many of the Indians fell asleep, and others went away. One old chief as he passed out said to Brébeuf, "If some young man should split your head open, we should have nothing to say." "What sort of men are these?" cried out another impatiently, as the Jesuit went on with his harangue; "they are always saying the same thing, and repeating the same words a hundred times." Another council was called to pronounce the sentence of death. The priests appeared before it with such unflinching courage that their judges, struck with admiration, deferred the decree. Still it seemed as if their fate could not be long deferred. They wrote a farewell letter to their superior, Father Le Jeune, and committed to the care of an Indian convert the most precious properties of the mission, the sacred furniture of the altar, and the vocabulary which they had compiled of the Huron language. Then they gave a parting feast, after the Indian custom of those who were about to die. The intrepidity manifested by this proceeding was not without its effect. The animosity of the savages became less intense, and though the persecution continued, and the lives of individual members of the little band were more than once attempted, the project of a massacre was for the present abandoned.

By the end of the year 1638, the mission had seven priests who spoke Huron, and three more who were learning it. There were about sixty converts, and at Ossossané a commodious chapel of wood had been built by the labor of artisans sent for the purpose from Quebec. The original intention of the Jesuits was to form permanent missions in each of the principal Huron towns. This, however, proved impracticable, and a spot was chosen on the little river Wye, near Matchedash Bay of Lake Huron, for a great central station, to which they gave the name of Sainte Marie. The Huron towns were now apportioned into districts, and a certain number of priests assigned to each. Father Garnier and Father Jogues made an ineffectual attempt to establish a mission among the Tobacco nation, two days' journey to the south-west. {201} But their evil reputation had preceded them. The children cried out, when they saw them approach, that famine and pest were coming. Every door was closed against them; and when in despair they left the town, a band of young braves followed them, hatchet in hand, to put them to death. Under cover of the darkness they made their escape, and Father Jogues, with Father Raymbault, afterward passed around the northern shore of Lake Huron, and preached the faith among the Ojibwas, as far as Sault Sainte Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior. In the mean time Brébeuf and Chaumonot went on a mission to the powerful and ferocious Neutral nation which inhabited the country between lakes Erie and Ontario, on both sides of the Niagara river. They visited eighteen of the Neutral towns. In all they were received with a storm of insults, blows, and maledictions. The Hurons had been afraid to kill them, dreading the vengeance of the French at Quebec; but they had sent secret emissaries to incite the Neutrals against them, and had promised nine French hatchets to the tribe which should be their executioners. Brébeuf was the object of their special hatred. This glorious man, whom Parkman calls the truest hero and the greatest martyr of the Huron mission, was feared with an intensity which none of his companions inspired. But in the midst of his persecutions God consoled him with heavenly favors. Celestial visions comforted him in his toilsome journeys through the forest. He saw the image of a vast and gorgeous palace, and a voice assured him that such was to be the reward of those who dwell in hovels for the cause of God. Angels appeared to him, and more than once the Blessed Virgin and his dear patron, St. Joseph, were revealed to his sight. Now, when the Neutral nation shut him out of their lodges, half famished and nearly frozen, the apparition of a great cross--"large enough," he said to his brethren, "to crucify us all"--came slowly up from the country of the Iroquois. It seems like a warning of the glorious fate which awaited him, and to those heroic souls who longed for martyrdom as the bright crown of their labor, we cannot doubt that it was also a sweet consolation.

The day of persecution, however, was only dawning. The sufferings of the past few years were as nothing in comparison with the torments that were to follow. In the summer of 1642, the mission had been reduced to great destitution, and Father Jogues was sent to Quebec to obtain clothing, writing materials, wine for the altar, and other necessary stores. He returned with the annual fleet of Huron canoes, having with him two young French laymen, René Goupil and Guillaume Couture, who had attached themselves without pay to the mission, and a few Indian converts. They were passing the Lake of St. Peter, in the St. Lawrence river, when they were suddenly attacked by a war-party of Mohawks. The greater part of the Hurons leaped ashore and took to the woods. The French and their converts made fight for a while, but were soon overpowered. Father Jogues sprang into a clump of bulrushes and might have escaped, but, seeing Goupil in the hands of the savages, he came forward, resolved to share his fate. Couture, too, got away, but came back to join his companions. In his excitement he shot dead one of a band of Mohawks who sprang upon him. The others rushed upon him, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed at his fingers like wild beasts, and thrust a sword through one of his hands. {202} The Jesuit threw his arms about his friend's neck, but the Indians dragged him away, beat him till he was senseless, and when he revived lacerated his fingers as they had done those of Couture. Goupil was then treated in the same manner. They set off with their prisoners for the Mohawk towns, rowing across Lake Champlain and Lake George. Thirteen days of horrible suffering were passed on the journey. At last they reached a palisaded village, built upon a hill on the banks of the Mohawk river. At the entrance the prisoners were forced to run the gauntlet. Then they were placed on a high platform, disfigured, livid, and streaming with blood, and the crowd proceeded to "caress" them. A Christian Algonquin woman, a prisoner among them, was compelled to cut off the priest's left thumb with a clam-shell. Goupil was mutilated in the same manner. The torture lasted all day. At night the captives were stretched on their backs with limbs extended, and their wrists and ankles fastened to stakes. The children now amused themselves by placing live coals on their naked bodies. For three days more they were exposed on the scaffold; then they were led to two other Mohawk towns in turn, and at each the tortures were repeated. Once some Huron prisoners were placed on the same platform with them, and Father Jogues found an opportunity to convert them in the midst of the torture, and to baptize them with a few rain-drops from an ear of corn that had been thrown to him for food. Couture, having won the respect of the savages by his intrepid bearing, was adopted into one of their families, and gained in time great influence over them. Goupil was one day detected making the sign of the cross on the forehead of a child, and for this was killed by a blow from a hatchet, falling at the feet of Father Jogues, who gave him absolution before he expired. The priest himself, warned every hour that his death was near, and hated by his captors, who thought he brought bad luck to their hunting parties, was dragged around from place to place, now following the hunters through the forest, now laboring in the villages to convert the old men and squaws, or baptize dying children. He brought firewood for his masters, did their bidding without a murmur, was silent under their abuse; but, when they reviled his faith, he rose with a majestic air, and rebuked them as one having authority.

He had been nearly a year in slavery when the Indians took him with them on a trading visit to the Dutch at Fort Orange, (Albany.) We can imagine how his heart must have beat at the sight of a white face after his long banishment but he had no thought of turning back after his hand had once been put to the plough, and no plans of escape entered his mind. While here, however, he learned that the Indians of the village had at last resolved to kill him as soon as he returned. He had found means to warn the French at Three Rivers of intended treachery on the part of some Mohawk visitors, and the savages had determined to be revenged. To trust himself longer in their hands would not be heroism, but foolhardiness. A Dutch settler named Van Curler offered him a passage, in a little vessel then lying in the Hudson, either to Bordeaux or Rochelle. The Jesuit spent a night in prayer, and then resolved to accept the proposal. With the assistance of his Dutch friends, and after several narrow escapes from detection, he got away from his savage masters by night, rowed to the vessel in a boat which the settlers left for his use on the shore, and was kindly received by the sailors and stowed away in the hold. {203} There he remained half-stifled for two days and a half, while the enraged Mohawks ransacked the settlement and searched the vessel. For better security until the day of sailing, he was then concealed in the garret of a house on shore, where his host stole the provisions that the kind-hearted Dutchmen sent for his use. The Dutch dominie, Megapolensis, visited him here, and did all he could for his comfort. At last, an order came from Manhattan that he should be sent down to the Director-General Kieft, who exchanged his squalid Indian dress for a suit of Dutch cloth, and gave him passage in a small vessel to Falmouth. After various adventures, having fallen into the hands of robbers in the English port, and made his way to France in a coal-vessel, he presented himself, on the morning of the 5th of January, 1644, clad in tatters, at the door of the Jesuit college in Rennes. He asked for the father rector, but was told that he was busy and could not be seen. "Tell him, if you please," said Father Jogues, "that a man from Canada would speak a few words with him." The Canada mission was an object of deep interest at this time all through the society, and the father rector, though he was about vesting for mass, ordered the man to be admitted. He asked many questions about the affairs of Canada, and at last inquired if the stranger knew Father Jogues.

"I know him very well," was the reply.

"The Iroquois have taken him," continued the reverend Superior. "Is he dead?"

"No," answered the missionary, "he is alive and at liberty. I am he." Then he fell on his knees and asked the rector's blessing.

His arrival was celebrated, as we might well suppose, with great rejoicing. He was summoned to Paris, where the queen kissed his mutilated hands and the whole court strove to honor him. The blandishments of the great, however, gave no pleasure to this scarred veteran of Christ's army. He longed to be again in the field, and in two or three months he sailed once more for Canada.

In the mean time the missions had fared ill. Violent warfare raged between the Iroquois confederation (of which the Mohawks formed a part) and the Hurons and Algonquins. In one respect and for a short time this was of some benefit to the faith, for the Algonquins, threatened with destruction by their more powerful enemies, became docile, and listened more readily to the exhortations of the French priests. Yet they were rapidly approaching extermination. Whole villages were destroyed in the periodical incursions of the Iroquois. The neophytes were massacred. The missionaries were intercepted on their journeys. Father Joseph Bressani was captured on his way to the Huron country in the spring of 1644. One of his Indian companions was roasted and eaten before his eyes. The father himself was beaten with sticks until he was covered with blood. His hands were fearfully mutilated. His fingers were slit; one day a nail would be burned off; the next, a joint. He was made to walk on hot cinders. He was given up to the children to be tortured. He was hanged by the feet with chains. He was tied to the ground, and food was placed upon his naked body that the dogs might lacerate him as they ate. Ten weeks afterward he wrote to the father-general at Rome: "I do not know if your paternity will recognize the handwriting of one whom you once knew very well. {204} The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger of his right hand left entire, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds, which are still open, from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth." He survived and was carried to Fort Orange, where the Dutch ransomed him and sent him back to France. The next spring he too returned and succeeded in reaching the Hurons. Father de Nouë, whom we have mentioned as one of the first companions of Le Jeune, perished in the snow in February, 1646, on the way from Quebec to a French port at the mouth of the river Richelieu, where he was to hear confessions. A peace had indeed been concluded with the Mohawks just before Jogues' return, but a peace with them could be no better than a precarious truce. Couture, who had been with Father Jogues in his captivity, and become a person of consideration with the tribe, had rendered good service in the negotiation, and would continue to serve his countrymen to the utmost of his power; yet it was felt that to keep the Indians to their engagements an agent of still higher personal character was required, and Father Jogues was assigned to the duty. "I shall go," he wrote to a friend, "but I shall not return."

His mission was partly political, but mainly, of course, religious. By the advice of an Algonquin convert, he exchanged his cassock for a civilian's doublet, not wishing to irritate the savages by a premature declaration of his heavenly message. He held a council with the head men of the Mohawks, presented the gifts of the Canadian government, and then set about founding a new mission, to be called the Mission of the Martyrs. There were three principal clans among the Mohawks--those of the Bear, the Tortoise, and the Wolf. The first were bitter foes of the French, and eager for war; the others stood out resolutely for peace. Many were the fierce debates around their council-fires whether the missionary should be killed or not. At last, one day, a band of warriors of the Bear clan met the priest and a young lay companion of his, named Lalande, in the woods, stripped them, and led them in triumph to the town. There they were beaten with sticks, and strips of flesh were cut from Father Jogues' back and arms. In the evening, the priest was sitting in one of the lodges, when an Indian entered and invited him to a feast. To refuse would have been an insult. He arose and followed the messenger to the cabin of the chief of the Bears. As he bent his head to enter, a savage, concealed within, clove his skull with a hatchet, the weapon cutting through the arm of an Indian who tried to avert the blow. The martyr sank at the feet of his murderer. His head was instantly cut off, and stuck upon the palisade which enclosed the town, and his body was thrown into the river. The next day Lalande was killed, and his remains received the same treatment.

The murder of Father Jogues was the signal for a reopening of the war with the colonists and their allies, and among the first victims were the Algonquin converts. We have no space to relate the story of the surprise of their villages, the shocking torture of the captives, or the massacre of the children, the old, and the infirm. But some of the prisoners escaped, and the adventures of one of them were so interesting that we cannot resist the temptation to copy them from the animated narrative of Parkman. {205} This was an Algonquin woman named Marie, whose husband had been burned with other captives. One night, while the savages were dancing and shrieking round the flames in which one of her countrymen was being consumed, she stole away into the forest. The ground was covered with snow, so, lest her footsteps should betray her, she retraced the beaten path in which the Indians had already travelled until she came near a village of the Onondagas. There she hid herself in a thicket, and at night crept forth to grope in the snow for a few grains of corn left from the last year's harvest. She saw many Indians from her lurking-place, and once a tall savage with an axe came directly toward her, but she murmured a prayer and he turned away. Certain of death if discovered, and disheartened at the prospect of the long and terrible journey through the frozen wilderness to Canada, she tried to commit suicide by hanging herself with her girdle, but it broke twice, and she plucked up heart. With no clothing but a thin tunic, she travelled on, directing her course by the sun, and living upon roots and the inner bark of trees, and now and then catching tortoises in the brooks. At night she kindled a fire by the friction of two sticks in some deep nook of the forest, warmed herself, cooked her food, if she had any, and said her rosary. Once she discovered a party of Iroquois warriors, but she lay concealed and they passed without observing her. Following their trail, she found their bark canoe by the bank of a river. It was too large for her to manage alone, but with a hatchet which she had picked up in a deserted camp she reduced it to a convenient size, and floated down the stream to the St. Lawrence. Her journey was now much easier. There were eggs of wild fowl to be found along the shore, and fish in the river, which she speared with a sharp pole. She even killed deer by driving them into the water, chasing them in her canoe, and striking them on the head with her hatchet. At the end of two months she reached Montreal, after hardships which no woman but an Indian could have supported.

The central mission of Sainte Marie was meanwhile in the flush of prosperity. The buildings included a church, a kitchen, a refectory, large rooms for spiritual instruction and the exercises of retreat, and lodgings for at least sixty persons. Around these principal houses ran a fortified line of palisades and masonry, outside which was a hospital and a large bark hut for the reception of wandering Indians. Here every alternate week the converts from all the Huron villages gathered in immense crowds to attend divine service, celebrated with all the pomp which the resources of the mission allowed, and to partake for three days of the bounteous hospitality of the good fathers. In times of pestilence and famine they flocked hither for relief, and at one time, in a year of scarcity, as many as three thousand received food and shelter at Sainte Marie. Hither, also, two or three times every year, the Jesuits--now twenty-two in number, including four lay-brothers--came together from their outlying missions, to refresh their souls by mutual counsel, and gather strength in prayer and meditation for the work of the next twelve months. To assist in the manual labor of the establishment there were seven hired men and four boys, and as a defence against the dreaded Iroquois the commandant of Quebec had sent them a guard of eight soldiers. {206} They received also much valuable help from the _donnés_, or "given men"--French laymen, who from pure zeal devoted themselves to the service of the mission, travelling with the fathers on their dangerous journeys, and sometimes sharing--like Goupil, called "the good Réné"--in the glories of their martyrdom. These pious men--"seculars in garb," Father Gamier called them, "but religious in heart"--received no pay except a bare maintenance. There were eleven smaller missions dependent upon Sainte Marie, eight among the Hurons and three among the Algonquins. At several of them there was a church where every morning a bell summoned the dusky converts to Mass, and every evening they met again for prayer. Despite the enormous difficulties of transportation through that tangled wilderness, the fathers had found means to carry with them from place to place large colored pictures, gay draperies, and many a showy ornament for the altar or the walls, which they well knew would invest their rude chapels with an almost irresistible attraction for the savage mind. In many villages the Christians, by the year 1649, outnumbered the pagans. Sundays and feast-days were almost wholly devoted to religious exercises; and if the Indians had not wholly abandoned their barbarous and cruel practices, it is certain that the ferocity even of those who refused to become Christians was sensibly tamed.

But the season of good fortune which followed the martyrdom of Goupil and Jogues was destined to be but short. The increasing hostility of the Iroquois was to be the destruction at once of the Huron nation and of the high hopes which had been built upon that people. Yet it may be questioned whether the Jesuits would have long been left at peace even had these terrible foes kept within the range of their own villages. Even among the Hurons the murmurs of suspicion and dislike had begun to be heard again. The French ceremony of "prayer," said the savages, had blighted the crops, and the mystic rites of the priests had brought famine and desolation upon the nation. There was even a story, widely believed in the Huron lodges, that an Indian girl, baptized before her death, had been to the French heaven, and, after suffering horrible torments there from the pale faces, had made her escape back to earth to deter her countrymen from rushing to the same fate. A young Frenchman in the service of the mission had been treacherously murdered; and though the missionaries by a wise show of resolution had compelled the nation to make satisfaction for the outrage by the ceremonious offering of numerous strings of wampum, and had thus restored their waning influence, it was clear that their position at the best was extremely precarious, and that persecution, if it came not from abroad, would pretty surely be commenced at home. The catastrophe, therefore, when it came, found the priests not unprepared. For years they had carried their lives in their hands, ready to cast them down at any moment. For years they had walked through the valley of the shadow of death, and in the midst of the dark river and in the bitter waters they knew that the almighty Arm was stretched forth to hold them up.

The final act opened at the village of Teanaustayé, or St. Joseph, on the south-eastern frontier of the Huron country. {207} On the 4th of July, 1648, Father Daniel, fresh from his annual retreat at Sainte Marie, had just finished Mass, and his congregation were still kneeling in the church, when the Iroquois burst upon the town and attacked the palisade which surrounded it. The priest, after rallying the warriors to defend their homes, ran from house to house urging unbelievers to repent. A panic-stricken crowd fell at his knees and declared themselves Christians, and he baptized them with water sprinkled from a wet handkerchief, for there was no time to do more. When the palisade was broken down, he showed his flock how to escape at the other end of the town. "I will stay here," said he. "We shall meet again in heaven." He would not fly while there was a soul to be saved in the village. In his priestly vestments he went out to the church-door to meet the Iroquois. For a moment they paused in amazement. Then, pierced with scores of arrows and a musket-ball through the heart, he fell, gasping the name of Jesus. The savages hacked his lifeless body, bathed their faces in his blood to make them brave, and consumed in one great conflagration the village, the church, and the sacred remains.

The following March the missions of St. Louis and St. Ignace were burned by the same terrible enemy. At the latter were two of the Jesuits; Brébeuf, sturdy offspring of a warrior race, with all the soldierly characteristics of his Norman ancestors; and Lalemant, delicate in body and in spirit, yet in the glorious cause no whit less courageous and resolute than his stronger companion. They were seized by their captors, and Brébeuf was bound to a stake, and, as he ceased not to exhort and encourage the convert prisoners, the Iroquois scorched him from head to foot to silence him. That failing, they cut away his lower lip, and thrust a red-hot iron down his throat, yet still he held himself erect without uttering a groan. Lalemant, led out to be burned, with strips of bark smeared with pitch tied about his naked body, broke loose from his guards and cast himself at the hero's feet, crying out in a broken voice: "We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." He was immediately seized and made fast to a post, and as the flames enveloped him he threw up his arms to heaven with a shriek of agony. Brébeuf, with a collar of red-hot hatchets round his neck and with his hands and nose cut off, had to witness the tortures of his friend and could not even utter a word of comfort. An apostate Indian in the crowd cried out, "Baptize them! baptize them!" Instantly kettles were placed upon the fire, the priests' scalps were torn away, and scalding water was poured slowly over their bleeding heads. Brébeuf's feet were next cut off, strips of flesh were sliced from his limbs and eaten before his eyes, and at last, when life was nearly extinct, the savages laid open his breast, tore out his heart and devoured it, and thronged around the mangled corpse to drink the blood of so magnificent and indomitable a hero. His torments had lasted four hours. Father Lalemant, though a man of extreme feebleness of constitution, survived the torture seventeen hours, writhing through the night in the most excruciating sufferings, until an Iroquois, surfeited with the long entertainment, killed him with a hatchet.

This massacre was the death-knell of the Huron mission--of the mission, that is to say, in the form and extent in which the society had originally designed it. {208} Other villages were burned; two other missionaries, Gamier and Chabanel, were martyred; the entire establishment was withdrawn from Sainte Marie; and the miserable remnant of the Hurons was scattered far and wide. A portion of them, after a winter of starvation, embarked with the surviving missionaries for Quebec, and near that city founded a settlement, in which the Christian faith was preserved and is cherished to this day. Others voluntarily abandoned their nationality and were adopted into the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois, where eighteen years afterward many of them were found to be still good Catholics.

The story which we have briefly traced in its most striking outlines is but one chapter in the long history of the labors, the sufferings, and the glorious achievements of the Jesuits in North America. We would gladly have followed them further in their journeys through the wilderness, traced them with a Huron remnant in the far west, and lingered for a while about their headquarters at Quebec watching the growth of the central establishment which sent forth its apostles to the great lakes on the one hand, and through the forests of Maine to the sea-coast on the other. But we must bring our story to a close. The record of their work has been well preserved in the three books whose titles we have placed at the head of this article. The history by Mr. John G. Shea, to whom Catholics in general and American Catholics especially are under the deepest obligations for his careful and successful researches, is the fullest and, we doubt not, the most correct. The narrative of Mr. Parkman, which we have followed closely, giving in some parts of our article merely an abstract of what he has told in picturesque detail, is written in a charming style, and is valuable as testimony to the exalted character of the missionaries from one who has no sympathy with their faith and is unable to appreciate their piety.

The Iroquois, in destroying the Huron nation, and with it the Algonquins, to whom the Hurons had hitherto served as a bulwark, had destroyed the Jesuit scheme of a Christian Indian empire; but the labor of the missionaries had not been in vain. The seed which they had planted was not allowed to die. The exiles carried the sacred deposit of faith with them in their wanderings, as the Israelites in the wilderness bore the ark of the covenant. Years afterward, when Father Grelon, one of those who escaped from the Iroquois massacre, was travelling in the heart of Tartary, he met a Huron woman who had learned the truth from him in the little chapel at Sainte Marie, and after the final catastrophe had been sold from tribe to tribe until she reached the interior of Asia. She knelt at his feet, and in her native tongue, which she had not spoken nor the priest heard for years, she made her confession. Nor was it only in the fidelity of individuals that the missionaries reaped their harvest. When, after the ruin of their enterprise on the shores of the Georgian Bay, they sent their undaunted preachers among that terrible people who had wrought such havoc, how can we doubt that the blood of Brébeuf and his brethren was permitted to fructify their labors, and that the saintly men who gave their sufferings for the poor savage during so many years pleaded and prevailed in the same great cause after they had entered into their reward?

{209}

Translated from Le Correspondant.

Learned Women and Studious Women.

By Monseigneur Dupanloup.

(Concluded.)

VII.

Advantages of Intellectual Labor.

I do not recommend self-culture merely for the personal satisfaction of women, or in order that they may have mental gratification. Study is evidently useful and important for the accomplishment of important duties. Is it not a convenience, in se a teacher or governess, for one's daughters to understand what is called _le fond du métier_ better than they do, so that one may superintend and direct them, and even if necessary, supply their place? Should a mother give her children life and then leave the duties of maternity in the hands of mercenaries, no matter how conscientious and devoted they may be?

But it is in relation to sons that maternal ignorance has the most fatal results. Not only is a wife not consulted about her boys, but, if she makes any objection to an irreligious school, the husband answers: "I wish my son to have a career. I shall place him where he will be prepared for it. You do not know even the names of the sciences he must acquire--leave the direction of his education to me." And when the little individual leaves school, puffed up with conceit rather than with knowledge, and the mother's Christian heart shows her the sophistry with which her son's mind has been filled, she must keep silence for want of one single fact, one precise _datum_ in her memory to oppose to perilous errors.

Often a father, engaged in some especial career, loses sight of the literary or artistic movement which interests his son in early manhood. Then is the time when an intelligent, well-informed mother could initiate him in pursuits which she has loved and cultivated all her life. She could point out to him good authors and books worth reading, read with him, teach him to reject dangerous writers and bad books, and stimulate his taste for study, by directing it to noble objects.

Surely a mother is bound to cherish the body and the soul of her child. Indeed, her place may be more easily filled with respect to the details of physical education, than to those of intellectual and moral training. Many persons can assist her in the former; with regard to the latter, she often stands alone, and sometimes surrounded by obstacles.

To follow a young man's mental development and course of study, to watch over him and guide him with the authority belonging to a rectitude of judgment which carries conviction along with it, and to an enlightened understanding which unites with goodness in inspiring admiration and confidence--all this presupposes a rare combination of mental qualities. {210} How many mothers there are who lose their hold upon a son's soul because they have not borne, nursed, reared, and nourished his understanding as well as his physical being. To be a mother, a mother in all the elevation, extent, and depth of that great name! This aim alone justifies a woman's noblest efforts to acquire the highest intellectual culture.

But if you agree to favor the men development of women, for the sake even of domestic usefulness, accept this development in its completeness; do not impose upon it arbitrary limits. There are minds that cannot unfold in mutilation or inaction, which need expansion, as St. Augustine says, to become strong.

A woman who, from a sentiment for art or literature, has developed talent, does not lose, by becoming skilful, the advantages that mediocre faculties would have given her. We may feel sure that gifts of this nature answer to duties, and find themselves in harmony with the providential destiny of their possessors.

I do not believe, with M. de Maistre, that science in petticoats, as he calls it, or talent of any description whatsoever, makes a woman less excellent as a wife or mother.

Study renders a wife worthy of her husband if he is intelligent. Union can hardly be preserved in a household unless community of intellect completes that of affection. As a woman loses her youthful charms, the worth of her mind must increase in her husband's eyes, and esteem perpetuate affection. By that time the husband, if he has ability, is entering upon the period of his greatest activity, while too often the wife, brought up in the severest principles and in habits of empty occupations, bores him with her mechanical piety, her music, and her worsted work. A crowd of engrossing duties gain ever stronger possession of the husband, forming a circle which the unoccupied wife cannot penetrate, and thus is brought about between them what one may call a _mental separation_.

On the other hand, a studious woman shares her husband's preoccupation, and sustains him in his labors and struggles. She follows her husband and precedes her son, occupying in the home circle a lofty position that makes her an aid and adviser to its master. She feels that he is proud of her, and needs her, but this does not make her presumptuous. She leans securely on her happiness, feeling confident that nothing can shake a union formed upon a principle of perfect community of two souls and two intelligences, feeling sure that her love will last as long as the souls it unites. To a woman who is superior to her husband, study gives an intellectual aliment without which she would feel rebellious, and in such a household there may be great happiness and tranquillity. Even in the case of a husband who is unworthy of his wife, he is forced to respect her for the superiority of her intellect. The standing which she earns for herself in the world by her talent and virtue, wins his regard, and she at least holds the honor of her family in her own hands.

Woman, in becoming Christian, has become man's companion, _socia_, and moreover an aid, assistant, support, and adviser, _adjutorium_. Religion, while elevating her soul and heart, has also rendered her mind capable of comprehending, sometimes of equalling, but most especially of assisting the intelligence of man. While leaving her physically weak, God has implanted in her the germs of every greatness and every moral power. {211} There has never been a noble work in which women have not assisted; as the teachers of men, as their inspirers, and often as the companions of their labor, the world has seen women devote intellect and life to those whom they loved, dwelling on a level with thoughts which, being confided first to them, had drawn a swift and strong development from the double influence. Woman owes to education the union of her intellectual life to that of man. She has worked for him, she has worked like him for God, and man has drawn a subtile growth from the frail creature entrusted to his protection.

I know nothing more generous than an intimacy that does not stop at a conjugal union of interests or even of affections, but passes on to the domain of thought. I have seen such unions. I know too more than one father, who, notwithstanding his rare intelligence, must have left the work of a lifetime unfinished but for the aid of a mind placed at the service of his age and infirmity by filial devotion.

I believe that a woman's acquirements help her to fulfil great duties toward her husband, and I know many men (no offence to M. de Maistre) who could get along better with a _savante_ than with a coquette.

So far I have spoken of domestic life. Let us now examine the question with regard to society, taking the following theses to argue.

I maintain that, if the world were more indulgent and refrained from launching stupid anathemas at studious women, those who have such tastes would indulge them without fancying themselves to be extraordinary persons; and that they would infuse a certain life into society, even if their number were limited. Perhaps the standard of conversation, occupations, and ideas would rise, and elevated subjects inspire more interest. Who would complain of such a change?

Instead of ending their education on a certain fixed day, and throwing themselves heart and soul into society, young women would preserve the habits of intellectual training; they would carry on and complete for themselves, their husband and their children the education already commenced; some cultivating art, others writing or studying, others reading. Thus they would become acquainted with the interests of religion and society; with opinions and books and ideas in general circulation. Would they not exercise a new and salutary influence at home and in the world?

But it is especially in the provinces that such aspirations are severely criticised. Those women have small liberty to learn, and still less to make use of their acquirements. The most tolerant say, "Study on condition that you conceal what you learn. Your whole inner life claims expansion and sympathy? Never mind that!"

But if you forbid women to write or speak of the things that interest them, how can you suppose they will have the courage to work for the acquirement of knowledge that is to be buried for ever in their own minds?

And I repeat, if the standard of conversation could be raised a little, drawn out of the monotonous circle in which it moves, where would be the harm? Instead of seeking in society a sterile distraction, and often finding _ennui_, if some intercourse of mind at least, if not of heart and soul, could be established, replacing town-gossip and dissertations on the fashions by interesting and instructive conversations from which one could derive the advantage that always results from effort made in common to arrive at an appreciation of the beautiful, and of noble ideas and interests, would not the change betoken genuine progress?

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This is to be found in some _salons_. There are homes where young girls are not excluded from general conversation. They are not, as elsewhere, banished to a corner of the drawing-room to enjoy the privilege and habit of discussing together every sort of nonsense, but are allowed to listen to anything that interests them, and even to talk agreeably without being thought conspicuous. This was the habit at M.----'s, where his two daughters joined the most serious _réunions_, mingling in very interesting conversations, or at least listening, and all quite naturally, without pretension or pedantry. Those two young girls have become very superior women. How many, on the other hand, suffer from _ennui_ or become deteriorated, because their active minds receive no nourishment!

Is it then so difficult to prove that the intellectual development of women through literature and the fine arts, far from introducing a foreign element into their lives, or creating necessities and interfering with duty, is, on the contrary, a source of daily advantage to domestic life and to society?

In the domestic circle, whose moral atmosphere they create as it were, elevating or debasing by their influence, sentiments, occupations, and ideas; and in society, where a well-directed employment of their talents and cultivation would substitute solidity for the hollow frivolity of the reunions of the present day. "For three years I have seen society in the provinces," writes to me a young woman. "It differs little from that of other (provincial) places, I suppose. Ah me! sometimes at the end of the day I sum up six or seven hours spent, with or against my will, in gossip about my neighbors that, while compromising charity, has exhausted the mind and narrowed the already narrow horizon."

Is there no middle course for women between the folly of dangerous and frivolous amusements, such as balls and theatres, and the insupportable bore of parties where long evening hours are spent in the smallest of small talk? Efforts in a different direction meet with success. Last winter, an intelligent and religious woman, who likes society but does not dance, tried the experiment in a provincial town. She conceived the idea of having really good music in her drawing-room. Quartettes of Mozart and Beethoven were played. The admiration aroused by these _chef-d'oeuvres_ naturally lifted the mind above the level of those common preoccupations that find their echo in society. Conversation felt the influence; every one was delighted, and brought away something from these _soirées_, where the sense of beauty, while reasserting itself, awoke good thoughts and strengthened noble sentiments.

I think that, if women took thus the initiative, giving an upward direction to that craving for recreation which we seek to satisfy in society; if men found other ways of pleasing women, more acceptable than insipidity and frivolity; perhaps worthless young men would feel themselves less masters of the world, and clubs would be less generally the refuge of gentlemen who find themselves bored in drawing-rooms.

If we could conquer the terrible prejudice that forbids a woman to be well educated, to talk of or even appear interested in serious things, there would be a goodly number who would take a nobler aim and find pleasure in something better than dress. Then, an intelligent woman would be no greater exception than one who plays on the piano, and would not have those temptations to pride, which are said to assail her in her position of phenomenon.

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We cannot destroy the world, but we can ameliorate it, by giving it other attractions than those of idle or intoxicating pleasure. Would not intellectual progress pave the way for moral progress? I know _salons_ where, thanks to the dignity and intelligence of the thoughtful, amiable hostess, great events, noble ideas, and good works ever find an echo; where solid conversation stimulates ardor for study, by opening broader intellectual horizons, and where pure artistic emotions develop a love of the beautiful. If a little more artistic and intellectual life were introduced into Christian society, one would not feel obliged to go to the theatre to catch a few _reflets_, as I have heard said, even in families where religion was in other respects quite faithfully practised.

No doubt--and here I sum up the whole matter under discussion--no doubt, intellectual culture may present three perils, but perils easily guarded against.

1st. A neglect of practical duties. This danger must be met by fortifying practical education, by giving young girls habits of order and of regularity, which double time and assign a place in life to every duty; and above all, habits of practical and solid piety, which means nothing else than a courageous fulfilment of duty.

2d. An exaltation of imagination, leading one to crave intellectual enjoyments that cannot always be granted.

Here again piety alone can preserve equilibrium. The important point is, to make education respond to the gifts of God without overloading or smothering them, for they usually bring with them counterbalancing perils. Excessive culture is dangerous, insufficient culture perhaps more so.

3d. Pride. This must be prevented by good sense cultivated in a Christian manner. It is to be remarked that, if mental culture, like personal charms, can excite pride, study has at least a counterpoise. It gives an enlightened seriousness to the mind, while successes due to beauty and dress cannot but be frivolous and mischievous.

Pride, I acknowledge, affords a specious plea for the maintenance of systems restricting feminine education. We would preserve to them that modesty which is said to be their brightest ornament. I agree that modesty is not only a virtue, but a great charm; but I am by no means sure that _ignorance is its best guardian_. Nay, taken in a certain sense, it is a pagan virtue, that is to say, a false or very imperfect quality. Give to a woman, as you would to a man, all the knowledge, capacity, development of which she is susceptible; give her at the same time Christian humility, and she will be adorned with a modest simplicity, truer and more charming than that of the poor Hindoo woman who believes herself to be an animal, rather superior to the creatures in her poultry-yard, but very inferior in nature to her husband. This enlightened humility is a genuine virtue, the mother of many other virtues, the inspirer of a high degree of perfection. For humility does not prevent our recognizing the progress we have made. By opening our eyes to the merits of others, it shows us our own defects; and if we were to attain the summit of human ability, it would hold up an ideal superiority that should stimulate effort without arousing either pride or discouragement.

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We may be sure that a cultivated mind is of all others the best fitted to a comprehension of duty. It is intelligent humilty, that is to say, true modesty, which preserves us from pedantry.

Vanity! That is the great danger, it is said. But the reputation that a woman acquires by literary or artistic talent is not the rock most to be dreaded. I say again that self-conscious beauty and worldly triumphs fill the heart with a vanity that has no corrective in the cause that produced it.

Study and art, by elevating the soul, serve as a counterpoise to the sentiments of vanity they may excite. I see no such safeguard in successes won by advantages of another sort.

All is summed up in saying that great gifts bring with them a danger against which the mind must be fortified in advance by education. Education must adapt itself to different natures: it must, while developing the germs planted by God, direct this development with firmness, averting perils and avoiding mistakes. It must make the moral development keep pace with the mental; preserving equilibrium between the ideal and the practical life, which interfere with each other less than is supposed, and accordance of which alone constitutes the dignity of existence.

I confess that education is a more difficult and critical affair when applied to a richly endowed nature; but it is also more beautiful and consoling.

VIII.

The Third Stage.

I crave pardon of the ladies of the so-called _grand monde_ for a truth, a painful truth intended solely for them.

It is in the fashionable world that studious women are rarely found, and that they are obliged to hide their worth. Strange tyranny of fortune! It gives women leisure, and deprives them of the right to use it for the development of intellect. It is to you, fashionable women, that industry must be preached. Women less wealthy do not generally need the exhortation. In modest careers, where toil is the necessary condition of domestic well-being, cultivated women are numerous. It is in the homes of artists, scholars, physicians, lawyers, judges, professors, that we most frequently find clever and studious women, conversant with matters of art, possessed of real talent, highly educated, but nicknamed by no one _femmes savantes_, because they are the pride and treasure of home, and ensure by their intelligence, domestic ease and comfort, nay, even a certain delicate luxury that has nothing to do with riches, and can be purchased only by feminine taste. The furniture is pretty in form, and gracefully arranged; engravings recall favorite works of art, and reveal the tastes and preferences of the household. Flowers, pictures, books, music, and pretty work, all show the home to be one much lived in, seldom left, where happiness is to be found. These are not empty and magnificent establishments whose masters are always absent, pursuing pleasure with a feverish activity, and flying from the ennui of their _home_ except when the excitement of refurnishing it attracts them, only to be driven away again when the gilded ottomans are all in place. In these _modest_ lodgings on the third story the mother is surrounded by her children. She brings them up herself. Thank God! she must do so, and great is her reward. She reigns over her children, and they understand her merits and sacrifices, and love their mother tenderly. They soon know the blessing of being born in a rank of life where mothers cannot afford to pay servants, governesses, and tutors to usurp their place. {215} What a difference there is between the two systems of education! The sons rank first at college and at school; the daughters receive superior educations that I would gladly propose as a model to fashionable young ladies. They wish to equal the mother who studies with them, directing and following their work with sympathizing interest. The law of labor weighs more stringently upon a mother than upon any other creature; the soul of her children is the field that she must till by the sweat of her brow; no other persons have received graces to enable them to take her place, and if the most complete educations are to be found in modest households such as I have described, it is owing to maternal industry. How many young people acquire a coarse taste for horses and dogs from the mercenaries who educate them! A mother, in teaching her children, inculcates other tastes and ambitions. Sometimes anxiety takes possession of her soul as she asks herself whether she can arm their consciences with faith and honor sufficient to give them courage to bear in their turn a retired life and never consent to win fortune by a base action. Then she redoubles her care of their education, knowing it is to be their only dower, and becomes ever more attentive, virtuous, courageous, in order to transmit to them her own admirable dignity of soul, and merit for them this heavenly favor.

And children who see their mother work, are secretly anxious to comfort and reward her. A desire to do good is more vivid in these abodes of modest happiness than elsewhere, and the joy of duty fulfilled makes each one contented with his lot and at peace with God. The whole day is one of activity; the father is at work, the mother attends to her household duties or takes the children to school or to catechism; and when evening comes, every one is tired with the day's work and glad to stay at home. Then comes the time for repose, children's games, talking, reading, music, intimacy, and gayety; and the day closes peaceably without that worldly bustle and excitement which put to a severe test the virtue of even the most Christian women.

A mother, thus occupied, never thinks of devoting herself to matters connected with her personal interests. She has not the time. Her girlhood, her early womanhood were spent in study. Now she is given up to the service of others. But this disinterested devotion, at once toil and sacrifice, is more elevating to both soul and understanding than any other employment could be. No danger of vanity or pedantry for her! and yet the instruction of her children is a great work. One marvels at the physical power that maternal love can give to a mother bent on carrying out her duties completely. Never wonder to find her capable, elevated, active, intelligent, indifferent to idle trifling and worldly coquetry.

In these modest households again, I find model servants. It is a saying, nowadays, that there are no good domestics to be had. People talk of the servants in old times. Read Molière and the police regulations of the days of Louis XIV., and you will find that the _grands seigneurs_ had worse attendants than we have now. Old-fashioned servants have no more disappeared than old-fashioned virtues. The virtues reign in simple, industrious homes, and there too we must look for devoted domestics. Do not expect hard work in the abodes of magnificent idleness. The servants of the unoccupied soon become unoccupied themselves; instinctively they imitate from a distance their master's example, catch the tone of the establishment, and assume irreproachable manners and lazy habits. {216} A servant knows very well when he is assisting in an ostentatious parade. He is quick to abuse opportunities, and needs often, in order to avenge himself for the inferiority of his position, merely imitate his master, even with no intention of ridiculing him. But a devoted and courageous woman who is the first to take hold of work, transforms the souls of her domestics and raises their service to the dignity of devotion. Of course, the etiquette and perfect discipline that one admires in some establishments are not to be found here. No! Good servants who are not held in immeasurable distance from their masters, assume another sort of livery, the livery of the virtues they see and study closely. They breathe a healthy, strengthening air, and in this atmosphere of industry, honesty, and confidence both masters and servants are happy. Ah! I could mention splendid mansions that are inhabited by _ennui_, (not to speak of discord,) and I could tell of the happiness and dignity I have often witnessed in the third story.

But in justice it must be added that I have not always met these virtues in the third story, nor _ennui_ and idleness in grand establishments. There, too, when industry reigns, I have seen great virtues. It must be said that all depends upon education and habits.

IX.

Bad Habits and Prejudices.

But does education as it is bestowed to-day often accomplish great things? I answer regretfully, No; too often the education of the present day offers no such advantages. It cannot resist worldly dissipation or the idle mockery lavished by empty ignorance on studious women. Connected study and attentive reflection are most of all wanting in the training of girls and the mode of life adopted by young women.

As Ozanam has said, a treatise upon instruction for girls and young women is still to be written. The subject is in no respect rightly understood; no durable fruit has yet appeared.

I know young girls whose education in music and drawing had cost twenty or thirty francs a lesson, cease cultivating these expensive talents on the first day of freedom.

I take a single instance. Most young ladies for seven or eight years of their lives spend two and sometimes three and four hours a day at the piano. But this study to which so much time is given, and which opens glorious horizons to mind and soul, generally ends in one of those _soulless talents_ spoken of by Topffer, which borrow life from vanity only, talents useless for any practical purpose, taking no root in the mind, and seldom destined to survive the wedding-day.

This charming author, rising up in indignation against the use made in educating young people in the fine arts and of what are popularly termed _talents d'agrément_, exclaims: "How much I have seen of these charming talents and how little of their charm! Young girls are interested in nothing, understand little, feel not at all. I believe, however, that they might seek in artistic pursuits, instead of mere amusing recreation, exercise for the mind, expansion for the heart, development for the imagination, and find in these faculties which are usually destroyed or left idle by feminine occupations, a perfection that would, as it were, clothe and adorn the soul."

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But, as matters stand, music is a study, more or less mechanical, that never reaches the soul, and seldom arrives at the commonest comprehension of art. How many girls who pass their days at the piano have neither sense nor appreciation of what they are doing! "We had music," says P. Gratry, "a brilliant tinkling that did not even rest one's nerves." Teachers are eager to impart a facile execution, but there are few who seek to form a good style, to make their pupils understand and appreciate composers, or grasp the chain of musical ideas.

People play on the piano without any comprehension of what they are expressing; as one might recite poems by heart in a language that one did not understand. In Germany, where music claims a large share in the education of girls, it is treated more seriously. Through the study of harmony they rise from mechanism to art.

Drawing is often equally misused. I have seen persons who drew with exactitude and even with facility, and yet could not distinguish good pictures from bad, or remember whether Raphael was the master or the pupil of Perugino. Even talent had not developed in them a sense of beauty.

The world leaves the domain of music free to young girls on condition that they shall derive no spiritual elevation from it and merely waste a great deal of time. As to the plastic arts, even a taste for painting arouses criticism, and M. de Maistre shudders to see his daughter painting in oil. In one word, the arts must be restricted to accomplishments, and sumptuary laws even more severe enforced with regard to literary pursuits.

Excepting in music and drawing a girl's education must be finished at a certain age. "Ever since my eighteenth year," writes a young friend, to whom I had recommended study, "if I expressed a wish to study, I have been asked if my education was not finished." Finish one's education! that means throwing aside books, writing, embroidery, and accomplishments if one has any.

But, we are told, young ladies learn a great variety of things during the time of education. Quite true, and the very subject of my complaint. They are not destined to pass examination for a bachelor's degree, and their whole training tends to give them general notions as shallow as they are widely diffused. Nothing serious, nothing grave, nothing profound--a little of every thing. In the words of an intelligent minister, "Who does not know that what we gain in surface we lose in depth!"

Beyond dispute the plan is comprehensive. I see many young girls who, in addition to common studies, geography, history, rhetoric, begin to learn one or two languages, play on the piano, take singing lessons, draw and paint, and learn to do all sorts of fancy work, as they succeed each other in the caprice of fashion polychromania, leather flowers, etc., etc. Of course, a life of efforts so scattered and diffused, can lead to no good result; and I have heard wise instructors sigh over the obligation imposed upon them of fulfilling such programmes. A little of everything is studied and nothing properly learned; not one talent or faculty developed, not one earnest taste acquired for anything whatsoever. Such half talents and superficial tastes achieve nothing.

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If there be a danger in the study of art and literature, it is to be found in stopping precisely at the point indicated by M. de Maistre; at general notions, not solid acquirements; accomplishments, not earnest talents; a lack of something to elevate the soul and nourish the mind. Such smattering helps one to make a momentary show, but not to accomplish anything or to be any one. It indicates that nothing more will be acquired from the moment of leaving the convent.

Precisely the contrary is needed if one would train earnest and assiduous women who may one day prove useful to their husbands and children.

It is difficult to explain why indulgence is shown or exception taken by men of the world. They approve, and very properly, of a girl's speaking two or three living languages. But if, in accordance with Fénélon's advice, you learn a little Latin, hide it as a sin, or be accounted a blue-stocking. You will hardly obtain pardon for a taste for solid reading or historical studies. I have heard of a young woman who drew upon herself that sort of admiration that implies blame, from intelligent people, because she was said to read _Le Correspondent_. The same persons, on learning that she reserved the morning hours for study, testified immense astonishment and treated her as a _savante_.

What may be called study--making abstracts or taking notes of what one has read--is not considered proper for women, especially in country towns. Reading is hardly permissible and only within restricted limits. A lady of my acquaintance incurred general censure because, during the first year of her married life, she did not receive or make visits before four o'clock, that she might reserve a few hours for study, in accordance, moreover, with her husband's wishes.

Young girls should regard the close of their first studies as the commencement of a life-long work. Young women should, in the very beginning of married life, establish study as one of the duties of existence. Later, they are engrossed with the education of their children, and can no longer work to please themselves. But even then, the precious habit will cling to them as an inestimable consolation to be enjoyed in every leisure hour. Above all, it remains to fill the void that becomes so irksome when children escape from the mother's guidance, and she once more has freedom and leisure without youth, its joys or its energy.

Labor is a faithful friend that adapts itself to the age and disposition of every being who takes it as a companion for life.

That women may learn to value habits of industry, it is incumbent on us to convince young girls that their education does not end at eighteen, and that their first ball-dress has not, like a bachelor's degree, the virtue of giving to learning its perfect consummation. At that age they have barely information enough to enable them to study alone. Leading-strings are no longer needed in their education, and that is all. They are simply capable of continuing their studies, and of enjoying the pleasure of individual exertion. If a girl could be made to believe this, a serious and earnest future would be secured to her. But the present custom demands that she should study French and history until she is fifteen, and from fifteen to eighteen, piano-playing and drawing. Then comes a pink dress, the crowning glory of her education, the great day so often dreamed of. She goes into society and marries, determined to leave work behind her in accordance with universal practice. {219} This is one of the joys of marriage--to do nothing--and so she wastes a period most precious in a woman's life, a period when she has leisure, and that flame that youth and happiness alone can kindle; expansion of soul, the illumined eyes of the heart, _illuminates oculos cordis_, as St. Paul says, giving to toil facility, impetus, horizon, power. But so it is; all must be lost, squandered, sunk in those early years, even happiness! Study would have a secret power to draw this young creature from the whirl of life, and give her the calmness and recollection she so much needs, if merely to enjoy her blessings; but no, everything must be frittered away and destroyed.

Then follow years when the excitement of youth dies out, a void is left, beauty vanishes, _ennui_ comes to take possession, and there is nothing to dispute its sway. The children are in the midst of their education, and need no looking after. A mother who knows not the value of industry, is ever ready to excuse idleness in her children, and notwithstanding this indulgence, her sons think very little of their mother when they grow up, and soon regard her as beneath them.

X.

Practice.

But to come to practical results, what are the faculties to be cultivated in women? The same as in men? Must they study the exact sciences, politics, the secret of government, military art? Are they to emulate Judith, Joan of Arc, Jeanne Hachette, Hormengarde, foundress and regent of the second kingdom of Burgundy, Marguerite d'Albon, Isabella of Castile, Maria Theresa?

Certainly not. Women are to be enumerated who could be and have been all this. Providence creates these extraordinary beings. But though we recognize occasional vocations of genius, courage, and virtue, it would be folly to educate women for careers so exceptional.

Women are physically weak, but their intelligence must not be undervalued. They often have a great deal of mind and always a fund of good sense, demanding nothing but use. Why wonder at all I have implied? They acquire with remarkable ease. Who can fail to recognize the keenness and delicacy of sensibility bestowed on them by heaven, or the natural bent with which their souls turn to the vivifying rays of beauty?

I do not agree with a lady who wrote to me: "We skim over things and seem to know them; we open a book, run through a few pages, and are prepared to discuss it, to give praise or blame, recommendation or warning." I do not grant this. But beyond dispute, they have great facility for everything. It costs them little to assimilate to themselves required information, to make something out of nothing, and a great deal out of scant material. God, not destining them to long and abstract studies, has endowed them with marvellous perspicacity and intuition. They rarely speak of business because it fatigues and bores them; yet if circumstances demand their participation, how useful and sensible they almost invariably prove themselves! Generally, the restoration of family property is due to them; when left widows, they rebuild the fortunes of their children.

It is to be understood that in this vindication, as it were, of woman's right to intellectual culture, I give to study only its due share in the occupations of life. Clearly, household cares and home duties have a superior claim; husband, children, domestics, must be the first interest of a woman who understands the hierarchy of her duties. {220} My advice, if it must be precisely defined, would be, that she reserve at least two hours--if possible, three hours--of each day, for life, for intellectual culture.

So long as women content themselves with reading, looking, and listening, no great opposition is made, and men willingly grant them a place among their auditors. But if the profound emotions of the interior life seek a fuller development; if they seek in the absorption of pursuits answering to their spiritual aspirations an echo that the soul misses in the external world, then society rises up in judgment.

Some women are born artists, that is to say, they are possessed by a craving to give form to thought, to a feeling for beauty which penetrates them, and that too under conditions suitable for the development of this side of their nature. But it is precisely this exercise of the creative faculty which is denied them, and which I wonder to see withheld, since the gift comes from God himself.

Vainly does M. de Maistre maintain that "women have never produced a masterpiece, and that in wishing to emulate men, they become apes." Vainly does he add with unbecoming impertinence, "I have always thought them incomparably handsomer, more attractive, and more useful than apes. I only say and repeat, that women who would make men of themselves are nothing but apes." Or again, "A woman's _chef d'oeuvre_ in science is to understand the works of men."

But soon M. de Maistre contradicts and refutes himself: "We must exaggerate nothing," he says, "belles lettres, moralists, great orators, etc., suffice to give women all the culture they need."

A little later, he congratulates himself on having a daughter, who reads and appreciates St. Augustine, and who "passionately loves beauty of every kind; recites equally well Racine and Tasso; draws, plays, sings very prettily; and, as in her voice there are low chords that pass beyond the feminine range of tone, so are there in her character certain grave fundamental qualities, that belong especially to our sex, and which dominate the rest of her nature."

This is enough; my discussion with M. de Maistre is ended. We entertain, in fact, the same views, and I now address myself merely to worldly prejudice.

We have then, even in M. de Maistre's estimation, as studies possible for women:

1st. Belles lettres, literature both light and serious, a wide field and one as attractive as it is extensive. The range of history alone is immense. There is a philosophy, too, which the feminine mind is fully capable of grasping, and whose essential ideas are necessary to fix its natural mobility and insure to it correctness of thought. Teach a woman to reason justly, and consequently to give precedence to duty in all things, and you have secured the essential part of education as it is needed in every class and condition of life.

2d. The arts--so admirably suited to their imagination, to the delicate grace of their nature. And here I must remark that we unhesitatingly leave open to female competition the most perilous of the fine arts, the one least compatible with their duties and vocation, while shutting them out from the pure and lofty regions of the intellect. Many detractors of women, who cultivate or criticise art, would on no account suppress public singers or actresses.

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But, you will tell me, that it is precisely because female _artistes_ are more or less degraded that virtuous women should not become _artistes_. I think as you do, and more strongly than you, yet I cannot help seeing that you recognize the fact of women's capacity to rise in art, since a few among them have received the gift of inspiration. If they have received this gift, it must be used; honestly and nobly of course, but used. The fact you advance brings its own application.

3d. If a woman can express the beautiful, she can do so through all the languages of the beautiful. Art is identical in principle, whatever be the mode of its expression. Painting, music, poetry, eloquence, the expression of beauty through an exquisite style, or through the accent of an inspired voice, is always beauty bound within the limits of a sensible form to render it perceptible to the soul through the medium of the senses. Each one must clothe it in a form not self-chosen. If you open to woman the most dangerous and frivolous of all the arts, why close to her the others? Because she sinks with the art that ministers to your pleasure, is it impossible for her to rise with noble, true, serious art? If a woman can be a _cantatrice_, she can be a musician in the elevated sense of the word, a writer or a painter.

Many men affirm authoritatively that women cannot and should not write. It is surprising that a question so easily settled for some persons should be so often discussed. Equal pains have not been taken to prove that women cannot be generals or ministers, yet I am not aware that the example of female warriors has been often claimed by their peers.

The present day is an ill chosen time to contest women's right to authorship, when the three works most generally read are _Le Récit d'une Soeur_, the writings of Eugénie de Guérin, and Madame Swetchine's Letters.

In becoming writers women do not infringe on the rights of men. "They do not seek to emulate man;" and when all is said, what is it, that M. de Maistre calls "emulating man"? Is it desiring to do all that he does? Of course not. Certain pursuits exclusively belong to him, and are not to be cultivated by women. But if there are points of separation, there is also a common domain where all souls may work together. The most natural is that of art and literature. Even here it may be that woman's field is more restricted than that of man; but she will find her place, and perhaps a place that men could not so well fill.

There are differences between the masculine and the feminine intellect; and it is on this fact that M. de Maistre founds his assertion that because one sex can write the other cannot. We may found upon it a different conclusion, that, bringing another kind of genius into intellectual regions, women will cultivate them after a fashion of their own, adapting their talents in preference to more delicate subjects. In a concert all dissimilar voices must be moulded together: why should not women bear their part in the great harmony of human thought expressed through art? There are notes they only can reach. Silvio Pellico says something similar when, after vainly trying to give women a pendent to the _Treatise on the Duties of Men_, he exclaims! "Only a woman could write such a book." In a woman's writing there is always a certain touch that reveals her sex. A female author must ever remain a woman. Thus may we reassure the susceptibilities of M. de Maistre and quiet our own fears as to the result of wishing to emulate man.

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"Woman is a weak creature, ignorant, timid, and indolent," says Mme. de ----; "possessed of violent passions and petty ideas, a being full of inconsistency and caprice. ... Capable of displaying charming defects every day of her life; a treasure of cruelty and of hope." Then mourning over the almost complete disappearance of this type, she seeks an explanation of the fact: "Women have lost in attractions what they have gained in virtues. ... Woman was not made to share men's toils, but to afford them recreation." And, finally, summing up in one word the errors that have ruined her sex, she exclaims indignantly, "Woman has aspired to be the companion of man."

Thus, to be a companion instead of a plaything, a Christian rather than a pagan, a being to be respected, trusted, relied upon, rather than one who holds you by a passing attraction, amusing you by her frivolity, and distracting you from graver thoughts--this is a culpable mistake of judgment, and moreover, it is a woman who dares to bring forward such a doctrine.

4th. In my first letters I gave it as my opinion that, in a measure, a woman could occupy herself with sciences, and even with agriculture. The latter assertion provoked some surprise. Let me answer them by a few fragments of a letter written to me upon the subject, by a very sensible and distinguished woman:

"How wisely, monseigneur, you have advised women to interest themselves in business matters and other serious subjects, even studying agriculture. My own observation confirms your opinion. At present, while my son is in the service, and I am separated from all my family, living in the country, and almost always in _tête-à-tête_, what would become of me if my mother had not given me the habit, from childhood, of interesting myself in every thing about me? Agriculture, with its obstacles and its progress, affords an inexhaustible source of conversation with one's husband, with cures, village notaries, farmers, country neighbors, and _petits bourgeois_. It is a less inflammatory subject than politics, and one that adapts itself to every understanding. My husband does not disdain to discuss crops and manuring with me--I have my own theories upon drainage, beets, [Footnote 32] and cabbages, [Footnote 33] and he finds me very progressive in my ideas, perhaps too much so; he, however, never builds a stable without consulting me, and before a lease is signed, I must hear it read several times. I believe it to be very important to themselves and to their children that women should understand business, the investment of funds, the management of property. They should not _decide_, but listen and advise. Husbands, generally, ask nothing better than to talk openly of these things, because such subjects interest them more than any others; but usually no one listens. When a man meets with yawning inattention, all is over; he has recourse to silence, adopts the habit of managing everything for himself, of following his own bent. In the beginning, a young husband is full of confiding openness; later, he becomes more suspicious of control which wounds him in proportion as it is needed. Capacity and earnestness are indispensable to a woman."

[Footnote 32: La bette rave, the kind of beet from which sugar is made, and therefore an important subject to theorize upon. Berthollet is said to have lost his place by failing to answer satisfactorily a question suddenly put to him by Napoleon, concerning la bette rave.]

[Footnote 33: Colza, a cabbage used for making oil, and a topic almost as engrossing as beets.]

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I ask that women should be allowed to cultivate any art or science they may choose, and even aim at some eminence in its acquirement, without being annoyed in their honorable pursuit by the terrible anathema which the world launches against (for once we will use the coarse expression) _blue-stockings_. [Footnote 34] If there are women who, while attending thoroughly and seriously to their household affairs, rise above material life by a love and appreciation of the beautiful, seeking therein a delicate pleasure and pure emotions, enjoying the cultivation of the soul, and listening attentively to the claims of truth and goodness, it is a shame to cast reproach upon them.

[Footnote 34: In the language of unreflecting persons who instinctively love to attack every thing elevated, perhaps in order to drag others down to their own level, the word "blue-stocking" signifies a woman who reads, and greatest of all offences converses.]

5th. Above all things should rank the earnest study of religion. I dwelt long upon this subject in my "Letters to Men and Women of the World;" I will therefore simply say that it is above all in the higher classes, where fortune authorizes a free use of the luxury of education, that religious instruction should be pushed as far as the individual capacity of man and women allows; doctrine, proofs of religion, explanation of ceremonies, church history, selected works of the fathers, great pulpit orators, lives of the saints, etc., etc. all this I have explained and taught in detail. In a course of education there should be an appropriate progressive study of all that concerns religion. Religious facts are so intimately connected with those of modern history, that one can sometimes have a true idea of the latter only by becoming acquainted with the former.

The objection of want of time, the grand objection so often brought forward, remains to be examined. Have women the time to devote to intellectual pursuits? Let us be honest and confess that there are two obstacles to the leisure required: talking and dress.

Yes, the great misfortune of women is, that they indulge in long hours of conversation among themselves, and about what, if not dress, gossip, and housekeeping?

Now, nothing lowers the mind and soul like talking about trifles for hours, and there is but one method of remedying the evil; increase the time devoted to study, thus shortening in an equal degree the hours frittered away in conversation, and supplying mental food far superior to the vulgar subjects that now exhaust so many minds and souls.

As for dress, too much cannot be said against it, not only as a cause of ruin to women of the world, but as a dissolvent of all earnestness even among virtuous Christian women.

Dress! That is what wastes the time and exhausts the spirit of women; that is what takes them from their domestic duties, and not these poor calumniated books. Every attentive observer will recognize, as I do, that it is a taste for the world and for dress that detaches them from home interests far more than a taste for study.

For my own part, I can assert that the truly superior women I have known, those whose superiority was genuine and not a pretence or an affectation, were models of practical wisdom.

There are, on the other hand, certain households admirable in every respect but one--that on an average they discuss dress four or five hours a day. The mother of the family is a woman of great merit and virtue; she dresses with great simplicity; and yet there are no preoccupations so serious, no anxieties or sufferings so pressing, that they cannot be dissipated at least for the moment by the interest of ordering a new gown or bonnet.

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These affairs are of vast importance; life slips away while the mind is wasting itself in their service.

Mothers of great merit teach their daughters to consider dress as one of their interests and principal duties, discussing and letting them discuss _toilette_ for hours every day, and judging every earthly thing from the standpoint of _toilette_. The business of dressing, shopping, choosing materials, talking with shopkeepers and dressmakers, and the time passed by young girls, and even young women, with lady's maids in more confidential intercourse than is becoming; these are in truth the great obstacles to habits of industry.

But leaving the subject of frivolous persons and unoccupied lives, how, you will ask, can a mother who owes all her time to her family find leisure to study?

It is hardly necessary to remark that I am speaking of women in easy circumstances, for the reason that they especially have the means of putting in practice these suggestions. Poor women who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, are not less precious in the eyes of God or in our own than the favorites of fortune; but daily toil can hardly leave them opportunity to cultivate their minds. And yet even among them there are many not called upon to support their families who, without being rich, keep one domestic, or do the housework themselves with ease and quickness, and thus have nearly as much leisure as women of wealth. How many women there are in business, shop-girls, for instance, or bookkeepers, who surely have time for reading, since they do read--and read--what?

It is well known that a taste for reading is now penetrating even into country villages, affording a means of spending pleasantly the long winter evenings. There are useful directions, an elevated impulse to be given to the class of women of whom we have just spoken; but however worthy of interest such a subject may be, it is not our present theme. Perhaps we may enter on it at some future day.

We address ourselves then to women in easy circumstances. Can the head of a grand establishment, a wife, a mother, find time to study.

Beyond a doubt, yes! To begin with, she can devote to study the time that other women give to worldly entertainments that consume their nights, and to personal adornments that devour their fortunes. They can lay aside all the pursuits that, while absorbing them without offering any advantage, prepare them ill for the duties toward their children that belong to them as mothers of immortal souls.

Does not the secret of living lie in the reconciliation of apparent difficulties? Do not duties, tastes, affections often appear to contradict each other? I have often seen that habits of orderly activity combined with a simplicity that suppresses useless exactions multiply an industrious woman's hours and make it possible to meet every demand. It is a woman's science to understand how to give herself and yet reserve herself: a science composed of gentleness and activity, of devotion and firmness, whose first result is the retrenching of idle indulgences, and the keeping within due bounds the tribute to be paid to the claims of society.

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In preceding writings I have shown in detail that there are more empty hours, even in a busy woman's life, than is supposed. When once her children are grown up, she has often too much liberty on her hands. I once knew a lady who had six children. Her two elder sons were at a boarding-school; her three daughters passed the whole day with their governess; even the youngest had his lesson hours. This lonely mother said to me mournfully on one occasion, "I pass the whole day alone with my sewing, and poor company it is;" and she was reduced, poor lady, to seeking outside distractions, innocent but futile. If she had had a taste for study and habits of industry, she would not have been driven from home. Study makes women love their homes, the attraction of work commenced always drawing them thither. How little need of visits and society such persons feel! It is a joy to steal off to one's room and continue one's reading or drawing. It is with a light step that one turns toward home when heart and life are filled with a love of study instead of with an immoderate, ruinous taste for dress and luxury.

Much firmness, sweetness, and perseverance are necessary to secure one's liberty in a household, to make one's working hours respected, without failing in any other duty; in one word, to give and reserve one's self discreetly. It is a question of degree, like most other questions of conduct. But, in order to acquire courage for the struggle, women must be very sure that the right is on their side. They are too apt to mistake for a mere personal taste the duty of cultivating their mental faculties.

I have given strong and unanswerable arguments for the necessity of a rule of life. But in this, as in every human affair, temperament must be consulted. Though it may easily be made an illusion and a convenient pretext to cover self-indulgence, yet one can easily believe that some women, with the best will in the world, must plead the impossibility of having a rule of life, or must submit to see it violated so often as to become a dead letter.

The mistress of a household rises in the morning, she feels unwell, or her husband comes in to discuss plans, business, no matter what; work-people, children little and big, invade her room: the mother of a family has not an hour when she can shut herself up and forbid intrusion. There are women and even girls whose lives slip away under the oppression of these absolutely tyrannical customs, from which it is the more difficult to escape because they assert themselves in the name of devotion and domestic virtue.

If we tell these young people, "crushed and flattened out," as M. de Maistre expresses it, "under the enormous weight of nothing," to create an individual life for themselves, and seek occasional retirement, they answer: "But I cannot; I have not one moment absolutely my own. If I leave the parlor, my room is invaded; somebody wants to speak to me, and so somebody stands about for a quarter of an hour and then sits down. Then some one else comes, and so the time is devoured. With all the efforts in the world to keep my patience, I cannot conceal the annoyance this is to me skilfully enough to avoid being voted a strong-minded woman," [Footnote 35] the correlative term of blue-stocking.

[Footnote 35: Caractère roide, femmes affairée.]

Very well, I say, for want of regular hours let a woman devote odd minutes to study. There are always some in the busiest lives; moments that occur between the various occupations of the day; and she must learn to work by fits and starts, in a desultory fashion. There is a wide difference between the woman who reads sometimes and the woman who never reads.

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If the desire to reserve a short time for study led to nothing more than the acquisition of the _science of odd minutes_, the result would be very important. _The science of odd minutes!_ It multiplies and fertilizes time, but books cannot impart it. It gives habits of order, attention, and precision that react from the external upon the moral life. The most cheerful women, the most equable, serviceable, and, I may add, the healthiest women, are those who are intelligent and industrious, and who, through the medium of a well-ordered activity, have discovered the secret of reconciling the duties they owe to God, to their families, and to themselves.

Between the spiritual and the material life, which answer to two orders of duty, the intellectual life must have its place; a place at present usurped by frivolity.

The intellectual life should be the porch of the spiritual life, material existence the support and instrument of the other two. But alas! it is far otherwise. Material existence usurps, suffocates, extinguishes the light of mind and soul. Art and literature elevate the heart, excite a distaste for gross enjoyments, and spiritualize life. They afford nourishment to mental activity, which is now the prey of levity, especially among women, seducing them to vain and dangerous pleasures. All grand and beautiful things, so worthy of the human intellect, betray the emptiness of material enjoyments, ennoble the soul and lead it to heights that approach heaven.

The culture of art and letters would occupy the feminine imagination profitably. It would create, or rather reveal to women admirable resources conducive to happiness, virtue, in short to a complete existence; whether in society, where woman's influence can elevate or debase ideas, occupations, interests, and sentiments; or at home, where talents and information, while conferring a great charm, would render her more skilful in the direction of children and in the exercise of salutary influence as a wife.

Thus the intellectual and the spiritual life would be united under the blessing of God; thus we should find in the various classes of society, intelligent Christian women, elevated above frivolity, capable of sustaining and inspiring every noble idea, every useful effort, every productive life; women who at home and in the world would be more enlightened, energetic, influential, estimable, forceful than the women of the present day.

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Baby.

I've got a baby, you know. There! if you laugh, I'll not tell you a single word about it. _You won't laugh any more?_ Very well; then don't. My dear old toad--husband, I mean--Dan, who is the born image of baby--oh! yes, a very pretty _ruse_, indeed, pretending to blow your nose. Can't I see you laughing behind your handkerchief? _I've got sharp eyes!_ Of course I have. All mothers have. Now, be good, and sit up like a man, and--there--don't be putting your hand up that way over your face, because I can see clean through it. What do you say? _Good gracious!_ That remark is not appropriate. However, I forgive you, for it might be if you knew what I'm going to tell you. My dear old toa--husband--is so fond of baby that I don't think I am fonder of him myself; and that is saying all I can say, and all I could wish to say, because baby's me, and I'm baby, as I love to imagine sometimes when I ask myself how much I want Dan to love his foolish little wife and Our Baby. Really, please don't hold your breath in that style; I'm always dreadfully frightened when baby does it.

Now, husband loving baby and me as he does, there's not the least doubt in the world that I am the happiest little woman, and the most contented little wife, that the world ever saw. Perhaps I may exaggerate, but ask dear Dan. If his opinion differs from mine, I'll modify it; for _I_ think he has the best judgment of any man I ever saw. "Tot," he often says, (the dear old toad always calls me Tot, because I'm small,) "my opinion coincides precisely with yours, and, if I have any amendment to make, I feel sure that you yourself would have made it under the circumstances." Of course, I ask if any amendment occurs to _his_ mind. Then he tells me, and, in fact, I see that it is just such an amendment as I _would_ make under the circumstances. Oh! he has the most perfect judgment, has my husband. He not only knows what is best, but he knows just what I would think best. For instance, about what name baby should be christened. If it was to be a boy, I settled at once in my mind that he should be called Daniel, after his papa, to be sure. To think of any other name would be sheer nonsense. But now see the judgment of my old toad. "I was thinking just the same as you, Tot," said he, "and your choice of my own name for the little stranger is the very one I had hoped you would choose; but, knowing how much you and I loved poor brother Alf--who was drowned at sea--I determined to renounce my name in his favor, and so dear brother Alf with his sunny face would live again in our child. If little Tot thinks of that, she will be sure to agree with me." _Did I agree with him?_ Of course I did. What foolish questions you men will ask. I'd no more think of calling him Daniel after that, than of calling him, well--Nebuchodonosor--or some other such heathen name. So the priest christened him Alfred.

Oh! we had such fun at the party. Old Mr. Pillikins--the old gentleman, you recollect, you met here last winter, with the gold spectacles and shiny bald head--was so droll. {228} He wanted to drink baby's health, but somehow he had not heard his name, so looking over to me he says:

"And his name is--"

"Begins with an A," said I.

"Begins with an A," he says after me. "Good, very good. First letter of the alphabet, where all good children ought to begin,

'A was an apple that hung on a tree:'

and the second letter is--"

"Is L, to be sure," said I.

"L! what else could it be?" Mr. Pillikins accented the word _else_, and then, after he had explained it to us, we had such a good laugh. Wasn't it an excellent pun? Then he thought he had it. So, taking up his glass in his right hand and putting the thumb of his left hand in the armhole of his waistcoat, he says;

"Alexander!"

"No, no," says I, "_not_ Alexander."

"_Not_ Alexander! True," says he, putting his glass down again. "I was about to add that Alexander had an A and an L, but did not have an--"

"F after it," cried Mrs. Gowsky, from the bottom of the table.

"Madam, you are quite right," replied Mr. Pillikins, bowing. "It has not an F after it, as the baby's name undoubtedly has, and the _ef_fect is certainly, more in_ef_able on account of it. Ha, ha! you understand?" Never was there such a punster as the old gentleman. "And then follows a--"

"All the rest," said I, "is just what you did with your _Herald_ this morning, Mr. Pillikins. What was that?"

"Madam, I tore it up."

"No, no. What was the first thing you did with it?"

"Madam, I dried it before the grate. The newspapers nowadays come so damp to one that it is enough to give one the gout in the fingers to hold them."

"Think again," I continued. "What did you do with it after having dried it?"

"Madam, I glanced over its contents, and--"

"O you tease!" said I, "you didn't do anything of the kind. You read it. There!"

"Yes, madam. I read it."

"Well, there's the baby's name, then," I exclaimed, almost losing my patience. "Don't you see?"

"Positively, madam, I did not. It is not the fashion to record births nowadays. Only the marriages and deaths."

"Well," said I, after the laugh this raised had somewhat subsided, "It might have been recorded there, for all I care. It would have been a happy piece of information, and giving a good example--" Now what are you laughing at?--"A happy piece of information," says I, "and that's more than can be said of many other items to be found in its columns."

Having got at the name, at last, Mr. Pillikins made a very pretty speech, at which everybody clapped their hands and smiled, and everything went off pleasantly, except Mr. Gowsky's son, Peter, who broke his wine-glass by hammering it on the table, and then fell backward, sprawling on the floor, from a bad habit he has of tilting his chair up. He scared baby so, that, to tell the truth, I had no pity for him in his confusion, and rather enjoyed his blushes, which never left him all the rest of the evening.

_I am malicious?_ Not I; but a poor, dear baby that cannot protect itself must not be abused with impunity. I was near fainting with fright, too, when I heard the sound; for I thought it must be the baby that had fallen out of its nurse's arms. {229} _First thought always about baby?_ To be sure, bless his little heart, and the last too! You can sit there twiddling your thumbs as if you did not agree with me; but I don't mind you; for what do you know about babies? Dan says, and very truly, that a mother whose first and last thought is not about her baby is not likely to give much thought at all, either first or last, to her husband. I can't understand it; but Dan tells me that nowadays Protestant wives have a horror of babies. I never thought of it before; but there is Mrs. Johnson, she has only one child; and there is Mrs. Thompson, who has but two; and Mrs. Simpson, who is married now six years, and has no children at all. It is so all through the Protestant community, Dan says; and that there are actually more Protestants die than are born. It must be their religion, I suppose, but I cannot imagine how a woman, if she had no religion at all--and the Protestants have got some kind of one or other--could hate babies.

As for me, I can hardly tell you how much I love baby, and how proud I am of him; and well I may be. Dinah Jenkins, his nurse, says that she has nursed a good many babies, but such a baby as Our Baby she never yet saw.

"Hi, missus," said she one day, "dis colored woman t'ought she knowed all kinds o' babies as ever war or ever could _be_. G'way, Dinah, says I, soon as I luff my eyes on to _dis_ child," (that's Our Baby,) "dis baby ain't no mo' like de babies you's nussed, an' I'se nussed a heap on 'em in my time, dan--dan--stick yer head in de fire!" And as I often say to dear Dan, she is the most truthful woman I ever met.

_Have I a black woman for a wet-nurse?_ No, I have'nt a black woman for a wet-nurse, nor a white woman either. Oh! you are _such_ a stupid!

I am the child's mother, am I not? That's enough. I hope I shall never be reduced to such an extremity as that. I pity poor mothers who are. If you were a mother, you would say the same. _People have wet-nurses?_ Yes, just as they have the cholera or the typhoid fever, I suppose, because they cannot help it. As to any woman, any mother, choosing to have one, I should say that is the sheerest nonsense ever dreamed of. _Great people have them, queens and empresses, and I needn't be above them?_ Thank Heaven, I am neither a queen nor an empress, but the devoted wife of my dear old toad of a husband, Dan Gaylark, and the mother of Our Baby!

What is that you are saying to relieve your mind? _Good gracious!_ You have made that remark once before, and equally to the point, as it seems to me. I was going to tell you all about the baby, but you are such a tease, Ned, and interrupt one so often with your exceedingly strange remarks, that I feel very much as one might suppose the "skirmishun" train feels in being "generally switched off into a sidin'." But, when I'm not switched off, I am good as the "skirmishun" at any rate. I "doos all as lays in my power" to get on. I suppose you call yourself the express train that is too proud even to whistle a salute in passing a poor, heavy-laden freight train, and utterly despises a modest country station as it goes thundering by, as if that was no place fit for its majesty to "stop at and blow at," as Professor Haman says in his _Cavalry Tactics. I study military tactics?_ Yes, infantry tactics, you rogue, under Mrs. Professor Dinah Jenkins; but I read that in a book of Dan's one day. Dan has a great fancy for horses and dogs. _Which of course, I'm jealous of?_ Not the least. It only makes me love horses and dogs more than I otherwise would. {230} _Simply because Dan loves them?_ Simply because Dan loves them; and if that is not good enough reason, I don't know what is. Ah! smile away as you please. What do _you_ know about it, you wretched old bachelor!

Here! Dixie! Dixie! Dixie! Come here, you good-for-nothing old black ---- There, then, that's enough now. Say "How d'ye" to Mr. Ned. Oh! you needn't be afraid of him. He barks loud, I know, but he won't bite. And he is _so_ knowing. I sometimes wish he did not know quite so much. And so affectionate. He takes a great fancy for everything he sees that Dan and I are fond of. I do think he would die for baby any day. Yes, you would, wouldn't you, you dear old fellow? There, you see, he says yes; he always grins and wags his tail that way when he wants to say yes.

It was about Dixie and baby I was going to tell you. He was so fond of baby that he wanted to take him out to walk and play with him on the Palisades. Ah! I shudder when I think of it.

You recollect that hot Thursday in July? The very air seemed to be holding its own breath. I felt so oppressed with the heat and the closeness of the atmosphere that I could bear the inside of the house no longer, and after taking a look--_and a kiss?_--yes, and a kiss of baby, who was sleeping soundly in his cradle, I went out to saunter down the shady lane that leads to the Palisades. I noticed that Dinah was asleep in a chair, too, beside the window, and thought that, if she could sleep in such weather, it was a mercy, and so I left her undisturbed. As I went out of the room, I left the door open, so that, if any little breeze might spring up, it would refresh baby in his sleep. I'm sorry enough now that I did.

You know what curious notions presentiments, or whatever you choose to call them, will come into people's heads without their being able to give any reason for them? So it was with me then. I had no sooner got out of the house than I thought about my leaving the door open, and half-determined to go back and close it. The same thought came to me again as I was turning the lane; and when I was once upon the green sward under the pine-trees, looking down the dizzy height from the top of the Palisades upon the river, I would most assuredly have returned and closed the door, had it not been for the intense heat, and I may say the cool and refreshing appearance the water had at that time. _You don't believe in presentiments?_ Well, I acknowledge that it savors a little of the fanciful and the romantic--reason enough, I suppose, for you to reject any such notion, you matter-of-fact old stick. But we women cannot take life as you men do, or, at least, as some men do. What! _you are very glad we cannot?_ Pray, what do you mean by that? Oh! I see, you incorrigible old bachelor, our different habits, idiosyncrasies, and tastes lead us to avoid (not your company, you know better) but your own pet schemes and fancies. _I_, for one, don't ask either to meddle with them or to share them. But you are very fond of getting our approbation of them, nevertheless. Dan says that there is not an orator in the country who would not prefer the waving of a lady's handkerchief to all that abominable rat-a-tat-tat you men make with your heels and canes. The more silent the sign of one's appreciation is, the better. Sincerity, Ned, is seldom noisy. True love is dumb as well as blind. But this is hardly _à propos_ of Dixie and the baby. Where was I? Oh! the Palisades, yes. {231} If you were anything of a listener, I might take the trouble to give you a nice little bit of description of the sunny afternoon and the beautiful scene which the river presented to my gaze; but I won't, because I see you are gaping.

I had been seated on the grass about half an hour, watching the boats lolling about in the water as if they were too lazy to move in such hot weather, when not a breath of air was stirring, and I had been thinking how happy my life had been, and what a still happier future might yet be in store for me; and, as I looked up at the bright, cloudless sky, I said to myself, "Thus has God blessed my life, for not a cloud can I see in the firmament of my soul," when my reverie was interrupted by the noise of footsteps behind me. Thinking it was some children, I turned my head, smiling at the same time, that they might see they were welcome. Imagine my surprise. It was Dixie and baby. He had caught baby up in his mouth by the waist, and was bringing him along just as he is accustomed to carry cook's basket to market, wagging his tail and curveting about in the highest state of delight. My first thought was that, the baby was dead--an awful thought that went through my mind, and felt like an electric shock--either that Dixie had bitten him to death, or had struck his poor, dear little head against the trees, or the fences, or the stones, or something else; but a second glance assured me that he was yet unhurt, for he was doubling up his fat little fists, and--will you believe it?--actually pummelling Dixie on his black nose.

Instead of coming up to me as I hoped he would, Dixie no sooner caught sight of me than he dashed off, running round and round on the green grassy bank, stopping suddenly, and looking at me as if he would entice me to chase him.

You know that pretty spot at the end of the lane, how smooth the sward is, and how gently the ground slopes down to the sudden brink of the Palisades? The circles Dixie described in his gambols began to grow larger and larger, and to my horror I saw him run nearer and nearer to the edge of the dreadful precipice each time he came around. You know the edge there is just as sharp as if it had been cut away with a knife, and that, with the exception of a narrow line of jagged rocky ledges, the whole front of the Palisades is a smooth, perpendicular height of a hundred and fifty feet at least. What if the dog should lose his footing and slip off in one of those rapid courses he made! Now, I'm sure you cannot tell me what I did. _I sprang up and ran after him? _I knew you would think so. You are mistaken. I never moved a muscle. I sat as still as a statue, and as silent too. Dan said that was mother's wisdom, and wished that he had never missed baby out of his cradle when he came home; for, when Dixie had had his play out, I would have obtained quiet possession of baby, and all the fearful consequences of his appearance on the bank would have been spared. As it was, he no sooner saw the empty cradle and the little white coverlet lying on the floor all marked with Dixie's dirty paws, than he suspected the truth instantly. Cook told him, besides, that she had seen me going off to walk down the lane, and that she was sure I had not carried baby with me. Dinah had fallen so fast asleep that she had heard nothing.

I heard his footsteps as he came running down the lane, and knew it was he, but did not turn my head to look. By this time Dixie seemed to take delight in running straight down the bank, as if he were about to jump over the Palisades with baby in his mouth, but would wheel about sharply as he came to the edge. {232} It was horrible. My eyes followed his every movement, and they ached with pain. I did not dare to close them long enough even to wink. You think my heart was beating fast? No. It beat slowly, very slowly. I could feel its dull, heavy strokes like a sexton slapping the earth as he heaps it over a newly filled grave. Dan said I was not only as still and as silent as a statue, but as white too. I do not think I shall suffer more when I come to die.

No sooner had Dixie espied my husband running toward him than he bounded off to the extremity of the sward, just where that narrow line of ragged rocks runs down the front of the Palisades. He saw that his master had anger in his face, and began to slink off to escape punishment. It is a wonder he did not drop the baby on the ground; but, do you know, I fancy that he thought the baby was going to get whipped too, and wanted to get him to a place of safety. Nothing else will explain why, finding himself nearly overtaken, he looked first on one side and then on another for a way to escape, and not seeing any, he went straight to the dizzy edge, and, gathering up his feet, sprang over the precipice. I saw them both disappear, and heard that most heart-rending of sounds, a man's cry of anguish; the very ground seemed whirling around me and the sky coming down upon me, and crushing me; but I did not faint. "You are a brave little woman, Tot," Dan has said to me many a time since, "and worth a whole regiment of soldiers." I rose from the ground, and staggered toward Dan, who ran to me and threw his arms about me and pressed my head to his breast. O moment of agony untold, and of the supremest comfort! He uttered only one word, speaking the two syllables separately, as though he loved to dwell upon every letter, and in a tone of mingled horror, grief, tenderest love, and sublime resignation--

"Ba--by!"

I thought I had loved dear Dan before that with all the love my poor little woman's heart could hold. No. The deepest love is only born of the deepest suffering. There are chords of love whose music joy can never waken. Since then Dan is to me more than he ever was, more than he ever could have been, had not our souls passed together that moment of agony.

I do not know how long we stood thus, neither daring to go to the brink of the precipice and look over. Baby and Dixie must be both lying dead on the rocks below. At last Dan mustered up courage enough to say to me,

"It is all over, darling. God is good."

"God is good," I repeated; "but, O Dan, dear! it is a cruel blow."

"For us to bear, Tot, for us to bear; but not for him to give--no, not for him to give."

He seemed to wring the words from his noble Christian heart, as if he tore away his very life and offered it to God.

"Stay here, Tot," said he, "I am strong enough now." But his whole body trembled from head to foot, and his voice was hoarse and broken. "I will go and look."

I feared to let him go. Yet why should I detain him? But I could not watch him. Throwing myself upon the ground, I buried my face in my hands, and gave way to floods of bitter, bitter tears.

I had not lain thus a moment, when I heard a sharp, piercing cry. Raising my head in alarm, to my unutterable surprise and horror, I saw Dan spring over the edge of the Palisades and disappear. Again I heard him cry as before, "Ba--by!" but there was now a tone of joy mingled with that of fear, which told me that the child was not dead. {233} It was a brief instant that I was on my knees, it is true, it was nothing more than a look of gratitude I gave to God; but he knows that not all the language ever expressed by man could fully tell all that thought of thanksgiving which my soul sent up to him, as I raised my clasped hands to the cloudless sky.

In a moment I was at the edge of the Palisades, just where that ragged, rocky line runs down its front, jutting out here and there in rough ledges. There was a story of a man who, being pursued by the officers of justice, had clambered down there and escaped. Few people who saw the place believed it. The very first rock that jutted out was ten feet from the top, and that did not present more than two or three feet of surface. A little to the right of this, and about three feet lower, was another, on which a man might easily stand, but not for any length of time, as its surface shelved outward, and the rock overhanging it above would not allow him to stand perfectly upright. Any one who had gotten thus far must perforce take his chances of clambering down the rest or be precipitated head foremost below, to certain death.

On this second ledge, I saw Dan holding the baby by his mouth, just as Dixie had held him before. Dixie himself was crouched up beside him. Poor Dan could not hold his place long there. As it was, he was forced to grasp little, sharp edges of rock with both hands to prevent himself falling off. He saw at once that there was no time to send for help from above, and that he must try the perilous descent. As he told me afterward, he had not calculated upon this when he leapt from above. The first glance he caught of the dog told him that, if he released his hold upon the child's dress and opened his mouth, were it but for an instant, baby would roll over the edge and be dashed to pieces. Dan says now that he shall never regret taking one hasty step in his life. He makes that an exception, you see, for he is always saying to me, "Now, darling Tot, let us see the pros and the cons; for it is my principle never to leap before I think, but to let my mind jump before my feet."

Holding on, as I told you, to baby by his teeth, Dan went clambering down the line of rocks. He had managed to wave his hand backward to me as he left the ledge where Dixie was. I knew what that meant--"Don't look." There was little or no hope of his ever reaching the bottom safely, and he wished to spare me the awful sight of his headlong fall, which might take place at any step of the way. But I could not stir; my feet were riveted to the ground. Besides, could I not help him? It seemed to me that, as he went down, almost falling from one sharp rock to another, I held him up with my eyes. When I told Dan my fancy afterward, he laughed and said:

"Not the least doubt of it, Tot. I have felt the power of those eyes before."

It did not last long, but it appeared to my mind, wrought up to such a state of excitement, as if it had been going on and was going on forever. It is stamped on my mind to-day as a memory of years. As for dear Dan, it cost him, he said, the strength of many days. He was no sooner at the bottom than he turned and lifted up the baby in one hand, and, looking up to me, waved the other as a sign of safety. Ah! his hands, his poor hands, you should have seen them, all cut and gashed by the rocks. Those hands seem to have something sacred about them ever since that day. {234} I saw him on his knees, and then off I scampered to the house to get the carriage. It is two miles around by the road to the bottom of the Palisades, and it took us a long while to get to him. When we did, he was still so weak that Mike, the coachman, and I had to lift him up into the carriage. Dinah went down to the place I had left, to make signs to him that he should remain. Poor dear, there was no need of it. So we came home in more joy than I can tell you--Dan, baby, and I. Mike rescued Dixie afterward, by getting himself let down from above with a rope, to where the patient old dog still was, wondering, who knows? how he ever came to be there.

What is that you say? _Good gracious?_ Well, I don't mind your saying it now, after what I have told you. But don't you think, now, Mr. Ned, that I ought to be very proud of Our Baby after that? What? _Ought to be very careful of him?_ The idea! An old bachelor telling a mother to be careful of her baby!

The Cartesian Doubt. [Footnote 36]

[Footnote 36: _The Churchman,_ Hartford, Ct., August 31, 1867.]

_The Churchman_, an Episcopalian weekly periodical, contains an article of no little philosophic pretension, entitled _Science and God_, which we propose to make the occasion of a brief discussion of what is known in the philosophic world as the Cartesian Doubt, or Method of Philosophizing. _The Churchman_ begins by saying:

"A distinction is frequently and very justly taken between philosophic and religious scepticism. When Descartes, in order to find firm ground for his philosophical system, declared that he doubted the truth of every thing, even of the existence of the sensible world and the being of God, he did it in the interest of science. He wished to stand upon a principle which could not be denied, to find a first truth which no one could question. And this philosophic scepticism is an essential element in all investigations of truth. It says to every accredited opinion, Have you any right to exist? are you a reality or a sham? By thus exploring the foundation of current beliefs, we come to distinguish those which have real vitality in them, and stand on the rock and not on the sand; and by gathering up the living (true) and casting away the dead, (false,) science goes step by step toward its goal."

Whether Descartes recommended a real or only a feigned doubt, as the first step in the scientific process he defended, has been and still is a disputed point. If it is only a feigned or pretended doubt, it is no real doubt at all, and he who affects it is a real believer all the time. It is a sham doubt, and we have never seen any good in science or in anything else come from shams or shamming. If the doubt is real, and is extended to all things, even to the being of God and our own existence, as Descartes recommends, we are at a loss to understand any process by which it can be scientifically removed. To him who really doubts of everything, even for a moment, nothing can be proved, for he doubts the proofs as well as the propositions to be proved. All proofs must be drawn either from facts or from principles, and none can avail anything with one who holds all facts and principles doubtful. The man who really doubts everything is out of the condition of ever knowing or believing anything. There is no way of refuting a sceptic but by directing his attention to something which he does not and cannot doubt; and if there is nothing of the sort, his refutation is impossible.

{235}

Descartes, according to _The Churchman,_ when he declared he doubted the truth of everything, even of the existence of the sensible world and the being of God, did it in the interest of science, in order to find firm ground for his philosophical system. Doubt is ignorance, for no man doubts where he knows. So Descartes sought a firm ground for his philosophical system in universal ignorance! "He wished to stand upon (on) a principle which could not be denied, a first truth which no one could question." If he held there is such a principle, such a first truth, or anything which cannot be denied, he certainly did not and could not doubt of everything. If he doubted the being of God, how could he expect to find such a principle or such a first truth? _The Churchman_ seems to approve of the Cartesian doubt, and says, "This philosophical scepticism is an essential element in all investigations of truth." If this real or feigned scepticism were possible, no investigations could end in anything but doubt, for it would always be possible, whatever the conclusions arrived at, to doubt them. But why can I not investigate the truth I do not doubt or deny?

Moreover, is it lawful, even provisionally, in the interest of science, to doubt, that is, to deny, the being of God? No man has the right to make himself an atheist even for a moment. The obligation to believe in God, to love, serve, and obey him, is a universal moral obligation, and binds every one from the first dawn of reason. To doubt the being of God is to doubt the whole moral order, all the mysteries of faith, the entire Christian religion. And does _The Churchman_ pretend that any man in the interest of science or any other interest has the right voluntarily to do that?

Undoubtedly, every man has the right to interrogate "every accredited _opinion_" and to demand of it, "Have you any right to exist? are you a reality or a sham?" But the right to question "accredited opinions" is one thing, and the right to question the first principles either of science or of faith is another. A man has no more right voluntarily to deny the truth than he has to lie or steal. _The Churchman_ will not deny this. Then either it holds that all science as all faith is simply opinion, or it deceives itself in supposing that it accepts the Cartesian doubt or adopts his philosophical scepticism. Doubt in the region of simple opinion is very proper. It would be perfectly right for _The Churchman_ to doubt the opinion accredited among Protestants that Rome is a despotism, the papacy a usurpation, the Catholic religion a superstition, or that the church has lost, falsified, corrupted, or overlaid the pure Christian faith, and demand of that opinion, "Have you any right to exist? are you a reality or a sham?" And we have little doubt, if it would do so, that it would find itself exchanging its present opinion for the faith "once delivered to the saints." It is clear enough from the extract we have made that _The Churchman_ means to justify scepticism only in matters of opinion, and that it is far enough from doubting of everything, or supposing that there is nothing real which no man can doubt.

But, if we examine a little more closely this Cartesian method which bids us doubt of everything till we have proved it, we shall find more than one reason for rejecting it. The doubt must be either real or feigned. If the doubt is only feigned for the purpose of investigation, it amounts to nothing, serves no purpose whatever; for every man carries himself with him wherever he goes, and enters into his thought as he is, with all the faith or science he really has. {236} No man ever does or can divest himself of himself. Hence the difficulty we find even in imagining ourselves dead, for even in imagination we think, and in all thinking we think ourselves living, are conscious that we are not dead. In every thought, whatever else we affirm, we affirm our own existence, and this affirmation of our own existence is an essential and inseparable element of every thought. When I attempt to think myself dead, I necessarily think myself as surviving my own death, and as hovering over my own grave. No one ever thinks his own death as the total extinction of his existence, and hence we always think of the grave as dark, lonely, cold, as if something of life or feeling remained in the body buried in it. Men ask for proofs that the soul survives the dissolution of the body, but what they really need is proof that the soul dies. Life we know; but death, in the sense of total extinction of life, we know not; it is no fact of our experience. Life we can conceive, death we cannot. I am always living in my conceptions, and that I die with my body I am utterly unable to think, because I can think myself only as living.

The thinker, then, enters as an indestructible element into every one of his thoughts. Then he must enter as he is and for what he is. His real faith or science enters with him, and no doubt can enter that is not a real doubt. A feigned or factitious doubt, being unreal, does not and cannot enter with him. He is always conscious that he does not entertain it, and therefore can never think as he would if he did. The Christian, firm in his Christian faith, whose soul is clothed with Christian habits, cannot think as an infidel, or even in thought put himself in the infidel's position. Hence one reason why so many defences of Christianity, perfectly conclusive to the believer, fail of their purpose with the unbeliever. Even the unbeliever trained in a Christian community or bred and born under Christian civilization cannot think as one bred and born under paganism. What we assert is, that every man thinks as he is, and cannot think otherwise; simply what all the world means when it says of a writer, "Whatever else he writes, he always writes himself." Men may mimic one another, but always each in his own way. The same words from different writers produce not the same impression upon the reader. Something of himself enters into whatever a man thinks or does, and no translator has ever yet been able to translate an author from one language to another without giving something of himself in his translation. The Cartesian doubt, then, if feigned, factitious, or merely methodical, is impracticable, is unreal, and counts for nothing; for all along the investigator thinks with whatever faith and knowledge he really has; or simply, we cannot feign a doubt we do not feel.

It will be no better if we assume that the doubt recommended is real. No man really doubts what he does not doubt, and no man does or can doubt of everything; for even in doubt the existence of the doubter is affirmed. But suppose a man really does doubt of everything, the Cartesian method will never help him to resolve his doubts. From doubt you can get only doubt. To propose doubt as a method of philosophizing is simply absurd, as absurd as it would be to call scepticism philosophy, faith, or science. The mind that doubts of everything, if such a mind can be supposed, is a perfect blank, and, when the mind is a perfect blank, is totally ignorant of everything, how is it to understand, discover, or know that anything is or exists? {237} There have indeed been men, sometimes men called philosophers, who tell us that the mind is at first a _tabula rasa_, or blank sheet, and exists without a single character written on it. If so, if it can exist in a state of blank ignorance, how can it, we should like to know, ever become an intelligent mind, or ever know anything more than the sheet of paper on which we are now writing? Intelligence can speak only to intelligence, and no mind absolutely unintelligent can ever be taught or ever come to know anything? But if we assume that the mind is in any degree intelligent, we deny that it can doubt of everything; for there is no intelligence where nothing is known, and what the mind knows it does not and cannot doubt. Either, then, this blank ignorance is impossible, or no intelligence is possible.

But, as we have already said, no man does or can doubt of everything, and hence the Cartesian method is an impossible method. Descartes most likely meant that we should doubt of everything, the external world, and even the being of God, and accept nothing till we have found a principle that cannot be denied, or a first truth that cannot be doubted, from which all that is true or real may be deduced after the manner of the geometricians. He did not mean to deny that there is such first truth or principle, but to maintain that the philosopher should doubt till he has found or obtained it. His error is in taking up the question of method before that of principles or first truths--an error common to nearly all philosophers who have succeeded him, but which we never encounter in the great Gentile philosophers, far less in the great fathers and mediaeval doctors of the church. These always begin with principles, and their principles determine their method. Descartes begins with method, and, as Cousin has justly said, all his philosophy is in his method. But, unhappily, his method, based on doubt, recognizes and conducts to no principles, therefore to no philosophy, to no science, and necessarily leaves the mind in the doubt in which it is held to begin. The discussion of method before discussing principles assumes that the mind is at the outset without principles, or, at least, totally ignorant of principles; and that, being without principles or totally ignorant of them, it is obliged to go forth and seek them, and, if possible, find or obtain them by its own active efforts. But here comes the difficulty, too often overlooked by our modern philosophers. The mind can neither exist nor operate without principles, or what some philosophers call first truths. The mind is constituted mind by the principles, and without them it is nothing and can do nothing. The supposed _tabula rasa_ is simply no mind at all. Principles must be given, not found or obtained. We cannot even doubt without them, for doubt itself is a mental act, and therefore the principles themselves, without which no doubt or denial is possible, are not and cannot be denied or doubted; for even in denying or doubting the mind affirms them. Principles, again, cannot be given the mind without its possessing them, and for the mind to possess a thing is to know it. As the principles create or constitute the mind, the mind always knows them, and what it knows it does not and cannot doubt. The philosopher, as distinguished from the sophist, does not start from doubt, and doubt of everything till he has found something which he cannot doubt; but he starts from the principles themselves, which, being given, are _nota per se_, or self-evident, and therefore need no proof--in fact, are provable only from the absurd consequences which would follow their denial.

{238}

Having begun with a false method, Descartes fails in regard to principles, and takes as the first truth which cannot be doubted what, either in the order of being or knowing, is no first truth or ultimate principle at all. He takes as a principle what is simply a fact--the fact of his own personal existence, or of an internal personal sentiment: _Cogito, ergo sum_, I think, therefore I exist. Regarded as an argument to prove his existence, as Descartes evidently at first regarded it, this enthymem is a sheer paralogism, and proves nothing; for the consequence only repeats the antecedent; _sum_ is already in _cogito_. I affirm that I exist in affirming that I think. But pass over this, and give Descartes the benefit of an explanation, which he gives in one of his letters when hard pressed by his acute Jesuit opponent, that he does not pretend to offer it as an argument to prove that he exists, but presents it simply as the fact in which he finds or becomes conscious of his existence. There is no doubt that in the act of thinking I become conscious that I exist; for, as we have already shown, the subject enters into every thought as one of its integral and indestructible elements; but this does not relieve him. He "wished," as says _The Churchman_, "to stand upon (on) a principle which could not be denied, to find a first truth which no one could question." This principle or first truth he pretends is his own personal existence, expressed in the sophism, I think, therefore I exist, _Cogito, ergo sum_. We agree, indeed have already proved, that no one can deny or doubt his own personal existence, although it is possible for a man to set forth propositions which, in their logical development, would deny it. But the method Descartes defends permits him to assert nothing which cannot be deduced, after the manner of the geometricians, from the principle or first truth on which he takes his stand; and unless he can so deduce God and the universe, he must deny them.

But from the fact that I exist, that is, from my own personal existence, nothing but myself and what is in me and dependent on me can be deduced. Geometrical or mathematical deduction is nothing but analysis, and analysis can give nothing but the subject analyzed. Now, it so happens that I do not contain God and the external universe in myself. Following the Cartesian method, I can attain, then, to no existence but myself, my own personal phenomena. I can deduce no existence but my own, and am forced, if logical, to doubt or deny all other existence, that is, all existence but my personal existence, and my own interior sentiments and affections. I am the only existence; I am all that is or exists, and hence either I am God or God is not. What is this but the absolute egoism of Fichte?

Descartes himself seems to have felt the difficulty, and to have seen that God cannot, after all, be deduced from the fact of personal existence; he therefore asserts God as an innate idea, and concludes his real and independent being from the idea innate in his own mind. Analysis of his own mind discloses the idea, and from the idea he concludes, after the manner of St. Anselm, that God is. But when I am given as the principle or first truth, how conclude from my idea, which is simply a fact of my interior life, that there is anything independent of me to correspond to it? {239} Here Descartes was forced to depart from his own method, and make what on his system is a most unwarrantable assumption, namely, that the idea, being innate, is deposited by God in the mind, and, as God cannot lie, the idea must be true, and therefore God is. That is, he takes the idea to prove the being of God, and the veracity of God to prove the trustworthiness of the idea! But he was to doubt the being of God till he had geometrically demonstrated it; he therefore must prove that God is before he can appeal to his veracity. His method involved him in a maze of sophistries from which he was never able to escape. God concluded from my idea, innate or otherwise, is only my idea, without any reality independent of me. The argument of St. Anselm is valid only when _idea_ is taken objectively, not subjectively, as Descartes takes it.

What Descartes really meant by innate ideas we do not know, and we are not certain that he knew himself; but he says, somewhere in his correspondence, that, when he calls the idea of God innate, he only means that we have the innate faculty of thinking God. His argument is, "I think God, and therefore God is." Still the difficulty according to his own method remains unsolved.

Given my own personal existence alone as the principle or first truth, it follows that, at least in science, I am sufficient for myself. Then nothing distinguishable from myself is necessary to my thought, and there is no need of my going out of myself to think. How, then, conclude that what in thought seems to be object is really anything distinguishable from myself? I think God, but how conclude from this that God is distinct from and independent of me, or that he is anything but a mode or affection of my own personal existence? The fact is, when we take our own personal existence alone as the principle from which all objects of faith or science are to be deduced, we can never attain to any reality not contained in our existence as the part in the whole, the effect in the cause, or the property in the essence. Exclusive psychology, as has been shown over and over again, can give us only the subjectivism of Kant, or the egoism of Fichte, resulting necessarily in the nihilism, or identity of being and not-being, of Hegel.

The psychologists generally do not, we are aware, concede this; but they are not in fact, whatever they are in theory, exclusive psychologists, and their inductions of God and an external universe are made from ontological as well as from psychological _data_. They begin their process, indeed, by analyzing the mind, what they call the facts of consciousness, but they always include in their premises non-psychological elements. Their inductions all suppose man and the universe are contingent existences, and as the contingent is inconceivable as contingent without the necessary, they conclude, since the contingent exists, very logically, that there really is also the necessary, or necessary being, which is God. But the necessary, without which their conclusion would and could have no validity, is not a psychological fact or element; otherwise the soul itself would be necessary being, would be itself God. The mistake arises from regarding what philosophers call necessary ideas, such as the idea of the necessary, the universal, the immutable, the eternal, etc., because held by the mind, as psychological, instead of being, as they really are, ontological. Being ontological, real being, the inductions of the psychologists, as they call themselves, do really carry us out of the psychological order, out of the subjective into the objective. {240} But, if their inductions were, as they pretend, from exclusively psychological data, they would have no value beyond the soul itself, and the God concluded would be only a psychological abstraction. Indeed, most psychologists assert more truth than their method allows, are better than their systems. Especially is this the case with Descartes. On his own system, logically developed, he could assert no reality but his own individual soul or personal existence; yet, in point of fact, he asserts nearly all that the Catholic theologian asserts, but he does it inconsistently, illogically, unscientifically, and thus leads his followers to deny everything not assertable by his method.

But, as we have said, Descartes does not attain by his method to a first principle. Not only cannot the being of God and the existence of the external universe be deduced from our own personal existence, but, by his method, our personal existence itself cannot be logically asserted. It is not ultimate, a first principle, or a first truth. Our personal existence cannot stand by itself alone. It is true Descartes says, _Cogito, ergo_ SUM; but I cannot even think by myself alone, and even he does not venture to take _sum_ in the absolute sense of _am_, as in the incommunicable name by which God reveals himself to Moses, I AM WHO AM, or I AM THAT AM. Even he takes it in the sense of _exist, Cogito, ergo sum_, I think, therefore I exist. He never dared assert his own personal existence as absolute, underived, eternal, and necessary being; it remained for a Fichte, adopting the Cartesian method, to do that. Between being and existence, _essentia_ and _existentia_, there is a difference which our philosophers are not always careful to note. Existence is from _exstare_, and strictly taken, means standing from another, or a derivative and dependent, therefore a contingent existence, or creature, whose being is in another, not in itself. We speak, indeed, of human beings, but men are beings only in a derivative sense, not in the primary or absolute sense. Hence the apostle to the Gentiles says, "In him (God) we live, and move, and are," or have our being. In ourselves we have no being, and are something only as created and upheld by Him who is being itself, or, to speak _à la_ Plato, being in himself. Evidently, then, our personal existence is not ultimate, therefore not the first principle, nor the first truth. The ultimate, at least in the order of being, is not the soul, a contingent existence, but, real being, that is, God himself.

But as we have and can have no personal existence except from God, it is evident that we cannot assert our personal existence by itself alone; and to be able to assert it at all, we must be able to assert the being of God. Now, Descartes tells us that we must doubt the being of God till we can prove it after the manner of the geometricians. But how are we to do this? We cannot, as we have seen, deduce his being from our own personal existence; and what is still more to the purpose, while we deny or doubt his being, we cannot assert or even conceive of our own, because our existence, being derivative, dependent, having not its being in itself, is not intelligible or conceivable in or by itself alone. The contingent is not conceivable without the necessary. They are correlatives, and correlatives connote each other. Now, if we deny or doubt the being of God, we necessarily deny or doubt our own personal existence, impossible and inconceivable without God. {241} With God disappears the existence of the external universe and our own. If, then, it were possible to doubt of the being of God, we should doubt of all things, and should have nothing left with which to prove that God is. God is the first principle in being and in knowing, and if he is denied, all is denied. Atheism is nihilism.

Descartes evidently assumes that it is both possible and lawful to doubt the being of God, nay, that we ought to do so, till we have geometrically demonstrated that he is, and _The Churchman_ tells us that this "scepticism is an essential element in the investigation of truth." We cannot bring ourselves to believe it. God, the theologians tell us, is real and necessary being, the contrary of which cannot be thought, and it is the fool, the Scriptures tell us, that says "in his heart, God is not." The evidence of this is in the fact that we do in every thought think our own existence, and cannot deny it if we would; and in the farther fact that we always do think our own existence as contingent, not as necessary being; and that we cannot think the contingent without at the same time thinking the necessary, as was sufficiently shown in the papers on _The Problems of the Age_, published sometime since in this Magazine. As there can without God be nothing to be known, we must dissent from _The Churchman_, as from Descartes himself, that a philosophical scepticism which extends even to the being of God "is an essential element in the investigation of truth." It seems to us the worst way possible to truth, that of beginning by denying all truth, and even the possibility of truth. The man who does so, humanly speaking, puts himself out of the condition of discovering or receiving truth of any sort. He who seeks for the truth should do so with an open mind and heart, and with the conviction that it is. We must open our eyes to the light, if we would behold it, and our hearts to the entrance of truth, if we would have it warm and vivify us. Those men who shut their eyes, compress their lips, and close the aperture of their minds are the last men in the world to discover or to receive the truth, and they must expect to walk in darkness and doubt all their lives. Scepticism is a worse preparation for investigating truth than even credulity, though scepticism and credulity are blood relations, and usually walk hand in hand.

If it were possible to doubt the being of God, or to think a single thought without thinking him, we should prove ourselves independent of him, and therefore deprive ourselves of all possible means of proving that he is. If, for instance, we could think our own existence, as is assumed in the Cartesian enthymem, _Cogito, ergo sum_, without in the same indissoluble thought thinking God, there would be no necessity of asserting God, and no possible argument by which we could prove his being, or data from which he could be concluded. Man can no more exist and act in the intellectual order, without God, than in the physical order. If you suppose men capable of thinking and reasoning without the intellectual apprehension of the Divine Being, as must be the man who really doubts the being of God, there is no possible reason for asserting God, and it is a matter of no practical moment in the conduct of life whether we believe in God or not. The fact is, no man can doubt the being of God any more than he can his own personal existence. The Cartesian method, if followed strictly, would lead logically to universal nihilism; for he who doubts the being of God must, if logical, doubt of everything, and he who doubts of everything can be convinced of nothing.

{242}

We say not only that atheism is absurd, but that it is impossible; and they who with the fool say there is no God, if sincere, deceive themselves, or are deceived by the false methods and theories of philosophers, or sophists rather. No man can think a single thought without thinking both God and himself. The man may not advert, as St. Augustine says, to the fact that he thinks God, but he certainly thinks, as we showed in our article last May, on _An Old Quarrel_, that which is God. No man ever thinks the imperfect without thinking the perfect, the particular without the universal, the mutable without the immutable, the temporal without the eternal, the contingent without the necessary. The perfect, the universal, the immutable, the eternal, the necessary are not abstract ideas, for there are no abstractions in nature. Abstractions are nullities, and cannot be thought. The ideas must be real, and therefore being; and what is perfect, universal, immutable, eternal, real and necessary being but God? That which is God enters into every one of our thoughts, and can no more be denied or doubted than our own existence. Those poor people who regard themselves as atheists so regard themselves because they do not understand that the so-called abstract or necessary ideas are not simply ideas in the mind or psychological phenomena, but are objective, real being, the eternal, immutable, self-existent God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. No doubt we need instruction and reflection to understand this, but this instruction is within the reach of all men, and every mind of ordinary capacity is adequate to the necessary reflection. In point of fact, it is the philosophers that make atheists, and the atheism is always theoretical, never real.

There is no doubt that a little ingenuity may deduce something like this doctrine from Descartes's assertion of innate ideas, but not in the sense Descartes himself understood the word _idea_. With Descartes the word _idea_ never means the objective reality, but its image in the mind; never being itself, but its mental representation, leaving it necessary, after having ascertained that we have the idea, to prove that it represents an objective reality--a thing which no man has ever done or ever can do. His subsequent explanation that he meant, by asserting that the idea of God is innate, simply the innate faculty of thinking God, was a nearer approach to the truth perhaps, but did not reach it, because it assumed that the intuition of that which really is God follows the exercise of the faculty of thinking, instead of preceding and constituting it, and is not an _à priori_ but an empirical intuition. If we could suppose the faculty constituted, existing, and operative, without the intuition of real and necessary being, and that the idea is obtained by our thinking, there would still remain the question as to the objective validity of the thought. If Descartes had identified the idea with being regarded as intelligible to us, and represented it as creating or constituting the faculty of thinking, he would have reached the truth; but this he could not do by his method, which required him to recognize as his principle only his own personal existence, and to deduce from it, after the manner of the geometricians, whatever he recognized as true. God, or what is God, could be obtained or presented only by the exercise of our faculty of thinking, and not by the creative act of God affirming himself as the first principle alike of thought and the faculty of thinking.

{243}

If Descartes had properly analyzed thought and ascertained its essential and indestructible elements, he would have avoided the error of resolving the thinker into thought, _la pensée_, which denied the substantive character of the soul and made it purely phenomenal, and have ascertained that, beside the subject or our personal existence, but simultaneously with it, there is affirmed what in the order of reality precedes it,--God himself, under the form, if I may so speak, of real, necessary, universal, eternal, and independent idea or being. There is given in every thought, as its primary and essential element, a real ontological element, without which no thought is possible. This, not our personal existence, is the first truth or principle which every philosopher must recognize, if he would build on a solid foundation and not in the air, and this principle can no more be denied or doubted than our personal existence itself, for without it we could not think our personal existence, nay, could not exist at all, as capable of thought.

But even if, by a just analysis, Descartes had found that this ontological element is a necessary and indestructible element of thought, he would have still greatly, fatally erred if he had taken it as his first principle and refused to admit any existence not logically deducible from it, that is, deducible from it "after the manner of the geometricians," as required by his method. Father Rothenflue, Father Fournier, and the Louvain professors reject the Cartesian psychology, and assume Ens, or being, which they very properly identify with God, as the first principle in science. This is proper. But how do they pass from being to existences, from the necessary to the contingent, from God to creation? We cannot deduce logically existences from being, because logic can deduce from being only what is necessarily contained in being, that is, only being. If we say, given being existences logically follow, we assume with Cousin that God cannot but create, that creation is a necessity of his own nature, and therefore necessary, as necessary as God himself, which denies the contingency of creatures, and identifies them with necessary being. This is precisely what Descartes himself does after he has once got possession, as he supposes, of the idea of God, or proved that God is. Creation on his system is the necessary, not the free act of the Creator.

There are, as has often been remarked, two systems in Descartes, the one psychological and the other ontological; as there are in his great admirer and follower, Victor Cousin. The two systems are found in juxtaposition indeed, but without any logical or genetic relation. Descartes proceeds from his personal existence as his principle, which gives him nothing but his personal existence; then finding that he has the idea of God, for we presume he had been taught his catechism, he takes the idea as his principle, and erects on it a system of ontology. In this last he was followed by Malebranche, a far greater man than himself. Malebranche perceived, what we have shown, that we have direct and immediate intelligence of God, that he, as idea, is the immediate object of the understanding, and that we see all things in him. Hence his well-known _Visio in Deo_, or Vision in God, which would be true enough if we had the vision of the blest, and could see God as he is in himself; for God sees or knows all things in himself, and has no need to go out of himself to know anything he has made. {244} But this is not the case with us. We do not see things themselves in God, but only their idea or possibility. From the idea of God we may deduce his ability to create, and that the type of all creatable things must be in him; but as creation is on his part a free, not a necessary act, we can, as Malebranche was told at the time, see a possible, but not an actual universe in God; hence, by his vision in God, he attained only to a pure idealism, in which nothing actually distinguishable from God was apprehended or asserted.

Spinoza, greater still than Malebranche, followed also Descartes in his ontological system, and took being, which he calls substance, as his principle. Substance, he said, is one and ultimate, and nothing is to be admitted not obtainable from it by way of logical deduction. Spinoza was too good a logician to suppose that the idea of creation is deducible from the idea of God, for a necessary creation is no creation at all, but the simple evolution of necessary being or substance. Hence nothing is or exists except the one only substance and its modes and attributes. His attributes are infinite, since he is infinite substance; but we know only two, thought and extension. The so-called German ontologists in the main follow Spinoza, and like him admit only being or substance, or its attributes or modes. This system makes what are called creatures, men and things, modes of the Divine Being, in which he manifests his attributes, thought and extension; hence it is justly called pantheism, which, under some of its forms, no one can escape who admits nothing not logically deducible from the idea of substance, being, or God; for deduction, we have said, is simply analysis, and analysis can give only the subject analyzed. As the analysis of my personal existence or the soul can give only me and my attributes, modes, and affections, and therefore the egoism of Fichte, which underlies every purely psychological system, so the analysis of the idea of being can give only being and its modes or attributes, or the pantheism of Spinoza, which underlies the ontology of Descartes, and every system of exclusive ontology.

No philosopher is ever able to develop his whole system, and present it in all its parts, or foresee all its logical consequences. It is only time that can do this, and the vices of a method or a system can be collected fully only from its historical developments. The disciples of Descartes, who in France started with his psychological principle, ended in the pure sensism, or sensation transformed, of Condillac, and those who in Germany started with the same principle, ended in the absolute egoism of Fichte, who completed the subjectivism of Kant, and reached the point where egoism and pantheism become identical. Those, again, who in any country have started with the ontological principle of Descartes and followed his method, have, however they may have attempted to disguise their conclusions, ended in denying creation and asserting some form of pantheism. The materialism which prevailed in the last century, and obtains to a great extent even in the present, is not a historical development of Cartesianism, so much as of the English school founded by Bacon, and developed by Hobbes and Locke, and completed by the French idealogists of Autueil, who were noted for their Anglomania. {245} Cartesianism led rather to what is improperly termed idealism, to the denial of the material universe, or its resolution into pure sensation.

Yet it is instructive to observe that the historical development of the psychological principle represented by Fichte and that of the ontological principle represented by Spinoza terminate in identity. Fichte saw he could not make the soul the first principle without taking it as ultimate and denying its contingency, or that he could not make the soul that from which all that exists proceeds without assuming that the soul, the ego, is God. Hence his twofold ego, the one absolute and the other phenomenal or modal. He thus identifies the soul with God, and concludes that nothing except me and my phenomen, or attributes and modes, is or exists: I am all. Spinoza, starting from the opposite pole, the ontological, finds that he can logically deduce from being only being; and calling being substance, and substance God, he concludes with an invincible logic nothing is or exists, except God and his modes or attributes. The form may differ, but the conclusion is identical with the last conclusion of egoism, and it is noteworthy that even Fichte, in the last transformation of his doctrine, substituted God for the soul, and made God the absolute, and the soul relative and phenomenal, or a mode of the Divine Being.

Whether, then, we start with the soul as first principle or with God, we can never by logical deduction arrive at creation, or be able to assert any existence as distinguishable from the Divine Being. Neither can be taken exclusively as the _primum philosophicum_, and exclusive ontology is as faulty and as fatal in its consequences as exclusive psychology. The fact is, we can neither doubt the being of God nor our own personal existence; for both are equally essential and indestructible elements of thought, given in the primitive intuition, though being is logically prior to existence, and our _primum philosophicum_ must include both.

But the soul is given in the intuition as contingent, and being is given as necessary. The contingent cannot exist any more than it can be thought without the necessary. It then depends on the necessary, and can exist only as created and upheld by it. The real principle, or _primum philosophicum,_ is then, as has been amply shown in the essays on _The Problems of the Age_, the ideal formula, _Ens creat existentias_, or Being creates existences. This presents the ontological principle and the psychological not in juxtaposition merely, but in their real and true relation. This formula enables us to avoid alike pantheism, atheism, idealism, and materialism, and to conform in principle our philosophy to the real order of things and the Catholic faith. But it is only in principle, for Gioberti himself calls the formula _ideal_. It does not, after all, give us any science of actual existences, or itself furnish its own scientific explication and application. Apply to it the method of Descartes, and lay it down that everything is to be doubted till proved, and we are not much in advance of Cartesianism. We know God is, we know things exist, and God has created or creates them; but we do not know by knowing the formula what God is, what things do or do not exist. It gives us the principles of science, but not the sciences; the law which governs the explication of facts, not the facts themselves. We cannot deduce, after the manner of the geometricians, any actual existence or fact from the formula, nor any of the sciences. {246} There is an empirical element in all the sciences, and none of them can be constructed by logical deduction even from a true ideal formula, and to deny everything not logically deducible from it would leave us in the purely ideal, and practically very little better off than Descartes himself left us. The Cartesian method based on doubt, then, whether we start with an incomplete or a complete ideal formula, can never answer the purpose of the philosopher, or enable us to construct a concrete philosophy that includes the whole body of truth and all the scientific facts of the universe.

We do not pretend that philosophy must embrace all the knowable, _omne scibile_, in detail; it suffices that it does so in principle. No doubt the ideal formula does this, as in fact always has done the philosophy that has obtained in the Catholic schools. But though the ideas expressed in the ideal formula are intuitive, the constitution of the mind, and basis of all intelligence, and are really asserted in every thought, we very much doubt if they could ever have been reduced to the formula given by Gioberti if men had never received a divine revelation from God, or if they had been left without any positive instruction from their Creator. We are as far as any one can be from building science on faith; but we so far agree with the traditionalists as to hold that revelation is necessary to the full development of reason and its perfect mastery of itself. One great objection to the Cartesian doubt or method is, that it detaches philosophy from theology, and assumes that it can be erected into an independent science sufficient for itself without any aid from supernatural revelation, and free from all allegiance to it. This had never been done nor attempted by any Christian school or even non-Christian school prior to Descartes, unless the pretension of Pomponatius and some others, that things may be theologically true yet philosophically false, and who were promptly condemned by Leo X., be understood as an attempt in that direction. The great fathers of the church and the mediaeval doctors always recognized the synthesis of reason and revelation; and, while they gave to each its part, they seem never to have dreamed of separating them, and of cultivating either as independent of the other; yet they have given us a philosophy which, if not free from all defects, is superior, under the point of view of reason alone, to anything that has elsewhere ever been given under that name. He who would construct a philosophy that can stand the test even of reason must borrow largely from St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas, St. Buonaventura, and the later scholastics.

It is also an objection to the Cartesian doubt that it is not only a complete rupture with revealed theology, but also with tradition, and is an attempt to break the continuity of the life of the race, and to sever the future of humanity from its past. We are among those who regard the catholic beliefs and traditions of mankind as integral elements in the life of the race itself, and indispensable to its continuous progress. The future always has its germ in the past, and a beginning _de novo_ for the individual as for society is alike impossible and undesirable. The Cartesian doubt overlooks this, and requires the individual to disgarnish his mind of every relic and memorial of the past, of everything furnished by his parents and teachers, or the wisdom of ages, and after having become absolutely naked and empty, and made himself as ignorant and impotent as the new-born babe, to receive nothing till he, without experience, without instruction, has by his own unaided powers tested its truth. {247} As reasonable would it be for the new-born infant to refuse the milk from its mother's breast, till it had by the exercise of its faculties settled the question of its wholesomeness.

We object, finally, that it tends to destroy all respect for authority, all reverence for tradition, all regard for the learning and science of other ages and other men, and to puff up the individual with an overweening self-conceit, and sense of his own sufficiency for himself. It renders all education and instruction useless and an impertinence. It tends to crush the social element of our nature, and to create a pure individualism, no less repugnant to government and society than to religion and the divine order, according to which all men are made mutually dependent, one on another. Doubtless, Descartes only developed and gave expression to tendencies which were in his time beginning to be active and strong; but the experience of the civilized world only historically verifies their destructive, anti-philosophical, anti-religious, and anti-social character. Yet his method is still, in substance if not in form, very extensively accepted and followed, as the example of _The Churchman_ itself proves.

We do not by any means believe that Descartes had any suspicion of the real character of his philosophic enterprise. We are far from agreeing with Gioberti that he was a disguised Protestant designedly laboring to complete the work undertaken by Luther. We doubt not that he really accepted the church, as he always professed to do, though most likely he was far enough from being a fervent Catholic; but he was bred a soldier, not a philosopher or a theologian; and though he may have been, and we believe he was for his time, a great mathematician and a respectable physicist, he was always a poor theologian, and a still poorer metaphysician. His natural ability was no doubt worthy of admiration, but he had no genius for metaphysics, and his ignorance of the profounder philosophy of antiquity and of the mediaeval doctors was almost marvellous. He owed in his own day his popularity to the fact that he discoursed on philosophy in the language of the world, free from the stiff formulas, the barbarous locutions, and the dry technicalities of the schools. He owed much to the merits of his style, but still more to the fact that he wrote in the vernacular instead of the Latin tongue, then unusual with writers of philosophical treatises, and non-professional men and court-bred ladies could read him and fancy they understood philosophy. His works were "philosophy-made-easy," and he soon became the vogue in France, and France gives the fashion to the world. But it would be difficult to name a writer who has exerted in almost every direction an equally disastrous influence on modern thought and civilization; not that his intentions were bad, but that his ignorance and presumption were great.

The Cartesian method has no doubt favored that lawless and independent spirit which we see throughout modern society, and which is manifested in those Jacobin revolutions which have struck alike at ecclesiastical and political authority, and at times threatened the civilized world with a new barbarian invasion; but the evil resulting from that method which is now the most to be deplored is the arrogant and independent tone assumed by modern science, and its insolence toward the sacred dogmas of faith. Descartes detached philosophy, and with it all the sciences, from faith, and declared them independent of revelation. {248} It is especially for this that Cousin praises him. But modern so-called science is not contented even with independence; it aspires to dominate and subject faith to itself, or to set up its own conclusions as the infallible test of truth. It makes certain inductions from a very partial survey of facts, concocts certain geological, physiological, ethnological, and philological theories at war with the dogmas of faith, and says with sublime insolence that therefore faith must give way, for science has demonstrated its falsity! If the church condemns its unsupported conclusions, there is forthwith a deafening clamor raised that the church is hostile to science, and denies the freedom of thought and the inalienable rights of the mind! _The Churchman_ sees this, and has written the very article from which we have made our extract to show its injustice; but with what success can it hope to do it, after beginning by approving the Cartesian method and conceding modern science, in principle, all it asks?

We have said and shown over and over again that the church does not condemn science. Facts, no matter of what order, if facts, never do and never can come in collision with her teaching, nor can their real scientific explanations ever conflict with revelation or her dogmas. The church interferes not with the speculations or the theories of the so-called _savans_, however crude, extravagant, or absurd they may be, unless they put forth conclusions under the name of science which militate against the Christian faith. If they do that, she condemns their conclusions so far as repugnant to that faith. This supervision of the labors of _savans_ she claims and exercises for the protection of her children, and it is as much in the interest of science as of faith that she should do so. If we were to believe what men counted eminent in science tell us, there is not a single Christian dogma which science has not exploded; yet, though modern investigations and discoveries may have exploded several scientific theories once taught in the schools and accepted by Catholics, we speak advisedly when we say science has not exploded a single dogma of the church, or a single proposition of faith she has ever taught. No doubt, many pretendedly scientific conclusions have been drawn and are drawn daily that impugn the faith; but science has not yet confirmed one of them, and we want no better proof that it never will confirm them than the bare fact that they contradict the faith the church believes and teaches. They can all be scientifically refuted, and probably one day will be, but not by the people at large, the simple and unlettered; and therefore it is necessary that the church from time to time should exert her authority to condemn them, and put the faithful on their guard against them. This is no assumption to the injury of science, for in condemning them she seeks only to save the revealed truth which they impugn. It is necessary, also, that men should understand that in science as well as in faith they are not independent of God, and are bound by his word wherever or whatever it speaks. Descartes taught the world to deny this and even God himself till scientifically proved, and hence the pains we have taken to refute his method, to show its unscientific character, and to indicate some of the fatal consequences of adopting it.

We know very well that Bossuet and Fdénélon are frequently classed with the disciples of Descartes, but these men were learned men and great theologians, and they followed Descartes only where he coincided with the general current of Catholic philosophy. {249} Either was a far profounder philosopher than Descartes ever could have been, and neither adopted his method. The same may be said of other eminent men, sometimes called Cartesians. The French place a certain national pride in upholding Descartes, and pardon much to the sophist in consideration of the Frenchman; but this consideration cannot weigh with us any more than it did with the Italian Jesuit, the eminent Father Tapparelli, we believe, who a few years since, in some remarkable papers in _La Civiltá Cattolica_, gave a most masterly refutation of Descartes's psychological method. Truth is of no nation, and a national philosophy is no more commendable than a national theology, or a national church. It is no doubt to the credit of a nation to have produced a really great philosopher, but it adds nothing to its glory to attempt to make pass for a great philosopher a man who was in reality only a shallow sophist. It was one of the objectionable features in the late M. Cousin that he sought to avail himself of the national prejudices of his countrymen, and to make his system pass for French or the product of French genius. The English are in this respect not less national than the French, and Bacon owes his principal credit with them to the fact that he was a true Englishman. All real philosophy, like all truth, is catholic, not national.

In regard to the scepticism _The Churchman_ deems so essential in the investigation of truth, we have already remarked that a sceptical disposition is the worst possible preparation for that investigation. He who would find truth must open his heart to it, as the sunflower opens her bosom to the sun, and turns her face toward it in whatever quarter of the heavens it may be. Those who, like _The Churchman_, know not the truth in its unity and catholicity, and substitute opinion for faith, will do well so far to doubt their opinions as to be able thoroughly to investigate them, and ascertain if they have any solid foundation. There are reasons enough why they should distrust their own opinions, and see if the truth is not really where the great majority of the civilized world for ages has told them it is to be found. They ought to doubt, for they have reason to doubt, not of every thing, not of God, not of truth, but of their own opinions, which they know are not science nor faith, and therefore may be false. Scientific men should doubt not science, nor the possibility of science, but their theories, hypotheses, and conjectures till they have proved them; and this all the same whether their theories, hypotheses, and conjectures are taken from the schools or are of their own concoction. But this is something very different from presenting to the world or to one's self the being of God, the creation, the immortality of the soul, and the mysteries of faith as opinions or as theories to be doubted till proven after the manner of geometricians. These are great truths which cannot be reasonably doubted; and, if we find people doubting them, we must, in the best way we can, convince them that their doubts are unreasonable. The believer need not doubt or deny them in order to investigate the grounds of his faith, and to be able to give a reason for the hope that is in him. We advance in the knowledge of truth by means of the truth we have; and the believer is much better fitted for the investigation of truth than the unbeliever, for he knows much better the points that need to be proved, and has his mind and heart in a more normal condition, more in harmony with the real order of things, and is more able to see and recognize truth. {250} But this investigation is not necessary to justify faith in the believer. It is necessary only that the believer may the better comprehend faith in its relations with the general system of things, of which he forms a part, and the more readily meet the objections, doubts, and difficulties of unbelievers. But all cannot enter into this investigation, and master the whole field of theology, philosophy, and the sciences, and those who have not the leisure, the opportunity, and ability to do it, ought not to attempt it. The worst possible service we can render mankind is to teach them that their faith is unreasonable, or that they should hold themselves in suspense till they have done it, each for himself. They who can make the investigation for themselves are comparatively few; and shall no man venture to believe in God and immortality till he has made it? What, then, would become of the great body of the people, the poorer and more numerous classes, who must be almost wholly occupied with procuring the means of subsistence? If the tender mercies of God were no greater than those of the Cartesian philosophers and our Episcopalian _Churchman_, the poor, the unlettered, the simple, the feeble of intellect would be obliged to live without any rule of duty, without God in the world, or hope in the world to come. For them the guidance and consolations of religion would alike be wanting.

We may see here why the church visits with her censures whatever tends to unsettle or disturb the faith of the people, for which an unbelieving and unreasoning world charges her with denying reason, and being hostile to freedom of thought and scientific investigation. We do not hope to convince the world that it is unjust. The church is willing that every man who can and will think for himself should do so; but the difficulty is, that only here and there one, even at best, does or can so think. It is not that she is unwilling that men should reason, if they will really reason, on the grounds of faith, but that most persons who attempt to do so only reason a little way, just far enough to raise doubts in their minds, doubts which a little more knowledge would solve, and then stop, and refuse or are unable to reason any farther. It is the half-reason, the half-learning, the half-science that does the mischief; as Pope sings:

"A little learning is a dangerous thing: Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, But drinking largely sobers us again."

Many may take "shallow draughts," but very few can "drink deep," and those shallow draughts, which are all that except the very few can take, are more hurtful to both intellectual and moral health than none at all. The church certainly does not encourage those to reason on sacred subjects who can or will reason only far enough to doubt, and to puff themselves up with pride and conceit She, however, teaches all the faith, and gives to every one who will listen to her voice as solid reasons for it as the wisest and most learned and scientific have or can have. In this, however the world may blame or vituperate her, she only pursues the course which experience and common sense approve and pronounce wise and just.

The attempt to educate the mass of the people up to the point of making each individual able to understand and solve all the difficulties in the way of faith has never succeeded, and can never succeed. {251} The mass of the people need and always will have teachers of some sort whom they do and must trust. We see it in politics. In the most democratic state the mass of the people follow like sheep a few leaders, wise and prudent men sometimes, perhaps oftener ignorant but cunning and unscrupulous demagogues. All may be made to understand that in matters of faith the teachers are commissioned by the church, and that the church is commissioned by God himself, who teaches in and through her, and no one has or can have any better reason for believing anything, for none better is conceivable. It is the assumption that the people are to judge for themselves without instructors or instruction that causes so much unbelief in the modern world; but as they have been very extensively told that it is their right to do so, and made to believe it, the church, of course, must meet their factitious wants the best way she can, and educate them up to the highest point possible, and give them all the instruction, not only in the faith, but on its grounds and reasons, they are or can be made capable of receiving. She must do this, not because the people believe or are already enlightened, but because they have learned only just enough to doubt and rebel.

Abridged from the German.

The Composer's Difficulty.

The good old custom in London, in 1741, was for the members of the ---- Club to assemble in the parlor of a noted tavern in Fleet street, kept by Master Farren, who had a sharp-tongued wife and a young and lovely daughter. This young girl had been setting the large room in order, and putting fresh flowers in the vase, in preparation for the expected guests, when the door opened softly, and a young man came in. Ellen did not look up till he was close to her, then she started and blushed crimson, while he took her hand and kissed it with the air of a cavalier.

"I did not know it was you, Joseph," faltered the maiden.

"I can stay but a moment," said the young student of music, "for they will all be here presently. I came to tell you to come to the garden without fail this evening; I want to give you a first lesson, in a new part."

Ellen's face brightened. Just then a shrill voice called her name, and she knew her mother would be angry if she saw her with the German, Joseph Wach.

"I will come!" she answered quickly. "Now I must leave you." And she ran out at a repetition of the shrewish call. Joseph did not attempt to detain her; though the two loved each other well he knew that Dame Farren regarded him with good will no longer, now that Master Handel, his teacher and patron, no longer stood high in the king's favor, and went no more to Carlton House. The father, old John Farren, was still the friend of the young man.

{252}

An hour later, and the round table, on which stood mugs of porter and glasses, was surrounded by men, members of the musical club, conversing on a subject deeply interesting to them all. One of them--a very tall man, with large, flashing eyes and a noble and expressive countenance--was addressed as "Master Handel;" another, simple in his dress and plain in his exterior, with a world of shrewdness and waggery in his laughing eyes, was William Hogarth, the painter.

They were talking about the composer's great work, _The Messiah_, which Handel had not as yet been able to get properly represented. Hogarth was urging an application to the Duke of Bedford. Handel, disgusted at his want of success hitherto, was reluctant to sue for the favor of any patron to have his best work brought before the public.

"If his grace only comprehended a note of it!" he exclaimed petulantly; "but he knows no more of music than that lout of a linen-weaver in Yorkshire."

"Whom you corrected with your fist, when he blundered with your _Saul_!" cried the painter. "You should have learned better policy, my good master, from your eight-and-twenty years in England! A stupid, great nobleman can do no harm to a work of art! If I dealt only with those who understood my work, my wife and children might starve."

Handel was leaning on the table, his face buried in his hands. His thoughts were wandering toward Germany. When he spoke, it was to express his bitter regret that he had left his fatherland just as new life in art began to be stirring. While the Germans achieved greatness in music, he had been tormenting himself in vain with dolts of singers and musicians in England, whose hard heads could not take in a notion of music! "I will return to Germany!" he concluded. "Better a cowherd there than here director of the Haymarket Theatre, or chapelmaster to his majesty, who, with his court rabble, takes such delight in the warblings of that foppish Italian--Farinelli."

Some other members came in to join them, among them the young German, Joseph Wach. Handel nodded kindly to him, and asked how he was getting on with his part.

"I am very industrious, Master Handel, and will do my best," replied Joseph. "You shall hear me soon."

The conversation about the new work was resumed. The Abbé Dubos described how the chorus, "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed," had sounded all night in his ears. "Your glory, Master Handel, will be revealed through your _Messiah_ when once you can get it brought out. I understand the lord archbishop is against it!"

The flush of anger rushed to Handel's brow. "The lord archbishop!" he repeated scornfully. "He offered to compose me a text for the _Messiah_, and when I asked if he thought I knew nothing of the Bible, or if he expected to improve the Holy Scriptures, he turned his back on me, and represented me to the court as a rude, thankless boor."

Master Tyers, the lessee of Vauxhall, remarked that it was not politic to speak one's mind too openly, especially with the great. Dr. Hualdy tried to soothe the irritated composer by speaking of the admiration he had already won, after a long struggle with ignorance and intrigue.

{253}

"What care I," interrupted Handel, "for the admiration of fools and knaves!"

There were many to give the "soft answer" which "turneth away wrath," and to deprecate too severe a judgment of the English people because they had accomplished little in the glorious art and failed at once to recognize the best. "Admitting," added the abbé, "that the court and nobles have done you injustice; that we have no such musicians and singers as in Germany; that we cannot grasp all the grand spirit of your works, are you not, nevertheless, idolized by the people of Britain? Lives not the name of Handel in the mouth of honest John Bull, cherished as the names of his proudest statesmen! Give him, then, a little indulgence! Let us have a chance to hear your _Messiah_; condescend to ask the aid you need in bringing it out; your honor will not suffer, and the good you will do will be your reward!"

"That is just what I have told him!" exclaimed Hogarth. And the others chimed in their eager assent. Even the burly host coaxed him, and, by way of argument, said: "You know, Master Handel, how often I have to bend to my good woman; yet it is no detriment to my authority as master of the house."

Handel sat silent for a time, looking gloomily around the circle. Then suddenly he burst into a laugh. "By my halidome, old fellow," he cried, "you are right! To-morrow I _will_ go to the Duke of Bedford. You _shall_ hear the _Messiah_, were all the rascals in the three kingdoms against it!"

There was a burst of delighted applause from all the company. The fat landlord gave a leap of joy, and Joseph clasped his hands; for he knew Handel's success would be the making of his own and Ellen's fortune.

Handel waited on the Duke of Bedford, who happened to be giving a grand breakfast. The duke prized the reputation of a patron of the arts, and knew well that Handel's absence from court and the circles of the nobility was owing more to his disregard of the forms and ceremonies held indispensable than to any want of esteem for the composer. His oratorio of _Saul_ had won him proud distinction. When informed that Handel had called on him, the duke himself came out to welcome him and lead him into the drawing-rooms. But the composer drew back, saying he had come to solicit a favor. The duke then took him into his cabinet, and listened graciously to his petition that he "would be pleased to set right the heads of the Lord Mayor and the Archbishop of London, so that they should cease laying hindrances in the way of the representation of the _Messiah_."

The duke not only listened, but promised to use all his means and influence to remove the obstacles. Handel knew he could depend on the promise. He accepted the invitation to join the company with joy, when he heard that his celebrated countryman, Kellermann, was there and engaged in the duke's service.

His grace led in and introduced his distinguished guest. The sight of the great composer produced a sensation. Handel cared nothing for the noble company, but greeted his old friend Kellermann with all the warmth of his nature. They had a cordial talk together, while the idol of the London fashionables, Signor Farinelli, hemmed and cleared his throat over the piano, in token that he was about to sing, and wanted Kellermann to accompany him. {254} The musician at length noticed his uneasiness, pressed his friend's hand, returned to his place, and took up his flute, while Farinelli began a melting air in his sweet, clear voice.

Handel, a powerful man, austere and vigorous in nature, abhorred the singing of such effeminate creatures, and despised the luxurious ornamentation of the Italian's style. Farinelli's soft trilling was accompanied by Kellermann on the flute with dexterous imitation. Handel laughed inwardly to see the effect on the company. The ladies were in raptures; and, when Farinelli ceased, the most eager applause rewarded him.

The duke introduced the Italian to Handel. Farinelli complimented him in broken English, said he had heard that "Signor AEndel had composed una opera--il _Messia_," and begged to know, with a complacent smile, if there would be a part in the opera for "il famous musico Farinelli?"

Handel surveyed the ornamented little figure from head to foot, and answered in his deepest bass tone, "No, signora."

There was suppressed laughter, and the ladies covered their faces. Not long afterward Handel took his leave, with his friend Hogarth, who was a guest.

----

The _Messiah_ was announced for representation. But an unexpected difficulty presented itself. The lady who had been engaged to sing the first soprano part sent word that she was ill and could not sing; and the oratorio had to be postponed.

Handel knew it was mere caprice on the part of the spoiled prima-donna, and was excessively indignant. When he heard from the leader of the orchestra that a second postponement might be necessary, he roundly declared it should not be. "It _shall_ take place!" he exclaimed, and set off to call upon the signora himself.

Signora Lucia, the Italian vocalist, that morning held a _levée_ of her admirers. Their conversation, as she reclined on a couch in a graceful _déshabillé_, was of "il barbaro Tedesco," his unreasonable expectations, and the pleasure the beautiful singer took in disappointing him. "He dared to order me about at rehearsal!" she cried. "For that, he shall not have his troublesome oratorio performed at all!" The gentlemen applauded her spirit. Then it was related how the fair singer Cuzzoni had refused to sing some music in Handel's opera, and he had gone to her room, seized her, and, rushing to the open window, had held her out at arms' length, threatening to drop her unless she promised to sustain her part.

"He shall find me harder to deal with," said the beauty languidly. Just then the name of the great composer was announced, and Handel's heavy step was heard in the hall. The gentlemen visitors huddled themselves off in such confusion, they could only retreat behind the couch, drawing the damask curtain over the recess so as to conceal them.

Lucia was uneasy, but maintained her composure. Handel, however, had not come, as she expected, to entreat her to sing. He stood near the door, and, vouchsafing no salutation, haughtily demanded her _part_.

The singer made no answer, and Handel strode forward. Lucia sprang up, seized the bell, and rang it violently, but not one of her admirers answered the call. Handel advanced, and coolly lifted the curtain behind the sofa, revealing the group of terrified Italians. He laughed scornfully, and again demanded her part of the signora.

{255}

In unutterable passion, she snatched up a roll of music from the table and flung it at the composer. He picked it up, bowed ironically, and walked out of the room. The anger of Lucia with her cowardly friends who had not interfered to avenge this insult, and their confusion, may be imagined.

Handel had punished the capricious singer, but he could find no one to take her place. His friends sympathized in his distress, but could offer no aid nor consolation. Hogarth thought he underrated the Italians, and was too conceited. "You remember," he said, "when Correggio's Leda was sold in London at auction for ten thousand guineas, I said, 'I will paint something as good for such a sum.' Lord Grosvenor took me at my word, I painted my picture, and he called his friends together to look at it. They all laughed at me, and I had to take back my picture."

Handel replied that the old Italian painters were worthy of all respect, and so were the old Italian church composers. The modern ones he thought, in their way, more or less like Signor Farinelli.

The day before the oratorio was to be produced Handel sat in his study reviewing the work. Now he would smile over a passage, now pause over something that did not satisfy him, pondering, striking out, and altering to suit his judgment. At length his eyes rested on the last "Amen," long, long, till a tear fell on the leaf.

"This work," he said solemnly, and looking upwards, "is my best! Receive my best thanks, O benevolent Father! Thou, Lord! hast given it me; and what comes forth from thee, that endureth, though all things earthly perish. Amen."

He laid aside the notes, and walked a few times up and down the room, then seated himself in his easy-chair. His pupil, Joseph, opened the door softly and came in. Handel started from his reverie, and asked what he wanted. The young man, with an air of mystery, begged the master to come with him.

In a few moments they were in a room in the upper story of Master Farren's tavern, a room where Joseph practised his music. There, to Handel's no small astonishment, he saw the host's pretty daughter, Ellen.

"What may all this mean?" he asked, while his brow darkened. "What do you here, Miss Ellen, in this young man's study?"

"He may tell you that himself, Master Handel," answered the damsel, turning away her blushing face.

Joseph hastened to say, "I am ready to answer, dear master, for what we do."

"Open your mouth, and speak, then," said Handel sternly.

"You have done much for me, dear master," said Joseph with emotion. "When I came a stranger and penniless, you put me in the way of earning a support. You gave me instruction in music and singing, spending hours you might have given to doing something great."

"And does the fool think making a good singer was not doing something great--eh?"

"And I have tried to make a singer for you!" said the young man. "Will you hear her?" And he pointed to Ellen.

Handel, in his surprise, opened his eyes wide as he looked at the damsel.

"Yes--Ellen!" she repeated, coming close to him, and lifting her clear, hazel eyes to his face. "Now you know, Master Handel, what Joseph and I have been about, and for what I am here in his study."

{256}

"We wanted to be of service in your dilemma," said Joseph. "Shall Ellen sing before you, Master Handel?"

Handel seated himself: "I am curious to see how your teaching has succeeded," he said. "Come, let her begin."

Joseph went to the piano, and Ellen stood beside him.

The part she took was that of the first soprano, the one taken from Signora Lucia. Handel started as the young girl's voice rose, clear, silvery, floating--a voice of the purest quality! How he listened when he heard the most splendid portion of his forthcoming work--the glorious air, "I know that my Redeemer liveth"--and how Ellen sang it may be conjectured when, after she had ceased, the composer sat motionless, a happy smile on his lips, his eyes full of tears. At length he drew a deep breath, arose, kissed the maiden's forehead, kissed her eyes, in which also bright drops were glancing, and said with profound feeling: "Ellen, my good--good child--you will sing this part to-morrow at the representation?"

"Master Handel! _Father_ Handel cried the maiden, and threw herself, sobbing, on his neck. Joseph rattled off a jovial air to cover his emotion.

------

"Amen!" resounded through the arches of the church, and died away in whispered melody in its remotest aisles. "Amen!" responded Handel, while he slowly let fall the staff with which he had kept time. His immortal masterpiece had produced an immense impression: his fame was established for all time.

When the great composer descended the church steps, he was informed that his majesty had sent for him, and that a carriage was waiting, by the royal command, to convey him to Carlton House.

George the Second received the artist with a gracious welcome, and he read his triumph in the faces of the court nobles.

"You have made us a noble present in your _Messiah_, Master Handel," said the monarch. "It is a brave piece of work!"

"_Is it?_" asked the composer, looking in the king's face, and well pleased.

"It is, indeed," replied George. "And now, tell me what I can do for you."

"If your majesty," answered Handel, "will give a place to the young man who sang the tenor solo part, I shall be grateful. Joseph Wach is my pupil, and _he_ has a pupil too, Master Farren's daughter; but they cannot marry till Joseph finds a place. The old dame will not consent, and your majesty knows the women bear rule."

The king's smile was a forced one, for a sore point in his experience was touched. "I know nothing of the sort," he said. "But your pupil shall have a place as first tenor in our chapel."

Handel thanked his majesty with sincere pleasure. The king seemed to expect him to ask more.

"Have you nothing," at length he said, "to ask for yourself? We would thank you, in your own person, for the fair entertainment provided in your _Messiah_."

Handel crimsoned as he heard this, and he answered in a tone of disappointment: "Sire, I have endeavored not to _entertain_ you, but to make you better."

All the courtly company looked their astonishment. Even King George was surprised. Then, bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, he walked up to the composer and slapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder. "You are, and ever will be, a rough old fellow, Handel," said he; "but a good fellow withal! Do as you will, we shall always be the best friends in the world!"

{257}

Handel retired from the audience, and was glad to escape to his favorite haunt, Master Farren's tavern. Joseph and Ellen were there, awaiting his return. His news brought them great joy.

In the last years of Handel's life, when his sight failed him, it was Ellen who nursed him faithfully as if she had been his own child, while her husband wrote down his last compositions.

------

Translated from Les Études Religieuses, etc.

The Title Of The Kings Of England

Defensor Fidei: Its Signification And Its Origin.

If an Englishman will take a pound sterling of the present year, he will find around the effigy of Queen Victoria the words, _Defensor Fidei_, a title which the sovereigns of Great Britain have been proud to bear for more than three centuries.

From whom did they receive it? Why was it given to them? What did it originally mean, and what does it mean now?

Henry VIII. received this title from the pope as a personal privilege, and one that he had ardently desired and solicited for a long time. It was conferred by a bull of Leo X., confirmed by Clement VII. No one is ignorant on what occasion. Luther had left the church. He was sowing his heresy in Germany, declaring that the pope was Antichrist, and declaiming with furious rage against Rome in his impious work, _The Captivity of Babylon_. Henry VIII., indignant at the effort to mislead the people, replied in a book called _Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum_. We regret that the space to which we are limited prevents us making copious citations from it; for our readers would then see that it would be impossible for any one to proclaim a more devoted attachment to the holy see than did Henry VIII. at that time. These pages are more than three centuries old; but to-day, when war against the papacy is more bitter than ever, we know of none among the contemporary works which defend the church more filially and more warmly.

{258}

If at the time when Henry VIII., full of joy, received the bull of Leo X., amid the hearty congratulations of his people, a man had stood before him and said: Sire, in less than fourteen years you will belie all your protestations of filial devotedness and submission to the Vicar of Jesus Christ; you will rebel against the Roman Church in just as striking a way as Martin Luther has done; you will proclaim yourself the head of the Church of England; you will be the author of a schism which will make blood flow in torrents and will desolate England, Scotland, and Ireland for more than three centuries; you, the victorious Henry VIII., who would be the delight of your people if you were the master of your passions instead of being their slave; you will become the Nero of England: had such words been spoken, their author would have been looked upon as insane. The proud and passionate Tudor would have exhausted his ingenuity in inventing means to torture a traitor like this. But, at the end of 1534, he who would venture to print this book, which had purchased for Henry VIII. the title which the sovereigns of England are so proud to use even to-day, would have been declared guilty of high treason.

Thus, God has wished that the very coins of his country shall become for the Englishman who reflects and studies a precious and lasting historical monument of the ancient faith of the country, the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman faith, the faith of France, of Spain, of Italy, of Austria, and of all Christianity. The title _Defensor Fidei_ signified at that time defender of the Roman Faith. What does it mean now? After 1534, Henry VIII. pretended to defend the Catholic faith, by refusing obedience to the pope and submitting to his own spiritual supremacy, a new star in the firmament of the church.

Under the reign of Edward VI., or rather under that of the two successive protectors, the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland, the faith was defended in the shape of the Forty-two Articles. It was no longer the Catholic faith in its purity.

Under the reign of Elizabeth, the governess of the Church of England, the creed of Edward VI. was modified, and the faith was now declared to consist in the Thirty-nine Articles.

Since Elizabeth these Thirty-Nine Articles have continued to be the official creed of the established church. In a country where custom holds such sway, all the members of the Anglican clergy are obliged to profess their faith in these articles under oath; but do we see that the queen and her privy council exact the performance of this oath? It would be answered that such a thing has become impracticable, and that no one is held to the performance of the impossible. We cheerfully agree to this, for we are not in the habit of contesting what is plainly evident.

The striking and multiplied facts of contemporaneous history will at last compel every serious-minded man to ask himself this question: Is not the title _Defensor Fidei_ very much like that of _King of France_ which the sovereign of England renounced in the beginning of this century, without really losing anything? To tell the truth, they are "defenders of the faith" in much the same manner as Victor Emmanuel is King of Cyprus and Jerusalem.

If we were English, we would delight in publishing a truly apostolic book, which would contain little of our own intellectual labor, except, perhaps, the choice of materials and the manner of arranging them; nor would it be a controversial work, for controversy only embitters an opponent; and, if our readers will permit a playful but striking comparison, we would make our adversaries appear like two inimical squirrels, who will continually run about in a circle, with fiery looks and lively motions, yet never getting one step nearer to each other. {259} We should make the calm and impartial voice of history speak, and our publication would be called _Historical Documents on the Title of the Kings of England, Defensor Fidei._

Large books find few readers nowadays, and so we would make ours very brief; its contents these: The affirmation of the seven sacraments against Martin Luther by Henry VIII., with the defence of his book by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; the bull of Leo X., which gave Henry VIII. the title of _Defensor Fidei_; the act of parliament which declared Henry VIII. supreme head of the Church of England; the Forty-two Articles of Anglican faith under the reign of Elizabeth and her successors; the profession of faith in the Thirty-nine Articles exacted officially of the Anglican clergy; and, finally, the profession of faith of Pius IV., which contains the whole doctrine of the Holy Council of Trent. We would give the Latin text of all those documents and a good English translation, so that the exactness of the translation could be verified. We would crown our work with a little complementary appendix, which would give our readers an insight of the privy council of the queen in ecclesiastical matters--_Optima legum interpres consuetudo_. Showing on one side an abstract of the condemnations inflicted upon the Puseyites for having professed Catholic doctrines denied by the Anglican Church; and, on the other, the recapitulation of the principal acts, which have favored so-called evangelical and even rationalistic tendencies in the very heart of the establishment, and which are recalled by the names, now become so famous, of Gorham, Hampden, and Colenso. Nor should we omit the nomination of a bishop of Jerusalem, made with such touching concord by England and her Protestant sister, Prussia. This characteristic fact impresses the seal of worldly policy on the forehead of the Anglican Church.

What can make a book more attractive than fine engravings? And so our manual would contain the portraits of all the kings and queens of England who have born the title of _Defensor Fidei_; and, in this gallery of sovereigns, would figure in his place the sombre protector Cromwell, who was a defender of the faith in a manner peculiarly his own. Facing the rulers of England, we would place the popes of Rome. We should strictly deny ourselves the pleasure of making any commentaries. We should content ourselves with a single exposition of authentic facts, and look for the fruit of our book from the grace of God, who enlightens the mind and touches the heart in his own good time, and from the good sense, the integrity, and well-known straightforward spirit of the English nation.

Our reader has no need for us to tell him what the subject of this work would be. He sees clearly that this book of Henry VIII. against Luther, and its defence by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester--a book now extremely rare, buried, as it were, in the dust of a few libraries as an archaeological curiosity, or at most only quoted to show the monstrous self-contradictions that Henry VIII. exhibited--that this book, we say, is the most authentic and precious monument of the ancient and Catholic faith in England, and, at the same time, a refutation in advance of the Anglican schism, of all the Anglican heresies, and of the Lutheran diatribes of Anglicanism against the pope as Antichrist, and Rome as a new Babylon.

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Is there not a sign in this very work of wondrous divine predilection for England, and a distant preparation for a future, such as we see with so much joy, springing from the seed sown then, centuries ago?

In religious and wise England many souls are eagerly seeking the unity and antiquity of the Christian faith; like others, who have preceded them in finding the fold of Christ, they are ready to make the most heroic sacrifices as soon as they have discovered the pearl without price. These brothers are already Catholic by the aspirations of their hearts. Perhaps many belong already, without their own knowledge and without ours, to the soul of the only true church, because they have validly received holy baptism, which has made them members of Jesus Christ and children of the church; because they are only material heretics; and because they walk in humility in the way that he who is the only Mediator attracts them by his grace. They always take a step in the true faith at each new light that they receive from heaven. These Christians whom we respect and love, and who love us, honor their country more than we can readily express. We cannot think of them without the deepest interest and sympathetic veneration.

With the exception of the trials of Pius IX., the father of the Christian universe, the most venerable and the most magnanimous of all the oppressed, except this holy, old man, this pontiff king, surrounded by his legion of Machabees, crowned with his gray locks, his virtues, and his misfortunes, we know of nothing so beautiful as the devotion of our Catholic brothers of England, Scotland, and Ireland to God and his church, and the divine assistance which continually rallies new neophytes about them when God calls them. It is a flood destined to overspread the land. "Wonderful are the surges of the sea." [Footnote 37]

[Footnote 37: Psalm xc. 4.]

A religious of one of the missionary orders recently wrote from India concerning a Protestant lady whom he had met, and said, "Her conversation made me think that she was only a Protestant by mistake." How many Englishmen to-day are only Anglicans by mistake!

While the Episcopal Church is falling to pieces under the disintegrating influence of Protestantism, which is its essence, and of rationalism, which has invaded it, as the lamented Robert Wilberforce has clearly shown, [Footnote 38] many Christians born within its communion, but animated by a different spirit which urges them to the divine centre of Catholicity, are no longer willing to build their faith on the shifting sand of human opinions, and cement a religious society by the dissolving principle of private judgment. For them the authority and the common faith of the universal church are necessary: they demand the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the sacred guardian of apostolic traditions. For such as these, the book of Henry VIII. and John Fisher is a most striking monument of the unity and antiquity of the faith, a sort of beacon to show all in the great impending shipwreck of religion in England what direction they must take in order to find safety.

[Footnote 38: The principle of authority in the church.]

You who seek the unity of the faith, then, "one heart and one soul," [Footnote 39] see in what splendor she shines here.

[Footnote 39: Acts iv. 32.]

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It is the King of England, and with him the most pious and learned English bishop of the sixteenth century, who makes his profession of faith, who glories in his submission to the authority of the pope, who defends the seven sacraments. Does a single bishop protest? Are Oxford and Cambridge silent? Do the secular and regular clergy, the parliament, the laymen of every condition of life, all acquiesce? Does not a single Englishman present this respectful remonstrance: "Sire, you are sacrificing the rights and prerogatives of your crown! A King of England submit to the pope! Is not one king the supreme head of the church? You defend seven sacraments: how so when there are only two?"

It was, then, evidently the faith of England that Henry VIII. and John Fisher defended; and this monument, reared before the schism and different creeds that it has created, shows us that those who would dare to deny the doctrines there put forth would be considered innovators, which, in the church of Jesus Christ, has always been considered synonymous with heretics.

But if this book is the monument of the faith of England in the sixteenth century, before 1534, it is at the same time a monument of the Roman faith, that is to say, of the faith of the Catholic Church. At that time, when the pontiffs were more than usually vigilant on account of the heresies which were springing up in the various countries of Europe, two popes, Leo X. and Clement VII., were not content with sanctioning the work of Henry VIII., but gave and confirmed to him the title of the "Defender of the Faith." England declared her belief; Rome, and through her the Catholic Church, answered: "Your faith is ours; we congratulate you on your able defence of it." Here was indeed unity and unanimity.

Is this all the light that we can gather from this source? This monument was erected in the midst of the religious life of England, between its Roman Catholic past, of more than a thousand years from the birth of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and its schismatic future, which would count more than three hundred years. Nowhere can one better stand to see the different policies and course travelled by England than here: once as the cherished daughter of the Roman Church, the sister of Catholic nations; and then how she has changed since she rebelled against Rome, and has gone on in her isolation, sufficient for herself, Christian in her own way, even while an oecumenical council was assembled.

The Roman Catholic past of England is known by the certain evidence of history; and from the monument of Henry VIII., which can well be considered its terminus, we propose to cast a hasty glance at its most distant events; and of these by far the most interesting are the glorious acts of the pontificate of Pope St. Gregory the Great, who sent missionaries to convert his dear English, although yet idolaters, and who chose their first bishop from the Benedictine monks of his convent at Rome. What unity, what unanimity between Rome and England in the time of the monk St. Augustine! It was the union of a daughter and mother: it was precisely the same union, the same faith, in the sixth as in the sixteenth century, until 1534.

The sixth century makes us go far back in the history of the church; but, in admiring the apostolic works of St. Augustine and his companion, we find about them precious and striking witnesses of a past yet more distant. {262} St. Augustine convokes the bishops of the Britons to beg them to aid him in converting the Saxons to Christianity. He acknowledged, then, that the Britons were in the same communion, and professed the same Roman Catholic faith. Indeed, if the Britons were wrong in refusing their help, it was only because of their hatred against their oppressors, for the ancient British Church was never separated from the communion of the Roman Church, never lost the purity of the Catholic faith. [Footnote 40]

[Footnote 40: See _The Monks of the West_, by M. le Comte de Montalembert.]

Pelagius, it is true, was a Briton, and his heresy, which he first sowed at Rome, was not long in reaching Great Britain, yet it never took deep root there. The British Catholics sent a deputation to the bishops of Gaul, urging them to send a number of missionaries to them. Pope Celestine, warned of the danger to the faith, sent St. Germain of Auxerre; the bishops of Gaul, assembled for this purpose, added St. Loup of Troyes. These two great bishops left their peaceful flocks in all haste to come to the rescue of the invaded folds; and while they were working so faithfully for the glory of God and of his holy church, all Catholic Gaul was praying most fervently for its sister, Great Britain. Pelagianism was vanquished and found no home in the land of Pelagius; it was in another land that it made its most deplorable ravages.

Thus it was in Great Britain that the bishops, who are established by the Holy Spirit to govern the church, [Footnote 41] triumphed over this sad and insidious heresy, when they were free to exercise their divine mission in that country, and when they were closely united to the centre of unity.

[Footnote 41: Acts xx. 28.]

There was something like it in the fourteenth century, when the heresy of Wickliff arose. He was condemned by the council of London, (1382,) although an Englishman, and one who had studied at Oxford, and who had been the principal of the College of Canterbury, at once the flatterer and the favorite of his sovereigns. His doctrine, which contained the germ of all the Anglicanism of the time of Elizabeth, caused considerable trouble in England; but, thanks to the firmness of the episcopate, these troubles are not to be compared with those from which Bohemia suffered, where John Huss taught the same heresy.

Before the Anglican "reform," which has created a system before unheard of, and which unites calumny with historical delusions, every Englishman was proud to claim for his country the honor of having preserved the faith always in its purity from the time that the gospel had first been preached there. [Footnote 42]

[Footnote 42: According to the Venerable Bede, Catholic missionaries were sent there in the second century of our era, by Pope Eleutherius.]

Was England, then, in error? If so, she has deceived herself and all Christendom; and this universal error has lasted from the pontificate of Pope St. Eleutherius, to that of Pope Clement VII., a period of more than thirteen hundred and fifty years! We must say that anyone who looks upon this fact as of slight importance would greatly astonish us. Where do they think that the true church of Jesus Christ was during these long centuries, that church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail? [Footnote 43] Did it disappear, this city of God, which was to be placed on the mountain and seen by all people? [Footnote 44] Surely the spirit of delusion and darkness must be very potent when it can make a pious Englishman declare that the glory of the English Church was reduced to nothing before the sixteenth century, and that then Henry VIII. and Cranmer, an infamous libertine and his servile courtier, were raised up to open a new career to her.

[Footnote 43: St. Mark xvi. 18.]

[Footnote 44: St. Matthew v. 14.]

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Yet England, notwithstanding its modern religious state, is not revolutionary. She loves order as warmly as she does liberty. Even in religion, she desires by subordination the only means of preserving it.

How much light for Anglicans of good faith (and they are numerous) shines in the violent and even indecent attacks made by their preachers and historians upon the greatest names of Catholic England--names that England revered in former times with the whole Christian world--names still dear to the Catholic Church, albeit they are now almost unknown in England. To efface so much glory, it was needful that a new kind of glory should appear and dazzle by its very contrast.

At the end of 1534, and still more definitively in 1559, at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church were violently separated; they no more profess the same creed, they have no longer the same worship, their hierarchies are strangers, they mutually reproach each with not being the true church of Jesus Christ. It is from the monument of Henry VIII. and John Fisher that we can see the different paths they followed and the daily increasing difference which has separated them.

For the Roman Church this epoch was one of those glorious epiphanies which our Lord Jesus Christ prepares for it in different times, and of which the joys are sown in tears. After a sterile and desolate winter a spring appeared for the divine tree, full of sap, and perfumed with celestial blossoms, followed by a summer and autumn, rich in precious fruits of sanctity, of knowledge, and charity. The Council of Trent was convoked in 1542 by Paul III. for the spread and exaltation of the Christian faith, for the extirpation of heresies, the peace and union of the church, _for the reformation of the clergy and the Christian people_, for the repression and extinction of the enemies of the Christian name. The evils that existed were fearful. The holy council, with the divine assistance, acquitted itself of its task in a manner which would bring a speedy and certain remedy to all the prevalent abuses. God, the supreme King of kings, recompensed so many generous efforts on the part of his faithful people by according to them, before the end of the sixteenth century, under the glorious pontificate of St. Pius V., that memorable victory of Lepanto, which crowned the work of the crusades and shattered for ever the power of the Mussulman.

But what avail the laws the most salutary in the bosom of nations profoundly ignorant and deeply corrupt, if there do not rise in their midst men powerful in word and work to instruct them, and, above all, to regenerate them by the irresistible attraction of the most heroic virtue? It was then God raised up in Italy, in France, in Spain, in Germany, _true reformers_, who, after the example of their divine Master, began to act before they began to teach. Their names are too well known to need mention here. They compelled men to acknowledge the divine tree by its fruits. They professed the faith proclaimed by the Council of Trent, which was nothing else than the faith of Nice in its legitimate development. The faith of Nice was the faith of the apostles. This faith of the apostles, of Nice, of all the oecumenical councils, is the faith to-day of the Roman Church in the solemn profession of faith of Pius. IV., which is a _résumé_ of all the doctrine of the holy Council of Trent.

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As for England, in separating from the Roman Church she commenced the history of her variations: she entered upon that downward path of religious decline which naturally ends in a sudden descent into the gulf of scepticism. With a creed subject to the changing will of man, she was Anglican after one fashion under Henry VIII., after another fashion under Edward VI., after a third under Elizabeth, and now, to the inexpressible confusion and grief of those pious Christians born and nurtured in the bosom of the established church, she has arrived, step by step, at a point where she offers the spectacle of a chaos of incoherent doctrines, some true, some false, some orthodox, others heretical, some pious, others monstrously wicked, but all tolerated out of respect for the genius of the individuals who took the pains to invent them; all publicly and peaceably taught beneath the standard of the Thirty-nine Articles. _Le pavilion couvre la marchandise_.

While so many great servants of God and his poor, venerated and blessed throughout the rest of Christendom, adorned the Roman Church, unfortunate England, shut up in its island and still closer imprisoned by an atrocious religious persecution, saw generations of her children grow up in hate, contempt, and horror of popery and papists. Every source of education, all the pulpits of the Anglican Church, all books allowed to be published, helped to keep up this spirit of ignorant and bigoted hate against the church of God.

While St. Vincent de Paul, that great reformer of the clergy and saintly founder of world-wide works of charity, prepared, together with so many other apostolic men, the glory and prosperity of our present great age; in sanctifying the family, divinely instituted as the practical school of social virtues; in arousing a spirit of generous devotion and sacrifice which led men to comfort all forms of misery and reconcile rich and poor--those brethren so easily made enemies--England was deprived of all her religious orders, consecrated in former times to the service of the poor and the sick, to the education of youth, to the stubborn labors of science, to the contemplation of divine things, to the crucified life, the life of prayer, the life of the soul, against which the world blasphemes because it cannot comprehend it. She lost the blessings of a celibate clergy: she was despoiled of the sacred patrimony of the poor by her king and lords, who distributed it among themselves, together with the greater part of the wealth of the church, as the enemy's spoils are divided and shared after a victory. (We intend to be polite.) England beheld the wound of pauperism open wider each day, and found herself forced to have recourse to the poor-tax, unheard of in old Catholic times. Within her boundaries will be found to-day an excessive wealth in face of poverty unknown elsewhere. By the constant progress of science and industry, machine labor tends to replace the labor of the individual, and self-aggrandizement diminishes wages in proportion as it augments the daily task of the workman. What a harvest would be offered to the works of Catholic charity if her divine activity were only there to replace the horrible workhouses where souls are withering and dying! We yet have in France and elsewhere the money of St. Vincent de Paul in an innumerable number of works of charity truly Christian, and that enables us to live without taxing the poor.

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Such are the different paths which the Roman and Anglican Church have followed since the deplorable schism of Henry VIII., renewed and aggravated under Elizabeth. If before his death Henry VIII. had repented of his wicked attack upon the church, what would he have been obliged to do to reconcile himself with Rome? He would have needed only to return to that profession of faith which he made in his book against Luther. Since the beginning of the Anglican schism, and at any point of its successive variations, any Englishman, to return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, would have nothing to do but to return to that same profession, conformable in every point to the profession of faith of Pius IV. This is what has been done in our own day by Father Spencer, Archbishop Manning, Fathers Newman and Faber, Palmer and Wilberforce, and a host of others, eminent for their virtues, their knowledge, their public and private character, whom no Englishman capable of appreciating the merit of sacrifices made for God and in fidelity to conscience can name without respect and pride.

But possibly some of our readers may be astonished that we insist so strongly upon the book written by Henry VIII., for it might seem that the shameful life of the author reflects discredit upon the work. Let us not be mistaken. In the first place, when Henry VIII. wrote against Luther, he was very far from being the monster of iniquity which he became afterward, and whose history I leave to the severe judgment of a Christian Tacitus. Again, it is important to understand that Henry VIII. was not the sole author of this monument of his former faith reared by his hand fourteen years before his apostasy. The universal judgment of critics has always attributed the more solid part of the work, at least, to John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who assumed ostensibly all the responsibility of it in the public defence he made of it.

Thus we see, on the one hand, Henry VIII., who, after putting forth his work with so much ostentation, belied it without shame and strove to mutilate it; and, on the other, John Fisher, who plants it upon the immovable rock where he had taken his place, and with glorious magnanimity sacrifices his life to defend it This is the choice offered. He who returns to the ancient faith of Henry VIII. separates himself from the tyrant and the murderer, and joins himself to the company of his victim. He ranks himself beside the glorious martyr who, during the second half of King Henry's reign, was, of all the episcopate of England, the only guardian left of English honor, and the last champion of the liberty of conscience.

An unwelcome truth, but a hard fact. In 1521, at the time of the publication of the king's book against Luther, the whole English episcopate most undoubtedly believed in the primacy of the pope with Fisher, with Henry VIII., with all the Catholic Church, and in no sense believed in the spiritual supremacy of the king. Then there was unity and unanimity, and the present and past of England were in harmony. But in 1534 the king changes his doctrine, and with him the whole episcopate and parliament. One English bishop only was found to display the firmness of a Basil, a Hilary, an Athanasius, an Ambrose, a Chrysostom, a Lanfranc, an Anselm, an Edward, a Thomas of Canterbury. The number of the cowards does but make the immortal beauty of the contrast shine out with the greater splendor. How many rough stones are not thrown together pell-mell in their shapelessness and obscurity, to form the foundation of the pedestal of one chosen stone, carved with the sublime inspiration of genius by the chisel of a Michael Angelo, to become the statue of a great man!

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If John Fisher, like the heroic Thomas More, had not the support of his own nation, he had that of all Christendom. Yes, the monument of John Fisher is worthy to become the rallying point of every generous-hearted Christian Englishman, who ardently looks for the realization of the promise and dearest wish of our common Redeemer and Saviour, Jesus Christ--There shall be one flock and one Shepherd.

With what indescribable emotion the heart of an Englishman must beat when, after a long interior combat with so many prejudices in which he has been nurtured, he at last breaks the chains of his slavery, and when, feeling himself free with that liberty which only a Catholic can feel, he cries out: "I'll do it: I abjure the schism of Henry VIII., the creed of Cranmer and Parker; I will go back to the faith of John Fisher!"

Such, doubtless, were the sentiments of the pious and learned Robert Wilberforce when he returned to the bosom of the holy Catholic Church. His words, so serious, so marked by the ardent love of truth, so touching in their tone of respect and fraternal charity for his adversaries, fall upon our ears in accents of majestic solemnity as they echo back to us from the depths of the tomb. This is what his hand has written whose memory is enshrined in the noblest hearts:

"When national distinctions cease to exist, and mankind, small and great, are assembled before God, it will be seen whether it was wiser, like Henry VIII. and his minion Cromwell, to break up the Church Catholic for the sake of ruling it, or, like More and Fisher, to die for its unity."

Seventy-three.

Be merry as May, If you want to be As merry and gay, At seventy-three.

To be merry and gay Though, at seventy-three, Argues Life's primal May Spent virtuously.

T. K.

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A Winged Word.

"O power of life and death In the tongue! as the preacher saith."

Mr. Basil Andrew paused in writing and held his pen suspended, his breath also slightly in suspense, as he contemplated his subject anew. He had been reviewing a theological work just published; but his thoughts had developed as he dwelt on them, and were no longer a plan, but the torso of a plan.

He sat like one in a trance while the new idea grew; grew slowly, almost painfully, seeming to find scant room in his brain, albeit his brows were wide. Touches from the utmost limits of his nature and his experience shaped and modified it: the swell of feeling with the ray of intellect that ruled its tide; vague emotions and vaguer speculations, in whose mists sparks of truth were dissipated, from whose sudden meeting had sometimes sprung the electric flash of intelligence; aspirations that had climbed their Jacob's ladder, reason fixing the rounds till the climbers took wings, and dazzled her with their transfigured faces; fragments of knowledge hard and sharp-edged; stray conclusions finding their premises, and stray premises their conclusions--mallet and handle for blows--all working the shape till there it stood in his brain, the perfect form of a truth.

One instant he contemplated it with rapture, while it glowed alive under his gaze; the next, he looked outward and perceived its relations with the world. As he did so, a wave of color swept over his face; and, heart failing, that form was no longer to him a living truth, but the statue of a truth.

"I might have known," he muttered, flinging his pen aside, "for me, at least, 'all roads lead to Rome.' I believe I am bewitched."

With that flush still upon his face, he rolled up the unfinished manuscript, and deliberately laid it on the coals that burned redly in the grate, where it quivered like a sentient thing. One might fancy that the thoughts just warm from his brain still retained some clinging sensation, telling where their rest had been, as, stepping ashore, for a while we continue to feel the motion of the sea on which we have been tossing. Then the edges of the leaves blackened, slender fingers of flame stole over them, opened them out, drew rustling leaf from leaf, scorching them, till one sentence started out vivid as lightning on a cloud, that sentence on which he had paused, finding it not a conclusion, but an indication. Then a strong draught caught the yet quivering cinders and carried them up the chimney.

"There they go in a swirl, like Dante's ghosts," he thought; and turned away to look out into the north-eastern storm that, having brushed the bloom from a crimson sunrising, was now, at afternoon, rushing in power over the city. The air was thick with snow, through which, far aloft, dark objects occasionally sailed with the wind-witches, probably. Passers struggled in wind and drift, and the houses seemed not sure of their footing, and had a forlorn and smothered aspect. But Mr. Andrew perceived with satisfaction that the mansion in which he dwelt maintained its dignified dowager port, and that, if ever a feathery drift presumed to alight on the doorsteps, an obsequious little flirt of wind darted round a corner of the house and whisked it off.

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While the gentleman stood there, the door of the room opened for the first time in three hours, and Miss Madeleine, Mrs. Hayward's niece, came in with a book in her hand. He watched her as she crossed the room without noticing him, and, when she had seated herself at another window, he breathed out, "How sweet is solitude!" speaking in one of those cloudy, golden voices, such a voice as might have swept over the chords of David's harp when David sang.

The lady looked up, brightening for an instant as though shone upon. Then she opened her book, and Mr. Andrew returned to his table and read also. And there was silence for another hour.

Mr. Basil Andrew was in person rather superb, tall till he bent slightly with a languid grace, which also hung about his motions and his speech. But when he was excited, these mists were scorched up. Then he grew erect as a palm-tree, the not large but beautifully shaped eyes flashed out their crystalline blue, and delicate lines trembled or hardened in mouth and nostril. Then, too, it appeared that those tones of his could ring as well as melt. If it be true that "soul is the form, and doth the body make," the philosophical reader may be able to guess the shape of his nose and chin. Lavater would have pronounced favorably concerning his intellect from seeing only that significant inch across the brows. In color he was white and flaxen-haired, but had some indefinable glow about him, like a pale object seen in a warm light.

Mr. Andrew at thirty-five years of age found himself in that pause of life which, in natures too well poised for violent reaction, comes between the disgust of unsatisfying pursuit and the adoption of higher aims, or the disdainful and half-despairing resumption of the former life. He awaited the inspiring circumstance which should waft him hither or thither, or perhaps for his soul to gather itself and make its own will the wind's will, whichever might be more potential. Pending this afflatus, interior or exterior, he rested upon life

"As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."

Miss Madeleine was a well enough young woman, baptized into the church, but from an early age subjected to Protestant influences; oscillating between the two, never very conspicuously Catholic except when the faith was assailed, then _plus Arabe que l'Arabie;_ at other times following out Protestantism to its ultimate pantheism. She had a dimly remembered father and mother somewhere in church suffering or triumphant, and occasionally, when life seemed to her unstable, she sent out a little prayer for or to them, a prayer too weak to find olive-leaves. This young woman was not without power, but it escaped in reverie and dreaming; what she meant to do so vividly imagined that she rested there as on accomplished work. Too impetuous and flimsily ambitious to think with profit, her mind was encumbered with fragments of thought, often with a sparkle in them, like the broken snow-crystals she now dropped her book to watch. In fine, her outer life was a purposeless stupor, her inner life one of Carlyle's "enchanted nightmares" in miniature.

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As the clock struck four, Mr. Andrew closed his book and approached his companion.

"I have been reading Thoreau's description of autumn woods," she said, "and I feel all colored. I am steeped in crimson, and purple, and amber, and rich tawny browns. My eyes are violet, and my hair is golden."

"Your hair is brown, and your eyes are gray," was the matter-of-fact reply, it being Mr. Andrew's opinion that the girl's mind needed ballast.

"What book have you there?" she asked, settling into place.

"Oh!" just aware he still held it, "it is Father de Ravignan's _Society and Institute of the Jesuits_--very good if one desires information on the subject. Moreover, one is charmed to learn that Père de Ravignan, though himself a Jesuit, has been a magistrate and a man of his time; also that he is still a man, and, _par excellence_, a Frenchman. The good father becomes a little Hugoish and staccato when he refers to himself."

Since she still waited, watching him with eager, imperative eyes, he went on. "You know the story of the Florentine and Genoese who wished to compliment each other: 'If I were not a Genoese, I should wish to be a Florentine,' said one. 'And I,' said the other, 'if I were not a Florentine, should wish to be--' 'A Genoese!' suggested the other. 'No, a Florentine!' So I, if I were not a free-thinker, would wish to be--"

"A Catholic!" the girl broke in. "Don't deny. You already tire of your Theodore Parker, whose intellect was to him what astronomers call a crown of aberration. You have but to look at the church, and faith is easy! How beautiful are thy steps, O prince's daughter!"

"Very pretty, but not very conclusive," was the cool comment. "You once said to me, 'Epithets are not arguments.' Allow me to retort that apostrophes are not arguments. By the way, how impossible it is to calculate on where you may be found, except that it is sure to be 'in _issimo_.' The arc of your motion takes in both poles."

Miss Madeleine relapsed again immediately, and with a somewhat weary expression.

At the same moment the door opened wide, and Mrs. Hayward entered, producing the effect of being preceded by a band of music. This lady of fifty was ample, rustling, and complacent, and, being lymphatic, was called dignified. If, on being left a widow in straitened circumstances, and finding herself obliged to take a few boarders, Mrs. Hayward had felt any sense of diminished social lustre, no one had perceived it. "They pay my housekeeping expenses," she said serenely; and immediately that seemed the end of their being.

There is something imposing in the suave conceit of such persons. Possessing themselves so completely, they also possess those who approach them, abashing larger and more slowly ripening natures. Names respectfully pronounced by them become at once names of consequence, and trivial incidents by them related swell into significant events. If they are something, then I am nothing, is the thought with which we approach them; and the fact that they are something seems so clear that the mortifying conclusion is inevitable.

After this lady followed Mrs. Blake, obviously the wife of Mr. Blake, also the mother of an uproarious boy of six years who accompanied her, and who was at this moment quieted by the possession of an enormous cake which he was devouring.

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"O the cherub!" cried Miss Madeleine wickedly. "That child has genius. See, he eats his cake in the epical manner, beginning in the middle. Little pocket edition of his papa! Only," in an aside to her aunt, "I hope they haven't stereotyped him. And here comes his papa now."

A bang of the street-door, and enter Mr. Blake, rubbing his hands, and quoting,

'It is not that my lot is low, That bids the silent tear to flow;'

it is the cold. No, my son; no kiss now. Sydney Smith says that there is no affection beyond seventy or below twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Wait till I rise to the paternal temperature."

Mr. Blake was assistant editor of a second-class magazine, considered himself literary, and had a way of saying "we scribblers" to Mr. Andrew, which made that gentleman stiffen slightly. While the one entertained the ladies with an account of the immense amount of literary labor performed by him since breakfast, the other looked from the window and absently watched the wild wind curl itself to edge off the crest of a drift, curling it over like the petal of a tuberose, but more thinly, hanging, wavering, flake to flake, daintily and airily touching the frail crystals.

"Oh! there's to be a great Christmas at your cathedral to-morrow," Mr. Blake said to Madeleine, as they went out to dinner. "Bassoon's going to sing, and Kohn's orchestra to play. It will be worth seeing and hearing, especially at five o'clock. I mean to go if I can wake. And you?"

"Yes," Madeleine said, glancing at Mr. Andrews, who flushed a little as he nodded acquiescence.

"'Similia similibus curantur,'" he thought. "I'll go and get cured."

"They really do things of that sort well at the cathedral," said Mrs. Hayward patronizingly, seeming to pat a personified cathedral on the head as she softly touched the table with her plump white hand.

Madeleine groaned inwardly.

"Mr. Andrew," she said, "what should put me in mind of the frog that tried to swell to the size of an ox?"

Mr. Andrew found himself unable to guess.

"But wouldn't it have been odd," she pursued, with the air of a philosophical child, "if the frog had succeeded, and had swelled to the size of an ox?"

Mr. Andrew admitted that it would have been a phenomenon.

"But," she concluded, with an air of infantile _naiveté_, "it wouldn't have been anything but a great frog, would it?"

"My dear, what are you talking about?" said her aunt. "Pray eat your dinner."

"Christmas-eve is a fast-day of obligation," says Madeleine.

A little raising of three pairs of eyebrows fanned the flame. This young woman had a tongue of her own, and while the others dined she entertained them with a theological discourse, which, if not always logical, had some telling points, and which certainly did not assist the digestion of her hearers. They sat with very red faces, choking a little, but trying to appear indifferent.

"Do people take bitters with their dinner?" asked Mr. Andrew, at length. "I should think it would spoil the taste."

"I must say, Madeleine," Mrs. Hayward interposed, "that, considering you address Protestants, and that we are all friends of yours, you show very little regard for our feelings."

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The best thing that could have been said. Madeleine melted at once.

"O auntie!" she cried penitently, "'it is not that I love Caesar less, but Rome more.' I own that it is you who have shown the Christian spirit, and reminded me that centuries ago to-night the angels sang 'Peace on earth.' I'm going to banish myself in disgrace to the parlor. Rest you merry."

Going, into the parlor, she saw all out-doors suffused with a soft rose-color, a blush so tender and evanescent that it seemed everywhere but where the eye rested. "The sky side of this storm is all a sea of fire," she thought, throwing up the window, and drawing in a delicious breath of mingled sunshine, west wind, and frost. "How the clouds melt! And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, build up the blue dome of the air."

Coming in later, the others found her sitting at the piano in the amethystine twilight, and singing a faint and far-away sounding Gloria.

"Hush!" said Mr. Blake, pausing on the threshold, "the evening stars have begun, that the morning stars may know. See them all of a tremor on that sky!"

Listening to those strains of threaded silver, Mr. Andrew sat looking into the twilight through which the grander constellations burned with outlines unblurred by the lesser stars. There was Orion, erect, with his girdle of worlds; Taurus, with starred horns lowered; the Dogs, witnessed to by the liquid brilliance of Sirius, matchless in shifting hues; the Lion, just coming out of the East, his great paw resting on the ecliptic; all those hieroglyphs of fire in which God has written his autograph upon the heavens.

"What a pretty myth it was," he thought, "that of the morning-stars singing together. And that other of the star of Bethlehem!" He half-wished he could believe those things, they saved so much weary thought, so much maddening speculation. Sometimes, while straining to grasp at extraordinary knowledge, he had felt as though falling from a giddy height into an outer darkness, and had drawn back shuddering, eager to catch at some homely fact for support. He smiled now mockingly to himself. "Perhaps the stars did sing. Like a child, I'm going to make believe they did, and that one 'handmaid lamp' did attend the birth of Jesus." It was easier to believe anything while he listened to that Gloria. For, disregarded as Miss Madeleine might be at other times, when she sang she was regnant. Her voice was magnetic enough to draw the links from any man's logic.

Ceasing, she called Mr. and Mrs. Blake to the piano, and the three voices sang Milton's Hymn on the Nativity.

It is astonishing how magnificently some small-souled persons do contrive to sing, expressing sentiments which they must be totally incapable of experiencing. Mrs. Blake sang a superb contralto, and the three perfect voices struck fire from one listener's heart as they beat the emphatic rhythm of that majestical measure.

All but Miss Madeleine went to bed early. She kept vigil, and was to call them. They seemed scarcely to have slept when they heard her voice ring up the stairs in the muezzin which she christianized for the occasion, being in no mood to call Mohammed a prophet:

"Great is the Lord! Great is the Lord! I bear witness that there is no God but the Lord! I bear witness that Jesus is the Son of God! Come unto prayer--come unto happiness-- Great is the Lord! Great is the Lord! There is no God but the Lord! Prayer is better than sleep--prayer is better than sleep!"

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As the last word died upon the air, every foot touched the floor, and in half an hour the party had gathered as wild as witches.

Mr. Andrew came down late and grumbling. "Cannot we hear music and see candles without getting out of bed for the purpose at such unearthly hours? I had just gone to sleep, and was in Elysium. Miss Madeleine, why should you say that prayer is better than sleep? We are not going to pray; we are going to hear demi-semi-quavers, and Mr. Bassoon's C in the deeps. I'll go to bed again."

"Possibly we may pray, Mr. Andrew," she said in a low tone. "I have been thinking to-night, and it seems to me that God had a Son, and that he will come down this morning and stand in the midst of the candles."

A Catholic, unless a convert, can scarcely understand the emotions of a stranger who enters a church for the first time on one of our great festivals. That "cool, silver shock" must be taken from another element. Our party stepped from the dim and frosty starlight into an illumination more dazzling than daylight, into a warmth that was fragrant with flowers, into a crowd where every face had a smile dissolved in it. And over all waved a sparkling tissue of violin music from the orchestra.

"By George!" was Mr. Blake's only audible comment.

"It is like the Arabian Nights!" exclaimed his wife.

"Turns up the mastodon strata in them," whispered Mr. Andrew to the lady on his arm.

They were shown to seats, and sat watching the steadily increasing crowd, and the altar that was a pyramid of fire. The worshippers were, of course, various: ragged Irish women, whose faith invested them with better than cloth of gold; rich ladies, sweeping in velvets and sables, but with thoughts of better things in their faces; ambitious working-girls, finer than their mistresses. A pretty young woman came into the slip in front of our party, her face beautifully arranged to represent modesty and sweetness. She cast a glance behind at her audience, then sank upon her knees and beat her breast with one hand, while she arranged her bonnet-strings with the other. This performance at an end, she faced about and closely scanned the gallery, turning again and again till those behind her began to feel annoyed.

"I do wish he'd come!" said Madeleine impatiently.

"He has come," whispered Mr. Andrew, as the young woman suddenly returned toward the altar, and began a series of languishing attitudes and prostrations, all her _repertoire_ of theatrical devotion.

A grand-looking man next attracted their attention, walking past with the unmistakable sailor roll. His head was erect, and his massive shoulders looked fit for Atlas burdens; but the clear, blue eyes were gentle, and his face was full of a beautiful solemnity and reverence. As he walked, the long, tawny beard flowing down his breast waved slightly.

Madeleine gave Mr. Andrew's arm a delighted squeeze, and whispered,

'With many a tempest had his beard been shaken.'

Fancy him on the ship's deck, in mid-ocean, in darkness and storm, beaten by the wind, drenched with spray, the lightnings blazing and the thunders crashing about him, shouting to the men to cut the mast away!"

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Here the organ and choir broke forth in glad acclaim, and the procession came winding in from the sacristy. Cloth of gold and cloth of silver, lace and fine linen, and crimson and purple, all combined, gave the effect of a many-jewelled band coiled about the sanctuary.

Attending alternately to the altar and the choir, Mr. Andrew tried to believe it all a vain pageant; but thoughts will enter, though the doors be shut. What a stupendous thing, he thought, if the Real Presence were true; if, as this girl said, God had a Son, and he should come down this morning and stand in the midst of the candles!

For one instant he was dazzled and confounded by the possibility; the next, he recoiled from it.

"Gloria in excelsis" sang the choir with organ and orchestra in many an involved and thrilling strain, a pure melody springing up here and there from the midst, voice and instrument meeting and parting, catching the tone from each other, swelling till the vaulted roof of the cathedral rang, fading again, dropping away one after another, till there was left but a many-toned sigh of instruments, and one voice hanging far aloft, with a silvery flutter, upon a trill, like a humming-bird sucking the sweetness from that flower of sound. A pause of palpitating silence, then an amen that set swinging the myrtle vines hanging over the St. Cecilia in front of the organ, and made the pennons of blue and scarlet that hung about the altar wave on their standards.

Contrary to custom, there was to be a sermon at that Mass, and, as the preacher ascended the pulpit, Mr. Andrew said to himself: "If Christ was the Son of God, he is on that altar; and if there, I wish he would speak to me by this man."

He hoped to hear an argument to prove the divinity of Christ, not aware that his reason had already been pampered with such until it had grown insolent. The speaker, however, handled his subject quite otherwise. Assuming that divinity, he took for his theme, "what thoughts should fill the mind, what sentiments dilate the heart," on the feast of the Nativity. Calling up before them then, in a few words, a picture of that scene at once so humble and so marvellous, and pointing to the mysterious babe, he boldly announced on the threshold of his discourse the difficulties connected with the dogma for which he demanded their homage:

"This babe is a creature as you and I: this babe is the Creator of all contingent being. This babe is just born; this babe is from all eternity. This babe is contained in the manger; this babe pervades all space. It suffers: hear its cries! It enjoys bliss beyond power of augmentation. It is poor: see the swaddling-clothes! To it belong the treasures of the universe. Here present are husband and wife; yet I am required to believe that her the Holy Spirit overshadowed, a virgin conceived, a virgin bore a Son."

Not Ulysses' arrow flew through the rings with surer, swifter aim than these words through the winding doubts that had bound that listener's heart. It was too sublime not to be true! Almost the triumphant paradox--I believe, because it is impossible--broke from his lips. The human mind was incapable of inventing a falsity so glorious.

In that tumult of feeling he lost what came next; but, listening again, heard: "If I must bow down and worship, I elect him as the object of my adoration whose dwelling is in light inaccessible, who is inscrutable in his nature, and incomprehensible in his works."

"Amen!" said Basil Andrew.

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"A virgin conceived, a virgin bore a Son," repeated itself again and again in his thought. All the singing of voices and the playing of instruments were because of that; all the splendor of the festival, the gathering of the crowd in the midst of the winter night, were for that. "O sweetest and most glorious mother in all the universe!" he thought, bowing where it is, perhaps, most difficult for a convert to render homage.

Clouds are unsubstantial things for anything but rainbows to stand on, and even they find but vanishing foothold. Had that delight in Basil Andrews's heart warmed only his imagination, it would have faded with the moment; but thought and study had done their part, and that uprising of the heart was Pygmalion's kiss to his statue. The feeling with which he turned to leave the cathedral was one of thankful content with perfected work.

Pausing in the vestibule for the crowd to pass, he looked back with a tender fear toward the altar.

Poor Madeleine's religion was iris and the cloud. She had known well what was going on in her companion's mind, and, as she stood waiting with him, a text went sighing through her memory like a sighing wind. "_I say unto you that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof._" While she, a child of the church, had given it a fitful obedience more insulting than a consistent disregard, this man had toiled every step of the way from a far-off heresy, and, passing by her as she loitered outside, had walked into the very penetralia.

She stood looking gloomily out into the morning that was one cloudless glow of pale gold.

"The air has crystallized since we came in," she said, "and we are shut inside a great gem, like flies in amber. We will have to stay here for ever."

He bent a smiling face toward her as they went out into the morning, and said softly: "How beautiful are thy steps, O Prince's daughter! You were right, Madeleine!"

A fortnight from that day Madeleine Hayward stood on the steps of her aunt's house, saying good-by to its inmates. A Southern girl, the cold skies of the North froze her. She wanted to get into a warmer sunshine, and, being prompt and determined, obstacles vanished before her.

"Mr. Andrew," she said, as he gave her his arm to the carriage, "I am sorry I can't stay to be your god-mother."

"I wouldn't have you," he said. "I'm going to have my old nurse."

Madeleine took her seat in the carriage, gave a smiling nod toward the group in the door, then held a cold hand out to her companion.

"When you are a priest, and when you hear that I am dead, say a Mass for me," she said faintly, then turned her face resolutely away.

The violent color that had risen to the gentleman's face at her words faded into a paleness as he went up the steps. By what power did that girl sometimes divine the thoughts which he had not yet owned to himself?

But she was a prophetess.

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Translated from the French of L. Vitet.

The Present Condition of Christianity in France

Some time ago M. Guizot published the second series of his _Meditations on the Christian Religion_. He is now prosecuting right valiantly, and will ere long have completed, the noble task that won for him two years since so novel a triumph among his many victories, and crowned his illustrious life with what may be considered its brightest glory. That calmest and most serene of creeds, a lucid definition and summary of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity, viewed from the highest stand-point, in all their native simplicity and grandeur, was greeted, it will be remembered, with gratitude by some who looked upon it as furnishing most timely aid, and with respect and partial embarrassment by others; and so marked was its effect that the most exciting religious polemics were for the time being quieted. The first series referred to the very essence of the Christian religion; what is the subject of the second?

The author, in his preface, had thus drawn the general plan of the work: First, the essence of Christianity, next its history, then its present condition, and, finally, its future. Thus a complete history of Christianity was really promised us. The plan determined upon had, perhaps, some advantages. The history of Christianity is nowadays the point that anti-christian critics would show to be vulnerable, and the portion of the armor they seek to penetrate. The public, however, after a moment's surprise, has of itself meted out partial justice to this manner of attack; or at all events, new attempts, as skilfully devised as the first, have been received with a coolness of good augury that weakens vastly the importance of previously achieved successes. Was it not most opportune, then, to enlighten still more and at once a public whose _furore_ had but just died away? was it not most important not to adjourn, even by a brief delay, a decisive refutation? As for ourselves, we yearned to behold, striving with the new-comers of criticism and history--who claim to be their masters and almost their inventors--him who, nearly half a century since, founded in our land modern historical criticism. By setting face to face with their rash assertions the true and severe laws of historic certainty; by taking down, piece by piece, their most cleverly contrived scaffolding; by reducing to naught their credit, was not the writer rendering to Christianity a most great and needed service?

M. Guizot has thought that there was something still more urgent to be accomplished; without abandoning his original idea, involving the four series, he has inverted their order of sequence; he now dwells upon the present state of Christian beliefs. At a later day he proposes to resume the discussion of historical questions, dilate upon the authority of holy books, continue his commentary on the concord of the Scriptures, and his arguments concerning technicalities and minor details; subsequently he will try to look into the future. {276} At present, he has but one care, one thought: he wishes to know what is occurring, or rather what men are believing, around him. To place in the strongest light the present state of Christianity; to enumerate its armies and those of its opponents, and establish a comparison between the strength of both; thus to summon all Christians to awaken to a sense of the events concerning the common safety; to teach them not to be deceived either as to their might or as to the magnitude of the perils besetting them, and to guard against a feeling of treacherous security as against cowardly discouragement; this it is that engrosses his attention, and, forming the subject of all his thoughts, indicates to him that which he is to consider his first duty. As he says himself, he supplies the most pressing emergency, and, hurrying to the spot where the struggle is commencing, rushes into the thick of the fight.

We can readily understand his impatience. All other questions become unimportant when compared with such a problem. No eagerness can be more legitimate than that of M. Guizot, and the investigation which it is necessary to make is surely the most serious and interesting that could be prosecuted. Let us add that few inquiries are as intricate and as difficult.

It is not, in fact, the mere exterior and apparent state of Christianity that it is necessary to depict; but its life, its action, its power, which simple statistics can by no means describe. Figures may set forth how many churches there are in France; how many priests, congregations, and convents; how many children are baptized, and couples married; how many dying mortals receive spiritual succor; but after these computations are completed, are they of any genuine value? Though the civil code is not compulsory as to the choice of a religion, and though each one be free to elect his own belief, does it follow that the conclusion arrived at is always the result of proper reflection? Are all those who, either from early childhood, through the medium of their parents, or in after life and by their own free will, on certain solemn days, publicly proclaim their adherence to Christianity, real and true Christians? How many can you designate who knew what they were doing, who did not simply conform with a custom, and for whom the sacred contract did not become at once a dead letter? To arrive at a correct estimate as to the actual strength of Christianity, we must not consult registers, but make researches in the bosoms of families, and descend into the depths of consciences. Thus should we make our soundings to ascertain the state of Christian belief. We admit that such a mode of investigation would be impracticable; we must be content, therefore, with less precise data, and pass judgment upon apparent events. Draw a parallel, then, between Christianity as it was in the early part of the century and Christianity as it is, criticise the two periods in accordance with the same rules, make allowances for deceptive appearances on both sides, and exclude from your calculation the apocryphal believers who are only Christians in name; however numerous the false men and things at present, you will, nevertheless, be compelled to concede that in our country, during the past sixty years, Christianity has at least taken root again in the soil, that it has recovered its life, and that its progress has been undeniable.

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M. Guizot describes the phases of the resurrection or rather the awakening of Christianity; the comprehensiveness of his views and the choiceness of his expressions render this largely developed portion of his work of absorbing interest. We have, however, no intention to attempt its analysis. In these later meditations, as in those that precede them, one would in vain seek to follow the author step by step. His work alone can speak for its contents; a person must peruse it, or abandon the idea of becoming acquainted with it. Let us only point out the plan the writer has drawn, and notice the succession of his thoughts. From its commencement, by a natural division, the volume to which we allude forms two parts: one relates to Christianity, the other to its adversaries. What do we see in the first? The narrative of the Christian awakening, or rather an _exposé_ of the religious beliefs in France since the year 1800. This is a composition in which the incidents follow each other in natural sequence, an historical painting as well as a picture-gallery, comprising none but portraits from nature, such as M. Guizot, with that firmness and concision that characterize in few words ideas as well as men, can produce; portraits full of expression and life, though always of a sober coloring and subdued effect. M. Guizot had abundant opportunities for word-painting, for sitters were not scarce. Evidently Providence was resolved, from the beginning of the century, to repair by almost perceptible progress the effects of the great disaster of Christianity, and the damage caused by the cataclysm into which it seemed to have sunken. How numerous the men who suddenly came into existence, each worthy of the mission to be entrusted to him! How marked the contrast with the days gone by, when there was none to shiver a lance for that ancient religion still replete with honors, wealth, and apparent life, but without credit, without influence upon souls, without new adepts, and gradually forsaken, like unto those tottering edifices whose abandonment ere their fall is decreed by a prophetic instinct! The scaffold was needed to restore it to life. The first symptom of regeneration was observed when humble priests and monks, who, a day previous, were heedless of their duty, arose as intrepid and as ready for martyrdom as if theirs had been austere lives, passed in the desert or in the darkness of the catacombs. Then a brighter signal and one more easily understood was to be given by two men, who, each in his sphere and within the limits of his power, were really the earliest promoters of the Christian awakening. We refer to a great politician and to a great writer--to the First Consul and to M. de Chateaubriand, to the Concordat and to the _Genius of Christianity_. There is nothing artificial nor strained in this connection; for these two men and these two works, at the commencement of this century, played the most important part in the work of resurrecting the traditions of Christianity. M. Guizot speaks of Bonaparte and Chateaubriand in a rare spirit of justice and impartiality. Though possessed of little sympathy for them, and aware that their works have become antiquated and, so to say, somewhat out of fashion, he asserts quite warmly that the _Genius of Christianity_, despite its imperfections, is a great and powerful work, such as only appears at long intervals--one of those productions that, having deeply moved men's souls, leave behind them traces never to be effaced. And as for the Concordat, albeit the sincerest friends of Christian beliefs point out nowadays with sadness, if not with bitterness, its defects and dangers, M. Guizot concedes that, in 1802, its promulgation was, on the part of the First Consul, an act of superior intelligence rather than of despotism, and, for the sake of religion, the most opportune and necessary of events, the _sine qua non_ condition of the existence of Christianity. {278} He thinks that, after ten years of revolutionary orgies, a solemn recognition of religion by the state was needed to endow it with that influence, dignity, and stability which it had totally lost.

In this respect, we share M. Guizot's opinion, certain reservations, however, being made. The Concordat was a welcome gift; neither its timely advent nor the necessity for it can be disputed. Why? Because two years previous the national movement of 1789 was suddenly transformed into an abdication, by which one man benefited. If, instead of submitting to this saviour, half out of lassitude and half out of enthusiasm, France had had the energy, by making a supreme effort, and, perhaps, at the cost of new calamities, to see to her own safety and remain mistress of her fate, the Concordat would have been an unneeded blessing. Christianity would have had more labor and expended more time in regaining the lost ground; it would not have obtained possession at once, by the scratch of a pen, and between sunrise and sunset, of all its presbyteries and churches; it would have recovered them little by little, after having conquered men's souls. Had it had no other staff of support but its flock, it would have neglected nothing to strengthen it and increase its numbers; it would have won the confidence of the people and obtained their acceptance of it as a counsellor, a father, a friend, and would not have been looked upon as an emigrant, amnestied and recalled by tolerance, favor, and an act of authority, and thus placed under obligations to one man, and made the vassal of his power. It is not sufficient that one should be cured of a fatal disease; the remedy, in destroying the evil, must not leave the patient with an altered constitution or impaired vitality. The Concordat undoubtedly delivered us from a great affliction for a nation, and saved us from a complete divorce from God; it restored Christianity to France, but restored it less robust and less prepared for the strife, less life-like and less popular, and in a less fit condition to face the danger than if the old beliefs had been compelled, when born anew, to clear their own pathways. In religion, as in politics, France still feels, and will probably ever experience, the effects of having been saved by the events of the 18th of _Brumaire_.

That which we must admit with M. Guizot is that, when, in these later days, we criticise the work of our fathers, written upward of sixty years ago, we can speak of them with wondrous facility. Their doubts are at hand to enlighten us. But we must carry ourselves back to 1802, and behold flocks without shepherds, tombs without prayers, and cradles without baptismal fonts! Where is the proud and far-seeing Christian who would then have refused, as a destructive present, in the name of his belief and for the sake of his faith, a _régime_ that did the work of Christian restoration, and by the touch of a magic wand repaired all the evils that bore it down? No one then would have even dreamed of such a paradox. Let us, therefore, blame with indulgence, and to a certain degree only, the men who invented the compromise, although the consequential events subsist, and when we examine the present state of Christian belief, we cannot avoid meeting at every step the still evident traces of defective origin, and its resurrection by process of law. {279} Even as the government of the Restoration, despite its sincerest efforts and never-failing good-will, was never absolved by France from the reproach that attached to its self-commitment by friendship with the Emperor Alexander and Lord Wellington, even so Christianity in this land, during the past sixty years, is partly indebted for its weakness, and for the prejudices that maintain it in a state of excitement, to the honor of having had for a godfather the Emperor Napoleon. Sheltered and warmed under the purple, and having become an imperial pensioner, Christianity acquired, against its will, a certain need of protection and certain habits of submission and almost of complaisance, which having rendered it under some _régimes_ a party to the acts of the government, has caused it to be called upon to share the responsibility of many errors, and exposed it to the perils of unpopularity.

Within the sixty years gone by, have we not seen by a transient example how much religion would have gained by remaining on less compromising terms with the heads of the nation and boldly dispensing with their favors? There was once a government whose members were imbued with profound respect for the religious interests of the country, and who were always ready to render unto its ministers the most kindly offices; this same government, however, from its earliest days, was viewed with coldness and hostility by a certain number of Catholics and a great portion of the clergy; is it not known how favorable that attitude proved to Catholicism itself? For eighteen years it was looked upon as possessed of no credit, and, for that very reason, each day acquired more and more power, not, indeed, in public places and in ante-chambers, but in men's consciences. It may be boldly asserted that the greatest and most definite progress which the Christian religion can justly claim for itself since the commencement of the present century was made during that period. We do not deduce from this fact that systematic hostility to the ruling powers is necessary for the propagation of religious ideas, for intestine strifes are evils and not to be fomented; but that the sacred ministry, to have influence upon rulers, must possess a degree of independence carried even to the extent of pride, and bringing into prominence its abandonment of all things earthly, and its absolute indifference to worldly interests.

From 1830 to 1851, whatever may have been the true motives of its estrangement and indifference, the Catholic clergy was benefited by the situation. It had prospered and increased in numbers, it had won for itself, to the great advantage of Christian belief, the esteem, the respect, and even the minds of persons who, until then, had been rebellious and inclined to disparage it. Was it aware of the cause of this unusual kindliness of feeling? Did it comprehend how much this was to be preferred, for the cause of religion and for its own sake, to former courtly favors? Has it since guarded against the temptations which have surrounded it? Has it persevered in burning incense before God only, in adoring none but him? Have not more earthly and apparently less disinterested bursts of enthusiasm caused it to lose a goodly portion of the conquered ground? These are questions which it may be well not to look into too deeply; but enough is known concerning them to enable us to understand how it came that, during the fifteen years that have just elapsed, the radical vice of the Concordat, the spirit in which it was framed, the danger of establishing between Christianity and the absolute power a so-called natural alliance, a kind of necessary complicity, have awakened in the hearts of some Christians objections, fears, and antipathies now more active and potent than ever.

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We next behold one of the great incidents of the Christian awakening whose history M. Guizot recounts. The First Consul, by raising the altar from the dust, partly obeying the great views of his genius, and partly yielding to his despotic instincts; M. de Chateaubriand, by moving and delighting French society by the revelation of the treasures of Christian poetry, of the existence of which it was unaware; M. de Bonald, by honoring the governmental traditions of the old _régime_ by translating them into metaphysical theories; M. de Maistre, by outpouring, in floods of fiery eloquence, overwhelming invective against the revolutionary spirit; all these but paid homage to noble ruins, and, hurling indignation at the destroyers, made a generous attempt to rehabilitate the past, to glorify it, and to give it renewed life. The important questions, the questions of the future, are not yet propounded. It is not sufficient that Christianity should be restored; it must be given health, and taught to live in peace and friendship with a power henceforward beyond all estimate, with an irresistible force--that of modern civilization. How could the Christian, and more especially the Catholic Church, be led to acknowledge the liberty of civil society as constituted by the French revolution? How could that society be brought to respect the just rights of the church? Such was the problem that could not fail to speedily appear.

Until the year 1830, the question was only foreshadowed; its solution was by no means urgent. As Catholicism had recovered under the government of the Restoration its former privilege as a state religion, reconciliation, or a reciprocal tolerance between itself and society, was no longer in discussion. It was understood that its portion was to be secured by an actual struggle, and the secular power was at its disposal--without violence, with due moderation, but not without injury to its authority and detriment to its influence upon men's souls. The Catholic religion had to assume the responsibility as well as accept the profits of its privileged situation. Subsequent to 1830, circumstances changed. Inasmuch as the words "state religion" had been erased from the constitutional compact, no one religion could lay claim to special immunities or occupy an exceptionally exalted position. All enjoyed equal rights. Whatever the number of their adherents, as soon as they were recognized by and receiving a subsidy from the state, the law held them to be equally sacred and deserving of respect. The neutral attitude of the government excited the anger of some Catholics. In their opinion, privilege was the very essence, the normal and vital condition of their belief. The powers of the day, by reducing them to the slender diet of equality and common rights, was guilty not only of indifference and culpable abandonment, but of spoliation and persecution. Their complaints were loudest because their adversaries feigned to have won a most brilliant triumph. Extremes meet: on both sides a firm belief prevailed that, without special support, without the favors of the magistracy and the soldiery, Catholicism had no chance of life, and that, both armies being provided with equally effective weapons, it could never withstand the onslaughts of the foe. {281} The conduct of the persons interested, however, differed; for some wished to be regarded as martyrs, and cursed the atheism of the government, charging it with bringing about the inevitable ruin of the faith; whilst others reproached the same government for its supposed weakness toward the once privileged religion, and accused it of prolonging its existence by secretly favoring it.

During the progress of this conflict there was gradually formed a group of Catholics who contemplated events in an entirely new light. They were all young in years and men of the age; their hearts throbbed with the noble thoughts of liberty and independence that were maddening France for the second time, and, seemingly, carrying the nation back to the dawn of 1789. What did these fervent and sincere Christians, animated by a firm resolve, propose to do? Were they to sacrifice to their religious faith that political faith just born within them? To what end? What was to prevent them from being both Catholic and liberals? In what respect were the principles of the evangels and those of a free government incompatible with each other? Was not the government of the church, in the early ages, the result of the free choice of the faithful? Were not respect for human liberty, love of justice, and opposition to tyranny and barbarity, the glory and actual essence of Christian belief? Had not they who for three centuries had linked religion to the fortunes and precepts of the old monarchy, and identified it with them, really deformed Catholicism?

When these men had become thoroughly convinced not only that their views and their faith were, by no means irreconcilable, but also that it was their duty as Christians to render the church the greatest of all services by checking its retrogressive tendency and reconciling it with the world and with modern ideas, they inaugurated the campaign, unfurled their flag, organized a committee, and commenced the publication of a journal, neglecting none of the means by which to disseminate their ideas and gain accessions to their ranks. Had they been so fortunate as to choose, not a more eloquent, but a less rash and more unimpassioned chief than the Abbé de Lamennais; had the noble minds, the brave hearts, the wondrous talent centred in those grouped around him belonged to men of riper years; had his adherents been less fiery and impatient, and less prejudiced against a new power which was still insecure on its foundation, but was imbued with the spirit of true liberty to such a degree that it imperilled its own existence every day to avoid attacking the rights of its adversaries, and thus overstep the limits of the law; had they understood what service their cause could have expected of that government on the sole condition of not demanding impossibilities, of not harassing and chiding it on all occasions, and of not aiding and abetting its destroyers; in a word, had the same talent, ardor, sincerity, and devotedness been coupled with greater experience, prudence, and practicability, perhaps, after thirty years had gone by, the great work of effecting a reconciliation between the church and the spirit of the age would be more thoroughly comprehended and approved than it is at present. The boldness of the opinions professed from the commencement by liberal Catholics increased the difficulty and rendered the problem more complicated. {282} Their enterprise would certainly not have been one of easy achievement had it even been reduced to the simplest form. Was it not enough to ensure the acceptance, by a majority of the clergy and of the faithful, of the definite results of the revolution, the for ever acquired rights of civil society the blessings of liberty as understood by the July government and by all truly free governments; of liberty based upon the sovereignty of the law, a respect for the rights of all, for the rights of the power as for those of the poorest citizen? By preaching to Catholics extreme liberalism, without either limits or guarantee, Utopian, absolute, aggressive, and revolutionary liberalism, such as was advocated by _l'Avenir_, the organ of the Abbé de Lamennais and his young friends, they compromised everything, put an end to all attempts at encouragement, terrified those whom they sought to convert, and furnished a pretext to the faithful, in the event of an opportunity being offered them, to throw themselves, out of prudential considerations, into the arms of the absolute power.

The same ardor that carried them, in politics, even to the practice of liberty unrestrained, led them, in religion, to the recognition of the principles of excessive obedience. They never dared dispense with the explicit approval of Rome; her silent consent was deemed insufficient. They ever sought to elicit a reply, notwithstanding the expectant reserve usually and most prudently maintained by the Holy See previous to passing judgment upon any new enterprise. They required a notice or a formal decision. With this object in view, they never hesitated to risk their all; they ceased not their endeavors until the Holy Father had sanctioned or disapproved their action. Then, after the sentence had gone forth, after such words of censure, as might have been anticipated, had been uttered, they were compelled, under pain of rendering themselves amenable to a charge of revolt, to submit, to bow their heads and abandon the field, to the great detriment of the cause in which they labored. Not only had they lost their authority over the minds of a certain portion of the faithful, as was seen when, a few years later, weary of inaction, they reentered the arena, but they had brought about another and greater misfortune: they had made the court of Rome enter, before the time had come, and without the slightest necessity for such a proceeding, upon the course that she now follows, kept to it by her own words. Is it not possible that, had she been questioned at a later day, in other terms and under other circumstances, her reply might have been different?

But it happens that we cannot but admit that, though since the beginning of this century Christianity has achieved in France great and true progress; though valiant adherents and illustrious champions have arisen; though it has recovered little by little a portion of its domains; though it has in certain respects extended the field of its conquests, one success is wanting, one victory has not been achieved, the work commenced in 1830 is still unfinished, the question is no nearer its solution, the _entente cordiale_ is not yet established, and the treaty of peace between Christianity and the spirit of the times has not yet been concluded.

Some persons find consolation for this state of affairs: the attempt to remedy it has borne in their eyes a chimerical appearance, and they look upon the discord which most men would quell as most natural. {283} Has not this manner of war, they say, ever raged between the lay spirit and the religious spirit? Has not Christianity, since its infancy, been destined to blame and combat, century after century, the prevailing ideas and tastes; has not this been its part, its mission, and, it may be said, its glory? Why seek to change that which has always been? Christian faith is now, as ever, quite intolerant toward the age in which it thrives: do not interfere with events; it must be so. To these arguments we would answer by stating that, not to discriminate between two objects as distinct from each other as the spirit of the age which, to speak in general terms, is the worldly spirit, that train of never-changing passions and vices reappearing at all periods under slightly different forms--and the spirit of each age taken separately--that is to say, the uniformity of ideas, manners, and institutions which give to the society of each century its peculiar traits--is to quibble as to the significance of words and deal in mere equivocation. That Christianity is the natural, permanent, and necessary adversary of the worldly spirit and of the vices and passions of men; that it is such at all times, in all places, in the present as in the past; to assert that to give its followers a word of advice as to the adoption of innovations under any of these heads would be to mistake and forget its real reason to exist, is incontestable: but to affirm that its very character renders it incapable of adaptation to the spirit of such and such an epoch, and that it can only blame and oppose the ideas, tendencies, and laws of the days in which it lives, is to give to the testimony of history, to the most self-evident and authentic facts, a singular denial. Compare the latter centuries of the empire of the West and the first of the feudal ages: was the state of society, were the manners, customs, and institutions of those days the same? Could aught have been more dissimilar and contradictory? Yet, did not Christianity first uphold the empire until it crumbled into the dust, and subsequently aid most cheerfully and efficaciously in the establishment of the feudal power? Again, when the monarchical system gradually regained the ascendency and triumphed over feudal anarchy, did Christianity prove an obstacle to the movement? Did it offer any opposition to the change? Did it not submit to it with a good will? Did it not share the ideas, principles, and even the good fortune and greatness of royalty? What we now demand of it is, to do once more that which it has always done, to recognize without regret and without hostility a necessary and irrevocable change--a change in conformity with the nature of circumstances, and therefore legitimate; in a word, we call upon it to treat the modern spirit of the day as it has treated all other modern spirits that have successively appeared.

Why should a reconciliation be at present peculiarly difficult and embarrassing? Are thoughts of liberty foreign and unknown to Christianity? Has Christianity never acted in accordance with them? Have not those thoughts watched, rather, over the cradle of religion? Has not that system of elections, discussion, and censure which honors our modern spirit come forth from the very womb of the church? To make peace with liberty, to become suited to its rule, to understand and bless its gifts, does not imply the necessity of absolving it from its errors, approving its crimes, or making the slightest concession to disorder and anarchy. {284} Never mind, it will be said, do not mingle religion and party questions, do not inspire it with any interest in wrangles of such a kind. The more persistently Christianity stands aloof from the affairs of this world, the more solid will be the foundation of its power. With these views we cordially agree, and but recently dwelt upon their importance; but of however little moment politics or worldly affairs be to them, however deeply engrossed by prayer and good works, can the most religious mind and the clergy itself live on this earth in utter ignorance of events? To attack the vices, meannesses, and misdeeds of the time, must they not know them, and by their own knowledge? We ask of those pious souls who are most terrified by the coupling of the words liberalism and religion, do _they_ complain because eloquent speakers denounce and stigmatize from the pulpit the wanderings of the spirit of modern times and the revolutionary delirium, those impious doctrines, the curse of families and society? If religion is to wage war upon civil liberty, ought it not to be authorized to allude to beneficial freedom? Ought it not to be encouraged to speak of it in kindly terms, to place it in the brightest light, to make us understand and cherish it? If not, what is Christianity, and what fate have you in store for it? Would you make of it but a puny doctrine, a privilege to be enjoyed by a few chosen ones only, the tardy and solitary consolation of those whom old age and grief separate from the world? If you seek nothing else of it, if it be sufficient for you to have it live just enough to prevent the recording of its death, like a ruin guarded by archaeology, and preserved and respected in its tottering condition, then keep it apart from the rising generation, from the flood of democracy; let it be isolated and grow old; let it seek a place of concealment, and there, contenting itself with the praises of the past, dwell in disdain of the present, lacking indulgence for all persons and things--chagrin, morose, and unpopular. But if, with a better understanding of its true destiny, you desire it to exercise a salutary influence not only upon yourselves and your friends, but upon all humanity; if you wish it to enter into the hearts of all your brothers, young and old, small and great--to inspire men with the spirit of justice and truth--to transform, purify, and regenerate them, let it speak to them in their own language; let it become interested in their ideas; let it suit itself to their peculiarities--not like a weak flatterer, but as a loving father, who takes unto himself his children and becomes a child for their sake, by sharing their tastes while correcting their errors, guarding them from the perils of life, and pointing out to them the narrow and straight paths of wisdom and truth.

To Be Concluded In Next Number.

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New Publications.

Kathrina, Her Life And Mine, In A Poem. By J. G. Holland. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1867.

There can be little doubt that this is more than a commonplace poem. The narrative has a charming simplicity about it, and is happily told; the rhythm is smooth and graceful; and the language, with the exception of a rather too free use of words tortured into English from the Latin and German, both choice and appropriate. In a first perusal of it, which will not be our last, (for it is a book which will bear more than one reading,) two points in the narrative impressed us disagreeably--the revelation of his future career to the hero when but a child rambling over the mountains, and the suicide of his mother. These incidents were a part of the author's plan, and had to be told; but they are both forced and unnatural, the more apparently so because all other threads of romance which run through the story are closely woven in harmony with real life. Very many passages are marked by the truest pathos, with here and there touches of quiet humor worthy of a Dickens. There is a deeper moral lesson inculcated in this poem than we think will be appreciated or even perceived by the mass of Dr. Holland's readers; and we venture to predict that it will be either entirely overlooked, or made the subject of ridicule by the majority of the Protestant or rationalistic journals and reviews which may notice the volume. We say this boldly, because we know that it elucidates a doctrine entirely foreign to their experience, and is based upon principles of life asserted only by the Catholic religion. What the author has endeavored to bring out is nothing new in Catholic ascetic theology. It is the old cry of St. Augustine: "_Inquietum est cor nostrum, Deus, donec requiescat in te._" God is the supreme illumination of the soul, and the object of its highest aspirations. Life without God is a life of disquietude, of disgust, and disappointment. The hero is made to learn this truth through years of self-worship, of creature-worship, and of world-worship. His mind passes from ignorance to indifference, from that to scepticism, infidelity, despair. A true and sad picture of many noble souls who, in our age and country, grow up under the sterile influence of the spirit of naturalism, the revolt of reason without the guidance of faith against Protestantism. There is more than one who will read the story of his own life depicted in Dr. Holland's poem. Such will read it with more than an ordinary interest, and find, we trust, some glimpses of that hidden truth whose clear statement can only be found in the teachings of that religion which shows man his true destiny and has the mission to guide him to it.

We do not think the author is himself wholly aware of the ultimate logical consequences of the principles of life he has here developed. A study of Catholic ascetic theology, the perusal of a few books like the _Imitation of Christ_, Henry Suso's _Eternal Wisdom_, or Father Baker's _Sancta Sophia_ would be, if we mistake not, a revelation to him. In conclusion, we cannot refrain from quoting one of those passages which confirm the truth of the impressions we have received and the reflections we have made. The hero, chagrined with the disappointments of his career, finding the idols he has worshipped turned to clay, deprived of all human consolation, disgusted with the hollowness and unreality of his sceptical life, at last turns to Him whom he had shunned, and yields his soul to that higher will whose inspirations he had all his life long so vainly rebelled against.

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"Then the impulse came, And I poured out like water all my heart. 'O God!' I said, 'be merciful to me A reprobate! I have blasphemed thy name, Abused thy patient love, and held from thee My heart and life; and now, in my extreme Of need and of despair, I come to thee. Oh! cast me not away, for here, at last, After a life of selfishness and sin, I yield my will to thine, and pledge my soul-- All that I am, all I can ever be-- Supremely to thy service. I renounce All worldly aims, all selfish enterprise, And dedicate the remnant of my power To thee and those thou lovest. Comfort me! Oh! come and comfort me, for I despair! Give me thy peace, for I am rent and tossed! Feed me with love, else I shall die of want! Behold! I empty out my worthlessness, And beg thee to come in, and fill my soul With thy rich presence. I adore thy love; I seek for thy approval; I bow down And worship thee, the Excellence Supreme. I've tasted of the sweetest that the world Can give to me; and human love and praise, And all of excellence within the scope Of my conception, and my power to reach And realize in highest forms of art, Have left me hungry, thirsty for thyself. Oh! feed and fire me! Fill and furnish me! And, if thou hast for me some humble task-- Some service for thyself, or for thy own-- Reveal it to thy sad, repentant child, Or use him as thy willing instrument. I ask it for the sake of Jesus Christ, Henceforth my Master!'"

This beautiful prayer is the true climax of the poem. There is not a word in it we could wish to see suppressed or a sentiment altered. There are deep truths written in those few lines, well put and timely uttered in a worldly-minded age like ours.

We observe the work placarded about the city as "Timothy Titcomb's last poem." We are glad to see that this paltry _nom de plume_ does not deface the title-page of the publication.

----

The Votary. A Narrative Poem. By James D. Hewett. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co. 1867.

"Great wits jump." This poem of Mr. Hewett is like Dr. Holland's _Kathrina_--the story of a false and disappointed ambition. The hero, Rudiger, loves Sybilla, goes forth to seek a famous name, sacrifices his honor to the greed of ambition by forgetting his first vows, and espousing Adelaide, the daughter of an influential and rich politician. His wife, discovering his infidelity to Sybilla and his subsequent remorse, becomes jealous, charges him with having buried his heart in the grave, (for Sybilla died of grief,) but offers to receive him back to her affections if he can say his love is now wholly hers. This, unfortunately, he cannot honestly do, and flies from his home for ever, betaking himself to some religious brotherhood, there to do penance, and labor, preach, and pray for a purpose which, to judge from the sensual character of the entire poem, is too vaguely described to allow us to be quite sure what is meant:

"He fathomed now the mighty truth that Love-- Love, the sole axis on which earth is swung-- Is the prime essence of the Deity, And Intellect subservient to Love: And that true glory is to serve, and bleed, If need be, in Love's blessed cause."

And so he becomes a missionary to foreign parts:

"To teach all men the everlasting truth, The blest, eternal truth of perfect Love, I will go forth. I'll preach it far and wide. To earth's last threshold will I pierce my way, And speak to all the dwellers there of Love."

And again:

"Henceforth to Love my life I dedicate-- God's love, including every human phase."

This would do if we were not so painfully impressed by the perusal of the whole poem, that the author's highest idea of love is a sort of deification of the sensual. Being false to his troth to Sybilla he calls "losing love's divine repast," in the very line preceding our last quotation above. We do not like the book. Its moral tone is not healthy. The poem is, however, full of rich imagery, and evidences no little dramatic power; but the rhythm is not always faultless, such words as "of" and "the" frequently forming the last syllable of the verse, and couplets like the following are not uncommon:

"With fitful step, across a verdurous lawn Close venueing a dwelling, paced a youth."

Happily, we think, for the strength of our language, we are becoming every day less and less tolerant of these attempts to foist foreign words upon it.

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Uberto; or, The Errors of the Heart. A Drama in Five Acts. By Frank Middleton. New York. 1867.

The writing of a drama is reckoned a bold project, for there is scarce any sort of literary production apt to meet with severer treatment at the hands of critics. The present one, however, possesses merit enough to command their respect, if it does not win their praise. The plot is well conceived, and the characters sustained and combined with more than ordinary ability. The speeches are, however, rather too lengthy, and become in many places prosy. The little comedy introduced, of the loves of Bellamori and Bonita, detracts considerably from the merit of the tragedy, and is forced upon our notice, most unseasonably, in the preparation for the final tableau.

History Of Blessed Margaret Mary, a Religious of the Visitation of St. Mary; and of the Origin of Devotion to the Heart of Jesus.

By Father Ch. Daniel, SJ. Translated by the authoress of the _Life of Catharine McAuley._ New York: P. O'Shea.

The subject of this memoir is celebrated in church history and in Catholic theology. In church history she was the instrument chosen by God to introduce a new feast, to render public and obligatory in worship what had been merely a matter of private and voluntary devotion, and against which for years all the learning and determination of Jansenism unsuccessfully battled. In Catholic theology she was the means developing another branch of divine truth and asceticism. She popularized the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, made devotion to it the characteristic of one religious order of women; and its name become the title of another. Margaret Mary Alacoque is the apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

She was a young girl, who, led by the power of grace, entered the Visitation Order, sanctified her soul, fulfilled the mission appointed for her by God, died a saint, and after death was beatified by the church.

The history before us tells admirably the story of her life. It is an agreeable narrative, full of edification, of pleasant anecdotes, and interesting details.

The best biographies in the world are those of the saints. They not only give us information, but they make us better It is impossible to read the life of one devoted to God's service, full of the spirit of Christian love and sacrifice, without being stirred up to imitate, in some degree, the example set before us. The world has its heroes, it is true, and makes the most of them; but religion has hers also, and it is not surprising if she does the same; the less so, as those whom she exalts and honors are in every respect so much the more worthy of our admiration and reverence.

He does a positive good to humanity, therefore, who calls attention to the life and deeds of the Christian hero. That was a good answer of the holy father. "I am complained of," said he, "for canonizing so many saints; but it is a fault I cannot promise to amend. Have we not more need than ever of intercessors in heaven, and models of religious virtue in the world?"

The style of the translation of the present memoir does not please us. It bears signs of haste and literary carelessness. Whatever may be the character of the original French of Father Daniel, the English of this is verbose, weak, and tiresome. It makes the book larger, it is true, to use twice as many words as are needful, and to select the longest words of the dictionary to say what one wants to say; and we may add, it makes it heavier, too. It is a common fault of religious biographies. Neither is the style of the publication praiseworthy. Its typography is close and heavy, and presents anything but an inviting page. If this book were read to us, we should go to sleep; and if we were to read it through ourselves without giving our eyes frequent repose, we should seriously damage our eye-sight.

Nevertheless, it is a good book; it is written on a good subject, and will do good; and as such our thanks are due to both translator and publisher, whose efforts toward the formation of a Catholic literature and the fostering of Catholic piety in the reproduction of works like the present will not fail of earning a higher reward than any amount of commendation on our part is worth.

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The Battle-fields of Ireland, From 1688 to 1691, including Limerick and Athlone, Aughrim, and the Boyne. Being an outline of the History of the Jacobite Wars in Ireland and the Causes which led to it. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 323. New York: Robert Coddington. 1867.

Those who wish to read that portion of the sad record of Ireland's checkered history which led to its subjugation to the Prince of Orange will find this volume sadly interesting. Like all of Ireland's history since the advent of Strongbow and his robbers, it presents the usual amount of blunders, mistakes, jealousies, and treachery on the part of those who should have been faithful to their country. This epoch in Ireland's history has been familiar to us since boyhood, and we think the author has done his part of the work faithfully and honestly. His description of the battles of the Boyne and of Aughrim are concise and in the main correct; but we think he overestimates William's army in the first-mentioned battle. His assertion, in a note on page 304, that the doggerel, known as the "Battle of Aughrim," was written by Garrick, is an error. It was the production of Richard Ashton, an Englishman.

The book is handsomely printed, and makes a very respectable-looking volume.

The Life Of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, of the Company of Jesus. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1867.

The republication of the English edition of this life will meet, we are sure, with universal and hearty commendation. Such a book as this is one for all Catholic parents to present to their children, that they may learn how one may become a saint even in youth. Reading the lives of such holy young men as a St. Aloysius or a St. Stanislaus Kostka, our memory goes back to the friends of our own youth, when they with ourself thought it necessary to wait until we grew to be men before we could "get religion." We advise our readers to do what we would wish to do ourself--give a copy of this book to every Protestant young man of their acquaintance. The perusal of it will show them how a Catholic boy gets religion when he is baptized a Christian, and may possess religion in its perfection and be a saint at an age when a Protestant boy is not expected to have any religion at all.

Little Pet Books. By Aunt Fanny. Containing Books 1, 2, and 3. New York: James O'Kane, 484 Broadway.

These little books are the best ones with which we are acquainted for children. They contain pleasing stories, written in plain, small words, not more than five letters to each word--a difficult task, but one which the gifted authoress has accomplished in a most satisfactory manner. The illustrations are good, and the books are printed on good paper, bound in good style, and put up in a neat box, making the set one of the best presents that one could give, of this kind of books, to a child.

From P. O'Shea,

_Life of Lafayette_, written for children, by E. Cecil, 218 pages, 12mo.

_The Bears of Angustenburg,_ an Episode in Saxon History, by Gustave Nieritz; translated by Trauermantel; 251 pages, 12mo.

_Hurrah for the Holidays_, or The Pleasures and Pains of Freedom; translated from the German; 220 pages, 12mo.

_Nannie's Jewel Case_, or True Stories and False; Tales translated from the German by Trauermantel; 223 pages, 12mo.

_Well Begun is Half Done_, or The Young Painter and Fiddlehanns; Tales translated from the German of Richard Baron and Dr. C. Deutsch; 246 pages, 12mo. Price, $1.25 each.

From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New York,

_The Book of Oratory_, compiled for the use of Colleges, Academies, and the High Classes of Select Schools. By a member of the Order of the Holy Cross, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 648.

From Fowler & Wells, New York,

_An Essay on Man_, by Alexander Pope, and _The Gospel among the Animals_, by Samuel Osgood, D.D. Paper.

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The Catholic World.

Vol. VI., No. 33. December, 1867.

The Third Catholic Congress Of Malines.

The ancient city of Malines, which has once more been the seat of one of those remarkable Catholic congresses already described in our pages, is well worthy of the distinguished honor conferred upon it by these illustrious assemblages. A few words of description will not, therefore, be amiss, as introductory to our sketch of the proceedings of the congress of last September.

The province of South Brabant, in which the city of Malines, or, as it is called in Flemish, Mechelen, is situated, has had a most varied and eventful history. Having originally formed a part of the province of Belgic Gaul, under the Roman empire, it was successively included in the domains of the Frankish and Austrasian kingdoms, and of the duchy of Lorraine. In the year 1005, Brabant, including North Brabant which is now a province of Holland as well as the Belgian province of South Brabant, was erected into a duchy. Godfrey of Bouillon was one of its dukes. Its independence ceased in 1429, when it was annexed to Burgundy. In 1484 it passed under the dominion of the emperor of Germany, at the death of Charles V. was transferred to Spain, again reverted to Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was annexed by conquest to France in 1794, taken from France and annexed to Holland by the Congress of Vienna, and finally, by the revolution of 1830, became a portion of the new kingdom of Belgium, to which we wish perpetuity and prosperity with our whole heart.

South Brabant covers an area of 1269 square miles, containing a population of about 750,000. It is a flat, well-wooded country, crowded with beautiful towns and villages, intersected by several rivers and canals, cultivated throughout like a garden, and alive with thrift and industry. The city of Malines is at the point of intersection of the principal Belgian railways, about fifteen miles from Brussels, and at the same distance from Antwerp and Louvain. The river Dyle partly encircles and partly intersects the city, affording pleasant walks, well shaded, on the outskirts, and creating some most picturesque scenes within the town, by winding among some of the streets, whose residences and warehouses front upon the river. {290} The railway depots have been kept, by the city authorities, on a remote outskirt of the town, so that its quiet and antique streets are not disturbed by the noise and bustle of the trains. Nor are they disturbed by any other kind of noise or bustle. Whatever business is done there seems to be out of sight and hearing. It is the most quiet, tranquil, and clean city that can possibly be imagined. In the centre is a great public square, upon which are situated the cathedral, the headquarters of administration, the military barracks, located in a very antique and picturesque building, the museum, and two hotels, as well as numerous shops and houses. In the centre of the square stands a statue of Margaret of Austria. The city contains a population of 33,000. The streets are wide and regular, but winding. Nearly all the buildings are white, being either constructed of white stone, or covered with a very fine and durable white stucco. Among them are numerous residences of great comfort and elegance, some of them really palatial, although their exterior surface is perfectly plain and simple, without porches, balconies, or grand entrances, to relieve their monotonous smoothness, or break up the continuity of white wall which gives Malines the appearance of a city of mural monuments. The great metropolitan cathedral of St. Rumbold, in the Grand Place, presents, however, a striking contrast to this general effect of uniform and brilliant whiteness, by its vast mass of dark stone and its immense unfinished tower, 340 feet high, which domineers in dark, sombre grandeur over the city. Returning on the Saturday night before the congress to Malines, from Ostend, in company with a friend who has travelled throughout all Europe and seen all its finest churches, we were particularly impressed by the great beauty of the picture presented by the Grand Place and the cathedral in a very clear moonlight and our friend remarked that he never saw anything more grand than the view of the vast, dark cathedral, overshadowing the white walls of the adjacent buildings, and towering above them in strong relief against their moon-bright surfaces. Notwithstanding the sneers of M. Baedeker, the cathedral of Malines is a truly grand and imposing church. It was commenced in the twelfth and completed in the fifteenth century; the tower, which is slowly growing upward toward its proposed height of 480 feet, was commenced in 1452, with the aid of contributions from the pilgrims who resorted there to gain the indulgences of the crusade, granted by Nicholas V. The patron saint of the cathedral, called in French St. Rombaut, in Flemish St. Rumbold, and in English St. Rumold, was the first apostle of Brabant. He is supposed by many writers to have been an Irishman, although others think that he was an Englishman. Not being able to form any opinion of our own on this point, we will take leave to quote what Alban Butler says on the subject:

"The place of St. Rumold's birth is contested. According to certain Belgic and other martyrologies, he was of the blood royal of Scotland (as Ireland was then called) and Bishop of Dublin. This opinion is ably supported by F. Hugh Ward, an Irish Franciscan, a man well skilled in the antiquities of his country, in a work entitled _Dissertatio Historica de vitâ et patriâ, S. Rumoldi, Archiepiscopi Dubliniensis_, published at Louvain, in 1662, in 4to. The learned Pope Benedict XIV. seems to adjudge St. Rumold to Ireland, in his letters to the prelates of that kingdom, dated the 1st of August, 1741, wherein are the following words: 'If we were disposed to recount those most holy men, Columbanus, Kilianus, Virgilius, _Rumoldus_, Gallus, and many others who brought the Catholic faith out of Ireland into other provinces, or illustrated by shedding the blood of martyrdom.' (_Hib. Dom. Suppl_. p. 831.) On the other hand, Janning, the Bollandist, undertakes to prove that St. Rumold was an English Saxon." [Footnote 45]

[Footnote 45: Butler's _Lives of the Saints_, July 1. Note.]

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Whether St. Rumold was Irish or English, at all events his reputation as an Irish saint obtained for us the pleasure of having two very agreeable priests from Ireland to dine with us one Sunday afternoon, who had stopped _en route_ for Aix-la-Chapelle in order to visit the cathedral.

St. Rumold, after spending the earlier part of his life in a monastery, went to Rome in order to receive the apostolic blessing of the pope and authority to preach the faith in the then heathen country of Lower Germany. He was consecrated bishop at some period of his missionary life, when we are not informed, and converted a great number of the people of Brabant. He was assassinated by some wicked men whose crimes he had reproved, on the 24th of June, 775, and is therefore honored as a martyr. A church was built to honor his memory and receive his relics at Malines, and these are still preserved and venerated in the present cathedral, the successor of the original church of St. Rumbold. The church of Malines was made a metropolitan see by Paul IV., and is now the primatial see of Belgium, including Brussels within its diocesan limits. In more recent times, the archbishops have usually been raised to the dignity of cardinals. The Cardinal de Frankenberg, who governed the see in the reign of Joseph II., distinguished himself by his firm opposition to the anti-catholic policy of that emperor. Cardinal de Mean, who died in 1831, and has a beautiful monument in the cathedral, has left behind him the reputation of an intrepid and valiant defender of the rights of the church in most difficult and dangerous times. Cardinal de Sterckx is the present Archbishop of Malines, a prelate advanced in years, but still retaining the full vigor of mind and body, and universally beloved for his patriarchal benignity and mildness of character, as was evident by the genuine and heartfelt warmth of the expressions of attachment which greeted his presence at the congress.

The chapter consists of twenty-two resident canons, who chant the entire office with great solemnity every day. The interior of the cathedral is imposing, and contains some fine pictures, especially a Crucifixion by Vandyke, a Last Supper by Wouters, and other paintings by Flemish masters. The chimes of the cathedral tower, which are unusually melodious and joyous in their tone, ring at the striking of the hours and half-hours, and on many other occasions, especially on festivals and their eves, when they are rung almost without cessation during the greater part of the day, with a very festive and enlivening effect.

There are eight or ten other churches, some of them very large and of imposing architecture, the most remarkable of which is the church of Notre Dame d'Hanswyck, on the outskirts of the city, containing a picture by Rubens of the miraculous draught of fishes. St. John's church has a picture of the Adoration of the Magi, and several smaller pictures, all by Rubens, forming an altar-piece with wings on the high altar. {292} St. Peter's was formerly the Jesuits' church, and some adjacent buildings were once used as a novitiate. Here the B. John Berchmans, whose picture is in the church, lived for a time; and here are still memorials of the noble order so unjustly expelled from their peaceful home, in a beautiful marble statue of St. Francis Xavier placed in a recumbent position under the high altar, and in a series of large paintings on the side walls representing scenes in the life of the saint. The carved work of the pulpit and the confessionals in this church is remarkably fine, and in general this is the case throughout Belgium.

There is a large and commodious grand seminary at Malines, a little seminary, which is on a corresponding scale of completeness and extent, and a college. There are several religious communities of men and women, and, under the care of one of the latter, a very extensive and well-built hospital of recent construction.

The motto of the city, _In fide constans_, was conferred upon it two centuries and a half ago by one of the emperors of Germany, and is still appropriate, notwithstanding the strenuous and in part successful efforts of the anti-catholic party to seduce the population from their fidelity to the church. Malines is still one of the most thoroughly and openly Catholic cities of Europe. It would be impossible to find more intelligent, courageous, warm-hearted, or devout Catholics than are found in great numbers among the nobility and higher classes. A large proportion of the people are also, as indeed throughout Belgium, especially in the country places, sincerely attached to their religion and in the habit of complying with its duties. Nevertheless, even in Malines that infidel clique calling itself the liberal party, which has the control of the administration, is able to influence a sufficiently large number of the voters to carry all the elections. We were informed by intelligent gentlemen of Malines that this is due in great measure to the official patronage in connection with the railway system, which is a state affair, and places a great number of appointments in the hands of the government. A large class are also excluded from voting in Belgium by the peculiar law of property qualification. The keepers of estaminets, as the drinking-shops are called, are also there as here a very numerous class, and possessed of great influence in politics, all of which is on the side of the pseudo-liberals.

The liberal party is undoubtedly thoroughly anti-catholic and infidel in its principles and aims. Nevertheless, as the devil knows better than to send up his carte-de-visite with his name and likeness on it, the leaders of that party are adroit and plausible enough to carry with them not only the portion of the people which is corrupt, but also a number of good and well-meaning Catholics, as well as a large number of those who are apathetic and indifferent. All the bad Catholics are liberals, we were told, but not all the liberals are bad Catholics. It is a great disgrace, however, to such an ancient and Catholic city as Malines, that the anti-catholic party should rule it, and we hope the stain on its escutcheon may ere long be wiped off.

On the Sunday morning before the opening of the congress, it was difficult to imagine that anything of the sort was at hand. Everything looked as quiet as usual, and there were no visible signs of any great influx of strangers. All at once, however, the congress came, like the sun bursting suddenly in its full splendor out of a cloud. {293} The preparations had been made quietly but efficiently, and during the latter part of Sunday afternoon one became aware all at once of something going on. The city appeared to become full at once, as if by magic, of a thousand or more of clergymen and lay gentlemen from various parts of Belgium, France, and other countries of the world, and even a few adventurous ladies made their appearance at the _tables d' hôte_ of the hotels. The central bureau of the congress held its preliminary session on Sunday afternoon, and during the ceremony of tea, at our hotel on the Grand Place, M. Ducpetiaux, the founder, the prime mover, and the secretary-general of the congress, made his appearance, with various red and blue tickets and printed programmes in his pockets, which indicated that the ball was about to open.

Under the guidance of this experienced pilot, we put out into the hitherto unknown sea of congressional life, by crossing the Grand Place toward the cathedral, to take part in a reunion given by an association of young men, called "The Circle of Loyalty." As we approached the place of meeting, the first object which greeted our eyes was a brilliant, semicircular jet of gas over the arched entrance to a garden enclosed by a high wall, forming the words, "_Cercle Catholique._" A crowd of juvenile Flamanders with their broad backs and good-humored countenances, watched, and chatted, and peeped about the outside, as is always the case with the boys of all countries whenever there are great doings going on from which they are excluded. Inside the gate, which was vigilantly guarded by well-dressed young men clothed with the usual badges of office, we found ourselves in the midst of a garden filled with a gay and talkative crowd of priests in various sorts of ecclesiastical costumes, and of gentlemen of all ages and many countries, all making themselves as social and happy as possible. Passing through the garden, we were ushered into the large and commodious building which forms the hall of the association, and which was also filled with the members of the circle and of the congress from top to bottom. In the first room we entered, we found the president of the circle, M. Cannart d'Hamalle, one of the principal gentlemen of Malines, and a member of the Belgian senate, in full evening dress, receiving the members as they arrived, with that courtly and at the same time cordial politeness in which the Belgians excel all others. From the lower apartments of the hall we were soon summoned to the audience-room above, where speeches were made and applauded _con amore_, and a musical entertainment given by a choir and orchestra, consisting of Belgian national hymns, the hymn of Pius IX., and concluding with an exquisite _morceau_ on the violoncello by a young artist of merit, which was vehemently applauded. These social reunions were continued without the formalities every evening during the week.

The congress was opened on the next morning. The place of meeting was the little seminary, situated on the outskirts of the city, near the boulevard which skirts the banks of the river Dyle. The grounds and buildings of the seminary are extremely convenient for the purpose. The buildings are extensive, and, together with the high wall connecting them, enclose a large, quadrangular space. Within this space the members of the congress assembled at an early hour on Monday. {294} The entrances were guarded by young men of the Circle of Loyalty, who formed a body of volunteer police and commissariat during the sessions of the congress, performing their duties in such a manner as to receive well-merited eulogiums approved by the entire assembly, the most eloquent and delicate of which came from the lips of the Count de Falloux. The illustrious statesman and orator, with that felicity and charming grace of manner and expression which are his peculiar characteristics, uttered the sentiment, during one of his speeches, that the array of Catholic youth in attendance upon the congress was its most beautiful and attractive feature, and seemed, as it were, like a little legion of Stanislas Kostkas.

In the enclosure of the seminary, everything was arranged which could facilitate the business of the congress or promote the comfort and convenience of its members. A post-office, booths for the sale of newspapers and for writing letters, a restaurant where refreshments could be obtained at all hours, and where a dinner was provided every day, with other similar conveniences, were established on the premises. The assembly-room was a large exhibition hall, tastefully decorated with the busts of the pope and king, the flags of various nations, and appropriate mottoes. All the members of the congress were furnished with a ticket of membership; no other persons being admitted within the enclosure, except a few ladies, for whom seats were reserved. Special tickets for reserved places and the platform were given to the foreign members and others specially privileged. The number of members in attendance during the week was about three thousand, a large proportion of whom were assembled at the place of rendezvous on Monday morning, the majority being clergymen dressed in the various ecclesiastical costumes of Belgium, France, and Germany, with a sprinkling of the picturesque habits of the old religious orders. At the appointed hour, all moved in a procession, not remarkably well ordered, but very dignified and respectable in appearance, to the cathedral, through a double hedge of citizens lining the streets, by a pretty long route, along which many of the houses and shops were decorated with banners, armorial bearings, and other ornaments of a festal and welcoming nature. After the arrival of the procession, pontifical Mass was celebrated by the cardinal, a number of Belgian and foreign bishops and prelates assisting, and the procession returned once more to the seminary, where the opening session was held.

The cardinal, who is always the honorary president of the congress, on his arrival at the hall of assemblage, assumed the chair amid loud cheers and vivas, and, after pronouncing a short prayer, delivered a brief and paternal allocution. At the close of his allocution, he descended from the platform to a chair in front of it, near which were placed chairs for the prelates. Among the foreign bishops assisting at the congress were the Patriarch of Antioch, the Archbishop of Bosra, Vicar-Apostolic of Bengal, the Vicar-Apostolic of Alexandria, the Archbishop of Rio Grande in Brazil, the Bishop of Vancouver, the Bishops of Natchez and Charleston, U. S., and Chatham, N. S.; Mgr. de Merode was also present during the early part of the session. Mgr. Dupanloup, Père Hyacinthe, and the Count de Falloux came by special invitation as the great orators of the congress. A few clergymen and gentlemen from Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Holland, and America, a moderately large number from France, and some scattering individuals from almost everywhere, representing, it was said, eighteen different nations, made up the foreign element of the congress. {295} Among the more distinguished foreign members of the congress, were Mgr. Kubinski, rector of the seminary of Pesth, in Hungary; Mgr. Woodlock, rector of the Catholic university of Dublin; F. Formby, of England; Mgr. Sacré, rector of the Belgian College in Rome; Baron de Bach, formerly Austrian ambassador at Rome; Chevalier Alberi of Florence; Viscount de la Fuente, professor of canon law in the University of Madrid; Don Manè y Flaquer, an eminent Spanish publicist; Count Cieszkowski, of Poland; the Abbé Brouwers, editor of the _Tyd_, of Amsterdam, etc. The strangers were treated with marked distinction and the most cordial kindness by their Belgian _confrères_. Nevertheless, apart from the brilliant orators from abroad, whose eloquence was chiefly directed to an object identical with the special and local purposes of the active members of the congress, the international character of the assembly was much less marked than in former years. England had but one representative, F. Formby, and other European countries were not strongly represented, with the single exception of France. Germany had its own congress a week after the one at Malines; and it appears probable that the Catholic congresses will become hereafter more and more exclusively national, occupied with local affairs of practical necessity, and having less of the character of international _réunions_. The Baron della Faille, in an article published in _La Revue Generale,_ seems, however, to regret this tendency, and to desire that the congress should become more of an international reunion. The late congress was especially marked by this practical and business-like character, and, if it fell behind the former ones somewhat in numbers and _éclat_, was probably increased in practical utility by this very circumstance. This is precisely the view taken in the _Compte-Rendu_ of the congress published in _Le Catholique_ of Brussels:

"Its labors went more directly to their object, had something about them stronger and better developed, and a more practical character. The accessory aspects occupied a smaller space. Eloquence, even--we speak of the eloquence of words, not of realities--played a lesser _rôle_. We may say that rhetorical display scarcely appeared at all, and that there was a decided preference for the reality of ideas and facts. Read the details of the general sessions and of the sections. You will see there fewer speeches for effect, but more that give information and instruction. The congress meddled little with speculations, properly so-called; it did not set forth any religious or political metaphysics; it proceeded to its end by the shortest and surest routes. The rights of the church, its necessities, the liberty which it needs, its perils and trials in various countries, the organization and results of pious undertakings, the means of propagating them, the precise and urgent duties of Catholics in respect to religion, such were the matters principally discussed."

It may be well to state also, in this connection, that purely political discussions were prohibited in the congress, and strictly excluded from its deliberations.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Malines, as we have said, is always the honorary president of the congress, and it is by him that the sessions are solemnly opened and closed. The active presidency is confided to some distinguished Belgian nobleman, and this high office has been hitherto filled by the Baron de Gerlache, a statesman and patriot of one of the most illustrious families of the kingdom, who was the president of the national congress by which the constitution was established, and until of late the chief judge of the court of cassation. {296} The Baron de Gerlache having resigned the office of president of the Catholic congress on account of his advanced age and infirmities, he was associated with the cardinal as honorary president, in order to testify the gratitude and veneration of the Catholics of Belgium for his illustrious career of public service; and the office of active president was left vacant. Its duties were performed with great dignity and ability by the first vice-president, Baron Hippolyte della Faille, a senator and leading Catholic statesman. The other vice-presidents were Viscount Kerckhove, Mgr. Laforet, rector magnificus of the University of Louvain, Viscount Dubus de Gisignies, senator, and Count de Theux, honorary vice-president, to whom were added as honorary vice-presidents the Count de Falloux and a number of the other foreigners present. The central bureau, which is a supreme council of management, was composed of the active vice-presidents, M. Ducpetiaux, secretary-general, with four other secretaries and a treasurer, and ten other gentlemen of distinguished rank and character, three of whom are clergymen and seven laymen. The presidents of the sections were Count Legrelle, Canon de Haerne, Mgr. Laforet, Viscount Dubus de Gisignies, and M. Dechamps, with a number of vice-presidents and secretaries. About fifty or sixty clergymen and lay-gentlemen of rank are thus placed at the head of the congress as members of the central and subordinate bureaux, constituting really the working congress. The great mass of the members, the majority of whom are clergymen of Belgium, constitute the audience, and cooperate chiefly by their presence and sympathy, although any member is at liberty to attend any section and gain a hearing for himself, if he has anything to propose to the attention of his colleagues. The measures to be proposed are initiated by the central bureau, sent down to the appropriate section for discussion and preparation, and, after approbation by the central bureau, laid before the congress for their ratification, which is usually given without further discussion, either by acclamation or by a formal vote. The real business meetings are consequently those of the bureaux and sections, the general sessions being devoted to hearing speeches, addresses, and reports. The sections meet during the morning, the members attending any of them they may choose. They are five in number. The first section is occupied with works of Catholic piety, the second with social science and works of general public improvement, the third with education, the fourth with Christian art, and the fifth with the Catholic press.

The general sessions are held during the afternoon, and at the last congress one of the evenings was devoted to a musical entertainment; another to a _fête_, given by the city, in the Botanical Garden; and the others were spent, by many of the members, in social conversation at the Catholic circle.

Before we give a _résumé_ of the proceedings of these sectional and general sessions of the late congress, it may be well to state the reasons, objects, and guiding principles in view of which the assemblage of these congresses at Malines has been inaugurated and carried on. A great deal has been already published in our former numbers upon this topic; but as our readers may have forgotten it, and not care to look it up afresh, we think it will enable them to appreciate the proceedings of the congress we are describing more thoroughly, if we furnish them the substance anew in a brief and summary manner. {297} In making this explanation, we shall be guided by the published and official statements of His Eminence the Cardinal de Sterckx, the Baron de Gerlache, and M. Ducpetiaux, which are to be found in the authentic documents of the first congress.

The necessity of the times which induced the leading Catholics of Belgium to conceive and execute the plan of convoking a general assembly of the clergy and laity of the kingdom, under the auspices of their primate and bishops, was the peculiar condition of the Catholic Church in relation to the civil administration of the state. The revolution of 1830, which severed Belgium from Holland and made it an independent kingdom, was accomplished by the concurrence of the Catholic majority of the nobility and people with the smaller but more active and enterprising liberal party who were the originators of the movement. By a similar concurrence and compromise between these two totally different elements, a constitution was formed on principles of very enlarged civil and religious liberty, and a Protestant prince, Leopold I., was called to the throne. The late king is usually spoken of by Catholics as a monarch of honorable and upright character, who endeavored to fulfil the duties entrusted to him in a just and impartial manner. Nevertheless, it is quite true that the position of affairs with a Protestant sovereign at the head of a Catholic people was an anomalous one, most unfavorable to the interests of the church and affording the greatest facilities to the so-called liberals to obtain a predominant influence in the state. The Catholic nobility and gentry, whose position, intelligence, and wealth made them the most capable of taking the principal part in directing political affairs, seem to have been too apathetic, and to have confided too much in the sincerity, loyalty, and good faith of the opposite party. The consequence was, that this party was allowed to get the control into its own hands, and enabled to secure an amount of influence over the people, who are fundamentally good, but too apathetic to their own highest interests, which has proved very dangerous, and has threatened to prove very disastrous, to religion. The accusation publicly made against this party by the gravest and most high-minded statesmen of Belgium is, that it has pursued an unremittingly perfidious policy in direct violation of the constitution, the end of which is to deprive the Catholic Church of that liberty and those rights solemnly guaranteed to it by the fundamental law of the realm, and, as far as possible, to decatholicize and unchristianize the people. The Catholic congress was called together and organized in order to unite the most influential laymen of the kingdom with the leading members of the clerical order, to take counsel together and adopt measures for counteracting this anti-catholic, infidel policy of the pseudo-liberal party. The honor of originating this glorious and happy enterprise, and of doing more than any other individual to promote its success, is ascribed by unanimous consent to M. Edouard Ducpetiaux, of Brussels, a gentleman whose name deserves to be enrolled with those of the most illustrious benefactors of his country. {298} M. Ducpetiaux is a gentleman of wealth and high education, the author of some valuable works on social science, a corresponding member of the French Institute, and was formerly inspector-general of the prisons and public charitable institutions of Belgium. It is impossible to find in the world a man more genial, kind-hearted, unassuming, and energetic in prosecuting every benevolent work or one more enthusiastically beloved by those who are associated with him in the noble cause of promoting the Catholic faith in Belgium and Europe. Happily for the interests of religion in this ancient Catholic country, a number of other gentlemen of the highest standing and the most thorough Catholic loyalty cooperated with him in his great undertaking. The wise, generous, and unfaltering patronage and support of the venerable primate of Belgium, the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines, crowned it with that sanction and imparted to it that spirit of union with the Holy Roman Church and the hierarchy, which are the guarantee of its genuine Catholicity and the vital principle of its activity. The congress was intended to serve as an instrument for thwarting the destructive policy of the infidel party by combining together those zealous and loyal Catholics who, in their isolation and separation, were in danger of losing courage; revealing to them their real strength, animating their faith and ardor by able and eloquent addresses from the most illustrious champions of the church, concerting and taking means to carry out all kinds of measures for preserving and extending a Catholic spirit among the people. The more precise and definite objects to be aimed at were, to win for the church the full and perfect possession of her liberty and other divine rights, to promote the cause of Catholic education, to make known and give new impetus to all kinds of religious and charitable works and associations already existing, as well as to found new ones; to provide for the publication of books, tracts, magazines, and newspapers devoted to the sound and wholesome instruction of the people; to preserve, restore, and augment the treasures of religious art; and to work for social reform by alleviating the burdens, miseries, and privations of the laboring classes. The special reason for calling a congress for these purposes was, in order that the nobility and other influential classes of the laity might be brought into direct and immediate cooperation with the clergy for promoting and defending the sacred cause of religion. The words of the Most Eminent Cardinal de Sterckx carry with them such a weight of authority and wisdom on this head, not only on account of his position as primate of the Belgian hierarchy, but also from the still higher rank which he holds as a prince of the Roman Church, and from the fact that he has spoken and acted throughout after seeking counsel and direction from the Holy Father, as well as from his own high personal character, that we will make a citation of them from his allocution at the opening of the first congress:

"It is true, gentlemen, that the government of the church belongs to the clergy; it is true that it is to the sovereign pontiff, to the bishops, and to the priests that the deposit of faith and the care of souls has been confided. It is to them that the divine Founder of the church has said: _'Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'_ It is to them that He has said: _'You are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth.'_ Nevertheless, the Christian laity are also called to contribute to the propagation of the gospel, to sustain and defend the church of God. {299} By baptism they have become the children of the church, and they are bound to take to heart the interests of their mother; by confirmation they have become soldiers of the church, and they are bound to defend her against the attacks of her enemies. It is, moreover, by the practice of good works that we are all obliged, both ecclesiastics and laymen, to secure our salvation. '_Strive_,' says the prince of apostles to all Christians without distinction, '_strive to secure your vocation and election by the practice of good works_.'

"But, if such is the duty of the laity, they ought to concert together in order to fulfil it with zeal and perseverance; they ought to combine and form associations; they ought to confer together, in order to plan the means of doing with more certainty and success that which they could only do in a very incomplete manner if they were abandoned to their own individual capacities."

We add one more sentence from the same allocution, which manifests the genuine and large-minded liberality of sentiment so conspicuous in this wise and venerable prelate and in the body of eminent men who have had the principal direction of the congress:

"All honest opinions may be expressed, all measures proper for promoting that which is good may be proposed. Both the one and the other may be defended, discussed, and combated with the greatest liberty; but you will also be all ready to abandon, if necessary, your sentiments and your projects, in order to rally to the support of those measures which shall be judged to be the best. In this way you will arrive at that perfect union which the Saviour demanded for his disciples: You will all have but one heart and one soul, and the success of your labors will be secured."

There can be no doubt that the congress of Malines has accomplished a great deal of the good contemplated by its eminent and excellent promoters. The mere assemblage of so many fervent Catholics together, and the enunciation of their common sentiments, wishes, and purposes, have had a great influence in giving increased courage, confidence, and zeal to the faithful adherents of the church in Belgium. Moreover, many works of great practical utility have either been inaugurated or have received additional extent and vigor. Among them may be mentioned the support given to the Catholic University of Louvain, the formation of a society among the alumni of the university, the establishment of Catholic circles of young men in the towns, the formation of libraries, the establishment of lectures and conferences, the formation of charitable and religious associations, the foundation of a Catholic publication house, the multiplication of books, tracts, and newspapers, the care given to the preservation, repair, and increase of churches, the cultivation of the fine arts in connection with religion, the efforts made for the sanctification of the Sunday and for the amelioration of the condition of the laboring classes. It is impossible to enumerate all that has been done, and would require a more minute knowledge of the state of things in Belgium than we possess--such a knowledge as is possessed only by those who have been engaged permanently in the work of the congress from the beginning.

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In regard to the work of the congress lately held, our information is also much restricted and very general, as we are obliged to rely on the succinct reports already published. The meetings of the sections being held simultaneously in different rooms, and their proceedings being a continuation of those of preceding congresses as well as of a great number of various branches of active effort carried on perpetually by those engaged in them, we cannot pretend to give any complete and detailed statement of practical results, but merely an indication of the general topics discussed and the general objects had in view in the measures adopted.

In the first section, the topics discussed related to the Christian burial of the poor, the sanctification of the Sunday, the work of St. Francis Xavier for the instruction of laboring men, which has forty thousand members from this class in the cities of Belgium, the work of St. Francis Regis for legitimating illicit unions and facilitating marriages among the poor, and the contribution in aid of the pope called St. Peter's pence.

The second section was exclusively occupied with considering the interest of the laboring class and the relation of capital to labor, the terrible and at present insoluble European _question ouvrière_. The discussions in this section were more lively and the interest excited more general than in any other section.

The third section discussed three questions:

1. The attitude which Catholics ought to take in view of the war declared against the law of 1842, and in the eventuality of its abrogation.

2. The means of protecting the schools of the middle class against the incursions of official bureaucracy.

3. The improvement to be introduced in the Catholic system of instruction, under which head the improvement of historical text-books was especially considered.

The fourth section discussed the subject of instruction and improvement in religious art, the permanent exposition of fine paintings and statuary in churches, the means of developing and propagating religious art, and literary works imbued with a Christian spirit. M. Bordeaux, an eminent French archaeologist, was present, and spoke with ability in this section, giving interesting details of the progress of sacred archaeology in France. Among other recommendations, we were happy to find one relative to the removal of the ridiculous images which disfigure some fine churches, and the abolition of the unpleasant custom of paying a franc to the sacristan for removing the curtains before certain pictures. Desires were expressed for the publication of a manual of sacred archaeology and architecture as a guide to priests and architects.

The fifth section had a great number of important questions before it relating to the Catholic press, Catholic circles, popular lectures, secret societies, judicial oaths, etc., which it appears were not so well prepared beforehand or dealt with in so thorough a manner as the questions laid before the other sections. The most important resolution arrived at by this section was that of effecting a union of the Catholic circles for young men by means of a central organization. The formation of similar circles for the benefit of the industrial classes, and the giving of popular lectures on a more extensive scale, were also recommended.

Such is an imperfect and meagre outline of the work accomplished in the morning sessions of the several congressional sections. These sessions were opened at eight or nine o'clock, and continued until twelve or later. {301} At three o'clock the general sessions of the congress were opened, continuing until six or seven in the evening; and we will now attempt to give a sketch of their proceedings.

The opening of the congress by the cardinal has already been noticed. After His Eminence had left the president's chair, the nominations of the central and sectional bureaux made by the committee of delegates were proposed and ratified by the assembly, and the chair was taken by the Baron della Faille, who immediately pronounced a long, elaborately written, and extremely able opening discourse. The baron is a gentleman of plain but impressive dignity, whose entire bearing and language bear the stamp of solid sense, elevated principles, thorough conscientiousness, and quiet but indomitable courage. A tone of profound and deeply meditative Christian thought and fervent Catholic piety predominates in his discourses, with a little shadow of sadness, as if he felt the great interests of the church and society to be in great danger; together with an undercurrent of suppressed emotion, as of a just and high-minded man indignant at the baseness of those who are faithless to their duty toward God and their fellow-men; as well as deeply resolved to be faithful to the death himself, at whatever cost of selfish interests.

At the outset of his discourse, the distinguished vice-president laid down the proposition that a state of conflict is the perpetual condition of the church, and proceeded to develop his views concerning the radical causes of the hostility which Christianity perpetually excites in the human bosom against its principles, its precepts, and its claim of authority over reason, conscience, and human activity. This part of his discourse was profoundly theological, the views and reasonings presented being all derived from the doctrine that man, in consequence of the original sin into which he fell from his primitive state of integrity, finds a perpetual repugnance and struggle in his own bosom of selfish passion against the supernatural law. This repugnance and resistance tends to produce itself in society even after it has been christianized and civilized, in the form of a retrograde movement toward irreligion and barbarism.

The orator proceeded then to examine the question whether this conflict could be terminated, so far as its disturbing influence on political tranquillity and the peace of society is concerned, by a reformation or reconstruction of the relations between the two orders, spiritual and temporal, religion and society, the church and the state. To this question he addressed himself to give a historical solution, arguing from the facts of the past as to what might be expected in the future. "When the irreconcilable adversaries of the truth," said the orator, with energy and emotion, "tear the state away from the church, reject Christ, ah! gentlemen, it is not in order to create for us a more peaceful condition; it is, on the contrary, in order to attack us more freely. If the civil power forces itself to be impartial, guided by reason alone, it is not secure from error; it will often be deceived, and the Catholic religion, being incapable of submitting to the manipulations of the temporal authority, will always be the first thing menaced. But what if this same power is malevolent? what if it has fallen into the hands of our enemies?" The orator then went on to sustain the position thus laid down by a reference to the actual policy of the so-called liberal governments of Europe toward the Catholic Church. {302} He demanded that a single European state should be indicated, where liberalism is in power, which has not persecuted the church. After reproaching the blindness and apathy of a great number of Catholics who hang loose from an active part in the conflict against infidelity, he set forth, in very forcible language, the common duty of all to maintain, or rather to make a conquest of, the liberties of the church. This, he said, could only be accomplished by an obstinate conflict with the enemies of the church, in which there could be _ni paix ni trêve_. Touching then upon Belgium in particular, the country which liberty has made so famous, he asked the question, What is the condition of things there now? Without disparaging the amount of liberty still left to them, he declared that they had already lost enough to awaken just regret in their own minds, and to suggest the caution to their too confident friends: "Do not exaggerate the authority of this example, and take care for yourselves." He then went on to affirm that the church in Belgium is combated in its religious and charitable works--in the exercise of worship, where it has new assaults to expect, without any respect for the conditions which have been affixed to charitable institutions, or to the solemn engagements of the state. Such, he exclaimed, is our situation, in spite of our legislation which was favorable to us, in spite of promises the most formal, compacts the most solemn. Elsewhere, he asked, is the situation more favorable? The orator then deduced the conclusion which was the final object aimed at throughout his closely reasoned discourse, that the Catholics of Europe must rely on themselves alone, and prepare for a combat which must be sustained with courage, constancy, and union. In this part of his discourse, the baron proved how legitimate is the title he has received from his warlike ancestors, and we were reminded of the old days and old scenes of the chivalrous, warlike Netherlands, when the fathers of the peaceable gentlemen in the costume of civilians, who sat upon the platform or on the floor of the congress, rode forth with their pennons flying, clad in steel armor and coat of mail, to fight against the paynim for the cross and sepulchre. "We are the children of the Crusaders!" he exclaimed. "To a threatening infidelity let us oppose a new crusade, and let us each one bring his own arms with him."

On the conclusion of the discourse, which had been frequently interrupted by applause, the assembly gave loud and long-continued expression to the universal sentiment of admiration with which this introductory discourse of the illustrious Belgian statesman was received.

An address to the Holy Father was then voted by the assembly; the address was intrusted to Mgr. de Merode, to be presented by him to His Holiness on his return to Rome. Information of the vote was transmitted to Rome by telegraph, and in response to it the Holy Father sent his benediction on the opening of the congress, and subsequently another benediction on its close. After some communications from the secretary, the first public session of the congress was adjourned.

At the second session, on Tuesday afternoon, the hall was still more crowded than on the day previous. A few moments before it was opened, the Count de Falloux entered, leaning on the arm of Mgr. Laforet, amid prolonged and enthusiastic acclamations.

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At the opening of the session an address to the cardinal was proposed and voted. M. de Falloux was nominated honorary vice-president, and a large number of the foreign members were honored with the same mark of distinction.

The favorite demonstration of cheering accompanied all these courteous formalities, and no sooner had it subsided than it was awakened to new and increased vigor by the arrival of the cardinal with the accompanying prelates, conducting the illustrious Bishop of Orleans, Mgr. Dupanloup, together with the celebrated orator of the Carmelite order, Father Hyacinthe. Long, loud, and often renewed were the acclamations with which the assembly greeted the heroic, veteran champion of the Catholic cause, "the Lamoricière of the episcopate," as he was happily designated by one of the orators of the congress. The president succeeded in silencing the thunders of congratulation long enough to allow him to address a few words of salutation to Mgr. Dupanloup in the name of the assembly, when they again burst forth with irrepressible energy, and could not be appeased until the illustrious orator, reluctantly yielding to the irresistible demand of three thousand voices, ascended the tribune to pronounce a short but fervid allocution.

Mgr. Dupanloup presents much more the exterior aspect of a hard-working apostolic missionary, or of an austere and self-denying religious, than of a stately dignitary of the church; and his style of address is in accordance with his personal appearance, having more of the unstudied energy, the spontaneous fire, of an earnest, popular preacher, than of the polished, artistic eloquence of a French academician.

His dress was a simple black cassock, with the slightest possible amount of purple trimming, and a cloak of the same color, just enough to indicate his episcopal rank, but still more significant of his profound indifference for its decorations. Everything else about his person and manner wore the same air of unstudied _negligé_ and inattention to the ceremonial of exterior elegance and polish. As he appeared in full view of the audience upon the platform, an expression used by Rufus Choate of Napoleon the First could be applied to him, as giving with terse completeness a designation to the impression we received of the physical, intellectual, and moral _tout ensemble_ of the man--"the worn child of a thousand battles." The same idea is conveyed by the title given him by general acclamation at the congress, "the Lamoricière of the episcopate." The bishop is somewhat over sixty years of age, his hair is gray, his movements somewhat indicative of failing bodily strength, his countenance vivid, lighting up as if from the flame of an internal, ever-burning furnace which is consuming his physical frame, his manner natural, easy, familiar, yet kindling at intervals into a startling, vibrating eloquence that thrills through the nerves like an electric shock. Mgr. Dupanloup had not preached in his diocese for the last two years on account of weakness in the throat, and, on taking the tribune at Malines, he apologized for himself on the ground that his voice was weakened by long and laborious use. In point of fact, his excuses seemed to be well-grounded; yet, as he caught the expression of the eyes and faces of his sympathetic audience, the electrical influence of the atmosphere of the place, surcharged with the enthusiasm of the Catholic faith, seemed to reanimate all his ancient fire, and he sent forth, like a flash of lightning, with a tone that vibrated through every heart in that august assembly, the eloquent exclamation, "_Nous savions que le feu sacré est immortel dans l'Eglise; mais_ ICI ON EN VOIT LA FLAMME!" {304} The bishop spoke but a few minutes, seizing the opportunity of the renewed applause which broke out on his uttering these words to descend hastily from the tribune, having produced an effect by this sudden _coup de main_ of eloquence which it would be impossible to describe in any language we have at command.

The acclamations caused by Mgr. Dupanloup's _début_ in the assembly having subsided, a short and amusing conflict arose between the amiable pertinacity of M. Ducpetiaux in insisting upon an immediate address from the Count de Falloux, and the reluctance of that gentleman to yield to the demand; in which the latter was obliged to succumb. Indeed, the audience came at once to the support of their secretary in such overwhelming force that resistance was impossible, and the illustrious French statesman was borne up to the tribune just vacated by the illustrious French bishop, as it were by a great wave of applause.

The Count de Falloux is a finished specimen of the most graceful and polished type of French gentlemen, orators, and men of polite letters. The paleness of his countenance, together with an expression of subdued languor in his eye and movements, bore witness to the truth of his avowal, that a pitiable state of health had prevented him from making any preparation for addressing the congress. In consequence of this, the count made no long or elaborate discourses. In his discourse of Tuesday, which was the longest, he spoke but half an hour. Nevertheless, this brief discourse, although apparently an unstudied, impromptu utterance of thoughts and sentiments occurring at the moment; delivered, without any effort at oratory, in a simple, almost conversational manner; was a specimen of the most consummate, captivating, and classical eloquence; as our readers will see for themselves, we hope, so far as a translation can enable them to do so, when the text of the discourse is published in full in our pages, as we intend it shall be; together with those of Mgr. Dupanloup and Father Hyacinthe. The expression of M. de Falloux's countenance, the tones of his voice, and his entire manner of address bear an impress of gentleness, of graceful, charming persuasiveness, through which he wins the hearts of his audience at once, and gains an easy, almost imperceptible dominion over their minds. With exquisite grace and delicacy, he complimented all the most distinguished persons present, the congress, and the Belgian nation; thanking the latter especially for the honor and kindness shown to his illustrious and suffering friend Montalembert, then confined to his chamber by sickness at his villa of Brixensart, near Brussels. The genuine, affectionate tenderness and emotion with which he spoke of Montalembert communicated itself at once to his sympathetic audience, and called out the most energetic, enthusiastic acclamations of the name so dear to the Belgian Catholics. "It is to you," said the orator, "that Montalembert owes the motto expressive of that sacred cause to which his life has been devoted, _Liberty as in Belgium_." The theme thus introduced with such consummate skill and effect occupied the remainder of the discourse, which was in its drift and aim a modest, reserved, courteous, but not the less powerful apology and defence of the nineteenth century and the cause of liberty against the charge of being essentially anti-catholic and irreligious.

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The name of Montalembert was, in every instance when it was mentioned, greeted with the same hearty applause during all the sessions of the congress; a circumstance which elicited from him a letter of thanks and sympathy, afterward publicly read by the Count de Falloux, and received with acclamations of the most energetic character by the assembly.

We do not feel ourselves competent to express an opinion on the question how far the applause given by the congress to these two illustrious Catholic statesmen of France indicated an approbation of the principles in regard to the alliance of religion and liberty which they advocate. There is, no doubt, a great difference regarding this very important, delicate, and complicated question, in Belgium as well as throughout Europe; a difference existing, consequently, among the members of the Congress of Malines. The Count de Falloux's speech has been courteously but searchingly criticised by some of the most prominent writers for the Catholic press in Belgium, and still more severely by another writer in one of the English papers; while, as is natural, it is sustained with equal courtesy as well as with equal decision by _Le Correspondant_ of France. All the members of the congress, as well as all other firm adherents of the Catholic cause in Europe and the world, are of one mind and one heart, in filial devotion to the Pope, loyalty to the Holy See and the Catholic Church, determination to fight against anti-catholic, infidel pseudo-liberalism in both its phases of despotism and radical demagogueism for the perfect liberation, the complete liberty of the Catholic Church from the tyranny, both of governments and of revolutions. In regard to the basis of settlement between the church and civil, political society, or the state, through which this liberty can be most effectually gained, most durably established, there is a divergence which sometimes threatens to become a sharp contest, involving in its issues other questions more directly ecclesiastical or theological. The most admirable feature of the Congress of Malines was, that this difference of opinion was neither violently smothered nor permitted to burst into a flame of discord, but subdued by the dominant power of mutual charity, respect, and courtesy. The Catholics of Belgium, we may also add those of France also, give a good example in this respect worthy to be imitated by all, but especially _needing to be imitated_ by the Catholics of England and our own country. The Belgian Catholics are too deeply sensible of the imminent duties and perils of the Catholic cause in front of the deadly enemy of all religion, to tolerate the excesses of party spirit or internal dissension among themselves, to allow the tyranny of theological opinion the right of branding all dissidents as disloyal to the church, to tolerate the secret undermining or open detraction of the reputation of eminent, meritorious advocates of the Catholic cause, much less to permit the violation of the rules of Christian charity and courtesy by those who write for the press. They have felt the necessity of shunning personal or party disputes, rising above the spirit of clique or sectional interest, throwing off indifference and apathy toward measures or enterprises set on foot by men of zeal and courage for the common good, and combining together in a spirit of disinterested, self-sacrificing effort, strong enough to sweep away and drown all petty interests, for the common, the sacred, the glorious, but deeply endangered cause of God, religion, and true philanthropy. {306} If we are so fortunate as to have a Catholic congress in the United States, we trust it will be animated by the same spirit which prevailed in the Congress of Malines, and that its influence will promote powerfully this truly Catholic spirit wherever it is felt.

To return from this digression; when the Count de Falloux had finished his speech, a very pleasing interlude occurred in the presentation of a magnificent vase of gold, on the part of the central bureau, to M. Ducpetiaux, by the Viscount Kerckhove, who made a graceful and appropriate speech on the occasion, embracing affectionately the amiable secretary at its conclusion, to the unbounded delight of the audience. Several other addresses were then read, some compliments were passed between the congress and the representatives of the city of Malines, an excellent report was read by Mgr. Nameche, vice-rector of the University of Louvain, from a committee appointed to give a premium to the best treatise on the education of young ladies, an animated speech was made by one of the juvenile members of the congress, and the session was adjourned.

The general session of Wednesday was addressed, after a few preliminary proceedings, by Lieutenant-General de Lannoy, a veteran warrior of the Belgian army, in a brief but exceedingly eloquent speech, commending the charitable heroism of the pontifical Zouaves during the visitation of Rome and Albano by the cholera. It was resolved to send an expression of the sentiment of the assembly to the secretary of war at Rome, and two young Belgian Zouaves present in the audience were invited to a seat on the platform. Father Tondini, an _Italian_ Barnabite, then read a paper relating to a work in which he is engaged, for promoting the return of Russia to the unity of the church. He was followed by the celebrated Mgr. Dechamps, formerly a Redemptorist missionary, now the Bishop of Namur, who pronounced an able and eloquent discourse on the subject of Catholic unity. After this eloquent prelate had left the tribune, it was taken by the Bishop of Charleston, who employed the remaining time of the session, the hour of adjournment having been fixed at five P.M., on account of the oratorio in the evening, in a discourse on the state of the Catholic religion in the United States, but principally in his own diocese. The learned bishop, whose presence did so much honor to the hierarchy and the Catholic body of our own country at the Congress of Malines, exposed the sad state of the Catholic people of South Carolina, as well as of the whole population, but more especially of the colored race, in consequence of the late war. He communicated a project of his own for establishing a community of monks upon an island on the coast of South Carolina, as the nucleus of a great work for converting and civilizing the colored population. The address of Bishop Lynch produced a most profound impression upon the assembly; and we are happy to state that some of the wealthy members of the congress gave handsome contributions toward his benevolent undertaking.

On Thursday the great event of the session was the discourse of Mgr. Dupanloup, of which we give no analysis here, as the text of the discourse is to appear in our pages. It was throughout a scathing denunciation of the principle of the pseudo-liberals, the _liberâtres_, as he designated them, the _liberticides_, as we would propose to call them in English. {307} Near the close of his discourse he gave utterance to a sentence which has aroused the attention of all Europe, and bids fair to make its echo heard for a long time to come. It was _à propos_ of a plan, proposed, we believe, by the editor of the Paris _Siède_, for erecting a statue to Voltaire.

"Shall I remind you of Voltaire, the inventor of the title _The Infamous_, by which he designated the church? And he, what name did he give himself? He called himself philosopher. Ah! well, gentlemen, no one shall ever bring me to give the name of philosophers to a d'Holbach, to a Lamettrie, or the rest of the impious men who conspired with their master to crush the Infamous. But what do I hear? People say that they desire to erect a statue to the man who gave this name to Christianity. Indeed! and I, on my part, say that they will have raised a statue to INFAMY PERSONIFIED. (Prolonged bravos.) I should like to encounter here a man who would contradict me! I would promise to give him, as soon as he pleased, proofs with which all Europe would resound. This violence done to good sense, to rectitude, to French honor, revolts me. I repeat it, they will raise a statue to INFAMY PERSONIFIED. The Bishop of the Orleans of Joan of Arc could not have or express a more worthy sentiment." (Prolonged acclamations.)

The editor of the _Siède_ has offered to take up the glove thus thrown at him, and a short but spicy correspondence has been interchanged between himself and the bishop, who is preparing to redeem his pledge in a pamphlet containing the proofs of his assertion.

We cannot refrain from noticing one more passage in this remarkable discourse, one which came like a flash of lightning from the bishop's mouth, striking the assembly with an irresistible force, but especially kindling every heart of a Belgian there present into aflame of patriotic enthusiasm. The effect was indeed indescribable. We add our fervent hope that it may be _ineffaceable_, especially upon the hearts of the Belgian youth there present, to whom their country looks with such fond hope for the future.

"O patriotism! it is not to you that I have to preach it; but I say to you simply, You HAVE A COUNTRY, KNOW HOW TO KEEP IT!" Words apparently simple and commonplace as written down on paper to be read by those who are remote from the scene of their utterance, strangers to the memories, the associations, the hopes and fears whose key-note they struck, and unable to represent to themselves the attitude, the tone, the expression of the orator who gave them utterance. But words which, as Dupanloup uttered them, with a sudden _élan_, in which his whole soul of fire seemed to blaze forth before the eyes of his audience, "VOUS AVEZ UNE PATRIE, SACHEZ LA CARDER!" Were sufficient to set a whole nation on fire.

The castigation given to infidelity by the intrepid Bishop of Orleans caused the party suffering from his well-applied lash to give utterance to its smarting sensations by an outcry in the _Independence Belge_, repeated by the London Times, and echoed by some of its feeble imitators in America. The burden of the complaint against Mgr. Dupanloup is, that he did not treat the _soi-disant_ liberal party with sufficient courtesy or respect. For our own part, we did not find anything in his discourse, nor have we ever seen anything in any of his writings, in the slightest decree contrary to the charity of a Christian or the dignity of a bishop. {308} In speaking of the party called by the extremely vague, general name of liberal, we must distinguish. We assent to the opinion of the amiable writer who furnished the sketch of the late congress in _Le Correspondant_, that it is incumbent on the champion of the Catholic cause to combat for it with _courteous arms_. We allow that a very large proportion of those who would class themselves under the general head of liberals, whether they call themselves liberal Christians or liberal philosophers, are entitled to courtesy. But, when it is question of such men as Voltaire and his modern disciples, who are engaged in the nefarious work of destroying all Christian faith in the hearts of the Catholic people, as well as poisoning the very well-spring of all political and social life, we deny that, apart from courtesies of private life, and in the public arena of discussion, they are entitled to any courtesy at the hands of a loyal defender of Christian faith and civilization, beyond that which his own self-respect and Christian charity require him to show to the deadliest enemies of the human race. We trust the time has not yet come in England or America when the name of Voltaire must be mentioned with respect. Whatever courtesy any man of that class deserves can only be given on the same principle that the poor woman addressed the executioner during the French reign of terror, with a plea to spare the lives of herself and her children, in the words, "_Ayez pitie, M. le Bourreau_." We hope it is through ignorance only that so many in England and America, calling themselves by the Christian name, extend their sympathy to a class of men who are laboring for the destruction of all religion and all social order; if it be through ignorance, their eyes will be opened in due time, perhaps in a somewhat startling manner.

When the thunders of acclamation, in the midst of which the Bishop of Orleans descended from the tribune, had subsided, the audience felt as if they had been swept up, by the hurricane of his eloquence, to a height from which it was difficult as well as unpleasant to descend on _terra firma_. His discourse was well styled in the _Bulletin_ of the next morning, "_ce discours monument_" and, in our own mind, it is like some of these _chefs d'oeuvre_ of Raffaelle in the Louvre, whose excellence is more vividly appreciated in the reminiscence than in the actual moment of viewing them.

The remainder of the session was occupied by an interesting memoir on the state of Italy, by the Chevalier Alberi of Florence, and an address on North American missions, by the Bishop of Vancouver.

The great speech of the Friday session was that of Father Hyacinthe. It was preceded by a short though brilliant address from the eminent statesman M. Adrian Dechamps, and another short address from the Count de Falloux, who read a letter from M. de Montalembert, which will be published hereafter.

Father Hyacinthe, dressed in the picturesque, impressive habit of the Carmelites, presented a striking contrast in appearance, as well as in the style of his eloquence, to the two great French orators who had preceded him. He is still in the full vigor of the prime of manhood, untouched by any token of decline; on the contrary, hardly more than just arrived at the full efflorescence of physical and intellectual maturity. The poetic sentiment seems to predominate in him, with an exuberance of the tender and expansive emotions of the heart, the pleasing, radiant creations of the imagination, yet not without the power of descending to the deeper region of tragic sentiment, or striking out more bold and sublime conceptions. {309} His ordinary manner and expression are gentle and winning, his eye and countenance full of benevolence, his voice sweet, musical, somewhat feminine. When the spirit of oratorical inspiration carries him away, his countenance changes to a more earnest, impassioned expression, his gestures are rapid and vehement, his voice alternately sinks to a deep, low, organ-like tone, or rings out clearly like a trumpet, and the whole mind and body are roused into an action in which every cord and nerve has the tension of a ship's cordage under full sail. After the discourse, which was two hours long, and held the audience in a breathless attention interrupted only by their applauses, the eloquent father was completely exhausted and obliged to return home to his lodgings at once for a period of perfect quiet and repose. Of the discourse, which was on the _question ouvrière_, we will not speak, leaving our readers to peruse it in the translation which will be given in our pages hereafter.

A short address was made by Mgr. Rogers, Bishop of Chatham, N. S., thanking the Catholics of Europe for their charitable assistance to the missions of America, and giving some naive details of the primitive manners of the Acadians. Canon Rousseau then gave an analysis of the memoir presented by Father Hecker in a French translation for publication among the congressional documents, relating to the progress of the Catholic religion in the United States. Finally, M. l'Abbé Brouwers, a young priest of Amsterdam, succeeded in gaining the attention of the audience, already fatigued and impatient, to an address on the religious condition of Holland. This young priest exhibited proofs in his speech, of possessing the gift of sacred eloquence in no common degree. Another thing about him that pleased every one was, that he gave a bright, cheerful picture of the state of things in his own country. Everything was going on well, and promised to go on still better in the future--a circumstance quite creditable to the contented disposition of the compatriots of our first settlers in New York.

The closing service on Saturday morning was devoted to the reading of the reports of the sections and voting their conclusions. This work had been commenced at an extraordinary general session on Friday morning. The president gave a short concluding discourse, and after some usual formalities the members of the congress repaired to the cathedral, where a sermon was preached by Father Hyacinthe, the _Te Deum_ was chanted, and the cardinal gave his benediction on the close of the congress. A general communion of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul had already been made on Friday morning in the church of Notre Dame d'Hanswyck. We may add here that a bulletin of the acts of the congress was published every morning, and also that there is an association called the Catholic Union, which is a sort of permanent standing committee of the congress during the intervals of its assemblages.

An elegant and _recherché_ banquet, at which about three hundred gentlemen were present, concluded the Catholic _réunion_ at Malines in a very pleasant manner, and before nightfall we had bidden adieu to Malines and were on our way to Brussels, preparatory to a return to Paris, and thence to America.

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In conclusion, we beg leave to thank, in the name of the entire American delegation, the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines, and the other distinguished gentlemen of Belgium who are the chief directors of the congress, especially the noble-hearted and amiable secretary, M. Ducpetiaux, for the hospitality and consideration so kindly extended by them during our stay at Malines; and we trust that it may be in our power at a future day to return this hospitality in an equally cordial manner to some of their number as guests of the Catholics of the United States of America. _Vive la Belgique! Vive le Congrès Catholique de Malines!_

Translated From The French.

The Story Of A Conscript.

I.

Those who have not seen the glory of the Emperor Napoleon, during the years 1810, 1811, and 1812, can never conceive what a pitch of power one man may reach.

When he passed through Champagne, or Lorraine, or Alsace, people gathering the harvest or the vintage would leave everything to run and see him; women, children, and old men would come a distance of eight or ten leagues to line his route, and cheer and cry, "_Vive l'Empereur! Vive l'Empereur!_" One would think that he was a god, that mankind owed its life to him, and that, if he died, the world would crumble and be no more. A few old republicans might shake their heads and mutter over their wine that the emperor might yet fall, but they passed for fools.

I was in my apprenticeship since 1804, with an old watchmaker, Melchior Goulden, at Phalsbourg. As I seemed weak and was a little lame, my mother wished me to learn an easier trade than those of our village, for at Dagsberg there were only wood-cutters and charcoal-burners. Monsieur Goulden liked me very much. We lived on the first story of a large house opposite the "Red Ox" inn, and near the French gate.

That was the place to see princes, ambassadors, and generals come and go, some on foot, and some in carriages drawn by two or four horses; there they passed in embroidered uniforms, with waving plumes and decorations from every country under the sun. And in the highway what couriers, what baggage-wagons, what powder-trains, cannon, caissons, cavalry, and infantry did we see! Those were stirring times!

In five or six years the innkeeper, George, had made a fortune. He had fields, orchards, houses, and money in abundance; for all these people, coming from Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Poland, or elsewhere, cared little for a few handfuls of gold scattered upon their road; they were all nobles who took a pride in showing their prodigality.

From morning until night, and even during the night, the "Red Ox" kept its tables in readiness. Through the long windows on the first story nothing was to be seen but great white table-cloths, glittering with silver and covered with game, fish, and other rare viands, around which the travellers sat side by side. {311} In the yard behind, horses neighed, postilions shouted, maid-servants laughed, coaches rattled.

Sometimes, too, people of the city stopped there, who in other times were known to gather sticks in the forest or work on the highway. But now they were commandants, colonels, generals, and had won their grades by fighting in every land on earth.

Old Melchior, with his black silk cap pulled over his ears, his weak eyelids, his nose pinched between great horn spectacles, and his lips tightly pressed together, could not sometimes avoid putting his magnifying-glass and punch upon the work-bench, and throwing a glance toward the inn, especially when the cracking of the whips of the postilions awoke the echoes of the ramparts and announced a new arrival. Then he became all attention, and from time to time would exclaim:

"Hold! It is the son of Jacob, the slater," or of "the old scold, Mary Ann," or of "the cooper, Franz Lépel! He has made his way in the world; there he is, colonel and baron of the empire into the bargain. Why don't he stop at the house of his father who lives yonder in the _Rue des Capucins?_"

But, when he saw them shaking hands right and left in the street with those who recognized them, his tone changed; he wiped his eyes with his great spotted handkerchief, and murmured:

"How pleased poor old Annette will be! Good! good! _He_ is not proud; he is a man. God preserve him from cannon-balls!"

Others passed as if ashamed to recognize their birthplace; others went gayly to see their sisters or cousins, and everybody spoke of them. One would imagine that all Phalsbourg wore their crosses and their epaulettes; while the arrogant were despised even more than when they swept the roads.

Nearly every month _Te Deums_ were chanted, and the cannon at the arsenal fired their salutes of twenty-one rounds for some new victory. During the week following every family was uneasy; poor mothers especially waited for letters, and the first that came all the city knew of; the rumor spread like wildfire that such an one had received a letter from Jacques or Claude, and all ran to see if it spoke of their Joseph or their Jean-Baptiste. I do not speak of promotions or the official reports of deaths; as for the first, every one knew that the killed must be replaced; and as for the reports of deaths, parents awaited them weeping, for they did not come immediately; sometimes they never came, and the poor father and mother hoped on, saying, "Perhaps our boy is a prisoner. When they make peace, he will return. How many have returned whom we thought dead!"

But they never made peace. When one war was finished, another was begun. We always needed something, either from Russia or from Spain, or some other country. The emperor was never satisfied.

Often when regiments passed through the city, with their great-coats pulled back, their knapsacks on their backs, their great gaiters reaching to the knee, and muskets carried at will; often when they passed covered with mud or white with dust, would Father Melchior, after gazing upon them, ask me dreamily:

"How many, Joseph, think you we have seen pass since 1804?"

"I cannot say, Monsieur Goulden," I would reply', "at least four or five hundred thousand."

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"Yes, at least!" he said, "and how many have returned?"

Then I understood his meaning, and answered: "Perhaps they return by Mayence or some other route. It cannot be possible otherwise!"

But he only shook his head, and said: "Those whom you have not seen return are dead, as hundreds and hundreds of thousands more will die, if the good God does not take pity on us, for the emperor loves only war. He has already spilt more blood to give his brothers crowns than our Revolution cost to win the rights of man."

Then we set about our work again; but the reflections of Monsieur Goulden gave me some terrible subjects for thought.

It was true that I was a little lame in the left leg; but how many others with defects of body had received their orders to march notwithstanding!

These ideas kept running through my head, and when I thought long over them, I grew very melancholy. They seemed terrible to me, not only because I had no love for war, but because I was going to marry Catharine of Quatre-Vents. We had been in some sort reared together. Nowhere could be found a girl so fresh and laughing. She was fair-haired, with beautiful blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and teeth white as milk. She was approaching eighteen; I was nineteen, and Aunt Margrédel seemed pleased to see me coming early every Sunday morning to breakfast and dine with them.

It was I who took her to high Mass and vespers; and on holidays she never left my arm, and refused to dance with the other youths of the village. Everybody knew that we would some day be married; but, if I should be so unfortunate as to be drawn in the conscription, there was an end of matters. I wished that I was a thousand times more lame; for at the time of which I speak they had first taken the unmarried men, then the married men who had no children, then those with one child; and I constantly asked myself, "Are lame fellows of more consequence than fathers of families? Could they not put me in the cavalry?" The idea made me so unhappy that I already thought of fleeing.

But in 1812, at the beginning of the Russian war, my fear increased. From February until the end of May, every day we saw pass regiments after regiments--dragoons, cuirassiers, carbineers, hussars, lancers of all colors, artillery, caissons, ambulances, wagons, provisions, rolling on for ever, like the waters of a river. All flowed through the French gate, crossed the Place d'Armes, and streamed out at the German gate.

At last, on the 10th of May, in the year 1812, in the early morning, the guns of the arsenal announced the coming of the master of all. I was yet sleeping when the first shot shook the little panes of my window till they rattled like a drum, and Monsieur Goulden, with a lighted candle, opened my door, saying, "Rise up, he is here!"

We opened the window. Through the night I saw a hundred dragoons, of whom many bore torches, entering at a gallop; they shook the earth as they passed; their lights glanced along the house-fronts like dancing flames, and from every window we heard the shouts of "_Vive l'Empereur!_"

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I was gazing at the carriage, when a horse crashed against the post to which the butcher Klein was accustomed to fasten his cattle. The dragoon was thrown to the pavement, his helmet rolled in the gutter, and a head leaned out of the carriage to see what had happened--a large head, pale and fat, with a tuft of hair on the forehead: it was Napoleon; he held his hand up as if about taking a pinch of snuff, and said a few words roughly. The officer galloping by the side of the coach bent down to reply; and his master took his snuff and turned the corner, while the shouts redoubled and the cannons roared louder than ever.

This was all that I saw.

The emperor did not stop at Phalsbourg, and, when he was on the road to Saverne, the guns fired their last shot, and silence reigned once more. The guards at the French gate raised the drawbridge, and the old watchmaker said:

"You have seen him?"

"I have, Monsieur Goulden."

"Well," he continued, "that man holds all our lives in his hand; he need but breathe upon us and we are gone. Let us bless Heaven that he is not evil-minded; for if he were, the world would see again the horrors of the days of the barbarian kings and the Turks."

He seemed lost in thought, but in a moment he added:

"You can go to bed again. The clock is striking three."

He returned to his room, and I to my bed. The deep silence without seemed strange after such a tumult, and until daybreak I never ceased dreaming of the emperor. I dreamed, too, of the dragoon, and wanted to know if he were killed. The next day we learned that he was carried to the hospital and would recover.

From that day until the month of September they often sang the _Te Deum_, and fired twenty-one guns for new victories. It was nearly always in the morning, and Monsieur Goulden cried:

"Eh, Joseph! Another battle won! Fifty thousand men lost! Twenty-five standards, a hundred guns won. All goes well, all goes well. It only remains now to order a new levy to replace the dead!"

He pushed open my door, and I saw him bald, in his shirt-sleeves, with his neck bare, washing his face in the wash-bowl.

"Do you think, Monsieur Goulden," I asked, in great trouble, "that they will take the lame?"

"No, no," he said kindly; "fear nothing, my child, you could not serve. We will fix that. Only work well, and never mind the rest."

He saw my anxiety, and it pained him. I never met a better man. Then he dressed himself to go to wind up the city clocks--those of Monsieur the Commandant of the place, of Monsieur the Mayor, and other notable personages. I remained at home. Monsieur Goulden did not return until after the _Te Deum_. He took off his great brown coat, put his peruke back in its box, and again pulling his silk cap over his ears, said:

"The army is at Wilna or at Smolensk, as I learn from Monsieur the Commandant. God grant that we may succeed this time and make peace, and the sooner the better, for war is a terrible thing."

I thought, too, that, if we had peace, so many men would not be needed, and that I could marry Catharine. Any one can imagine the wishes I formed for the emperor's glory.

II.

It was on the 15th of September, 1812, that the news came of the great victory of the Moskowa. Every one was full of joy, and all cried, "Now we will have peace! now the war is ended!"

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Some discontented folks might say that China yet remained to be conquered; such mar-joys are always to be found.

A week after, we learned that our forces were in Moscow, the largest and richest city in Russia, and then everybody figured to himself the booty we would capture, and the reduction it would make in the taxes. But soon came the rumor that the Russians had set fire to their capital, and that it was necessary to retreat on Poland or to die of hunger. Nothing else was spoken of in the inns, the breweries, or the market; no one could meet his neighbor without saying, "Well, well, things go badly; the retreat has commenced."

People grew pale, and hundreds of peasants waited morning and night at the post-office, but no letters came now. I passed and repassed through the crowd without paying much attention to it, for I had seen so much of the same thing. And besides, I had a thought in my mind which gladdened my heart, and made everything seem rosy to me.

You must know that for six months past I had wished to make Catharine a magnificent present for her _fête_ day, which fell on the 18th of December. Among the watches which hung in Monsieur Goulden's window was one little one, of the prettiest kind, with a silver case full of little circles, which made it shine like a star. Around the face, under the glass, was a thread of copper, and on the face were painted two lovers, the youth evidently declaring his love, and giving to his sweetheart a large bouquet of roses, while she modestly lowered her eyes and held out her hand.

The first time I saw the watch, I said to myself: "You will not let that escape; that watch is for Catharine, and, although you must work every day till midnight for it, she must have it." Monsieur Goulden, after seven in the evening, allowed me to work on my own account. He had old watches to clean and regulate; and, as this work was often very troublesome, old father Melchior paid me reasonably for it. But the little watch was thirty-five francs, and one can imagine how many hours at night I would have to work for it. I am sure that, if Monsieur Goulden knew that I wanted it, he would have given it me for a present, but I would not have let him take a farthing less for it; I would have regarded doing so something shameful. I kept saying, "You must earn it; no one else must have any claim upon it." Only for fear somebody else might take a fancy to buy it, I put it aside in a box, telling father Melchior that I knew a purchaser.

Under these circumstances, every one can readily understand how it was that all these stories of war went in at one ear and out at the other with me. While I worked I imagined Catharine's joy, and for five months that was all I had before my eyes. I thought how pleased she would look, and asked myself what she would say. Sometimes I imagined she would cry out, "O Joseph what are you thinking of? It is much too beautiful for me. No, no; I cannot take so fine a watch from you!" Then I thought I would force it upon her; I would slip it into her apron-pocket, saying, "Come, come, Catharine! Do you wish to give me pain?" I could see how she wanted it, and that she spoke so only to seem to refuse it. Then I imagined her blushing, with her hands raised, saying, "Joseph, now I know indeed that you love me!" And she would embrace me with tears in her eyes. I felt very happy. Aunt Grédel approved of all. {315} In a word, a thousand such scenes passed through my mind, and when I retired at night I said: "There is no one as happy as you, Joseph. See what a present you can make Catharine by your toil; and she surely is preparing something for your _fête_, for she thinks only of you; you are both very happy, and, when you are married, all will go well."

While I was thus working on, thinking only of happiness, the winter began, earlier than usual, toward the commencement of November. It did not begin with snow, but with dry, cold weather and strong frosts. In a few days all the leaves had fallen and the earth was hard as ice and all covered with hoar-frost; tiles, pavement, and window-panes glittered with it. Fires had to be made to keep the cold out, and, when the doors were opened for a moment, the heat seemed to disappear at once. The wood crackled in the stoves and burnt away like straw in the fierce draught of the chimneys.

Every morning I hastened to wash the panes of the shop-window with warm water, and I scarcely closed it when a frosty sheen covered it. Without, people ran puffing with their coat-collars over their ears and their hands in their pockets. No one stood still, and, when doors opened, they soon closed.

I don't know what became of the sparrows, whether they were dead or living, but not one twittered in the chimneys, and, save the reveille and retreat sounded in the barracks, no sound broke the silence.

Often when the fire crackled merrily did Monsieur Goulden stop his work, and, gazing on the frost-covered panes, exclaim:

"Our poor soldiers! our poor soldiers!"

He said this so mournfully that I felt a choking in my throat as I replied:

"But, Monsieur Goulden, they ought now to be in Poland in good barracks; for to suppose that human beings could endure a cold like this, it is impossible."

"Such a cold as this," he said; "yes, here it is cold, very cold, from the winds from the mountains; but what is this frost to that of the north, of Russia and of Poland? God grant that they started early enough. My God! my God! the leaders of men have a heavy weight to bear."

After the frosts so much snow fell that the couriers were stopped on the road toward Quatre-Vents. I feared that I could not go to see Catharine on her _fête_ day; but two companies of infantry set out with pickaxes, and dug through the frozen snow a way for carriages, and that road remained open until the commencement of the month of April, 1813.

Nevertheless, Catharine's _fête_ approached day by day, and my happiness increased in proportion. I had already the thirty-five francs, but I did not know how to tell Monsieur Goulden that I wished to buy the watch; I wanted to keep the whole matter secret; and it annoyed me greatly to talk about it.

At length, on the eve of the eventful day, between six and seven in the evening, while we were working in silence, the lamp between us, suddenly I took my resolution, and said:

"You know, Monsieur Goulden, that I spoke to you of a purchaser for the little silver watch."

"Yes, Joseph," said he, without raising his head, "but he has not come yet."

"It is I who am the purchaser, Monsieur Goulden."

Then he looked up in astonishment. I took out the thirty-five francs and laid them on the work-bench. He stared at me.

{316}

"But," he said, "it is not such a watch as that you want, Joseph; you want one that will fill your pocket and mark the seconds. Those little watches are only for women."

I knew not what to say.

Monsieur Goulden, after meditating a few moments, began to smile.

"Ah!" he exclaimed; "good! good! I understand now; to-morrow is Catharine's _fête_. Now I know why you worked day and night. Hold! take back this money; I do not want it."

I was all confusion.

"Monsieur Goulden, I thank you," I replied; "but this watch is for Catharine, and I wish to have earned it. You will pain me if you refuse the money; I would as lief not take the watch."

He said nothing more, but took the thirty-five francs; then he opened his drawer, and chose a pretty steel chain, with two little keys of silver-gilt, which he fastened to the watch. Then he put all together in a box with a rose-colored favor. He did all this slowly, as if affected; then he gave me the box.

"It is a pretty present, Joseph," said he. "Catharine ought to deem herself happy in having such a lover as you. She is a good girl. Now we can take our supper. Set the table."

The table was arranged, and then Monsieur Goulden took from a closet a bottle of his Metz wine, which he kept for great occasions, and we supped like old friends rather than as master and apprentice; all the evening he never stopped speaking of the merry days of his youth; telling me how he once had a sweetheart, but that, in 1792, he left home in the _levée en masse_ at the time of the Prussian invasion, and that on his return to Fénétrange, he found her married--a very natural thing, since he had never mustered courage enough to declare his love. However, this did not prevent his remaining faithful to the tender remembrance, and when he spoke of it he seemed sad indeed. I recounted all this in imagination to Catharine, and it was not until the stroke of ten, at the passage of the rounds, which relieved the sentries on post every twenty minutes on account of the great cold, that we put two good logs in the fire, and at length went to bed.

III.

The next day, the 18th of December, I arose about six in the morning. It was terribly cold; my little window was covered with a sheet of frost.

I had taken care the night before to lay out on the back of a chair my sky-blue coat, my trousers, my goat-skin vest, and my fine black silk cravat. Everything was ready; my well-polished shoes lay at the foot of the bed; I had only to dress myself; but the cold I felt upon my face, the sight of those window-panes, and the deep silence without made me shiver in advance. If it were not Catharine's _fête_, I would have remained in bed until midday; but suddenly that recollection made me rush to the great delf stove, where some embers of the preceding night almost always remained among the cinders. I found two or three, and hastened to collect and put them under some split wood and two large logs, after which I ran back to my bed.

Monsieur Goulden, under the huge curtains, with the coverings pulled up to his nose and his cotton night-cap over his eyes, woke up, and cried out:

"Joseph, we have not had such cold for forty years. I never felt it so. What a winter we shall have!"

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I did not answer, but looked out to see if the fire was lighting; the embers burnt well; I heard the chimney draw, and at once all blazed up. The sound of the flames was merry enough, but it required a good half-hour to feel the air any warmer.

At last I arose and dressed myself. Monsieur Goulden kept on chatting, but I thought only of Catharine, and when at length, toward eight o'clock, I started out, he exclaimed:

"Joseph, what are you thinking of? Are you going to Quatre-Vents in that little coat? You would be dead before you accomplished half the journey. Go into my closet, and take my great cloak, and the mittens, and the double-soled shoes lined with flannel."

I was so smart in my fine clothes that I reflected whether it would be better to follow his advice, and he, seeing my hesitation, said:

"Listen! a man was found frozen yesterday on the way to Wecham. Doctor Steinbrenner said that he sounded like a piece of dry wood when they tapped him. He was a soldier, and had left the village between six and seven o'clock, and at eight they found him; so that the frost did not take long to do its work. If you want your nose and ears frozen, you have only to go out as you are."

I knew, then, that he was right; so I put on the thick shoes, and passed the cord of the mittens over my shoulders, and put the cloak over all. Thus accoutred, I sallied forth, after thanking Monsieur Goulden, who warned me not to stay too late, for the cold increased toward night, and great numbers of wolves were crossing the Rhine on the ice.

I had not gone as far as the church when I turned up the fox-skin collar of the cloak to shield my ears. The cold was so keen that it seemed as though the air were filled with needles, and one's body shrank involuntarily from head to foot.

Under the German gate, I saw the soldier on guard, in his great gray mantle, standing back in his box like a saint in his niche; he had his sleeve wrapped about his musket where he held it, to keep his fingers from the iron, and two long icicles hung from his mustaches. No one was on the bridge, but, a little further on, I saw three carts in the middle of the road with their canvas-tops all covered with frost; they were unharnessed and abandoned. Everything in the distance seemed dead; all living things had hidden themselves from the cold; and I could hear nothing but the snow crunching under my feet. On each side were walls of ice, as I ran along the trench the soldiers had dug in the snow; in some places swept by the wind, I could see the oak forest and the bluish mountain, both seeming much nearer than they were, on account of the clearness of the air. Not a dog barked in a farm-yard; it was even too cold for that.

But the thought of Catharine warmed my heart, and soon I descried the first houses of Quatre-Vents. The chimneys and the thatched roofs, to the right and left of the road, were scarcely higher than the mountains of snow, and the villagers had dug trenches along the walls, so that they could pass to each other's houses. But that day every family kept around its hearth, and the little round window-panes seemed painted red, from the great fires burning within. Before each door was a truss of straw to keep the cold from entering beneath it.

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At the fifth door to the right I stopped to take off my mittens; then I opened and closed it very quickly. I was at the house of Grédel Bauer, the widow of Matthias Bauer and Catharine's mother.

As I entered, and while Aunt Grédel, astonished at my fox-skin collar, was yet turning her gray head, Catharine, in her Sunday dress--a pretty striped petticoat, a kerchief with long fringe folded across her bosom, a red apron fastened around her slender waist, a pretty cap of blue silk with black velvet bands setting off her rosy and white face, soft eyes, and slightly _retroussé_ nose--Catharine, I say, exclaimed:

"It is Joseph!"

And she ran to greet me, saying:

"I knew the cold would not keep you from coming."

I was so happy that I could not speak. I took off my cloak, which I hung upon a nail on the wall, with my mittens; I took off Monsieur Goulden's great shoes, and felt myself pale with joy.

I would have said something agreeable, but could not; suddenly I exclaimed:

"See here, Catharine; here is something for your _fête_."

She ran to the table. Aunt Grédel also came to see the present. Catharine untied the cord and opened the box. I was behind them, my heart bounding--I feared that the watch was not pretty enough. But in an instant, Catharine, clasping her hands, said in a low voice:

"How beautiful! It is a watch!"

"Yes," said Aunt Grédel; "it is beautiful; I never saw so fine a one. One would think it was silver."

"But it _is_ silver," returned Catharine, turning toward me inquiringly.

Then I said:

"Do you think, Aunt Grédel, that I would be capable of giving a gilt watch to one whom I love better than my own life? If I could do such a thing, I would despise myself more than the dirt of my shoes."

Aunt Grédel asked:

"But what is this painted upon the face?"

"That painting, Aunt Grédel," said I, "represents two lovers who love each other more than they can tell: Joseph Bertha and Catharine Bauer; Joseph is offering a bouquet of roses to his sweetheart, who is stretching out her hand to take them."

When Aunt Grédel had sufficiently admired the watch, she said:

"Come until I kiss you, Joseph. I see very well that you must have economized very much and worked hard for this watch, and I think it is very pretty, and that you are a good workman, and will do us no discredit."

From then until midday we were happy as birds. Aunt Grédel bustled about to prepare a large pancake with dried prunes, and wine, and cinnamon and other good things in it; but we paid no attention to her, and it was only when she put on her red jacket and black sabots, and called, "Come, my children; to table!" that we saw the fine table-cloth, the great porringer, the pitcher of wine, and the large round, golden pancake on a plate in the middle. The sight rejoiced us not a little, and Catharine said:

"Sit there, Joseph, opposite the window, that I may look at you. But you must fix my watch, for I do not know where to put it."

I passed the chain around her neck, and then, seating ourselves, we ate gayly. Without, not a sound was heard; within the fire crackled merrily upon the hearth. It was very pleasant in the large kitchen, and the gray cat, a little wild, gazed at us through the balusters of the stairs without daring to come down.

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Catharine, after dinner, sang _Der liebe Gott_. She had a sweet, clear voice, and it seemed to float to heaven. I sang low, merely to sustain her. Aunt Grédel, who could never rest doing nothing, began spinning; the hum of her wheel filled up the silences, and we all felt happy. When one air was ended, we began another. At three o'clock, Aunt Grédel served up the pancake, and as we ate it, laughing, she would exclaim:

"Come, come, now, you are children in reality."

She pretended to be angry, but we could see in her eyes that she was happy from the bottom of her heart. This lasted until four o'clock, when night began to come on apace; the darkness seemed to enter by the little windows, and, knowing that we must soon part, we sat sadly around the hearth on which the red flames were dancing. I would almost have given my life to remain longer. Another half-hour passed, when Aunt Grédel cried:

"Listen, Joseph! It is time for you to go; the moon does not rise till after midnight, and it will soon be dark as a kiln outside, and an accident happens so easily in these great frosts."

These words seemed to fall like a bolt of ice, and I felt Catharine's clasp tighten on my hand. But Aunt Grédel was right.

"Come," said she, rising and taking down the cloak from the wall; "you will come again Sunday."

I had to put on the heavy shoes, the mittens, and the cloak of Monsieur Goulden, and would have wished that I were a hundred years doing so, but, unfortunately, Aunt Grédel assisted me. When I had the great collar drawn up to my ears, she said:

"Now, Joseph, you must go!"

Catharine remained silent. I opened the door, and the terrible cold, entering, admonished me not to wait.

"Hasten, Joseph," said my aunt.

"Good-night, Joseph, good-night!" cried Catharine, "and do not forget to come Sunday."

I turned around to wave my hand; then I ran on without raising my head, for the cold was so intense that it brought tears to my eyes even behind the great collar.

I ran on thus some twenty minutes, scarcely daring to breathe, when a drunken voice called out:

"Who goes there?"

I looked through the dim night, and saw, fifty paces before me, Pinacle, the pedler, with his huge basket, his otter-skin cap, woollen gloves, and iron-pointed staff. The lantern, hanging from the strap of his basket lit up his debauched face, his chin bristling with yellow beard, and his great nose shaped like an extinguisher. He glared with his little eyes like a wolf, and repeated, "Who goes there?"

This Pinacle was the greatest rogue in the country. He had, the year before, a difficulty with Monsieur Goulden, who demanded of him the price of a watch which he undertook to deliver to Monsieur Anstett, the curate of Homert, and the money for which he put into his pocket, saying he had paid it to me. But, although the villain made oath before the justice of the peace, Monsieur Goulden knew the contrary, for on the day in question neither he nor I had left the house. Besides, Pinacle wanted to dance with Catharine at a festival at Quatre-Vents, and she refused because she knew the story of the watch, and was, besides, unwilling to leave me.

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The sight, then, of this rogue with his iron-shod stick in the middle of the road did not tend to rejoice my heart. Happily a little path which wound around the cemetery was at my left, and, without replying, I dashed through it, although the snow reached my waist.

Then he, guessing who I was, cried furiously:

"Aha! it is the little lame fellow! Halt! halt! I want to bid you good-evening. You came from Catharine's, you watch-stealer."

But I sprang like a hare through the heaps of snow; he at first tried to follow me, but his pack hindered him, and, when I gained the ground again, he put his hands around his mouth, and shrieked:

"Never mind, cripple, never mind! Your reckoning is coming all the same; the conscription is coming--the grand conscription of the one-eyed, the lame, and the hunch-backed. You will have to go, and you will find a place under ground like the others."

He continued his way, laughing like the sot he was, and I, scarcely able to breathe, kept on, thanking Heaven that the little alley was so near me; for Pinacle, who was known always to draw his knife in a fight, might have done me an ill turn.

In spite of my exertion, my feet, even in the thick shoes, were intensely cold, and I again began running.

That night the water froze in the cisterns of Phalsbourg and the wines in the cellars--things that had not happened before for sixty years.

On the bridge and under the German gate the silence seemed yet deeper than in the morning, and the night made it seem terrible. A few stars shone between the masses of white cloud that hung over the city. All along the street I met not a soul, and when I reached home, after shutting the door of our lower passage, it seemed warm to me, although the little stream that ran from the yard along the wall was frozen. I stopped a moment to take breath; then I ascended in the dark, my hand on the baluster.

When I opened the door of my room, the cheerful warmth of the stove was grateful indeed. Monsieur Goulden was seated in his arm-chair before the fire, his cap of black silk pulled over his ears, and his hands resting upon his knees.

"Is that you, Joseph?" he asked without turning round.

"It is," I answered. "How pleasant it is here, and how cold out of doors! We never had such a winter."

"No," said he gravely. "It is a winter that will long be remembered."

I went into the closet and hung the cloak and mittens in their places, and was about relating my adventure with Pinacle, when he resumed:

"You had a pleasant day of it, Joseph,"

"I have had, indeed. Aunt Grédel and Catharine wished me to make you their compliments."

"Very good, very good," said he; "the young are right to amuse themselves, for when we grow old, and suffer, and see so much of injustice, selfishness, and misfortune, everything is spoiled in advance."

He spoke as if talking to himself, gazing at the fire. I had never seen him so sad, and I asked:

"Are you not well, Monsieur Goulden?"

But he, without replying, murmured:

"Yes, yes; this is to be a great military nation; this is glory!"

He shook his head and bent over gloomily, his heavy gray brows contracted in a frown.

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I knew not what to think of all this, when, raising his head again, he said:

"At this moment, Joseph, there are four hundred thousand families weeping in France; the grand army has perished in the snows off Russia; all those stout young men whom for two months we saw passing our gates are buried beneath them. The news came this afternoon. Oh! it is horrible! horrible!"

I was silent. Now I saw clearly that we must have another conscription, as after all campaigns, and this time the lame would most probably be called. I grew pale, and Pinacle's prophecy made my hair stand on end.

"Go to bed, Joseph; rest easy," said Monsieur Goulden. "I am not sleepy; I will stay here; all this upsets me. Did you remark anything in the city?"

"No, Monsieur Goulden."

I went to my room and to bed. For a long time I could not close my eyes, thinking of the conscription, of Catharine, and of so many thousands of men buried in the snow, and then I plotted flight to Switzerland.

About three o'clock Monsieur Goulden retired, and a few minutes after, through God's grace, I fell asleep.

IV.

When I arose in the morning, about seven, I went to Monsieur Goulden's room to begin work; but he was still in bed, looking weary and sick.

"Joseph," said he, "I am not well. This horrible news has made me sick, and I have not slept at all. I will get up by and by. But this is the day to regulate the city clocks; I cannot go; for to see so many good people--people I have known for thirty years--in misery, would kill me. Listen, Joseph; take those keys hanging behind the door, and go. I will try to sleep a little. If I could sleep an hour or two, it would do me good."

"Very well, Monsieur Goulden," I replied; "I will go at once."

After putting more wood in the stove, I took the cloak and mittens, drew Monsieur Goulden's bed-curtains, and went out, the bunch of keys in my pocket. The illness of Father Melchior grieved me very much for a while, but a thought came to console me, and I said to myself: "You can climb up the city clock-tower, and see the house of Catharine and Aunt Grédel." Thinking thus, I arrived at the house of Brainstein, the bell-ringer, who lived at the corner of the little court, in an old, tumble-down barrack. His two sons were weavers, and in their old home the noise of the loom and the whistle of the shuttle was heard from morning till night. The grand-mother, old and blind, slept in an arm-chair, on the back of which perched a magpie. Father Brainstein, when he did not have to ring the bells for a christening, a funeral, or a marriage, kept reading his almanac behind the small round panes of his window.

The old man, when he saw me, rose up, saying:

"It is you, Monsieur Joseph."

"Yes, Father Brainstein; I come in place of Monsieur Goulden, who is not well."

"Very well; it is all the same."

He took up his staff and put on his woollen cap, driving away the cat that was sleeping upon it; then he took the great key of the steeple from a drawer, and we went out together, I [was] glad to find myself again in the open air, despite the cold; for their miserable room was gray with vapor, and as hard to breathe in as a kettle; I could never understand how people could live in such a way.

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At last we gained the street, and Father Brainstein said:

"You have heard of the great Russian disaster, Monsieur Joseph?"

"Yes, Father Brainstein; it is fearful

"Ah!" said he, "there will be many a Mass said in the churches; every one will weep and pray for their children, the more that they are dead in a heathen land."

We crossed the court, and in front of the tower-hall, opposite the guard-house, many peasants and city people were already standing, reading a placard. We went up the steps and entered the church, where more than twenty women, young and old, were kneeling on the pavement, in spite of the terrible cold.

"Is it not as I said?" said Brainstein. "They are coming already to pray, and half of them have been here since five o'clock."

He opened the little door of the steeple leading to the organ, and we began climbing up in the dark. Once in the organ-loft, we turned to the left of the bellows, and went up to the bells.

I was glad to see the blue sky and breathe the free air again, for the bad odor of the bats which inhabited the tower almost suffocated me, But how terrible the cold was in that cage, open to every wind, and how dazzlingly the snow shone over twenty leagues of country! All the little city of Phalsbourg, with its six bastions, three _demilunes_, two advanced works; its barracks, magazines, bridges, _glacis_, ramparts; its great parade-ground, and little, well-aligned houses, were beneath me, as if drawn on white paper. I was not yet accustomed to the height, and I held fast on the middle of the platform for fear I might jump off, for I had read of people having their heads turned by great heights. I did not dare go to the clock, and, if Brainstein had not set me the example, I would have remained there, pressed against the beam from which the bells hung; but he said:

"Come, Monsieur Joseph, and see if it is right."

Then I took out Monsieur Goulden's large watch which marked seconds, and I saw that the clock was considerably slow. Brainstein helped me to wind it up, and we regulated it.

"The clock is always slow in winter," said he, "because of the iron working."

After becoming somewhat accustomed to the elevation, I began to look around. There were the oak-wood barracks, the upper barracks, Bigelberg, and lastly, opposite me, Quatre-Vents, and the house of Aunt Grédel, from the chimney of which a thread of blue smoke rose toward the sky. And I saw the kitchen, and imagined Catharine, in sabots and woollen skirt, spinning at the corner of the hearth and thinking of me. I no longer felt the cold; I could not take my eyes from their cottage.

Father Brainstein, who did not know what I was looking at, said: "Yes, yes, Monsieur Joseph; now all the roads are covered with people in spite of the snow. The news has already spread, and every one wants to know the extent of his loss."

He was right; every road and path was covered with people coming to the city; and, looking in the court, I saw the crowd increasing every moment before the guard-house, and the mairie, and the post-office. A deep horror arose from the mass.

At length, after a last, long look at Catharine's house, I had to descend, and we went down the dark, winding stairs, as if descending into a well. Once in the organ-loft, we saw that the crowd had greatly increased in the church; all the mothers, the sisters, the old grandmothers, the rich, and the poor, were kneeling on the benches in the midst of the deepest silence; they prayed for the absent, offering all only to see them once again.

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At first I did not realize all this; but suddenly the thought that, if I had gone the year before, Catharine would be there praying and asking me of God, fell like a bolt on my heart, and I felt all my body tremble.

"Let us go! let us go!" I exclaimed, "this is terrible."

"What is?" he asked.

"War."

We descended the stairs under the great gate, and I went across the court to the house of Monsieur the Commandant Meunier, while Brainstein took the way to his house.

At the corner of the Hotel de Ville, I saw a sight which I shall remember all my life. There, around a placard, were more than five hundred people, men and women crowded against each other, all pale and with necks outstretched, gazing at it as at some horrible apparition. They could not read it, and from time to time one would say in German or French:

"But they are not all dead! Some will return."

Others cried out:

"Let us see it! let us get near it."

A poor old woman in the rear lifted up her arms, and cried:

"Christopher! my poor Christopher!"

Others, angry at her clamor, called out to silence her.

Behind, the crowd continued to pour through the German gate.

At length, Harmautier, the _sergent-de-ville_, came out of the guard-house, and stood at the top of the steps, with another placard like the first; a few soldiers followed him. Then a rush was made toward him, but the soldiers kept off the crowd, and old Harmautier began to read the placard, which he called the twenty-ninth bulletin, and in which the emperor informed them that during the retreat the horses perished every night by thousands. He said nothing of the men!

The _sergent-de-ville_ read slowly; not a breath was heard in the crowd; even the old woman, who did not understand French, listened like the others. The buzz of a fly could have been heard. But when he came to this passage, "Our cavalry was dismounted to such an extent that we were forced to collect the officers who yet owned horses to form four companies of one hundred and fifty men each. Generals rated as captains, and colonels as under-officers"--when he read this passage, which told more of the misery of the grand army than all the rest, cries and groans arose on all sides; two or three women fell and were carried away.

It is true that the bulletin added, "The health of his majesty was never better," and that was a great consolation. Unfortunately it could not restore life to three hundred thousand men buried in the snow; and so the people went away very sad. Others came by dozens who had not heard the news read, and from time to time Harmautier came out to read the bulletin.

This lasted until night; still the same scene over again.

I ran from the place; I wanted to know nothing about it.

I went to Monsieur the Commandant's. Entering a parlor, I saw him at breakfast. He was an old man, but hale, with a red face and good appetite.

"Ah! it is you!" said he, "Monsieur Goulden is not coming, then?"

"No, Monsieur the Commandant, the bad news has made him ill."

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"Ah! I understand," he said, emptying his glass, "yes, it is unfortunate."

And while I was regulating the clock, he added:

"Bah! tell Monsieur Goulden that we will have our revenge. We cannot always have the upper hand. For fifteen years we have kept the drums beating over them, and it is only right to let them have this little morsel of consolation. And then our honor is safe; we were not beaten fighting; without the cold and the snow, those poor Cossacks would have had a hard time of it. But patience; the skeletons of our regiments will soon be filled, and then let them beware."

I wound up the clock; he rose and came to look at it, for he was a great amateur in clock-making. He pinched my ear in a merry mood; and then, as I was going away, he cried as he buttoned up his overcoat, which he had opened before beginning breakfast:

"Tell Father Goulden to rest easy, the dance will begin again in the spring; the Kalmucks will not always have winter fighting for them. Tell him that."

"Yes, Monsieur the Commandant," I answered, shutting the door.

His burly figure and air of good humor comforted me a little; but in all the other houses I went to, at the Horwiches, the Frantz-Tonis, the Durlachs, everywhere I heard only lamentations. The women especially were in misery; the men said nothing, but walked about with heads hanging down, and without even looking to see what I was doing.

Toward ten o'clock there only remained two persons for me to see: Monsieur de la Vablerie-Chamberlin, one of the ancient nobility, who lived at the end of the main street, with Madame Chamberlin-d'Ecof and Mademoiselle Jeanne, their daughter, They were _émigrés_, and had returned about three or four years before. They saw no one in the city, and only three or four old priests in the environs. Monsieur de la Vablerie-Chamberlin loved only the chase. He had six dogs at the end of the yard, and a two-horse carriage; Father Robert, of the Rue des Capucins, served them as coachman, groom, footman, and huntsman. Monsieur de la Vablerie-Chamberlin always wore a hunting vest, a leathern cap, and boots and spurs. All the town called him the hunter, but they said nothing of Madame nor of Mademoiselle de Chamberlin.

I was very sad when I pushed open the heavy door, which closed with a pulley whose creaking echoed through the vestibule. What was then my surprise to hear, in the midst of general mourning, the tones of a song and harpsichord! Monsieur de la Vablerie was singing, and Mademoiselle Jeanne accompanying him. I knew not, in those days, that the misfortune of one was often the joy of others, and I said to myself, with my hand on the latch: "They have not heard the news from Russia."

But while I stood thus, the door of the kitchen opened, and Mademoiselle Louise, their servant, putting out her head, asked:

"Who is there?"

"It is I, Mademoiselle Louise."

"Ah! it is you, Monsieur Joseph. Come this way."

They had their clock in a large parlor which they rarely entered; the high windows, with blinds, remained closed; but there was light enough for what I had to do. I passed then through the kitchen and regulated the antique clock, which was a magnificent piece of work of white marble. Mademoiselle Louise looked on.

"You have company, Mademoiselle Louise?" I asked.

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"No, but monsieur ordered me to let no one in."

"You are very cheerful here."

"Ah! yes," she said; "and it is for the first time in years; I don't know what is the matter."

My work done, I left the house, meditating on these occurrences, which seemed to me strange. The idea never entered my mind that they were rejoicing at our defeat.

Then I turned the corner of the street to go to Father Féral's, who was called the "Standard-Bearer," because, at the age of forty-five, he, a blacksmith, and for many years the father of a family, had carried the colors of the volunteers of Phalsbourg in '92, and only returned after the Zurich campaign. He had his three sons in the army of Russia, Jean, Louis, and George Féral. George was commandant of dragoons; the two others, officers of infantry.

I imagined the grief of Father Féral while I was going, but it was nothing to what I saw when I entered his room. The poor old man, blind and bald, was sitting in an arm-chair behind the stove, his head bowed upon his breast, and his sightless eyes open, and staring as if he saw his three sons stretched at his feet. He did not speak, but great drops of sweat rolled down his forehead on his long, thin cheeks, while his face was pale as that of a corpse. Four or five of his old comrades of the times of the republic--Father Demarets, Father Nivoi, old Paradis, and tall old Froissard--had come to console him. They sat around him in silence, smoking their pipes, and looking as if they themselves needed comfort.

From time to time one or the other would say:

"Come, come, Féral! are we no longer veterans of the army of the Sambre and Meuse?"

Or,

"Courage, Standard-Bearer! courage! Did we not carry the battery at Fleuries?"

But he did not reply; every minute he sighed, and the old friends made signs to each other, shaking their heads, as if to say:

"This looks bad."

I hastened to regulate the clock and depart, for to see the poor old man in such a plight made my heart bleed.

When I arrived at home, I found Monsieur Goulden at his work-bench.

"You are returned, Joseph," said he. "Well?"

"Well, Monsieur Goulden, you had reason to stay away; it is terrible."

And I told him all in detail.

He arose. I set the table, and, whilst we were dining in silence, the bells of the steeples began to ring.

"Some one is dead in the city," said Monsieur Goulden.

"Indeed? I did not hear of it."

Ten minutes after, the Rabbi Rose came in to have a glass put in his watch.

"Who is dead?" asked Monsieur Goulden.

"Poor old Standard-Bearer."

"What! Father Féral?"

"Yes, near an hour ago. Father Demarets and several others tried to comfort him; at last, he asked them to read to him the last letter of his son George, the commandant of dragoons, in which he says that next spring he hoped to embrace his father with a colonel's epaulettes. As the old man heard this, he tried to rise, but fell back with his head upon his knees. That letter had broken his heart."

Monsieur Goulden made no remark on the news.

"Here is your watch, Monsieur Rose," said he, handing it back to the rabbi; "it is twelve sous."

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Monsieur Rose departed, and we finished our dinner in silence.

V.

On the eighth of January, a huge placard was posted on the town-hall, stating that the emperor would levy, after a _senatus-consultus_, as they said in those days, in the first place, one hundred and fifty thousand conscripts of 1813; then one hundred _cohortes_ of the first call of 1812, who thought they had already escaped; then one hundred thousand conscripts of from 1809 to 1812, and so on to the end; so that every loophole was closed, and we would have a larger army than before the Russian expedition.

When Father Fouze, the glazier, came to us with this news, one morning, I almost fell through faintness, for I thought:

"Now they will take all, even fathers of families. I am lost!"

Monsieur Goulden poured some water on my neck; my arms hung useless by my side; I was pale as a corpse.

But I was not the only one upon whom the placard had such an effect: that year many young men refused to go; some broke their teeth off, so as not to be able to tear the cartridge; others blew off their thumbs with pistols, so as not to be able to hold a musket; others, again, fled to the woods; they proclaimed them "refractories," but they had not _gens d'armes_ enough to capture them.

The mothers of families took courage to revolt after a manner, and to encourage their sons not to obey the _gens d'armes_. They aided them in every way; they cried out against the emperor, and the clergy of all denominations sustained them in so doing. The cup was at last full!

The very day of the proclamation I went to Quatre-Vents; but it was not now in the joy of my heart; it was as the most miserable of unhappy wretches, about to be bereft of love and life. I could scarcely walk, and when I reached there I did not know how to announce the evil tidings; but I saw at a glance that they knew all, for Catharine was weeping bitterly, and Aunt Grédel was pale with indignation.

"You shall not go," she cried. "What have we to do with wars? The priest himself told us it was at last too much, and that we ought to have peace! You shall not go! Do not cry, Catharine; I say he shall not go!"

"This carnage," she continued, "has lasted long enough. Our two poor cousins, Kasper and Yokel, are already going to lose their lives in Spain for this emperor, and now he comes to ask us for the younger ones. He is not satisfied to have slain three hundred thousand in Russia. Instead of thinking of peace, like a man of sense, he thinks only of massacring the few who remain. We will see! We will see!"

"In the name of Heaven! Aunt Grédel, be quiet; speak lower," said I, looking at the window. "If they hear you, we are lost."

"I speak for them to hear me," she replied. "Your Napoleon does not frighten me. He commenced by closing our mouths, so that he might do as he pleased; but the end approaches. Four young women are losing their husbands in our village alone, and ten poor young men are forced to abandon everything, despite father, mother, religion, justice, God! Is not this horrible?"

Then Aunt Grédel became silent. Instead of giving us an ordinary dinner, she gave us a better one than on Catharine's _fête_ day, and said, with the air of one who has taken a resolution:

"Eat, my children, and fear not; there will soon be a change!"

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I returned about four in the evening to Phalsbourg, somewhat more calm than when I set out. But as I went up the Rue de la Munitionnaire, I heard at the corner of the college the drum of the _sergent-de-ville_, Harmautier, and I saw a throng gathered around him. I ran to hear what was going on, and I arrived just as he began reading a proclamation.

Harmautier read that, by the _senatus-consultus_ of the 3d, the drawing for the conscription would take place on the 15th.

It was already the 8th, and only seven days remained. This upset me completely.

The crowd dispersed in the deepest silence. I went home sad enough, and said to Monsieur Goulden:

"The drawing takes place next Thursday."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "they are losing no time; things are pressing."

It is easy to imagine my grief that day and the days following. I could scarcely stand; I constantly saw myself on the point of leaving home. I saw myself flying to the woods, the _gens d'armes_ at my heels, crying, "Halt! halt!" Then I thought of the misery of Catharine, of Aunt Grédel, of Monsieur Goulden. Then I imagined myself marching in the ranks with a number of other wretches, to whom they were crying out, "Forward! charge bayonets!" while whole files were being swept away. I heard bullets whistle and shells shriek; in a word, I was in a pitiable state.

"Be calm, Joseph," said Monsieur Goulden; "do not torment yourself thus. I think that of all who may be drawn there are probably not ten who can give as good reasons as you for staying at home. The surgeon must be blind to receive you. Besides, I will see Monsieur the Commandant. Calm yourself."

But these kind words could not reassure me.

Thus I passed an entire week almost in a trance, and when the day of the drawing arrived, Thursday morning, I was so pale, so sick-looking, that the parents of conscripts envied, so to speak, my appearance for their sons. "That fellow," they said, "has a chance; he would drop the first mile. Some people are born under a lucky star!"

To Be Continued.

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"Per Liquidum AEthera Vates."

Oh! to chant the grander story, And to muse the melting tale! Oh! to rouse the soul of glory, And to charm the happy vale!

I should love to make the nations Bow before my lofty song, While my fancy's fair creations Endless pleasures should prolong.

I should love to have my pages Eager sought by wise and old, While throughout the countless ages Fair and young my numbers told.

II.

Ever thus gay Hope will wander Up the shining mount of fame; Ere you follow, pause and ponder, While she waves her luring flame.

Souls are blest that dwell more lowly, Braving not the gaze of earth, Where they lead a life all holy, And the gentler joys have birth.

You may guide your kindred kindly Through the rosy ways of life, While the world shall trample blindly Down the thorny paths of strife.

You may seek the 'feast of reason,' And enjoy the 'flow of soul,' Dearest friends in every season, Peaceful age the blessed goal.

Nature spreads her rich attractions On the earth, and sea, and sky; Art, religion, man's great actions Food for mind and soul supply.

God in heaven giveth vision Of the better land beyond: Good on earth, and joys elysian, These shall sate thy yearnings fond.

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III.

But to wake the hills and valleys With the poet's sounding lyre! Glory yet my spirit rallies, I would breathe the sacred fire.

Nature, art, and holy friendship, Books and men shall give me aid; Even Heaven will grant me kinship, I would tell what God hath made.

I will dwell apart with heroes, I will mate with saintly men; God and nature ever near us, I shall be more blessed then.

Humbled, chaste, my soul shall listen To the chiming of the spheres, Where, on high, His glories glisten, As His throne the spirit nears.

IV.

Yes, ye bands of bright immortals, Free throughout all earth and time, I would ope the grand old portals Leading to your realms sublime;

Suns and starry worlds beneath you, Lords of wisdom, light, and air, I would sip rare nectar with you, I would taste ambrosia there;

There to feel exultant powers Lift me up the ethereal tide, O'er your bright and airy towers, Where the boldest plume is tried.

V.

Holiest helpers, lend assistance, That I fail not in the flight! Pride, away! in that grand distance Thou art black as shades of night.

Faithful, pure, and single-hearted, I may soar on tireless wing, Till the folds of light are parted Where the heavenly muses sing.

Whitmore.

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Faith and the Sciences.

In the last half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, the so-called free-thinkers defended their rejection of the Christian mysteries on the alleged ground that the mathematicians had exploded them. Thus Dr. Garth, in his last illness, resisted the efforts of Addison to persuade him to die as a Christian, by saying, "Surely, Mr. Addison, I have good reason not to believe those trifles, since my friend, Dr. Halley, who has dealt much in demonstration, has assured me that the doctrines of Christianity are incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture."

In this assurance of Dr. Halley, we see a trace of Cartesianism which places certainty in clearness of ideas, and assumes that what is incomprehensible, or what cannot be clearly apprehended by the mind, is false; as if the human mind were the measure of the true, and as if there were not truths too large for it to comprehend! But since Berkeley, the Protestant Bishop of Cloyne, exposed in his _Analyst_, and Letters in its defence, the confused and false reasoning of mathematicians, especially in fluxions or the differential calculus, in which, though their conclusions are true, they are not obtained from their premises, the free-thinkers have abandoned the authority of mathematicians, and now seek to justify their infidelity by that of the so-called physicists. They appeal now to the natural sciences, chiefly to geology, zoology, and philology, and tell us that the progress made in these sciences has destroyed the authority of the Holy Scriptures and exploded the Christian dogmas. Geology, we are told, has disproved the chronology of the Bible, zoology has disproved the dogma of creation, and ethnology and philology have disproved the unity of the species; consequently the dogma of original sin, and all the dogmas that presuppose it. Hence our scientific chiefs, whom the age delights to honor, look down on us, poor, benighted Christian believers, with deep pity or supreme contempt, and despatch our faith by pronouncing the word "credulity" or "superstition" with an air that anticipates or admits no contradiction. It is true, here and there a man, not without scientific distinction, utters a feeble protest, and timidly attempts to show that there is no discrepancy between the Christian faith and the facts really discovered and classified by the sciences; but there is no denying that the predominant tendency of the modern scientific world is decidedly unchristian, even when not decidedly anti-christian.

The most learned men and profoundest thinkers of our age, as of every age, are, no doubt, believers, sincere and earnest Christians; but they are not the men who represent the age, and give tone to its literature and science. They are not the _popular_ men of their times, and their voice is drowned in the din of the multitude. There is nothing novel or _sensational_ in what they have to tell us, and there is no evidence of originality or independence of thought or character in following them. In following them we have no opportunity of separating ourselves from the past, breaking with tradition, and boldly defying both heaven and earth. {331} There is no chance for war against authority, of creating a revolution, or enjoying the excitement of a battle; so the multitude of little men go not with them. And they who would deem it gross intellectual weakness to rely on the authority of St. Paul, or even of our Lord himself, have followed blindly and with full confidence an Agassiz, a Huxley, a Lyell, or any other second or third-rate physicist, who is understood to defend theories that undermine the authority of the church and the Bible.

We are not, we frankly confess, learned in the sciences. They have changed so rapidly and so essentially since our younger days, when we did take some pains to master them, that we do not know what they are to-day any more than we do what they will be to-morrow. We have not, in our slowness, been able to keep pace with them, and we only know enough of them now to know that they are continually changing under the very eye of the spectator. But, if we do not know all the achievements of the sciences, we claim to know something of the science of sciences, the science which gives the law to them, and to which they must conform or cease to pretend to have any scientific character. If we know not what they have done, we know something which they have not done.

We said, in our article on the _Cartesian Doubt_, that the ideal formula does not give us the sciences; but we add now, what it did not comport with our purpose to add then, that, though it does not give them, it gives them their law and controls them. We do not deduce our physics from our metaphysics; but our metaphysics or philosophy gives the law to the inductive or empirical sciences, and prescribes the bounds beyond which they cannot pass without ceasing to be sciences. Knowing the ideal formula, we do not know all the sciences, but we do know what is not and cannot be science.

The ideal formula, being creates existences, which is only the first article of the creed, is indisputable, certain, and the principle alike of all the real and all the knowable, of all existence and of all science. This formula expresses the primitive intuition, and it is given us by God himself in creating us intelligent creatures, because without it our minds cannot exist, and, if it had not been given us in the very constitution of the mind, we never could have obtained it. It is the essential basis of the mind, the necessary condition of all thought, and we cannot even in thought deny it, or think at all without affirming it This we have heretofore amply shown; and we may add here that no one ever thinks without thinking something the contrary of which cannot be thought, as St. Anselm asserts.

As Berkeley says to the mathematicians, "Logic is logic, and the same to whatever subject it is applied." When, therefore, the cultivators of the inductive sciences allege a theory or hypothesis which contradicts in any respect the ideal formula, however firmly persuaded they may be that it is warranted by the facts observed and analyzed, we tell them at once, without any examination of their proofs or reasonings, that their hypothesis is unfounded, and their theory false, because it contradicts the first principle alike of the real and the knowable, and therefore cannot possibly be true. We deny no facts well ascertained to be facts, but no induction from any facts can be of as high authority as the ideal formula, for without it no induction is possible. Hence we have no need to examine details any more than we have to enter into proofs of the innocence or guilt of a man who confesses that he has openly, knowingly, and intentionally violated the law. {332} The case is one in which judgment _à priori_ may be safely pronounced. No induction that denies all science and the conditions of science can be scientific.

The ideal formula does not put any one in possession of the sciences, but it enables us to control them. We can entertain no doctrine, even for examination, that denies any one of the three terms of the formula. If existences are denied, there are no facts or materials of science; if the creative act is denied, there are no facts or existences; and finally, if God is denied, the creative act itself is denied. God and creature are all that is or exists, and creatures can exist only by the creative act of God. Do you come and tell me that you are no creature? What are you, then? Between God and creature there is no middle term. If, then, you are not creature, you must be God or nothing. Well, are you God? God, if God at all, is independent, necessary, self-existent, immutable, and eternal being. Are you that, you who depend on other than yourself for every breath you draw, for every motion you make, for every morsel of food you eat, whom the cold chills, the fire burns, the water drenches? No? do you say you are not God? What are you, then, I ask once more? If you are neither God nor creature, then you are nothing. But nothing you are not, for you live, think, speak, and act, and even reason, though not always wisely or well. If something and not God, then you are creature, and are a living assertion of the ideal formula. Do you deny it, and say there is no God? Then still again, what are you who make the denial? If there is no God, there is no real, necessary, and eternal being--no being at all; if no being, then no existence, for all existence is from being, and if no existence, then what are _you_ who deny God? Nothing? Then your denial is nothing, and worth nothing.

It is impossible to deny any one of the three terms of the formula, for every man, though he may believe himself an atheist or a pantheist, is a living assertion of each one of them, and in its real relation to the other two. We have the right, then, to assert the formula as the first principle in science, and oppose it as conclusive against any and every theory that denies creation, and asserts either atheism or pantheism. Do not think to divert attention from the intrinsic fallacy of such a theory by babbling about natural laws. Nature, no doubt, has her laws, according to which, or, if you please, by virtue of which, all natural phenomena or natural effects are produced, and it is the knowledge of these laws that constitutes natural science or the sciences. But these laws, whence come they? Are they superior to nature, or inferior? If inferior, how can they govern her operations? If superior, then they must have their origin in the supernatural, and a reality above nature must be admitted. Nature, then, is not the highest, is not ultimate, is not herself being, or has not her being in herself; is, therefore, contingent existence, and consequently creature, existing only by virtue of the creative act of real and necessary being, which brings us directly back to the ideal formula. God denied, nature and the laws of nature are denied.

The present tendency among naturalists is to deny creation and to assert development--to say with Topsy, in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, only generalizing her doctrine, "Things didn't come; they _growed_." Things are not created; they are developed by virtue of natural laws. Developed from what? From nothing? _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. {333} From nothing nothing can be developed. A universe self-developed from nothing is somewhat more difficult to comprehend than the creation of the universe from nothing through the word of his power by One able to create and sustain it. You can develop a germ, but you cannot develop where there is nothing to be developed. Then the universe is not developed from nothing: then from something. What is that something? Whatever you assume it to be, it cannot be something created, for you deny all creation. Then it is eternal, self-existent being, being in itself, therefore being in its plenitude, independent, immutable, complete, perfect in itself, and therefore incapable of development. Development is possible only in that which is imperfect, incomplete, for it is simply the reduction of what in the thing developed is potential to act.

There is great lack of sound philosophy with our modern theorists. They seem not to be aware that the real must precede the possible, and that the possible is only the ability of the real. They assume the contrary, and place possible being before real being. Even Leibnitz says that St. Anselm's argument to prove the existence of God, drawn from the idea of the most perfect being, the contrary of which cannot be thought, is conclusive only on condition that most perfect being is first proved to be possible. Hegel makes the starting-point of all reality and all science to be naked being in the sense in which it and not-being are identical; that is, not real, but possible being, the _abyssus_ of the Gnostics, and the _void_ of the Buddhists, which Pierre Leroux labors hard, in his _L'Humanité_ and in the article _Le Ciel_ in his _Encyclopédie Nouvelle_, to prove is not nothing, though conceding it to be not something, as if there could be any medium between something and nothing. In itself, or as abstracted from the real, the possible is sheer nullity; nothing at all. The possibility of the universe is the ability of God to create it. If God were not himself real, no universe would be possible. The possibility of a creature may be understood either in relation to its creability on the part of God, or in relation to its own perfectibility. In relation to God every creature is complete the moment the Divine Mind has decreed its creation, and, therefore, incapable of development; but, in relation to itself, it has unrealized possibilities which can be only progressively fulfilled. Creatures, in this latter sense, can be developed because there are in them unrealized possibilities or capacities for becoming, by aid of the real, more than they actually are, that is, because they are created, in relation to themselves, not perfect, but perfectible. Hence, creatures, not the Creator, are progressive, or capable, each after its kind, of being progressively developed and completed according to the original design of the Creator.

Aristotle, whom it is the fashion just now to sneer at, avoided the error of our modern sophists; he did not place the possible before the real, for he knew that without the real there is no possible. The _principium_, or beginning, must be real being, and, therefore, he asserted God, not as possible, but real, most real, and called him _actus purissimus_, most pure act, which excludes all unactualized potentialities or unrealized possibilities, and implies that he is most pure, that is, most perfect being, being in its plenitude. God being eternally being in himself, being in its plenitude, as he must be if self-existent, and self-existent he must be if not created, he is incapable of development, because in him there are no possibilities not reduced to act. {334} The developmentists must, then, either admit the fact of creation, or deny the development they assert and attempt to maintain; for, if there is no creation, nothing distinguishable from the uncreated, nothing exists to be developed, and the uncreated, being either nothing, and therefore incapable of development, or self-existent, eternal, and immutable being, being in its plenitude, and therefore from the very fulness and perfection of its being also incapable of development. If the developmentists had a little philosophy or a little logic, they would see that, so far from being able to substitute development for creation, they must assert creation in order to be able to assert even the possibility of development. Is it on the authority of such sciolists, sophists, and sad blunderers as these developmentists that we are expected to reject the Holy Scriptures, and to abandon our faith in Christianity? We have a profound reverence for the sciences, and for all really scientific men; but really it is too much to expect us to listen, with the slightest respect, to such absurdities as most of our _savans_ are in the habit of venting, when they leave their own proper sphere and attempt to enter the domain of philosophy or theology. In the investigation of the laws of nature and the observation and accumulation of facts they are respectable, and often render valuable service to mankind; but, when they undertake to determine by their inductions from facts of a secondary order what is true or false in philosophy or theology, they mistake their vocation and their aptitudes, and, if they do not render themselves ridiculous, it is because their speculations are too gravely injurious to permit us to feel toward them anything but grief or indignation.

None of the sciences are apodictic; they are all as special sciences empirical, and are simply formed by inductions from facts observed and classified. To their absolute certainty two things are necessary: First, that the observation of the facts of the natural world should be complete, leaving no class or order of facts unobserved and unanalyzed; and, second, that the inductions from them should be infallible, excluding all error, and all possibility of error. But we say only what every one knows, when we say that neither of these conditions is possible to any mortal man. Even Newton, it is said, compared himself to a child picking up shells on the beach; and after all the explorations that have been made it is but a small part of nature that is known. The inductive method, ignorantly supposed to be an invention of my Lord Bacon, but which is as old as the human mind itself, and was always adopted by philosophers in their investigations of nature, is the proper method in the sciences, and all we need to advance them is to follow it honestly and strictly. But, every day, facts not before analyzed or observed come under the observation of the investigator, and force new inductions, which necessarily modify more or less those previously made. Hence it is that the natural sciences are continually undergoing more or less important changes. Certain principles, indeed, remain the same; but set aside, if we must set aside, mathematics and mechanics, there is not a single one of the sciences that is now what it was in the youth of men not yet old. Some of them are almost the creations of yesterday. {335} Take chemistry, electricity, magnetism, geology, zoology, biology, physiology, philology, ethnology, to mention no more; they are no longer what they were in our own youth, and the treatises in which we studied them are now obsolete.

It is not likely that these sciences have even as yet reached perfection, that no new facts will be discovered, and no further changes and modifications be called for. We by no means complain of this, and are far from asking that investigation in any field should be arrested, and these sciences remain unchanged, as they now are. No: let the investigations go on, let all be discovered that is discoverable, and the sciences be rendered as complete as possible. But, then, is it not a little presumptuous, illogical even, to set up any one of these incomplete, inchoate sciences against the primitive intuitions of reason or the profound mysteries of the Christian faith? Your inductions to-day militate against the ideal formula and the Christian creed; but how know you that your inductions of to-morrow will not be essentially modified by a fuller or closer observation of facts? Your conclusions must be certain before we can on their authority reject any received dogma of faith or any alleged dictamen of reason.

We know _á priori_ that investigation can disclose no fact or facts that can be incompatible with the ideal formula. No possible induction can overthrow any one of its three terms. It is madness to pretend that from the study of nature one can disprove the reality of necessary and eternal being, the fact of creation, or of contingent existences. The most that any one, not mad, does or can pretend is, that they cannot be proved by way of deduction or induction from facts of the natural world. The atheist Lalande went no further than to say, "I have never seen God at the end of my telescope." Be it so, what then? Because you have never seen God at the end of your telescope, can you logically conclude that there is no God? For ourselves, we do not pretend that God is, or can be asserted by way of deduction or induction from the facts of nature, though we hold that what he is, even his eternal power and divinity, may be clearly seen from them; but the fact that God cannot be proved in one way to be does not warrant the conclusion that he cannot in some other way be proved, far less that there is no God.

We do not deduce the dogmas of faith from the ideal formula, for that is in the domain of science; but they all accord with it, and presuppose it as the necessary preamble to faith. We have not the same kind of certainty for faith that we have for the scientific formula; but we have a certainty equally high and equally infallible. Consequently, the inductions or theories of naturalists are as impotent against it as against the formula itself. The authority of faith is superior, we say not to science, but to any logical inductions drawn from the facts of the natural world, or theories framed by natural philosophers, and those then, however plausible, can never override it. No doubt the evidences of our faith are drawn in part from history, and therefore from inductive science; but even as to that part the certainty is of the same kind with that of any of the sciences, rests on the analysis of facts and induction from them, and is at the very lowest equal to theirs at the highest.

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But let us descend to matters of fact. We will take geology, which seems just now to be regarded as the most formidable weapon against the Christian religion. Well, what has geology done? It has by its researches proved an antiquity of the earth and of man on the earth which is far greater than is admissible by the chronology of the Holy Scriptures. It has thus disproved the chronology of the Bible; therefore it has disproved the divine inspiration of the Bible, and therefore, again, the truth of the Christian dogmas, which have no other authority than that inspiration. But have you, geologists, really proved what you pretend? You have discovered certain facts, fossils, etc., which, if some half a dozen possible suppositions are true, not one of which you have proved or in the nature of the case can prove, render it highly probable that the earth is somewhat more than six thousand years old, and that it is more than five thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven years since the creation of man. As to the antiquity of man, at least, you have not proved what you pretend. Your proofs, to be worth anything, must destroy all possible suppositions except the one you adopt, which they do not do, for we can suppose many other explanations of the undisputed facts besides the one you insist on our accepting. Moreover, the facts on which you rely, if fairly given by Sir Charles Lyell in his _Antiquity of Man_, by no means warrant his inductions. Suppose there is no mistake as to facts, which is more than we are willing to concede, especially as to the stone axes and knives, which, according to the drawings given of them, are exactly similar to hundreds which we have seen when a boy strewing the surface of the ground, the logic, by which the conclusion is obtained is puerile, and discreditable to any man who has had the slightest intellectual training.

But suppose you have proved the antiquity of the earth and of man on it to be as you pretend, what then? In the first place, you have not proved that the earth and man on it were not created, that God did not in the beginning create the heavens and the earth, and all things therein. You leave, then, intact both the formula and the dogma which presupposes and reasserts it as a truth of revelation as well as of science. But we have disproved the chronology of the Bible. Is it the chronology of the Bible or chronology as arranged by learned men that you have disproved? Say the chronology as it actually is in the Bible, though all learned men know that that chronology is exceedingly difficult if not impossible to make out, and we for ourselves have never been able to settle it at all to our entire satisfaction, is it certain that the Scriptures themselves even pretend that the date assigned to the creation of the world is given by divine revelation and is to be received as an article of faith? There is an important difference between the chronology given in the Hebrew Bible and that given in the Septuagint used by the apostles and Greek fathers, and still used by the united as well as by the non-united Greeks, and we are not aware that there has ever been an authoritative decision as to which or either of the two chronologies must be followed. The commonly received chronology certainly ought not to be departed from without strong and urgent reasons; but, if such reasons are adduced, we do not understand that it cannot be departed from without impairing the authority of either the Scriptures or the church. We know no Christian doctrine or dogma that could be affected by carrying the date of the creation of the world a few or even many centuries further back, if we recognize the fact of creation itself. {337} Our faith does not depend on a question of arithmetic, as seems to have been assumed by the Anglican Bishop Colenso. Numbers are easily changed in transcription, and no commentator has yet been able to reconcile all the numbers as we now have them in our Hebrew Bibles, or even in the Greek translation of the Seventy.

Supposing, then, that geologists and historians of civilization have found facts, not to be denied, which seem to require for the existence of the globe, and man on its face, a longer period than is allowed by the commonly received chronology, we do not see that this warrants any induction against any point of Christian faith or doctrine. We could, we confess, more easily explain some of the facts which we meet in the study of history, the political and social changes which have evidently taken place, if more time were allowed us between Noah and Moses than is admitted by Usher's chronology; it would enable us to account for many things which now embarrass our historical science; yet whether we are allowed more time or not, or whether we can account for the historical facts or not, our faith remains the same; for we have long since learned that, in the subjects with which science proposes to deal, as well as in revelation itself, there are many things which will be inexplicable even to the greatest, wisest, and holiest of men, and that the greatest folly which any man can entertain is that of expecting to explain everything, unless concluding a thing must needs be false because we know not its explanation is a still greater folly. True science as well as true virtue is modest, humble indeed, and always more depressed by what it sees that it cannot do than elated by what it may have done.

Science, it is further said, has exploded the Christian doctrine of the unity and the Adamic origin of the species, and therefore the doctrines of Original Sin, the Incarnation, the Redemption, indeed the whole of Christianity so far as it is a supernatural system, and not a system of bald and meagre rationalism. Some people perhaps believe it. But science is knowledge, either intuitive or discursive; and who dares say that he _knows_ the dogma of the unity of the human species is false, or that all the kindreds and nations of men have _not_ sprung from one and the same original pair? The most that can be said is that the sciences have not as yet proved it, and it must be taken, if at all, from, revelation.

Take the unity of the species. The naturalists have undoubtedly proved the existence of races or varieties of men, like the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Malayan, the American, and the African, more or less distinctly marked, and separated from one another by greater or less distances; but have they proved that these several races or varieties are distinct species, or that they could not all have sprung from the same original pair? Physiologists, we are told, detect some structural differences between the negro and the white man. The black differs from the white in the greater length of the spine, in the shape of the head, leg, and foot and heel, in the facial angles, the size and convolutions of the brain. Be it so; but do these differences prove diversity of species, or, at most, only a distinct variety in the same species? May they not all be owing to accidental causes? The type of the physical structure of the African is undeniably the same with that of the Caucasian, and all that can be said is, that in the negro it is less perfectly realized, constituting a difference in degree, indeed, but not in kind.

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But before settling the question whether the several races of men belong to one and the same species or not, and have or have not had the same origin, it is necessary to determine the characteristic or _differentia_ of man. Naturalists treat man as simply an animal standing at the head of the class or order mammalia, and are therefore obliged to seek his _differentia_ or characteristic in his physical structure; but if it be true, as some naturalists tell us, that the same type runs through the physical structure of all animals, unless insects, reptiles, and crustacea form an exception, it is difficult to find in man's physical structure his _differentia_. The schoolmen generally define man, a rational animal, _animal rationale_, and make the genus animal, and the _differentia_ reason. The characteristic of the species, that which constitutes it, is reason or the rational mind, and certainly science can prove nothing to the contrary. Some animals may have a degree of intelligence, but none of them have reason, free will, moral perceptions, or are capable of acting from considerations of right and wrong. We assume, then, that the _differentia_ of the species _homo_, or man, is reason, or the rational soul. If our naturalists had understood this, they might have spared the pains they have taken to assimilate man to the brute, and to prove that he is a monkey developed.

This point settled, the question of unity of the species is settled. There may be differences among individuals and races as to the degree of reason, but all have reason in some degree. Reason may be weaker in the African than in the European, whether owing to the lack of cultivation or to other accidental causes, but it is essentially the same in the one as in the other, and there is no difference except in degree; and even as to degree, it is not rare to find negroes that are, in point of reason, far superior to many white men. Negroes, supposed to stand lowest in the scale, have the same moral perception and the same capacity of distinguishing between right and wrong and of acting from free will, that white men have; and if there is any difference, it is simply a difference of degree, not a difference of kind or species.

But conceding the unity of the species, science has, at least, proved that the several races or varieties in the same species could not have all sprung from one and the same original pair. Where has science done this? It can do it only by way of induction from facts scientifically observed and analyzed. What facts has it observed and analyzed that warrant this conclusion against the Adamic origin of all men? There are, as we have just said, no anatomical, physiological, intellectual, or moral facts that warrant such conclusion, and no other facts are possible. Wherever men are found, they all have the essential characteristic of men as distinguished from the mere animal; they all have substantially the same physical structure; all have thought, speech, and reason, and, though some may be inferior to others, nothing proves that all may not have sprung from the same Adam and Eve. Do you say ethnology cannot trace all the kindreds and nations of men back to a common origin? That is nothing to the purpose; can it say they cannot have had a common origin? But men are found everywhere, and could they have reached from the plains of Shinar continents separated from Asia by a wide expanse of water, and been distributed over America, New Holland, and the remotest islands of the ocean, when they had no ships or were ignorant of navigation? {339} Do you know that they had, in what are to us antehistorical times, no ships and no knowledge of navigation, as we know they have had them both ever since the first dawn of history? No? Then you allege not your _science_ against the Christian dogma, but your _ignorance_, which we submit is not sufficient to override faith. You must prove that men could not have been distributed from a common centre as we now find them before you can assert that they could not have had a common origin. Besides, are you able to say what changes of land and water have taken place since men first appeared on the face of the earth? Many changes, geologists assure us, have taken place, and more than they know may have occurred, and have left men where they are now found, and where they may have gone without crossing large bodies of water. So long as any other hypothesis is possible, you cannot assert your own as certain.

But the difference of complexion, language, and usage which we note between the several races of men proves that they could not have sprung from one and the same pair. Do you know they could not? Know it? No; not absolutely, perhaps; but how can you prove they could and have? That is not the question. Christianity is in possession, and must be held to be rightfully in possession till real science shows the contrary. I may not be able to explain the origin of the differences noted in accordance with the assertion of the common origin of all men in a single primitive pair; but my ignorance can avail you no more than your own. My nescience is not your science. Your business is by science to disprove faith; if your science does not do that, it does nothing, and you are silenced. We do not pretend to be able to account for the differences of the several races, any more than we pretend to be able to account for the well-known fact that children born of the same parents have different facial angles, different sized brains, different shaped mouths and noses, different temperaments, different intellectual powers, and different moral tendencies. We may have conjectures on the subject, but conjectures are not science. If necessary to the argument, we might, perhaps, suggest a not improbable hypothesis for explaining the difference of complexion between the white and the colored races. The colored races, the yellow, the olive, the red, the copper-colored, and the black, are inferior to the Caucasian, have departed farther from the norma of the species, and approached nearer to the animal, and therefore, like animals, have become more or less subject to the action of the elements. External nature, acting for ages on a race, enfeebled by over-civilization and refinement, and therefore having in a great measure lost the moral and intellectual power of resisting the elemental action of nature, may, perhaps, sufficiently explain the differences we note in the complexion of the several races. If the Europeans and their American descendants were to lose all tradition of the Christian religion, as they are rapidly doing, and to take up with spiritism or some other degrading superstition, as they seem disposed to do, and to devote themselves solely to the luxuries and refinements of the material civilization of which they are now so proud, and boast so much, it is by no means improbable that in time they would become as dark, as deformed, as imbecile as the despised African or the native New Hollander. {340} We might give very plausible reasons for regarding the negro as the degraded remnant of a once over-civilized and corrupted race; and perhaps, if recovered, Christianized, civilized, and restored to communication with the great central current of human life, he may in time lose his negro hue and features, and become once more a white man, a Caucasian. But be this as it may, we rest, as is our right, on the fact that the unity of the human species and its Adamic origin are in possession, and it is for those who deny either point to make good their denial.

But the Scriptures say mankind were originally of one speech, and we find that every species of animals has its peculiar song or cry, which is the same in every individual of the same species; yet this is not the case with the different kindred and nations of men; they speak different tongues, which the philologist is utterly unable to refer to a common original. Therefore there cannot be in men unity of species, and the assertion of the Scriptures of all being of one speech is untrue. If the song of the same species of birds or the cry of the same species of animals is the same in all the individuals of that species, it still requires no very nice ear to distinguish the song or the cry of one individual from that of another; and therefore the analogy relied on, even if admissible, which it is not, would not sustain the conclusion. Conceding, if you insist on it, that unity of species demands unity of speech, the facts adduced warrant no conclusion against the Scriptural assertion; for the language of all men is even now one and the same, and all really have one and the same speech. Take the elements of language as the sensible sign by which men communicate with one another, and there is even now, at least as far as known or conceivable, only one language. The essential elements of all dialects are the same. You have in all the subject, the predicate, and the copula, or the noun, adjective, and verb, to which all the other parts of speech are reducible. Hence the philologist speaks of universal grammar, and constructs a grammar applicable alike to all dialects. Some philologists also contend that the signs adopted by all dialects are radically the same, and that the differences encountered are only accidental. This has been actually proved in the case of what are called the Aryan or Indo-European dialects. That the Sanskrit, the Pehlvi or old Persic, the Keltic, the Teutonic, the Slavonic, the Greek, and the Latin, from which are derived the modern dialects of Europe, as Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, German, Scanian, Turk, Polish, Russian, Welsh, Gaelic, and Irish, all except the Basque and Lettish or Finnish, have had a common origin, no philologist doubts. That the group of dialects called Semitic, including the Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopic, have had an origin identical with that of the Aryan group is, we believe, now hardly denied. All that can be said is, that philologists have not proved it, nor the same fact with regard to the so-called Turanian group, as the Chinese, the Turkish, the Basque, the Lettish or Finnish, the Tataric or Mongolian, etc., the dialects of the aboriginal tribes or nations of America and of Africa. But what conclusion is to be drawn from the fact that philology, a science confessedly in its infancy, and hardly a science at all, has not as yet established an identity of origin with these for the most part barbarous dialects? From the fact that philology has not ascertained it, we cannot conclude that the identity does not exist, or even that philology may not one day discover and establish it.

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Philology may have also proceeded on false assumptions, which have retarded its progress and led it to false conclusions. It has proceeded on the assumption that the savage is the primitive man, and that his agglutinated dialect represents a primitive state of language instead of a degenerate state. A broader view of history and a juster induction from its facts would, perhaps, upset this assumption. The savage is the degenerate, not the primeval man; man in his second childhood, not in his first; and hence the reason why he has no growth, no inherent progressive power, and why, as Niebuhr asserts, there is no instance on record of a savage people having by its own indigenous efforts passed from the savage to the civilized state. The thing is as impossible as for the old man, decrepit by age, to renew the vigor and elasticity of his youth or early manhood. Instead of studying the dialects of savage tribes to obtain specimens of the primitive forms of speech, philologists should study them only to obtain specimens of worn-out or used up forms, or of language in its dotage. In all the savage dialects that we have any knowledge of, we detect or seem to detect traces of a culture, a civilization, of which they who now speak them have lost all memory and are no longer capable. This seems to us to bear witness to a fall, a loss. Perhaps, when the American and African dialects are better known, and are studied with reference to this view of the savage state, and we have better ascertained the influence of climate and habits of life on the organs of speech and therefore on pronunciation, especially of the consonants, we shall be able to discover indications of an identity of origin where now we can detect only traces of diversity. As long as philology has only partially explored the field of observation, it is idle to pretend that _science_ has established anything against the scriptural doctrine of the unity of speech. The fact that philologists have not traced all the various dialects now spoken or extinct to a common original amounts to nothing against faith, unless it can be proved that no such original ever existed. It may have been lost and only the distinctions retained.

Naturalists point to the various species of plants and animals distributed over the whole surface of the globe, and ask us if we mean to say that each of these has also sprung from one original pair, or male and female, and if we maintain that the primogenitors of each species of animal were in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, or in the Ark with Noah. If so, how have they become distributed over the several continents of the earth and the islands of the ocean? _Argumentum a specie ad speciem, non valet_, as say the books on logic. And even if it were proved that in case of plants and animals God duplicates, triplicates, or quadriplicates the parents by direct creation, or that he creates anew the pair in each remote locality where the same species is found, as prominent naturalists maintain or are inclined to maintain, it would prove nothing in the case of man. For we cannot reason from animals to man, or from flora to fauna. Nearly all the arguments adduced from so-called science against the faith are drawn from supposed analogies of men and animals, and rest for their validity on the assumption that man is not only generically, but specifically, an animal, which is simply a begging the question.

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Species again, it is said, may be developed by way of selection, as the florist proves in regard to flowers, and the shepherd or herdsman in regard to sheep and cattle. That new varieties in the lower orders of creation may be attained by some sort of development is not denied, but as yet it is not proved that any new species is ever so obtained. Moreover, facts would seem to establish that, at least in the case of domestic animals, horses, cattle, and sheep, the new varieties do not become species and are not self-perpetuating. Experiments in what is called crossing the breed have proved that, unless the crossing is frequently renewed, the variety in a very few generations runs out. There is a perpetual tendency of each original type to gain the ascendency, and of the stronger to eliminate the others. Cattle-breeders now do not rely on crossing, but seek to improve their stock by selecting the best breed they know, and improving it by improved care and nourishment. The different varieties of men may be, perhaps, improved in their physique by selection, as was attempted in the institutions of Lycurgus; but, as the moral and intellectual nature predominates in man and is his characteristic, all conclusions as to him drawn from the lower orders of creation, even in his physical constitution, are suspicious and always to be accepted with extreme caution. The church has defined what no physiologist has disproved, that _anima est forma corporis_. The soul is the informing or vital principle of the body, which modifies all its actions, and enables it to resist, at least to some extent, the chemical and other natural laws which act on animals, plants, and unorganized matter. The physiological and medical theories based on chemistry, which were for a time in vogue and are not yet wholly abandoned, contain at best only a modicum of truth, and can never be safely followed, for in the life of man there is at work a subtiler power than a chemical or any other physical agent. We do not deny that man is through his body related to the material world, or that many of the laws of that world, mineral, vegetable, and animal, are in some degree applicable to him; but, as far as science has yet proceeded, they are so only with many limitations and modifications which the physician--we use the word in its etymological as well as in its conventional sense--can seldom determine. The _morale_ every physician knows has an immense power over the _physique_. The higher the morale, the greater the power of the physical system to resist physical laws, to endure fatigue, to bear up against and even to throw off disease. Physical disease is often generated by moral depression, and not seldom thrown off by moral exhilaration. What is called strength of will at times seems not only to subject disease to its control, but to hold death itself at bay. In armies the officer, with more care, more labor, more hardship, and less food and sleep, will survive the common soldier, vastly his superior as to his mere physical constitution. These facts and innumerable others like them justify a strong protest against the too common practice of applying to man without any reservation the laws which we observe in the lower orders of creation, and arguing from what is true of them what must be true of him. Tear off the claw of a lobster, and a new one will be pushed out; cut the polypus in pieces, and each piece becomes a perfect polypus, at least so we are told, for we have not ourselves made or seen the experiment. But nothing of the sort is true of man, nor even of the higher classes of animals in which organic life is more complex. {343} We place little confidence in conclusions drawn from the assumed analogies between man and animals, and even the development of species in them by selection or otherwise, if proved, would not prove to us the possibility of a like development in him. We must see a monkey by development grow into a man before we can believe it.

But why, even in the case of animals that can be propagated only by the union of male and female, we should suppose the necessity of duplicating the parents of the species is more than we are able to understand. The individuals of the species could go where man could go. Suppose we find a species of fish in a North American lake, and the same species in a European or Asiatic lake which has no water communication with it, can you say the two lakes have never been in communication, you who claim that the earth has existed for millions of ages? Much of what is now land was once covered with water, and much now covered with water it is probable was once land inhabited by plants, animals, and men. Facts even indicate that the part of the earth now under the Arctic and Antarctic circles once lay nearer to the Equator, if not under it, and that what are now mountains were once islands dotting the surface of the ocean. No inductions which exclude these probabilities or indications are scientific, or can be accepted as conclusive.

Take, then, all the facts on which the naturalists support their hypotheses, they establish nothing against faith. The facts really established either favor faith or are perfectly compatible with it; and if any are alleged that seem to militate against it, they are either not proved to be facts, or their true character is not fully ascertained, and no conclusion from them can be taken as really scientific. We do not pretend that the natural sciences, as such, tend to establish the truth of revelation, and we think some over-zealous apologists of the faith go further in this respect than they should. The sciences deal with facts and causes of the secondary order; and it is very certain that one may determine the quality of an acorn as food for swine without considering the first cause of the oak that bore it. A man may ascertain the properties of steam and apply it to impel various kinds of machinery, without giving any direct argument in favor of the unity and Adamic origin of the race. The atheist may be a good geometrician; but, if there were no God, there could be neither geometry nor an atheist to study it. All we contend is, that the facts with which science deals are none of them shown to contradict faith or to warrant any conclusions incompatible with it.

Hence it may be assumed that, while the sciences remain in their own order of facts, they neither aid faith nor impugn it, for faith deals with a higher order of facts, and moves in a superior plane. The order of facts with which the sciences deal no doubt depends on the order revealed by faith; and no doubt the particular sciences should be connected with science or the explanation and application of the ideal formula or first principles, what we call philosophy, as this formula in turn is connected with the faith; but it does not lie within the province of the particular sciences as such to show this dependence or this connection, and our _savans_ invariably blunder whenever they attempt to do it, or to rise from the special to the general, the particular to the universal, or from the sciences to faith. Here is where they err. {344} What they allege that transcends the particular order of facts with which the sciences deal is only theory, hypothesis, conjecture, imagination, or fancy, and has not the slightest scientific value, and can warrant no conclusions either for or against faith. There is no logical ascent from the particular to the universal, unless there has been first a descent from the universal to the particular. Jacob saw, on the ladder reaching from heaven to earth, the angels of God descending and ascending, not ascending and descending. There must be a descent from the highest to the lowest before there can be an ascent from the lowest to the highest. God becomes man that man may become God. The sciences all deal with particulars and cannot of themselves rise above particulars, and from them universal science is not obtainable.

He who starts from revelation, which includes the principles of universal science, can, no doubt, find all nature harmonizing with faith, and all the sciences bearing witness to its truth, for he has the key to their real and higher sense; but he who starts with the particular only can never rise above the particular, and hence he finds in the particulars, or the nature to which he is restricted, no immaterial and immortal soul, and no God, creator, and upholder of the universe. His generalizations are only classifications of facts, with no intuition of their relation to an order above themselves; his universal is the particular, and he sees in the plane of his vision no steps by which to ascend to science, far less to faith. Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte both understood well the necessity of subordinating all the sciences to a general principle or law, and of integrating them in a universal science; but starting with the special sciences themselves, they could never attain to a universal science, or a science that accepted, generalized, and explained them all, and hence each ended in atheism, or, what is the same thing, the divinization of humanity. The positivists really recognize only particulars, and only particulars in the material order, the only order the sciences, distinguished from philosophy and revelation, do or can deal with. Alexander von Humboldt had, probably, no superior in the sciences, and he has given their _résumé_ in his _Cosmos_; but, if we recollect aright, the word God does not once appear in that work, and yet, except when he ventures to theorize beyond the order of facts on which the sciences immediately rest, there is little in that work that an orthodox Christian need deny. Herbert Spencer, really a man of ability, who disclaims being a follower of Auguste Comte or a positivist, excludes from the _knowable_, principles and causes, all except sensible phenomena; and although wrong in view of a higher philosophy than can be obtained by induction from the sensible or particular facts, yet he is not wrong in contending that the sciences cannot of themselves rise above the particular and the phenomenal.

Hence we do not agree with those Christian apologists who tell us that the tendency of the sciences is to corroborate the doctrines of revelation. They no more tend of themselves to corroborate revelation than they do to impair it. They who press them into the cause of infidelity, and hence conclude that science explodes faith, mistake their reach, for we can no more conclude from them against faith than we can in favor of faith. The fact is, the sciences are not science, and lie quite below the sphere of both science and faith. When arrayed against either, their authority is null. {345} Hence we conclude, _á priori_, against them when they presume to impugn the principles of science as expressed in the ideal formula, or against faith which is, considered in itself objectively, no less certain than the formula itself; and we have shown, _à posteriori_, by descending to the particulars, that the sciences present no facts that impugn revelation or contradict the teachings of faith. The conclusions of the _savans_ against the Christian dogmas are no logical deductions or inductions from any facts or particulars in their possession, and therefore, however they may carry away sciolists, or the half-learned, or little minds, greedy of novelties, they are really of no scientific account.

All that faith demands of the sciences as such is their silence. She does not demand their support, she only demands that they keep in their own order, that the cobbler should stick to his last, _ne sutor ultra crepidam_. Faith herself is in the supernatural order, and proceeds from the same source as nature herself; it presupposes science indeed, and elevates and confirms it, but no more depends upon it than the creator depends on the creature. The highest science needs faith to complete it, and in all probability never could have been attained to without revelation; but neither science nor the sciences, however they may need revelation, could ever, without revelation, have risen to the conception of a divine and supernatural revelation. It is idle, then, to suppose that without revelation we could find by the sciences the demonstration or evidence of revelation. Lalande was right when he said he had never seen God at the end of his telescope, and his assertion should weigh with all natural theologians, so-called, who attempt to prove the existence of God by way of induction from the facts which naturalists observe and analyze; but he was wrong and grossly illogical when he concluded from that fact, with the fool of the Bible, there is no God, as wrong as those chemists are who conclude against the real presence in holy eucharist, because by their profane analysis of the consecrated host they find in it the properties of bread. The most searching chemical analysis cannot go beyond the visible or sensible properties of the subject analyzed, and the sensible properties of the bread and wine nobody pretends are changed in transubstantiation. None of the revealed dogmas are either provable or disprovable by any empirical science, for they all lie in the supernatural order, above the reach of natural science, and while they control all the empirical sciences they can be controlled by none.

But when we have revelation and with it, consciously or unconsciously, the ideal formula, which gives us the principles of all science and of all things, and descend from the higher to the lower, the case is essentially different. We then find all the sciences so far as based on facts, and all the observable facts or phenomena of nature, moral, intellectual, or physical, both illustrating and confirming the truths of revelation and the mysteries of faith. We then approach nature from the point of view of the Creator, read nature by the divine light of revelation, and study it from above, not from below; we then follow the real order of things, proceed from principles to facts, from the cause to the effect, from the universal to the particular, and are, after having thus descended from heaven to earth, able to reascend from earth to heaven. In this way we can see all nature joining in one to show forth the being and glory of God, and to hymn his praise. {346} This method of studying nature from high to low by the light of first principles and of divine revelation enables us to press all the sciences into the service of faith, to unite them in a common principle, and do what the Saint-Simonians and positivists cannot do, integrate them in a general or universal science, bring the whole intellectual life of man, as we showed in our article on Rome or Reason, into unison with faith and the real life and order of things, leaving to rend our bosoms only that moral struggle symbolized by Rome and the World, of which we have heretofore treated at length.

But this can never be done by induction from the facts observed and analyzed by the several empirical or inductive sciences. We think we have shown that the pretension, that these sciences have set aside any of the doctrines of Christianity, or impaired the faith, except in feeble and uninstructed minds, is unfounded; we think we have also shown that they not only have not, but cannot do it, because they lie in a region too low to establish anything against revelation. Yet as the sciences are insufficient, while restricted to their proper sphere, to satisfy the demand of reason for apodictic principles, for unity and universality, there is a perpetual tendency in the men devoted exclusively to their culture to draw from them conclusions which are unwarranted, illogical, and antagonistic both to philosophy and to faith. Against this tendency, perhaps never more strongly manifested than at this moment, there is in natural science alone no sufficient safeguard, and consequently we need the supernatural light of revelation to protect both faith and science itself. With the loss of the light of revelation we lose, in fact, the ideal formula, or the light of philosophy; and with the light of philosophy, we lose both science and the sciences, and retain only dry facts which signify nothing, or baseless theories and wild conjectures, which, when substituted for real science, are far worse than nothing.

My Meadowbrook Adventure.

"No, no, Tom; that is out of the question. I can't afford to go away just now. I am getting into a fine practice; the courts open in ten days; and besides, I am in the midst of an essay on the Law of Contracts which I promised for the next number of a certain law magazine. Your prescription is a very pleasant one; but really I can't take it. You must give me a good dose of medicine instead."

"I tell you what it is, Franklin, I don't let my patients dictate to me in that style. You have been fool enough to throw yourself into a nervous fever by working in this nasty den all summer, instead of taking a vacation-run to the country as you ought to have done; and now, if you don't follow my directions, I swear I won't cure you! Go off to some quiet farm-house for a week or two, and, if your essay on contracts weighs upon your mind, take the stupid stuff with you. I'll risk your working much at it after you get within scent of the fields."

{347}

I could not stand out very long against the bluff orders of my friend and physician Tom Bowlder. I knew, too, that he was right. I had overtasked myself. I had been dangerously ill; and, eager as I was to get on with my work, I could not help feeling that rest and change were absolutely necessary for me. So I packed my portmanteau, not forgetting my precious essay and a liberal supply of writing-paper, and the next morning saw me on the way to Meadowbrook.

It was a quiet, sleepy little village, nestling at the foot of a beautifully wooded ridge, and looking out from its shelter, across a slope of green fields, to a little stream which ran purling over the stones a quarter of a mile distant. Majestic old elm-trees shaded the grassy roads and swung their branches over the roofs of the trim little cottages. There was only one house in the place which pretended to be anything better than a cottage, and that was a rather stately villa, a good hundred years old at least, which stood a little way out of the village, surrounded with trees, and shut in from the public gaze by an enormous hawthorn hedge which ran around the extensive grounds. Meadowbrook House, or "the house," as it was generally called by the villagers, was the property of an old maiden lady named Forsythe, the daughter of a retired merchant who long years ago had chosen this quiet spot as a retreat for his old age. Mr. Forsythe was a Catholic, and one of his first actions after removing to Meadowbrook was to build the pretty stone church in the main street of the village, and to pledge a certain sum annually from his ample income for the support of the priest. When, after a long life of usefulness, he died and was buried by the side of his wife, leaving all his property to his daughter, who had already long passed the period of youth, the generosity of Miss Forsythe continued to supply what the poor little Catholic congregation was unable to give, and the excellent spinster was still the mainstay of the church. Poor Father James, an old man now of nearly seventy, would have fared ill but for her assistance.

So much I learned in an after-supper chat with my landlady on the night of my arrival. I cannot say that I was much engrossed at the time by the good woman's garrulous narrative, but after-events were to give me a deep interest in Meadowbrook House and in everything connected with it. I had taken lodgings in the village inn, a neat, quiet, respectable establishment, where there were few guests except the villagers who used to drop in of an evening to enjoy a little gossip and a pipe, and with whom, after a days' ramble, I used often to sit and smoke my cigar. I led an idle but most delicious life during my ten day's holiday. I ranged through the woods, with my gun on my shoulder, bringing home now and then a bird or so, but caring in reality more for the walk than the shooting. I whipped the brook for trout. I searched the fields for botanical specimens. I wandered about with a volume of Tennyson or Buchanan in my pocket, stopping at times to lie down and read under the trees. I did almost everything, in fact, except work at my essay, which remained in the portfolio where I had originally packed it.

One sunny afternoon I was dozing on my back in the shade of an apple orchard, when a strain of music was borne to my ears, beginning like the distant hum of bees, and gradually swelling on the air with slow and majestic cadences. I had never heard such music in Meadowbrook before. {348} Curious to know whence it came, I followed the sound, and was not long in discovering that some practised hand was touching the wheezy little organ in the village church. Not the same hand which was accustomed painfully to struggle with the keys there on Sunday, and wring from them broken and doleful sounds to the distress of all nervous listeners. The person who was playing now had the touch of a master; and as the plaintive phrases of the _Agnus Dei_ from Mozart's First Mass broke upon the solitude of the church, the rickety organ seemed infused with a new spirit. I could not have believed that so much pathos and such exquisite delicacy of tone could be drawn from the wretched instrument whose laborious whistling and puffing had set my teeth on edge the previous Sunday. I sat down in a pew under the gallery, and listened. It was not until twilight approached that the playing ceased. I heard the organ closed; the player was silent for a few moments; "He is saying a prayer," thought I; and then a soft step began to descend the stairs. Thinking it possible the performer might feel annoyed at perceiving a stranger in the church, I sat quietly in my place, confident that the growing darkness and the shelter of one of the pillars would screen me from observation. I could see very well, however, though I could not be seen, and my surprise was great when a slender female figure issued from the gallery staircase, and came within the light of the open street door. She was young--not more than eighteen, I should think--with a face of rare beauty, a pretty form, a light and graceful carriage, and the unmistakable air of a gentlewoman. Small, regular features, light brown eyes, cheeks like a peach, blooming with health, a profusion of dark hair, and an expression of remarkable simplicity and sweetness made up a picture of loveliness such as I had never seen before. She wore a fascinating little round hat, and when I first caught sight of her was just drawing on her gloves, and I could see that her hands were small and shapely. She bent her knee as she passed before the altar, and when she went out into the street the church seemed suddenly to have grown darker. My first impulse was to follow her; but I stopped, feeling that it would be an intrusion, and trusting that she would return the next day, if she supposed herself to be unobserved. So I kept still until she had been gone several minutes, and when I left the church she was nowhere to be seen.

I determined to ask my landlady about the fair musician, and that evening, when worthy Mrs. Brown brought me my supper, I detained her a few minutes in conversation--an amusement to which she was in noway adverse.

"It's been an elegant day, hasn't it, now, Mr. Franklin?" said the old woman, as she placed on the table the smoking rasher of ham and the pile of buttered toast; "and it's plain to see what a world of good this tramping about the country is doing you. I wouldn't say you were over-strong yet; but, Lord bless me! when you first came here, you were little better than a ghost. Well, well, sir, and I hope you won't find our little village too dull for you!"

"Dull! Mrs. Brown. Not a bit of it. I wish I could stay here a year. By the way, who is it plays the organ so beautifully in Meadowbrook church? I heard the music, and stopped awhile to listen."

"Plays the organ, sir? Well, you know there's Mr. Thrasher, the schoolmaster; he's the organist on Sundays, and very like you heard him practising--though why he should be out of school to-day, and this not a holiday--"

{349}

"Mr. Thrasher, Mrs. Brown, thumps on the organ as if he was thumping his pupils, and his singers scream as if they felt the blows. This was not Mr. Thrasher. It was a young lady!"

"Well, sir, I never knowed of no young lady playing the organ except it was Betty Cox, the butcher's daughter. They do say she has a wonderful talent for music, and Mr. Thrasher, he has been giving her lessons this last month, and I wouldn't wonder if it was her!"

Now, it had been my privilege to hear Miss Betty Cox finger the keys one day after Mass, and a more doleful performance I never had listened to. Even if I had not seen the performer, I should have been sure it was not Miss Betty; but, quite apart from her musical proficiency, I felt a little bit indignant that the beautiful girl who had made such an impression upon me should be mistaken for a Betty Cox. No, she was not one of the village damsels; that was clear. And unfortunately it was equally clear that Mrs. Brown knew no more about her than I did myself.

I fell asleep that night humming the _Agnus Dei_, and dreamed of angels with round hats and brown kid gloves, playing on rickety organs, and hurling legions of musty school-masters out of the clouds.

The next day I took my book to the church-yard, and chose a shady spot where I could hear the first notes of the organ. I waited a long while, reading little, for I could not fix my attention on the page. At last she came, as I had hoped. For more than an hour I listened to the exquisite tones which seemed to flow from her agile fingers. Then she went away without perceiving me.

I need hardly say that I made many another visit to the church, for the pursuit of the fair organist had now become a genuine passion with me. Sometimes I waited all the afternoon without seeing or hearing her. Then I used to go to my room and be moody and miserable all the evening. A rainy day would throw me into despair, and I watched the clouds with the eagerness of a schoolboy on a holiday. My readers will not need to be told that I was falling desperately in love. Once or twice I met her walking, and had an opportunity to notice more particularly the singular beauty of her form and countenance, and the refined and quiet air which pervaded her whole person. Once I met her by accident at the crossing of a brook. I gave her my hand to help her over, and she took it with the modest frankness of a true lady, saying, "Thank you, sir," in a voice which seemed to me as sweet as her face. Yes, I was certainly in love.

I might easily have found out all about her by asking a few questions in the village, where the shopkeepers, at all events, would hardly be as ill informed as my landlady; but since my conversation with Mrs. Brown I had become, I know not why, unwilling to speak of her. I had grown to look upon her as _my secret_, which I was disposed to guard pretty jealously. A bit of mystery, be it ever so little and unnecessary, is one of the most charming things in the world to a young lover, and I have always thought that Sheridan displayed great knowledge of human nature when he made Lydia Languish refuse to be married without an elopement. At some time in our lives almost all of us give way to more or less of the same sort of nonsense.

{350}

There came a sudden end at last to my mooning and dreaming, and it came in a way with which even Lydia Languish herself could not have quarrelled. I had been off one day on a long ramble among the hills, and, missing my way, did not get back to Meadowbrook until close upon evening. As I came near the village, I was made aware of some extraordinary commotion in the place. Men and women were hurrying through the streets, and voices were shouting in excited tones. I ran after the crowd, and as I turned into the main street a glance in the direction of the church revealed the cause of the disturbance. Flames were bursting through the gallery windows, and a dense smoke poured through the open door. Nearly the whole population of Meadowbrook had gathered around the scene of disaster. The men, and some of the women with them, had formed lines leading to one or two of the nearest wells, and were passing buckets with all the speed they could; but it was too evident with but little prospect of subduing the conflagration. I have already mentioned that the building was of stone, so there was little fear of the walls falling; but the woodwork of the interior was old, and burned almost like tinder. The organ-gallery was, of course, of wood, and inside the tower, which stood at the front of the edifice, there was a wooden staircase, forming the only means of access to the gallery. It was in the tower, I saw at once, that the flames were burning most fiercely. The rear of the church was as yet untouched. I need hardly tell what my first thought was when I saw the cruel glare that lighted up the approaching twilight. A sickening sensation crept over me. If the fair musician was in the gallery when the fire broke out, her escape seemed effectually cut off. I ran forward but there was little need to ask questions. The distressed expression on every face, the eager eyes fixed upon the windows of the gallery, the frantic but vain efforts of one or two of the boldest of the crowd to penetrate the doorway, out of which the smoke was rolling in great black clouds, told me that my worst fears were true.

"Ah! sir," said one of the men "it's a dreadful thing to see a pretty young creature like that burned to death before our very eyes. But we can't get to her!"

A cold perspiration broke out upon my forehead, and for a moment I reeled like a drunkard. "Good heavens!" I cried; "have you no ladders?"

"Yes, we have two; but look at the tower, sir. There's no window except in the belfry, and both the ladders together would not reach that."

"Take the ladders into the church by the back way," I cried, "and get up the front of the gallery! Here," I added, pulling out my purse, "this for the first man who reaches her."

"We wouldn't want your money, sir, if we could get at the young lady," answered one or two voices together; "but there's little use in trying. Three men have gone into the church already."

They were still speaking when there was a stir among the crowd at the side of the building, and the three men reappeared. Their clothes were scorched, and even their hair was slightly singed.

"Can't do it," said one; "the gallery front is burning like a furnace. We got the ladders up, but we could not climb them and hardly got them away again."

"Did you see anything of her?"

"No, and didn't hear a sound. If she has not been choked already by the smoke, she must have gone up into the tower."

{351}

It was a slight hope, yet there was something in it after all. Behind the organ there was, as I knew, a door opening into a sort of lumber-room in the tower, from which a rude flight of steps, terminating in a ladder, led up to the bell. It was possible that when she found the gallery staircase in flames, (I afterward learned that it was here the fire broke out; it was supposed to have been caused by a coal dropped on the stairs by a tinker who had been repairing the roof that afternoon)--it was just possible, I say, that she might have retreated up these steps in the hope of being rescued through the belfry window. For a moment or two after the failure to reach her through the interior, there was a pause of awful suspense. Whatever was to be done, however, must be done at once. The flames were making rapid headway, and in ten minutes nothing would be left of the tower but the bare stone shell. Already it was doubtful if any one could survive even in the upper portion of it. The men were still throwing bucketfuls of water into the burning porch with frantic speed; but this, of course, did little good, for the fire was spreading high above their reach. Others were running helplessly about with coils of rope. Suddenly a thought seized me. Just in front of the church, but on the opposite side of the road, stood an enormous elm-tree. Some of its upper branches reached within fifty feet of the top of the tower. Was it not possible to bridge across that chasm?

"Is there any opening," I cried, "in the tower roof?"

"No, sir; none at all."

"Give me an axe and some rope."

Two or three axes were thrust at me. I took one, and tied it round my waist with a long coil of rope. Then I chose out another coil, and, throwing it over one of the lower limbs of the elm-tree, clambered with some difficulty into the branches. It would have been very hard climbing without the rope; but as I could throw it from limb to limb where I could not reach, and as I was a sufficiently expert gymnast to pull myself up by it, a few seconds saw me on one of the upper branches which had caught my eye from below. There was a battlement around the top of the tower, and I thought if I could secure one end of the rope to one of the projections of this battlement, I might contrive, by tying the other to the tree, to work my way across. I made a large slip-noose, gathered up the line like a lasso, and cast it with all my strength. The first attempt failed. The crowd below saw my object now, and gave a tremendous cheer. I tried again, and this time the noose caught upon the battlement. I drew up the rope as tight as I could, tied it fast to the tree, and, clasping it with my legs and hands, began the most dangerous and difficult part of my enterprise. There was a breathless silence below as I pulled myself across the awful chasm. I could hear the roar and crackling of the flames, and the hot air and acrid smoke were driven into my face until I thought I should have fainted and fallen to the ground. At last I reached the battlement. With much trouble I clambered upon the roof, and while the excited villagers were screaming themselves hoarse and hurrahing like madmen--I hardly heard their cries at the time, but, with other incidents of that memorable afternoon, they came to me afterward--I plied my axe so vigorously that in a few minutes I had stripped off a section of the roofing, and made an opening two or three feet square. It was too dark now to distinguish anything in the interior, but I knew that the platform on which the bell rested must be some twelve or fifteen feet below me. {352} Fastening the second coil of rope to the battlement, I let myself down through the hole until I felt the solid planking under my feet. There was a suffocating odor of fire, but the air was still pure enough to be breathed without serious inconvenience, groped about in the dark until I found the ladder leading below, and, trembling with apprehension, hurried down as fast as I was able. I shouted, but there was no answer. I reached the landing-stage where the ladder stopped and the rough steps, already mentioned, began, and at this moment some barrier which had kept the flames confined below seemed to give way, and a flood of light streamed up the staircase. I hurried on with the energy of desperation. When I reached the lumber-room, the door-way leading into the gallery was wrapped in fire. Through it I could see the old organ blazing, the planks dropping off one by one, and the metal pipes melting under the intense heat. The lower staircase was nearly consumed, and the floor of the room itself had caught in several places. The dreadful glow reflected upon the rough stone walls and rugged beams showed me in a moment what I had come to seek. There, in a remote corner which the fire had not yet reached, was a female form stretched senseless on the floor. A round hat was lying beside her, and her rich brown hair fell in graceful waves over her neck. Her white arms, from which the sleeves had fallen back, were stretched out before her, and her fingers clasped a rosary, as if her last conscious act had been a prayer. I seized her by the waist, and, with a strength at which I even now wonder, rushed with my burden toward the steps which I had just descended. She was still living. I could feel the beating of her heart and the heaving of her breast, and my joy at this discovery gave me fresh energy. How I got her up the steps I never clearly knew; but in a short space of time I had reached the top of the ladder and burst open the single window which looked out from the bell-chamber. The cool air revived her almost instantly. I held her up for a moment by the window, and, as she opened her eyes with a bewildered stare, I tried to say a word to calm her. She gazed at me an instant and then burst into tears, and her head fell forward on my shoulder.

"Fear nothing, dear lady," said I, "you are safe now. Collect your strength as much as you can. I am going to let you down through this window."

"And yourself!" she asked, staggering to her feet.

"Oh! make yourself easy about me. I shall follow you by the same way. You have only to keep calm, and there is little real danger."

The rope by which I had descended from the roof was still hanging there. I whipped out my knife, and cut it off as high as I could, there was still enough left to reach within fifteen feet of the ground. I tied it around her waist, wrapping my coat about it, so that it might chafe her as little as possible, gave it two turns around the windlass of the bell to strengthen my hold, and then shouted to the crowd below to put up their longest ladder under the window. A cheer told me that I was understood, and, before the preparations for the descent were quite finished, I saw a ladder raised against the wall, and two or three stout fellows standing ready to receive my burden.

{353}

"Now," said I, "you have only to be careful to keep yourself clear of the stones with your feet; grasp the rope by this knot to diminish the strain on your waist, and trust me for the rest."

The window was so near the floor that there was little difficulty in her getting out. I braced my feet firmly against the windlass, and lowered away carefully, but as fast as I dared, for the increased roaring of the flames below warned me that I had not a second to lose. The openings I had made in the roof and window had, of course, created a strong draught in the tower, and the fire was now burning in it like a furnace. Her feet touched the topmost round of the ladder just as I had got within a yard of the end of the rope. A pair of brawny arms received her, and at that moment the floor of the lumber room and gallery fell in with an awful crash; there was a lull for an instant; then a dense mass of smoke, flame, and cinders burst forth, as if belched from a volcano, and in less than a minute the _outside_ as well as the interior of the tower was wrapped in flame. Not soon enough, however, to touch what I had fought so hard to save. I thank God I had the presence of mind, when I heard the crash, to know what was coming; and, that no precious moments might be lost in unfastening the rope from her waist, I threw the other end out the window the instant I saw her foothold was secure, and the men hurried her down the ladder just in time. I heard her utter a cry of horror as I sacrificed my own means of escape, and, looking out, I saw her carried senseless away. Terrible as my danger was, I could not help noticing the awful grandeur of the scene. Twilight had given way to night, but the red glare illuminated the surrounding objects, and threw a flickering, unearthly light upon the upturned faces of the crowd. I saw women running to and fro, wringing their hands in despair, and men looking up at the window where I stood, with an expression of mingled fright and pity. But, if I had had a mile of rope, it would have been of little use to me now. The burning timbers had fallen outside the door of the tower, and I could not have let myself down without falling into the midst of them. I thought of the bell-rope; if I could get back to the roof with that, I might let myself down at the side. It would not be long enough to reach near the ground, but, if I escaped with a broken leg, that would be better anyhow than being burnt to death. I seized the rope where it was attached to the bell, and began to pull it up through the hole in the floor; a few feet of it only came away in my hand; the rest had been consumed. The smoke by this time was pouring through every crack, and the heat of the small chamber in which I stood was so intense that I knew that, too, must soon fall in. The roof was about twelve feet above me. My last hope was to reach it, and return by the same frightful bridge by which I had worked my way over. I shuddered to think of trusting myself again upon that dizzy crossing, with my hands already torn and bleeding, my brain reeling, and my eyes half-blinded. I sprang, however, upon the windlass, and made one desperate leap for the hole in the roof. I just grasped the rafters, and as I did so the planks upon which I had been standing gave way, and the bell and its platform sank into the ruins. I never can forget the horror of that moment when, as I made my leap, I felt the timbers crack and fall under my foot into the blazing abyss. For the present, however, I was safe. I had got a firm hold, and with much exertion, nerved by the strength of desperation, I succeeded in drawing myself up and getting upon the roof. The rope-bridge was still there. {354} I staggered toward it, and as I showed myself over the battlements a hearty cheer went up from the crowd, who had given me up for lost when the belfry fell in. I heard, yet hardly heeded them. In the act of climbing over the parapet, my eye fell upon the fragment of the second rope which I had cut away. Scarcely reflecting upon what I did, yet with a sort of providential instinct, I loosened it from the wall, tied one end around my body, and passed the other around the rope which had to support me across the dreadful chasm, making it fast with a noose which would slip easily as I pulled myself along. Thus the whole weight of my body would not have to be borne by my disabled hands. This precaution, I believe, was all that saved me. I made the crossing with great pain, dizzy from excitement and over-exertion, and suffering intensely from the smoke and flames which the wind was now driving upon me. Ten or twenty yards of the distance were yet to be passed, when I was dimly conscious of a sudden swaying of the crowd, a suppressed groan from many voices at once, then a quick slackening of the rope, a thundering crash as of falling walls, and a quick rush of air that took away my breath. Mechanically I tightened my grasp. Without seeing, I knew what had happened. The tower had fallen in. It has often been mentioned how in a moment of deadly peril the memories of years will rush across the mind with the speed of lightning. Now, in the instant while I was falling through the air, I had time to notice the excitement of the people, to comprehend what had taken place, to breathe a short prayer, and to calculate my chances of being dashed to pieces against either the trunk of the tree or some of the lower branches. But the same good Lord who had saved me before was again on my side. The rope swung free of obstructions; I was jerked once or twice back and forth; I lost my hold; there was a sharp pain as if some one had struck me a tremendous blow, and I knew no more.

When I came to my senses again, it was with a feeling of bewilderment inexpressibly painful. I recognized nothing about me; I remembered nothing that had happened. I was lying in bed in a large, cheerful room, so bright and pretty that it was comfort even to look at it. The sun was struggling through the closed blinds, two or three logs of wood blazed in the capacious fire-place, and two luxurious, great, chintz-covered armchairs stood before the hearth. The walls were hung with a neat flowered paper, and the mantel-shelf was decorated with curious old china vases and various knick-knacks. Everything was the perfection of cleanliness and order, yet nothing looked prim. The coverlid on the bed was of warm, harmonious tints; the linen was, beautifully soft and white; there was a table in the middle of the room, covered with a bright cloth, and bearing a number of books and a dish of luscious-looking fruit; and on a little stand by the bedside was a bouquet of rare hot-house flowers. Here was a pleasant scene to open one's eyes upon; but where was I? I threw myself back upon the pillow, and gradually the events I have narrated in the preceding pages shaped themselves in my memory. I felt very weak, but I was not long in satisfying myself that I had broken no bones. I looked at my wounded hands. They were covered with scars, but the wounds were healed. I knew then that I must have been lying there a pretty long time. I was still wondering, when the door opened softly, and a tidy-looking elderly woman, whose dress indicated that she was some sort of an upper servant, came into the room. {355} She uttered an exclamation of pleasure when she caught my eye, and came up to the bedside.

"Well, sir," said she, "it does my heart good to see you looking so much better. You've had a hard time of it, that's the truth; but we'll soon have you up, now."

"You're very kind," I answered; "anybody might get well in this room; but please tell me where I am."

"O sir! you're at Meadowbrook House. Miss Forsythe had you fetched here right after the fire." "How long ago was that?" "About two weeks." "So long! I must have been very sick. You are very good."

I thought she seemed a little surprised at the fervor of my gratitude; but I took no notice of it, and was going on to ask her further questions when she very peremptorily shut me up.

"Now, that will do," said she; "don't say another word. You must keep quiet for a while; if you talk, I'll go away and not come near you again."

"Just one thing more. Who brought those flowers?"

"Well, if you must know, Miss Forsythe herself. She brings them every day. I suppose she'd scold if she knew I told you. But now, keep quiet till the doctor comes, and, if he is willing, I'll chat with you as much as you please."

So saying, the good-natured nurse to ensure my silence, left the room. But, indeed, I felt little desire to talk any more just then. I had asked about the flowers with a vague hope that they might have been culled by the hand which I had learned to prize so dear, and I am ashamed to say that, when the name of the excellent old lady, whose hospitality I was receiving was mentioned, I turned my head with a sigh of disappointment. I fell to worrying about the fair organist; wondering whether she had suffered any harm from the perilous occurrences of that memorable night; whether I should ever meet her again, and _how_ we should meet; how I could approach her without seeming to presume upon the service I had rendered; and, finally, why Miss Forsythe should have lavished so much care and kindness on a total stranger. I was in the midst of such reveries when my nurse returned and ushered in the doctor.

"Well, Franklin, old fellow! Got your wits again, have you?" exclaimed a cheery and familiar voice. "That's right; now we'll soon get you on your legs."

The doctor was no other than my old friend Tom Bowlder. He had heard of my accident, hurried down to Meadowbrook, taken entire control of me, established a close friendship with the lady of the mansion, put himself on the best of terms with the housekeeper, Mrs. Benson, and installed her as nurse, and, thanks to his skill and tenderness, I had passed safely through a dangerous crisis. After putting a few professional questions, he sat down by the bedside, and indulged me with a little conversation.

"Well, old boy," said he, "I suppose you want to be told first about yourself." (I did not; but I let him go on.) "You've had an ugly time of it--brain fever and that sort of thing, you know--and it's a wonder you weren't killed outright. But you are all right now, and you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you saved one of the prettiest girls that ever breathed, and I do believe one of the best."

{356}

"She is not hurt, then?"

"Not a bit."

"And you have seen her? Is she still in Meadowbrook?"

"Seen her! Why, of course I have. How could I help it? I see her every day."

In spite of my previous perplexity how I should conduct myself if I ever met her again, I was now so eager for the meeting that, weak as I was, I wanted to get up at once. But to this, of course, Doctor Tom would not listen.

"Yes; but, Tom, you mustn't keep me here for ever. I want to--to see"--I stammered and broke down--"to see Miss Forsythe, you know, and thank her for taking care of me."

"All in good time, Franklin. I don't mean to keep you in bed much longer; and the moment you are able to leave the room, I promise you shall see her, and make as many acknowledgments as you want to. For the rest of the afternoon, however, you must keep quiet. There, now, you have talked enough for one day. Good-by." And so saying, Tom left me to myself.

Mrs. Benson soon came back, bringing a tray covered with a snow-white napkin, a bowl of gruel, and a glass of wine. Tom had evidently given her instructions; for I could not draw her into conversation, and, as soon as she had seen me comfortably fixed, she went away again.

The next morning, Tom paid me an early visit, and doled out a few more scraps of information. I learned that Miss Forsythe had caused all my luggage to be brought from the inn, and that, as long as I could be persuaded to remain in Meadowbrook, I was to make her house my home. "You need not look surprised," added Bowlder. "I satisfied her that you were a very respectable person; and, indeed, I believe the old lady knows some of your family."

"Well, see here, Tom; when I was out of my head, did I talk much?"

"Talk! I should think you did! Chattered like a magpie; raved about round hats and little brown gloves, talked a good deal of lovers' nonsense, and sometimes hummed a few bars of music--Miss Forsythe said it was a bit out of one of Mozart's Masses. One day you grabbed a hold of me, and asked if I knew you had been listening under the gallery, and 'if she knew about your loving her.' Miss Forsythe blushed like a rose, and went out of the room."

"Did she?" said I, blushing now in my turn. "I don't see what difference that ought to make to her."

Tom opened his eyes at this remark in a very curious way.

"Well," said he, "_I_ thought it might make a good deal of difference; but I suppose you two know best. Now I must be off. Old Doctor Jalap, who physics the villagers, has fallen sick himself, and I have to take care of him and his patients, too. I mean to let you get up tomorrow, though I would not advise you to go into the streets till you have got all your old strength, and some to spare. The people down here have got the preposterous idea that you're a sort of a hero, and whenever you show yourself, they'll shake you to death with congratulations."

When Tom had gone, I thought a great deal over his remark about Miss Forsythe, but I could not comprehend it. The old lady had certainly been very kind to me; but, even if she did know my family, it was unreasonable to suppose that she should take a very warm interest in my love affairs. And what did Tom mean by saying that "we two knew best?" {357} The more I reflected, the more I got puzzled. Possibly, said I, Miss Forsythe knows this young lady. At any rate, I'll lose no time in seeing her. I can't lie here, muddling my brains, any longer. So I got up, found my clothes, dressed, and made my way down-stairs. Mrs. Benson met me in the hall, and, of course, began to scold; but she had to admit that I seemed stronger, after all, than anybody suspected me to be, and, now that the mischief was done, I might as well see Miss Forsythe. "You'll find her in the parlor, sir; she's just come in from the garden."

There was no one in the parlor when I entered it, but at the further end of the room was an open door leading to a conservatory, and there I caught a glimpse of somebody moving among the flowers. I went forward, and saw a lady, whose back was toward me, in the act of plucking a flower to add to a bunch in her hand. She did not hear me until I spoke:

"Miss Forsythe, I don't know how to thank you properly for--"

I stopped in amazement, for, as she turned, I beheld not the good old spinster, but that sweet, innocent young face which had so long haunted me. She started at my voice. A deep blush suffused her features. She hesitated a moment; she cast down her eyes; and then, with a frankness which was even more charming than her maiden modesty, she sprang forward to meet me, and placed both her little hands in mine.

I have no purpose of repeating all the foolish things we said in the next half hour. _This_ was the Miss Forsythe who had watched over my sick-room, and had run away when I raved about her in my delirium. It never occurred to me, when Tom Bowlder made his last puzzling remarks, that there could be any other Miss Forsythe than the mistress of Meadowbrook House. My Miss Forsythe was the niece of that good lady, and, when I first met her, had just arrived in Meadowbrook on a visit for the first time in her life. The aunt came into the room, after a while, and I then had an opportunity of making my interrupted acknowledgments in the right quarter, and beginning a friendship with her which I look upon as one of the blessings of my life. Tom came back, too, before long, and, though he pretended, at first, to scold me for breaking out of bounds before I had been regularly discharged by my physician, he must have seen, by the sparkle in my eyes and the elasticity which happiness imparted to my whole frame, that my rashness had been of a vast deal of service to me.

"Doctor," said the old lady, "I think you and I must let him alone. Mr. Franklin seems to have changed his physician, and I dare say Mary, there, will do him more good now than all the medicines in the world."

"Upon my word, Miss Forsythe, I believe you're right; and, if Miss Mary will take care not to lead her patient through any more fiery furnaces, I'll trust the case to her hands."

I have only to add to my story that the essay on the Law of Contracts was never finished, business of a very engrossing nature (including a contract of a peculiarly interesting kind) absorbing all my spare moments during the next few months. By the liberality of the elder Miss Forsythe the little church was soon restored, and the asthmatic organ which had played such a memorable part in my life was replaced by a new and excellent instrument. {358} The flames, fortunately, had spared the sanctuary and all the rear portion of the building. As soon as the repairs were finished, there was a merry wedding at Meadowbrook, and Father James gave us his blessing as we knelt together in the sacred place where we had so narrowly escaped together from a horrible death. The little side-altar, which has since been put up in the church, was built by my wife and me to commemorate our deliverance. Once or twice a year we make a visit of a week or so to dear Aunt Forsythe at Meadowbrook. Mary and I never fail at such times to say a prayer of thanksgiving in the church. Then we stray together into the organ gallery, and, while the old familiar strains flow from her touch, I sit by her side, and thank God in my heart for blessing me with so sweet a wife.

Joy In Grief.

From The French Of Marie Jenna.

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."

Friend! in vain thy bosom hides the sharp and cruel sword that wounds it. I have understood thy silence, and my prayer hath still been for thee. Cast away the foolish pride that shuts thy heart against my friendship; Come, and weep before me.

Well I know that there are days of heavy grief and lonely suffering, When the soul doth find in solitude a grim and bitter pleasure; And the thoughtless world beholds its shrouded majesty pass by it Pale, and wrapped in silence.

Then the friendly hand, uncertain, stops and hesitates before it, Fearing lest too rudely it may draw aside the veil of mourning: There are griefs so great and sacred that all human thought and language Dies upon the threshold.

Now, however, days are past; and it is time I came and sought thee. Oh! permit a friend to share the heavy burden of thy sorrow. Put thy hand in mine, thy weary head upon my heart, and rest thee: I have suffered also.

I will not approach thee with those vain and heartless words of fashion, Words which grief receives and spurns as mocking echoes of its wailing; No, I have a word to whisper that will bring a holy comfort: 'Tis a heavenly secret.

{359}

If I might, as from an urn, before thy feet pour out my treasures, Hope and peace would fill thy soul now groping in despairing darkness. Light would shine upon thy pathway; sweet repose would mark thy slumbers, Dreams of happy moments.

There are pure and lofty summits where the soul of man reposes. 'Tis the sword which cleaves our hearts asunder opens up the pathway. Friend of mine, believe me that the loss of all things counts as nothing If those heights be mastered.

Silly bees, we flit from flower to flower in this world's pleasure-garden; Drinking in their rich perfumes and tasting of their honeyed sweetness. Resting there, and living on its passing charms as if its beauty Were enough for ever.

There we dream away our life, and precious moments pass unheeded; Placing all our joys in pleasures fleeting as the summer sunshine, Joys that vanish when the evening casts its shadows o'er the garden Gone before the moonlight.

'Tis when robbed of human love; when seated desolate and lonely On the wide and arid desert, with no kindly eye to greet us; When the howling tempest rages, and the frightful darkness thickens, Comfort has a meaning.

Then the brow defeat has humbled, and the heart grown sick with sorrow, Find an arm and hand divine to lean upon and bear its burden: And the spirit wrung with anguish, crushed by cruel disappointment, Sings a hymn unspoken.

When before the lost one's footsteps opens an abyss of horror, Then appears a bridge of safety stretching o'er the gulf's dark passage: There, where danger threatens most, and death menaces, God is standing Open-armed to meet him.

When the fitful joys of human passion are consumed within us, Other joys begin their reign of which the soul as yet knew nothing. Ah! what matter, when a brilliant star appears in heaven above us, If the lamp burn dimly?

O thou mystery of suffering, deep abyss for human wonder! Since that day when on a shameful cross love gained its greatest triumph, We begin to sound thy awful depths, and catch at least faint glimpses Of thy hidden meaning!

Come, for there the lesson may be learned which only He, the Master, teaches From his throne of truth and wisdom. At the feet of Jesus seated, Words will fall upon our ears that human lips have never spoken Words of heaven's language.

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Sword of sorrow, minister of peace, I bless thee for thy wounding! Pleasing is the pain of sacrifice, and sweet the tears of martyrs Shed for too much joy when from the eyes all earthly sights are fading In the light of heaven.

Of those melodies divine, those flames of love and joy celestial, Of those floods of rapture springing from the lonely plains of sorrow, Ye, poor, thoughtless souls, know nothing, nor have ever dreamed their presence, Ye who ne'er have suffered.

Man of sorrows! he who never trod the road of desolation, He who hath not borne a cross and followed thee to crucifixion, He who hath not passed through death unto the day of resurrection-- He hath never known thee.

Blessed are the mourners! From the mouth of Truth these words have fallen. Blessed! Yes, it must be true indeed, my God, when thou hast spoken. Welcome, then, be suffering, welcome! Happy they above all measure Who in thee find comfort!

Translated from the French of L. Vitet.

The Present Condition Of Christianity In France.

That the men for whom the Christian faith is but an ordinary belief, a purely human work, and therefore mortal and perishable, should consider that their object is to be best attained by separating it from the living portion of our society and keeping it sequestered, so to speak, within the circle of retrogressive ideas; that such should be sarcastic at the expense of liberal Catholicism, and, looking upon its plans as chimerical, should triumph on learning of its defeats, nothing can be more natural: in so doing, they but carry out their policy and sustain their cause. But that true Christians and sincere believers should form an alliance with them or follow the same rut; that they should strive to attain the same end by opposing harmony and reconciliation with the spirit of the age, jesting at peace-makers, and objecting to their endeavors, not only on the plea of the impracticability of the schemes, but on the ground that the attempts made are culpable, impious, and sacrilegious; this is worse than an error, worse than blindness, and constitutes for the future of Christian beliefs a grave and alarming symptom.

There would be little cause for anxiety if a small portion of the faithful, a few chagrined beings, a few morose old men were the only obstinate adherents to these views, for time would be the best remedy in such a case; but do not be deceived, the masses are inclined to the adoption of similar opinions. {361} Conciliatory ideas are as yet only within the reach of a certain _élite_. The group in whose midst they were born upward of thirty years since is scarcely more numerous now than then, and is, perhaps, less favorably thought of and less sustained by the public. Yet how many reasons are there for its more general recognition! Is not the party under a better guidance than in earlier days? Whom can it terrify by its temerity? In politics it only aspires to the possession of the most harmless liberty; in religion its tendencies are ultramontane only to the extent prescribed by faith. What, then, does it lack? Is its cause obscure, badly defined, ill-defended? Never were its traits given more brilliant prominence. God has bestowed upon it defenders of wondrous might. When an idea is fathered by the indefatigable energy and overwhelming eloquence of the Bishop of Orleans, by such masters of speech as M. de Montalembert and Father Lacordaire, by writers such as M. Albert de Broglie and Father Gratry; when young and valiant champions, such as Charles Lenormant, Frédéric Ozanam, and Henri Perreyve have died in its service; if it attract not; if it make not great and speedy conquests; if it secure not at once the approval of the competent, and obtain from the people naught but sterile applause, there can be no misunderstanding, its time is not come, and men's minds are not prepared for its reception. But does it follow that opinion has espoused the opposing cause, and that hostility and warfare against modern laws and ideas are generally favored? that all other Christians accept unreservedly the doctrines of certain violently retrogressive journals that do religion the injury of being regarded as its confidants? No; the masses, by their own instinct, escape the contagion of extremists' opinions; but, without breaking off entirely from modern ideas, the great majority of the faithful hold them to be dangerous and avoid their contact. Between civil and religious society there is a marked coldness and restraint; there is a want of confidence and sympathy; the least that can be said is, that they live in two separate camps.

This should not be. We cannot calculate upon a new uprising or upon a complete awakening of Christian belief, unless sincere concord between the church and society be reestablished. The present disagreement, if prolonged, would seem to indicate a decline of Christianity; it might be said that religion was losing, for the first time, the knowledge of the needs of the epoch, as well as that power of rejuvenation that for eighteen centuries has endowed it with such unexampled longevity. That the prediction that preceded its birth may be realized, that it may live as long as this earth, upon which nothing lives and endures without change or modification, must it not submit to the common law, and, while remaining fundamentally the same, be transformed and renewed, superficially at least? To sentence it to immovability lest some change take place in its elements; to petrify it that its purity may be greater, is to proclaim its ruin and announce its death. A cessation of life and a life of lethargy are about the same.

How comes it, then, that, despite so many causes of alarm, in the depth of our soul we are calm, and our fears are mingled with so much hope? Do faith without reasoning and pure instinct comfort us? No; it is Christianity itself, and Christianity of today, that reassures us by its acts. {362} Notwithstanding the disagreement with the age that hinders its progress, notwithstanding the wounds from which it suffers, the coldness with which it is treated, the hearts that are closed to it, whithersoever it penetrates it is still so brimming with life and light, so lavish of compassion and love, it still causes one to shed freely such soothing tears, and gives birth to so many deeds of self-devotion, that it is most evident that its vigor is unsubdued. The tree about to die does not put forth such boughs and fruits. The sap flows, the roots spread; an eternal youth betrays itself by unmistakable signs. Seek not these consoling symptoms elsewhere but by the domestic fireside, or under the shadow of the altar, in the retirement of the house of God. Ask not for an official and public explanation; neither institutions, nor laws, no monuments, nor outward indices would assert it. In this respect, the contrast between the days we live in and the centuries gone by is most striking. Eighty years since, while Christians, isolated and apart from each other, estranged themselves more and more from God, whilst the belief in Voltaire reigned at the bottom of all hearts, society remained outwardly Christian, religion presided over all the acts of every-day life, and hallowed them by its presence and its blessings; everything was done in its name, and its sovereign authority was proclaimed everywhere. Now, it is only at distant intervals and in certain ceremonies in which, out of mere force of habit and for purposes of adornment, it is made to figure, that some shadow of its former _prestige_ is allowed it; for the remainder of the time no allusion is made to it, it is set aside as a superfluity and avoided as a hinderance to action. Judging by this, you would think, perhaps, that it has fallen into oblivion, that it is forsaken, lifeless, and unhonored. But it is only dead in appearance: look more closely, uplift the veil, and you will behold a wholly different condition of Christianity. While the outer world escapes its dominion, the world of men's consciences is being regained. That which institutions refuse to yield to it, souls commence to accord. How numerous the rebellious or perplexed spirits that gradually bow to it and bravely summon its aid! How many tired hearts are indebted to it for rest! Do you not see whole families, hitherto all but ignorant of the blessings of faith, almost transformed by a new baptism? It is most generally to the influence of children that these metamorphoses are due. The Christian education which through their medium obtains access to the fireside instills itself into the minds of their parents. The mother learns the truths that are explained to her daughters, and becomes attached to them in understanding them more thoroughly and acting in accordance with their precepts, the better to inculcate them; even the father feels the necessity of not interfering with the belief of his sons by the contradiction of his own example, and, having become a Christian from a sense of duty, remains a Christian out of affection.

Thus, without noise or _éclat_, by a latent process whose results alone are discernible, faith diffuses and propagates itself. Certain it must be that its ranks are swelling, and that the rising generations, in furnishing their respective contingents, more than fill the vacancies caused by death, for almost all churches in large cities are becoming too small for the assembled worshippers. Without speaking of the holydays, of the solemn occasions, the spectacular character of which attracts perhaps as many idlers as they do believers, and confining ourselves to the consideration of the gatherings at ordinary services, can you deny that year after year the attendances are larger and that the attention paid is more zealous? {363} Do you not observe, also, how many men mingle with the women? At the commencement of this century the appearance of a man in church was an event. Now it is not even a subject of astonishment; and certainly we note no mediocre triumph of faith over human respect when we record the return of men to the asylum of prayer. Many other novel incidents of similar purport seem no less extraordinary, such as students in our schools and soldiers in our camps publicly asserting their faith; practical Christians having a majority in the councils of large cities and in faculties of physicians, this latter instance being a most exceptional occurrence. If there were aught to be gained nowadays by passing for a Christian, if men were living in the age of the Restoration and had some chance of bringing themselves into notice, and being of good service to their family by proclaiming their piety, we might not take into account either this increase of apparent fervor, or the crowded houses of worship, or the numerous communions. Such, however, is not the case; and is it not now a better policy, if one wish to obtain advancement, to become a Free-Mason, in preference to committing one's self by figuring in some conference of a St. Vincent de Paul's Society? That there are still hypocrites and false devotees, we all are agreed. Such there always will be; but hypocrisy and feigned piety are not fashionable vices. In our time, to enter a church one must really experience a desire to pray. We challenge the most sceptical, giving them the privilege of broadly criticising and pruning as they please, not to recognize as genuine the progress, limited no doubt, but, nevertheless, incontrovertible, of modern Christianity. Besides, there can be applied a test that will dispel all doubts on the subject: of the three divine virtues, the most difficult of imitation is that which depletes our purse and compels us to be generous. Inquire of the clergy, the treasurers of the poor, what charity is at present; ask if it slumber or decay; or rather, if day after day it gain not new powers of existence in proportion as, in certain classes of society, Christian sentiments are awakening. Ask of the clergy if these tokens of _largesse_ are only entrusted to it for reasons of vanity, and if the most modest are not those who give most liberally, an evident sign that the source whence the gifts come is a Christian one. No doubt, men can bestow much in charity without believing--the former act is easier of performance than the latter; but true charity is, as it were, inseparable from the two virtues whose sister it is: he who gives liberally, hopes and believes.

Be ye, then, reassured, for Christian faith still endures. It lives, labors, and wins over souls; it has not forgotten its old secrets, and can once again become youthful and associate itself with the destinies of the world. All that is needed is to give it time. If there be hesitation on its part to accept modern ideas, it is not owing to lack or indolence of spirit. The fault is first to be ascribed to the age itself, whose explanations are so obscure and whose aspirations are so unintelligibly expressed. "The principles of 1789" are most elastic words. What sense can be given them? How can they be applied? Does the century intend to belong to liberty and its severe duties, to the caprices of demagogues, or would it be fired by the military spirit? The second day of December, that period of inaction in our apprenticeship to free institutions, complicated events and added to the perplexity and uncertainty of religious minds. {364} What were the intentions of the new empire? Was it to follow the example set by its predecessor, and was the world to behold for the second time the papacy closely guarded by _gens d'armes_? Was it not rather the traditions of Charlemagne it proposed to conform with, and was it not to prove a veritable Eldorado for Christian beliefs? This latter intention had been so definitely announced, that most men were deceived by the promise. But the horizon is now becoming clearer; there is neither hope nor gratitude to burden the faithful and render them incredulous as to the blessings of liberty. Awhile longer and there will be light. If, as we must believe, the true destiny of the age, made apparent to all, be conciliated with the great principles constituting Christianity; if it mark new progress in the advance of humanity, fear not. Christianity will not rebel, but will promote the movement. If it still live, and otherwise but nominally--and we have had proof that life was not wanting--it will not lack intelligence.

Know you the true cause of alarm, the true peril? It is that Christianity does not progress alone. It certainly marches on and labors; its advance is apparent; and more apparent, perhaps, are the conquests, the ardor, and the faith of those who struggle. By a strange contradiction, visible in the case of the two opposing forces, when one should gain what the other loses, the strength of neither is affected. On both sides the numbers increase and the armies proceed onward. Which shall win the victory? whose gains are the most genuine? Despite this seeming equality, we do not entertain the slightest doubt but that the Christians, if they will, are the masters of the future. But how are they to secure their triumph? Concerning that we must speak candidly.

Ere we come to this, however, let us, with M. Guizot, enter the anti-christian camp, estimate the forces of the enemy, and examine the formidable host we are called upon to defeat.

The distinctive trait nowadays of the war waged against Christianity is the number and the diversity of the opposing doctrines. Formerly its adversaries confined themselves to seeking to destroy it: now they are more ambitious; they attempt to provide for it a substitute. Hence the multitude of systems, each of which, in more or less vague or contradictory terms, is intended to elucidate the great natural problems that humanity, since its birth, has evolved, and that Christianity has explained with such simplicity, completeness, and clearness. These systems do not claim to be religious; they merely flatter themselves that they will become satisfactory guides for man; that they will read to him the enigma of this world, and supply all the wants of his heart and mind. As they exact neither sanction, practice, nor responsibility, as they are indulgent in the matter of human weaknesses, their popularity can be easily understood. They have believers, adepts, and, we may say, devotees of their own. One of the characteristics of modern incredulity is that it denies and affirms simultaneously. Nothing is rarer in these times than a true unbeliever, placing credence in literally nothing, combating the faith of others, and wholly devoid of faith himself. The unbelievers of the age all believe something: besides the antipathy they have sworn to entertain for Christianity--an antipathy constituting a common faith--each has a belief of his own; some acknowledge pantheism, others rationalism, positivism, materialism, or the countless ramifications of these principal doctrines, each of which has its faithful adherents. {365} We do not mean to advance that all antichristians have espoused the doctrines of philosophy, that each has a sect, a banner, or a _cred_o of his own. We shall even be convinced very shortly that the most dangerous opponents are those who do not dabble in philosophy, and who stand up against the progress of holy truths by indifference and indolence; but the simultaneous birth of all these antichristian systems is nevertheless a strange fact, and one deserving of attention. Taken apart, they can pass by unheeded their fundamental principles are neither novel nor consistent! When seen together, however, theirs is a battle array of a rather imposing magnitude. We understand, therefore, all the more readily, that M. Guizot, wishing to estimate the strength of the antichristian forces, should have taken these systems one by one, and submitted each to a careful examination. We would, however, misconstrue, we apprehend, his most obvious intention, if we were to look upon his sketches as regular refutations and _ex professo_ treatises. He has only proposed to give the measurement of their different systems by comparison with the measuring-rod of common sense. To enter into more thorough discussions would have been unnecessary; better work was left undone, and M. Guizot's preface has clearly expressed his views on that point. It matters little, after all, how these systems are criticised; the result is the same, whether one examine them superficially, master their secrets, or fathom their scientific mysteries. There can be little difference of opinion in regard to their value. It is to their advantage if they be only glanced at. The more searching the investigation, the more conclusive the proof as to the frailty of their formations and deficiencies, pettiness, impotence, and vanity. We repeat what we said, that we have little to dread on this score. A few minds may be won over, but the contagion, in this country, cannot spread. The darkness of pantheism, the dreams of idealism, the dryness of positivism, or the coarseness of materialism will never seduce the mass of French minds. The alarm is greater than the real danger; yet, when gathered together, these systems, however discordant among themselves, however much opposed to each other, constitute, from the very fact that all are equally hostile to Christianity, a power which must be taken into account. They form a _fasces_; theirs is a coalition, a league that belongs only to our age.

Is it to be supposed that we assert that Christianity has ever lacked enemies, and enemies acting in concert in their attacks? Without looking far back into its history, was not the concentration of all the wits of the age clustered under the leadership of Voltaire for the purpose of freeing the world from religious superstition, an anti-christian league, if ever there was one? Perhaps even the movement of the eighteenth century seemed, at first, more violently antichristian than that undertaken in our days. Its determination was more evident; it proceeded direct to the objective point. Its weapons were light, but they were ever in use, and there was no truce to the warfare. It was a sharp fire of irony, a shower of sarcasm; nothing could withstand it, no one could retort; the dread of ridicule silenced the boldest; the panic was followed by a general rout, and terror was engendered by laughter. And what sad results! what a disaster! {366} The altars were overthrown, religion was annihilated, the clergy scattered, hunted down, or put to death, a whole nation left without temples, without pastors, without any perceptible connecting link with heaven! Was not this enough? What more was desired?

There can certainly be extant no wish to do better; but it is intended that the work shall endure, that the invalid shall be finally disposed of, and that any chance of cure or resurrection shall be done away with. Even as after 1848 the fiery demagogues, who had thought an excellent opportunity had arrived to demolish society, found consolation for their failure by proclaiming aloud that, should a similar series of events ever occur, they would know better how to act, and would not again be unsuccessful in the accomplishment of their purpose, so the destroyers of religion take great care not to imitate the example of their fathers, whose work, they say, was only half done. Mockery and irony are worn-out weapons that wound but do not kill; they are useful in commencing a war, but other and more destructive engines are needed to end it. Besides, within the past sixty years the character and habits of the public have undergone a decided change. The community has become, by lessons taught it at its own expense, of a more reflective and sober turn of mind; it is less easy to provoke its laughter, and it does not always consider a jest an argument. Moreover, deriding all things excites its suspicion, and, in lieu of being won over, it often comes near being shocked. Its new mood must be complied with, the public's foibles must be consulted, and its present foible is, that it shall be treated as a man, and not as a child.

Science is the great agency! Science is the only guide, the only authority whose aid modern minds willingly accept. This can be readily comprehended; each day science works so many miracles, lavishes upon humanity such genuine gifts, opens to mankind so vast a future, and confirms in so incontestable a manner its right of sovereignty over this world, that men, in return, must bow to its decrees, and do it all honor without blushing at the homage rendered it. But, in the hands of those who would keep mankind separate from any other belief, who would prevent the recognition of any higher authority and of the invisible might of the Creator, how terrible a weapon is a faith in science! Therefore it is that nowadays to rank honorably with the adversaries of Christian belief, to play an important part, to act upon the minds and disturb consciences, it is not sufficient merely to possess some talent and a graceful and caustic style. It is necessary to be erudite, or, at least, to be held as such, the latter alternative being less difficult to achieve, less rare, and for that very reason, much more dangerous. For, if Christianity had to deal with truly learned and truly great men only, she and science would never be in absolute opposition to each other. The so-called contradictions, the irreconcilable facts 'disappear, when the disputants attain a certain height, as soon as words being no longer taken in their literal sense, their spirit is understood, and when analysis is brought to bear upon the starting-point of the misunderstanding. Science, when applied to such ends, is not only inoffensive to Christianity and the Scriptures, but comes to their aid and proffers testimony in their favor, sometimes giving to certain facts of fabulous appearance an almost historical character. {367} Thus it came that Cuvier confirmed by a most rigorous process of inductive reasoning based upon irrefutable facts, some Biblical narratives which believers only had, until then, accepted out of motives of pure obedience, and which indifferent persons viewed with suspicion, and the great doctors of the eighteenth century laughed to scorn. Evil fortune, however, wills it, that for every one of these conciliatory, because clairvoyant minds, for a Cuvier, a Kepler, a Leibnitz, and a Newton, there are thousands of men who see the outward semblance only, who stumble over inconsistencies, and who, often without ill-will, make use of their small share of knowledge in accomplishing the ruin of the holy truths. Indeed, they enjoy the credit of the masses as much as, and perhaps more than, the real masters; the public is continually brought into contact with them; they are numerous, ubiquitous, and have associates in all professions; the race of half-learned men is the foundation of humanity, without taking into account the more skilful persons who, seeking to win success at any cost, and even at the risk of scandal, borrow from science the varnish required to give popularity to their productions. These stratagems constitute a new fashion of checkmating Christianity, a method rejuvenating the traditions of Voltaire. Those whose intentions are worthiest are deceived by it; the lure thrown out is that which they need, a sensible lure; their reason alone is appealed to, and they fancy that they are surrendering to proven evidence. What would you have them do? They are not entertained with mere stories and epigrams, they are not made the objects of jests or hoaxes; the facts submitted to them are palpable. So much the worse for Christian beliefs if these facts annihilate them! Can the laws of science be denounced as forgeries? Is not science truth?

Such are modern tactics; neither mockery nor impatience, and great apparent impartiality; it is no longer a skirmish, a sudden attack, but a siege in accordance with all the rules of war; the citadel is surrounded, the enemy advances, with the authority and under the protection of science. This is not all. The experience of the past century has suggested other precautionary measures, other strategic movements. It is now recognized that our poor human nature has not made sufficient progress, not even in France, to feel happy and proud because of a belief in absolutely nothing. This is a weakness for which time will work a cure, but one which must be taken into due consideration. For instance, can it be brought about that most women's hearts will not yield to the necessity of praying and believing? Does not man himself, when bowed down by great affliction, feel that a woman's heart is being born and awakening within him? When death separates him from those he loves, when he survives and suffers, can it be that he will not seek, with eyes upturned to heaven, a little strength in hope? These inclinations and instincts may seem strange and absurd, if you will; but they are indestructible, and to think of doing away with them is a sheer loss of time. This is known in our age, and the skilful profit by their knowledge. To make havoc for a second time, to tear down the altars, and persecute the priests, would be to enact the parts and do the work of dupes! Such a course would prepare an inevitable reaction, and a certain resurrection of all it was proposed to destroy. There are none but a few madmen, a few lost children who would resort to such superannuated measures. {368} Instead of attacking openly the need for belief, better to conquer it by flattery and the tender of fascinating compromises. Why these onslaughts on Christianity? Why overtly batter its walls? To please the libertines? Is it not quite certain that they will side with the antichristians? It is urgent to please the simple-hearted Christians only.

Instead of exhibiting the slightest after-thought of opposition to Christianity, better to dwell upon its beauties, to draw an admirable portrait of its Founder, to recognize him as the model of all the virtues, as the type of all perfection, to speak of him in impassioned and eloquent tones, and in exchange for these gentle concessions to ask--what? A trifling sacrifice, a modest _erratum_ to the text of the Evangels, a simple change of the value of a word, or rather the politic and reasonable yielding up of a valueless title, a worn-out parchment, a purely nominal letter of nobility, the so-called divinity of that admirable man? Why cling to that fiction? Renounce it, and we shall all be agreed. Reason will have nothing more to say on the subject. With yourselves we will do homage to that wonderful mortal, and, if you will, call him divine without attaching too much importance to the condescension. We will overlook the epithet if you concede us the dogma.

Thus, with skill and a certain commingling of philosophic scepticism, mystic reveries, and a feigned zeal for Christian ideas, men hope nowadays to undermine Christianity. The plan of action is by no means novel. In that very year during which Constantine, by his omnipotence, seemed to have ensured the peace and security of the church, in that very year one single man, with a few words, threw the church into far greater perils than were indicated by the lictors and executioners of its fiercest persecutors. He, too, pretended he only waged war against Jesus Christ out of love for his doctrine, and despoiled him of his divinity to guarantee his triumph, propagate his blessings, and, while rendering faith less difficult to acquire, to satisfy reason. The compromise was the same as that which is now put forward. And such is the power of these enervating doctrines that, even in the days when faith was still young and full of life, the world fell a victim to the deception. Scarcely half a century had gone by since the death of Arius and the contagion had extended throughout the Orient, spread over a part of the west, and reached, beyond the limits of the Roman empire of old, all the recently converted barbarian nations. Look back to that hour of crisis when the destiny of the world was at stake; seek to guess what was to happen. After a consultation of human laws, after a calculation of probabilities, did not Christianity appear doomed? Its adversary had won for himself Constantine's favor, the ardent adhesion of the emperor's son, the support of all the forces of the empire, all the powers that still governed the world. To preserve faith, to save from shipwreck the divinity of Jesus Christ, a miracle, a new revelation, another preaching of St. Paul were needed. The miracle was performed; what a man had done a man undid; Athanasius conquered Arius. But Christianity had, nevertheless, seemed about to perish, and modern Arianism can well flatter itself that it will now have better fortune, and that an Athanasius, a Basil, a Gregory, or a Jerome will not ever be at hand to crush its arguments and conquer the world for the benefit of truth. Its threats, its sinister predictions are not, then, mere boasts; the danger is genuine; modern heresy has auxiliary aids that double its might. {369} It no longer stands in the arena, face to face with orthodoxy, and uses purely theological weapons; the struggle is general; everybody participates in it; all weapons are effective. A formidable coalition attacks faith most persistently; the natural sciences when half understood, the metaphysical sciences conducted with pride, historic criticism skilfully romanticized, are forces that unite for the benefit of the new Arianism. Can it not be readily seen that the league is far more powerful and inflicts more serious wounds than the ironical frivolities brought into play in the last century? The progress made is not only evidenced in the tactics and armament; the ground of the struggle itself has changed, to the enemy's advantage. From a Christian stand-point, it may be said that Christianity is now dismantled. Of all the places of shelter, of all the positions which belonged to Christianity a hundred years ago, in the state, in the institutions and customs, of all the means of credit, influence, and legitimate resistance won for it by a right of ages, and of which its adversaries, while deriding its belief, had no thought of robbing it, nothing remains. The levelling power of the times has passed over them. The attack must now be withstood in an open field. If under such circumstances and in presence of such perils Christians opened not their eyes, if an instinct of self-preservation did not induce them to come to an understanding upon the essential points of their faith, if they sought to oppose so many joint efforts while divided and disagreeing, we say, without hyperbole, that we would have to bow our heads and consider this world at an end, and civilization, despite its apparent triumphs and proud hopes, stricken to the heart and menaced with a prompt decline. But have we reached that point? No, a hundred times no, if our will be against it, and if we understand the magnitude of the danger, its real novelty, and the novelty and youth needed to conquer it.

And at the outset let there be no misunderstanding between Christians. Do not believe that Catholicism is alone involved, and the sole excitant of anger and object of the warfare. It is Christianity itself, Christian faith in its entirety, and in every shape, that it is intended to annihilate. Any Protestant sect that accepts the Evangels, without reserve or restrictions, is at least as open to suspicion as pure Catholicism. Tolerance and amnesty are withheld, save from that Christianity which believes not in Jesus Christ, and in which certain pastors, from evangelical pulpits, now profess a belief. Enlightened and sincere Protestants entertain no longer any doubts on that point. They have progressed since the sixteenth century: without being less zealous or less ardent in their belief, they no longer proclaim that Antichrist and the Catholic Church are one and the same thing. In our age the Antichrist is the common foe; if you would resist its onslaughts, close up the ranks; this is no time for discord among brethren. The Protestants who are friendly to the Evangels, however numerous they may be in certain states of Europe, know what they lack as regards cohesion and unity; they feel that that powerful church so persistently attacked nowadays, will ever be the true rampart. While all the blows dealt fall upon her, they breathe freely, for she protects them; if her walls were overthrown, they would be left defenceless. {370} Hence arises among the more farseeing that solicitude which is felt for all Christian interests without distinction, and that defensive alliance which seems to be suggested in the minds of those whose convictions as to the essence of things are identical. Unfortunately, this wholly modern blessing, one of the few conquests which, in the moral order of affairs, might do honor to our age, is not yet very widely disseminated. Even in the opinion of the persons who are horror-stricken at the antichristian coalition, the idea of helping each other, of forming an alliance, of postponing intestine strife and lending a helping hand to each other, wakes but little headway. Habit, prejudices, and a sectarian spirit are so powerful! If some men cast off their yoke, if a chosen few who see events from a higher stand-point take delight in putting into practice these tolerant ideas, do the masses follow an their footsteps? and do the chosen few themselves always set generous examples only? If it were only among Catholics that the tendency to exclusion, the aversion to schism carried to a forgetfulness of the actual interests of faith, were observable, many persons would confess that they were less surprised than grieved; for excuse can ever be found for the Catholic, in whose defence it can be argued that, if he went too far in that direction, it was because he may have believed that, by holding aloof and avoiding the contact of error, he exhibited his obedience and rendered himself more acceptable unto God! But for the Protestant, what apology can be offered? He who asserts so boldly his right to believe what he thinks cannot take offence because his neighbor does likewise. The same intolerance that, in the one case saddens us without causing astonishment, shocks us in the other. Can you understand how it is that an educated, an erudite Protestant, good-hearted, endowed with sound sense, glorying in generous principles, and carrying to very energy his love and respect for right, as soon as it is suggested that he concede to Catholics that which he believes to be just and true for all humanity, the privilege to worship with the liberty and the surroundings their mode of worship requires, cries out in dismay, appeals to brute force, admits unhesitatingly that it decides all similar questions, and sanctions and renders legitimate in advance all sentences which maybe passed? Though his views are sensible on all other points, on this subject they are devoid of reason, and the man speaks of the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century as an inquisitor of the sixteenth would have spoken of heresy! What a strange spectacle, and how humiliating a lesson! Does there exist a more overwhelming proof of the poverty of our intellect?

Yet the part to be taken by a modern Protestant, who would serve Christianity and combat its true enemies, is a glorious one! All things unite to give him influence; everything is in readiness to bestow upon his words an increase, as it were, of authority. He would ignore and forget all petty passions and jealousy. He would seek to bring about the triumph of the divine word, to demonstrate its eternal truth, its transmission through centuries. Why attempt to wrest from the Catholic Church the rights to which she lays claim? Why beset her with invidious questions and excite captious quarrels? Instead of giving vitality to these endless suits, would it not be better to seek to ascertain on what points an agreement subsists, what dogmas have escaped all controversy and survived all strife? He would become attached to these same dogmas; in his eyes they would be the heart, the basis of a Christianity of peace and concord, which no true Christian can avoid defending, since necessarily he must profess allegiance to its doctrines. {371} Because there was alarm for the existence of the Reformation three centuries ago, because the Reformation was the spur which, to save faith, was to rouse the church from slumber, does it follow that now, the times having changed, actions should be the same? Must it be that, to preserve in the present that same Christian faith, a Christian, because he chances to be a Protestant, must espouse his fathers' hates, fight only against the men and ideas with which they strove, and remain idle when beholding the outbreak of the conflagration which threatens Christianity, for the sole reason that Catholicism appears to be especially imperilled by the flames? Let him repudiate that absurd inheritance, let him break with such routine views. Not only must he abstain from attacking, even indirectly, the Catholic Church, and feel no bitterness toward her, for the simple reason that he undertakes a campaign in cooperation with her, and because we must not fire upon one's allies; he owes her still more, more than respect, more than mere courtesies; he must do her full justice. His duty be it to give prominence with frankness and loyalty to the great features, the beauties, the splendor of the traditions from which he stands apart. Strictures and reservations will be mingled with his praises; better still, for his testimony will be all the more valuable. Whether he recall the services rendered or refute vigorously all calumny, by telling the unalloyed truth, even if it be attenuated, he will do more for Catholicism than a professional panegyrist.

This is not all: to keep the false philosopher spirit at bay, no position could be better than that which he holds. He has not to struggle against the antipathy engendered by a supposed obedience to the principle of authority; and when he confesses unreservedly his belief in supernatural facts, his words are fraught with far more importance than if he who uttered them were not trammelled in the matter of free investigation. How different, too, the case when to this superiority are added personal advantages, when the Protestant is a man of powerful mind, accustomed to deal with the most weighty matters, and retaining, in the autumn of life, besides the treasures garnered by experience and learning, the fecund ardor of youth. This explains the characteristic trait of M. Guizot's _Meditations_; it is not a religious work like so many others. The best priests, the most eloquent preachers, the profoundest theologians are afflicted with a disability for which there is no remedy; they are professional defenders of religion; the truths they affirm seem to constitute their patrimony, and, while pleading the holiest of suits, they seem to argue in their own behalf; while a historian, a philosopher, a statesman, and, above all, a free and independent mind, who, after ripe examination and prolonged reflection, and not without a struggle and an effort, has become a Christian, and who proves in broad daylight that neither his intellect nor his reasoning powers have suffered in the least, and that the thinker and Christian live within him in perfect concord, by his testimony gives courage to many men, dispels many doubts, and inspires the faltering with firmness; his example is the best of sermons and the most reliable mode of propagating faith.

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Be assured, nevertheless, that remarks of disapproval will be heard amid the kindly greetings. There will be opposition manifested from the very first, and principally by the reformed worshippers. The broad views and extreme tolerance of the author will not be acceptable to all. The writer will be told, You forsake us; you are a Catholic in spirit and intention, why not be wholly a Catholic? A poor quarrel, indeed, a singular fashion of returning thanks for the most faithful devotedness and the most signal services! In the matter of ingratitude, the sectarian spirit stands in the foremost rank. There is, therefore, no cause for surprise that the Protestants of Paris, when occasionally gathered about the ballot-box, should not always care to express to M. Guizot, by a unanimous vote, their just and respectful pride at numbering him among their forces. But then, let us not forget that, if in the opinion of a few Protestants these _Meditations_ are a trifle too Catholic, certain Catholics would have them still less Protestant. We do not assert that the Catholics, even the most exclusive, are not at heart filled with esteem and gratitude for a work of such evident usefulness to the cause of Christianity; the esteem and gratitude exhibited are, however, wrested from them. They praise aloud the intentions and courage of the author; as for the work itself, they do not restrict themselves to prudently leaving in obscurity the points in discussion, but involuntarily allow inopportune objections to arise. We venture to state that in doing this they do not appreciate the circumstances surrounding us, and the greatness of the need of alliance and concord forced upon Christianity by the formidable war waged against it. That in ordinary times, when the only struggle in progress concerns the form and not the foundation of things, believers should resolve only to accept and extol the productions resonant with the pure and faithful echo of their faith, nothing can be better; in such times each citizen of the Christian republic may be permitted to be watchful of the interests of his province rather than of those of his country; but, when an invasion is imminent, other emergencies are to be looked to: the common safety is the first law. Then is the time to welcome recruits, whoever they are, provided their reinforcement will be productive of good results. Do not deceive yourselves; the Christian community, even if united and agreed on all points, will only just be equal to the task: for its members must not only repel the assailants a merely defensive attitude would be equivalent to a partial defeat but must advance and invade, and subjugate souls. The world is to be reconquered, and a more giddy, frivolous, and somniferous world, perhaps, than the world of nineteen centuries ago. Again, we say that we have not to be alarmed at the antichristian war. Its horde of systems, its dreams and chimeras, its wily contrivances and philosophic disorder do not frighten us. The spectacle is a sad one, but it is not a state of slumber. Upon feverish activity you can bring to bear a healthful action; your very adversaries favor your cause and deaden the weight of the blows they would deal you. What timidity underlies their audacity! How they retreat before the most direct and inevitable consequences of their doctrines! How they complain of misrepresentation when shown a mirror reflecting the deformity of their doctrines! Let them continue to speak and write, they but call forth overwhelming replies; let them alter history and the Scriptures, for they but alter their own authority and credentials: they fall into the pit themselves have digged. {373} All things that agitate and startle men's minds, and awaken even in irritating them, aid the triumph of truth; indifference, torpor, the numbness of souls only are profitable to error, and constitute the true malady of the age. Let us not seek to conceal it, its ravages are too plainly discernible. While impiety, properly speaking, despite its apparent progress and the brazen boasts of its cynicism, makes but few proselytes in our midst, indifference increases, extends, and becomes acclimatized. It is a contagion; whosoever is affected leads a mere earthly life, and is engrossed by nothing save mundane cares, business, and pleasure; the great problems of our destiny, the wondrous mysteries constituting our torment and our honor, exist not for him; he only recognizes and cultivates his coarse and frivolous instincts; the divine portion of his being is in a state of utter lethargy. Here and there, among the indifferent, you meet a few agitated hearts and perplexed spirits. Perplexity is to indifference as twilight to darkness, an uncertain light that struggles with the gloom, sometimes conquering and sometimes conquered. Nothing can be less decisive than a victory won over such a spirit. The escape of perplexed minds is effected as quickly as was accomplished their capture. Never mind; would to God that even such a condition of souls were the greater evil! It is toward indifference, that is to say, toward nothingness and death, that all things incline our footsteps.

Inquiry was made, a short time since, as to the present condition of Christianity in France. Number those who occupy the two hostile camps in which a remnant of life still asserts itself, in one camp for the purpose of attacking, in the other for the purpose of defending, Christian faith; then, beyond the limits of the two, behold, what remains? There, are gathered crowds unnumbered, inert, inanimate, forming, as it were, a great desert, a Dead Sea uninhabited by any living thing. There lies the world to be reconquered; such are the men who are to be reclaimed. How act upon them? how move their hearts? how gain mastery over them? In these questions lies the secret of the future.

Seek, then, and try to ascertain the most reliable means of acting upon these thoughtless mortals. Is the work to be accomplished by practices of high piety and by productions intended for the edification of skilled believers? Think you that at once you will change them into thoroughly faithful Christians? that you will instantly inspire them with a holy fervor? Only to speak the language of pure devoutness, to keep in unison with the utterances of the vestry-room, is to waste time. Climb the heights, display the brilliancy of those universal truths in whose presence every being gifted with reason and accessible to reflection feels compelled to bend the knee. It is by exhibiting in all their grandeur, in all their primitive beauty, the bases of our faith, that souls can be attracted to seek them for shelter. The work to which we allude excels in this respect. M. Guizot's _Meditations_ throw light upon the mysterious summits which, in the eyes of the torpid, appear overhung by thick and impenetrable fogs. They give these men a desire to examine them more closely. In a word, though the work may not satisfy simultaneously, in each communion, all who are possessed of a definite belief, it is endowed with a more precious virtue upon the excellence of which we can dwell the more conscientiously, as having viewed its effects: it moves the indifferent.

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More than this, however, must be done. However powerful in style and thought a book may be, it can only, in the present crisis, clear the road. To make greater headway, to effect a more decisive advance, to act upon the masses and rouse them from their slumber, other agencies than books are necessary, and deeds, examples, striking evidence, and incontestable proofs of abnegation, devotedness, charity, and sacrifices are required. These are the sermons that awaken souls; these the weapons that triumph over the world, however careless, frivolous, and hardened it may be. In days by-gone, they conquered the men who wore the Roman toga and the rough habits of the barbarians; in this century, they are still the only means of conquest.--What do we ask? What are we thinking of? Preaching by deeds! The apostleship of the early ages! Real apostles, heroic confessors, if needed, martyrs! In our times! Is it possible?--Why not? What contradiction and surprise but can be looked for nowadays? Is it not the destiny of the age to carry everything to extremes, to be zealous for evil and even for good, to be swayed in turn or simultaneously by all currents, and to subscribe to the most irreconcilable principles? Just because the world appears to have fallen almost to the lowest degree of depression, just because it sinks more deeply from day to day, there is a chance that a sublime and immediate reaction may occur. Was imperial Rome less corrupt, less effeminate, less docile while the avengers and restorers of human dignity, the future masters of the world, were at work beneath her foundations? Be reassured, even in these days of doubt and egotism, a true and great resurrection of Christianity in France is not a Utopian vision. Not only is such a miracle possible, but we may declare it necessary.

Either we must suppose that we are nearing the last phase of the development of humanity; that the now commencing decadence will be the last; that, unlike so many declines that have preceded it, this latest decline will have no place of stoppage, no new birth; that an unbroken slope is leading irresistibly to the ruin and debasement of our race, or we must without delay find means of restituting to the masses religious faith. What has democracy gained by triumphing and being about to become the sovereign mistress of the whole world, if it cannot maintain and hold sway over its conquest simply because it cannot rule and govern itself? Democracy, without the brake of religion, without other protection than that afforded by independent morality, is a swollen torrent, anarchy, despotism, and a return to barbarism. But when the brake is old and shattered, how replace it? No one can create a religious faith, it were folly to attempt it. Such chimerically created things could never be aught but impotent parodies. But why seek so far that which is near at hand? The new faith whose advent is awaited, and hoped, and called for with such eagerness is here; we possess it; it is Christianity itself, ever novel if we but know how to comprehend its eternal light, and if we know ourselves how to be novel. It is not the object of the belief that is to be remodelled, but the routine of believers. Christianity, in itself, is as youthful as at its birth; that which is superannuated is that which does not belong to it, that earthly rust with which it has been incrusted by its interpreters, its ministers, and its servants in all ages. Of this it must be rid; its original appearance and power must be restored. By what process? By using for its reestablishment the means which were formerly employed with success to lay its foundation. {375} The determination is a violent one, yet there must be no half measures; an attempt in any other direction would be illusory and vain. To proceed halfway, to spare abuses, flatter habit, and improve the surface of things only, would be to make Christianity one of those edifices which are kept standing by props and by cementing the cracks in the walls: it would be as well to let it totter and fall to the ground at once. To give it back true power, true stability, that it may defy the shocks of a long series of years, there is but one course to adopt: to begin the work anew.

Let the church, then, be courageous; let her begin again, even as she commenced, and with the same modesty and holiness; let her be chaste, austere, laborious, learned, intelligent, and free; without taste for honors, without care for wealth; lavish of her pains, her blood, and her tears; as independent toward the mighty as she is indulgent and tender for the weak. Let her advance, thus armed, step by step, approaching souls, and souls only, and the world will again be hers. There is no miscalculation to be feared, the same causes will have identical effects; but hasten, lose not an hour, the moment is a solemn one. Let the cry, "The church is beginning anew," be not a vain word, and let not its results be tardy. Think not of honoring God by raising to the heavens proud cupolas, and making for him a dwelling in palaces glittering with gold and marble; it is around the manger, in the grotto of Bethlehem, that the pastors should be convoked. Let all true Christians, all sons of the church, know and proclaim it: on them everything depends, through them all things are possible, upon them all things rest; in their hands lies not only the fate of their beloved and venerated belief, but the future of the civilized world.

Ritualism And Its True Meaning.

We have had the pleasure of reading an article on the subject of ritualism by the Rev. Dr. Dix, rector of Trinity church in this city. This article, which appeared in the July number of the _Galaxy_, suggested to our minds some very interesting and practical reflections. It is understood that the respected doctor who holds so important a position in his own church is one of the principal supporters of the movement in regard to which he writes. Although he does not yet introduce into Trinity church and its chapels the external observances of the ritualists which he commends, still it is his desire to do so at the first practicable moment. The weight of his character and influence is given to the restoration of those rites and ceremonies which were dropped at the Protestant Reformation through the undue force of Calvinism and what he calls religious radicalism. Whether he will succeed is a question which the ministers and influential laymen of his own church can better answer than we can. In examining his article carefully, we think there is a slight want of candor on one or two points, and some misunderstanding upon others. {376} For example, he disclaims the popular use of the word "ritualism," and says, "It has lost its respectability, and has become a slang expression. The unlucky word is bandied about till it must have lost all perception of its own identity. Hence, we respectfully decline the attempt to say what the word 'ritualism' means, as now lost and merged in the category of cant and slang." Now, as far as we are able to judge, we really believe that the majority of people call things by their right names, and that the public can have no end to gain by any other course. It may be that the Episcopalians are not forbearing enough toward those of their brethren who would innovate upon their established forms of worship; but they cannot be found fault with if they are surprised and offended at changes which are so radical. If they use harsh language in the controversy, they are not to be excused, for no good ever arises from acrimony, or the forgetfulness of the decencies of life. Yet can any honest man say that he does not know what they mean to attack, or that he cannot explain what "ritualism" is? The definition which the reverend doctor gives is hardly adequate, because it includes all mankind, since, according to his terms, there is no one who is not a ritualist. There is no necessity of proving that all religions have had their rites and ceremonies, for there is no one who will deny so well received a fact. We must take the word in its popular acceptation; and it simply refers to those who are now endeavoring to introduce great changes in the worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who are using vestments never known in their communion for at least three centuries, and who, in doctrine and outward observance, are approaching as nearly as possible the time-hallowed ceremonial of the Catholic Church. Whether they are in the right or in the wrong is another question; the name by which they are called may be appropriate or not, but it has a plain signification. Every one can understand it, and we do not see in it anything abusive or uncharitable.

After objecting to the term "ritualist," Dr. Dix proceeds to defend at some length the course of those who bear this name, and his view is easily summed up, and we hear it now for about the thousandth time in our life:

"The Christian dispensation is bounded, on the one side, by the magnificent ritualism of Israel, and, on the other, by the analogous and not less glowing ritualism of heaven. For fifteen hundred years (after Christ) there was no ritualistic controversy deserving the name. In general features, divine worship was the same throughout the world. But errors and abuses crept into the church, and these became symbolized in novel rites and practices, by which ritual became, in some respects, defiled and corrupted. Then came the Reformation in the sixteenth century. That movement did not affect the Eastern portions of Christendom; in Greece and Russia the old traditions may be traced, although under a load of useless ceremonies, back to the commencement of the Christian era. ... Looking about the world, we see, in the Eastern part of Christendom, an ancient ritual in use, very ornate, very symbolical, and full of reminiscences of the old church of Israel; the mitre, the iconastasis, the veil, the lamps, the incense, are direct heirlooms from that venerable past. In the West, the Roman Catholic Christians exhibit in their ritual a system essentially modified by later ideas, and expressing the dogmas which by degrees have accumulated around their once pure creed."

Here the reverend doctor seems to labor under a strange misunderstanding, and evidently has taken no pains to examine for himself the oriental liturgies. There is no substantial difference whatever between the liturgies of the East and those of the West. All contain the same essential parts, and are probably of apostolic origin. {377} Whatever corruption belongs to the Roman rite, in the Protestant sense of the term, belongs likewise to the Eastern rites. As for the ceremonies now in use in regard to the sacraments and popular devotions, there may be some difference, but it is in favor of the West, even from the Protestant point of view. The Eastern churches pay as much honor to the Blessed Mother of God and to the saints as we do, and in their expressions are fully as fervent. The attempt, therefore, to make a distinction between the East and West, as if the oriental churches were more in sympathy with the reformed doctrines than the Catholic Church, is singularly futile, because not supported by the least shadow of fact. Besides, as we shall see in this article, the ritualists draw all their own rites and ceremonies from us, and recommend for the use of their own church the very words of the Roman Missal. If in their view we had become so corrupt, why have they taken for themselves the ritual which the doctor says is essentially modified by later ideas? We are convinced that the assertions we have quoted will never stand the test of examination or of honest common sense.

Again, Dr. Dix says that there was a perceptible variance of opinion between the English reformers and the Lutheran and Calvinistic communities. To use his own words: "The movement of the Reformation in England was in the most cautiously conservative channel. What they aimed at was, to retain all that was truly Catholic, and to reject only what was distinctively Roman." We do not believe that these assertions can be made good by the most ingenious interpretation of history. The English leaders of the reform were certainly in close connection with the continental teachers, and drew their inspiration from them. That in England more of the exterior of the ancient church was retained was, we think, owing to the pertinacity of the court, more than to the conservative views of Cranmer and his co-laborers. Henry VIII. was inexorable on many points during his singularly _exemplary_ life. Edward VI. was pliant enough, but the church and parliament were not sufficiently advanced to follow all lengths in the wake of Luther and Calvin; and the truth, is that the English Church had nothing to do with the Reformation but to bear it, and by it to lose all its liberties. It is a patent fact that the voice of convocation, the only one which could speak for the ecclesiastical body, was hushed by Henry VIII., and that the reform was carried on by the king and his parliament. If the first prayer-book of Edward VI. was so perfect, why did not the "cautiously conservative" movement stop with "that most perfect specimen of a _reformed_ Catholic liturgy"? why are the poor Calvinists to be blamed for following their own consciences, and for asking for a revision of the liturgy? That they were successful is a proof, at least, that they had great influence in the English Church, and that the Reformation was not so cautiously conservative.

As for the Protestant Episcopal Church, the doctor tells us that it is in an inchoate state, where all its component elements are in fusion. "Only eighty-two years have elapsed since the first American bishop was consecrated; these years have been _formative_; usages and customs have been undergoing continual changes, and men have been feeling their way, under circumstances in which, since the time of Constantine, no national _branch_ of the Catholic Church has been placed." Is this really the case? Have Episcopalians no settled forms of worship, and no fixed creed? {378} We always were led to suppose that that conservative body of Christians were decidedly fixed in their hostility of heart to Romanism, and what may be called extreme Protestantism. Is it not so? Is the Book of Common Prayer no established rule for the order of divine worship? Are the Thirty-nine Articles, to which every minister effectually subscribes, no rule of faith whatever? Are all Episcopalians feeling their way to something settled in faith and worship? If such is the case, we have been strangely misinformed, and have singularly misinterpreted the decisions of bishops and conventions. The Episcopalian clergy and laity can settle this matter better than we can, and therefore we leave its solution to them. But, to Catholic eyes, these "formative years" seem only like the constant changes which are ever passing over all Protestant bodies, and which inhere in every merely human organization. And we must say that, as far as we know, though the faith of Episcopalians may differ very much, their external worship is plainly enough fixed by rubrics and canons whose meaning can hardly be misunderstood. We pay the highest tribute of respect to Rev. Dr. Dix and his friends, and we give thanks to God for the light and grace he has given them; but truth obliges us to say that their whole movement (if it be sincere, as we are bound to believe) is away from their own church with its rites and ceremonies, and toward the old faith and the old home of Christians. May the divine mercy perfect that which has been begun, and which gives such promise of conversion to the truth. We deeply sympathize with the ritualists, and pray for them continually, that they may not falter on the path they have begun to tread, that they may persevere amid all discouragements and temptations until they reach their Father's house, where the light of faith shines without a shadow.

Having made these preliminary remarks, we proceed to the object of this short essay, and shall endeavor to make manifest what ritualism is and what is its true meaning. We believe it to be a most important movement, which by God's grace will lead many souls to the full possession of the truth. We consider it as simply an honest and sincere attempt to introduce into the English Church and the Protestant Episcopal Church, the most essential doctrines of the Catholic religion, and to restore the worship which passed away at the Reformation with the rejection of the ancient faith. It does not seem to us that any candid person can long be a ritualist without becoming Catholic. Our purpose is, then, to make this evident to the public by the simple presentation of facts. It will be very interesting both to Catholics and Protestants to know the real doctrine and practices of the upholders of one of the most striking movements of our day. We will, for the sake of order and clearness, speak in detail of the sacrifice of the Mass and the blessed Eucharist, of auricular confession, of other sacramental observances, and of religious communities. Before proceeding to these subjects, however, we reproduce and affirm the five points of Rev. Dr. Dix, which we shall have in view as fixed principles:

"First. There must be ritual of some kind where there is religion.

"Second. There is the clearest argument from Holy Scripture and ecclesiastical history in favor of a beautiful and impressive ritualism, as a powerful agency on men for their good.

"Third. Such ritualism must be a teacher; it must symbolize something, and express as forcibly as possible what it symbolizes; a ritualism without a meaning, and representing no truth which the intellect can grasp, is but a piece of trifling and a sham.

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"Fourth. Ritual must teach truth, pure and unadulterated truth; God's truth, which he has revealed to man.

"Fifth. People should try to discuss the subject with calmness. They should not look at it in a party light; they had better keep clear of the agitators, whose aim it is to excite vague fears, and affright the uninstructed with awful disclosures of conspiracy against the simplicity of their faith and the purity of their worship; and especially should they remember that there is superstition in defect as well as in excess."

1. Ritualists are believers in the sacrifice of the Mass and the real presence of our Lord in the holy Eucharist. The Communion service, instead, therefore, of being simply an affecting memorial of Christ's death, is transformed into a true and proper sacrifice, in which he is really present under the forms of bread and wine, and is offered for the living and the dead. The adaptation of the old forms of the prayer-book to a view so Catholic as this requires many alterations in rubrics and in the introduction of new matter. We shall quote from a book called the _Notitia Liturgica_, which is the received order of service, and contains, according to its title, "brief directions for the administration of the sacraments, and the celebration of the divine service according to the present use of the Church of England." The introductory note explains that the book was drawn up "in order to provide the clergy, sacristans, and others with a small pocket-manual, by which such accuracy, care, and reverence may be attained by those ministering at, or serving the altar, as has been so constantly recommended by such eminent standard divines of our national church, as the _Venerable Bede_, Archbishop Peckham, Bishop Wainflete, _Cardinal Pole_, Bishop Cosin, and Archbishop Laud." The _Directorium Anglicanum_ contains more ample directions; but the present work, being briefer, is more suited for our purpose at this moment. It commences with the remark that, "in the interpretations of the Book of Common Prayer, the following cardinal maxim should never be lost sight of, namely, that what was not legally and formally abandoned at the Reformation by express law is now in full force, and should be carefully, judiciously, and firmly restored. This key unlocks many difficulties which would be otherwise both theoretically and practically insurmountable." Then follow the directions for the building and dressing of the altar, and for a "Low and High Celebration." We cannot do better than give them at length:

"The greatest care should be invariably bestowed upon the altar of the church. It should be well raised, of proper proportions, and of costly materials. In size it should never be less than seven feet long, and three feet and a half in height. It should always be raised on a substantial and solid platform of at least three steps. Behind it there should be a reredos of wood or stone, either carved or decorated, or else a hanging of cloth, velvet, satin, damask, or embroidery. Green is the best color for a hanging--unless the church is dedicated in honor of Our Lady, when blue may be used--which can be changed on high festivals for white. The carpet upon the sanctuary floor should invariably be green, as it is a good contrast to the altar vestments. The altar vestments should fit accurately, and not be allowed to hang loosely. On a shelf or ledge behind the altar--sometimes called a retable, and sometimes, but inaccurately, a super-altar--should be placed a metal cross or crucifix; or a painting of the crucifixion should be fixed over the centre of the altar, against the east wall. At least two large and handsome candlesticks for the Eucharistic celebration should be placed one on either side of the cross. Other branch candlesticks for tapers may be affixed to the east wall on each side of the altar, and standards for the same may be added on festivals. Flower vases may be also used for the adornment of the retable of the altar, and pots of flowers and shrubs for the sanctuary floor, which should be carefully but closely grouped against the north and south ends of the altar.

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"The following order should be observed both in the use of the vestments of the clergy and of the altar:

"_White_.--From the evening of Christmas Eve to the Octave of Epiphany inclusive, (except on the two feasts of St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents;) at the celebration on Maunday Thursday, and on Easter Eve, from the evening of Easter Eve to the Vigil of Pentecost, on Trinity Sunday, on _Corpus Christi Day_ and its Octave, on the feasts of the Purification, Conversion of St. Paul, Annunciation, St. John Baptist, St. Michael, All Saints, on all feasts of Our Lady, and of Saints and Virgins, not Martyrs, at weddings, and on the Anniversary Feast of the dedication of the church.

"_Red_. Vigil of Pentecost to the next Saturday, Holy Innocents, (if on a Sunday,) and all other feasts.

"_Violet_. From Septuagesima Sunday to Easter Eve, from Advent to Christmas Eve, Ember week in September, all vigils that are fasted, Holy Innocents, (unless on Sunday.)

"_Black_. Good Friday and funerals.

"_Green_. All ferial days.

"PLAIN DIRECTIONS FOR A LOW CELEBRATION.

(BY A PRIEST WITH ONE SERVER.)

_Vestments for the Celebrant_--Cassock, amice, alb, and girdle, with maniple, stole, and chasuble, of the color of the day.

_Vestments for the Server_--Cassock and surplice.

"The altar candles being lighted, and the cruets of wine and water being on their stand upon the credence, as well as the altar breads, basin, and towel, the priest, bearing the sacred vessels, duly arranged and covered, preceded by the server, proceeds from the sacristy to the altar.

"Having bowed to the cross, and then spread the corporal and placed the chalice on the centre of the altar, he steps back to the foot of the altar, and begins by saying privately: '+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.'

"He then recites Psalm xliii., (which should be learned by heart.)

"Then, going up to the altar, according to the Rubric, he says the 'Our Father' and collect at the 'north side' or gospel corner; after which, turning to the people, and standing in the middle of the altar, he recites the Ten Commandments, the server making the appointed responses.

"Then he turns to the gospel corner, as the Rubric directs, and says the prayer for the Queen, and the collect for the day.

"Then the server moves the book-rest to the epistle corner, where the priest reads the epistle; and then the server replaces it, as before, at the gospel corner, where the priest reads the gospel, at the commencement of which all present cross themselves on the forehead, mouth, and breast.

"Custom sanctions the responses, _'Glory be to Thee, O Lord,'_ and _'Praise be to Thee, O Christ,'_ before and after the Gospel: both of which are said by the server.

"The creed is said by the priest _junctis manibus_ in the middle of the altar facing the cross. The server, therefore, should move the book toward the priest. From the words _'and was incarnate'_ to _'was made man,'_ the celebrant bows profoundly; and at the words _'life everlasting'_ makes the sign of the cross on his breast.

"The offertory sentence is read in the same position. The alms (if any) are presented standing. At the offering of the bread, the priest should use privately the following prayer from the Salisbury Missal:

"_'Suscipe, Sancta Trinitas, hanc oblationem quam ego indignus offero in honore tuo et Beatae Mariae, et omnium sanctorum tuorum, pro peccatis et offensionibus meis; pro salute vivorum et requie omnium fidelium defunctorum. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.'_

"And at the offering of the chalice:

"_Offerimus tibi, Domine, calicem salutaris, tuam deprecantes clementiam, ut in conspectu divina majestatis tuae, pro nostra et totius mundi salute, cum odore suavitatis ascendat. Amen._'

"Here the server should bring from the credence-ewer, water, and towel for the priest to wash his hands. During this symbolical ceremony, the celebrant will say Psalm xxvi., which may be learnt by heart.

"At the _'Ye that do truly,'_ which should also be learnt by heart, and said without the service-book, the priest turns to the people, still standing in the midst of the altar.

"The server, or 'minister,' as the Rubric terms him, says the confession in the name of the people, the priest standing facing eastward. At its conclusion, he turns round _junctis manibus_, and gives the absolution, which should also be said without the book, making the sign of the cross with his right hand at the words, _'pardon and deliver you,'_ etc.

"The _'Comfortable Words'_ are said in the same position.

"The preface, _'Lift up your hearts,'_ with its response, is said with hands extended and eyes uplifted. At the words, _'Let us give thanks,'_ etc., the priest joins his hands, and at _'It is very meet, right,'_ etc., he turns to the altar, bending down at the words, _'Holy, holy, holy.'_

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"The celebrant kneels in the midst of the altar at the prayer of humble access, _'We do not presume.'_

"In the prayer of consecration, the priest reverently genuflects after the consecration of the bread, to worship Jesus Christ, truly present under a sacramental veil, and again after the consecration of the chalice.

"Here the following extract from the ancient Sarum Canon, to be said privately, may, according to the suggestion of Bishop Wilson, be profitably introduced:

"_'Unde et me mores, Domine nos servi tui, sed et plebs tua sancta, ejusdem Christi Filii tui Domini Dei nostri tam beatae Passionis, necnon et ab inferis Resurrectionis, sed et in caelos gloriosae Ascensionis, offerimus praeclarae Majestati tuae de tuis donis ac datis Hostiam + puram, Hostiam sanctam + Hostiam, + immaculatam: Panem sanctum + vitae aeternae, et + caliccem salutis perpetuae._

_"'Supra qua propitio ac sereno vultu respicere digneris: et accepta habere, siculi accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui justi Abel, et sacrificium patriarchs nostri Abrahae: et quod tibi obtulit summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech, sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam Hostiam._

_"'Supplices te rogamus omnipotens Deus; jube hac perferri per manus sancti angeli tui in sublime altre tuum, in conspectu Divinae Majestatis Tua: et quotquot ex hac altaris participatione, sacrosanctum Filii tui, + Corpus et + Sanguinem sumpserimus: omni + benedictione coelesti et gratia repleamur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen._

_"'Memento etiam, Domine animarum famulorum famularumque tuarum (N. et N.) qui nos praecesserunt cum signo fidei, et dormiunt in somno pacis. Ipsis Domine et omnibus in Christo quiescentibus, locum refrigerii, lucis et pacis, ut indulgeas, deprecamur. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen._

_"'Nobis quoque peccatoribus famulis tuis de multitudine miserationum tuarum sperantibus, partem aliquam et societatem donare digneris cum tuis sanctis apostolis et martyribus; cum Joanne, Stephano, Matthia, Barnaba, Ignatio, Alexandro, Marcellino, Petro, Felicitate, Perpetua, Agatha. Lucia, Agnete, Caecilia, Anastasia, et cum omnibus sanctis tuis: intra quorum nos consortium, non estimator meriti, sed veniae, quaesumus, largitor admitte. Per Christum Dominum nostrum._

_"'Per quem hac omnia Domine, semper bona creas, + sanctificas, + vivaficas, + benedicis, et praestas nobis. Per + ipsum et cum + ipso in + ipso est tibi Deo Patri + Omnipotenti, in unitate Spiritus Sancti omnis honor et gloria. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.'_

[Transcriber's note: Some of these words are illegible and are guesses. The plus sign (+) indicates the sign of the cross is to be made.]

"The priest communicates himself standing. Genuflecting before receiving our Lord's Body, he may say:

_"'Ave in aeternum sanctissima Caro Christi; mihi ante omnia et super omnia summa dulcede. Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi sit mihi peccatori via et vita + In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.'_

"Genuflecting before receiving Christ's Most Precious Blood:

_"'Ave in aeternum Caelestis Potus, mihi ante omnis et super omnia summa dulcedo. Corpus et Sanguis Domini nostri Jesu Christi prosint mihi peccatori ad remedium sempiternum in vitam aeternam. Amen. + In nomine Patris,' etc._

"After all have communicated, the contents of the paten may be carefully placed into the chalice, the paten placed on the chalice, and the veil put over it.

"The _'Our Father'_ and the following prayer are said with hands extended, in the centre of the altar, facing eastward, as also the intonation of the _'Gloria in Excelsis.'_ At the words, _'we worship thee,'_ the celebrant will bow profoundly; at the words, _'To the glory of God the Father,'_ he signs himself with the sign of the cross.

"In giving the benediction, in which the sign of the cross should always be made with the right hand, care should be taken by the priest not to turn his back upon the blessed sacrament. The server will here kneel in the centre of the lower step.

"Immediately after this--before the priest uses any private devotions whatsoever and before the people attempt to go away-- the consecrated species should be reverently consumed; and the ablutions (1) of wine, (2) of wine and water mixed, and (3) of water alone should be given to the priest by the server.

"The greatest possible care should be taken that no single particle remains on the paten; and it is always better that the priest himself should consume all that remains of both kinds. The officials of the church and members of the choir should be expressly taught never to rise from their knees until the ablutions have been taken and the priest is about to leave the altar.

"After the cleansing of the vessels, the corporal, purificator, chalice-cover, etc., should be carefully put in their places; and then, bowing to the cross, the priest should return to the sacristy, preceded by the server, and say, according to the Sarum rite, St. John's Gospel, cap. i. 1-14.

"The priest, having taken off his vestments, says his thanksgiving.

PLAIN DIRECTIONS FOR A HIGH CELEBRATION.

(BY A PRIEST WITH DEACON AND SUB-DEACON.)

_Vestments for the Celebrant_--Cassock, amice, alb, and girdle, with maniple, stole, and chasuble of the color of the day.

_Vestments for the Deacon_--Cassock, amice, alb, and girdle, with maniple, stole, and dalmatic of the color of the day.

_Vestments for the Sub-Deacon_--Cassock, amice, alb, and girdle, with maniple and tunicle of the color of the day.

_Vestments for the Acolytes_ Cassocks, (black on ordinary days, but purple or scarlet on great festivals,) with either short surplices, girded albs, or rochets.

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"The directions which have already been given in the case of a 'Low Celebration' are equally appropriate here, as far as regards the actual ceremonies of the Eucharist. Several additional points, however, need to be particularly insisted on:

"(_a_) The normal position of the deacon will be on the right hand side of the priest, standing on the first step from the footpace; and that of the sub-deacon on his left hand, standing on the second step.

"(_b_) Both deacon and sub-deacon stand when the celebrant stands, genuflect when he genuflects, and kneel when he kneels.

"(_c_) At the epistle, the deacon and subdeacon change places, the latter chanting the epistle on his own, the second step from the footpace, from a good-sized book, held by one of the acolytes on the epistle side, so that the sub-deacon may face the east.

"(_d_) At the gospel, the deacon chants the gospel from his step, near the gospel corner of the altar--the book of the Gospels being held by the sub-deacon, so that the deacon may face the north.

"(_e_) After the gospel, the celebrant, in the midst of the altar--with the deacon behind him on his own step, and the sub-deacon on his step, again behind the deacon--intones the first sentence of the Nicene Creed. When the choir take up the words, 'the Father Almighty,' the deacon and sub-deacon go up to the altar footpace, respectively to the right and left of the priest.

"(_f_) During the sermon, the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon occupy the sedilia, or seats placed for them on the south side of the sanctuary, facing the north.

"(_g_) At the offertory they return to the altar, and the sub-deacon brings the sacred vessels from the credence. The deacon, taking the corporal out of the burse, spreads the corporal, and arranges the sacred vessels. The chalice should be placed immediately behind the paten, in the centre of the corporal and of the altar.

"(_h_) The plate or box with the altar breads should be handed to the deacon by the sub-deacon, who will receive it from one of the acolytes, in order that the priest may be supplied with the elements required. The same will be observed as regards the cruets of wine and water, and also for the ceremony of washing the priest's fingers. The priest-celebrant should not leave his place at the altar, but should be carefully served by his assistant clergy and the acolytes.

"(_i_) The confession may be said in monotone, or with suitable inflections, by either the deacon or sub-deacon. During the preface and sanctus, the deacon and sub-deacon stand behind the priest, respectively a little to his right and left.

"(_k_) At the consecration, the deacon and sub-deacon, standing respectively at his right and left, will reverently genuflect when the priest genuflects, and bend themselves low during the communion of the celebrant.

"(_l_) At the _Gloria in Excelsis_, the celebrant--in the midst of the altar, with the deacon behind him on his own step, and the sub-deacon on his step, again behind the deacon--intones the first sentence. When the choir take up the words, 'And in earth peace,' the deacon and sub-deacon ascend to the altar footpace, respectively to the right and left of the priest.

"(_m_) After the _Gloria in Excelsis_, one, two, or three of the collects at the end of the communion service may be said--according to the number of the actual collects of the day--as a post-communion.

"(_n_) In giving the 'pax' and blessing, the celebrant should turn toward the people, being careful not to stand before the blessed sacrament, and, stretching out his arms during the first part of it--from the opening words to 'His Son Jesus Christ our Lord'--will kiss the pax which is presented to him by the deacon; and then, placing his left hand open on his breast, will raise his right hand and bless the people with the sacred sign of the cross.

"(_o_) The deacon and sub-deacon will immediately serve wine and water for the ablutions, and having rearranged the sacred vessels and their coverings, will place them on the credence, together with the pax and the service-book.

Such is the external rite recommended and practised as far as possible by the ritualists in what they do not hesitate to call the celebration of Mass. That it is conformed, as far as can be, to the Liturgy of the Catholic Church will be evident at first sight to any one acquainted with the Missal. The ceremonies and many of the integral parts are adopted without change from the Western rite, and not from the Eastern, which Dr. Dix thinks more pure. The vestments may be of the Greek pattern, but this is not a material matter. {383} The priest, having placed the chalice on the altar, steps back to the foot of the altar, and begins, according to the Catholic order, by making the sign of the cross, and saying the Psalm, "Judica me Deus." The epistle and gospel are read precisely as we read them; then the creed is said, "junctis manibus," in the middle of the altar, facing the cross. It is also said with the same reverences as our service prescribes, and ends with the sign of the cross. The offering of the bread is made in a Latin form, said to be taken from the Salisbury Missal. The oblation is made in the honor of the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Mary, for the salvation of the living and the rest of the faithful departed. At the offering of the chalice, the priest is directed to say the identical prayer used in our Liturgy. Then follows the washing of the hands, with the recitation of Psalm xxv., "Lavabo manus meas," as in the Catholic rite; and the extracts in Latin from our Missal are directed to be "written out, printed, or illuminated, and then framed and placed against the super-altar as altar cards." At the consecration, the priest reverently genuflects to worship Jesus Christ truly present, after which he is recommended to use privately the exact words of our canon in Latin. It seems that they coincide with the Sarum Canon, and that some years ago Bishop Wilson had the good thought to suggest their use. The remainder of the service will speak for itself; and we think any Episcopalian will find himself strangely puzzled should he undertake to follow with the rubrics of his Book of Common Prayer. He would, it seems to us, be as much at home in a Catholic church. The directions for a "high celebration" are all taken from our rubrics for a solemn Mass, with deacon and sub-deacon, and are conformed to them as much as possible. The saddest reflection which strikes us, is the thought that those who go through with such real and meaning ceremonies have no priestly character, and therefore no power to consecrate Christ's Body and Blood. Such is not only the verdict of the Catholic Church in regard to Anglican orders, but the opinion of every Eastern church which has retained the traditions of the apostolic succession. It is a fearful responsibility for any man to take, to make himself a priest on his own private judgment; for, after all, if the Catholic Church is good for rites and doctrines, she is good for everything.

So far the external observance of the ritualists is in favor of the sacrifice of the Mass, and the real presence of our Lord in the blessed Eucharist. We shall find that they do not hesitate to teach the doctrine which their ritual symbolizes, according to the principles of Dr. Dix. which exact that "ritual must teach truth, pure and unadulterated truth." We have before us several books which are recommended, and, as far as we have been able to learn, in constant use. The books for devotion before hearing Mass and receiving Holy Communion, such as _The Altar Book, The Little Sacrament Book, The Supper of the Lord,_ contain the plainest expressions of belief in the real and true corporeal presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament. We could quote many pages, but we shall only give a few passages from _The Churchman's Guide to Faith and Piety_, a work which is quite comprehensive, and is published with directions for all devotions, both in and out of the church. It bears a dedication, by permission, to the Rt. Rev. H. Potter, D.D., LL.D., D.C.L., the Bishop of New York, thus receiving the sanction of the highest Episcopalian authority. {384} The "Instruction on the Holy Eucharist" contains very plainly the doctrine of the Mass: "In this sacrament he (Jesus Christ) has bequeathed to us his Body and Blood under the _forms_ of bread and wine, not only to be received by us for the food and nourishment of our souls, but as a means whereby the same oblation of himself which he offers before the Father in heaven might be offered also by his ministers on earth. They thus commemorate his one atoning sacrifice by a perpetual memorial, representing his death and passion before the Father. ... In this sacrifice Christ himself is the real offerer, though he acts through his priests, whom he appointed as his representatives when he commanded his apostles, saying, 'Do this in remembrance of me.' ... When, therefore, the priests of his church, in his name and according to his commands, rehearse the words of institution in the prayer of consecration, God the Holy Ghost comes down upon the creatures of bread and wine, and _they become_ the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest offers, therefore, on God's altar a sacrifice commemorative of that perfect and sufficient sacrifice once offered on the cross, and at the same time Jesus Christ presents it before the Father, pleading his wounds, and the merits of his passion for the pardon and salvation of his people." During the communion many beautiful devotions are given, all of which speak fervently of Christ's real presence, and the Catholic hymn, "Ave Verum Corpus," is translated for use at that great moment:

"Hail! Christ's body, true and real, of the Virgin Mary born, Truly suffering, truly offered on the hill of scorn. Hail! for man's salvation pierced, gaping wounds and riven side, Whence outflowed with love unstinting, Blood and Water, mingled tide; Now upon that body feed we, now of that sweet fountain drink, Lest, when death relentless seize us, 'neath the Judge's search we sink."

The beautiful hymn of St. Thomas, "Adoro Te devotè," is added:

"Devoutly I adore thee, Deity unseen, Why thy glory hidest 'neath these shadows mean? Taste and touch and vision in thee are deceived, But the hearing only, well may be believed."

The prayer "Anima Christi" is then recommended to be said with the inmost affections and desires of the soul. The manner of receiving is also worthy of notice: "Kneel reverently at the altar, with the body upright and the head slightly bowed." Say to yourself, 'Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof.' Make thy left hand a throne for the right, which is on the eve of receiving the King, and, having hollowed thy palm, receive the Body of Christ, and convey it carefully to thy mouth." The book called _The Supper of the Lord_ gives the like directions: "When the priest gives you the sacrament, receive it in the open palm of the right hand, and so raise it reverently, lest any portion should fall to the ground; for St. Cyril observes, 'Whosoever loses any part of it had better lose part of himself.'" It is not necessary to quote any further passages, although the same doctrine is contained in the entire book. On page 86, vol. ii., there is the remark, "that the bread and wine are unchanged in their substance;" but we are inclined to think that this comes from inadvertence, prejudice, or bad philosophy. Two substances cannot coexist in the same space; and therefore, if the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, they cannot still be simple bread and wine. And if the presence of Christ is only in them without changing them, it is a sin to adore them, since they are only creatures still. {385} To lose any part of them would, then, be no crime, as Episcopalians have always believed. The language of the hymns heretofore quoted would be strangely out of place. Lutherans have tried their theories of consubstantiation, and eminent Protestants have defended a kind of impanation; but all these matters may safely be left to the criterions of good common sense. We feel satisfied that any one who desires to hold consistently the doctrine of a real presence of Jesus Christ in the blessed Eucharist must approach the Catholic dogma, and admit a _substantial_ change in the bread and wine.

2. Auricular confession is taught and practised by the ritualists. We say, auricular confession, because the term has been used by Protestants, though it may be considered expletive, since a confession heard by no one is hardly a confession in any proper sense. The books of devotion put forth by the ritualists, both in this country and in England, give the most plain and explicit directions for confession. The ministers who follow their views are always ready to hear their penitents, and, on account of the spiritual relation they hold to their children, call themselves, and love to be called, by the title of "Father," as is customary in the Catholic Church. The Chapter IV. of _The Churchman's Guide_, vol. ii., is entitled "Of _Sacramental_ Confession." It gives the prayers and questions for self-examination such as may be found in our manuals. The form of confession is thus recommended:

"As soon as the priest is ready, begin your confession after this manner: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. I confess to God the Father Almighty, to His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and to God the Holy Ghost, before the whole company of heaven, and to you, my father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, by my fault, my own fault, my own grievous fault. Then confess the sins you have noted down as the result of your self-examination, taking them in the order of the commandments, or beginning with your besetting sins, and then proceeding to the lesser sins. Do so simply, sincerely, earnestly, unreservedly, in as plain a manner as possible, remembering that no sin which you have discovered should be held back, that any conscious omission will render the confession nothing worth, and the absolution null and void. In accusing yourself, be very careful not to mention another, unless it is necessary to the completeness of your confession. Answer any questions that the confessor may feel it necessary to ask truthfully and unhesitatingly. When you have completed your confession, say as follows: For these and all my other sins which I cannot at present remember, I humbly beg pardon of Almighty God, and of you, my spiritual father, penance, counsel, and absolution. Wherefore I pray God the Father Almighty, His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Ghost to pity me and have mercy upon me, and you, my father, to pray for me. The priest will then remark upon the confession as he deems most fitting, giving such ghostly counsel as to dispose the soul for the receiving of the great gift. Listen to him with all reverence and care, receiving the advice which he gives you as the message of God to your soul, and determine punctually and exactly to fulfil the penance which he may assign to you. After such exhortation, the priest will pray with you and for you, and then lay his hands upon your head, and pronounce the words of absolution. Doubt not, but earnestly believe that, according to God's sure promise, the sins that are so loosed upon earth are loosed in heaven. After confession, spend, if possible, a quarter of an hour in church, or in private, using one or more of the following acts of devotion."

Then follow some beautiful and fervent prayers and thanksgivings. Catholics will see very little difference between this form and that to which they have been accustomed from their childhood. We have no means of judging how extensive is the practice of confession among Episcopalians in New-York, but we earnestly hope it will increase and become general. {386} Although there is no priestly character, no jurisdiction, and no absolution, still the habit of confessing leads to self-examination and strictness of life, and will in God's good time open the heart to the light of the true faith. We are not aware that confessionals have been erected in any Episcopal church in this country, and do not know whether confessions are heard in the church or at the houses of the ministers. English ritualists are far beyond their American brethren, and therefore we presume that everything will follow in due time.

3. The ritualists are also approaching to the doctrine of the church in regard to the sacraments, and certainly admit more than two sacraments. A sacrament is, according to our catechism, "an outward sign of inward grace, or a sacred and mysterious sign by which grace is communicated to our souls." We need not speak of baptism, in which regeneration is fully admitted, nor allude to the holy Eucharist, already sufficiently spoken of, but will simply mention penance, confirmation, and matrimony, which the Episcopal Church denies to be sacraments. What we have quoted in regard to "sacramental confession" will show that, to all intents and purposes, they believe in penance very much as we do. Confirmation is regarded as a rite having an external sign, and conveying the gift of the Holy Ghost. Special preparation for so great a gift is deemed necessary, and confession is recommended. "White is the color of the vestments of both clergy and altar at confirmation. At confession, the stole should be violet."

The _Notitia Liturgica_ gives the following directions for holy matrimony: "The service for holy matrimony consists of three parts, namely, the address to the congregation, the betrothal, (both of which are to take place in the nave or body of the church) and the more _sacramental_ part, imploring the graces needful for the married state, which is said at the altar. The ring is evidently ordered to be laid on the service-book for the purpose of being blessed. The following is a common form of benediction. (It is the Catholic form.) 'Sanctify, + O Lord, this ring which we bless + in thy name, that she who shall wear it, keeping inviolable fidelity to her spouse, may ever remain in peace and love; and live according to Thy law, through Christ, our Lord, Amen.' In pronouncing the first benediction, the priest should lay his hands upon the heads of the man and woman. _White_ is the color for the vestments of both clergy and altar at the celebration of holy matrimony. The priest should wear cassock, surplice, and stole; and the assistants, clerks, or ministers, cassock and surplices. If the holy communion be celebrated, of course the clergyman will retire to the vestry to assume the proper vestments. Only the bride and bridegroom and their immediate friends should communicate." There can be very little doubt that in all this there is the open profession of belief in an inward sanctifying grace attached to the external rite.

In regard to holy orders, we have no direct evidence before us, because we have only seen books of devotion for the people; but we are quite persuaded that the ritualists believe in the sacramental character of ordination, and that a special grace attends the imposition of the bishop's hands when ministers and priests are solemnly set apart to their office. As for the sacrament of extreme unction, we are not aware that it is practised in England or among the Episcopalians in this country. But from all the advances they have made during the last few years, we have reason to think that it will ere long be introduced. {387} It was in use in the early days of the Reformation, and is very plainly taught in Holy Scripture. (St. James v. 14.)

4. The vast progress in Catholic ideas which has been made has also led to the establishment of religious communities. In England, there are, we are informed, quite a number of sisters, who live by rule and devote themselves to the works of charity. The Rev. Dr. Neale devoted his life and all his zeal to this most important movement. We have seen some beautiful sermons which were preached by him to the sisterhood of St. Margaret's, in East Grinsted. In them will be found not only the belief of the principal Catholic verities, but the most fervent descriptions of the religious life, and the plainest directions for maintaining its strictness. The movement has gone so far in England that it can afford to defy public prejudice. In the United States there has been a corresponding movement among Episcopalians, though somewhat behind the footsteps of their brethren in the mother country. The Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg was among the first in our city to establish a community of sisters; but we believe that his idea embraced more the relief of the sick and poor than the consecration to God of those who should devote themselves to this charity. Latterly, however, there has been established here a sisterhood on more Catholic principles, under the auspices of Rev. Dr. Dix, which contains now nine members, not counting postulants, who bear the title of "Sisters of St. Mary." This community was instituted three or four years ago, and placed under rules similar to those of the Catholic convents. Postulants to the community have a trial of six months, when they are _received_ by the pastor. One year and a half from this time, that is, after two years of probation, they are set apart to their work by the bishop. The public will recollect the account, which appeared in the journals, of a consecration of sisters by Rt. Rev. Dr. Potter in one of the Episcopal churches. At this service, though we believe they take no vows, the sisters consider themselves set apart _for life_, and bound to the community, except in special exigencies, when dispensation can be obtained from the pastor or bishop. They have a religious dress of black, with a large black cape, a large white collar, and a white cap. They also wear a cross made of black work, with a white lily in silver set in it, which is hung around the neck. They live strictly, rise early, and work laboriously. They observe several of the canonical hours, and for this purpose use the book prepared and published by Dr. Dix. They have their hours of silence, of recreation, and of community observances. They seldom visit any one, but can go to their homes occasionally, by special permission. They are expected to go to confession and communion monthly, unless they obtain the privilege of going oftener. Rev. Dr. Dix is their spiritual director, although some are permitted to confess to one of the "fathers" at St. Alban's, or to any other Episcopal minister.

These sisters have charge of two houses, the "Sheltering Arms," at One Hundredth street, on the Bloomingdale road, and the "House of Mercy," in Eighty-sixth street, near the Hudson river. St. Barnabas's House, in Mulberry street, near Houston, was at one time under their care, but, as the managers were not sufficiently Catholic in their ideas, they were constrained to leave it. On Sundays and holydays, when there is no service in these private chapels, they attend the neighboring Episcopal churches. {388} Once a month they have an especial service in one of their houses, when their pastor is present, and the holy communion is celebrated. After this service the sisters hold a meeting, which is called a "chapter," in which the affairs of the community are discussed and arranged. They often attend St. Alban's church, where the holy communion is celebrated every Sunday, on all the saints' days, and each day on the octaves of Christmas, Easter, and Ascension. Here there is a "low celebration" on the week-days above mentioned, or "Low Mass," as it is sometimes called by them.

5. In regard to other practical devotions of Catholics, the ritualists have also made great progress. The "Way of the Cross" is used and recommended by them. A beautiful form of this devotion will be found in the book entitled _The Supper of the Lord, and Holy Communion_. The _Churchman's Guide_ contains some pious litanies, and some devotions to the sacred wounds of our Lord, which are conceived entirely in the tone of Catholic piety. The "Lenten Fast" is also recommended to be strictly observed by abstinence from flesh meat, and even the rules of our own diocese are quoted with favor. We have seen a little book, called _The Rosary of the Holy Name of Jesus_, to which is added the "Rosary of the Passion of our Lord," set forth for the use of the faithful members of the English Church, with an introduction by Charles Walker, author of _Three Months in an English Monastery_. In the introduction, _beads_, adapted to these rosaries, are approved, but how far they are in use we have no means of knowing.

The invocation of the saints certainly is not very prominent in their books of devotion, but they have begun the good work. The first part of the "Hail, Mary" is used in the rosaries, and this is, at least, a step in the right direction. We have been informed that private prayers to the Blessed Virgin and the saints are in use by some; and, as this invocation is founded on the simple principle of intercession, it will undoubtedly, ere long, be generally practised. No objection can be found against it which does not exist against asking each other's prayers in this life. The work entitled _Prayers for Children_, by Rev. F. G. Lee, gives Faber's beautiful hymn to Our Lady, to be said on feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

"Mother of Mercy, day by day My love for thee grows more and more; Thy gifts are strewn upon my way, Like sands upon the great sea-shore.

"Get me the grace to love thee more; Jesus will give if thou wilt plead; And, mother, when life's cares are o'er, Oh! I shall love thee then indeed."

The hymn to the guardian angel is also given from the same author:

"Yes, when I pray, thou prayest too; Thy prayer is all for me; But when I sleep, thou sleepest not, But watchest patiently."

Prayer for the faithful departed may be found in nearly all the prayer-books of the ritualists, and the burial service is animated with that tender devotion which forms such a characteristic of the Catholic rite. The holy Eucharist is recommended to be celebrated at funerals, and directions for so doing are given in the _Notitia Liturgica_. The _Introit_ is, "Grant them eternal rest, and let light perpetual shine upon them." The _Dies Ires_ is to be divided and sung at different parts of the service, before the gospel, at the offertory, during the communion, and after the blessing.

The _Book of Hours_, by Rev. Dr. Dix, has a prayer for the faithful departed, and the "low celebration," already quoted, has the "Memento for the Dead," extracted from our Canon. {389} We give the following prayer from _The Supper of the Lord_. "O God! by whose mercy the souls of the faithful find rest, grant to all thy servants who have gone before us with the sign of faith, and who now slumber in the sleep of peace, a place of refreshment, light, and peace, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord." At a funeral the following is recommended: "O Lord, look graciously, we beseech thee, upon this sacrifice (the holy Eucharist) which we offer thee for the perfecting of the soul of thy servant N----, and grant that this medicine which Thou hast vouchsafed to provide for the healing of all the living may avail also for the departed, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."

The sacred sign of the cross, as has been observed, is used commonly, in the same manner as Catholics use it, both in private and in public.

The introduction of altar-boys took place some time ago, in this city, when it was said that it was according to the use of the English cathedrals and for the purpose of chanting the service. It appears, however, that they are only a part of an attempt to revive the "minor orders," as we have them in the Catholic Church. At the "high celebration" the priest is attended by a deacon and _sub-deacon_ and by _acolytes_. We do not know if there be any form of ordaining sub-deacons and acolytes, but it seems that there is a form for the admission of _choristers_. How many of the boys serving in the Episcopal churches here have been received by this form, we have no means of ascertaining. It will be interesting, however, to Catholics, to see the progress which has been made, and therefore we give the whole form.

"A Form For The Admission Of A Chorister.

"¶ _At a convenient time before morning or evening prayer, all the members of the choir assemble in the vestry, robed in their proper ecclesiastical habits: and range themselves on their respective sides, 'Decani' and 'Cantores,' except that the position of the officiating priest is at the upper end of the room and facing the choir. The boy to be admitted remains outside; all present kneeling down, the priest shall say:_

"Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy name, and finally, by thy mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"Our Father, etc.

"¶ _Then, as previously instructed, the two senior choristers go out, and bring in the probationer, who, vested in cassock, coming in, and guided by them, stands in front of the priest officiating._

"¶ _Then there shall be read the Lesson._

"I Samuel iii. 1-10; and ii. 18, 19.

"¶ _The Lesson being ended, the priest shall proceed thus, saying:_

"V. Our help is in the name of the Lord:

R. Who hath made heaven and earth.

V. Blessed be the name of the Lord:

R. Henceforth, world without end.

"¶ _And then, taking the boy by the right hand, the priest shall admit him, using this form, the boy kneeling:_

"N. I admit thee to sing as a chorister in ------ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

"¶ _Then shall he pronounce this admonition, at the same time presenting him with the Prayer-Book, Psalter, and Hymnal he will use in the choir:_

"See what thou singest with thy mouth thou believe in thine heart, and what thou believest in thine heart thou prove by thy works.

"¶ _Then, putting the surplice on the new chorister, he shall say:_

"I clothe thee in the white garment of the surplice, and see that thou so serve God, and sing his praises, that thou mayest hereafter be admitted into the ranks of those who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night continually.

"¶ _Then, laying his hand upon the new chorister's head, the priest shall pronounce the benediction, the boy still kneeling:_

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"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee, and make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace now and for ever. Amen."

We have thus completed the task proposed to ourselves, and have shown from the clearest testimonies what the true meaning of ritualism is. No honest mind will, it seems to us, reject the assertion which we made, when we defined it as a great and most important movement from the doctrines and worship of Protestants toward the ancient and unchangeable faith of the Catholic Church. In other words, it is a return to the dogmas and ceremonies which were cast away by the unsparing radicalism of the Reformation. As such a movement, we look upon it with the greatest interest, and earnestly pray God to bless it to the conversion of many souls. And we say to our ritualistic brethren, be firm and fervent in the profession and practice of what you believe to be true; shrink not from the consequences of any doctrine you hold, and follow on by prayer and perseverance until you reach the portals of that temple which the God-Man erected on earth, wherein there are no shadows. Catholics are your only friends; and when you find that you believe almost every truth which we hold, and that your own church repudiates nearly everything which is to you most sacred, then come home to your Father's house, and take the Bread of life for which your souls are famishing. May the infinite mercy which has done so much for you perfect and accomplish its gracious work. Here is all that you desire in its full proportions, the length and breadth of divine love, in that one mystical body which is the church of God, the fulness of him who filleth all and in all.

We have only one more remark to make. The view of ritualism which we have given is, without doubt, the view of every disinterested mind. The world is oftentimes harsh and sometimes unjust, but in the end it calls things by their right names. Why, then, try to stultify the common sense of mankind by talking of the corruptions of Romanism, when all the time you admit every substantial part of its creed? Why be so dishonest to yourselves as to refuse to see that which is quite evident to every one else? Why talk enigmas and profess devotion to the Eastern churches, as if there were anything there more palatable to Protestants than the undisguised creed of Rome? In this country, the ritualists have endeavored to enlist some of their bishops on their side. Would to God they could gain them all; but even this would not remove Calvinism, Lutheranism, and what Dr. Dix calls Radicalism from the prayer-book. Yet have they gained any? The approbation of _The Churchman's Guide_, by Right Rev. Dr. Potter, is the only quasi-Episcopal sanction which they have, and this is very cautiously given, and no one can say how far it goes. Several ministers some time ago addressed a letter to Right Rev. Dr. Hopkins, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, asking for his opinions on the subject in question. We fancy the dismay of the advanced ritualists when he gives his opinion in favor of changes in vestments, the introduction of incense and other things of this kind, and then, with an unsparing bitterness, attacks their much cherished doctrines, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the real presence of our Lord in the blessed Eucharist. {391} While this has been done on one side, a large majority of the Episcopalian bishops on the other have delivered themselves of an open protest against the whole movement, condemning it as nothing less than an attempt to _Romanize_ the Protestant Church of England. Is it really so, that the voice of the bishops is of no weight, that it neither declares the sense nor speaks the authority of the Episcopal Church? What thinks the world of the high Anglican position at the present day? The world has said harsh things enough of the Catholic Church, but yet has ever given us the credit of consistency. If it condemn us, it does not declare that we are illogical. On the contrary, there is not one honest writer, disinterested in the question, who does not say that the Anglican position is wholly untenable, that it is neither Protestantism nor Catholicity, and that it can never stand either the test of time or that of reason.

Translated From The Historisch-Politische Blaetter.

Peter Cornelius, The Master Of German Painting.

Peter Cornelius was born on the 24th of September, 1783, in art-renowned Düsseldorf. Here had been collected for some time, through the artistic taste of the nobles of the Palatinate, those paintings and copies of antique sculpture known by the name of the Düsseldorf Gallery, which was afterward transferred to the Royal Palace of Munich. In the last century a school of art was also connected with this gallery.

Aloysius Cornelius, father of Peter, was inspector of the gallery, and drawing-master in the art school. Thus the boy was born in an atmosphere of art. It is said that, when little Peter was attacked by fits of childish ill-humor and uneasiness, his mother could quiet him by carrying him in her arms into the hall of antique statuary, where the stern and striking forms of the heathen divinities calmed his cries and dried his tears. If it be not historically true, it is nevertheless a poetic fact recorded in verse by his uncle, Peter Cornelius, a distinguished musician, still in Munich, that the boy, on one occasion being offered his choice of a piece of gold and a crayon, took the latter from his mother's hand, and ran immediately to make figures on the wall. This is a characteristic anecdote, though it may not be true; for during his whole life the painter despised money. Mammon had no charms for him; while his pencil, the instrument of his art, and the art itself had for him irresistible attractions. Peter grew up in the pious, stern Catholic family of his parents, and preserved to the end of his life a simple, childlike belief in his religion. Little was then known among the families of Rhineland of opposition to the faith, or of the doubts and objections of the philosophers against it. Cornelius himself, later in life, confessed that he had never read a book of philosophy. Such works were distasteful to him on account of their abstract and unideal character.

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His school education was short and simple. Peter Cornelius went only four years to the primary school of his native city, as his school-fellow, Clement Zimmerman, can still attest. He made little progress; he never learned to spell correctly. Singular phenomenon! Cornelius, who thought so profoundly, and wrote so sublimely, and spoke so eloquently without preparation, like Napoleon I., could never write without blunders! But perhaps freedom from school restraint only made the genius of the artist to take a wider scope. The very fact that he did not spend many years of his life on the school-bench, filling his mind with useless items of knowledge, allowed his nature to expand, and gave him that sound freshness of mind and body, that purity of imagination, that directness and rectitude of feeling and character which are the causes of the beautiful creations of his genius.

Of the mathematics, the favorite science of modern times, he knew almost nothing. He used to say, in his curt manner, of an artistic dunce, "The booby knows as much of art as I do of algebra!" His peculiar talent displayed itself even in the primary school. When the professor of Scripture history described the scenes and persons of the Old Testament, they became real to the eyes of the boy, and on arriving home he was wont to cut their forms out of black paper with a dexterity that astonished every one. He was much in the studio of his father, who painted altar-pieces and portraits; he cleaned the pencils, brought him the colors, and performed other minor services. Soon he became a pupil in his father's drawing academy. Here he rapidly acquired the principles of art, and his father gave him Volpato's engravings of Raphael's masterpieces as models. Hand and eye of the young artist were thus early accustomed to the immortal works of the prince artist of Urbino. At the same time, he visited frequently the gallery of paintings, where the expressive and lively colored pictures of Rubens captivated his fancy. Cornelius copied at a later period several of these. In the year 1805, before the transfer of the collection to Munich, besides others he made a copy of "Diana and the Nymphs in the Chase," which was so well executed that it was very difficult to distinguish it from the original.

Young Peter now passed to the Academy of Art. The Greek classic style ruled in it at that time; and a distinguished artist, Peter Langer, was its director. Here Cornelius prosecuted his studies with the greatest diligence. He made a special study of the _antiques_ which were extant in the collection. Still it appears that even then he had more inclination for the awakening national Christian and romantic school of Germany than for the cold imitations of ancient art.

But this very circumstance threatened to give an unlucky turn to his life. His father, Aloysius Cornelius, died in the year 1809, leaving a wife, five daughters, and two sons, with little resources. The good mother despaired of being able to provide for the support and education of her large family. The director, Peter Langer, misunderstanding the genius of Peter, then advised her to apprentice him to a goldsmith, saying that he would earn his bread more quickly at a trade, for there were too many painters. Cornelius thus experienced the same misjudgment of his superiors as Carstens in Copenhagen, and Schwanthaler in Munich.

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But the maternal eye was sharper than that of the learned director. The mother recognized the decided vocation of her son, and her maternal affection triumphed. She could not determine from worldly motives to tear her son away from his high call and so Cornelius was for ever wedded to his art. How grateful was the youth of eighteen years for this determination of his mother! Cornelius himself writes of it in his celebrated report to Count Raczynski, in which he quotes a saying of his father Aloysius, that, "if we try to make perfect everything that we do, we may learn a lesson from things the most trivial." This expression is like Raphael's: "No one becomes great in art who despises the smallest detail."

In this year, (1809,) Peter Cornelius was introduced into a new society, which exercised great influence on his development and history. He went frequently to the neighboring city of Cologne, the splendidly artistic and Christian mediaeval city of the Rhine. Here he became acquainted with the noble Canon Wallraf and the two brothers Boisserée, who, at this period of Vandalic ravage and destruction, saved all that was to be saved of ancient art, and formed those precious collections which render Cologne and Munich famous. By these means Cornelius obtained a knowledge of the world of old German works of art hitherto unknown to him. They appeared to him in all the simplicity, religiosity, and freshness of the German middle ages, and he found himself drawn toward them by a kindred feeling. He studied and copied them zealously, and with greater affection than he had shown toward the gorgeous masterpieces of Italy. His study of these German works obtained for him his first appointment of any consequence.

Wallraf, who was called by the mayor of Nyon to consult regarding the restoration of the interesting church in that town, recognized in Peter Cornelius, whom he loved, the man for monumental painting. He was commissioned, therefore, to ornament the cupola and choir of the church of Nyon with frescoes. Wallraf, the theologian, who, as practical painter, also possessed wondrous gifts, determined on the character of this circle of paintings.

Cornelius executed these pictures in 1806-1808 on a yellow ground, with water colors. They represented the choirs of angels in the semi-circle; then Moses and David of the Old Testament, Peter and Paul of the New Testament, in the cupola; pictures well expressed, living and characteristic, reminding one more of the Italian than of the German school. Unfortunately these paintings, spoiled by dampness, have been retouched by modern artists, so that they may be considered as entirely lost to view.

Besides the study of the old German masters, Cornelius missed no occasion of making himself familiar with the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of classic antiquity. He read with avidity Homer and Virgil, and endeavored to make use of the materials of art supplied from these sources. He contended for the prize at Weimar with works from ancient mythology, but without success. He was not fitted to paint the smooth, external attributes of the ancient forms. Hence came this criticism on his works. Through the influence of Goethe he received the following note: "Valuable, good talent, and excellent essays!"

We pass over those episodes in the lives of all men--the first love of Cornelius for Miss Linder, which was unsuccessful, and made him vow never to wed any other than the muse of his art--a vow which he did not keep; his friendship with the eldest son of the merchant Flemming at Nyon, pledged under a linden-tree, and lasting until death with a loyalty like that of David and Jonathan, Orestes and Pylades, Don Carlos and Posa.

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In 1809, we find him in Frankfort, after Napoleon had annexed the Rhine provinces to France and the paintings at Düsseldorf had been removed to Munich. In this centre of Germany, Cornelius having read the _Faust_ of Goethe, and, penetrated with its spirit, represented the creation of the poet's brain on the canvas, Goethe wrote him a letter, thanking him and full of appreciative compliments to his genius. The bookseller, Wenner, in Frankfort, undertook to publish the painter's sketches; and thus enabled him to realize a long-cherished desire of going to Italy, the land of the fine arts.

At this period, in Rome, there was a colony of German artists, like an oasis of peace in a desert of trouble, who devoted themselves to the unshackling of art from the chains of mannerism and French insipidity. Karstens, the Dane, enthusiastically partial to ancient art, may be considered the leader and pioneer of this effort. Thorwaldsen, Koch, Schick, Wächter, and Reinhard followed in his footsteps. Many an artist's noble heart was then also possessed with the love of the romantic school, and inspired with its spirit. Frederic Schlegel, Tieck, Novalis, and Wackenroder aided the movement by proclaiming and teaching that all Christian art was a symbol of the heavenly; that in it all was mysterious and ideal, whilst ancient art merely represented the external and real. They taught that severity, strength, and modesty were to be sought, for in the works of pre-Raphaelite masters, who alone were the true models of Christian art. In the year 1801, the standard of this school was borne by Frederic Overbeck, of Lübeck, who was joined by the two Schadows, Pforr, Louis Vogel, and later by Philip Veit, Wach, Charles Vogel of Vogelstein, I. Schnorr, both Eberhards of Munich, Rambour of Cologne, and others. The artist world of Rome was then divided into two groups, one of which absolutely followed the ancients, and the other revived the Christian and national ideal with the spirit of the Romantic school.

When Cornelius went to Rome, he was immediately introduced to his fellow-countrymen; and he became naturally attached to their school as the illustrator of _Faust_ and Shakespeare. He formed a friendship for Overbeck which lasted unbroken till death, through a period of fifty years! Cornelius always expressed his gratitude to Overbeck, and loved him as a brother. King Louis I., of Bavaria, with his customary wit, likened the pair of artists to two of the apostles: Overbeck, the pious and sentimental, to John; Cornelius, the fervent conqueror of the world of art, to Paul. Overbeck with several companions had rented the old monastery of St. Isidore, behind Monte Pincio, and lived there like a recluse. Cornelius, who boarded near him, was a frequent visitor. They studied and worked together. They made drawings of nature and from the antique, sat side by side at the canvas, and communicated their future plans to each other. They copied and imitated the old Italian masters Giotto, Masaccio, Ghirlandajo, Lippo Lippi, Peter Perugino, and Fiesole. They made excursions to the neighboring mountains, and relieved their labors by many a pleasant evening or innocent conversation.

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Cornelius, writing about this time of his life to Count Raczynski, says: "It is impossible for me to tell you in a short notice all the incidents of my happy sojourn in Rome. But I must say we wandered over the paths of ages; I speak not only for myself, but for our association of talent and character, who drew from everything that was holy, great, and beautiful in Germany or Italy the inspiration to oppose French tyranny and frivolity."

The noble band had their battles and their sufferings. Their means of sustenance, on the one hand, were limited. "For," said Overbeck, "the fire of the enthusiasm of art does not kindle a fire on the hearth." On the other hand, the Greco-German school never failed to treat them with contempt and haughtiness. They received the nickname of "Nazarenes," which has remained attached to them ever since. The name was given partly because of their innocent life, and partly because their pictures of saints after the old Italian models had a mortified and spiritual look, as the sect of the rigorous Nazarenes are represented among the Jews.

When the war of freedom had again been renewed in Germany, the artists in Rome were fully possessed with its spirit. Since all could not take part in it, they sent substitutes to fight for fatherland. Those who remained in Rome, or were too old to wield the sword, used pencil and brush in aid of the national cause.

Inflamed by patriotism, Cornelius painted in Rome his celebrated illustrations of the _Niebelungen_, which had just been published, and the reading of which did so much toward awakening German self-consciousness. He painted the great heroes of those Germans who for so many years had shamefully borne the yoke of the French; and represented those natural giants of the German race without fear or reproach, full of power, loyalty, modesty, simplicity, and honor, all aglow with passion, irresistible in love and hatred! Cornelius had, in his paintings for the _Niebelungen_, which was henceforth seldom printed without them, given personality to the heroes of the poem. His two queens, Hagen the fierce, Sigfried, and King Günther will live among Germans as long as the _Niebelungen_ will continue to be read. Though the faces are harsh, rough, and ungracious, like the German heroes of that time, they are nevertheless thoroughly true, sound, and characteristic.

The whole work was dedicated to the new Prussian ambassador in Rome, the celebrated historian Niebuhr. For, after the fall of Napoleon, Pius VII. returned in triumph to Rome, March 14th, 1814; the masterpieces of art taken away by the French were being gradually restored; and the ambassadors of the European courts took their stations as usual. Niebuhr came to Rome in 1816. No sooner had he, who had such a love for art and science, recognized the geniality, freshness, and imaginative power of Cornelius, his fellow-countryman from Rhineland, than he became warmly attached to the artist. Niebuhr often visited him and his companions, called him friend, and divided his wonderful learning with Cornelius.

So far Cornelius had executed in Rome only a few drawings and oil paintings. Among the latter may be named the picture of "The Three Marys at the Sepulchre," "The Flight into Egypt," and "The Wise and Foolish Virgins." But, in spite of their expressiveness and excellence, these works show that the artist had not yet found the special field for the display of his genius. His powerful imagination was confined in these subjects, and could only feel at home on the broad, high walls of fresco-painting.

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Through a singular accident, he had soon a chance for his art. The Prussian consul-general, Solomon Bartholdy, had rented the old house belonging to the family of the painter Zucheri, near Trinita di Monti, and wanted to ornament it with frescoes. Cornelius was asked to undertake the task. Aided by his friends, he agreed to paint the two rooms with frescoes. They asked no fees, only scaffolding, mason work, colors, and support. The noble offer of the poor artists--rich, however, in their love of art--was accepted; and this was the origin of those renowned frescoes almost universally known by copies and descriptions of them. Cornelius, Overbeck, Philip Veit, and W. Schadow were engaged in the work. On account of the Jewish religion of Bartholdy, the artists chose the interesting story of Joseph in Egypt as the subject of their art. Cornelius painted the explanation of the dreams of Pharao and the meeting of Joseph and his brethren; Veit painted the temptation of Potiphar's wife and the seven years of plenty; Schadow, the complaint of Jacob and Joseph in prison; and Overbeck, the seven years of famine. They are beautiful, imaginative, expressive, graceful pictures, and not surpassed in coloring by the later creations of the master. All Rome, which had seen no frescoes for fifty years and was taken with the Raphael taste, was astonished at the works of the young German painter, and even yet the amateur turns with reverence to this cradle of German monumental painting in Rome, and the rooms so adorned are still rented by strangers for a high price.

Thus for the first time had Cornelius found the means of letting out the flood of his genial thoughts. He had found his vocation in fresco-painting, to which he remained attached thenceforth to the end of his life. Soon he received a new commission for his art. The rich Marquis Massimi, who had seen the frescoes in Bartholdy's house, wished to have his villa at St. John Lateran's similarly ornamented by scenes from the great classic poets of Italy. Overbeck should select his subjects from Tasso, J. Schnorr from Ariosto, Cornelius out of Dante's _Divine Comedy_, a poem which, on account of its depth, grandeur, and mysteries, had been a life-study of our artist. Cornelius undertook the work with delight. He executed nine illustrations to the Paradise, which show a profound knowledge of the poet and history; faces of saints breathing piety and strikingly expressive. Unfortunately these projects were not executed. Koch obtained the substitution of his own rather coarse Dante pictures, in the stead of those of Cornelius; and the latter received two calls from his own German home.

The Crown-Prince Louis, of Bavaria, who had conceived generous plans for the spread of art in his own country, came to Rome in January, 1818. Informed by his attendant physician, Ringseis, who had seen the _Niebelungen_ pictures of Cornelius in Berlin, the prince sought out the gifted artist. Louis saw the paintings at Bartholdy's, and immediately perceived that Cornelius was the man to make art flourish in Bavaria. The prince gave him two galleries of the museum of statuary in Munich, to ornament with frescoes taken from Greek mythology. A cry of joy passed through the circle of artists; they looked on the Crown-Prince Louis as the restorer of true art and the creator of a new era. When their high patron left Rome, they celebrated his departure by a glorious feast on the evening of April 29th, 1818. {397} Cornelius had ornamented the walls of the festival hall with symbols of the artistic calling of the prince. There were representations of Hercules cleaning out the Augean stable, and of Samson putting the Philistines to flight. Rückert, in the name of art and the artists, made the poetical address to the crown-prince. He, full of delight and gratitude, offered a toast to the German artists, and ended it, amidst loud applause, with the words, "That we may meet again in Germany!"

Cornelius now left everything else aside and devoted himself to the study of Homer and Hesiod, and continually made sketches from them. In order to have perfect leisure for this work, he spent the summer in Ariccia. In the fall, he travelled with Passavanti, the biographer of Raphael, to Naples, where he made several copies, among others the bust of a woman after Perugino, which is supposed to represent the mother of Raphael.

The time for his departure for Munich approached. Niebuhr, who became embittered against the artists and against everything Roman, endeavored to get him to remain in Prussia and to live in Düsseldorf. When Cornelius announced his departure for Munich, in order to paint the frescoes of the museum, Niebuhr wept in anger, and said, "Cornelius, why do you do this to me?" He conversed with him for a long time, and received the artist's promise to accept a call to Düsseldorf after the erection of the Academy of Arts in that town. The heart of Cornelius throbbed for Germany. He often felt homesick, and thought that, when a German artist forgets his fatherland, he loses more in character than he can gain in other respects.

Some have doubted the faith and piety of Cornelius. But they are wrong. Divisions sprang up among the German artists of Rome, and every day party spirit increased in violence. Whilst many of the romantic school in Germany looked on Christian truth, the life of the church and Catholicism, as things merely to influence the imagination and as helps to poetry, the majority of the Roman artists called "Nazarenes" were carried away by the grandeur and beauty of faith, and became fervent members of the Catholic Church. Several of those born Protestants became converts; as, for instance, Overbeck, the two Schadows, Veit, Vogel of Vogelstein, and others. A cry was immediately raised against them. Niebuhr became enraged, and sent for the works of Luther against the papacy, in order to counteract the Catholic tendencies of the artists.

The question now arises, what part Cornelius took in these quarrels. Some have called him a "free-thinker" and an enemy of Christianity. They were induced to do so from certain things that happened about this time. But it is certain that he was a firm believer in revelation and a fervent Catholic. All his friends attest the fact that he never failed to go to confession and make his Easter Communion. He had, indeed, a large heart, was very tolerant toward those who professed a different religion from his own. He never aimed at a high degree of perfection or a complete knowledge of theology. There are many degrees of the Christian life, as there are in nature. Every baptized person who simply believes the doctrines of the church and keeps the commandments is a member of the Catholic Church. But he must take a low place among her children if he does not aim at perfection, while other souls avoid the smallest sins, mortify themselves, follow the evangelical counsels, and perform acts of heroism. Cornelius belonged to the former class of Catholics. {398} He acknowledged himself that he had never attained to a high degree of perfection, and consoled himself by saying: "In God's heaven there are many dwellings; there will be one there for a poor artist."

Cornelius, like mostly all artists, was an idealist in politics as in his judgment of Christian life. As he saw in the actual condition of Rome and the church many things which he could not reconcile with his ideal of the church, he spoke his opinions candidly and openly, like a true Rhinelander, against every abuse. He spoke of the necessity of a general council, and told the pope his views in frequent audiences. His advice was kindly taken, and the pontiff answered him quietly by saying: "My son, circumstances are often more powerful than ourselves.' We cannot cast off all that weighs upon us through life." To accuse Cornelius of being a Protestant because sometimes he expressed in art or conversation very peculiar sentiments is ridiculous. On this plea, Peter Damica, St. Bernard, and many other saints who have spoken boldly against abuses in the church should be considered as unorthodox. They say of Cornelius that he was displeased at the conversion of his Protestant fellow-artists in Rome. He is reported to have said: "If another becomes Catholic, I shall turn Protestant." But this is a fiction. The whole character of Cornelius proves it to be such. He who always inculcated truth to his pupils, and despised all hollowness and hypocrisy in life or art, cannot be supposed to have blamed men for following out to the letter their religious convictions. It is impossible. We have, besides, a testimony to prove it. When his friend, Miss Linder, became a convert to Catholicism, in Munich, in the year 1843, he wrote her a letter which is still extant. In this he praises her instead of proposing objections to her. "In Rome the news reached me," he writes, "that you had at last taken courage to make the decisive step. I am not surprised. God bless you and keep you free from spiritual pride and rigorism, (in my eyes almost the only sins.)" He cannot, therefore, have been offended at the conversion of his Protestant friends, for we find him continuing his friendship with Overbeck after the latter's entrance into the church.

Finally, Niebuhr relates an anecdote which has given rise to a doubt of Cornelius's orthodoxy. There was a supper-party of artists and learned men, one evening, in the Casarelli Palace, on the Capitol. When much wine had been drunk by the party, they went out on the flat roof of the building, and beheld the planet Jupiter shining with unusual brilliancy. Then Cornelius said to Thorwaldsen, "Let us drink to the health of old Jupiter." "With all my heart," answered Thorwaldsen. And they drank the toast. This incident is adduced as a proof that Cornelius was then a free-thinker; for he showed by his act a rejection of Christianity and a belief in paganism. But this toast proves nothing. It was a mere impulse; a jest of men over-heated by wine. There is certainly in this anecdote nothing to show a deliberate protestation against the truth of revelation.

So much for the religious element of Cornelius's character at that time.

He was now no longer solitary. He had married a Roman lady, the daughter of a dealer in works of art. She was called the Signora Carolina, a noble and good maiden, simple and _naive_, like the Marguerite of _Faust_. {399} She bore him a daughter, and with this small family he was about to leave Rome and return to Germany.

In Munich, Cornelius became the director of a world-renowned academy, a centre of art, a friend of the king, esteemed and visited by all classes. But in Berlin he was a mere private individual, without position, thought little of, without occasion for the proper display of his artistic powers, working quietly in his studio. To use his own expression, he was "a solitary sparrow on the house-top." But this trial was necessary for the spiritual welfare and true greatness of the master. On the 12th of April, of the year 1841, Cornelius, with wife and children, had left Munich, where a farewell dinner was given him. In Dresden, he was honored by a torchlight procession of artists. On April 23d, he reached Berlin. All received him with honor and applause. He visited the celebrated men of the city, Humboldt, Grimm, Rauch, and Schinkel, who received him into their circle. Testimonials of esteem from abroad reached him. The Queen of Portugal wrote to request him to send artists to Portugal to introduce fresco-painting; and Lord Monson requested him to ornament his castle with frescoes. Cornelius travelled to England, but the sudden death of the lord and an ophthalmia of the artist necessitated his return to Berlin.

Now days of gloom began to dawn for him. The aristocratic society of the city did not suit him. He preferred his Bavarian beer to the insipid tea of the Berlin aristocracy. He could not flatter the affected connoisseurs of art. He was too independent to be a toady. "He does not approach us!" was the complaint, and men began to criticise himself and his works harshly.

Cornelius had executed a painting in oil for Count Raczynski in 1843. It was placed on exhibition. It represented the liberation of the souls in limbo by the Saviour. Though the coloring is heavy and disagreeable, still the grouping of the patriarchs and their countenances are highly characteristic and almost unsurpassable. But the cry was immediately raised by the whole crowd of art critics, "How can we call these bodiless, unnatural forms artistic, or those heavy colors painting?" They treated the artist with contempt and looked on him as a fallen man. A celebrated portrait-painter of Berlin gave expression to this sentiment: "If I found in the street a picture executed by Cornelius, I would not pick it up!" This opinion became general in Berlin. This was fortunate for the salvation of the master and for his art. He withdrew from the world, and became more recollected and devoted more exclusively to his art.

For some time he made little show. However, the king gave him an order for a work in which he had an opportunity of displaying his powers of imagination. It was the design of a shield which William IV. wished to present to the young Prince of Wales as a godfather's gift. Cornelius finished it in six weeks. It was a round shield, in the middle of which Christ is represented on the cross; in the corners appear the four evangelists, and over them the four cardinal virtues; in the four arms of the cross, baptism and the Last Supper, and their figures in the Old Testament, the gushing of the water from the rock, and the rain of manna. Round about the shield were carved the busts of the twelve apostles. On its rim were depicted scenes from the passion and triumph of Christ, from the entry into Jerusalem to the apostolic mission. {400} In order to show the connection of the ancient church with the present, one of the apostles is represented as landing with the distinguished guests from Prussia in order to administer baptism to the prince. This little work breathes the spirit of the artist; it is genial, severe, expressive, full of style; often quaint and singular, by the induction of modern personages, Queen Victoria, Wellington, and Humboldt.

King Frederick William IV. determined, at this time, to erect a church which should vie with that of St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London. Stüler made the plan. Cornelius was to ornament the walls with frescoes. He undertook this task in 1843. He felt again all his powers revive. Exultingly he wrote to the academy of Münster, which had given the great artist the diploma of a doctor in philosophy in recognition of his ability: "A great, holy field, _campo santo_, has been opened to me, through the favor of Providence and the grace of my illustrious king and sovereign, in order to execute upon it what God has put in my soul. May he enlighten my spirit and penetrate my heart with his love; open my eyes to the glory of his works, fill me with piety and truth, and guide every motion of my hand!"

In order to have the requisite quiet and leisure for this gigantic work, Cornelius made a second trip to Rome, that paradise of painters and head of Catholicity. From the spring of the year 1843 to May, 1844, and again from March, 1845 to 1846, he dwelt in the Eternal City.

After his return from Rome, he labored incessantly at Berlin to finish his great undertaking. In January, 1845, the first sketch was ended; in 1846, the glorious, unequalled cartoon of the horsemen in the apocalypse, which was exhibited in Rome, Berlin, Ghent, and Vienna, and at the feet of which the whole school of Belgian artists laid a laurel crown. The government also gave him a house on the royal square, in which to prosecute his undertaking. He finished the whole series of decorations in twenty-five years. He worked with inexpressible pleasure and joy, although none of those pictures really came to its destined place. He labored without desire of fame. He painted as the bird sings on the boughs. As none of his great works or frescoes were exposed publicly at Berlin, he remained almost unknown to the people; but he found his sole delight in the love of his art, and in application to its expression.

In the year 1833, he lost his first wife. He married again, in Rome, a lady named Gertrude, distinguished for beauty and virtue. She died in 1859. His daughter Marie also died at the same time, who had been espoused to the Marquis Marcelli. Thus he drank of a bitter chalice! When he went to Rome for the last time, on the 14th of April, 1861, although aged, he made a third' marriage in espousing Theresa of Urbino, whom he had met and admired in the house of his daughter! This wife attended the last years of his life, and stood by his death-bed.

The residence of Cornelius in Berlin had made him more and more attached to the Catholic Church. He wrote in 1851 to a friend in Munich: "The invisible church is the only one to be found among German Protestants. I have tried to find a church among them here, but so far my search has been in vain. In Rome, I am always a half-heretic, but here I am more Catholic everyday." {401} When he made his last voyage to Rome, he passed through Munich on his return, and paid a visit to his friend Schlotthauer, to whom he spoke thus: "Friend, I am now entirely of your way of thinking in religious matters. Berlin has made me entirely Catholic. Only now do I prize Catholicism sufficiently. If the King of Bavaria were here, I would seek him and say to him openly: 'Your majesty, Bavaria is still a Catholic country, and this is the cause of its strength and greatness. Try to keep it so. This is the best policy.'" To his friend Ringseis he made a similar statement, adding that he had travelled to Munich on purpose to inform them of his thorough conversion.

In another instance, also, the fervor of Cornelius's faith and charity displayed itself. He presented the committee who were engaged in erecting a Catholic hospital with a painting of St. Elizabeth surprised by her husband in the act of nursing a sick pauper in her own bed. The picture was sold, after having been lithographed, and realized a large sum for the intended purpose.

He was extremely hostile to the _Life of Jesus_, by Renan, and considered the attempt to take away the members of divinity from the head of Christ as highly injurious to Christian art. The gray-headed prince of painting, on this account, painted the "Resurrection," choosing for subject the very moment when the hitherto incredulous Thomas exclaims, "My God and my Lord!" He exhibited this picture with religious enthusiasm, and pointed it out to visitors, saying, "That is against Renan!" He wished to leave behind him a clear profession of his belief in the divinity of Jesus.

Cornelius spent the last six years of his life in Berlin, in a kind of hidden life, continually occupied, like Plato, in his old age, always lively, loquacious, and fond of society, so that he gathered around him a host of young artists and _savans_. The tranquillity of his life was only broken at this period by a few excursions. In the year 1862, he went to Düsseldorf; in 1863, to Trier on professional business. In 1864, he made his last visit to Munich, toward which his heart always yearned.

His visit to Munich shortened his life. The fatigues of the journey, and the visits which he received and was obliged to make, as well as the ovations tendered him, wore him out. He became ill, and returned sick to Berlin. A disease of the heart declared itself; in February, 1867, his case became hopeless. He called for a priest, and received all the sacraments of the church twenty-four hours before his death. He took leave of his beloved wife and friends, seized his crucifix, and breathed his last, uttering the words: "Pray! pray!" He died on the 6th of March, at ten A.M., on Ash-Wednesday. Over his remains was hung his own painting of Pentecost, as over those of Raphael the picture of the Resurrection. He was buried on the 6th of March, and all the nobility and talent of Berlin formed a part of his funeral _cortége_.

Death has taken from us this great master of German painting; but, to use the language of St. Bernard, it has only taken his cloak, for his spirit still lives! It lives in the heavenly Jerusalem. It lives in his works, in the history of art, and in the breasts of his pupils on earth, who bear aloft the standard of pure, ideal, religious art. All will bear testimony that Cornelius is the man who freed modern German painting from foreign mannerism, opened the way for generous monumental frescoes, which embraced with equal cordiality the three worlds of the classic German, national, and Christian manifestations; who portrayed the deepest thoughts in the most noble forms, and whose works are unrivalled in colossal proportions, richness of expression, and striking characterization, architectural proportions and dramatic life, by any masterpieces of antiquity; while, in the piety and sweetness of the countenances portrayed and the harmonious coloring of the whole, they exceed anything in modern art.

{402}

The news of his death brought sadness everywhere. In Munich, Mozart's solemn Requiem was sung for his soul. Professor Carriere pronounced a panegyric on him in the evening. A few days after, Professor Sepp pronounced another eulogium on him, calling him the Shakespeare of painting, whilst Overbeck he called the Calderon of the art.

In Stuttgart, when the news of his death was heard, the halls of the church, where a requiem was sung for his soul, were hung with copies of his own paintings. Lübke spoke on the occasion, and drew a parallel between Cornelius and Phidias and Michael Angelo. In Dresden, Hettner made the funeral discourse. Finally, in Rome, the Eternal City, from which Cornelius had gone forth to conquer a new world of art, and to which he had returned in order to draw inspiration from its associations and have a perfect intuition of the ideal, a solemn requiem was sung for him in the German national church of the "Anima," at which King Louis I., of Bavaria, who had opened the path of immortality to the artist, Overbeck, who had loved him for fifty-six years, and all the artists of Rome, assisted. A few days before, King Louis had written a letter to the widow of Cornelius, who lived in Berlin. In it occurred these words: "Be assured of my profound sympathy in your great loss; but not alone your loss, but our common loss. The sun of heaven became dark when he who was the sun of art was extinguished. But the sun will shine again in the heavens, but we shall hardly ever see another Cornelius!"

The whole world on both sides of the Alps have united in rendering homage to the genius of Cornelius, and laying crowns on his sepulchre at Berlin. But the last monument to his glory would be the ornamentation of the cathedral in that city with his wonderful compositions. That such an event should happen there was given to Cornelius the word of a king.

We who admired and loved the artist and his genius only pray that he may enjoy now an eternal, happy rest in the bosom of the Author of beauty, from whom he always drew the inspiration of his art.

{403}

What shall we do with the Indians?

The Commissioners whom our Government recently sent out to the Plains to negotiate treaties with the hostile Indians, have patched up a truce with some of the most dangerous of the tribes, and the people are congratulating themselves that the warfare is over. We might have been on good terms with the savages any time this last half-century, if we had been honestly so minded and had known how to govern ourselves and the red man too. Yet the record of our intercourse with the aborigines has been nothing but a history of long wars and short truces. Years of the most terrible hostilities have been followed by a few months of precarious quiet, and the Western pioneer has been almost invariably obliged, like his New-England ancestors, to till his acres with one hand on the plough and the other on his gun. He has never known a month of security. He has never left his log cabin in the morning without reasonable fear that he would find it in flames when he returned at night. He has learned to look upon the Indian as a noxious beast, whom no promises could bind, no good treatment could mollify; as a pest which every honest man was justified in conscience, if he was not bound in duty, to do his utmost to exterminate. A war of races between the red and the white has long been a cardinal doctrine in the creed of the prairie settler, and his chief social principle has been, War to the knife with the Indian, and no quarter.

Here is a dreadful state of things for a Christian people to contemplate; and the fault of it, to speak plain English, is all our own. Managed as we manage them, Indian affairs can be nothing else than a perpetual affliction. Treated as we treat them, the aborigines of the West cannot help being our cruel and implacable foes. The devil himself could hardly invent a wrong which we have not done to the primitive owners of our territory. They once stood in awe of us as superior beings; we have committed every conceivable baseness that could belittle us in their estimation. They had noble traits of character; we have done all we could to obliterate them. They had the common faults of uncivilized pagans; we have intensified them. They are proud; we insult them. They are revengeful; we aggravate them. They are covetous; we rob them. They have a natural tendency toward drunkenness; we keep them supplied with liquor. They are cruel; we tempt them to murder. The "noble savage" of the novel and the stage, we grant, is a fiction; but he is not more unreal than the irredeemable brute who is popularly depicted as the terror of the frontiersman and the western emigrant. The Indians, after all, are not so very different from other human beings. Like all mankind, they have great virtues and great faults; and if a fair balance could be struck, we are by no means certain that their credits would not exceed our own. There is many a vice which they never would have known if they had not learned it from us; but we can think of no species of crime which the Indians have taught to white men. It is an insane piece of wickedness to treat any race of human beings as vermin, whom it is a mercy to the rest of mankind to sweep out of existence. {404} God never made tribes of men to be slaughtered. All creatures with human souls are capable of moral and mental improvement; capable of a greater or less degree of civilization; capable of being brought under the rule of law, and being made useful to the rest of the world. If we have failed sensibly to improve the condition of the Indians, or to teach them anything more of civilization than some of its worst vices, the fault is our own.

We have to deal with two classes of Indians in the West, and our system with both is as bad as any system can be. As settlements have encroached upon the prairies and forests where the savages roamed in pursuit of game, we have, as a rule, gone through the form of buying the territory from the tribes which claimed it. These tribes have then been removed further westward, or have been assigned certain lands called reservations. The consideration for which the lands are bought is not a sum of money, paid to the savages in hand, but a fixed annuity, given to them in form of merchandise, clothing, blankets, implements of the chase and of husbandry, trinkets, and other goods chiefly prized by the red men; and to oversee the forwarding and distribution of these articles, as well as to look after the general interests of the tribes, to protect them from oppression on the part of the whites, and to check crimes and outrages, we send out into the Indian country a number of officers called Indian Agents and Superintendents. On the reservations, where some effort has been made to teach the savages the habits of civilized life, there are schools, farms, and workshops. The wandering tribes of the far West, however, subsist wholly by the chase, and preserve all their primitive wildness. The Indian Agent in their territory has little to do but distribute their annuities, and when they commit any outrage upon the settlers try to have them punished. Now, there is nothing very objectionable in our way of dealing with these two classes of Indians, _provided_ the agents and superintendents are honest and competent men; but experience has proved that, as a rule, they are neither, though, of course, there are honorable exceptions. One unprincipled adventurer in power over these fierce tribes can raise a tumult which years of warfare cannot subdue. One swindling agent can upset a treaty which has cost the government hundred of lives and millions of dollars. How often has not this been done! It is notorious that most of the men who receive appointments in the Indian country are persons of no character, who demand an opportunity of enriching themselves at the red man's expense, as a reward for political services rendered to the party in power. It is probably a rare thing for any tribe of Indians to receive the whole amount of the annuity to which they are entitled, and for which the government pays. They are swindled first in the price which government pays for the goods, and then they are swindled again by the agents, who deliver just as many of the articles as they please, and no more, or by the teamsters who "lose" packages on the road. Worse still are the traders who sell the poor savages whisky and gunpowder, and collect their "debts" from the distributors of annuities. How many of these debts do our readers suppose are just? And when there is a corrupt understanding between the trader and the agent, what chance has the poor Indian for justice? {405} It is in this atrocious manner that the original owners of our soil have bartered away their birthright for a mess of pottage-- sold their rich acres for a glass of rum. It is in this way that the treaties with the tribes are continually broken. The Indians gave up their lands for a certain annual consideration. The consideration is not paid them in full, and often is hardly paid at all. How are they to know whether we are all swindlers alike, or are only in the habit of appointing swindlers to positions of trust and responsibility?

These, however, are not the only wrongs of which the Indian has to complain. The testimony of missionaries and other trusty witnesses, is unanimous in saying that the frontier settlers as a general rule are perfectly unscrupulous and lawless in all their dealings with the tribes. Contact with the whites always means demoralization, drunkenness, and domestic infamy for the Indian. His property is appropriated, his cabin is invaded, his house is defiled, and if he resists he is murdered, and the murderer never is punished. He has no rights which the white man is bound to respect. He is nothing but a brute, to be hunted as men hunt the buffalo, or killed off like the wolves, with a price set upon his scalp. No wonder we have war; it is a wonder we ever have peace.

The commissioners who were recently sent out to the plains by the national government to investigate the troubles and try to devise a way out of them, are understood to favor the removal of all the Indian tribes to reservations where they will be out of the way of the great routes of travel across the continent, and where white men will have no excuse to interfere with them. That is to say, their plan consists merely of an enlargement of the superintendent system. Cut off from a great part of their hunting-grounds, the savages will become more than ever dependent upon the liberality of the United States government, and more than ever in the power of the agents and traders through whose hands the national _largeness_ must pass. Moreover, it is evident that the boundaries of the reservations cannot be permanently fixed. As the white settlements expand, the Indian territories must contract. Nobody can for a moment suppose that the proprietary rights of the Indians will long be respected when the Yankee emigrant wants their lands. What will happen when the boundaries are broken through? Unless the Indians have learned by that time to support themselves by labor and to conform to a civilized mode of life, they will infallibly be crushed out of existence. There will be another horrible war which will have no end until the red men are virtually exterminated. Now, the serious duty of preparing these rude tribes for the changed conditions of life which must soon come upon them, and fitting them for a gradual and peaceable absorption into the rest of the community--which is their only hope of existence--must fall, if the plan of the commissioners be adopted, upon the Indian agents and superintendents. The power of these men for good or for mischief will be enormously increased. Hence, unless some effective measures be taken to fill these important offices with men of a better class than have hitherto secured them, our present evils will be correspondingly increased. The government swindler will come back to the savages with seven other devils more wicked than himself, and the last state of those poor wretches will be worse than the first.

{406}

Is there any reason to expect improvement? We see not the slightest so long as these offices are distributed on the same principle as other government appointments, and rated among the political spoils that belong to the party in power. An Indian agent ought to be a man of superior abilities; but men of superior abilities will not banish themselves to the desert except for one of two reasons: either they must be animated by disinterested charity, or they must expect to make a good deal of money out of the office over and above their trifling salaries. Charity is not one of the characteristics of political hacks. As for the other motive, we know pretty well how often it operates. To find capable persons to undertake this work; men of incorruptible integrity, of lofty purpose, and of _moral force;_ men whom the Indians will respect and obey, and who will be likely to persevere in their arduous task, we must go outside the partisan ranks. Where shall we find them and how shall we recognize them?

There are such men, who have been at work in this very enterprise ever since the discovery of America, and there are numerous communities of Indians whom they have almost entirely reclaimed from savage life and made quiet and useful members of society. If they have not done more, it is because they have never been free from interference. The unruly settler has invariably broken in upon their work and brought into the communities which they were laboriously civilizing the fatal disturbances of drunkenness and license. If the missionaries could be left alone, they would soon not only Christianize the savages but reduce them to order. Scattered all over the West there are thriving little settlements where the dusky hunter has turned his spear into a ploughshare, and under the directions of the priest has learned more or less of industry and peaceful arts, and forgotten the fierce impulses which once made him a terror to the plains. In these quiet villages the school-house and the chapel are crowded with zealous learners, the fields and gardens bloom with the evidences of thrift. So long as the white man keeps away, there is quiet and prosperity. The great mission of St. Mary's, among the Pottawattomies in Eastern Kansas, is a notable example of what the missionaries can do toward civilizing the poor wretches whom we have so long been trying to tame with gunpowder. And the testimony of travellers, army officers, and government functionaries generally is unanimous as to the complete success of the Catholic priests in dealing with the great problem which perplexes our national legislature.

Why then should we not leave to these missionaries the task in which they have made such satisfactory progress? If we let them alone, their progress will be tenfold more rapid than it has ever been yet. Their conquests will soon be numbered not by villages but by nations. The mission of St. Mary's will be repeated in every corner of the West; and if the government can only devise some means of keeping away from these nurseries of Christianity the corrupting influence of white thieves, drunkards, and adventurers, the Indians in the course of a single generation will be ready for absorption into the rest of the population, will be fit to live side by side with us, to till the land as we do, and earn their bread by honest labor, and then all the trouble will be over. If this policy could be adopted, the reservation plan of the peace commissioners would be a very good one. {407} White men should be strictly forbidden to trespass upon the territory thus set apart, and the military might be employed to enforce the prohibition. Let the whole machinery of agencies, etc., be utterly abolished, as useless and demoralizing. Then let the money now spent in the purchase of beads and similar toys, which the Indians themselves are learning to despise, be devoted to the establishment, stocking, and support of schools, farms, and industrial establishments, under the charge of any authorized missionaries of good standing who are willing to serve _without pay_. Of course, we anticipate little success from any missionaries except Catholic priests; but we cannot expect a non-Catholic government to restrict its confidence to them, and we ask no more than to have the field thrown open to volunteers of all denominations on equal terms. We know well enough, if this be done, that the great majority of the laborers will be those of our own household. The purchase of annuity goods should be made in accordance with the recommendations of the superiors of the missions; but their distribution, lest there should be even a suspicion of unfair dealing, might be arranged through the nearest military commanders. We would not have clergymen mixed up with government money matters, and army officers would probably manage them honestly. Visitors should be appointed periodically by Congress to inspect and report upon the condition of the missions, and those which were not properly ordered should be put into other hands.

Under this arrangement the missionaries would ask nothing from the government but a free field and no interference. They would receive none of the public money. They would ask for no power except what the Indians chose to confer upon them. The domestic government of the tribes could be managed just as that of all other American settlements is managed, by the settlers themselves. The missionary would be merely their guide and teacher. He would desire no power over them beyond what he has already. The Catholic priest never fails to secure an ascendency over the savage mind by the legitimate influence of his personal character and of the message which he comes to preach. Of course it would be many years before the whole field could be occupied; but if the United States government would invite the cooperation of all religious denominations in the great work of civilization, we are persuaded that scores of zealous priests would offer themselves for the labor, that the Jesuits and other great missionary orders would be prodigal of their subjects, and that a generous and earnest spirit would be aroused among the Catholic people and would lead to the collection of an ample fund for the support of the enterprise.

We are not sanguine that the government will adopt this plan. There are too many opposing influences; it is too hard to do right; and it is so easy to oppress an inferior people when you can make money by doing it, and get public applause at the same time. But we see no other hope for the Indian except in the protection of the missionary, and no prospect of peace on the frontier until in our dealings with the aborigines we take as our motto, Justice and Benevolence.

{408}

Translated From The German.

Bellini's Romance.

I was a guest at a pleasant country festival at Eisenberg, a few hours' ride from Dresden, at the close of September, 1835. The post-boy brought me a letter that caused me to order my horse saddled immediately. It was a brief note from my friend J. P. Pixis, informing me that _La Sonnambula_ was to be performed that evening; my favorite songstress, Francilla ------, in the part of Amina. I was more than half in love with that enchantress, and trembled with delight at the prospect of seeing her, while I took a hasty leave of my rural entertainers.

I arrived in time, but would not call upon Francilla till after the opera; not until the next morning, for I wished to see her alone. I was early at the door of her lodgings in Castle street. When she came into the drawing-room and advanced to greet me, I was startled to see her pale, with eyes red with weeping. I gazed anxiously on her face, pressing the hand she held out to me in silence, for my emotion was too great for speech. She asked quietly if I had witnessed the last evening's representation. I assured her I had, and endeavored to express my rapturous appreciation of her singing. But my praises were dashed with gloom as I saw her so sadly altered. "It is no wonder I am dejected," she replied to my questioning looks. "We have all cause to mourn."

"What has happened?"

"Alas!" she faltered, weeping afresh, "Bellini is dead!"

I had not heard the fatal news. Bellini! the glorious composer of the noble work that had so delighted me a few hours before! So admirable an artist--so young--so much honored and beloved! I could have wept with Francilla.

After a few moments' silence, she wiped her eyes, then rose, and took a volume from the table. It was her album, for which I had sent her a drawing--a sketch of her fair self as Romeo, at the moment when Juliet calls on his name in the tomb, while he thinks it the voice of an angel from the skies.

We turned over the leaves of the album, lingering as we came to the different autographs. Francilla's soft, languishing eyes kindled with haughty fire as we noted the bold, rude characters traced by the hand of Judith Pasta; and when we came to the signature of Countess Rossi, her expressive features were lighted with a tender smile.

One letter was written by her Uncle Pixis in Prague. She stopped to give me an account of his family. Turning the leaves and talking rapidly, she paused of a sudden, and I saw two names recorded opposite each other--those of Vincenzo Bellini and Maria Malibran. Bellini had written a passage from the _Capuletti_.

Francilla signed for me to give her my pencil--it was one she had given me--and drew a large cross under Bellini's signature. Her look was intensely significant. Her silence was strangely prolonged. At last I asked, merely to say something: "Why is it, Francilla, that, in the last act of the _Capuletti_, you use Vaccai's music instead of Bellini's? Bellini's composition, as a whole, is superior, and the close far more touching. {409} I never could understand why a celebrated vocalist like yourself should prefer the tamer close of Vaccai."

Francilla looked earnestly in my face, but did not answer for some time. At length, fixing her eyes on the cross she had pencilled, she said, in a tone of deepest solemnity: "I will tell you a story, my friend, and you will see then how much our poor friend suffered. Neither Maria nor I could sing his last act; you shall know why."

"Madame Malibran, too?" I exclaimed.

She interrupted me with a gesture enjoining silence. "You know," she said, "though of fair complexion and blue eyes, Bellini was born at the foot of Etna. You have yourself described him to me as effeminate and a little foppish; but he was a genuine son of Sicily, and he glowed with the warmth of the south, notwithstanding his gentleness and weakness. That was a wonderful nature of his! It was not, like Sicily's volcano, spread over luxuriant meadows, through woods and snow-fields, across a lava waste to the brink of the fiery abyss; nor was it like the Hecla of your own land, where eternal fire burns under eternal ice. He reminded me of an English garden tastefully laid out, with smooth walks and quiet streams, delicate flowers and quaint shrubbery, fountains and fluted shafts; beneath which glowed an abyss of fire! That was Bellini; under his sentimental culture burned a quenchless flame--the love of art, fed by another love--for Malibran!"

"You amaze me, Francilla," I exclaimed. "His passion for art was one for Maria, too. How could he help it? Was it not she who inspired his wondrous creations with their irresistible charm? Was she not his soul of all other performers in the operas? 'What will Malibran say to it?' was Bellini's question concerning everything he composed. She was his queen of art, his muse, his ideal! Life without her was gloom. How can Malibran survive him? Your own imagination, Francilla," I said, "weaves this pretty romance. You know Malibran married M. Beriot."

"Do I not remember how the news of that marriage affected Vincenzo?" she retorted. "How pale he grew, how he trembled, and left the company in silence! Yet he could not have hoped to win Malibran; for she always treated him as a boy, though he was a year older than herself. But he could not have dreamed she would marry M. Beriot, who was at one time distracted for Madame Sontag."

With a pause she went on: "Bellini avoided both Maria and her husband after the marriage. If he saw M. Beriot, he went out of the way--very wisely; for in case of an encounter he might have been tempted--after the Sicilian fashion--you understand?" And with flashing eyes she swung her arm as one who gives a dagger-thrust.

"I understand the pantomime, my pretty Romeo! But your fancy carries the thing too far."

"No one knows what might have happened," she said, "in spite of Vincenzo's soft heart. It was well Malibran left Paris and went to Italy. Bellini never confided his secret to any one; but it became suspected among his friends. And Malibran must have heard of it; for she suddenly became reluctant to sang in any of Bellini's pieces. She continued, however, to represent Romeo; she could not give up that part. {410} When the last representation of the _Capuletti_ was given in Milan, it happened that, in the final act, when Romeo takes the poison, such a death-like shuddering seized Maria's frame, it was with great difficulty she could go through with the part. After the performance was over, she was greatly exhausted; and with emotion she declared that no power on earth should compel her to sing again the Romeo of Bellini. She adopted the part as composed by Vaccai. But she was not satisfied with that; and afterward she returned to poor Bellini's music so far as to retain the first acts of the opera. The last act she always sang as Vaccai wrote it."

"What said Vincenzo to this?"

"When he heard of it, he fell into the deepest despondency. He would neither write nor think anything more; he seemed at times to forget himself, and smiled and talked like a man who had lost his reason. All his friends noticed and lamented the change.

"One day, Lablache came to see him. He found Bellini lying listless on the sofa, pale, depressed, miserable, his eyes half-closed, indifferent to every one. The giant singer went up to him, opened his big mouth, and roared out: 'Halloa, Bellini! what are you lying there for, like an idle lout of a lazzaroni on the Molo, weary of doing nothing! Get up and go to work! Paris, France, all Europe is full of expectation as to what you are to give the world after your _Norma_, which your adversaries silenced. Up, I say! Do you hear me, Bellini?'

"'Indeed, I do hear you, my dear Lablache,' replied the composer in a lachrymose voice. 'I have good ears, and, if I had not, your brazen base pierces like a trumpet! Leave me, _caro_; leave me to myself. I am good for nothing, unless it be the _dolce far niente!_ I have lost interest in everything!'

"'The mischief you have!' exclaimed Lablache, striking his hands together, with a tone that caused the walls to vibrate. And you--Bellini--talk thus? You, who have ever pressed on to the goal, and reached it in spite of obstacles! Are you an artist? Are you a man? _Amico mio!_ will you be checked midway in your glorious career? Will you lose the prize fame holds out? Will you spend your life whining out loverlike complaints, like some silly Damon of his cruel Doris or Phillis? Shame on you! Such womanish pinings are unworthy of you!'

"Bellini interrupted him very gently. 'My good Lablache,' he said, 'you do me injustice! I make no complaints; I am not pining--'

"'Silence!' roared Lablache. 'You are a fool! Do you think I do not know where the shoe pinches?'

"Bellini colored deeply and cast down his eyes.

"'Have you nothing to say, Bellini?' continued Lablache. 'Don't look so stupidly like an apprehended school-boy!'

"Vincenzo sighed piteously. 'If you know all,' he replied, 'you know that _she_ will sing nothing of my music!'

"Lablache came closer, grasped the shoulders of the young composer in his powerful hands, lifted him from the cushions of the sofa to his feet, and gave him a good shaking! Then, as he released him, he said, with flashing eyes:

"'You shall hear _me_ sing something of yours.' He began the _allegro_ to the duet from _I Puritani_, "Suoni la tromba e intrepido." His stentorian voice rang like a clarion or a martial shout. The flush of enthusiasm rushed to Bellini's pale face; the tears sprang into his eyes; at length, he threw himself into Lablache's arms, and joined his voice in the splendid song. When it was ended, he thanked his friend, and pledged his word that he would finish the composition of the entire opera in a few weeks.

{411}

"The promise was kept. Bellini worked diligently, and in the stipulated time put the opera into the hands of Lablache, who undertook to see that it should be worthily represented.

"All Paris was delighted at the announcement of the representation. The opera was splendidly cast, and the rehearsals commenced. Bellini was present at the first rehearsal; at the second, he was absent, and word came that he was ill at his country-seat at Porteaux, near the capital. They hoped he would recover in time to attend the first performance of the opera.

"All went on successfully; and a large audience attended the opening representation. The famous duet Lablache had sung was repeated and encored amid thunders of applause. Just then a murmur went round the theatre, and the applause was silenced. The news was:

"'Bellini died an hour ago, at his country-seat.'"

Francilla ceased. She closed the album, rose hastily, and went to the window. I was deeply affected, and was leaving the room quietly. But she turned round, and, bidding me stay, went and seated herself at the piano. The song was a melancholy one, sung with wonderful expression and feeling. It was a farewell to the dead.

My friend Pixis came into the room at its close, and asked what it was we were so mournful about.

I replied, "Francilla has been telling me of Bellini's unhappy love for Malibran."

"Do not believe a word of it!" cried Pixis, laughing. "She will get you up a fine romance on that chapter."

I had my doubts of its truth; yet the fact is indisputable that Bellini was always in love.

Here the pretty artist, Maschinka Schneider, came in, and the conversation was of the representation of the _Capuletti_, already announced. I gave advice as to improvements in the arrangement of the scenes.

I could not help remembering the sad tale my little friend had told me. I thought of it again when, a year afterward, I read in the newspapers that Malibran had died at Manchester, on the 23d of September, the same day on which Bellini had expired a year before.

{412}

Translated from the French of Souvestre.

The Inside of a Stage-Coach.

One of the last days of September the rain had fallen all day in torrents, but finally, having ceased, left the sky so enveloped in fog that, though scarcely four o'clock, night seemed already to have overspread the earth.

A heavy diligence, with its relay of horses, ascended with difficulty one of the hills which separate Belleville from Lyons, while the postilions walked on each side of the team, pausing about every fifty steps to breathe and recover themselves. The wearied passengers had descended by invitation of the conductor, and were trudging along in no amiable mood, scolding the horses, the rain, and the miserable roads. Two of them, who came last, stopped suddenly at the turning of the ascent One was a man nearly fifty years old, with a mild and smiling countenance; but the other, much younger, had an air of gloom and dissatisfaction. Throwing his eyes over the surrounding country, half enveloped in fog, he said to his companion:

"What weather and what a year, Cousin Grugel! The Saône has hardly entered its bed, and the valleys are again inundated."

"God preserve us, Gontran!" replied the man with the mild countenance; "the rainbow can appear any moment above the deluge."

"Yes," replied the other traveller, with slight irony; "I know your mania of hope, Jacques."

"And I yours of discouragement, Darvon."

"Well, I am right when I examine how this world goes. Where do you see peace, order, or prosperity? I only hear of incendiaries, contagion, deluge, and murder. What man's wickedness spares, the wickedness of nature annihilates, for even brute matter seems to possess the instinct of destruction; and the elements, like kings, cannot remain neighbors without warring against each other."

"That is only one side of things, my cousin--the sad side; but of the other you never speak. Your eyes are riveted on the volcano which dims the horizon, but you cannot lower them to the fields of ripe corn undulating at your feet. There is happiness in the world, if you can make up your mind to believe it."

"Well, I know nothing of it," replied Darvon, in a tone of vexation.

"But, yourself considered, may you not be placed among the most favored?"

"True, Jacques, and yet I have not been able to find, in all the good accorded me, either peace or contentment."

"What have you to wish for? You are rich, honored, and have a family who love you."

"Yes," replied Gontran; "but this same fortune has cost me the lawsuit for which I have just made the third voyage to Macon; my good reputation has not deterred the opposing lawyer from slander; and as to my family--"

"Well?" inquired Jacques.

"Well! my sister, with whom I always lived so affectionately, has just quarrelled with me."

"It will be a short quarrel."

{413}

"No, no; I am tired of working without profit to establish order in her affairs. I have been too much annoyed by her want of system and reason."

"Think of her excellent heart and you will forgive her."

"Oh! I know that you will always find a good reason for me to bear my sorrows patiently; you have a recipe for every wound of the soul, and if I press you a little, you will prove me in the wrong to complain, and that all is quite right here below."

"Pardon me," replied Grugel; "in the government of this world I find much to wound me, but I am not sure I am the best judge. Life is a great mystery, of which we comprehend so little. Must I own it to you, there are hours when I persuade myself that God has not afflicted men with so many scourges without intention. Happy and invulnerable, they could be endured; each one would count on his individual strength, delight in his own isolation, and refuse all sympathy to his fellow-being. But weakness has no such resource; on the contrary, it forces men to be friendly, to aid and love one another. Grief has become a bond of sympathy, and we owe to it our noblest and best sentiments, gratitude, devotion, and piety."

"Well done," said Darvon, smiling; "not being able to sustain the good in all things, you give me the bright side of evil."

"Perhaps so," said Grugel; "only be sure that evil itself is not absolute. Science borrows its remedies from the sap of venomous plants; why, then, may we not from passion, misfortune, or inequality draw much that is good? Believe me, Darvon, there is no human dross, however poor, without its particles of gold."

"In good faith, then, I would like to know what could be found in our travelling companions," cried Gontran. "Let us see, cousin; suppose we put to the test these curious patterns of our race, as we proclaim it so intelligent."

"It is very certain," said Jacques, smiling, "fate has not favored us."

"Never mind, never mind," replied Darvon, whose misanthropy was niggardly in its character; "disengage the gold from the dross, as you say. But first, how many grains do you expect to find in this cattle-merchant before us?"

Grugel raised his head and saw, a few steps in advance, the traveller who had called him cousin. A coarse man in a blue blouse, following with heavy steps the side of the road, while finishing his well-picked chicken-bone.

"I declare, that is the seventh repast I have seen him make to-day," continued Darvon, "and the coach-pockets are still laden with his provisions. When he has eaten enough, he goes to sleep, then he eats again, then goes to sleep in order to recommence his programme. He is a mere digesting machine, too imbecile to draw from him either response or information."

"Our companion with the felt hat can sufficiently acquit himself in that respect."

"Ah! yes, let us consider him and try also to extract his gold. He joined our party only this morning, and already the conductor has sent him from the _impériale_ to the travellers in the _coupé_, who again have sent him to the _intérieur_. We have had him but two hours, and he has already given us his own and his family history to the fifth degree. I know his name is Peter Lepré, that for twenty years he has been commissioner of colonial produce in the departments of the Saône and Loire, of Ain, Isère, and of the Rhone, and he has been married three times. {414} Then if you did not have to bear his questioning; but he is equally talkative and curious, and when his confession is finished, he awaits yours. If you are reflecting, he speaks to you; if you speak, he interrupts you. His voice is like a rattle in constant motion, the noise of which ends in making you nervous."

"Poor Lepré!" said Grugel; "at heart, after all he is a worthy man."

"He has one merit," replied Darvon, "that of annoying Mademoiselle Athénaïs de Locherais; for we almost forgot this amiable fellow-traveller, who, after recommending us all to get out to lighten the coach, remained in herself so as not to dampen her feet."

"You must forgive her," observed Jacques; "isolation has made her forget all ease of others; her heart is contracted."

"Contracted!" repeated Gontran, "you are deceived, cousin; Mademoiselle Athénaïs has a great deal of love for herself. The whole world seems to have been made for her special ease, and she can imagine nothing in it that does not bear upon her in some way or other. She is one of those sweet creatures who, hearing the cry of the midnight assassin, returns to her pillow complaining of having been awakened."

Grugel was going to reply, but they had arrived at the top of the hill. The conductor, calling the passengers, urged them to remount, as a courier had just appeared with an announcement, that, owing to the overflow of the Saône, the passage by Villefranche would be impossible, and that in order to reach Anse they would be obliged to turn more to the right, passing the Niseran higher up and taking another road. The coach which had just preceded them, not having taken this precaution, had been surprised by the waters, and some of the passengers were reported to be drowned. Happily this last intelligence was not communicated to the travellers, but they vociferated loudly when apprised of the by-road they were obliged to take.

"There is a malediction on us," said Gontran, already peevish with the length of the journey.

"I knew it would be so, sir," cried Pierre Lepré, with volubility. The two postilions had just escaped from him, so he fell back on his travelling companions. "I was told on my way that the Ardiere and Vauzarme had risen considerably; indeed, we cannot tell if we can pass to Anse, where we may encounter the waters of the Azergnes and the Brevanne. Where in the world are you taking us, conductor? Shall we pass the woods of Orrigt? Well, I know the mayor, a thin man, always smoking. But, speaking of this, can we not stop again before we come to Anse?"

"Impossible," replied the conductor brusquely; "I am now eight hours behind time."

"Gracious! where will we sup, then?" cried the fat cattle-merchant.

"We won't sup at all, sir."

"I declare, I wish I had some broth," interrupted Mademoiselle Athénaïs, in a shrill voice, with her head out of the coach door; "I always take my broth at five o'clock."

"We have had nothing since morning," cried all the travellers.

"Get in, gentlemen," called out the conductor; "one hour's delay may prevent us from reaching there. You can't joke with an overflow, and I don't want my coach drowned."

"Drowned!" cried Mademoiselle Athénaïs's. "Why, this is horrible. You shall be informed against, conductor! I demand that you leave the valley. Why don't you answer me, conductor? I will complain to your chief."

{415}

The diligence starting, cut the old lady's sentence in two, so she fell back in her corner with an exclamation of dissatisfaction.

Jacques Grugel felt himself obliged to tell her that the route they were taking would lead them away from the Saône and avoid the danger.

"But where will I get my soup?" inquired she, slightly reassured.

"We will not stop till we reach Anse," resumed Lepré; "the conductor has said so, and God only knows what kind of roads we will meet with. Roads of the department; that says everything. And then I know the engineer, a talented man; his son was married the same day as my eldest. But we won't arrive till to-morrow, mark my words."

There was a general cry from the passengers. They had eaten nothing since morning, calculating on the lunch usually obtained at Villefranche, and Gontran had already proposed, with his usual vivacity, to make a descent on the first village and force them to serve up a supper, when the cattle-merchant cried out:

"A supper! I have one at your service."

"What! for everybody?" asked Lepré.

"For everybody, citizen. I can offer you three courses, with your dessert, and something for a heeltap."

While speaking he drew from the pockets of the carriage a half-dozen packets, and, rolling his tongue around his mouth, proceeded to open them; they contained provisions of every kind, properly enveloped and tied with care.

"Won't we have a feast?" said Lepré, who had asked the cattle-merchant, in his inventory, "my friend, what _is_ your name?"

"Barnau."

"Good, Mr. Barnau; but what good care you take of yourself."

"How can a man be at his ease," said the fat merchant, with a certain pride, "if he can't eat the best of everything? However, these gentlemen and mademoiselle can judge of my victuals."

Grugel turned to Gontran, and gave him a significant look.

"Truly," said he smiling, and in an under-voice, "here are the _grains of gold_ you looked for."

"_Grains of gold!_" repeated Barnau, who did not understand him; "why, man, that's a sausage with truffles."

"And these gentlemen would have us believe grains of gold are good for famished people," resumed Pierre Lepré, laughing; "that is a figure of speech, Monsieur Barnau. I have a son who studied these figures in rhetoric. He explained it all to me; but, pardon me, let us first help mademoiselle."

They presented the food to Mademoiselle de Locherais, who returned each piece, but finally ended by choosing the most delicate, complaining, as she ate, of the privations of travellers. To console her, Barnau offered her some old brandy; but mademoiselle cried out with horror:

"Brandy to me! What do you take me for, sir?"

"You like sherry better, perhaps," said the cattle-merchant, in a careless way.

"I drink neither sherry nor brandy," cried Mademoiselle Athénaïs fiercely. "I take water only," she said, turning toward Grugel. "Did you ever hear anything like this rustic?" she murmured; "offer me cognac, as if the spices he has given us were not sufficient to burn one's blood. I shall surely be ill from it." {416} Finishing what she had to say, she arranged herself in her corner, so as to turn her back on the cattle-merchant, picked up a pillow she had with her, leaned her head on it, and fell asleep.

The diligence continued its tedious route. Though humid, the air was cold, and not a star was to be seen. Relieved by the repast which the gastronomical foresight of Barnau had permitted him to make, Lepré resumed his loquacity, and, although his fellow-travellers had long since ceased to answer him, he continued to talk on without being in the least concerned to know if he was listened to.

This noise of words, the slowness of their progress, the darkness, and the cold combined to render the passengers nervously impatient, and every few moments might be heard yawns, shudderings, or subdued complaints. Darvon, particularly, seemed more and more excitable; a prey to nervous irritation. He had already opened and shut for the tenth time the blind of the coach-door, leaned his head to the right, to the left, and back on the cushion, fixed his legs in every possible position that the narrow space of which he could dispose allowed him; and, finally, at the break of day, his patience was entirely exhausted.

"I would give ten of the days which remain of my life to be at the end of this journey," cried he.

"Here we are at Anse," replied Grugel.

"True, upon my word," said Lepré, who had been asleep an instant. "Hallo, conductor, how long do you remain here?"

"Five minutes."

"Open the door; I am just going to say good day to the post-master."

The door was opened, and Barnau got down with Lepré to renew his provisions. Nearly at the same moment the clerk came forward to see if there were any vacant places.

"Only one," replied Grugel.

"How!" cried Mademoiselle de Locherais, who had just awakened with a start; "would monsieur by any chance ask any one to come in here?"

"A traveller for Lyons."

"But it is quite impossible," resumed the old maid; "we are already frightfully crowded. Monsieur, your coaches are too small; I will complain to the administration."

"Ah! without doubt here is our new companion," said Grugel, who was looking out of the door. "M. Lepré has already seized upon him."

"He is a military man," cried mademoiselle.

"A non-commissioned officer of the Chasseurs."

"Oh! is he coming in here? Why don't they make soldiers go on foot?"

"In such a time as this it would be hard and fatiguing for them, mademoiselle."

"Is it not their trade? Such people are never fatigued. These public conveyances do give you such disagreeable neighbors! .... The derangement of your usual habits, to have nothing warm, pass the night without any sleep, be crowded, choked! .... I don't see why one of these gentlemen don't get up in the imperial."

"Notwithstanding the fog?"

"What does that signify, for men?"

"Mademoiselle would be less incommoded," added Darvon ironically. "She had better make the proposition herself to our companion."

"What! I speak to a soldier!" said Mademoiselle Athénaïs fiercely; "I prefer being incommoded, sir!"

"Well, here he is," said Jacques.

{417}

The non-commissioned officer had indeed just appeared before the door, followed by the clerk with whom he was quarrelling. He was a spruce, dapper-looking young man, but his bragging and soldierly manners disgusted Darvon at first sight. He complained of the delay of the coach, having waited for it since the night preceding, and with words abused the clerk of the office, whose responses were timid and embarrassed. At last, the conductor declaring they must start, he came to the coach-door and looked inside.

"Magnificent collection," murmured he, after having cast an impertinent look on the travellers; "I wonder if the _coupé_ and the _rotonde_ are as well furnished. Have you no women aboard, conductor?"

"The insolent creature!" murmured Mademoiselle.

"Well," resumed the soldier, "one must not be too particular in the country." And he took his place.

Gontran leaned toward Grugel, and said, in a low voice, "This one completes our collection of absurdities."

"Take care he don't hear you," replied Jacques.

Darvon shrugged his shoulders.

"Bragging people inspire more disgust than fear," said he, "and this one certainly needs a lesson in politeness."

Meanwhile, Barnau returned without Lepré. After having looked for the latter at the inn, and waited for him some minutes, the diligence started without him, to the great joy of mademoiselle, who hoped to be more at her ease. But her joy was of short duration, for the non-commissioned officer, who had located himself at first on the other bench, got up and took the seat next to her. The angry old maid adjusted herself brusquely, and pulled down her veil.

The military man turned toward her.

"Ah!" said he, in a mocking tone, "madame seems afraid of being looked at."

"Perhaps so, sir," said she, dryly.

"I quite understand the reason," resumed the soldier. "But she can calm her nerves. I can deprive myself of the pleasure." And as he noticed the movement of indignation of Mademoiselle de Locherais, continued, "I speak solely for the interest of her health; and to allow her to breathe with her face uncovered, as we want air in this box, I think I had better lower the window."

"I object to it," said mademoiselle quickly; "my doctor has forbidden any exposure to the morning air."

"And mine has forbidden me to smother," replied the young man, putting out his hand to open the sash.

But the old maid cried out. The window was on her side, she had a right to have it closed, and appealed to the other travellers.

However little disposed Darvon had been in favor of Mademoiselle de Locherais, he considered it right to defend her, and the result was a sharp discussion between him and the soldier, which would have ended in trouble had not Grugel ceded his place at the other window.

The soldier accepted it with a bad grace, preserving a strong feeling against Darvon.

Now, the reader has already perceived that Gontran's predominant qualities were neither resignation nor patience. The contrarieties of the journey had excited his sickly inability, therefore the disagreement which had already broken out between them was renewed several times, and only awaited a favorable opportunity to become a later quarrel.

{418}

Some of the smaller baggage had been placed by Darvon in a net suspended from the top of the diligence; the soldier pretended that it incommoded him, and wished it removed. Gontran refused to do it.

"You have decided it shall remain where it is?" cried the soldier, after a discussion in which he had grown more and more animated.

"Decidedly!" replied Darvon.

"Very well. I will get rid of it by the coach-door," replied the young man, while extending his hand toward the net.

Gontran seized the hand, and said, "Take care what you do, sir," in a changed voice. "Ever since you came in here, you have tried to make me lose my patience; your whole course has been one of abuse and tyranny, but you may as well understand I am not the man to put up with your tyranny."

"Is this a challenge?" asked the soldier, throwing on Gontran a disdainful look.

"By no means," interrupted Grugel, annoyed by the turn affairs had taken; "my cousin merely wished you to observe--"

"I don't accept the observations of snarlers."

"And snarlers don't accept your insolence," replied Gontran.

At this word insolence the soldier shuddered, a deep redness suffused his features.

"Where do you stop, sir?" asked he of Darvon, in a voice trembling with anger.

"At Lyons," replied the latter.

"Very well, we will finish our explanation there."

"So be it."

Jacques, alarmed, wished to interpose, but his cousin and the soldier spoke at the same time, and repeated they would terminate this affair at Lyons.

At the same instant great cries were heard, and the diligence was overtaken by a wagon entirely covered with mud. Mademoiselle de Locherais put her head out of the coach-door.

"O Lord! what a misfortune," said she; "Monsieur Pierre Lepré has overtaken us. Now we will be completely filled up."

As soon as they reached the public conveyance, the commissioner of colonial produce jumped out of the wagon, and presented himself at the coach-door, which the conductor had just opened.

"Is this the way you go off without waiting for the passengers?" cried he, furious.

"I warned you three times," interposed the conductor.

"Six times is customary, sir, or even a dozen; you are very miserly with your words. Does it cost anything to speak? I could not leave the post-master while he was telling me what happened to the diligence yesterday; for you did not know, gentlemen, that the one that preceded this was drowned."

"Drowned!" repeated every one.

"Very good," interrupted the conductor; "but get in."

"Anything but good," responded Pierre Lepré; "everybody is frightened enough."

"I beg of you to get up immediately."

"And what will our families think when they learn this disaster?"

"Be quick, then."

"Again, there was I trying to obtain these details, when they came to tell me you had gone on without me."

"And we are going to do the same thing again," said the impatient conductor.

"Bless me," cried Lepré, who hastened to get up. "I have had enough of wagons; here I am, conductor, lift me up."

{419}

The commissioner of provisions was overwhelmed with questions, and he soon related all he had heard; then, interrupting himself, according to his usual habit, and recognizing the young officer, he cried out:

"Oh! this is the gentleman I had the honor of seeing at Anse."

"The same," replied the soldier.

"Delighted to meet you again," said Lepré. "Whatever you may think of me, I am the born friend of all the military. I should have had to serve myself if they had not found a substitute for me."

He was interrupted by Mademoiselle Athénaïs, who just perceived that he was quite wet.

"It is this abominable fog," said he, while wiping the water off with his handkerchief.

"But people don't come into a carriage in such a condition," replied mademoiselle, in a discontented way. "When you are covered with fog, you might as well remain out."

"To dry one's self?" asked Lepré, laughing. "Great goodness, I had enough of it; then my coachman was drunk, and just missed turning the wagon over into the river."

"The deuce!" said Gontran.

"We would have been added to the diligence of yesterday, unless we had found some good soul brave enough to fish for us. But such things have been. Three years ago, after a great inundation, a workman alone saved five persons who were drowning near the Guillotière."

"We knew of him particularly," said Grugel, "as my cousin's best friend was one of the saved."

"True?" asked the soldier.

"And he owed his safety to the devotion of that young man."

"Oh! all the details of that action were admirable," said Darvon, with great warmth; "the frightened horse had pulled the carriage into the strongest of the current; on the shore the crowd looked on, without daring to go to their relief; there seemed to be no hope for the five persons in the carriage."

"Bah!" interrupted the soldier, "perhaps some of them could swim, and have got nicely out of the scrape."

Gontran disdained a reply.

"The carriage commenced to sink," continued he, "when a workman appeared with a small boat, which with difficulty he guided into the midst of the Rhone. Three times it was on the point of upsetting. The people who looked on from the shore cried out, 'Do not go any further; come ashore; you are going to perish.' But he did not listen to them--still advancing toward the carriage, which by dint of skill and courage, he finally reached."

"And most happily," the military man replied.

"Without doubt," replied Grugel, who remarked Gontran's movement of impatience, "but only good-hearted people find happiness in such acts."

"It was a beautiful incident," interrupted Mademoiselle de Locherais, "and one that should have benefited its author."

"Pardon me, madame," said Darvon. "The workman no doubt considered that the true recompense for any generous action is in ourselves; for, after having saved these people, he retired without wishing to receive either reward or praise."

"Humph! perhaps he thought it useless to demand payment," said the officer.

"And is his name unknown?" said Pierre Lepré.

"Pardon me, he was called Louis Duroc."

"What! what do you say, Louis----"

"Duroc."

Lepré turned towards the officer.

{420}

"Why, that is your name?" cried he.

"This gentleman's name!" repeated all the travellers.

"Louis Duroc, called the African; I asked him his name at Anse, while we were talking at the inn, and I have seen it, besides, on his portmanteau."

"Well, what next?" asked the officer, laughing. "It certainly is my name."

"Can it be!" interrupted Gontran; "and you are--"

"The workman in question; yes, gentlemen. There would have been no use in telling it, but now there is no use in concealing it. I entered the service a week after the accident, and my regiment had to leave for Algeria, so that I never again met my friends of the carriage; however, I hope to see them again at Lyons."

"I will take you to them," said Darvon quickly, while offering his hand to the officer; "for I wish we may be friends, Monsieur Louis."

"What, we!" replied the military man, regarding Gontran with hesitation.

"Oh! please forget all that has passed," replied the latter; "I am ready, if necessary, to acknowledge I have been wrong--"

"No!" interrupted Duroc, "no, indeed; I was the wrong-headed one, and I regret it, I give you my word of honor. Bad habits of the regiment, you see. Because we have no fear, we like to show it on all occasions, and to each new-comer, and so play the bully, but at heart good children; so without malice, monsieur."

He had cordially pressed Gontran's hand, Lepré seizing his at the same time.

"Good!" cried he; "you are a true Frenchmen, and so is Monsieur. Between Frenchmen, people should always agree. I am delighted to have made your acquaintance, M. Louis Duroc. But, _à propos_, do you know it was a most happy coincidence that I obliged you to tell me your name, that you did not want to give me? Without me, no one would have known what you were worth."

"It is true," replied Grugel. "If this gentleman had talked less, this explanation would not have taken place, and my cousin would have mistaken the true character of Monsieur Louis. You see, chance seems to have taken the task of supporting my theory, and all the honor of the journey is mine."

As he finished these words, the coach stopped; they had arrived.

The travellers found the diligence-yard crowded with relations or friends awaiting their arrival. The misfortune of the day before was known, and had awakened all possible anguish.

Darvon no sooner stepped down, than he heard his name pronounced, and, turning, saw his sister hastening to him with cries of joy. Her anxiety on his account had caused her to forget their quarrel.

They embraced over and over again; their eyes moistened with tears as they looked at each other, smiling. They were reconciled.

As they went together from the diligence-yard Gontran met his travelling companions. Barnau and Lepré saluted them; Louis Duroc renewed his promise to visit them; Mademoiselle Athénaïs de Locherais alone passed without any sign of recognition. She was too much occupied watching her baggage. Jacques Grugel turned then to Gontran.

{421}

"There is the only objection to my doctrine," said he, pointing to the old maid. "All our other companions have more or less redeemed themselves in our eyes: the _gourmand_ procured us a supper; the babbler revealed a useful secret; the quarrelsome one gave proof of his generous bravery; but of what use has been to us the selfish egotism of Mademoiselle de Locherais?"

"To make me realize the value of true devotion and tenderness," replied Gontran, who pressed his sister's arm more closely to his heart. "Yes, from to-day, cousin, I will adopt your system. I firmly believe there is a good side to everything, and that it is only necessary to know where to look for the _vein of gold_."

Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.

He who remains alone by himself, and maintains a state of tranquillity, is saved the waging of three wars; that is to say, the warfare of hearing, of speech, and of sight; and he will have but one to carry on, and that is the warfare of the heart.

Abbot Arsenius, while he still dwelt in a palace, prayed to the Lord one day, and said, "O Lord! point out to me the way to salvation." And a voice came to him saying, "Arsenius, avoid the society of men, and you shall be saved." Thereupon he went away to lead a monastic life, and it happened that he again made the same prayer. And he heard a voice saying unto him, "Arsenius, flee, remain silent, be tranquil."

Abbot Evagrius said: Cast from thee affection for many things, lest thy mind be full of trouble and lose its tranquillity.

A certain brother once went to Scythia, to ask advice of Abbot Moses. And the old man said to him, "Go sit in thy cell, and thy cell will teach thee all things."

Abbot Nilus said: He who loveth quiet shall be impenetrable to the darts of the enemy; but he who mingleth with the multitude shall receive many wounds.

A certain father told this story: Three persons who loved their souls became monks. One of them chose as his task the making up of quarrels, according as it is written, "Blessed are the peacemakers." (Matt, v.) The second determined to visit the sick. The third went away into the desert to remain in solitude. Now, the first, who busied himself about the quarrels of men, could not always succeed in bringing about a reconciliation. Sick at heart, he went to see how he fared who was visiting the sick, and found that he also was growing weary, and was quite unable to carry out his purpose. These two then went together to see the one who had gone into the desert, and told him all their troubles. And then they asked him to tell them how he himself had got along. After a short pause, he poured some water into a basin and said to them, "Look at the water." And it was troubled. After a little while he again said to them, "Now look at the water, and see how clear it has grown." And they, looking in the water, saw their faces reflected as from a mirror. {422} And then he said to them, "Thus it is with him who lives among men; for from the turbulence of his life he sees not his own sins; when, however, he is become tranquil, and especially when he lives in solitude, then he clearly perceives his faults."

Abbot Elias said: Three things I fear. One is, the separation of soul and body; the second, my meeting with God the third, the sentence which shall be pronounced upon me.

Abbot James said: As a light illuminateth a room, even so doth the fear of God, when it shall have entered the heart of man, illuminate and teach him every virtue and the precepts of God.

Syncletica, of holy memory, said: The wicked who are converted to God have to toil and struggle much, but afterward their joy is ineffable. For as those who wish to kindle a fire have first to bear the smoke, and are ofttimes forced to shed tears before they succeed for it is written, "Our God is a consuming fire"--so ought we also to kindle within us the divine flame amid toils and tears.

A father said: As we carry our shadow about with us everywhere, even so ought we always to weep and be contrite.

They tell of Abbot Agatho that he kept a pebble in his mouth three years, and thus acquired silence.

Abbot Agatho was once making a journey with his disciples, when one of them found a little bundle of green vetches lying on the roadside, and said to his master, "Father, if you wish it, I will take them." The old man looked at him in astonishment, and asked, "Didst thou place them there?" And the disciple said "No." And then the father replied, "Why, then, do you desire to take away what you have not placed there?"

Abbot Evagrius tells that a father once said: I deprive myself of carnal delights, in order that I may the more readily avoid occasions of anger. For I know that this passion always attacks and disturbs my mind and clouds my intellect according as I indulge in carnal delights.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, once sent for Abbot Hilarion, that he might see him before he died. When they had met and were dining, a fowl was set on the table which the bishop offered Hilarion. And then Hilarion said, "Pardon me, father, for ever since I have worn this habit I have never eaten of anything slain." And then Epiphanius replied, "And I, since I have worn this habit, have never allowed any one to sleep who had anything against me, nor have I ever slept having aught against any one." "Pardon me," replied the old man, "your life is more perfect than mine."

They tell of Abbot Elladius that he lived in his cell twenty years without ever lifting his eyes to the ceiling.

Abbot John the Small said: If a king should wish to take a hostile city, he would first intercept supplies of water and provisions, and thus the enemy, being in danger of starvation, would fall into his hands. So it is with the inordinate desires of the stomach. If a man fast well, the enemies of his soul grow weak.

{423}

New Publications.

Language, And The Study Of Languages. In Twelve Lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science. By William Dwight Whitney, Professor of Sanskrit and Modern Languages in Yale College. New York: Scribner & Co. 1867. 12mo, pp. 489.

Professor Whitney, with a full knowledge of the chief results thus far obtained in linguistic science by philologists, appears to be passably free and independent in his judgments, and cautious and sober in his inductions. His book is, however, rather an introduction to the study of linguistics than a full statement and vindication of its principles as a science. Its chief merit is in its correction of the exaggerations of enthusiastic and hasty philologists, and in brushing away numerous false theories and hypotheses unsustained and unsustainable by the facts in the case.

For the most part, the principles laid down by the author are sound and incontrovertible; but in some instances his application of them, and the conclusions he draws, may be disputed. Even his definition of language, as the medium by which men communicate their thoughts to one another, maybe objected to as superficial and inadequate, and as really including only one of its functions. Language is better defined: the sensible sign or representation of the ideal or the intelligible, and is as indispensable to the formation of thought in one's own mind as to the communication of thought to the minds of others. For intuition, no matter of what sort, language indeed is not necessary; but intuition is the _à priori_ condition of thought, as necessary to it as creation is to contingent existence, not thought itself. Without intuition there is no thought; but thought itself is the action of the mind on the intuition--an action not possible without the sensible sign which holds and represents--re-presents--the intuition. What could we do in algebra or the calculus without sensible signs; or in philosophy or theology, or anything that belongs to the noetic or intelligible order, without the words which hold and represent the noetic object? There is a more intimate connection of thought and the word than the professor admits--a deeper significance, a profounder philosophy, a more inscrutable mystery in language, than most philologists dream of, and he who masters its secret masters the secret of the universe. He who is no theologian, no philosopher, can at best be only a sorry philologist. The part can be fully understood only in its relation to the whole, nor the effect without its cause, and hence it is that man and the universe cannot be understood without the knowledge of God.

The author regards linguistics as a moral science, dependent wholly on moral causes, and denies that it is a physical science, or that physical causes have anything to do in producing the dialectic changes, modifications, or differences of language, which the science notes. Here he is too sweeping in both his assertion and his denial. Moral causes operate in the changes language undergoes; and so do physical causes, especially in its phonetic change. At any rate, linguistics is to be classed with the inductive sciences, and, therefore, is a subordinate science, and can never without foreign aid be raised to the dignity or certainty of science itself. None of the inductive sciences are complete in themselves, or sufficient for themselves, and they all do and must, consciously or unconsciously, borrow from philosophy or theology, which has been very properly called _scientia scientiarum_, the science of sciences. Facts are facts always and everywhere; but facts are the matter of science, not science itself. The science is in their explication, or their reduction to the principles from which they proceed, and the law of their procession or production. {424} The inductive philosophers seek to obtain the law by induction from the facts observed, and the principle by induction from the law, which is unscientific; for the principle determines the law, and the law the facts. Hence their inductions are never science, or anything more than empirical classifications. Till the law is referred to its principle, it is not a law, but simply a congeries of facts. The reason why the inductive philosophers fail to perceive this is in the fact that the mind is already in possession of the principle, and simply supplies or applies it to the facts observed; while they, finding they have it, take it for granted that they have obtained it by induction. But he who lacks intuition of the ideal or the universal can never from the observation and analysis of facts rise scientifically above the phenomenal. Here, under the point of view of science, is the defect of all the inductive sciences; and hence, the tendency of all inductive philosophy, as any one may see in the writings of the Positivists, Auguste Comte, E. Littré, J. Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Sir William Hamilton and his school, is to restrict all science to the phenomenal, and, therefore, to exclude principles and causes, and consequently laws.

We do not mean by these strictures to exclude the inductive sciences, so-called, to condemn the inductive method, or to maintain that the sciences are to be created by way of deduction or _à priori_. The inductive method is censurable only when it insists on being exclusive, and that it needs for its application only bare phenomena; and we value as highly as anybody does the inductive sciences when completed by the principles and laws which are neither obtained nor obtainable by induction. There is no way of constructing linguistics but by observation of facts and induction therefrom. The error as to principles and method of Professor Whitney is, that he forgets that all inductions of any value are made by virtue of a principle not obtained by induction, and, therefore, controllable by the science of sciences, that is, by faith, and universal science or philosophy.

The professor proves very satisfactorily that what are called dialects are the result of development, growth, or modifications of the original language, and, therefore, that the unity of the language precedes diversity of dialects. Hence, he maintains that the various languages of the Aryan, Indo-Germanic, or, as he prefers to say, Indo-European group, have all sprung from a common original now lost, but of which perhaps the Sanscrit is the best representative now remaining. Why not, then, conclude that all the languages of mankind, extinct or extant, have sprung from one common original? If we suppose the unity of the species, this must be so; and the professor says that, while linguistics is not and never will be able to confirm it, it cannot, by any means, deny it. The diversity of tongues, then, cannot be alleged as disproving the unity of the species; and as we know the species is one, and that all men have sprung from one original pair, we know that all the diverse tongues of men are but so many dialects of one and the same original language. This is not an induction from linguistic facts, nor can linguistics, in its present state, confirm it; but it is a scientific truth, and also a truth of faith which controls air linguistic inductions. The professor himself goes too far when he says linguistics will never be in a condition to confirm it. That it will not is possible, not certain. His whole work proves that as yet the science of linguistics is in its infancy, hardly a science at all, and that it is not safe to conclude what it may one day do, or not do.

The professor proceeds throughout on the assumption that language is conventional. We do not agree to this, for there can be no convention without language, and language, as he himself shows, is traditional. I speak English because I was born, brought up, and live in a community that speaks English, and because I have learned or been taught it. It is my mother tongue, the tongue of my mother, and taught me by her. Particular words, and particular senses of words already in use, may have been conventionally introduced, but not language itself. {425} These words, whether newly coined or borrowed from other tongues, do not make up the language or modify its laws; they add to its vocabulary, but are subjected to its regimen. We have borrowed largely from the Latin, but we cannot construct a sentence with words so borrowed till we have made them English words. Nobody can talk Latin in English, though we can talk English in words wholly of Latin origin. The vocabulary is of various origin, but the language is English, and has remained so through all the changes the vocabulary has undergone; and this English language defies all conventions, and the influence of both the learned and the unlearned.

Professor Whitney, who appears never to have understood the relation of the inductive sciences either to science or to faith, denies the divine and supernatural origin of language, supposes man to have commenced his career on this earth without language, and to have formed for himself voluntarily but irreflectively language, by attempting to imitate the various cries of animals and the more striking sounds of nature, among which there is not a single articulate sound, the distinguishing mark of human speech. He does not represent men as saying to one another, "Go to, now; let us construct a language, so that we can tell each other our thoughts;" but he represents them as listening to the growl, barking, and howling of dogs, the bleating of sheep, the mooing of cows, the chirping of birds, the crowing of the cock, the hissing of the serpent, the roaring and whistling of the winds, the rattling of the shower or pouring of the rain, the bellowing of the storm, and, by way of imitation, forming out of these inarticulate sounds language in which we praise God and communicate with men. He adopts the onomatopoetic or bow-wow theory, so contemptuously dismissed by Max Müller. There is no doubt that in all dialects there have been introduced vocables in which there is an attempt in the word itself to imitate the sound or cry of the object named; but, supposing men had no language and were unable to converse, how were they to agree on the meaning to be given to these imitated sounds, or construct these words into sentences composed of subject, predicate, and copula, inflected according to the demands of number, gender, case, mood, and tense? There may have also been vocables formed from interjections, and there may be some truth in the interjectional or pooh! pooh! theory; but how form them into words, and these words into language with its grammatical laws and inflections before any knowledge of grammar or language, and bring about a general understanding as to the sense they are to bear? The same objections may be urged against the ding-dong theory, or that man is so constructed that, when touched in a certain manner, he involuntarily emits a certain sound. These theories explain the origin of certain vocables, but not of language.

Professor Whitney is not willing, by any means, to admit the supernatural origin of language, for the inductive sciences recognize nothing above nature. But none of the facts treated by any one of the inductive sciences are explicable without God, and God is supernatural. Man has his origin in the supernatural, though the species is developed by natural generation. In like manner, language, though developed, modified, or changed structurally or phonetically by natural causes according to natural laws, has its origin in the supernatural, or the direct act of God infusing it along with the ideal truth it signifies into the first man. Its origin is divine, as is the origin of man. This is evident because it requires in man the possession of language to be able to invent language, as we have already seen. It is from God, because it can come from no other source; and immediately from God to the first man, though traditionally to us, because there is no natural medium through which its origination is possible; yet not the entire vocabulary of language, but language in the respect that it is the sensible sign or representation of the ideal or the intelligible, whence proceeds the sensible, which copies or imitates it.

{426}

I. Grammatical Synthesis: The Art of English Composition. By Henry N. Day. New York: Scribner & Co. 1867. 12mo, pp. 356.

2. The Art Of Discourse: A System of Rhetoric. By Henry N. Day. New York: Scribner & Co. 1867. 12mo, pp. 343.

We know Mr. Day only as the author of these two books, and these do not give us a very high opinion of him either as a master of English grammar or of English composition. His volumes are elaborate, and evidently have cost him much time and hard study; he has aimed to make them profound, logical, philosophical, attractive, and profitable to the student; but their depth is less than he believes, their logic is more pretentious than real, and their philosophy is borrowed from a bad school.

The first work purports to be a grammar of the English language, and aims, while teaching the art of composition or the construction of sentences, to make the study of grammar attractive by exercising the thought and reasoning faculty of the pupil. The aim is commendable, but is rarely successful. The author lacks simplicity, ease, and grace as a writer, and a thorough mastery of his subject; and his grammar, by its attempt at logic and philosophy, is better fitted to discourage than to quicken thought. As far as we can discover, the work is no improvement on Lindley Murray's well-known English grammar; it is less simple, and not a whit more logical or philosophical. It departs widely from the old grammatical technology, but with no advantage, that we can discover, to the pupil. What is gained by calling adjectives and adverbs _modifiers_, a name appropriate to adverbs only? Adjectives _qualify_; adverbs _modify_. Murray defines the verb, "A word that signifies to be, to do, or to suffer." What do we gain by rejecting this definition, and defining it to be the word in a sentence that asserts? The author makes a sentence, as a judgment, consist of three parts, subject, predicate, and copula, which is correct. He identifies the verb with the copula, which is also correct; but he makes its essence consist in assertion, which is not correct. There is, indeed, no assertion without the copula; but the copula alone does not make the assertion. The assertion is made by the whole sentence; and the three terms, subject, predicate, and copula, are each equally necessary to the assertion or judgment. The author is right in making the verb the copula, but not when he makes its essence consist in assertion. The verb, the author says, is the copula, and essentially the copula merely expresses the identity or non-identity of the subject and predicate; but the copula, in a judgment, distinguishes as well as unites the subject and predicate, and the predicate is never identical with the subject; for, if it were, it would be subject and not predicate. When an author attempts to make grammar, logic, and philosophy correspond, he can escape censure only by success. Murray's definition of the verb is sufficient for us and for all the purposes of grammar. As such, it is enough to say a verb is a word that signifies "to be, to do, or to suffer;" but, if you insist on running grammar into logic, and making the verb express the copula of the judgment, we insist that you shall make it represent, as it does philosophically, the creative act, the real copula between being and existence, in which case the predicate is connected by the copula to the subject as its product, as when we say, Two and two make four. The verb, then, while it expresses the union of the predicate with subject, distinguishes it from the subject, as the effect from the cause.

The details of the book are frequently objectionable. The author makes _as,_ when it follows _some, such, so,_ and _as,_ a relative pronoun, and _that_, in the clause, "The last time that I saw him," a relative pronoun, and in other locutions, exactly similar, a conjunction. _As_ is never a relative pronoun in any correct speaker, but an adverb or conjunction of comparison. We doubt if _as_ ever properly follows _same_. "It is the same _as_ a denial" is not good English, although sometimes met with; but, if so, the sentence is elliptical. "It is the same as a denial would be." Ordinarily, _same_ requires _that, which,_ or _who_ after it; and where it will not take one or another of these terms, it requires _with_; for _same_ expresses identity not comparison, and, therefore, can never be properly followed by _as_. {427} The _same as_ seems to us no better than _equal as_. _So_, when it must be followed by a relative pronoun, demands _that_. "He went as far as the gate" is good English, but neither _as_ is a relative pronoun. The phrase, "Such men _as_ these" is elliptical for, "Such men _as_ these men are," where _as_ is clearly an adverb or conjunction of comparison, and no relative pronoun at all. Wherever _as_ is used as a relative, the phrase or sentence is a vulgarism; as, in the phrase mentioned by Mrs. Trollope, "The lady _as_ takes in washing over the way," though not a Yankee vulgarism.

The second work should, by its title, _The Art of Discourse_, be a work on logic, not on rhetoric. _Discourse_ is from the Latin _discursus_, and means reasoning as distinguished from intuition, if taken etymologically, and it is only in a neological sense that it stands for an oration. We see no gain in exchanging the old term _rhetoric_ for that of _discourse_, which in the sense used is a pure neologism. In the first work, the author to a great extent confuses grammar with rhetoric, and in this second work he confuses rhetoric with logic. The arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic are undoubtedly three kindred arts, but yet distinguishable by well-defined lines of difference. Grammar treats of words and their formation into sentences; rhetoric, of the arrangement of sentences in an oration, essay, dissertation, or treatise; logic, of the construction, arrangement, and relation of propositions or judgments. Grammar teaches to speak and write correctly; rhetoric, to speak or write pleasingly and persuasively; logic teaches us to reason justly and conclusively. Grammar makes us acquainted with language; rhetoric addresses language to the affections, passions, and sentiments; logic addresses the reason and judgment. Though they must all three unite in forming what Mr. Day would call a perfect discourse, they should be taught separately. Sentences may be correctly formed, and yet the discourse be heavy and dull; the sentences may be rhetorically arranged so as to move the feelings, without instructing or convincing the understanding; but still, in teaching, each art should be kept distinct, and prevented from encroaching on the province of either of the others.

Mr. Day's treatise on rhetoric is not, in our judgment, superior, or, as a whole, equal to that of Campbell or even that of Blair. Yet it is not without value, though better adapted to private study than to colleges and academies. No man can treat the art of rhetoric well who does not understand well the science both of language and of logic. Mr. Day is well aware of this, and attempts to connect the art with the science of which it is the application. This is well and praiseworthy; but, unhappily, he understands the science neither of language nor of logic. He does not understand the relation of the word to thought any more than does Professor Whitney; and no one can understand the science of logic until he has mastered philosophical science, which Mr. Day is very far from having done. The science neither of language nor of logic can be mastered by one who holds Sir William Hamilton was a philosopher, whose pretended philosophy is substantially that of the Positivists. The school Sir William Hamilton founded, and of which Professor Ferrier and Mr. Mansel are distinguished disciples, avowedly maintains that philosophy cannot rise above the sensible, and that the supersensible as well as the superintelligible must be taken, if at all, on the authority of faith or revelation.

Mr. Day belongs to this school, and adopts, to a great extent, its manner of writing English, which is hardly more intelligible to us than Choctaw or the dialects of South Africa. His example, if not his precept, is likely to encourage the distortion, we may say corruption, of plain, simple, and nervous English, which we see coming into fashion with our English as well as Scottish writers. The present race of Englishmen, when treating philosophical or theological subjects, seem to mistake obscurity for depth, and darkness for sublimity. Undeniably Jeffrey is dead. We wish the authors of school-books would show that they know and love our real English tongue, and are aware that simplicity and clearness of style are merits that should be retained.

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Short Studies On Great Subjects. By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Crown 8vo, pp. 534. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

Mr. Froude is a very startling instance of the truth of a statement often made during the last few years--and made by men within the Church of England as well by men outside her pale--that the Anglican establishment is rapidly losing all hold upon the most thoughtful and best educated of those who profess to be her subjects. Time, which tries all things, is demonstrating beyond cavil the insufficiency of Anglicanism not only to content the soul but to satisfy the intellect. There are fashions of thought just as there are fashions of dress, and the church which Henry VIII. made to fit as well as he could the prevailing style of mental activity in his day has been getting more and more antiquated ever since, until now it will no more suit the intelligence of the present century than King Harry's hose and doublet would accord with a modern fine gentleman's idea of dress. In the sixteenth century, the mass of men knew very little; and so, when the king's clergy told them to believe this or to believe that, they were ready enough to obey, not because they heard the church as the voice of God, but because it was only the churchmen who had learning enough to know anything about it. Now all this is changed. The relative positions of the Protestant clergy and laity have been reversed. The education of the former is for the most part narrow and superficial. The best class of laymen, on the contrary, receive a broad and liberal schooling; they sound the remotest depths of science, and penetrate recesses of nature to which the clergy, as a general thing, never approach. Taking the average of all the educated classes, the laity know more than the churchmen. The obedience, therefore, which ignorance once paid to learning has vanished. What is there to substitute in its stead? The Anglican establishment claims no direct authority from heaven to teach and direct, or, if she does assert any such prerogative, she asserts it in so loose a manner, claiming and disclaiming in the same breath, that her disciples cannot help feeling themselves at perfect liberty to obey or not as they please.

What is the natural consequence of this state of things? Why, earnest, thinking men are driven away from the English establishment in constantly increasing numbers. In a few years, if matters go on as they are now going, the regular old humdrum Episcopalian or Anglican will be as great a curiosity as the last soldier of the Revolution. Some are taking refuge in ritualism, and trying to supplant their cold and cheerless establishment by a counterfeit Catholicism, which may, and we hope will, lead them ultimately to the one true faith, but which is at present only a pretty sham. Others, and among these is Mr. Froude, rush to the opposite extreme, and profess an extravagant rationalism which is nearly equivalent to no creed at all. Mr. Froude has been regarded as in some sense the champion of the English establishment. He is the admiring chronicler of its infancy, the apologist and biographer of its earliest apostles and prophets, Henry and Elizabeth, Cromwell and Cranmer. He has made the history of its foundation the study of his life, and has told that history in a strain of enthusiasm such as has inspired no other reputable writer. If there is any man from whom we might have expected a vigorous defence of the claims of Anglicanism, a recognition of its right to command our obedience, it is Mr. Froude. Yet he has given us just the reverse of this. His volume is at once a startling indication of the mental unrest which has kept thinking Anglicans disturbed of late years, and a strong protest against the right of the Church of England to seek to quiet that uneasiness by the exercise of ecclesiastical authority or the bold promulgation of clerical dogmas. In his "Plea for the Free Discussion of Theological Difficulties," reprinted in the present volume from _Fraser's Magazine_, he calls for a reopening of all the fundamental questions of religious belief, a subjection of every article of every creed to the most searching discussion. {429} The clergy, he says in effect, are not to be our instructors in matters of theology. We are quite as competent to judge as they are. Theological truth is not different from any other truth. The Holy Spirit does not guide the Church, and there is no tribunal but public opinion which is competent to decide disputed questions of religious belief. In a word, the great truths of theology are all to be declared open problems, and the world is to be turned into one great debating society for their free discussion.

This is not the place to show the tendency of Mr. Froude's principles, nor to Catholic readers is there much need of showing it. We only refer to them as a remarkable example of a state of feeling which prevails among a large party of the most intellectual members of the Church of England, and what the result of that state of feeling must be it is not difficult to tell.

Of the other essays in this volume we have little to say. The three lectures on "The Times of Erasmus and Luther" are not very pleasant reading for us, but they are counterbalanced by a paper on "The Philosophy of Catholicism," in which the writer pays an eloquent tribute to "the beautiful creed which for 1500 years tuned the heart and formed the mind of the noblest of mankind." His admiration, of course, stops short of its logical term, and is but a coldly intellectual sort of appreciation at best--not that emotional comprehension which must accompany the grace of faith; but, such as it is, we thank him for it.

Life And Letters Of Madame Swetchine. By Count de Falloux, of the French Academy. Translated by H. W. Preston, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369. Boston: Roberts Brothers. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1867.

It can hardly be necessary to inform our readers who Madame Swetchine was, or what are the claims of her life and career to the interest and attention of the public. A sketch of her remarkable history has been already given in _The Catholic World_ for July, 1865. Her biographer was one of her most intimate friends--a member of the distinguished coterie of French ecclesiastics and laymen with whose aims and aspirations she most deeply sympathized--a witness of her dying hours, and the executor of her last will and testament. He is the Count de Falloux, and that is more than any eulogium we could pronounce on his qualities as a writer. Mr. Alger, under whose auspices this life has been translated and published, has done a great service, and has added no little to the value of the book, in its English dress, by the short preface with which he introduces it to the American public. The following passage shows what has been the intention and the spirit with which he has been animated:

"It may seem strange that a work so eminently Catholic in its quality as this biography should be introduced to a Protestant people by a Protestant translator and Protestant publishers. But, on further consideration, will not this be found especially fit and serviceable? In this country, a traditional antipathy or bigoted repugnance to the Catholic Church prevails in an unjustifiable extreme. Whatever is repulsive in the Catholic dogmas or rule is fastened on with unwarrantable acrimony and exclusiveness. The interests alike of justice and of good feeling demand that the attention of Protestants shall, at least occasionally, be given to the best ingredients and workings of the Catholic system. In the present work, we have the forensic doctrine and authority of Catholicity in the background, its purest inner aims and life in the foreground. We here have a beautiful specimen of the style of character and experience which the most imposing organic Symbol of Christendom tends to produce, and has, in all the ages of its mighty reign, largely produced. If every bigoted disliker of the Roman Catholic Church within the English-speaking race could read this book, and, as a consequence, have his prejudices lessened, his sympathies enlarged, the result, so far from being deprecated, should be warmly welcomed. This is written by one who, while enthusiastically admiring the spiritual wealth of the Catholic Church, the ineffable tenderness and beauty of its moral and religious ministrations, is, as to its dogmatic fabric and secular sway, even more than a Protestant of the Protestants. Finally, this book is especially commended to women as a work of inestimable worth. The character and life of Madame Swetchine, her lonely studies and aspirations, her sublime personal attainments, her philanthropic labors, her literary productions, her sweet social charm and vast influence, her thrice-royal friendships with kings and geniuses and saints, the sober raptures of her religious faith and fruition, form an example whose exciting and edifying interest and value are scarcely surpassed in the annals of her sex."

The translation has been well done, and the typographical execution is unexceptionable. We desire for the book as wide a circulation as possible.

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The Catholic Crusoe. Adventures of Owen Evans, Esq., Surgeon's Mate, set Ashore with Five Companions on a Desolate Island in the Caribbean Sea, 1739. Given from the original MS. By Rev. W. H. Anderdon, M.A. 12mo, pp. 344. London: Burns, Lambert & Gates. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

The name of Dr. Anderdon's interesting story is so well indicated by the title that we have only to add that it seems admirably adapted both to amuse and instruct young people, is full of incident, and is written in a pleasant and simple style. A supplement entitled "Don Manuel's Narrative," a marvellous relation purporting to have been picked up at sea, is a second story of a nature similar to the first. We commend the book to parents and teachers as a very acceptable present for lads of a somewhat advanced age.

Aner's Return; or, The Migrations of a Soul. An Allegorical Tale. By Alto S. Hoermann, O.S.B. Translated from the Original German by Innocent A. Bergrath. 12mo, pp. 294. New York: P. O'Shea.

This is an allegory of human life, sin, repentance, and forgiveness, the idea of which seems to have been inspired by Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. The excellence of the author's intentions and the soundness of his theology must plead in excuse for a great many shortcomings, the most serious of which is that the book is not very readable. The ambitious style, we fear, will repel a great many readers from a story which displays considerable ingenuity, and, as we are assured by the translator, has proved very popular in Europe. It is very neatly printed and prettily bound, and will serve well as a holiday present or school premium.

Memoirs And Correspondence Of Madame Récamier. Translated from the French, and edited by Isaphene M. Luyster. 12mo, pp. 408. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

We published in an early number of _The Catholic World_ a sketch of the remarkable and brilliant woman whose life forms the subject of this attractive little volume. The French work, from which Miss Luyster's translation is made, appeared in Paris in 1859. It was from the pen of Madame Lenormant, the adopted daughter of Madame Récamier, and niece of her husband. The lady seems, from all accounts, to have performed her task in a rather loose and confused manner, so that Miss Luyster's part has been not only to turn it into readable English, but to prune, condense, and arrange it in readable form; and this we judge she has done in a very satisfactory manner. The correspondence is strangely deficient in Madame Récamier's own letters; but the lack of these is well compensated for by numerous ones from Chateaubriand, Matthieu de Montmorency, and Ballanche, and a few from Madame de Staël, La Harpe Bernadotte, Louis Napoleon, Victor Hugo, and Béranger.

The Galin Method Of Musical Instruction. By C. H. Farnham. New York: American News Company. 1867.

Mr. Farnham gives us a very concise comparative view of the common system of musical notation and the new one known as the Galin Method, which has already received so much consideration in Europe, and must soon attract the attention of the musical world in this country. In France, many distinguished musicians have advocated the general adoption of the Galin method, and it is the only one now used at the Polytechnic and superior normal schools in Paris and in the government schools of Russia. It aims at simplifying the system of musical signs, now certainly somewhat complicated, by the substitution of a uniform series of figures for the old staff, with its different clefs and many-shaped notes.

It is claimed that by this method nine persons out of ten can be taught the whole theory of music in a few months, and learn at the same time to sing at sight and to write under dictation, independently of an instrument, music of ordinary difficulty. {431} We have very little doubt that this system possesses immense advantages over the old one for learning the theory of music and for the execution of a vocal score. But we are not quite sure that a page of instrumental music written according to the Galin method would be any less difficult to read than one written in the old style. We have already simplified matters a good deal by the abandonment of several of the clefs formerly in use, and we do not see why a still further reformation might not be made. We had the pleasure of assisting at one of Mr. Farnham's classes, given in this city, and can testify to the remarkable facility of reading and writing music according to this method, as exhibited by his pupils. Our musical readers will not fail to find much to interest them in a perusal of this essay.

St. Ignatius And The Society Of Jesus: Their Influence on Civilization and Christianity. A Sermon delivered in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, in Boston, on Sunday, August 4th, 1867. By Rev. G. F. Haskins, Rector of the Home of the Angel Guardian. Boston: Bernard Carr, Printer, 5 Chatham Row. 1867.

Father Haskins is one of our most eloquent preachers and most graphic writers, although he seldom favors us with any published productions. His eloquence is that eloquence of realities which flies off like a glowing stream of sparks from the energetic action of a soul on fire with zeal, incessantly occupied in practical works of charity. The sermon before us is a panegyric pronounced in the church of the Jesuits in Boston, on the occasion of the celebration of the feast of St. Ignatius. It recounts in a succinct but forcible and thorough manner the services rendered to religion and humanity by the Society of Jesus. Although the language is glowing and the eulogium of the highest kind, yet, in point of fact, Father Haskins has not exaggerated the reality. History bears out all that he so warmly claims for this great religious order, which has equalled in its history the greatest orders of past ages, while far surpassing all others in modern times. The hatred and calumny which the Jesuits have encountered on the part of anti-Catholics were never more gratuitous and undeserved. The whole sum of the accusations which Catholic writers have been able to bring against them merely show that some portions of the society have at times degenerated from its true spirit; that individuals have erred in doctrine, or committed faults in administration; that a mistaken policy has sometimes been adopted; and that the order has not, any more than the other great orders, transcended that limited though elevated sphere to which every order is confined by the law of its being. The Jesuits were constituted as one of the _corps d'élite_ of the church militant. As such they have rendered the most signal services, which will ever cover their names with imperishable glory; and we ascribe their success, in subordination to the grace of God and the unfailing vigor of the Catholic Church whose offspring they are, to the genius elevated by sanctity of their founder, and the admirable constitutions which he bequeathed to the institute.

Meditations Of St. Thomas, etc. For a Retreat of Ten Days. Followed by a Treatise on the Virtues, etc. By Father Massoulie, O.P. Translated from the French. London: Richardson. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

These Meditations have been taken, as to their substance, from the writings of St. Thomas, but arranged and supplemented by the learned Dominican whose name is given in the title. Their great advantage lies in the fact that they embody the doctrine of one who was not only the most consummate theologian the world has ever seen, but also a contemplative saint of the highest order. This gives one who wishes to use them for his own profit a secure warrant that they will furnish his mind and heart with the most choice as well as wholesome nutriment they can possibly feed upon. The works of saints are always to be preferred to all others. {432} We recommend, therefore, this work, derived from the writings of a most illustrious saint, to all; especially to thoughtful and educated men who can relish, and who, therefore, desire and need, the most solid spiritual food to promote the growth of intelligent, solid piety and virtue in their souls.

The Heiress Of Killorgan; or, Evenings With The Old Geraldines. By Mrs. J. Sadlier. New York; D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

The author of this very interesting novel has given to our literature a great number of works of various kinds, intended not only for our amusement but for our instruction; and the present volume is perhaps the very best specimen of her productions, combining, as it does, the interest of a romance with many genuine historical and personal reminiscences of the celebrated Anglo-Norman family of Fitzgerald, with which is associated so much of the history of Ireland from the English invasion until the present time. It cannot be said that there is any plot in the tale, being a simple narration of the incidents occurring in the household of a refined family reduced in fortune, but still retaining its native dignity and pride of ancestry; but the characters, though few, are clearly, gracefully, and vividly drawn. The heiress of the decayed house of Killorgan is admirably sketched with a pencil which aims less at personal description than at those delicate lines of thought and feeling which, after all, give us the truest idea of the excellence of the female character. The greatest merit, however, of the work rests in its historical descriptions, which, being taken from the best authorities, are thoroughly reliable and presented in a very attractive and concise form.

Affixes In Their Origin And Application. Exhibiting the Etymological Structure of English Words. By S. S. Haldeman, A.M. Philadelphia: Butler & Co. 1865. 12mo, pp. 271.

Professor Haldeman has few if any superiors in the science of language, and he has also the modesty that always accompanies real merit. He pretends to no more knowledge than he really has, and he never undertakes to explain what in the present state of linguistic science is not explicable. His chief fault is his fear of saying on any point more than is necessary, which leaves him in his brevity sometimes obscure. We should find his work more easily understood if he allowed himself to enlarge a little more on the independent meaning of the prefixes and suffixes to English words. But perhaps he is full enough for others.

The importance of affixes in the construction of English words may be gathered from the fact that there are in English only about three thousand two hundred monosyllables, and that many of these even are not primitives, but have a prefix, a suffix, or both. It is evident that affixes must be concerned in the formation of by far the greatest part of the English vocabulary, and that an accurate knowledge of English words is to be obtained only "through a distinct appreciation of the modes used to vary them according to the exigencies of thought and speech." This appreciation in the case of our mother tongue becomes the more difficult because it is a composite tongue, and, unlike the Greek and Welsh, for instance, has not its chief etymological materials in itself, and its words cannot in general be analyzed independently of other languages. To have a scientific knowledge of our language we must know the languages from which its words are derived, and the derivation, meaning, and use of their affixes in those languages as well as in our own. Professor Haldeman has in this small but compact volume attempted to give us the derivation, meaning, and use of all the affixes, divided into prefixes and suffixes, in the English language, from whatever language taken, and he has done it in as satisfactory a manner as possible in the present state of comparative philology. No English scholar should fail to obtain and master it, if he wishes really to understand his own language.

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The Catholic World.

Vol. Vi., No. 34. January, 1868.

The Catholic Doctrine Of Justification.

The remarks we are about to make in this article grow out of the discussion of the philosophy of conversion between this magazine and the _New-Englander_. Nevertheless, those who expect a continuation of personal controversy on the topics suggested in our last article, and a formal rejoinder to the respected writer in the _New-Englander_ who replied to it, will be disappointed. Our views on the subject matter of discussion were expressed, as we think, clearly enough to be understood, and as fully as our purpose required. We leave them, therefore, to the judgment of those of our readers who are really in earnest, that they may give them whatever weight their intrinsic value may demand in the court of conscience; and as for the opinion of others, we care nothing. Controversy upon minor topics and side issues is of its very nature interminable, as well as of little comparative utility. The controversy between the Catholic Church and Protestants on the great, fundamental principles and doctrines at issue, has been so ably and thoroughly argued out that there is little left to be done in that department of theology. For those who desire information, there are plenty of books to be had treating of every topic in a much more satisfactory manner than it is possible to treat them in the short compass of magazine articles. The great controversy of the day, in our opinion, and the one which interests us most deeply, is the one which is waging between Christianity and infidelity, in its various phases of rationalism, scepticism, and atheism. So far as Protestants of the more orthodox schools are concerned, the aspect of the question we feel most disposed to present to them is that which Guizot and others of their own number have seen with more or less distinctness--namely, that in the great conflict of the age their real interest is at stake in the success of the Catholic side; that, as Christians, they belong to us, and ought to make with us common cause against the enemy. That method of removing the difficulty in the way of their doing so which recommends itself to our judgment and feelings is one which brings into strong relief the grand, fundamental principles of Christianity in which we agree; and with these principles as a point of departure, endeavors to explain and develop the complete Catholic system in such a way as to remove misunderstandings and to show how the several, particular portions of revealed truth, held by our various bodies of separated brethren in a fragmentary state, are integrated in a grand, universal whole in this Catholic system. {434} In this line, as we conceive it, lie the richest and least worked-out fields, where new writers may enter in and follow up the labors of their predecessors. One special need, moreover, is to clothe thought in a language which is familiar to the persons we are addressing, and to translate or explain in their own idiom what may be strange or unintelligible in the forms of other ages, countries, and schools of philosophy and theology. What little the writer of this article is able to do he prefers to do in this line, and thinks it best to restrict himself to single and specific topics in the short essays which are the only suitable ones for a magazine. We have no wish to abjure general controversy in the abstract, or to lay down a rule of conduct in this matter for others. Nor would we seem to slight or treat with indifference what may be written on the other side. We desire to give due attention to all that candid and courteous opponents may have to say, and to keep it in view when we are arguing our own cause. It suits better, however, with the time and strength we have at our command, and our other avocations, to keep ourselves free from the obligations of formal controversy, and to be at liberty to take up such single topics as may be opportune according to circumstances. At present, we propose to touch a little more at length upon the topic of justification, one of those we have before now briefly remarked upon, dropping altogether the attitude and style of personal controversy.

The real objection against the Catholic doctrine of justification by _fides formata_, or faith informed by charity, as well as the reason for insisting that faith alone justifies, exclusively of the charity which accompanies it, is grounded in a notion that the former doctrine subverts the gratuitous character of salvation by the grace of God through the merits of Jesus Christ. We propose, therefore, to make a brief exposition of the Catholic doctrine, with a view of showing what it really teaches respecting the gratuitousness of grace, and the work of Christ as the meritorious cause of its being conferred.

Catholic theology teaches, what even sound philosophy demonstrates, that all created existence proceeds from a gratuitous act of the Creator. But it teaches, moreover, against the Pelagians, that the original state of supernatural justice and sanctity in which the angels and Adam were constituted was an additional gratuitous boon, or grace conferred by God. It is evident, then, that the Catholic doctrine excludes the possibility of holding that the first principle of the beatification and glorification of a creature is in the nature of the creature itself. This principle, as supernatural, is not due to nature, cannot be merited by any acts proceeding from the principles of nature, and must therefore be a pure, gratuitous grace. That is, the creature is justified by grace, and owes the capacity of attaining beatitude, consequently beatitude itself when attained, radically to a pure act of the divine goodness. It is plain, therefore, that the angels and Adam could not have merited their own justification. They were obliged either to receive it passively, or to accept it, as Billuart holds, by an active concurrence with grace. {435} The grace being given, constituting its subjects in the state of justice and sanctity, what was it? It was not a mere forensic and exterior modification of their relation to God, but an interior, sanctifying grace, making them subjectively, holy, like to God, affiliated to him, united to him in an inchoate union whose final term is beatitude. It is evident that this sanctifying grace, which in act was the love of God, made them fit and worthy to be the friends of God, and to be admitted to the fellowship of his glory. It is also certain that they were placed in probation. What was that probation? Was it not a trial of obedience, in which certain definite acts of free-will were prescribed as the conditions of being confirmed in grace and consummated in glory? Eternal life was therefore proposed to them as the reward of good works, as a premium of voluntary obedience, and as such is actually possessed by the holy angels in heaven. It is, therefore, true that the angels were justified by grace, justified by charity, justified by good works; that their salvation proceeds from the pure goodness of God, and has been obtained by their own good acts: nor is there the least contradiction in any of these statements.

There being no intrinsic, necessary contradiction between the two propositions, the creature is justified and beatified by the gratuitous grace of God; and, the creature is justified and beatified by his personal sanctity--there is no necessary logical deduction derivable from the premise that man in his present state is justified by gratuitous grace to the conclusion that he is not justified by his intrinsic sanctity. The redemption has repaired the fall, has restored the human race to the condition from which it fell by the sin of Adam. There is no reason, therefore, why man should not be justified now, in essentially the same manner as before; no reason why the order of grace, repaired by redemption, should not follow the same essential laws as before the fall. If a change has taken place, it must be proved that it is so. If this change was required by the fact that the restoration of man is due to the merits of Christ, the reason of it must be shown. It must be shown that the recovery of justification through the merits of Christ is incompatible with justification by intrinsic sanctity and glorification as the reward of good works done from the principle of charity. If this cannot be shown, no argument can be derived from the doctrine that the work of Christ is the meritorious cause of the justification of fallen man to prove that the formal cause of his justification is any other than the formal cause of the justification of the angels and of man in his original state.

The Catholic doctrine teaches that the sacrifice of himself which Jesus Christ offered up on the cross is the meritorious cause of justification through the expiation which it made of original and actual sin, and the new title which it obtained to the lost inheritance of everlasting life. This includes in itself the grant of all those graces which are necessary in order to the remission of sins, the sanctification of the soul, and its complete preparation for the state of beatitude and glory. Consequently, all Catholic theologians teach that the initial movement of the sinner to return to God, the faith which disposes him for justification, the sanctifying grace which makes him really just and the friend of God, the actual graces which enable him to perform salutary acts, the special aid which enables him to persevere, all proceed from the grace of God, which is gratuitous in reference to the original provision of a plan of redemption, gratuitous toward each individual who receives it so far as he is personally concerned, and due as a reward, under the title of justice, solely to Jesus Christ himself on account of his own personal merits. {436} It is, therefore, through the merits of Christ that a sinner receives the grace which justifies and sanctifies him in the first instance. Through the same merits he receives the remission of his sins, if he falls into any afterward. Through the same merits he receives all the actual graces which he obtains by prayer. And, finally, it is through the same merits that the kingdom of heaven has been prepared for him, as the ultimate term to which he is permitted to aspire. The effect of the merits of the death of Christ upon the cross is therefore to put fallen man back again, essentially, where he was before the trial in Paradise, and where the angels were when they were created. It does not affect the case at all whether the angels and Adam were placed in that state in view of the Incarnation, or by the mere goodness of God, without any reference to the Incarnation. If they were created and elevated to the divine filiation, _intuitu Christi_, they received a boon motived upon the extrinsic glory which God would receive from his deific humanity. If not, they received the same boon motived upon the glory which God would receive from their elevation to beatitude. The boon was equally gratuitous in either case, for the decree of the Incarnation, whether included in the decree of creation or in that of redemption--whether antecedent or subsequent to the foresight of redemption--was perfectly gratuitous. Nay, more: because it was gratuitous it was fitting and just that God should condition it with any terms that were possible and reasonable. He did actually condition it upon obedience to certain precepts, unknown to us as regards the angels, but known as regards Adam. The original grace conceded to them, therefore, merely placed them in a condition to obtain everlasting beatitude by corresponding to this grace with their free, voluntary acts, or by fidelity to the obligations of their probation. They were justified, that is, placed in the state of justification, by the act of God which gave them sanctifying grace. They were constituted just in act by this personal quality of sanctifying grace, which made them fit and worthy to be the sons of God; and they were commanded to retain the state of justice, to augment it, and to obtain confirmation in it, with the consummation of it in glory, as a premium of obedience to the divine precepts. The holy angels are now in heaven actually the object of the divine love of complacency on account of their inherent sanctity and in proportion to the degree of it which each one possesses. They enjoy heaven as a reward gained by the right exercise of their free-will; and yet, it is no less true that their state of glory is due to the gratuitous grace of God, nor is there any contradiction in supposing that the grace was given to them _intuitu Christi_.

The fact that man is now placed under an order of grace, based on the merits of Christ, cannot therefore be shown to be incompatible with the position that he is also placed in a state of probation essentially similar to that of angels and of Adam. He may be constituted just by sanctifying grace, as well as they; obliged, as well as they, to remain just, and to attain perpetual justice and its complement of glory by the right exercise of his free-will in producing acts which proceed from the principle of sanctity within him.

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The Catholic doctrine teaches that man is actually placed in this state of probation under the law of grace established in Christ. This probation implies that the initial, inchoate principle of the divine everlasting life to which he is destined should be implanted within him, as the centre of the supernatural force giving him a movement toward his prefixed end. It implies, also, that a series of acts impelling him forward should proceed from this principle by the effort of his free-will. This principle can be nothing else than sanctifying grace, and sanctifying grace, in its essence, can be nothing else than the love of God. Love is the only principle capable of uniting the soul with God. Faith alone cannot do it. It is further evident that faith cannot be the essential principle which makes the soul just, for two reasons: First. That infants are capable of justification, which, we suppose, no one will deny, but are not capable of an act of faith. Second. That faith is a temporary virtue, ceasing in the beatified state, whereas the principle of justification is permanent and eternal.

Moreover, the sphere of probation is necessarily identical with the sphere of free-will, and the sphere of free-will is coextensive with all the precepts which God has given as the matter for free-will to exercise its choice upon, by selecting the good and rejecting the evil. The acts which must proceed from the principle of love, in order to bring the soul to God as its ultimate term, must, therefore, cover the whole ground of the divine law, and include the fulfilment of all its commandments. It is impossible, therefore, that faith alone should justify, unless probation, free-will, and the law of God are strictly confined to the sphere of faith. No one will pretend that they are. If they are not, it is impossible that a mere habit of faith, or the mere exercise of faith in act, should alone constitute a man just before God. God is not bound to place a creature on probation. He can justify, sanctify, and glorify him immediately, without leaving him any liberty of choice between good and evil. But he cannot elevate him to the high state of personal union and friendship with himself without giving him that love which fixes the will immovably in God as the supreme good, and includes in itself all virtue and sanctity. Union between the soul and God requires likeness. The soul must be made like to God in order that it may love God, and that God may love the soul. Although, therefore, God is not bound to place a creature on probation--that is, to require of him the particular exercise of love which consists in a voluntary obedience to certain precepts--yet he cannot dispense with love itself, which is the sole and indispensable requisite to a state of perfect justification; and although he is not bound to place a creature in a state of probation, yet if he does so, he cannot dispense with those acts of love which are suitable to such a state. The very notion of a state of probation requires that certain precepts should be given to a rational creature, who is free to keep them or violate them as he may choose, and who is to receive the favor of God during his probation and an eternal reward at the end of it if he keeps them, forfeiting both if he fails to do so. On any other supposition, the state of probation is entirely illusory and unreal. The attributes of God require him to carry out the terms of the probation to which he has subjected man. {438} When he imposes precepts, he must from his very nature withdraw his friendship from the transgressor. He may still regard him with the love of benevolence, and offer him forgiveness; but he cannot actually forgive him and look upon him again with the love of complacency until he has regained his lost sanctity and returned to the love of God. Sin of its own nature turns the soul away from God as its supreme good to some created object. It is, therefore, a contradiction in terms to say that a man can be in the state of sin and the state of justification at the same time; for it is equivalent to saying that he can at the same instant be turned toward God as his supreme good, and away from him. Love is therefore the _conditio sine quâ non_, at least, of justification. Faith alone cannot, therefore, formally justify. If it did, there would be no need of love in order to constitute a man just before God. A man might be completely justified while in the very act of the most grievous sin, as, for instance, blasphemy, murder, or suicide, and might die without having changed his will to commit those sins, yet pass immediately to heaven. These sins are not incompatible with faith, though they are with charity. If they are incompatible with faith, all mortal sins--that is, all those which, in the strict and proper sense, alienate the soul from God, and destroy charity--must be incompatible with faith. Why is this? Does faith, of its own nature, produce charity? If it does, it must contain within itself the radical principle of charity, and while it exists in the soul it must exclude all sins which are directly contrary to charity and incompatible with it. Then, one who has faith cannot commit a mortal sin. If faith is inamissible, and a man once justified can no more lose his justification, then, as soon as one has obtained faith, he has obtained also exemption from all mortal sins for the future. If faith is not inamissible, then every sin against charity, or every mortal sin, destroys faith and justification. Such a definition of faith, however, including love and sanctifying grace, makes faith to be the _fides formata_ of Catholic theology.

If it is said that faith does not, of itself, produce charity, yet is always accompanied by charity, it must be, then, that faith gives one a title to sanctifying grace and charity, so that, whoever makes an act of faith, receives an additional gift which makes him holy. In that case, every one who was once justified would be exempt from mortal sin while his faith lasts. If the first act of faith justifies once for all, then the believer can never again commit a mortal sin. If it justifies only for the time being, then while it lasts it preserves the soul from sin, and whoever sins proves that he has already lost faith. This is contrary to reason and experience. It is certain that men who have had faith and grace have afterwards sinned mortally. Therefore, faith does not, by its first act, bring with it an inamissible gift of charity. It is also certain that men do not always lose faith when they sin, or sin against faith first before they sin against charity. Many a man who believes firmly in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour of men, and who hopes for salvation through his merits, commits mortal sin, and even lives for years in the habitual state of sin. It may be said that such persons have no _saving_ faith, never did have it, or have lost it. But what is saving faith? What is the _differentia_ of that faith which really justifies? {439} It is evident enough that a certain kind of habitual belief in Jesus Christ and his doctrines, accompanied by a desire and hope of being saved through his merits and mercy, does frequently exist in persons who are living in habitual sin. If this is not genuine faith, or saving faith, there must be in saving faith some additional quality which distinguishes it from that faith which produces no fruits of sanctity. Is it made saving by its quality of supernaturalness, or as proceeding from the grace of the Holy Spirit? This is the same as saying that supernatural faith, as such, or because it is a grace of the Holy Spirit, necessarily brings with it sanctification. This is not so. The Holy Spirit may and does give men a firm belief in revealed truths, and a hope of obtaining mercy from God through Christ before they are actually forgiven and justified. This remains in them, often, after they have lost sanctifying grace by sin, as a disposition which facilitates their return to God. It does not, however, _per se_, produce the fruits of sanctity, or implant the principle of love, from which these fruits proceed, which is the very principle of union with God, and, therefore, the formal cause of justification. That quality which faith must have, in order to render it justifying faith, cannot be, therefore, anything else but charity, or the love of God, which makes it _fides formata_.

We are convinced that a great number of Protestants substantially hold the doctrines we have laid down. They believe that man has free-will; is bound to believe and obey the doctrine and precepts of Jesus Christ; is made the friend of God by sanctifying grace brought into the active exercise of Christian virtue by his own voluntary cooperation; is placed here to work out his own salvation; will receive heaven as a reward if he serves God faithfully, and will be damned if he lives in sin. Even those who hold the Calvinistic tradition either modify its tenets or hold more sound and rational opinions in juxtaposition with them, which really control their sentiments and conduct. It would be easy to show this by a multitude of citations. So far as metaphysical opinions and technical statements are concerned, we judge every work and every formula of doctrine by its obvious, objective sense, and accept every individual writer's statements respecting his own opinions. But in regard to the real, genuine ideas which form the true intellectual and spiritual life of men, we take the liberty of judging them more by the language they use in common life, by their indirect statements, and by the general spirit and scope of what they say and write, when not immediately intent upon stating their technical formulas, than from their technical formulas themselves. We have heard it said of the illustrious President Dwight that his real sentiments and conduct toward his fellow-men indicated a belief in the goodness of all men, whereas he held theoretically that all men were totally depraved. We have no doubt that President Edwards always acted on the belief that his children possessed the self-determining power of the will, against which he wrote so acutely, or that Bishop Berkeley was persuaded of the reality of the external world. Therefore, we still think that a large number of non-Catholics are more Catholic in their belief than they are aware, and that their rejection of what they suppose to be Catholic doctrine is frequently only a rejection of opinions attributed by mistake to the Catholic Church. {440} In regard to this special question of justification, it is our opinion that the objection prevalent among the more orthodox Protestants is based on the supposition that the Catholic doctrine ascribes a justifying and saving efficacy to a mere intellectual submission to church-authority, and a mere external compliance with its precepts, without reference to the interior disposition of the soul toward God, or recognition of the merits of Christ as the source of all the supernatural excellence and value of good works. It is believed that the Catholic substitutes the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the merits of the saints, and his own merits, as an independent ground of justification, in lieu of the merits of Christ. Also, that merit is ascribed to mere external works, such as fasting, hearing mass, and performing ceremonial rites or penitential labors, on account of the mere physical nature and extent of the works done, without reference to the motive from which they proceed. The vague and timorous pastoral of the late Synod of Lambeth is explicit and bold only on this one point, of condemning the substitution of the Virgin Mary as a mediator in the place of Christ. For this reason, we think that the simple statement of the genuine Catholic doctrine is the surest way to remove objections against it, and that most of these objections fall away of themselves as soon as the misapprehensions of the doctrine are removed. This is no private fancy of our own, but the judgment of some of the ablest theologians of the world, Protestant as well as Catholic. Leibnitz, the greatest philosopher among Protestants, found nothing to object to in the doctrines of the Council of Trent respecting justification. Dr. Pusey, one of the most learned men of the age in scriptural and patristic theology, has publicly expressed his adhesion to the same doctrine. It is easy to ridicule that movement in the Anglican church, of which he is the head; but it would be much more sensible for those who do it to study his elaborate and profound writings, and much more difficult to refute them. Protestantism has produced nothing, at least in the English language, which can approach the great works of the High-Church divines of England. These works contain the elements of all the theology of Catholic doctrine respecting the justification of man, in the ascetical, spiritual, and sacramental aspects of the question. All the life of Protestantism in England is centred in the Catholicizing movement. On the continent, that orthodox Protestantism which is derived from Luther and Calvin is a nullity. The real issue of the world, as we have repeatedly said, is about the fundamental principles of Christianity. The question between Catholics and those Protestants who hold with us these fundamental principles is not, as many of them suppose, respecting the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, but respecting the deductions to be derived from them and their due development. That God is revealed in Jesus Christ, as our sovereign teacher, our sovereign Lord, our sovereign redeemer and mediator, the sovereign author of our spiritual and everlasting life; that we are bound to render him the absolute homage of our faith and our obedience, is admitted by all. The only question is, by what method or means can we ascertain with certainty the exact and complete sense of the doctrine he has commanded us to believe and the law he has commanded us to keep. This is a question to be decided by evidence. The sooner the _prohibentia_ in the way of examining carefully and candidly this evidence are removed the better. This is the only point we have been aiming at--the only result we desire to reach. {441} We have endeavored to remove some of the obstacles in the way of a fair hearing of the claims of the Catholic Church, arising from _à priori_ conceptions of her doctrine, which are thought to authorize a foregone conclusion against them. We have also presented some of the reasons specially urgent at present, why the basis for unity which the Catholic Church offers should be carefully and studiously considered by all those who desire the union and welfare of Christendom, its victory over every form of anti-Christianity, and its universal extension in the world. The _fides formata_, or faith working by love, which we have set forth as the vital principle of spiritual life in the individual, must also be the principle of unity in the Christian society. Whoever has faith implicitly believes all those revealed doctrines which, without his own fault, he does not explicitly know to be revealed. Whoever has love has the principle of obedience to those laws whose existence he does not know. Therefore, we say that whoever has _fides formata_ is justified, and, of course, spiritually united to the true church. But whoever remains culpably in error respecting essential doctrines and precepts, or refuses to believe and obey what is fairly presented to him as the revealed truth and will of Jesus Christ, cannot have _fides formata_. It is evident, therefore, that we are all bound to strive after as great a certitude as possible respecting the important question at issue between the Catholic Church and Protestants.

Translated From The French.

The Story Of A Conscript.

VI.

The mairie of Phalsbourg, that Thursday morning, January 15th, 1813, during the drawing for the conscription, was a sight to be seen. To-day it is bad enough to be drawn, to be forced to leave parents, friends, home, one's goods and one's fields, to go and learn--God knows where "_One! two!_ one! two! halt! eyes left! eyes right! front! carry arms!" etc. etc. Yes, this is all bad enough, but there is a chance of returning. One can say, with something like confidence: "In seven years I will see my old nest again, and my parents, and perhaps my sweetheart. I shall have seen the world, and will perhaps have some title to be appointed forester or gend'arme." This is a comfort for reasonable people. But then, if you had the ill-luck to lose in the lottery, there was an end of you; often not one in a hundred returned. The idea that you were only going for a time never entered your head.

The enrolled of Harberg, of Garbourg, and of Quatre-Vents were to draw first; then those of the city, and lastly those of Wéehem and Mittlebronn.

{442}

I was up early in the morning, and with my elbows on the work-bench I watched the people pass by; young men in blouses, poor old men in cotton caps and short vests; old women in jackets and woolen skirts, bent almost double, with staff or umbrella under their arms. They arrived by families. Monsieur the Sous-Préfet of Larrebourg, with his silver collar, and his secretary, had stopped the day before at the "Red Ox," and they were also looking out of the window. Toward eight o'clock, Monsieur Goulden began work, after breakfasting. I ate nothing, but stared and stared until Monsieur the Mayor, Parmentier and his coadjutor, came for Monsieur the Sous-Préfet.

The drawing began at nine, and soon we heard the clarionet of Pfifer-Karl and the violin of great Andrès resounding through the streets. They were playing the "March of the Swedes," an air to which thousands of poor wretches had left old Alsace for ever. The conscripts danced, linked arms, shouted until their voices seemed to pierce the clouds, stamped on the ground, waved their hats, trying to seem joyful while death was at their hearts. Well, it was the fashion; and big Andrès, withered, stiff, and yellow as boxwood, and his short chubby comrade, with cheeks extended to their utmost tension, seemed like people who would lead you to the churchyard all the while chatting indifferently.

That music, those cries, sent a shudder through my heart.

I had just put on my swallow-tailed coat and my beaver hat to go out, when Aunt Grédel and Catharine entered, saying:

"Good morning, Monsieur Goulden. We have come for the conscription."

Then I saw how Catharine had been crying. Her eyes were red, and she threw her arms around my neck, while her mother turned to me.

Monsieur Goulden said:

"It will soon be the turn of the young men of the city."

"Yes, Monsieur Goulden," answered Catharine, in a choking voice; "they have finished Harberg."

"Then it is time for you to go, Joseph," said he; "but do not grieve; do not be frightened. These drawings, you know, are only a matter of form. For a long while past none can escape; or if they escape one drawing, they are caught a year or two after. All the numbers are bad. When the council of exemption meets, we will see what is best to be done. To-day it is merely a sort of satisfaction they give people to draw in the lottery; but every one loses."

"No matter," said Aunt Grédel; "Joseph will win."

"Yes, yes," replied Monsieur Goulden, smiling, "he cannot fail."

Then I sallied forth with Catharine and Aunt Grédel, and we went to the town place, where the crowd was. In all the shops, dozens of conscripts, purchasing ribbons, thronged around the counters, weeping and singing as if possessed. Others in the inns embraced, sobbing; but still they sang. Two or three musicians of the neighborhood--the Gipsy Walteufel, Rosselkasten, and George Adam--had arrived, and their pieces thundered in terrible and heart-rending strains.

Catharine squeezed my arm. Aunt Grédel followed.

Opposite the guard-house I saw the peddler Pinacle affar off, his pack opened on a little table, and beside it a long pole decked with ribbons which he was selling to the conscripts.

I hastened to pass by him, when he cried:

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"Ha! Cripple! Halt! Come here; I have a fine ribbon for you; you must have a magnificent one--one to draw a prize by."

He waved a long black ribbon above his head, and I grew pale despite myself. But as we ascended the steps of the mairie, a conscript was just descending; it was Klipfel, the smith of the French gate; he had drawn number eight, and shouted:

"The black for me, Pinacle! Bring it here, whatever may happen."

His face was gloomy, but he laughed. His little brother Jean was crying behind him, and said:

"No, no, Jacob! not the black!"

But Pinacle fastened the ribbon to the smith's hat, while the latter said:

"That is what we want now. We are all dead, and should wear our own mourning."

And he cried savagely:

"_Vive l'Empereur!_"

I was better satisfied to see the black ribbon on his hat than on mine, and I slipped quickly through the crowd to avoid Pinacle.

We had great difficulty in getting into the mairie and in climbing the old oak stairs, where people where going up and down in swarms. In the great hall above, the gendarme Kelz walked about, maintaining order as well as he could, and in the council-chamber at the side, where there is a painting of Justice with her eyes blindfolded, we heard them calling off the numbers. From time to time a conscript came put with flushed face, fastening his number on his cap and passing with bowed head through the crowd, like a furious bull who cannot see clearly and who would seem to wish to break his horns against the walls. Others, on the contrary, passed pale as death. The windows of the mairie were open, and without were heard six or seven pieces playing together. It was horrible.

I pressed Catharine's hand, and we passed slowly through the crowd to the hall where Monsieur the Sous-Préfet, the Mayors, and the Secretaries were seated on their tribune, calling the numbers aloud as if pronouncing sentence of death in a court of justice; for all those numbers were really sentences of death.

We waited a long while.

It seemed as if there was no longer a drop of blood in my veins, when at last my name was called.

I advanced, seeing and hearing nothing; I put my hand in the box and drew a number.

Monsieur the Sous-Préfet cried out:

"Number seventeen."

Then I departed without speaking, Catharine and her mother behind me. We went out into the _place_, and, the air reviving me, I remembered that I had drawn number seventeen.

Aunt Grédel seemed confounded.

"And I put something into your pocket, too," said she; "but that rascal of a Pinacle gave you ill luck."

At the same time she drew from my coat-pocket the end of a cord. Great drops of sweat rolled down my forehead; Catharine was white as marble, and so we returned to Monsieur Goulden's.

"What number did you draw, Joseph?" he asked, as soon as he saw us.

"Seventeen," replied Aunt Grédel, sitting down, with her hands upon her knees.

Monsieur Goulden seemed troubled for a moment, but he said instantly:

"One is as good as another. All will go; the skeletons must be filled. But it don't matter for Joseph. I will go and see Monsieur the Mayor and Monsieur the Commandant. It will be telling no lie to say that Joseph is lame; all the town knows that; but among so many they may overlook him. That is why I go, so rest easy; do not be anxious."

{444}

These words of good Monsieur Goulden reassured Aunt Grédel and Catharine, who returned to Quatre-Vents full of hope; but they did not affect me, for from that moment I had not a moment of rest day or night.

The emperor had a good custom: he did not allow the conscripts to languish at home. Soon as the drawing was complete, the council of revision met, and a few days after came the orders to march. He did not do like those tooth-pullers who first show you their pincers and hooks and gaze for an hour into your mouth, so that you feel half dead before they make up their minds to begin work: he proceeded without loss of time.

A week after the drawing, the council of revision sat at the town hall, with all the mayors and a few notables of the country to give advice in case of need.

The day before Monsieur Goulden had put on his brown great-coat and his best wig to go to wind up Monsieur the Mayor's clock and that of the Commandant. He returned laughing and said:

"All goes well, Joseph. Monsieur the Mayor and Monsieur the Commandant know that you are lame; that is easy enough to be seen. They replied at once, Eh, Monsieur Goulden, the young man is lame; why speak of him? Do not be uneasy; we do not want the infirm; we want soldiers."

These words poured balm on my wounds, and that night I slept like one of the blessed. But the next day fear again assailed me; I remembered suddenly how many men full of defects had gone all the same, and how many others invented defects to deceive the council; for instance, swallowing injurious substances to make them pale; tying up their legs to give themselves swollen veins; or playing deaf, blind, or foolish. I had heard that vinegar would make one sick, and, without telling Monsieur Goulden, in my fear I swallowed all the vinegar in his bottle. Then I dressed myself, thinking that I looked like a dead man, for the vinegar was very strong; but when I entered Monsieur Goulden's room, he cried out:

"Joseph, what is the matter with you? You are as red as a cock's comb."

And, looking at myself in the mirror, I saw that my face was red to my ears and to the very tip of my nose. I was frightened, but instead of growing pale I became redder yet, and I cried out in my distress:

"Now I am lost indeed! I will seem like a man without a single defect, and full of health. The vinegar is rushing to my head."

"What vinegar?" asked Monsieur Goulden.

"That in your bottle. I drank it to make myself pale, as they say Mademoiselle Selapp, the organist, does. O Heavens! what a fool I was."

"That does not prevent your being lame," said Monsieur Goulden; "but you tried to deceive the council, which was dishonest. But it is half-past nine, and Werner is come to tell me you must be there at ten o'clock. So, hurry."

I had to go in that state; the heat of the vinegar seemed bursting from my cheeks, and when I met Catharine and her mother, who were waiting for me at the mairie, they scarcely knew me.

"How happy and satisfied you look!" said Aunt Grédel.

{445}

I would have fainted on hearing this if the vinegar had not sustained me in spite of myself. I went upstairs in terrible agony, without being able to move my tongue to reply, so great was the horror I felt at my folly.

Above, more than twenty-five conscripts who pretended to be infirm, had been examined and received, while twenty-five others, on a bench along the wall, sat with drooping heads awaiting their turn.

The old gendarme, Kelz, with his huge cocked hat, was walking about, and as soon as he saw me exclaimed: "At last! At last! Here is one, at all events, who will not be sorry to go; the love of glory is shining in his eyes. Very good, Joseph; I predict that at the end of the campaign you will be corporal."

"But I am lame," I cried angrily.

"Lame!" repeated Kelz, winking and smiling; "lame! No matter. With such health as yours you can always hold your own."

He had scarcely ceased speaking when the door of the hall of the Council of Revision opened, and the other gendarme, Werner, putting out his head, called, "Joseph Bertha."

I entered, limping as much as I could, and Werner shut the door. The mayors of the canton were seated in a semi-circle, Monsieur the Sous-Préfet and the Mayor of Phalsbourg in the middle, in arm-chairs, and the Secretary Frélig at his table. A Harberg conscript was dressing himself, the gendarme Descarmes helping him. This conscript, with a mass of brown hair falling over his eyes, his neck bare, and his mouth open as he caught his breath, seemed like a man going to be hanged. Two surgeons--the Surgeon-in-Chief of the Hospital, with another in uniform--were conversing in the middle of the hall. They turned to me, saying, "Take off your coat."

I did so. The others looked on.

Monsieur the Sous-Préfet observed:

"There is a young man full of health."

These words angered me, but I nevertheless replied respectfully:

"I am lame, Monsieur the Sous-Préfet."

The surgeons examined me, and the one from the hospital, to whom Monsieur the Commandant had doubtless spoken of me, said: "The left leg is a little short." "Bah!" said the other; "it is sound."

Then placing his hand upon my chest he said, "The conformation is good. Cough."

I coughed as freely as I could; but he found me all right, and said again:

"Look at his color. How good his blood must be!"

Then I, seeing that they would pass me if I remained silent, replied: "I have drank vinegar." "Ah!" said he; "that proves you have a good stomach; you like vinegar."

"But I am lame!" I cried in my distress.

"Bah! don't grieve at that," he answered; "your leg is sound. I'll answer for it."

"But that," said Monsieur the Mayor, "does not prevent his being lame from birth; all Phalsbourg knows that."

"The leg is too short," said the surgeon from the hospital; "it is doubtless a case for exemption."

"Yes," said the Mayor; "I am sure that this young man could not endure a long march; he would drop on the road the second mile."

The first surgeon said nothing more.

I thought myself saved, when Monsieur the Sous-Préfet asked: "You are really Joseph Bertha?"

{446}

"Yes, Monsieur the Sous-Préfet," I answered.

"Well, gentlemen," said he, taking a letter out of his portfolio, "listen."

He began to read the letter, which stated that, six months before, I had bet that I could go to Laverne and back quicker than Pinacle; that we had run the race, and I had won.

It was unhappily too true. The villain Pinacle had always taunted me with being a cripple, and in my anger I laid the wager. Every one knew of it. I could not deny it.

While I stood utterly confounded, the first surgeon said:

"That settles the question. Dress yourself." And, turning to the Secretary, he cried, "Good for service."

I took up my coat in despair.

Werner called another. I no longer saw anything. Some one helped me to get my arms in my coat-sleeves. Then I found myself upon the stairs, and while Catharine asked me what had passed, I sobbed aloud and would have fallen from top to bottom if Aunt Grédel had not supported me.

We went out by the rear-way and crossed the little court. I wept like a child, and Catharine did too.

Monsieur Goulden knowing that Aunt Grédel and Catharine would come to dine with us the day of the revision, had had a stuffed goose and two bottles of good Alsace wine sent from the "Golden Sheep." He was sure that I would be exempted at once. What was his surprise, then, to see us enter together in such distress.

"What is the matter?" said he, raising his silk cap over his bald forehead, and staring at us with eyes wide open.

I had not strength enough to answer. I threw myself into the armchair and burst into tears. Catharine sat down beside me, and our sobs redoubled.

Aunt Grédel said:

"The robbers have taken him."

"It is not possible!" exclaimed Monsieur Goulden, letting fall his arms by his side.

"It shows their villainy," replied my aunt, and, growing more and more excited, she cried, "Will a revolution never come again? Shall those wretches always be our masters?"

"Calm yourself, Mother Grédel," said Monsieur Goulden. "In the name of Heaven don't cry so loud. Joseph, tell me how it happened. They are surely mistaken; it cannot be possible otherwise. Did Monsieur the Mayor and the hospital surgeon say nothing?"

I told the history of the letter, and Aunt Grédel, who until then knew nothing of it, again shrieked with her hands clenched.

"O the scoundrel! God grant that he may cross my threshold again. I will cleave his head with my hatchet."

Monsieur Goulden was astounded.

"And you did not say that it was false. Then the story was true?"

And as I bowed my head without replying, he clasped his hands, saying:

"O youth! youth! it thinks of nothing. What folly! what folly!"

He walked around the room; then sat down to wipe his spectacles, and Aunt Grédel exclaimed:

"Yes, but they shall not have him yet! Their wickedness shall yet go for nothing. This very evening Joseph shall be in the mountains on the way to Switzerland."

Monsieur Goulden hearing this, looked grave; he bent his brows, and replied in a few moments:

{447}

"It is a misfortune, a great misfortune, for Joseph is really lame. They will yet find it out, for he cannot march two days without falling behind and becoming sick. But you are wrong, Mother Grédel, to speak as you do and give him bad advice."

"Bad advice!" she cried. "Then you are for having people massacred too!"

"No," he answered; "I do not love wars, especially where a hundred thousand men lose their lives for the glory of one. But wars of that kind are ended. It is not now for glory and to win new kingdoms that soldiers are levied, but to defend our country, which had been put in danger by tyranny and ambition. We would gladly have peace now. Unhappily, the Russians are advancing; the Prussians are joining them; and our friends, the Austrians, only await a good opportunity to fall upon our rear. If we do not go to meet them, they will come to our homes; for we are about to have Europe on our hands as we had in '93. It is now a different matter from our wars in Spain, in Russia, and in Germany; and I, old as I am, Mother Grédel, if the danger continues to increase and the veterans of the republic are needed, I would be ashamed to go and make clocks in Switzerland while others were pouring out their blood to defend my country. Besides, remember this well, that deserters are despised everywhere; after having committed such an act, they have no kindred or home anywhere. They have neither father, mother, church, nor country. They are incapable of fulfilling the first duty of man--to love and sustain their country, even though she be in the wrong."

He said no more at the moment, but sat gravely down.

"Let us eat," he exclaimed, after some minutes of silence. "Midday is striking. Mother Grédel and Catharine, seat yourselves there."

They sat down, and we began dinner. I meditated upon the words of Monsieur Goulden, which seemed right to me. Aunt Grédel compressed her lips, and from time to time gazed at me as if to read my thoughts. At length she said:

"I despise a country where they take fathers of families after carrying off the sons. If I were in Joseph's place, I would fly at once."

"Listen, Aunt Grédel," I replied; "you know that I love nothing so much as peace and quiet; but I would not, nevertheless, run away like a coward to another country. But, notwithstanding, I will do as Catharine says; if she wishes me to go to Switzerland, I will go."

Then Catharine, lowering her head to hide her tears, said in a low voice:

"I would not have them call you a deserter."

"Well, then, I will do like the others," I cried; "and as those of Phalsbourg and Dagsberg are going to the wars, I will go."

Monsieur Goulden made no remark.

"Every one is free to do as he pleases," said he, after a while; "but I am glad that Joseph thinks as I do."

Then there was silence, and toward two o'clock Aunt Grédel arose and took her basket. She seemed utterly cast down, and said:

"Joseph, you will not listen to me, but no matter. With God's grace, all will yet be well. You will return if he wills it, and Catharine will wait for you."

Catharine wept again, and I more than she; so that Monsieur Goulden himself could not help shedding tears.

At length Catharine and her mother descended the stairs, and Aunt Grédel called out from the bottom:

"Try to come and see us once or twice again, Joseph."

{448}

"Yes, yes," I answered, shutting the door.

I could no longer stand. Never had I been so miserable, and even now, when I think of it, my heart chills.

VII.

From that day I could think of nothing but my misfortune. I tried to work, but my thoughts were far away, and Monsieur Goulden said:

"Joseph, lay labor aside. Profit by the little time you can remain among us; go to see Catharine and Mother Grédel. I still think they will exempt you, but who can tell? They need men so much that it may be a long time coming."

I went then every morning to Quatre-Vents, and passed my days with Catharine. We were very sorrowful, but very glad to see each other. We loved one another even more than before, if that were possible. Catharine sometimes tried to sing as in the good old times; but suddenly she would burst into tears. Then we wept together, and Aunt Grédel would rail at the wars which brought misery to every one. She said that the Council of Revision deserved to be hung; that they were all robbers, banded together to poison our lives. It solaced us a little to hear her talk thus, and we thought she was right.

I returned to the city about eight or nine o'clock in the evening. When they closed the gates, and as I passed, I saw the small inns full of conscripts and old returned soldiers drinking together. The conscripts always paid; the others, with dirty police-caps cocked over their ears, red noses, and horse-hair stocks in place of shirt-collars, twisted their mustaches and related with majestic air their battles, their marches, and their duels. One can imagine nothing viler than those holes, full of smoke, cobwebs hanging on the black beams, those old sworders and young men drinking, shouting, and beating the tables like crazy people; and behind in the shadow old Annette Schnaps or Marie Héring--her old wig stuck back on her head, her comb with only three teeth remaining, crosswise, in it--gazing on the scene, or emptying a mug to the health of the braves.

It was sad to see the sons of peasants, honest and laborious fellows, leading such an existence; but no one thought of working, and any one of them would have given his life for two farthings. Worn out with shouting, drinking, and internal grief, they ended by falling asleep over the table, while the old fellows emptied their cups, singing:

"'Tis glory calls us on!"

I saw these things, and I blessed heaven for having given me, in my wretchedness, kind hearts to keep up my courage and prevent my falling into such hands.

This state of affairs lasted until the twenty-fifth of January. For some days a great number of Italian conscripts--Piedmontese and Genoese--had been arriving in the city; some stout and fat as Savoyards fed upon chestnuts--their great cocked hats on their curly heads; their linsey-woolsey pantaloons dyed a dark green, and their short vests also of wool, but brick-red, fastened around their waists by a leather belt. They wore enormous shoes, and ate their cheese seated along the old marketplace. Others were dried up, lean, brown, shivering in their long cassocks, seeing nothing but snow upon the roofs and gazing with their large, black, mournful eyes upon the women who passed. They were exercised every day in marching, and were going to fill up the skeleton of the sixth regiment of the line at Mayence, and were then resting for a while in the infantry barracks.

{449}

The captain of the recruits, who was named Vidal, lodged over our room. He was a square-built, solid, very strong-looking man, and was, too, very kind and civil. He came to us to have his watch repaired, and when he learned that I was a conscript and was afraid I should never return, he encouraged me, saying that it was all habit; that at the end of five or six months one fights and marches as he eats his dinner; and that many so accustom themselves to shooting at people that they consider themselves unhappy when they are deprived of that amusement.

But his mode of reasoning was not to my taste; the more so as I saw five or six large grains of powder on one of his cheeks, which had entered deeply, and as he explained to me that they came from a shot which a Russian fired almost under his nose. Such a life disgusted me more and more, and as several days had already passed without news, I began to think they had forgotten me, as they did Jacob, of Chèvre-Hof, of whose extraordinary luck every one yet talks. Aunt Grédel herself said to me every time I went there, "Well, well! they will let us alone after all!" When on the morning of the twenty-fifth of January, as I was about starting for Quatre-Vents, Monsieur Goulden, who was working at his bench with a thoughtful air, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said:

"Listen, Joseph! I wanted to let you have one night more of quiet sleep; but you must know now, my child, that yesterday evening the brigadier of gendarmerie brought me your marching orders. You go with the Piedmontese and Genoese and five or six young men of the city--young Klipfel, young Loerig, Jean Léger, and Gaspard Zébédé. You go to Mayence."

I felt my knees give way as he spoke, and I sat down unable to speak. Monsieur Goulden took my marching orders, beautifully written, out of a drawer, and began to read them slowly. All that I remember is that Joseph Bertha, native of Dabo, Canton of Phalsbourg, Arrondissement of Sarrebourg, was incorporated in the sixth regiment of the line, and that he should join his corps the twenty-ninth of January at Mayence.

This letter produced as evil an effect on me as if I had known nothing of it before. It seemed something new, and I grew angry. Monsieur Goulden, after a moment's silence, added:

"The Italians start to-day at eleven."

Then, as if awakening from a horrible dream, I cried:

"But shall I not see Catharine again?"

"Yes, Joseph, yes," said he, in a trembling voice. "I notified Mother Grédel and Catharine, and thus, my boy, they will come, and you can embrace them before leaving."

I saw his grief, and it made me sadder yet, so that I had a hard struggle to keep myself from bursting into tears.

He continued, after a pause:

"You need not be anxious about anything, Joseph. I have prepared all beforehand; and when you return, if it please God to keep me so long in this world, you will find me always the same. I am beginning to grow old, and my greatest happiness would be to keep you for a son, for I found you good-hearted and honest. I would have given you what I possess, and we would have been happy together. Catharine and you would have been my children. {450} But since it is otherwise, let us resign ourselves. It is only for a little while. You will be sent back, I am sure. They will soon see that you cannot make long marches."

While he spoke, I sat silently sobbing, my face buried in my hands.

At last he arose and took from a closet a soldier's knapsack of cowskin, which he placed upon the table. I looked at him, thinking of nothing but the pain of parting.

"Here is your knapsack," he added; "and I have put in it all that you require; two linen shirts, two flannel waistcoats, and all the rest. Well, well, that is all."

He placed the knapsack upon the table and sat down.

Without, we heard the Italians making ready to depart. Above us Captain Vidal was giving his orders. He had his horse at the barracks of the gendarmerie, and was telling his orderly to see that he was well rubbed and had received his hay.

All this bustle and movement produced a strange effect upon me, and I could not yet realize that I must quit the city. As I was thus in the greatest distress, the door opened and Catharine entered weeping, while Mother Grédel cried:

"I told you you should have fled to Switzerland; that these rogues would finish by carrying you off. I told you so, and you would not believe me."

"Mother Grédel," replied Monsieur Goulden, "to go to do his duty is not so great an evil as to be despised by honest people. Instead of all these cries and reproaches, which serve no good purpose, you would do better to comfort and encourage Joseph."

"Ah!" said she; "I do not reproach him, although this is terrible."

Catharine did not leave me; she sat by me and said, pressing my arm:

"You will return?"

"Yes, yes," said I, in a low voice. "And you--you will always think of me; you will not love another?"

She answered, sobbing:

"No, no! I will never love any but you."

This lasted a quarter of an hour, when the door opened and Captain Vidal entered, his cloak rolled like a hunting-horn over his shoulder.

"Well," said he, "well; how goes our young man?"

"Here he is," answered Monsieur Goulden.

"Ah!" remarked the captain; "you are making yourself miserable. It is natural. I remember when I departed for the army. We have all a home."

Then, raising his voice, he said:

"Come, come, young man, courage! We are no longer children."

He looked at Catharine.

"I see all," said he to Monsieur Goulden. "I can understand why he does not want to go."

The drums beat in the street and he added.

"We have yet twenty minutes before starting," and, throwing a glance at me, "Do not fail to be at the first call, young man," said he, pressing Monsieur Goulden's hand.

He went out, and we heard his horse at the door.

The morning was overcast, and grief overwhelmed me. I could not leave Catharine.

Suddenly the roll beat. The drums were all collected in the Place. Monsieur Goulden, taking the knapsack by its straps, said in a grave voice:

"Joseph, now the last embrace; it is time to go."

{451}

I stood up, pale as ashes. He fastened the knapsack to my shoulders. Catharine sat sobbing, her face covered with her apron. Mother Grédel looked on with lips compressed.

The roll continued for a time, then suddenly ceased.

"The call is about commencing," said Monsieur Goulden, embracing me. Then the fountains of his heart burst forth; tears sprang to his eyes; and, calling me his child, his son, he whispered, "Courage!"

Mother Grédel seated herself again, and as I bent toward her, taking my head between her hands, she sobbed:

"I always loved you, Joseph; ever since you were a baby. You never gave me cause of grief--and now you must go. O God! O God!"

I wept no longer.

When Aunt Grédel released me, I looked a moment at Catharine, who stood motionless. Then I turned quickly to go, when she cried, in heart-breaking tones:

"O Joseph! Joseph!"

I looked back. Her strength seemed to leave her, and I placed her in the arm-chair, and fled.

I was already on the Place, in the midst of the Italians and of a crowd of people crying for their sons or brothers. I saw nothing; I heard nothing.

When the roll of the drums recommenced, I looked around, and saw that I was between Klipfel and Furst, all three with our knapsacks on our backs. Their parents stood before us, weeping as if at their funeral. To the right, near the town-hall, Captain Vidal, on his little gray mare, was conversing with two infantry officers. The sergeants called the roll, and we answered. They called Furst, Klipfel, Bertha; we answered like the others. Then the captain gave the word, "March!" and we went, two abreast, toward the French gate.

At the corner of the baker Spitz, an old woman cried, in a choking voice, from a window:

"Kasper! Kasper!"

It was Zébédé's grandmother. His lips trembled. He waved his hand, without replying, and passed on with downcast face.

I shuddered at the thought of passing my home. As we neared it, my knees trembled, and I heard some one call at the window; but I turned my head toward the "Red Ox," and the rattle of the drums drowned the voices.

The children ran after us, shouting:

"There goes Joseph! there goes Klipfel!"

Under the French gate, the men on guard, drawn up in line on each side, gazed on us as we passed at shoulder arms. We passed the outposts, and the drums ceased playing as we turned to the right. Nothing was heard but the plash of footsteps in the mud, for the snow was melting.

We had passed the farm-house of Gerberhoff, and were going to the great bridge, when I heard some one call me. It was the captain, who cried from his horse:

"Very well done, young man; I am satisfied with you."

Hearing this, I could not help again bursting into tears, and the great Furst, too, wept, as we marched along; the others, pale as marble, said nothing. At the bridge, Zébédé took out his pipe to smoke. In front of us, the Italians talked and laughed among themselves; their three weeks of service had accustomed them to this life.

Once on the way to Metting, more than a league from the city, as we began to descend, Klipfel touched me on the shoulder, and whispered:

"Look yonder."

{452}

I looked, and saw Phalsbourg far beneath us; the barracks, the magazines, the steeple whence I had seen Catharine's home, six weeks before, with old Brainstein--all were in the gray distance, with the woods all around. I would have stopped a few moments, but the troop marched on, and I had to keep pace with them. We entered Metting.

VIII.

That same day we went as far as Bitche; the next, to Hornbach; then to Kaiserslantern. It began to snow again.

How often during that long march did I sigh for the thick cloak of Monsieur Goulden, and his double-soled shoes.

We passed through innumerable villages, sometimes on the mountains, sometimes in the plains. As we entered each little town, the drums began to beat, and we marched with heads erect, marking the step, trying to assume the mien of old soldiers. The people looked out of their little windows, or came to the doors, saying, "There go the conscripts!"

At night we halted, glad to rest our weary feet--I, especially. I cannot say that my leg hurt me, but my feet! I had never undergone such fatigue. With our billet for lodging we had the right to a corner of the fire, but our hosts also gave us a place at the table. We had nearly always buttermilk and potatoes, and often fresh lard on a dish of sauerkraut. The children came to look at us, and the old women asked us from what place we came, and what our business was before we left home. The young girls looked sorrowfully at us, thinking of their sweethearts, who had gone five, six, or seven months before. Then they would take us to the son's bed. With what pleasure I stretched out my tired limbs! How I wished to sleep all our twelve hours' halt! But early in the morning, at day-break, the rattling of the drums awoke me. I gazed at the brown rafters of the ceiling, the window-panes covered with frost, and asked myself where I was. Then my heart would grow cold, as I thought that I was at Bitche--at Kaiserslantern--that I was a conscript; and I had to dress fast as I could, catch up my knapsack, and answer the roll-call.

"A good journey to you!" said the hostess, awakened so early in the morning.

"Thank you," replied the conscript.

And we marched on.

Yes! a good journey to you! They will not see you again, poor wretch! How many others have followed the same road!

I will never forget how at Kaiserslantern, the second day of our march, having unstrapped my knapsack to take out a white shirt, I discovered, beneath, a little pocket, and opening it I found fifty-four francs in six-livre pieces. On the paper wrapped around them were these words, written by Monsieur Goulden:

"While you are at the wars, be always good and honest. Think of your friends and of those for whom you would be willing to sacrifice your life, and treat the enemy with humanity that they may so treat our soldiers. May heaven guide you, and protect you in your dangers! You will find some money inclosed; for it is a good thing, when far from home and all who love you, to have a little of it. Write to us as often as you can. I embrace you, my child, and press you to my heart."

{453}

As I read this, the tears forced themselves to my eyes, and I thought, "Thou art not wholly abandoned, Joseph; fond hearts are yearning toward you. Never forget their kind counsels."

At last, on the fifth day, about five o'clock in the evening, we entered Mayence. As long as I live I will remember it. It was terribly cold. We had begun our march at early dawn, and, long before reaching the city, had passed through villages filled with soldiers--calvary, infantry, dragoons in their short jackets--some digging holes in the ice to get water for their horses, others dragging bundles of forage to the doors of the stables; powder-wagons, carts full of cannon-balls, all white with frost, stood on every side; couriers, detachments of artillery, pontoon-trains were coming and going over the white ground; and no more attention was paid to us than if we were not in existence.

Captain Vidal, to warm himself, had dismounted and marched with us on foot. The officers and sergeants hastened us on. Five or six Italians had fallen behind and remained in the villages, no longer able to advance. My feet were sore and burning, and at the last halt I could scarcely rise to resume the march. The others from Phalsbourg, however, kept bravely on.

Night had fallen; the sky sparkled with stars. Every one gazed forward, and said to his comrade, "We are nearing it! we are nearing it!" for along the horizon a dark line of seeming cloud, glittering here and there with flashing points, announced that a great city lay before us.

At last we entered the advanced works, and passed through the zig-zag earthen bastions. Then we dressed our ranks and marked the step, as we usually did when approaching a town. At the corner of a sort of demilune we saw the frozen fosse of the city, and the brick ramparts towering above, and opposite us an old, dark gate, with the draw-bridge raised. Above stood a sentinel, who, with his musket raised, cried out:

"Who goes there?"

The captain, going forward alone, replied:

"France!"

"What regiment?"

"Recruits for the Sixth of the Line."

A silence ensued. Then the draw-bridge was lowered, and the guard turned out and examined us, one of them carrying a great torch. Captain Vidal, a few paces in advance of us, spoke to the commandant of the post, who called out at length:

"Whenever you please."

Our drums began to beat, but the captain ordered them to cease, and we crossed a long bridge and passed through a second gate like the first. Then we were in the streets of the city, which were paved with smooth round stones. Every one tried his best to march steadily; for, although it was night, all the inns and shops along the way were open and their large windows were shining, and hundreds of people were passing to and fro as if it were broad day.

We turned five or six corners and soon arrived in a little open place before a high barrack, where we were ordered to halt.

There was a shed at the corner of the barrack, and in it a _cantinière_ seated behind a small table, under a great tri-colored umbrella from which hung two lanterns.

Several officers arrived as soon as we halted; they were the Commandant Gémeau and some others whom I have since known. They pressed our captain's hand laughing, then looked at us and ordered the roll to be called. {454} After that, we each received a ration of bread and a billet for lodging. We were told that roll-call would take place the next morning at eight o'clock for the distribution of arms, and then we were ordered to break ranks, while the officers turned up a street to the left and went into a great coffee-house, the entrance to which was approached by a flight of fifteen steps.

But we, with our billets for lodging--what were we to do with them in the middle of such a city, and, above all, the Italians, who did not know a word either of German or French?

My first idea was to see the _cantinière_ under her umbrella. She was an old Alsatian, round and chubby, and, when I asked for the _Capougner-Strasse_, she replied:

"What will you pay for?"

I was obliged to take a glass of _eau-de-vie_ with her; then she said:

"Look just opposite there; if you turn the first corner to the right, you will find the _Capougner-Strasse_. Good evening, conscript."

She laughed.

Furst and Zébédé' were also billeted in the _Capougner-Strasse_ and we set out, glad enough to be able to limp together through the strange city.

Furst first found his house, but it was shut; and while he was knocking at the door, I found mine, which had a light in two windows. I pushed at the door, it opened, and I entered a dark alley, whence came a smell of fresh bread, which was very welcome. Zébédé had to go further on.

I called out in the alley:

"Is any one here?"

Then an old woman appeared with a candle at the top of a wooden staircase.

"What do you want?" she asked.

I told her that I was billeted at her house. She came down-stairs, and, looking at my billet, told me in German to follow her.

I ascended the stairs. Passing an open door, I saw two men at work before an oven. I was, then, at a baker's, and this accounted for the old woman being up so late. She wore a cap with black ribbons; her arms were bare to the elbows; she, too, had been working, and seemed very sorrowful.

"You come late," she said.

"We were marching all day," I replied, "and I am fainting with hunger and weariness."

She looked at me and murmured:

"Poor child! poor child!"

"Your feet are sore," said she; "take off your shoes and put on these sabots."

She put the candle upon the table and went out. I took off my shoes. My feet were blistered and bleeding, and pained me horribly, and I felt for the moment as if it would almost be better to die at once than to continue in such suffering.

This thought had more than once arisen to my mind in the march, but now, before that good fire, I felt so worn, so miserable, that I would gladly have laid myself down to sleep for ever, notwithstanding Catharine, Aunt Grédel, and all who loved me. Truly, I needed God's assistance.

While these thoughts were running through my head, the door opened, and a tall, stout man, gray-haired, but yet strong and healthy, entered. He was one of those I had seen at work below, and held in his hands a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"Good evening!" said he gravely and kindly.

I looked up. The old woman was behind him. She was carrying a little wooden tub, which, she placed on the floor near my chair.

{455}

"Take a foot-bath," said she; "it will do you good."

This kindness, on the part of a stranger, affected me more than I cared to show. I took off my stockings; my feet were bleeding, and the good old dame repeated, as she gazed at them:

"Poor child! poor child!"

The man asked me whence I came. I told him from Phalsbourg in Lorraine. Then he told his wife to bring some bread, adding that, after we had taken a glass of wine together, he would leave me to the repose I needed so much.

He pushed the table before me, as I sat with my feet in the bath, and we each drained a glass of good white wine. The old woman returned with some hot bread, over which she had spread fresh, half-melted butter. Then I knew how hungry I was. I was almost