Chapter XIV.

The city of Dublin, as it stood within its walls in the days of the Protectorate, barely covered ground to the extent of an Irish mile, and was built entirely on the south side of the Liffey. That side, therefore, only of the river was embanked by quays, and not even _that_ in its entirety; the space now occupied by the new custom-house and other buildings, to the extent of several thousand feet, being then mere ooze and swamp, kept thus by the continued overflowing of the tides.

To the north of the Liffey, however, there was a suburb, built, as time went on and the exigencies of an ever-increasing population required, outside the walls of the fortified city. It was called "Ostmantown," now "Oxmantown," and occupied a very insignificant space between Mary's Abbey and Church street; Stoney Batter, Grange Gorman, and Glassmanogue, being merely villages scattered here and there in the open country to a considerable distance northward. A bridge of very ancient date, the bridge of "Dubhgh-all," also at a later period styled the "Old Bridge," formed the sole means of communication (except by boat) between the city and its northern suburb. Built upon four arches, and closed in on the Dublin side by a strong gate-house with turrets and portcullis, the Old Bridge, like all others of similar antiquity, was broad enough and strong enough to form a sort of street within itself; shops being erected upon either side, and traffic as busy and as eager there, as in the more legitimate thoroughfares of the city.

From Old Bridge men passed at once into Bridge street, (_Vicus Pontis_ formerly,) a long, narrow thoroughfare, hemmed in on one side by the city walls, and on the other by a tolerably handsome row of houses. These houses were almost all built in the cage-work fashion of the days of Queen Elizabeth, and roofed in with tiles and shingles. Many of them also possessed inscriptions which, cut deep into the wood above the doorway, stated the name and calling of the owner, with the addition frequently of some pious sentiment or appropriate phrase from Scripture. {603} This custom seems to have been a favorite one in Dublin, and in the more antique portions of the city there existed houses, even to a very recent period of its history, upon which might still be read the names and occupations of the men who, more than two hundred years before, had resided within their walls.

On the day on which we are about to introduce Dublin to our readers, there had been a considerable amount of stir and bustle going on among its inhabitants, and more especially among those of Bridge street. Rumors had, in fact, been rife since early dawn of an expected rising of the rebels (as the king's partisans were then styled by their opponents) in the north; and men speculated in hope and fear, as their secret wishes moved them, on the probability of the report. It received something like confirmation in the afternoon, one or two regiments of recently arrived English soldiers, armed from head to heel, and evidently ready to go into action at a moment's notice, having been marched out of the city and sent northward. Later on in the day, moreover, it became known that the Lord-Deputy himself, Henry Cromwell, the best of Ireland's recent rulers, accompanied by a strong escort, was proceeding in the same direction, and might be looked for at any moment at the "Ormond Gate," which shut out Bridge street on the city side, just as the "Gate-house" closed it on that of the Old Bridge.

But if people stood at their doors and windows to do honor to the coming of their king-deputy, there yet seemed to be another and still stronger attraction for them at the end of the street opposite that by which he was expected to appear. Eyes were cast quite as often, though more furtively, in the direction of the Old Bridge as in that of the Ormond Gate; for, in the midst of other rumors, there had come a whisper, no one knew how or by whom it had been first set agoing, that a person suspected of belonging to the rebel party had just been arrested on the river, having attempted, by means of a boat, to elude the passage of the Old Bridge, and so penetrate unchallenged into the heart of the city.

There followed, as a matter of course, much secret and some anxious speculation as to the rank and real object of the arrested person, but no one ventured to make open inquiry into the matter. Cromwell's brief reign of blood had stricken men dumb with fear. To have shown the smallest interest in persons suspected of belonging to the rebel party, would have been but to have drawn down suspicion on themselves; and suspicion, in those hard times, was too nearly akin to condemnation to be heedlessly incurred. Instead, therefore, of going at once to the Gate-house and ascertaining the real facts of the case from its guardians, people were content, while awaiting the appearance of the military cavalcade from the castle, to question and conjecture among themselves as to the rank and real business of the arrested man. A flourish of trumpets before Ormond Gate put a stop at last to their gossipings. Heads and eyes, if not hearts and good wishes, were instantly turned in that direction; the gate was flung open, and Henry Cromwell, surrounded by a goodly company of officers and private gentlemen, rode at a brisk pace through it. A moment afterward, and he had swept past all the gazers, and pulled up opposite the Old Bridge. The guard at the Gate-house instantly turned out to receive him, the portcullis was drawn up, and he was actually spurring his horse forward to the bridge, when a girl, in the habit of a western peasant, darted through the soldiers and flung herself on her knees before him. {604} The movement was so rapid and unexpected that, if the Lord-Deputy had not reined up his steed until he nearly threw it on its haunches, he must inevitably have ridden over her. A moment of silent astonishment ensued. The girl herself uttered no cry, and said not a syllable as to the nature of her petition; but as she lifted up her head toward the Lord Henry, her hood, falling back upon her shoulders, revealed a face of ashy whiteness, and there was a pleading, agonized expression in the dark eyes she raised to his, which told more than many words, of the inarticulate anguish of the soul within.

Henry Cromwell was not of a nature to be harsh to any one, much less to a woman; but there had been information enough sent in to him that morning to make him suspect a snare, and he turned sternly for explanation to the chief officer of the guard.

"What means this unseemly interruption, corporal?" he asked, as the latter was vainly endeavoring to induce Nellie to rise from her knees. "Is this maiden a prisoner? or if not a prisoner, is she distraught, that she thus ventures, bare-headed and dressed in such ungodly play-acting fashion, to rush into our very presence?"

"A prisoner of only half-an-hour's standing is she, may it please your excellency," the soldier answered promptly, "she and her companion! They were seen attempting to cross the river in a boat borrowed from some of the natives on the other side, and as it seemed to me that their purpose must needs be seditious to demand such secrecy, I caused both to be apprehended, and have kept them here to wait your honor's further directions in the matter."

"Ormiston," said the Lord-Deputy, turning to one of the younger of the group of officers behind him, "remain you here, and examine, with Corporal Holdfast, into this business. If there be aught which seems important hid beneath this masquerading folly, follow me at once to Glassmanogue, where I shall have business to detain me for a couple of hours; but if it be only, as I do suspect, the silly freak of a love-sick maiden, in that case I shall not look for you before to-morrow morning, when you will bring me, as I have explained already, the last despatches which may have come from England."

Having thus somewhat summarily despatched poor Nellie's business, but little dreaming of the great service he had done her in appointing young Ormiston her guardian, Henry Cromwell dashed over the bridge, and, followed instantly by his escort, galloped northward. The moment Nellie saw that her efforts to hold speech with the Lord-Deputy himself would prove in vain, she had risen of her own accord, and, the hood once more drawn modestly over her head and face, had stood aside to let him pass, with a calm, sad dignity in her look and bearing which had its due effect upon the rough soldier who had made her captive. He did not again attempt to touch, or even to address her, but standing near her silently and respectfully, seemed to wait until of her own accord she should return with him to the Gate-house. Thus unmolested, Nellie forgot his existence altogether, and equally heedless of the crowd, which, having gathered in the wake of the Lord-Deputy, was now gazing curiously and compassionately upon her, she stood considering what her next move should be, when, in obedience to his orders, Harry Ormiston approached her.

{605}

As he took Corporal Holdfast's place beside her, Nellie lifted her eyes to his face, and recognized him instantly as the young officer who had been riding with Henrietta on the day of their first meeting in the wilderness. A soft cry of joy escaped her lips, and Harry Ormiston broke down in his half-uttered greeting. _He_ also remembered her face--have we not already told our reader that it was by no means one easily to be forgotten?--but of the when or the where that he had seen it, he had no such distinct a recollection. Silently, and with a look of timid hope stealing over that fair face, Nellie drew Henrietta's missive from her bosom and placed it in his hands.

Ormiston glanced at the superscription, and with a flush of honest joy mantling on his features, eagerly tore it open. Scarcely, however, had he read three lines ere the scene among the mountains, which had ended in his quarrel with his betrothed, rose before him like a vision, and instantly remembering Nellie as the fair girl who had been in some measure, albeit unwittingly, its cause, he turned sharply upon Corporal Holdfast.

"How is this, corporal? I fear me you have made some grave mistake! This young maiden whom you hold a prisoner is the bearer to me of a token from one whose zeal and faithfulness in the good cause cannot be suspected--even from a member of the household of that brave and God-fearing Major Hewitson, who has set up his camp on the very edge of the wilderness, and thus made of his small garrison a very tower of strength against the incursions of the enemy."

"Nay, and if your honor says it, it must needs be true," the man--a bluff old soldier, with little pretensions to sanctity in his composition--answered with suppressed impatience; "and therefore I can only marvel that a maiden, known and esteemed by the family of worthy Major Hewitson, should not only have sought to cheat our vigilance by crossing the river privately in a boat, but should have done so in the company of a man whom I myself can testify to having been a chief of some repute in the army of the Irish enemy, having crossed swords with him at the battle of 'Knocknaclashy,' as I think they call it in their barbarous language, where he fought (I needs must own it) with a valor worthy of a better cause."

Major Ormiston turned, gravely but kindly, to Nellie.

"I fear me much," he said, "that you have been but ill-advised in all this business. Why not have presented yourself openly at the bridge if the matter which has brought you hither will bear investigation? and why, more than all the rest, have you come attended by a person whose very company must needs render you suspect yourself?"

"O sir!" said Nellie, weeping sadly, as she began to fear that even Henrietta's recommendation to mercy might perhaps avail her little; "we had not the password, without which we never should have been permitted to enter Dublin by the bridge; and our errand is, alas! of such a nature, that every moment lost is of deep and sad importance."

"_Our_ errand," Ormiston thoughtfully repeated. "This errand, then, is not entirely your own, but is in some way or other interesting also to the man by whom Master Holdfast tells me you are accompanied."

{606}

"He should have said 'a _gentleman_,'" Nellie answered, with a slight rebuking emphasis on the latter word--"a gentleman who, at his own great trouble, and, I fear me, risk, has enabled me to accomplish this journey; in which, however, he has no other interest than such as any kind and noble heart might feel in the sorrows and perils of an unprotected girl."

"Where is he--this other prisoner?" Ormiston asked, turning for information to the corporal.

"In the gate-house, sir, where we have him safe under lock and key; for he was no prisoner to be left at large like this silly maiden, who begged so hard to be allowed to see the Lord-Deputy go by, that I found it not in my heart to deny her so small a favor; for the doing of which, I trust I have not incurred the displeasure either of your honor or of his highness the Lord Henry."

"Certainly not, honest Holdfast; you have acted both well and mercifully in all this business. And now lead the way to the gate-house, and trouble not your wits about this young maiden. I myself will be her surety that she attempt not to escape."

He offered his hand very respectfully to Nellie as he finished speaking, 'and she suffered him to lead her in silence toward the bridge. As they entered the gate-house, however, she quietly withdrew her hand and glided from his side to that of Roger.

Ormiston instantly recognized the latter as the dispossessed owner of the "Rath," and an officer, beside, of some standing in the recently disbanded army of the Irish. Courteously saluting him, therefore, he informed him that he had been deputed by the Lord-Deputy to inquire into the nature of the business which had brought him to Dublin, adding an earnest hope on his own part that it might prove to be in no way connected with political affairs.

"That, most assuredly, it is not," said Roger, pleased and touched by the young officer's manner, and satisfied by Henrietta's letter, which Ormiston still held open in his hand, that he was addressing the person for whom it had been intended. "My business is one which solely concerns this young gentlewoman, and concerns her, in fact, so nearly, that if you cannot aid her, as Mistress Hewitson half hinted that you could, I trust, at all events, you will give me as much of my liberty for this one day as may enable me to do so myself. I too am a soldier and an officer. Major Ormiston, and you may trust me that I will not abuse your favor."

"Sir," said Nellie imploringly, "you have not read the letter--if you would but read the letter! Mistress Hewitson half promised that you would help me!"

Thus called upon, Ormiston ran his eyes over Henrietta's letter, which, concluding it to be on matters merely personal to himself, he had been reserving for more private, and therefore more satisfactory perusal.

Nellie watched him anxiously as he read on, and with a spasm of anguish at her heart she saw that, as he gradually took in the nature of its contents, his first look of eager joy disappeared, and was succeeded by one of deep and tender pity--pity which made itself felt in the very accents of his voice, as he exclaimed:

"Young Mistress Netterville! Good God! And I never even dreamed of the relationship! Alas! that you should have come so far, only to find sorrow and disappointment in the end."

"Oh! not dead! not dead!" cried Nellie, terrified by his words and looks. "Say, not dead--not dead--I do entreat you!"

{607}

"No, no!--not dead--_yet_," he answered nervously. He could not bring himself to say that she was to die upon the morrow.

"Nay, Major Ormiston," Roger here interposed, for Nellie was sobbing in speechless anguish, "if not dead all is well--or may at all events yet be well--for this most injured lady. I have hope still--hope in the honor and justice even of our enemy. See this paper! It was writ by the soldier who hath lately received as his share in the Irish spoil the house and lands of Netterville, and who is ready to aver on oath that he took it down word for word from the lips of the very woman who did that deed for which Mrs. Netterville stands condemned to die."

Ormiston glanced rapidly over the papers which Roger had drawn from his bosom and given to him.

"Yes, yes!" he cried joyfully, "I doubt it not in the least. Sergeant Jackson is well known as a man of truth beyond suspicion, and these lines, moreover, do but repeat the defence which the unhappy lady urged over and over again upon her trial, insisting that the accusation against her was an act of private vengeance. But all this can be discussed hereafter. Time presses; and whatever is to be done to save her, must be done at once."

"The Lords Chief-Justices," suggested Roger; but Ormiston shook his head with a little smile of scorn.

"Little likely _they_ to reverse a sentence pronounced in their own courts!" he said. "No, no! it is to the Lord-Deputy we must appeal. I will ride after him at once, and in a couple of hours at the furthest you may look for me with the result. I trust in God that it may be a good one."

He left the room without waiting for an answer, and in another minute they heard him gallop across the bridge. The next two hours were passed by Nellie in an agony of expectation which was painful to behold. She could not stay still a moment. Sometimes she paced the narrow guard-room with rapid and impatient footsteps--sometimes, regardless of the presence of the English soldiery, she flung herself on her knees, weeping and praying almost aloud in her agony. Every stir upon the bridge--every sound from the street beyond, seemed to announce the return of her messenger, and at these moments she would stand up, shivering from head to foot in such a fever of hope and fear, that Roger at last became seriously alarmed, and remonstrated firmly and affectionately with her on her want of self-command. At last, to his inexpressible relief, a bustle at the doorway announced Ormiston's return, and a moment afterward the latter entered the guardroom. Nellie stood up, as white as ashes, and utterly incapable of either speaking or moving toward him. Shocked at the mute anguish of her face, Ormiston took her hand in his; but when she looked at him, expecting him to address her, he hesitated, like one doubtful of the effect of the tidings he was bringing.

"For God's sake, speak at once!" cried Roger. "Anything is better for her than this suspense! Say, is it life or death?"

"Not death, certainly--at least I hope not," said Ormiston, vainly seeking in his own mind for some fitter words by which to convey his meaning.

The blood rushed to Nellie's temples, and the pupils of her eyes dilated, but still she could not answer.

"You _hope?_" Roger repeated sadly. He saw, though Nellie did not, that there still existed some uncertainty in the matter.

{608}

"There is a reprieve at all events," he said, in the same joyless tones in which he had before replied.

The color faded from Nellie's cheek, and the gladness from her eye. "Only a reprieve--only _that,_" she muttered, in tones so hoarse and changed that the young men could hardly believe it to be hers--"only that!"

"But the rest will follow," said Ormiston, trying to reassure her. "The Lord-Deputy will himself inquire into the business, and--"

"Nay, then, she is safe indeed!" Nellie interrupted him to say. "With that confession, furnished by her chief accuser, her innocence must be clear as daylight. O sir! she is safe--surely she is safe!" she added, trying to reassure herself by the repetition of the word, and yet sorely puzzled by a something in Ormiston's eyes which looked more like pity than sympathy in her joy.

"Safe? I trust so--with all my heart and soul I trust so," he answered gravely. "Nevertheless, my dear young lady, I would counsel you, as a friend, not to suffer your hopes to soar too high, lest any after disappointment should be too terrible for endurance."

"If she is reprieved, she will be pardoned; and if she is pardoned, she will live," Nellie repeated slowly, like one trying yet dreading to discover the hidden meaning of his words.

"She will live," he amended gently; "yes, certainly, if God hath decreed it as well as man."

"Nay, if she is in God's hands only, I am content," said Nellie, with a sudden return to confidence, which somewhat astonished Ormiston. "I also have been in God's hands," she added, with an appealing look toward Roger, "and can tell how much more merciful they are than man's. Sir, I conclude from what you say that she is ailing; may I not go to her at once?"

"If you are strong enough," he was beginning, but she interrupted him with a burst of grief and indignation.

"How? not strong enough? and I have come all this way to see her! O mother, mother!" she sobbed convulsively, "little you dream your child is near, bringing peace and pardon to your prison!"

Roger saw that Ormiston knew more than he liked to tell, and asked in a low voice:

"The poor lady, then, is very ill?"

"Dying!" the other answered curtly.

"Will her daughter be in time to see her, think you?"

"In time; but that is all. She has burst a blood-vessel, as I have just now learned, and this reprieve seems little better than a mockery; for no one dreams that she could have survived for the tragedy of to-morrow."

"Then let Nellie go at once," said Roger promptly. "She has ridden night and day to see her mother, and sad as the meeting may be, it would be sadder still if they met no more. Let her go at once."

And so it was decided.

{609}

Newman's Poems.

BY H. W. Wilberforce.

The little volume of poems published anonymously under this humble title, [Footnote 179] produced an impression immediately on its publication, not only among Catholics but among English readers in general, which could hardly have been caused by a volume of poems from any other writer of the day, with the exception, perhaps, of the Laureate. The explanation is to be found in the initials J. H. N. at the end of the preface--a signature long ago of world-wide celebrity.

[Footnote 179: _Verses on Various Occasions_. London: Burns, Gates & Co. 1868. For sale at the Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau street, New York.]

There may be those who feel surprised to find that a man chiefly known as having been, under God's providence and grace, the main author of the Oxford movement of 1833, should be found to have possessed and exercised extraordinary poetical gifts. It may perhaps be partly a lurking feeling of envy, partly a just perception how rarely any one man combines numerous unconnected powers, which makes the world at large reluctant to admit that any man has greatly distinguished himself in a line far removed from that specially his own. But that feeling, be its origin what it may, does not in reason apply to the case before us, because it would seem that the gifts which specially qualify a man to produce a deep effect upon the hearts and consciences of his fellows, to be the founder and leader of any great school of thought, social, moral, political, or religious, are very much the same as those required for the making of a great poet.

This is at first sight so obvious, that we incline to think the only real argument against it would be, an appeal to experience. It will be said, there is a small class of men who have won among their fellows (as if it were a title of honor formally secured to them) the name of "the poet," and no one of them has been, except in his own special art of poetical composition, among the great leaders of human thought. But this is easily accounted for. A man immersed for years in public affairs of any kind, however richly his mind may have been stored with poetical images, and however natural it may have been to him to have sought for them a poetical expression, can rarely have had leisure to cultivate the merely artistic part of poetical composition to the degree necessary for success as a poet. It is hardly likely that in his case there should combine the many accidental circumstances necessary (over and above the possession of great poetical endowments) for the composition, publication, and general diffusion of any considerable poetical work. And even if all these should happen to meet, the mere fact of being very greatly distinguished in any other line is of itself, we strongly suspect, enough to prevent any man from being chiefly remembered as a great poet. The name of "the poet Cowper" is a household word in every English family. But if "William Cowper, Esq., of the Inner Temple" (as his name stands on the title-page) had risen to the woolsack, we believe that, even though he might have written the same poems, he would never have gained the title. {610} If indeed mediocrity in everything else had sufficed to gain a high and permanent reputation for a man of equal mediocrity in poetical talents, we should now have talked of Cowper's friend as "the poet Hayley." But that the highest poetical genius does not obtain the title for a man otherwise conspicuous, is proved by the example of Shakespeare. Merely because he has left behind him dramatic works to which the world affords no rival, not even the preeminent poetical genius shown in his poems has caused the world at large to speak and think of him as "the poet Shakespeare." Nor would Dryden, despite of his matchless lyric poems, have attained the title, if among his numerous plays he had written Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear.

It seems to us that these considerations are enough to answer the objection from experience, which might perhaps be urged against our opinion, that the qualities which qualify a man to exercise a deep influence on his fellows and make him a leader of the souls of men, are in fact the same as those which qualify him for success as a poet.

We think this volume will convince most of those who read it that we are right. The weighty and touching thoughts of these poems bear the stamp of the same mint from which issued those volumes of sermons, which, far more than any other work, have impressed a permanent stamp upon the generation of English readers which is now tending, as Dr. Newman says of himself, "toward the decline of life." It is impossible to read them without feeling that, if his life had been one of mere literary leisure, his chosen employment would probably have been poetry. As it is, he has evidently resorted to it, not when he was thinking of others, but when he sought to relieve the fulness of his own soul. In this world he has written in prose; his poetry has been the record of his inner struggles and emotions, and has been written for himself and his God.

As long as any memory of the English nation and the English language remains among men. Dr. Newman, we doubt not, will be remembered and reverenced; not indeed as one of the few whom poetry has made great, but as one of the great men who have written poetry. And so far from deeming it strange that such should be the case with the great author of the movement of 1833, we, for our part, should have thought it strange if, in a man of the highest literary culture, the intense feelings in which that movement originated had not relieved themselves by poetical expression. We believe, indeed, that few if any great moral movements have taken place in which something more or less of the same kind has not been found. Perhaps the most remarkable exception was the change of religion in England in the sixteenth century; the leaders in which not only produced no great poetical work, but did not leave behind them so much as a hymn. This was a striking contrast, not only to the contemporary movement in Germany, and to that of the Methodists in the eighteenth century, but also to that of the earlier Lollards. The explanation, however, is not far to seek. Lord Macaulay says, "Ridley was perhaps the only person who had any important share in the English Reformation, who did not consider it as a mere political job." Now, attractive as jobbing is to many very clever men, it is hardly qualified to inspire any poetical afflatus. Cranmer was too busy getting what he could for himself, to be musing over poetical images. {611} Besides, the Reformation in England appealed not so much to men's deeper feelings, as to their natural and reasonable dislike to have their property confiscated and themselves imprisoned, hanged, and cut up alive; and this last kind of appeal neither needed nor encouraged poetical powers.

To return to the volume before us, the poems were so evidently written only for the author himself that it is our signal good fortune that they have ever been published. The greater part of them first appeared in a series called the _Lyra Apostolica_, in many successive numbers of the _British Magazine_, edited by the late Hugh James Rose, in which several of Dr. Newman's earliest prose writings were originally published. It was afterward issued in the form of a small volume, the first edition of which appeared in 1836. By far the greater part of it was supplied by Dr. Newman; the other poems, by five of his intimate friends. [Footnote 180]

[Footnote 180: These were John Bowden, "with whom" (Dr. Newman writes in the _Apologia_) "I spent almost exclusively my undergraduate years." He died just before Dr. Newman became a Catholic. His two sons are now fathers in the London Oratory.--Hurrell, Froude, whose noble character and high gifts Dr. Newman has sketched with admirable force, truth, and beauty, in three pages of the _Apologia_, which he sums up by saying: "It is difficult to enumerate the precise additions to my theological creed which I derived from a friend to whom I owe so much. He made me look with admiration toward the Church of Rome, and in the same degree dislike the Reformation. He fixed on me the idea of devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in the Real Presence." He died February 29th, 1836, "prematurely," says Dr. Newman, "and in the conflict and transition-state of opinion. His religious views never reached their ultimate conclusion, by the very reason of their multitude and their depth."--John Keble, the author of _The Christian Year_, of whom Dr. Newman writes (_Apologia_, edition i. p. 75) words expressing deep feelings shared by many who are now, by God's grace, members of the Catholic Church. He died in 1865, and at this moment, on his birthday, April 27th, the first stone of a new college at Oxford, erected as a testimonial to him, and bearing his name, is being laid by the Archbishop of Canterbury.--Robert Isaac Wilberforce, second son of William Wilberforce. From his earliest years his character seemed made up of truth, purity, unselfishness, tenderness of affection, and indefatigable diligence. As his great powers developed, they showed themselves perhaps the more remarkable from their combination with a degree of humility so extraordinary as to be his chief characteristic. After a university career of unusual distinction, he was elected fellow of Oriel College, on the same day with Hurrell Froude, with whom he is classed by Dr. Newman, in the _Apologia_, as one with whom he was, "in particular, intimate and affectionate." He became a country clergyman, and afterward archdeacon; and in 1838 published (in combination with the present Bishop of Oxford) the _Life of William Wilberforce_. His theological works were all of later date. It is characteristic that he always declared he would never have undertaken any of them if Mr. Newman had not left the field unoccupied. In the opinion of most persons, except himself, his equal in learning and ability was not then left in the Church of England. In 1854, he became a member of the Catholic Church, and died in 1857, while studying at Rome for the priesthood.--Isaac Williams was fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. He remained much longer in Oxford, sharing Mr. Newman's intercourse and counsels. In 1840, Mr. Newman dedicated the beautiful volume on _The Church of the Fathers_ "to my dear and much admired Isaac Williams, the sight of whom carries back his friends to ancient, holy, and happy times." He is, perhaps, best known by his published poems; but he has also published a series of devotional commentaries on the gospels, of great beauty and to which many are deeply indebted. He died in 1865. Dr. Newman went to visit him in his country retirement only a few days before. Our readers, we think, will feel an interest in this brief memorial of a group of men so closely connected with the collection in which many of these poems originally appeared.]

To these are added, in the present volume, a few of earlier and a good many of later date. All of them seem equally to have been composed without any view to publication, and considering that their illustrious author has always been remarkable for a dislike to put himself forward, and for an almost extreme susceptibility of feeling, some persons may wonder that he has ever been able to persuade himself to give them to the world. We do not share their wonder; for we long ago came to the conclusion that it is by men of the greatest natural reserve that the fullest confidences of their inner feelings are not unfrequently made. In the common intercourse of society such men display least of their real feeling. But being distinguished from others by the depth and strength of their thoughts and affections, more lasting convictions and emotions, and greater self-knowledge, they can, upon any call of duty, speak out most unreservedly and sincerely; and the pain it gives them to make any revelation of their inner selves is such that, to do it completely, costs them little, if anything, more than to speak of themselves at all. {612} This, all the world sees, has been exemplified in the _Apologia_, and in its measure it has been the same with the _Lyra Apostolica_, and with the present volume. The poems in the _Lyra_ were, nearly all of them, the expression of the thoughts which crowded into the mind of Dr. Newman during a tour in the Mediterranean, between December, 1832, and July, 1833. The present volume adds very greatly to their interest by giving the place and day of their composition. Thus, the poem headed "Angelic Guidance" was written on the day on which he left Oxford. In our days, in which a very few hours upon the Great Western takes Oxford men to Falmouth without trouble or fatigue, the date, "Whitchurch, December 3d, 1832," is interesting. Whitchurch is a somewhat dreary and secluded village, at which the direct road from Oxford to Southampton intersected the mail road from London to Exeter and Falmouth. There was in those days a coach to Southampton, to the top of which Mr. Newman mounted, (the present writer and other Oriel friends standing in the street, in front of the Angel Inn, to see the last of him.) Before midday he reached Whitchurch, and there had to wait till night for the Falmouth mail. We should be curious to know what has become of the large inn at Whitchurch which was maintained by this sort of traffic. It must long ago have been shut up. Mr. Newman's life had hitherto been almost entirely confined to one or two places, and now he was starting alone for distant lands, and began by waiting many hours at a lonely and (_crede experto_) sufficiently dreary inn. His thoughts turned to the guardian angel who, as he already believed, bore him company. The _Apologia_ tells us how early in life his thoughts had run upon angels and their ministrations. He says of these lines: "They speak of 'the vision' that haunted me. That vision is more or less brought out in the whole series of these compositions." We need hardly say how much these circumstances add to the interest of the poem, which appeared in the _Lyra_ without any explanation of the circumstances under which it was composed.

It is impossible to read these poems without feeling how much a man takes with him from home of the thoughts which are called out even by the most striking and memorable scene. The events going on in England--the evident decay of what he still believed to be the "reformed church"--formed the coloring medium through which he looked at all he saw. Thus, at sea, the day he left Gibraltar, he wrote the lines headed "England:"

"Tyre of the West, and glorying in the name More than in Faith's pure fame! O trust not crafty fort, nor rock renown'd Earn'd upon hostile ground; Wielding Trade's master-keys, at thy proud will To lock or loose its waters, England! trust not still.

"Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel's prime. High towers have been man's crime. Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare, Strongholds have been man's snare. Thy nest is in the crags; ah! refuge frail! Mad counsel in its hour, or traitors, will prevail.

"He who scann'd Sodom for his righteous men Still spares thee for thy ten; But, should vain tongues the Bride of Heaven defy, He will not pass thee by; For, as earth's kings welcome their spotless guest, So gives he them by turn, to suffer or be blest."

The _Apologia_ tells us that the golden lines, "Lead, kindly light," were composed when the "orange-boat" in which the author sailed from Palermo to Marseilles was becalmed in the straits of Bonifacio. {613} It is not mentioned, we think, that it was in the darkness of the night. They are here headed, "The Pillar of the Cloud:'

"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home-- Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see The distant scene,--one step enough for me.

"I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou Should'st lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path; but now Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears. Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

"So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on. O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile."

"Off Algiers," in sight of the grave of that great African church which produced St. Augustine, St. Cyprian, and Tertullian, is the date of "The Patient Church," in which, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the writer, relying on the promise of Christ, looked forward to the ultimate victory of the church, and which begins:

"Bide thou thy time! Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime; Sit in the gate and be the heathen's jest. Smiling and self-possest, O thou, to whom is pledged a victor's sway, Bide thou the victor's day!"

On December 28th, 1832, Mr. Newman caught his first sight of a Greek shore. It is highly characteristic that the first thought which it inspired to the most finished classical scholar of his day in Oxford, was not of Thucydides, not even of Homer, but of "the Greek fathers:"

"Let heathens sing thy heathen praise, Fall'n Greece! the thought of holier days In my sad heart abides; For sons of thine in truth's first hour. Were tongues and weapons of his power. Born of the Spirit's fiery shower. Our fathers and our guides.

"All thine is Clement's varied page; And Dionysius, ruler sage, In days of doubt and pain; And Origen with eagle eye; And saintly Basil's purpose high To smite imperial heresy, And cleanse the altar's stain.

"From thee the glorious Preacher came, With soul of zeal and lips of flame, A court's stern martyr-guest; And thine, O inexhaustive race! Was Nazianzen's heaven-taught grace; And royal-hearted Athanase, With Paul's own mantle blest."

At Corfu, the narrative of Thucydides brought to his mind the thought which he worked out in the sermon on "The Individuality of the Soul," published six years later; and in which he says: "All who have ever gained a name in the world, all the mighty men of war that ever were, all the great statesmen, all the crafty counsellors, all the scheming aspirants, all the reckless adventurers, all the covetous traders, all the proud voluptuaries, are still in being, though helpless and unprofitable. Balaam, Saul, Joab, Ahitophel, good and bad, wise and ignorant, rich and poor, each has his separate place, each dwells by himself in that sphere of light or darkness which he has provided for himself here. What a view this sheds upon history! We are accustomed to read it as a tale or a fiction, and we forget that it concerns immortal beings who cannot be swept away, who are what they were, however this earth may change." The germ of that sermon is contained in the lines headed "Corcyra," January 7th, 1833.

The _Lyra_ contains some beautiful and well-known lines:

"Did we but see, When life first open'd, how our journey lay Between its earliest and its closing day. Or view ourselves as we one day shall be, Who strive for the high prize, such sight would break The youthful spirit, though bold for Jesus' sake.

"But thou, dear Lord! While I traced out bright scenes which were to come, Isaac's pure blessings, and a verdant home, Didst spare me, and withhold thy fearful word; Willing me year by year, till I am found A pilgrim pale, with Paul's sad girdle bound."

They are headed, "Our Future. What I do, thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." It gives them a new interest to find that they were composed at Tre Fontane, the spot of the martyrdom of St. Paul.

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The verses called "Day Laborers," composed while waiting at Palermo for a passage home, (as is described in the _Apologia_,) show the author's deep sense of having a work to do. They are headed, "And He said. It is finished:"

"One only, of God's messengers to man, Finished the work of grace which he began; ...... List, Christian warrior! thou whose soul is fain To rid thy mother of her present chain;-- Christ will avenge his bride; yea, even now Begins the work, and thou Shalt spend in it thy strength; but, ere he save, Thy lot shall be the grave."

We have insisted on the peculiar value of the poems written during this short tour, (the only one of the kind in which the illustrious author has ever indulged himself,) because it adds a new and special interest to compositions which, even when published without any such interest, attained a wide and deserved celebrity. He seems at the time to have felt that that tour was to be the only distraction of the kind in a life of toil; and that he was enriching himself with images of beauty (worthy, as he says, in itself rather of angelic than mortal eyes) which were to last him for many a long year:

"Store them in heart! Thou shalt not faint 'Mid coming pains and fears. As the third heaven once nerved a saint For fourteen trial years."

That the remembrance has been fresh and keen, we see in the lines on "Heathen Greece" written in 1856, and first published in that exquisite volume _Calista_:

"Where are the islands of the blest? They stud the AEgean sea; And where the deep Elysian rest? It haunts the vale where Peneus strong Pours his incessant stream along, While craggy ridge and mountain bare Cut keenly through the liquid air. And, in their own pure tints arrayed. Scorn earth's green robes which change and fade. And stand in beauty undecay'd. Guards of the bold and free."

It is worth notice that the pregnant lines on "The Sign of the Cross" were written before the author left Oxford, and while he was as yet, as he expressly tells us, so ignorant of Catholic doctrine that even when waiting at Palermo, just before he returned home, he says: "I began to visit the churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I did not attend any services. I knew nothing of the presence of the blessed sacrament there."

We might linger equally upon many poems which equally deserve it, but pass on to those written since the author was a Catholic. Among these are not to be reckoned the translations from the Latin Hymns of the Breviary, which were made "in 1836-8." There are a few which bear the date "Littlemore," a date full of touching recollections to the friends of the author. It is a hamlet locally separated from the parish of St. Mary's, of which he was vicar, but belonging to it. He had built a church there for the use of his parishioners, and retired there from time to time for his own as well as their benefit. When he gave up his connection with the Oxford movement, (as the _Apologia_ shows,) he retired there altogether, and staid there till he became a Catholic in 1845. Of those written since the author became a Catholic the best known, probably, are "The Pilgrim Queen," and "The Queen of the Seasons." It is indeed cheering to find a great genius, who had so long been more or less crippled by the chill, stiff system of Anglicanism, opening out, like a flower beneath the spring sun--beneath the genial teaching of the Catholic Church:

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"But I know one work of his infinite hand. Which special and singular ever must stand; So perfect, so pure, and of gifts such a store, That even Omnipotence ne'er shall do more.

"The freshness of May, and the sweetness of June, And the fire of July in its passionate noon. Munificent August, September serene, Are together no match for my glorious Queen.

"O Mary! all months and all days are thine own. In thee lasts their joyousness, when they are gone; And we give to thee May, not because it is best. But because it comes first, and is pledge of the rest."

Apart from the freedom of thought which the author has gained from the Church, ("Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,") there seems to us an ease and flow about the very language and metre of these Catholic hymns which we do not find equalled in the author's earlier poems, sublime as are their conceptions. But it is remarkable that the poem which unites both these qualities in the highest measure, is that which was composed last, "The Dream of Gerontius." Like the others it seems to have been written for the author alone, and to have been published merely as an act of friendship to the editor of _The Month_. Is it too much to hope that the high sense of its exceeding depth and beauty which has been shown by the whole English world may not only encourage the author, as he tells us it did, to publish his collected poems in the volume before us, but to compose more? For it is plain that as yet at least his arms are not dimmed or his force abated.

"The Dream of Gerontius" begins with the thoughts of one who feels himself at the gate of death and the prayers of the assistants by his bedside. Then Gerontius says:

"Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep. The pain has wearied me. ... Into thy hands, Lord, into thy hands. ..."

And the priest says the commendation. Then follows:

Soul Of Gerontius.

"I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed-- A strange refreshment: for I feel in me An inexpressive lightness, and a sense Of freedom, as I were at length myself. And ne'er had been before. How still it is! I hear no more the busy beat of time, No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse; Nor does one moment differ from the next. I had a dream; yes, some one softly said, 'He's gone;' and then a sigh went round the room. And then I surely heard a priestly voice Say, 'Subvenite;' and they knelt in prayer. I seem to hear him still; but thin and low." ......

He does not yet know whether he is living or dead. Then he finds himself held,

"Not by a grasp Such as they use on earth, but all around Over the surface of my subtle being. As though I were a sphere, and capable To be accosted thus, a uniform And gentle pressure tells me I am not Self-moving, but borne forward on my way. And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth I cannot of that music rightly say. Whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones. Oh! what a heart-subduing melody."

Then follow the songs of the guardian angel over the soul which he was set to tend. After a long while Gerontius takes courage and says:

Soul.

"I will address him. Mighty one, my Lord, My guardian spirit, all hail!

Angel.

"All hail, my child! My child and brother, hail! what wouldest thou?

......

Soul.

"I ever had believed That on the moment when the struggling soul Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell Under the awful presence of its God, There to be judged and sent to its own place. What lets me now from going to my Lord?

Angel.

"Thou art not let; but with extremest speed Art hurrying to the just and holy Judge; For scarcely art thou disembodied yet. Divide a moment, as men measure time. Into its million-million-millionth part. Yet even less than that the interval Since thou didst leave the body; and the priest Cried 'Subvenite,' and they fell to prayer; Nor scarcely yet have they begun to pray."

We must not linger on the converse between the soul and its guardian angel, nor at the marvellous description of the demons in "the middle region," their impotent rage--impotent against one who has now no traitor within. {616} Then he comes within the reach of the heavenly choirs. We have the hymns of the successive choirs. At length, as they approach "the veiled presence" of God, the soul hears again the voices it left on earth, for in that presence the voices of prayer are heard:

Soul.

"I go before my Judge. Ah! ....

Angel.

.... "Praise to his name! The eager spirit has darted from my hold. And, with the intemperate energy of love, Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel; But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes And circles round the Crucified, has seized. And scorch'd, and shrivell'd it; and now it lies Passive and still before the awful throne. O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe, Consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God.

Soul.

"Take me away, and in the lowest deep There let me be. And there in hope the lone night-watches keep, Told out for me. There, motionless and happy in my pain, Lone, not forlorn, There will I sing my sad, perpetual strain. Until the morn. There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast, Which ne'er can cease To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest Of its sole peace. There will I sing my absent Lord and love;-- Take me away. That sooner I may rise, and go above, And see him in the truth of everlasting day."

Then follow the words of the angel, and those of the souls in purgatory. At length the angel concludes:

"Angels, to whom the willing task is given, Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest; And masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven, Shall aid thee at the throne of the Most Highest.

"Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear. Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow; Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here, And I will come and wake thee on the morrow."

Any one who has read this wonderful poem will complain that we have omitted this, and this, and this, which especially deserved to be quoted. It is most true. It would be impossible to give any idea of its matchless weight and beauty, except by transcribing the whole of it; and we have wished only to give a sample which may direct to it the attention of any reader to whom it may yet be unknown.

The preface contains a dedication of the volume of Mr. Badeley, one of Dr. Newman's Oxford friends and followers, who before this time knows far more of that world of spirits than even the gifted eye of the most illustrious seer has ever pierced; for he had hardly received this dedication when he received his summons to it. He was the son of a Protestant physician at Colchester, who, many years ago, was the medical adviser of a convent in that neighborhood, and created a good deal of suspicion among his fellow religionists, by bearing testimony to the supernatural nature of a cure of one of the nuns who was his patient. Mr. Badeley himself graduated with high honors at Oxford in 1823, and afterward studied the law, in which he attained a high reputation and great success. He directed his special attention to ecclesiastical questions, and hardly any case connected with them came before the courts in which he was not retained. In this preface Dr. Newman bears testimony to the fidelity with which he followed the religious movement in which the volume originated from first to last. He was counsel to the Bishop of Exeter in the celebrated Gorham case, and his argument upon it was published in a pamphlet which attracted much notice. He also published a book against the alteration of the law of marriage. At last a new light shone upon his path; he followed it faithfully, and it led him into the Catholic Church. He was, perhaps, the only lawyer from whom was actually accepted, on his conversion to the church, a sacrifice of his worldly interests, nearly equal to that made by many Protestant clergymen. {617} The loss of practice has no doubt been risked by all who have become Catholics; by him, owing to the nature of his principal business, it was in a great measure incurred, nor did he ever recover what he had lost. But the time is short. It is but a few weeks since he was cheered by Dr. Newman's words, "We are now both of us in the decline of life; may that warm attachment which has lasted between us inviolate for so many years, be continued, by the mercy of God, to the end of our earthly course, and beyond it;"--and his earthly course is already over; the sacrifice is gone by. He is now able to estimate its real value.

Sonnet.

Sharp lightnings flash, tempestuous thunders roll: I shudder--and yet wherefore? For the dead Sleep undisturbed in consecrated bed. And thou, who didst yield up thy sweet, young soul So mildly to thy Maker, and console. By dying acts, the hearts which love thee best, Must, even on this first night, sublimely rest In thy still sepulchre, by yon green knoll. Yet one, I know, will tremble as she hears The storm above her darling; and each dart Of the forked lightning will to anguish start A legion of dread shapes and tender fears; For who can sound the fountains of her tears, Choice instincts, lodged in her maternal heart?

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The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore. [Footnote 181]

[Footnote 181: _Concilii Plenarii Secundi Baltimorensis, Acta et Decreta_. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.]

The good city of Baltimore witnessed, in October, 1866, the most numerous and imposing ecclesiastical assemblage ever gathered in the United States. Forty-seven archbishops and bishops, with two mitred abbots, convened in Plenary Council, under the presidency of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore, delegate of the Apostolic See. For two weeks they met daily in consultation, their labors being interrupted only by the solemn sessions prescribed by the Pontifical. After a free but harmonious interchange of ideas, they adopted practical resolutions, which they embodied partly in decrees, partly in petitions to the Holy See. Their work done, it was not published to the world, but sent to the mother and mistress of all churches for revision, correction if necessary, and final recognition or approval. And now, almost two years after the celebration of the Council, the ACTS and DECREES, as revised and approved by the Holy See, are published under the authority of the same most reverend prelate that as delegate apostolic had presided over the deliberations of the council. The work is thus complete: the new legislation takes its appropriate place in our canon law; an epoch is marked in the history of the American church.

From the beginning of the church, the celebration of councils has been looked on as a most efficient means, under God, of preserving discipline, arriving at proper conclusions on practical matters, and promoting the common good. The very first question that arose in the infant Christian community was decided in the Council of Jerusalem, where the apostles and the ancients consulted together. Every succeeding age saw councils meet to decide ecclesiastical questions. Indeed, the history of the church may be said to be a history of councils. Gradually, as ecclesiastical discipline assumed regular outlines, and was settled according to fixed rules, proper arrangements were made for the regular meeting of prelates for consultation and mutual consolation and enlightenment. It would be foreign to the purposes of this paper to dwell on the ancient discipline in this regard; but a short exposition of the actual law and practice of the church will enable the reader properly to appreciate the importance of the work of the late Plenary Council.

The Council of Trent (Sess. xxiv. _De Reform_, c. 2) decreed that the ancient practice of holding councils should be renewed, and fixed a regular period for their celebration. Each archbishop was to call his suffragans together every three years, and these were strictly obliged to obey the summons. The object of these meetings was "to regulate morals, correct excesses, settle controversies and do all other things permitted by the sacred canons." St. Charles Borromeo celebrated several such councils, which were not only productive of immense good to the church of Milan, but have remained as a pattern on which the proceedings of all subsequent councils have been modelled. But councils of bishops were not in favor with the civil rulers, whose aim it was to fetter, and, if possible, to enslave the church. {619} They prevented the execution of the salutary decree of Trent, which, with a few exceptions, remained almost a dead letter from the time of St. Charles to the present century. To the church of the United States belongs the credit of having revived the custom of holding councils. Not long after the establishment of the hierarchy, the first Provincial Council of Baltimore was convened, and was followed in regular succession by others, held every three years, according to the prescriptions of the fathers of Trent. When new archiepiscopal sees were erected, Rome, anxious that the American church should retain as far as possible a uniform discipline, suggested the holding every ten years of a plenary council, to be composed of all the bishops of the various ecclesiastical provinces of the country, under the presidency of a delegate to be nominated by the Holy See. Accordingly, the Most Rev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, of illustrious memory, then Archbishop of Baltimore, was appointed delegate apostolic, and convened the first plenary council in his metropolitan church, in May, 1852. The second should have been held in 1862, but the civil war then raging made it necessary to defer it. As soon as peace was restored, measures were taken to convene the prelates, and, as we have seen, the council was actually held in 1866.

The title "plenary" sounds odd to some ears, and has, if we remember aright, provoked some little discussion in the public prints. The term national is frequently given to the council in common parlance, and would probably have been its official title also but for the caution of the Holy See. Rome, enlightened by wisdom from above and rich with the experience of ages, looks on a tendency to nationalism in the church as one of the greatest dangers that can arise, almost, indeed, as the forerunner of schism. When she was about to propose to the American prelates the decennial convening of a council of all the bishops of the various provinces of the country, the question of the official title at once arose. _National_ was not liked, _general_ was too ample, _provincial_ too restricted. A learned ecclesiastical historian suggested _plenary_, the title given to the general councils of the African church in the fifth century--councils rendered famous by the genius of St. Augustine, and their explicit condemnation of Pelagianism. The title was adopted. It avoids the narrowness of nationalism, while it fully expresses the idea of a _full_ council of _all_ the prelates of the American church.

The object of a plenary council is plainly indicated by the Holy See. Strictly speaking, provincial councils could provide all the necessary legislation. But there would be danger of a loss of uniformity. Even among the best persons, the old adage, that where there are many men there are many minds, is verified. To prevent this divergence of views from manifesting itself too much in practice, it has been deemed advisable to call occasionally all the bishops together, that their united counsels may adopt such measures as will keep the American church one not only in faith and in the essential points of discipline, but even in the principal among the secondary matters of the latter branch. It is not necessary to descant on the advantages of such uniformity. The faithful, if they do not expect it, are at least edified and consoled by it; and, for the great purposes which the church is called on to carry out in this country, it brings into practical effect, as far as is possible, the great motto, _Viribus unitis_. To gain it were well worth the sacrifice even of fond predilections and of cherished usages.

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The plenary council, then, is to look to the wants of the whole American church, and to do for it what a provincial council does for an ecclesiastical province. Canon law is necessarily couched in general terms, and cannot be applied in the same way everywhere. A great portion of it, in fact, consists of decisions given for particular localities under peculiar circumstances, of which the principle only is or can be of general application. It thus happens not infrequently that the general regulations have to be modified to meet other wants, other times, other circumstances. This is one of the first duties of local councils. They propose, and, with the approval of the supreme pastor, enact those regulations to which their wisdom and experience may point as necessary to carry out the real spirit of the general law. In these they do not contradict, much less abrogate; on the contrary, they enforce the observance of the canons. We know there is an impression abroad that "canon law does not oblige in this country;" but a more erroneous or more mischievous idea could scarcely have been propagated. If it be said that all the circumstances contemplated by the canons do not exist here, and that such laws as presuppose these circumstances are not, on that account, applicable here, the proposition is correct; but, if it be said that the law itself does not oblige, the proposition is simply monstrous. We do not know whom it would affect worse, the higher or the lower orders of the clergy, the religious or the seculars. All would be very much in the same position; all would soon be glad to return to the reign of law. If "canon law does not oblige in this country," what becomes of the impediments of matrimony? Where do the religious orders find the charter of their privileges? On what does an aggrieved clergyman rely for the right of appeal? Where is the proof that every Christian of either sex, that has come to the years of discretion, is obliged to approach worthily, at least once a year at Easter, the holy sacrament of the blessed eucharist? The origin of the erroneous idea appears to be, that, the organization of the church in this missionary country not being yet completed, certain privileges, generally granted by the Holy See, have been withheld; and, as one case may easily occur to the clerical reader, we shall take the liberty of using it to exemplify our meaning. The nomination, institution, and consecration of bishops are inherently and radically the exclusive right of the Holy See. No matter by whom it may have been exercised at any time, if it was not in virtue of a permission expressly or tacitly granted by the successor of St. Peter, the exercise was a schismatical act. This no Catholic can deny. By canon law the right of presentation of three names to the pope has been granted, not to all the clergy of the diocese, but to the cathedral chapter, a body in the composition of which the diocesan clergy, by the same law, exercised but little influence. In this country there are no cathedral chapters; in fact, it is impossible thus far to erect them according to the canons. The right of presentation of the three names has been accorded by Rome to the bishops of the province instead. This is an instance in which a privilege granted by the canons to a body which has no existence among us has been transferred by the supreme authority to another body that can exercise it. {621} We are not now either blaming or praising the arrangement; that would be beyond our province. We are merely stating what the law is, and endeavoring to help to dispel an error which may be, if it has not been, productive of evil. As canon law, then, does oblige in this country, numerous questions must necessarily arise in the application of its ordinances to our circumstances and wants. The whole social fabric here is very different from that of Europe when the decretals were issued. It thus becomes necessary to adopt such measures as may save the principle of the law, and, at the same time, avoid the inconvenience of a too literal understanding. This is one of the first and most important works of a council. It involves a patient and careful study of the law; a thorough knowledge of the circumstances of the country; a prudent foresight, which may be able to discern what measure is most likely to be practically successful. We may instance the question of the tenure of church property. If there were in practice real religious freedom among us, if the church were allowed to hold her property according to her own laws, there would be no difficulty. The actual canon law would provide for the security of the tenure, for the good use of any revenues that might accrue, and for any rights or legitimate influence the donors might reasonably expect to be allowed. But, at least in most of the states, the wisdom of the legislature has interfered, simply to prevent the Catholic Church from executing her own long-tried, satisfactory laws on the subject. To save the vital principle, the security and the independence of church property, it has been necessary to adopt various expedients, which may be, we do not doubt are, the best that could be devised under the circumstances, but, considered in themselves, are far from satisfactory. They, of course, are only temporary; and it is ardently to be desired that the time will soon come when wiser civil legislation will permit the execution of the mild and equitable provisions of the canons.

It is easy to see that a wide field is thus opened for the wisdom and industry of the fathers of a plenary council. But "the correction of abuses" is also expressly assigned by the decree of Trent as one of the objects of their labors. To err is human, and it is only too easy to fall away from the strict observance of the canons. Such has ever been the experience of the church. In this country, thank God, positive abuses are rare, if they exist at all. There is a general desire to become acquainted with the law of the church and to observe it as closely as circumstances will allow. But necessity has, in the past, introduced many customs which no longer have its sanction or excuse. Yet it is found hard sometimes to leave the old paths and take the broad highways of the canons or the rubrics. Sometimes doubts arise as to whether the exceptions formerly allowed are still permitted. Thus, there is ample matter for wise and cautious legislation, neither so lax as to allow abuses to grow up, nor so strict as, by substituting the letter for the spirit, to make the law kill rather than give life.

There must of necessity arise in the course of time many most important practical questions, which can be nowhere better decided than in council. Mutual advice, comparing of ideas, and discussion naturally lead to wise conclusions. In a country like ours, where so many cases arise which are without precedent, the necessity of frequent counsel among the prelates is obvious. {622} And doubtless the regular celebration of councils has contributed greatly to that success which has especially marked the external government of the church in America. Fewer mistakes have been made here, perhaps, than anywhere else in the same time, while the successes have been great, nay, brilliant. The wisdom of the old has been handed down to the young; the experience of one generation has been used for the benefit of that succeeding; and there has been an uninterrupted unity of practical views from the days of Carroll to the present. Thus, England, Dubois, Bruté, Kenrick, Hughes, though dead, still live. Not merely their works remain behind them, but their spirit still speaks in the halls of the archiepiscopal residence, and in the sanctuary of the metropolitan church of Baltimore.

Another special duty has been assigned by the Holy See to our American councils--that of proposing the erection of new episcopal sees, and the names of candidates to fill either them or the older ones that may be canonically vacant. The erection of new sees is a special feature of the church in new countries. Every council of Baltimore has proposed the creation of new bishoprics, and, in most cases, the propositions have been favorably considered by the Holy See. The growth of the church can thus be traced through the acts of the various councils, and the steps can be counted, one by one, by which, from one bishop at Baltimore, the American hierarchy has progressed to its present development. Its growth has been more rapid than even the material progress of the country; and as we look at the far West, sure to become the happy home of millions of Catholics, imagination is scarcely bold enough to call up the numbers by which the bishops will be counted in future councils. We have already alluded to the duty of selecting candidates to fill episcopal sees. It is an important and a difficult task, requiring the exercise of some of the highest qualities that should be possessed by those who are, in the highest sense, "rulers of men." The Holy See has been so impressed with its importance and difficulty that it has earnestly urged that the bishops of the province should meet every time that there is a see to be filled. When, however, the vacancy occurs about the time of a council, or when the fathers ask for the erection of new sees, the question of candidates to be recommended must be considered in its sessions.

From this cursory glance at the work of a plenary council, it will be seen that the two weeks given to the celebration of the one lately held could have been by no means a time of rest. On the contrary, the conscientious performance of this work required the employment of every available moment. Every preceding council of Baltimore had devoted itself to the attainment of the different objects which we have indicated. The measures adopted were timely and wise, and the legislation forms the groundwork of our particular church law. Nor will we wonder at the success attained when we think of the great names that adorned those councils, of the illustrious prelates whose learning, prudence, foresight, zeal, and piety instructed and edified the past generation, and laid the broad and solid foundations on which the grand structure of the American church is rising. All honor to these great men! They were "men of great power, and endued with their wisdom, ... ruling over the present people, and by the strength of wisdom instructing the people in most holy words. Let the people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise." {623} But the American church had grown out of its infancy, and it was time to commence to build on the foundations so deeply and so skilfully laid. It would have been impossible, even had any one desired it, merely to re-enact in the second plenary council what had been done before--merely to pass a few general decrees, recommend the erection of new sees, provide for the filling of them and of those already existing and vacant by apostolic authority, and then separate. Had the council confined itself to this, it would have failed of performing its allotted work. These considerations had their due weight with the most reverend prelate, who most fitly was chosen for the high and important office of delegate apostolic. He determined upon a comprehensive plan, the execution of which by the council should, by meeting one of the chief present wants, impress its celebration and its work in indelible characters on the history of the American church. As early as April, 1866, this plan had been distributed to the archbishops and bishops, the heads of religious orders, and all others who of right were to be present at the council. He next convoked a body of theologians to initiate the preparatory studies. They were taken from the religious orders as well as from the secular clergy; many of them were or had been professors of theology or canon law; some were favorably known for high offices they had already held or for well-deserved reputation for learning. The _coetus_ met daily as long as the greater part of its members could remain in Baltimore, and in that time the main points were gone over carefully and thoroughly, and the recommendations of the theologians thereon submitted to the most reverend archbishop. Some divines who could not be present sent their contributions in writing, so that we do not say too much when we assert that the best talent of the country was employed in these initial steps. The many occupations, however, in which the greater part of the _coetus_ were engaged at home rendered a protracted stay of all impossible, and the remainder of the work was necessarily confided to a fewer number. The most reverend delegate apostolic, himself a most indefatigable worker, watched over all the proceedings. Every paper was submitted to his final revision before it went to the printer. Indeed, as he was the promoter, so he was in reality the principal of the laborers in the great work, to which he brought learning, improved by conference; judgment, matured not only by age, but by long practice in every branch of the ministry; a ready pen, whose labors, in other departments, for the cause of our holy religion, had already procured for him a high and well-deserved reputation. And we are sure his colleagues will not blame us if we say that, under and after the archbishop, Very Rev. James A. Corcoran, D.D., of the diocese of Charleston, deserves to be especially remembered for his industry, his erudition, his talents. The graceful style in which so many of the decrees are couched is so peculiarly his own that it can never be mistaken; and it will make the second plenary council remarkable for what, perhaps, would scarcely be expected in this remote country--a Latinity that would grace even the most finished documents that come from Rome herself. The work thus went on until the drafts of the decrees formed a large volume, which, for greater convenience, was printed. {624} The inspection and the examination of it by the fathers and the theologians of the council were thus rendered more easy; indeed, it would be difficult to conceive how, without this preparation, the work could have been done at all.

As each bishop was entitled to bring two theologians, there was a very large attendance of the clergy of the second order. To these must be added many vicars-general, the heads of religious orders, and the superiors of the greater seminaries. All these clergymen were divided into congregations, after the pattern of the Milan councils of St. Charles Borromeo. Each congregation was presided over by a bishop, with a vice-president and a notary. This last officer kept a minute of the proceedings of the congregation, and drew up its final report. The whole matter of the proposed decrees was distributed among these congregations, and thus the preparatory work was subjected to a searching, minute investigation. It may be here interesting to the general reader to give a short account of the mode in which the business of a council is managed. We learn from the acts that there were four different meetings at the Second Plenary Council: 1. Private congregations. 2. Public congregations. 3. Private sessions. 4. Public sessions. The "private congregations" were the meetings of the committees or congregations of theologians, each in a separate room. The "public congregations" were held in the cathedral, and there assisted at them all the "_synodales_" that is, all who had a right to be present at the synod, from the Most Reverend President to the youngest theologian. At these congregations the theologians "had the floor," the bishops confining themselves to asking questions, or proposing difficulties. The "private sessions" were meetings of the prelates alone. The officers of the council were also present, but merely to record the acts. The work of the council was really done in these private sessions. In them the decrees were passed, and the acts show that there were a close scrutiny and a thorough investigation of the measures proposed. The "public sessions" were solemn ceremonies in the cathedral. After pontifical high Mass, the decrees already passed were solemnly read and promulgated. They thus became a law as far as the action of the council could make them such. All that they needed was the approval of the Holy See.

In this manner the decrees of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore were prepared, examined, discussed, matured, until now they are published as the law of the American church. In looking over them one is astonished at the variety of matter on which they treat. Faith, and the errors opposed to it now so prevalent, the church and her government, the primacy of the Roman pontiff, the powers, rights, and duties of archbishops and bishops, the rights and duties of the clergy, church property, the sacraments, the sacrifice of the Mass, and all the proper conducting of divine worship, uniformity in the celebration of festivals, and other points of discipline, the _status_ of religious, the education of youth, good books, the Catholic press, zeal for the salvation of souls, the spiritual welfare of the blacks, secret societies--these are some of the subjects which, as even a cursory examination shows us, are treated in these decrees. These are, indeed, what the original plan intended them to be. They give a clear and lucid exposition of canon law as adapted _by authority_ to the circumstances of this country. {625} They supply a want long felt, and they will remain for all time to come the guide and the rule of action of all ecclesiastics, from the hoary missionary bowed down with age and labors to the young priest whose elastic step leads him joyously from the seminary walls to his first appointment, from the mitred prelate to the humblest of the great army of missionaries that are bringing to our countrymen the good tidings of peace. They are clear and comprehensive; they were carefully prepared, every quotation, even though it were of a few words, was verified; and they are in every sense authoritative. Prescinding altogether from their binding force, they were carefully prepared originally; next, they were literally sifted by the theologians of the council; afterward they were discussed, and sometimes modified by the fathers; lastly, they were subjected to the scrutiny of Roman theologians, and were finally approved with very few emendations. They have thus undergone the trial of a threefold criticism, and deserve proportionate attention and respect. But, what is far more important, they are binding as laws, and the S. Congregation _de Propaganda Fide_ has expressed its wish that they be faithfully observed by all whom it may concern. They have been, moreover, made by authority the text of a course of canon law in our ecclesiastical seminaries. The future clergy of the country are thus to be formed on them. To the volume that contains them they are afterward to look for enlightenment and instruction in the performance of the duties of the ministry. Nothing more need be, indeed little more could be, said in their praise.

The Acts and Decrees have been published in a goodly volume, in imperial octavo, by the well-known firm of John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. We need not say that the material part of the book is highly creditable to the publishers. The good quality of the paper, letter-press, and binding is commensurate with the importance of the work and the magnitude of the occasion which brought it forth. The volume contains all the official documents, from the first letter of Rome appointing Archbishop Spalding delegate apostolic, to the last communication of the Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda in regard to the decisions of the Holy See. A copious and well-arranged index gives access to the mass of matter scattered through the work, thus rendering as easy as possible a reference to any given point. We congratulate Mr. Murphy on the honor done him by the privilege of placing his imprint on the title-page of so great and important a publication. It is a fitting reward for many services rendered to Catholic literature through a long and useful business career.

We hail this volume as the beginning of a new period in our American church, the period--_detur venia verbo_--of the reign of law. It marks an improvement, a step in advance, a progress. But the progress is legitimate, because it commenced where all such movements must commence, if they be Catholic, with the proper authority. A work begun, carried on, and brought to completion as this has been, is--we need not say--a _safe_ guide; and one for which, we may be permitted to add, every lover of our holy religion should feel deeply grateful to those through whose zeal and labors it has been accomplished. By it this young church now takes her place with the most ancient and best regulated churches of the Old World: a light is given to our feet, lest inadvertently we stumble in the darkness: a sure guide is afforded, alike to young and old, to prelate and subject, to cowled monk and surpliced priest.

{626}

Translated From The French.

An Italian Girl Of Our Day.

Concluded.

To any one who has read this sweet and pious correspondence I need not point out how strongly toward the end it inclines to heaven. Was it a presentiment of death? It may have been. We cannot deny to certain souls the grace of having heard from afar the call of God. For me, I think I see in this case the natural movement of a very pure love in a lofty soul. There are souls that see God everywhere. She of whom I speak was one of these, and, from her infancy, all that was beautiful on earth had been for her but a veil designed to temper the brightness of the Eternal Beauty. Thus in the new and unknown regions of earthly love, through the first wonder and the first dreams, she soon found again the divine countenance; but this time more radiant than ever, more vivid, more irresistible; and that chaste flight which had carried her to the hopes of earth passed beyond and bore her away to heaven.

That a person has not had the happiness to feel this heavenly attraction, is no reason that he should either wonder at it or attempt to deny it. It is in the logic of our heart, and I believe there are few souls that in various degrees have not felt its power. It was known to ancient philosophy, whose greatest glory it is to have expressed by the mouth of Plato, its king, the progression of love from bodies and from souls to ideas and to God; and St. Augustine, who bore in his heart the gospel of Jesus Christ, has not rejected this part of the ancient heritage. Who has not read that conversation at Ostia, in which two holy souls, beginning with the love that united them on earth, came at last to touch heaven? "We were speaking sweetly together, ... and whilst we converse and look up to heaven, we reach it with the whole aspiration of our heart." [Footnote 182] It is this soaring, this upward flight that I speak of; this it is, I believe, which carried the soul of the saintly young bride to the desire of that eternal region where all desires are satisfied.

[Footnote 182: St. Augustine's _Confessions_.]

The heavenly instinct had not deceived her. Two days after that on which she wrote the last letter we have given, a death-bearing blast was breathed upon her, and she was seized with a slight fever which at first gave no uneasiness except to the ever-anxious heart of a mother. Yet on the very first day she had said to her, "Take my little desk and keep it in memory of me." These words were startling, coming from a person so clear-sighted. The illness suddenly assumed an alarming character, and the physicians recognized it as the miliary fever, a terrible epidemic which was then desolating Tuscany, and which seemed to pick out only choice victims. The young patient had divined her danger; she at once asked for the sacraments, and received with a humble and tender love the last visit of that Saviour whose blood never fails us, from our cradle, which it sanctifies, to our death-bed, where it strengthens and consoles us.

{627}

The patient now felt herself better. "Great and happy day!" she said; "if I am restored to health, never shall I forget it. What strength there is in the holy viaticum! My dear mother, how sweet and consoling is our religion! Ah! believe me, if any one feared death, he could do so no longer after having received the blessed Eucharist." Then she called her betrothed. "Gaetano," she said, "if it is the good pleasure of God to unite us on earth, he will restore me; but if he has other designs in our regard, then, my Gaetano, we must be resigned and adore his holy will, must we not?" The young man could not answer.

She continued: "In my English prayer-book there is an act of thanksgiving for the reception of the holy viaticum: take the book and read it to me." And a voice, tremulous with sorrow, began to read the following admirable prayer:

"Glory and thanksgiving be to thee, O Lord! who in thy sweetness hast been pleased to visit my poor soul. Now let thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.

"Now thou art come to me, I will not let thee go; I willingly bid farewell to the world, and with joy I go to thee, my God.

"Nothing more, O dear Jesus! nothing more shall separate me from thee: in thee I will live, in thee I will die, and in thee I hope to abide for ever.

"I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ; for Christ is my life, and to die will be my gain.

"Now I will fear no evils, though I walk in the shadow of death, because thou art with me, O Lord! As the hart pants after the fountains of water, so does my soul after thee: my soul thirsts after the fountain of living water. Oh! when shall I come and appear before the face of my God?

"Give me thy blessing, O divine Jesus! and establish my soul in everlasting peace; such peace as only thou canst give; such peace as it may not be in the power of my enemy to destroy.

"Oh! that my soul were at rest in thy happiness, and in the enjoyment of thee, my God, for ever!

"What more have I to do with the world? And in heaven what have I to desire but thee, my God?

"Into thy hands I commend my spirit. Receive me, sweet Jesus! In thee may I rest; and in thy happiness rejoice without end. Amen."

When the reader's voice had ceased, the young patient wished to take some repose. But she still seemed collected, and continued to pray.

Her brother was expected to arrive from Florence. "Settle the room," she said to her mother, "and put back upon my table the things that were taken off it when it was prepared for an altar. I do not wish that poor Antonio should perceive, on entering, that I have received the last sacraments; but remember, dear mother, always look upon that little table as a sacred thing, for it has borne the body of Jesus Christ." All that day she held her mother's hand, and spoke of nothing but the happiness of having received the holy communion. Toward evening she remembered that she was to have visited such and such poor persons that day. This thought troubled her, and she could be calmed only by the assurance that before night some one should carry to those poor persons their accustomed succor. From this time she began to converse with Jesus Christ, speaking to him with an ardor which the violence of her sufferings rendered more intense. "O Jesus! this bed seems to me of fire--but no, I will not complain. {628} Thou willest that I should serve thee in suffering, and in suffering I will serve thee. Thou knowest that I should not grieve to die if my death did not cause such great affliction to those who love me. If thou seest that I should make a good Christian wife, I would say, 'O Lord! heal me!' But what is it that I am asking? No, not my will, but thine be done!" In the middle of the night, seeing her mother's shadow still bending over her pillow, she exclaimed, "O the heroic love of mothers!" She thought so much of the least things that were done for her. "My poor father," she said, "how good he is; what care he takes of me; for my sake he deprives himself entirely of sleep. He has called in three physicians, and he wishes one of them to remain night and day near my room. It is too much, my God! Mother, what say you of my Gaetano? Ah! now indeed I feel how happy I should have been with him; for the more I know him, the more I feel that he loves me, as you love me." She asked to have prayers recited by her bedside, and began herself in a low tone the prayers for the agonizing. Her mother interrupted her. "Rosa, my child, why these sorrowful prayers? You will recover, my child; do not always be thinking of death." She answered, "Ah! but if all day I have not been able to think of anything but death; if Jesus wishes to take me, must I not be ready?" She suffered terribly; one moment nature prevailed, and she uttered a complaint. Her betrothed said to her, "Rosa, think of what our Lord suffered." "Thanks, Gaetano; ah! how that thought consoles me!"

The dawn of the following morning only brought an accession of the malady. Three skilful physicians saw all their efforts powerless against its violence. One of them, who loved Rosa as his own child, wept. The patient became delirious. "Let us go! let us go!" she cried; "dear mother, adieu! my home is not here, my home is above! Let us go! let us go! adieu!" She repeated these words, sometimes in French, sometimes in Italian. She called her father, when he was absent, talking to him as if she saw him beside her; when he was present, looking for him and calling him still. She wept over the misfortunes of a poor widow whom in her dreams she saw left destitute; the next moment it was a little orphan that she cradled in her arms, and that drew tears from her eyes. Nothing could calm her delirium, which was still full of these charitable memories and images. At one time she seemed to see the ladder of Jacob, and she exclaimed: "But I--am I pure enough to go up with these angels? may I go forward? may I join their choirs, I who was preparing for earthly espousals?" She then recovered her consciousness, and asked for a chapter of the _Flowerets_ of St. Francis on holy perseverance, during the reading of which she cried out suddenly, as if struck with horror, "O the evil spirits! the evil spirits!" Her mother hastened to her, threw her arms round her, and pressed her to her heart, saying, "Listen to your mother, Rosa, my dear child. Why these cries? why these terrors? You need not fear the evil spirits, my child; and they are not devils that surround your bed, but the angels of heaven. Have you not always loved God? have you not loved the poor? have you not been a good and obedient child?" But her countenance grew stern. "Hush," she said, "tempt me not to pride." And her face was overspread with the shadow of a profound and austere humility.

{629}

Her delirium returned, and now with a violence that neither words nor remedies could calm. As a last resource, her mother said to her, "Rosa, my child, I am quite exhausted. If you could calm yourself a little, I might lean my head on your hands and sleep. Calm yourself, my child, for my sake." And saying this, she affected to fall asleep. From that moment the poor child was silent; love was stronger than delirium.

A long stupor followed; an ivory paleness overspread her features; the veil of death was upon her brow. The victim was ready. But there is no victim without sacrifice, and no sacrifice without pain. Jesus trembled and wept, and was sorrowful even unto death in the Garden of Gethsemane. The hour of cruel sacrifice was come for this young Christian. She felt the cold iron of the sword, but again divine love remained victorious. Suddenly she wakes, opens her large, terrified eyes, while the blood rushing from her heart in an impetuous tide, crimsons her face and lights up her eye. She seems to come out of a dream, and now for the first time to understand all. "It must be, then!" she cried, "it must be! I must die! I must leave my father's house! I must leave my betrothed! No, no! I am to live with him, I am to make him happy!" A flood of tears bathed her countenance; a cry of anguish burst from her soul. "Adieu, Gaetano, adieu! we shall see each other no more!" It was a terrible struggle in that poor heart. The joyous preparations for her wedding had suddenly given place to the dismal preparations for the grave. The bride seemed to entwine her dying fingers in her nuptial wreath and to clasp it convulsively--but, if it be God's will?

Her mother put to her lips a picture of our Lady of Good Counsel, which the young girl had near her bed. Instantly she became calm, joined her hands, bowed her head, and remained perfectly silent. What was passing at that moment in the superior part of that beautiful soul? The eye of God alone, infinitely holy, can read such secrets. What we know is that, after this long silence, the dying girl pronounced in a clear, firm voice, the words, "Thy will be done." And from that moment the name of Gaetano was never upon her lips.

She recited the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. At the invocation, "Gate of heaven, pray for us," she pressed her mother's hand and smiled. Did she then see the eternal gates opening?

The Prior of San Sisto, her confessor, was by her bedside. She asked for extreme unction, and answered distinctly to all the prayers. An extraordinary grace of peace and resignation seemed from that moment to have entered her soul. She needed consolation no longer; it was she who now consoled and encouraged all around her. Her poor mother, wild with grief, threw herself upon her bosom. "I still hope," she said, sobbing; "yes, my Rosa, I still hope that you will recover; but if this be not God's will, oh! pray to him, supplicate him to call me also to himself. I will not, I cannot live without you!" But Rosa said, "No, mother, you must not wish for death. You have too many duties to accomplish upon earth; remember the mother of the Machabees." Then stretching out her hand and laying it on the head of the sorrow-stricken woman, she said, "I bless her who has so often blessed me! O Blessed Virgin! change the sorrow of this poor mother into the consolation of the poor, the afflicted, and the sick; and do thou, O my God! grant that we may all adore unto the end thy holy decrees." She drew from her finger a little ring, and said to her mother, "Keep that in remembrance of me;" and placing in her hands the ring of her betrothal, she said, "Give that to--you know whom--it is a noble soul." But she spoke not his name.

{630}

The end drew near; her family and friends surrounded her bed; every one was weeping. She said smiling, "You are all around me, I am very happy; thanks." Then suddenly, "Who wishes to have my hair?" No one ventured to answer. A long, half-reproachful look was cast on the weeping faces around. A voice cried, "_I_ do." Rosa recognized it and said, "My mother shall have it."

She motioned to the Prior of San Sisto to come to her, and said to him in a whisper, "I beg of you to return this evening to my poor mother and do all you can to console her." From this time she seemed to retire to the feet of God, henceforth to speak to him alone. She said, "I suffer, my Jesus, but all for thy love! I do not fear hell, because I love thee too much. I am on fire, I am in flames! O Jesus! burn me, consume me in the flames of thy love!" It was now with difficulty that these holy ejaculations came from her oppressed bosom. Again, however, and for the last time, she rallied. Death had a hard struggle with her vigorous and innocent youth. This time the dying girl spoke the very language of the saints, and her farewell to earth was worthy of a St. Catharine of Sienna. "O Lord!" she said, "bless all men! bless this city of Pisa! bless her people! bless her bishop and her pastors! bless the Catholic Church! bless her sovereign Pontiff! bless her ministers and her children! Have pity on poor sinners; enlighten heretics; be merciful toward those who believe in thee, merciful also to those who believe not. Pardon all; be a loving Father to the good and to the wicked. Have pity on my soul, O Immaculate Virgin! Give to all thy peace, O Jesus!--that peace--" She was silent. A film gathered over her eyes; they saw no longer the things of earth, but a better light began to dawn on them. "Yes, yes," she murmured, "I see now; I begin to see--O the heavenly Jerusalem! O the angels! oh! how many angels! How beautiful! Yes, certainly, willingly, my God! Where am I? who calls me? where then? Let us go! let us go, my God! Let us go forward! _Andiamo! andiamo! avanti!_--" The words died on her lips; she made the sign of the cross, kissed the crucifix, and while mortal eyes still sought her upon earth, she was following the Lamb in the eternal choirs of the virgins.

Such is this beautiful death, every detail of which we have learned from her who, after having assisted at the sacrifice, did not die, but, like Mary, had to come down living from Calvary.

Will I be pardoned if I add some reflections on these letters and this narration? I said when commencing them that, as it seemed to me, they glorified Christianity in the two-fold transfiguration of love and of death. It seems to me yet clearer, now that I have finished them, that this is indeed their characteristic and their merit.

Yes, it is the glory of Christianity to have rendered possible, nay frequent, this sanctity of love which ancient philosophy pursued in its dreams, but which it had never either contemplated or exemplified. It is the glory of Christianity to have so well schooled, so well regulated the heart of man, to have made that heart at once so virginal and so strong, as to be capable of loving more, and better than ever, all that is lovable on earth, and at the same time capable of always loving it less than God. {631} It is the glory of Christianity to have made a young girl--not a philosopher, not a poet, but a simple and pious girl--to realize unconsciously in her heart that sublimest conception of human wisdom; the continual, incessant passage of love from the shadows of being and of beauty, to the infinite being and the infinite beauty, from "divine phantoms," to use the expression of Plato, to the eternal reality. It is the glory of Christianity to have in all things opened to man a road toward God; to have taught him to make all his affections serve as so many steps whereby he may ascend to the absolute love: "In his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps." [Footnote 183] In fine, it is the glory of Christianity to have worked this prodigy, that a holiness so extraordinary, a perfection so superhuman, neither destroys nor fetters the pure affections of earth; so that the saints did not attain to the loving God alone by stifling in their hearts all love for their fellow-beings; but, on the contrary, they learned to love all mankind more than themselves, by first loving God above all.

[Footnote 183: Psalm lxxxiii. 6.]

Whoever, after seeing this, will meditate on the nature of the human heart, and on its history when abandoned to itself, will be forced to admit that here is indeed a transfiguration.

And as regards death, I find this transfiguration to be, if possible, more striking still. Death learned upon the cross that its highest office is to be the auxiliary of love. There an indissoluble fraternity was established between these two great forces; and _there_ love received its mission to transform death into sacrifice. The ideal statue of the dying Christian is not then the ancient gladiator, falling, resigned but passive, his head bowed, his dim eye fixed on the earth which is fast escaping from him, impatient for the approach of nothingness, plunging willingly into eternal night. No; his ideal is the Crucified, dying erect, above the earth, "_exaltatus a terra_" in the attitude of the priest at the altar, pardoning all men, loving them to his latest breath, acquiescing in his death, nay, willing it, making himself the solemn deposit of his soul into the hands of his Father, at once the subject and the king of death, at once priest and victim.

Such is the Christian fraternity of Love and Death.

Hence it is, that through the differences of ages, of conditions, of minds, all holy deaths resemble one another; it is still love ruling death and transforming it into sacrifice. We have just portrayed the last hours of a betrothed bride who died in sacrificing to Jesus Christ her nuptial crown; ere while we followed through tears of admiration the account of another death, grander, more celebrated, more striking. [Footnote 184]

[Footnote 184: These lines were written a few days after the death of the Rev. Father de Ravignan. We give them to-day just as the first emotion dictated them, persuaded that time cannot take from the virtues of the saints their eternal actuality.]

Now, what similitude could we expect to find between the last hours of a holy religious, an illustrious orator, a great and heroic soul, and those of a simple young girl, strong only in her innocence? And yet I venture to compare these two deaths, and the longer I consider them the more do I find that they resemble each other, that they are blended together in one ruling sentiment; they are both a sacrifice, and a sacrifice conducted by love. Sacrifices very different, victims very unequal, I admit. What peace in the death of the holy Father de Ravignan; or rather, what triumph of the Christian will over death! How he rules it! {632} He speaks of "this last affair which is to be conducted, like all others, with decision and energy;" he gives the directions for the sacrifice; he offers it himself! When did he more truly live than on that bed of death? when was he more wakeful than in that seeming sleep! Then was he so strong and vigorous that he seemed to dominate death itself; in this resembling, as far as is possible to man, Christ upon the cross, whom, say the doctors, death could not approach except by his express order. What love, in fine, in his every word and in those desires of heaven, for the impatience and the ardor of which he reproaches himself! For my part, I fancy I see him welcoming death, for which he had been preparing himself for more than thirty years, with that grave, sweet smile whose charm was so extraordinary.

The young bride of Pisa is far from this severe grandeur. There are tears, there are regrets in her last farewell. There is one earthly name that lingers on her lips even to the confines of heaven. She does not command death--she obeys it; and yet here, too, I see an altar, a victim a sacrifice. Here, too, I see the will, more tremulous, more surprised, indeed, than in the great religious, but still armed by love, ending by _conducting itself the last affair_, and by absorbing death in its victory. Once again, what becomes of death in such deaths? where is it? It seems to disappear: "Death, where is thy victory? Where is thy sting? It is swallowed up!"

Let our souls become inebriated with hope at the recital of holy deaths; let us yield ourselves without fear to the attraction which they give us for the life to come. Undoubtedly, the true secret of dying well is to live well; and our imperfection does not allow us to treat death as may the saints. But surely the love which transfigured their death, is at least begun in our souls; it may increase, and, the hour come, may transform for us also the supreme defiles into regions of light and peace.

Among the paintings which have been found in the catacombs of Rome, there is one that has always struck me as having a profound meaning: it is a jewelled cross, from all sides of which spring stems of roses, which bloom around it, and cover its severe nudity. [Footnote 185]

[Footnote 185: Two of these crosses, adorned with gems and flowers, have been discovered among the frescoes of the cemetery of St. Pontianus, whose origin seems to have been anterior to the third century. One of them surmounted an altar; the other, which decorated a baptistery, is one of the most valued monuments of Christian archaeology. Throughout its entire height, and on both arms, it is covered with precious stones, richly figured, alternately square and oval. The two arms support flambeaux, with the flame clearly outlined; from them also depend two little chains, at the extremity of which are suspended the traditional Alpha and Omega. From the foot of the cross to the arms spring on both sides stems of roses covered with leaves and flowers. Directly under this painting was the baptismal font, formed from a stream whose waters, ever smooth and limpid, seem even now, after the lapse of fourteen centuries, to await the immersion of the catechumens.

The discovery in a baptistery of this cross enveloped in splendor, light, and love, authorizes our conjectures as to the signification it must have had in relation to the neophytes. This precious fresco is carefully reproduced in the great work of M. Perret on the Roman catacombs.]

It is very rarely that the cross is found in the catacombs. Perhaps for the tender faith of the neophytes it was dreaded-the sight of that instrument of torture which was yet odious to the whole world, and was dragged daily through the streets for the punishment of slaves. It was, doubtless, to assist the transition from horror to love that the Christian instinct had covered that cross with precious stones and blooming roses, red still with a blood shed by Divine love for the salvation of mankind. Be that as it may, this symbol seems to me to express gloriously the transfiguration of death by Christianity. Ah! neophytes that we are, neophytes of death and a life to come, let us regard the dying moment as a cross which Jesus and his saints have covered for us with encouragement and hope. {633} When the children of the first Christians wondered to see a gibbet on the altar, their fathers pointed to the jewels and roses, and told them of the Redeemer's love. If death terrifies us in its austere nakedness, let us look at the love which can transfigure it, and can make our last hour the happiest, and above all, the most precious in our life.

Rosa Ferrucci was mourned. The whole public press of Tuscany told of her death; poets chanted it; inscriptions were composed in her honor,--the Italian scholars excel in this art so little cultivated among us;--I transcribe one which I think touching:

CHASTE YOUTHS, TENDER VIRGINS, DECORATE WITH TEARS THE TOMB OF ROSA FERRUCCI, SWEETEST GIRL, IN THE POLITE ARTS VERSED BEYOND THE CUSTOM OF WOMEN; WHO, ON THE VERY EVE OF MARRIAGE, WHILST UNACCUSTOMED JOYS FILLED HER SILENT BREAST, COMPLETED HER YOUTHFUL LIFE SECURE.

_Secura!_ beautiful word--word full of peace! and yet less eloquent than one single word which I once read on a fragment of marble taken from the Roman catacombs, [Footnote 186] and which I now bring to the tomb of her who has passed from earthly espousals to the nuptials of the Lamb. The case here also was that of a young Christian maiden. Was she affianced like Rosa Ferrucci? Was it the hand of a betrothed spouse that closed her tomb? The word we speak of, does it indicate her virginal glory, or was it her name? The little stone saith not. All that we know is, that the hand which carried into the consecrated galleries the mortal remains of the young Christian, after having marked the place of her repose, took a fragment of marble, laid it against the opening, fastened it by a little clay, and choosing a word among those which the Gospel had just given or explained to the world, engraved these six letters:

"Chaste,"

[Footnote 186: This fragment is now preserved among the _monumenta vetera Christianorum_ in the Belvedere gallery of the Vatican.]

Memoirs Of Count Segur.

To record the actions and opinions of one who labored efficiently in the attainment of American independence is an agreeable task. The deeds of soldiers are always interesting to the historian and attractive to the reader. The philosophical principles that led gay young men from the brilliant capital of France to the distant regions of a new world, in order to practically assist in the assertion of human liberty, cannot be ignored, much less neglected, in our all-investigating age. Count Segur participated in the stirring scenes over which the genius of Washington presided, and he has transmitted to us the treasure of his experience in the first volume of his memoirs. As he lived in the times preceding the great Revolution which overthrew so many old forms of power and honor throughout Christendom, and as his facilities for obtaining a correct knowledge of the state of society and of systems in his day were extensive, his introductory pages are very instructive. {634} This will appear from one comprehensive sentence of his own: "My position, my birth, the ties of friendship and consanguinity, which connected me with all the remarkable personages of the courts of Louis XV. and Louis XVI.; my father's administration, my travels in America, my negotiations in Russia and in Prussia; the advantage of having been engaged in intercourse of affairs and society with Catharine II., Frederick the Great, Potemkin, Joseph II., Gustavus III., Washington, Kosciusko, Lafayette, Nassau, Mirabeau, Napoleon, as well as with the chiefs of the aristocratic and democratic parties, and the most illustrious writers of my times;--all that I have seen, done, experienced, and suffered during the Revolution; those strange alternations of prosperity and misfortune, of credit and disgrace, of enjoyments and proscriptions, of opulence and poverty; all the different occupations which I have been forced to occupy, and the various conditions of life in which fate has placed me--having induced me to believe that this sketch of my life would prove entertaining and interesting; chance having made me successively a colonel, a general officer, a traveller, a navigator, a courtier, the son of a minister of war, an ambassador, a negotiator, a prisoner, an agriculturist, a soldier, an elector, a poet, a dramatic author, a contributor to newspapers, an essayist, a historian, a deputy, a counsellor of state, a senator, an academician, and a peer of France:"--Certainly a catalogue of sufficiently varied offices, winding up rather prosperously!

The family of Segur was ancient and honorable. In the field and in the cabinet his forefathers had distinguished themselves, and our author helped to extend his ancestral reputation. Highly gifted by nature, his ample opportunities of cultivation and acquirement made him familiar with the various branches of science then taught. He became deeply imbued with those philosophical notions that had begun to spread themselves abroad under the reign of Louis XV., and continued to gather might until they brought his successor to the block, and even still keep Europe in a state of unrest. From 1753 to 1774, when Louis XV. died, young Segur had occasion to learn as much as his youthful judgment would enable him, concerning the wretched state of society around the court of that weak and degraded prince. It was under his reign, or rather that of his mistresses--for their influence had more to do with the government than the king's--that the storm was brewed which swept away with terrible force so many corrupt systems of legislation and social life. The philosophers began to point their weapons against ancient customs. Parliamentary decrees came to the assistance of the latter, but "their acts of rigor against philosophical writings produced no other effect than to cause them to be sought after and read with a greater avidity. Public opinion became a power of opposition which triumphed over every obstacle; the condemnation was a title of consideration for its author; and under the reign of an absolute monarch, liberty having become a fashion in the capital, exercised a greater sway in it than the monarch himself." Who can fail to see that such results will always inevitably follow similar proceedings! Human nature has something imperatively logical in it, and it will act according to its laws, which are nothing else than the laws of Providence. {635} There is a deep philosophy in what he says: "Power was still arbitrary, and yet authority lost its influence; public opinion escaped despotism by railing at it; we did not possess liberty, but license." (P.17.) The lethargy of one weak mind produced all this confusion. The parliament, clergy, philosophers, and courtiers, all joined for different purposes in the same common cry against the shameful indolence of the court. The revolution which was silently moving through public opinion was scarcely dreamed of by anybody. Rash measures of resentment, always the resort of weak and tyrannic minds, only served to irritate what had been provoked, and the folly of the king was shown in small acts of petty tyranny. But death came to remove him and his turpitude from the French throne. Segur narrates it: "In the month of April, 1774, as Louis XV. was going to hunt, he met a funeral, and, being fond of asking questions, he approached the coffin and inquired who it was they were going to bury? He was told it was a young girl who had died of the small-pox. Seized with a sudden fear, he returned to his palace, and was two days afterward attacked with that cruel malady, the very name of which had alarmed him. The hand of death was upon him; his flesh became corrupted; mortification ensued, and carried him off. His corpse was covered with lime, and conveyed to St. Denis without any kind of ceremony." (P. 32.)

He proceeds to philosophize upon the desertion of the royal fallen shadow by his most subservient flatterers, and observes that in proportion as they had been slavish to his whims and their own interests during his life, so did they evince their indifference to him when departed. They turned immediately to the rising sun, and offered him their adulatory worship. Still, the principles which had been set to work in former years continued to advance even under the benignant reign of Louis XVI., who finally atoned for the faults of his predecessors.

The author sums up succinctly the condition of the tottering society, daily becoming weaker: "The object of every one was to repair the old edifice; and, in this simultaneous attempt of all, it was levelled with the ground. Too much light was brought to the work by many, and a conflagration ensued. The consequence of this has been, that, for the last fifty years, our harassed lives have been to each of us a dream, alternately monarchical, republican, warlike, and philosophical." (P. 63.) The misfortune is, that this dreaming has not yet ended in France, or, indeed, in any part of Europe except Switzerland.

But we must hasten to the events which drew him into connection with the American war. He became a soldier, and, after fighting several duels, found himself carried away by the enthusiasm which filled his countrymen at the sound of the first cannon-shot fired in defence of the standard of liberty. "I recollect," he says, "that the Americans were then styled insurgents and Bostonians; their daring courage electrified every mind, and excited universal admiration, more particularly among young people. The American insurrection was everywhere applauded, and became, as it were, a fashion; and I was very far from being the only one whose heart beat at the sound of liberty just waking from its slumbers, and struggling to throw off the yoke of arbitrary power. On my arrival at Paris, I found the same agitation prevailing also there in the public mind. {636} Nobody seemed favorable to the cause of England; all openly expressed their wishes for the success of the Bostonians."

Eager as were these young enthusiasts to fight in America for the cause of liberty, many obstacles interposed to prevent or defer the carrying out of their intentions. The French government was not in a very prosperous financial state at the time, as the country had scarcely recovered from the mad speculations of the Scotchman Law during the preceding reign. Besides, England was then powerful: her fleets swept the sea, and she had just conveyed across the Atlantic 40,000 mercenaries, to cut the throats of American freemen and stifle the rising spirit of liberty. Private aid was, indeed, freely afforded to the colonists; arms and ammunition were conveyed across the ocean in spite of embarrassing neutrality laws, and many enterprising officers were allowed to resign their positions in the French service and serve under Washington. When the American deputies, Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, and Benjamin Franklin, arrived in Paris, and were received with such cordiality at the French court, a new stimulus was given to the general desire of assisting the revolutionists. The appearance of those republican delegates produced a sensation in that brilliant capital. "Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the luxury of our capitol, the elegance of our fashions, the magnificence of Versailles, the still brilliant remains of the monarchical pride of Louis XIV., and the polished and superb dignity of our nobility, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the almost rustic apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct language of the envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and appearance seemed to have produced within our walls, in the midst of the effeminate and servile refinement of the eighteenth century, some sages contemporary with Plato, or republicans of the age of Cato and Fabius." (P. 101.)

No less impressive than their unpretending exterior, the honesty and artless sincerity of the American deputies gained the hearts of the French people, and enlisted in their cause the generous enthusiasm of the warlike portion of the nation. Numerous offers of service were made, and among the most distinguished were Lafayette, then a young man, the Count de Noailles, and Count Segur. The two latter were obliged by their parents to desist from the enterprise, which they had already arranged to carry out by crossing the ocean; but Lafayette succeeded in purchasing a vessel, which he armed and manned at his own expense, and, taking with him some experienced officers, sailed from a port in Spain and reached America, where he met with a reception due to his merits and noble purpose. A brave and experienced soldier, M. de Valfort, afterward chief instructor of Napoleon Buonaparte, accompanied the Marquis and rendered efficient service during his stay in the New World.

Some time was now spent by young Segur in attending to the events which Voltaire and his colaborers were bringing about in the world of literature. He was a visitor at the family residence of Segur, whose mother was a woman of note in the metropolis. The count himself narrates several interesting incidents respecting the arch-infidel, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms. With regard to his death there is one thing worth recording. Immediately after his triumphal entry into Paris, death came upon him. Segur says that he recanted his former errors. {637} "The clergy, no longer venturing to oppose him, now hoped to convert him. At first Voltaire yielded; he received the Abbé Gauthier, confessed himself, and wrote a profession of faith, which, without fully satisfying the priests, greatly displeased the philosophers. After escaping the danger, he forgot his fears and his prudence. A few weeks after, upon being taken extremely ill, he refused to see a priest, and terminated, with apparent indifference, a long life." There is a different version of the latter half of the story. It is related that he cried most piteously for a priest; but his philosophical friends refused to accord him his request, and he died with imprecations most horrible upon their heads for denying his dying wish.

Political changes at length enabled the count to embark for America, and become an actor in the great drama of freedom, of which he had been long an earnest spectator at a distance. War was declared between France and England. The French, under Arthur Dillon and Count Noailles, directed by D'Estaing, captured the town of Grenada; after which the latter sailed for Savannah, designing to seize that important position. Notwithstanding the valor of the French and Americans in the successive assaults upon the works, they were obliged to retire with loss, rendered still more lamentable by the fall of the brave Pulaski, who fought in America for the liberty which had been crushed in his own land. A concise and accurate narrative of the principal events that preceded the surrender of Cornwallis to the united arms of America and France, occupies a considerable space in the memoirs before us. The bravery of the French, very naturally, obtains a prominent notice until the moment of capitulation arrives. "The English troops then defiled between the two allied armies, drums beating, and carrying their arms, which they afterward deposited with their flags. As Lord Cornwallis was ill, General O'Hara defiled at the head of the English troops, and presented his sword to the Count de Rochambeau; but the French general, pointing to Washington at the head of the American army, told him that, the French being only auxiliaries, it was for the American general to receive his sword and give him his orders." (P. 237.)

Strange incidents happen in all wars. About this time, the French general, De Bouillé, made an attack on the Dutch islands of the West Indies, lately captured by the British. "Having during the night landed his troops in the island of St. Eustatia, he advanced at break of day to attack the principal fortress of the island, whose garrison was then engaged in manoeuvring on the plain. The vanguard of M. de Bouillé was composed of an Irish regiment in the service of France: deceived by the sight of their red coats, the English thought they saw a part of their own countrymen, and suffered themselves to be approached without suspicion. Undeceived too late, they vainly fought with courage; they were routed on all sides, and pursued with so much ardor that French and English entered pell-mell into the fortress, which remained in our possession." How many foreign battle-fields have found the Irish in the vanguard of armies, yet what avails their valor to their own country!

In 1782, Count Segur got permission to set out for America, and a frigate, La Gloire, of thirty-two guns, was placed at his disposal to carry important despatches to Count Rochambeau from his government. {638} He had as fellow-passengers the Duke de Lauzun, the Prince de Broglie, the Baron Montesquieu, Count de Loménie, an Irish officer named Sheldon, Polawski, a Polish gentleman, and others eager to assist the inhabitants of a new world fighting for liberty, of which men were allowed to dream in the Old World. Enthusiastic as he had previously felt upon the subject, he could hardly restrain himself, now that he was on his way to accomplish his most cherished hopes.

A letter dated from "Brest Roads, onboard La Gloire, May 19th, 1782," contains some remarkably philosophical passages; and when writing his memoirs, forty-two years afterward, he could find no fitter language to convey the sentiments which then agitated his mind. "In the midst of an absolute government, everything is sacrificed to vanity, to the love of fame, or what is called glory, but which hardly deserves the name of patriotism in a country where a select number of persons, raised to the first employments of the state by the will of a master, and on the precarious tenure of that will, engross the whole legislative and executive power; in a country where public rights are only considered as private property, where the court is all in all, and the nation nothing. A love of true glory cannot exist without philosophy and public manners. With us, the desire of celebrity, which may be directed to good or evil, is the prevailing motive, while promotion depends not upon talents, but upon favor." A most pernicious course, and certain to produce disastrous consequences in any organization! He proceeds to expose the facility with which men adapt themselves to any absolute system in which the ambitious and selfish portion of the community find adulation and sycophancy the readiest ladders to power and eminence, while the truly meritorious find their virtue an obstacle to favor, if not an occasion of suspicion and fear. If the French nation continued without change under the system of government such as Count Segur represents that of his day, it would be more difficult to account for the phenomenon than the revolution which destroyed it.

The intelligent appreciation of right and freedom that incited those Frenchmen to dare the perils of the ocean preparatory to the more serious dangers of the battle-field for the sake of liberty, we should not too easily forget in the present age. It was no whimsical adventure that led them over the waves to engage in the pursuit of chimerical gratification. "In separating at this time from all I hold dear, I do not make so painful a sacrifice to prejudice, _but to duty_. ... Being a soldier, I leave my family, my native place, and all the charms of life, in order strictly to fulfil the duties of a profession, perhaps the noblest of any, when engaged in a just cause."

An interesting narrative of the voyage, in company with the frigate L'Aigle, of forty guns, and bearing a treasure of two million and a half livres for the aid of the Americans, is given in a few pages of the memoirs. They fell in with an English frigate of seventy-four guns, and a memorable engagement ensued. This vessel was the Hector, formerly a Frenchman, taken by the English at the defeat of De Grasse. In the midst of the engagement, Vallongue, the French commander, cried out to the English captain to strike his colors. "Yes, yes," said the latter ironically, "I am going to do it;" and completed his answer by a terrible broadside. So near were the vessels that the men used pistols; and even the rammers of the guns were wielded as clubs. {639} For three quarters of an hour La Gloire bore the brunt of the unequal conflict; but, at length, aided by L'Aigle, they so disabled the English vessel that they expected soon to capture her. Next day, however, other sails appearing in sight, they abandoned the Hector, which afterward sank, and the crew was rescued by an American ship. An incident of the battle may be related, as showing the coolness and gayety of the French character, even amidst the most appalling scenes:

"The Baron de Montesquieu was standing near us, (on the deck;) we had of late been amusing ourselves with rallying him in regard to the words _liaisons dangereuses_, which he had heard us pronounce, and, in spite of all his inquiries, we had still evaded explaining to him that such was the title of a new novel, then much read in France. While we were thus conversing together, our ship received the fire of the Hector, and a bar-shot--a murderous junction of two balls united by an iron bar--struck a part of the quarter-deck, from which we had just before descended. The Count de Loménie, standing at the side of Montesquieu, and pointing to the shot, said very coolly, 'You were wishing to know what those _liaisons dangereuses_ were? There, look, you have them.'"

Soon after this event they approached Delaware Bay, where they captured an English corvette. Being ignorant of the channel, however, they were necessarily delayed, and they were placed in a most critical position by the appearance of an English fleet, whose superior force seemed to leave them no chance of escape. This they effected, nevertheless, with the greatest difficulty, carrying with them the gold which they had been obliged to throw into the river when pursued by the English, but which they afterward fished up and secured. They then proceeded on the way to Philadelphia, and the Count gives amusing incidents that occurred on the route. Sometimes well treated by the inhabitants favorable to the cause of freedom, they were also subjected to much annoyance by the tories and the timid or vacillating between both sides. A certain Mr. Pedikies is particularly mentioned as having received them coolly and suspiciously, while promises, bribes, and threats were necessary to oblige him to afford them any aid. The contrast evident between the Americans and his own countrymen, is noticed by the writer in an aspect very favorable to the former. What especially attracted his attention was, the absence of different classes in society and of all poverty. "All the Americans whom we met were dressed in well-made clothes, of excellent stuff, with boots well cleaned; their deportment was free, frank, and kind, equally removed from rudeness of manner and from studied politeness; exhibiting an independent character, subject only to the laws, proud of its own rights, and respecting those of others. Their aspect seemed to declare that we were in a land of reason, of order, and of liberty." (P. 320.) He describes the face of the country, its boundless resources of agricultural wealth, and stores of future happiness and power. Philadelphia, then the capital of the country, attracted his admiration, and he enters upon a disquisition concerning the Quakers, who inspired him with a very high esteem for their principles of peace and rectitude. He says that "most of them were tories," and cannot blame them, because their religion forbade its members to engage in war. "Friend," said one of them to General Rochambeau, "thou dost practise a vile trade; but we are told that thou dost conduct thyself with all the humanity and justice it will admit of. {640} I am very glad of this; I feel indebted to thee for it; and I am come hither to see thee, and to assure thee of my esteem." Another discovered a very ingenious mode of avoiding participation in the deeds of war, even by paying taxes to support it, and at the same time of complying with the law of Congress imposing taxation. The day upon which the collectors called, he placed a certain sum of money apart where they might find it, and thus he would not _give_, but allowed it _to be taken_. At Newport, he became acquainted with a venerable member of the same sect; and the Frenchman became an ardent admirer of Polly Leiton, the beautiful and modest daughter of his host. She made no pretence to conceal her abhorrence of war, and candidly addressed the Count in terms not at all complimentary to his military notions. "Thou hast, then," she said, "neither wife nor children in Europe, since thou leavest thy country, and comest so far to engage in that cruel occupation, war?" "But it is for your welfare," he replied, "that I quit all I hold dear, and it is to defend your liberty that I come to fight the English." "The English," she rejoined, "have done thee no harm, and wherefore shouldst thou care about our liberty? We ought never to interfere in other people's business, unless it be to reconcile them together and prevent the effusion of blood." "But my king has ordered me to come here and engage his enemies and your own," said Segur. To this she replied that no king has a right to order what is unjust and contrary to what God ordereth.

Having transacted important business with M. de Luzerne, at Philadelphia, and fully acquainted himself with the state of affairs and eminent men of the times, he set out for the camp of Washington and Rochambeau, on the banks of the Hudson. In the narrative of his journey thither, he shows himself a keen observer, and highly appreciates the character of the inhabitants, as well as the magnificent aspect of the country through which he passed. Schools, churches, and universities met him at every town; while kindness, comfort, happiness, were everywhere displayed. The modest tranquillity of independent men, knowing no power above them but the influence of law, and that law the expression of their own will; the vanity, servility, and prejudices of European society unknown; the general spirit of industry and the honorable occupation of labor common to all; such phases of life, so strange to the traveller, attracted his deepest attention.

The inns at which he stopped on his way were generally kept by captains, majors, colonels, generals, who conversed with equal facility upon military tactics and agricultural projects, and were no less entertaining in their stories of campaigns against the English than in their success in clearing forests and raising crops on the sites of Indian wigwams. This very naturally surprised the inquisitive Frenchman; but, while it presented to him a new phase of human society, it approved itself very highly to his judgment. Two things, however, he found to condemn; or, as he himself says, shocked him more than he could express. One was "a vile custom, the moment a toast was given, of circulating an immense bowl of punch round the table, out of which each guest was successively compelled to drink; and the other was, that, after being in bed, it was not unusual to see a fresh traveller walk into your room, and without ceremony stretch himself by your side, and appropriate a part of your couch."

{641}

Trenton and Princeton recalled to him the memory of brilliant exploits performed in the cause of liberty by Washington and Lafayette; but at Pompton he would have fallen into the hands of the Britishers, had he not been warned of his danger by an old woman sitting at her door, engaged by a spinning-wheel. Having at length crossed the majestic Hudson, which he eloquently describes, he was cheered by the sight of the American tents, and soon reached the headquarters of Rochambeau, at Peekskill. He took command of a veteran regiment of Soissonnais, which had been awaiting him, and he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. It had been formerly named Segur, from his father, who had commanded it at the famous battles of Lawfeld and Rocoux. In both these battles the old warrior was wounded at the head of his regiment, once by a musket-ball through his breast, and again by another shot that shattered his arm. Although he felt annoyed at the absence of active operations in the field, still he found amusement enough among his numerous countrymen, with whom he was now associated. One young officer of artillery particularly attracted his attention. This was Duplessis-Mauduit, who had most signally distinguished himself in several engagements, and who carried his attachment to liberty and equality so far as to be highly displeased if any one called him _Sir_ or _Mister_. He would be called simply Thomas Duplessis-Mauduit.

His appreciation of the character of Washington is in accordance with the estimation in which that great man was and is held by all. "Too often," he says, "reality disappoints the expectations our imagination had raised, and admiration diminishes by a too close view of the object upon which it had been bestowed; but, on seeing General Washington, I found a perfect similarity between the impression produced upon me by his aspect and the idea I had formed of him. His exterior disclosed, as it were, the history of his life; simplicity, grandeur, dignity, calmness, goodness, firmness, the attributes of his character, were also stamped upon his features and in all his person. His stature was noble and elevated; the expression of his features mild and benevolent; his smile graceful and pleasing; his manners simple, without familiarity. He did not display the luxury of a monarchical general; everything announced in him the hero of a republic."

Expecting to find an army without organization, and officers without suitable military knowledge, he was surprised to find well-drilled battalions, and officers fully competent in all departments of their service. He dined frequently with Washington, and gives instructive descriptions of the habits of those Revolutionary heroes. The toasts most frequently given after dinner at headquarters were, "The Independence of the United States;" "The King and Queen of France;" "Success to the allied armies." The generous spirit of brotherhood that united the two nations in those days seems to have become unknown in our times; while she that was then the cruel enemy has now become the flattered friend. Who will deny that nations sometimes act the life of individuals? Washington's opinions on this point are worth recording: "He spoke to me of the gratitude which his country would ever retain for the King of France, and for his generous assistance; highly extolled the wisdom and skill of General de Rochambeau, expressing himself honored by having observed and obtained his friendship; warmly commended the discipline and bravery of our army; and concluded by speaking to me, in very handsome terms, of my father, whose long services and numerous wounds were becoming ornaments, he said, to a minister of war." (P. 253.)

{642}

The Americans and French were closely besieging the British at this time in New York, and although the prudence of the generals restrained the impetuosity of the allies, who eagerly sought to attack the enemy in their defences, it was not possible to prevent the execution of some daring exploits. But the armies soon separated, the French marching toward Newport and Providence, thence to Boston. They were ordered to the West Indies, where the decisive blow was to be struck at the English, and, as it eventually turned out, the independence of the States soon after followed.

We cannot but admire the wisdom displayed in this book of memoirs, written eighty-five years ago, amidst scenes and times that could afford material from which the future greatness of the country could be predicted only by a very sagacious mind. He clearly foresaw, in the rising colonies then about to emerge into a powerful nationality, all the resources which, by judicious and liberal legislation, led to the wonderful prosperity with which our country is blessed. The religious toleration and equality which reigned everywhere he highly eulogized, and accounts very philosophically for the necessity of such a state of things. It must be borne in mind that Count Segur was a follower of Voltaire, although of a Protestant family. For this reason the ingenuousness with which he testifies to the origin of this religious toleration is more deserving of notice. At page 371, he says: "The multiplicity of religions rendered toleration indispensable among them, and, what will, perhaps, appear singular, _the example of this toleration was set by the Catholics_. No church, therefore, was privileged or considered the established church; the ministers of each religion were paid by those who professed it, and there existed between them not a fatal spirit of jealousy, a source of discord, but a laudable emulation of charity, benevolence, and virtue." It is pleasing to record this generous tribute of respect to the liberal spirit which influenced the religious denominations of those Revolutionary times. It is true that in all religious sects there are some members who are ever ready to clamor for persecution, and eager to adopt forcible measures to compel their unwilling neighbors to believe according to their own special measure of belief. And it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to name one religious party that has not, when sufficiently strong to do so, been led into the commission of acts which succeeding generations would willingly have effaced from the record of their predecessors. For instance, what intelligent Presbyterian of the present day would not willingly blot from the page of her history the deeds that stain the Scotch Church in the days of her influence? Buckle, one of the deepest non-Catholic writers of the present age, says that her real character was "one of the most detestable tyrannies ever seen on the earth." "When the Scotch Kirk was at the height of its power, we may search history in vain for any institution which can compete with it, except the Spanish inquisition. Between these two there is a close and intimate analogy. Both were intolerant, both were cruel, both made war upon the finest parts of human nature, and both destroyed every vestige of religious freedom." (Vol. ii. p. 322.) {643} It is more truthful to admit the opinion of Mr. Buckle than to attempt to controvert his facts of proof by which he establishes his position. We only advert to this as elucidating the principle that, although there may be individual Presbyterians and individual Catholics who feel a disposition to recur to the unchristian acts of some of their predecessors, yet it cannot be denied that they are exceptional. The general spirit of toleration which Count Segur so justly appreciates, is too deeply implanted in the institutions of the Republic to be blown away by any foul blast of weak bigotry.

Another subject upon which he wisely commented is equally important to show his great foresight. After aptly describing the reasons from which he presaged the future greatness of the nation, he observes that "the only danger to be apprehended hereafter for this happy Republic, (which then consisted of three millions of inhabitants,) is the state of excessive opulence of which its exclusive commerce seems to hold out the promise, and which may bring luxury and corruption in its train." (P. 374.) Has not this already come to pass? Again he asks: "Is not that difference which is observable between the manners and situation of the North and South calculated, in fact, to create an apprehension for the future of a political separation, which would weaken and perhaps even dissolve this happy union, which can only retain its strength while it remains firm and intimate?" The past few years have proven the justness of his views.

We cannot better conclude than by transcribing his relation of an incident which evinced the bravery of his friend Lynch, an officer of the staff of Count d'Estaing, at the storming of Savannah: "M. d'Estaing, at the most critical moment of that sanguinary affair, being at the head of the right column, directed Lynch to carry an urgent order to the third column, which was on the left. These columns were then within grape-shot of the enemy's entrenchments; and on both sides a tremendous firing was kept up. Lynch, instead of passing through the centre or in the rear of the columns, proceeded coolly through the shower of balls and grape-shot, which the French and English were discharging at each other. It was in vain that M. d'Estaing, and those who surrounded him, cried to Lynch to take another direction; he went on, executed his order, and returned by the same way; that is to say, under a vault of flying shot, and where every one expected to witness his instant destruction. 'What!' cried the general, on seeing him return unhurt, 'The devil must be in you, surely. Why did you choose such a road as that, in which you might have perished a thousand times over?' 'Because it was the shortest,' answered Lynch. Having uttered these words, he went with equal coolness and joined the party that most ardently engaged in storming the place."

It has been a pleasure, as well as an instruction, to accompany in his thoughts and actions one of those many noble and brave foreigners who aided, by their services, in the establishment of our independence, and forced a powerful foe to relinquish her grasp upon a nation struggling for liberty.

{644}

Notre Dame De Garaison.

In the province of Aquitaine, a short distance from the village of Monléon, among the hills of _Les Hautes Pyrénées_, is a valley bearing the name of Garaison, where stands a votive chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin. It is a favorite place of pilgrimage for all the country around, which has been approved of by Popes Urban VIII, and Gregory XVI., who have enriched it with indulgences. It was erected in consequence of the apparition of our Blessed Lady on the spot, about the year 1500, to a young shepherdess who was guarding her flock in the valley. The legend is as follows, somewhat abridged. It is supported by most unobjectionable witnesses at the time of the event, by tradition, and the unanimous voice of the country around; by public documents, and by the effects which followed and which still exist. As for me, however, this is of little moment, these legends not being matters of faith. It is sufficient for me to know that the spot in question is one dear to Mary and peculiarly favored by Heaven. It has been sanctified by the sighs of contrition, by the pure confessions, the fervent communions, and the sudden and miraculous conversions of those who have gone thither in honor of the Mother of our Lord.--But the legend:

A young girl of twelve years of age, Anglèse de Sagazan, was guarding her flock near a large hawthorn which shaded a fountain of living water. The deep shade and the soft murmur of the fountain invited repose, and, opening her basket of provisions, the young shepherdess seated herself by the spring to dip her dry brown bread in the clear, cold water. Suddenly a lady of majestic mien, with a serene countenance and gracious regard, clothed in a long, white robe, which fell in graceful folds to her feet, stood before the astonished maiden, who, dazzled by her appearance, remained immovable and speechless. Then our gracious Lady, who loveth the poor and the humble, declared to her that she had chosen this spot as a place of benediction, whereon she wished a shrine erected in her honor, around which her children might gather with more than ordinary assurance. This apparition occurring three days in succession, the maiden related to her father what had happened. He, in turn, reported the occurrence among his neighbors, who were quite incredulous, but yet, through curiosity or inspired by God, flocked to the fountain, where was still to be heard the voice of the Virgin, though no one saw her but the pure eyes of the shepherdess. The people went to seek the curé, and returned to the fountain with banners, chanting hymns in honor of Mary. They erected a large cross on the spot. After that the water of the fountain seemed miraculously changed, and the sick went thither to be healed. The sudden restoration of many to health made the spot celebrated in a short time. The number of miracles increasing, the present elegant vaulted chapel was erected by the voluntary offerings of grateful pilgrims, and there the benediction of Heaven descended upon the votaries of Mary. {645} At this day wonderful are the prodigies wrought on soul and body at the shrine of our Lady of Garaison. Ages ago God healed many who, at the troubling of the waters, descended to the angel-guarded Pool of Siloam. His ways are not as our ways. ...

I made a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Garaison in June, 18--. The evening before, I went to shrift, by way of preparation, and the next morning left at an early hour with a party of friends, who completely filled our private diligence. There were five of us, and two servants, besides the driver and his more efficient wife. I might call her the driver and him the postilion. Quite a procession we should have made in honor of our Lady of Garaison! We ought to have gone plodding along the highway in sandal shoon and penitential garb, with pilgrim staff and scallop-shell, knocking our breasts as we went, as did the votaries of the middle ages. But in these days, when stout old Christian flies along the celestial railroad with his burden of sin carefully stowed away in the baggage-car, I, a feeble pilgrim, may be excused for seeking as comfortable a seat as could be found in our rickety old diligence. As I got in, I caught a satisfactory glimpse of a large basket, in which were light, crispy _pistolets_, heaps of deep-red cherries, flasks of water, and bottles of mild _vin rouge_, which our servant had thoughtfully provided for our outer man. And they were not disdained in our drive of thirty miles. Such due attention having been paid to our bodily wants, we were quite at leisure to abandon ourselves to our spiritual musings or our devotions! Who could wish to have his soul constantly disturbed and pestered by a jaded and craving body? It is quite contrary to the religious as well as philosophic spirit of this enlightened nineteenth century, and though I was somewhat ascetic, and rather inclined to the sterner rules of medieval times, the thought almost reconciled me to my corner, where I braced my weary back, and to the aforesaid basket, whence I fortified my body.

"_Ciel!_" I exclaimed, as I found myself _en diligence_ and the stone cross of St. Oren's Priory fast disappearing, "have I returned to the middle ages, or am I dreaming?" I could not help rubbing my eyes, and wondering what some of my more enlightened American friends would think, if they could see me seriously, deliberately setting off on a pilgrimage (even in a carriage!) of thirty miles, to pay my devotions at a shrine of the Virgin Mary! But yes--my head was quite sound, though filled with the vows I wished to offer in a spot peculiarly dear to our Lady. This was the first visit I ever made to one of these places of popular devotion, and so, apart from my religious motives, I felt some curiosity to see this mountain chapel, away almost upon the confines of Spain.

The roads are fine in that part of France, and bordered by magnificent shade-trees. Owing to recent rains, we had no dust. We passed waving wheat-fields, luxuriant vineyards hedged with hawthorn, and away on the neighboring hills was many an old château with its venerable towers, and hard by an antique church. I found everything novel, and consequently interesting. Going and returning we stopped at most of the villages. {646} In every one we found an old vaulted stone church, with thick walls and doors, ever open to the passer-by. In each were several chapels, adorned with oil paintings, bas-reliefs, and statues of the saints, and in every church were the stations of _Via Crucis_ well painted, and the little undying lamp of olive oil burning near the gilded tabernacle--announcing the presence of the Divinity--the Shekinah of the new Israel--and recalling the beautiful lines of Lamartine:

"Pâle lampe du sanctuaire, Pourquoi dans l'ombre du saint lieu, Inaperçue et solitaire, Te consumes-tu devant Dieu?

"Ce n'est pas pour diriger l'aile De la prière ou de l'amour, Pour éclairer, faible étincelle, L'oeil de celui qui fit le jour.

......

"Mon oeil aime à se suspendre A ce foyer aérien; Et je leur dis, sans les comprendre. Flambeaux pieux, vous faites bien.

"Peutêtre, brillantes parcelles De l'immense création, Devant son trône imitent-elles L'éternelle adoration.

"C'est ainsi, dis-je à mon âme, Que de l'ombre de ce bas lieu Tu brûles, invisible flamme, En la présence de ton Dieu.

"Et jamais tu n'oublies De diriger vers lui mon coeur, Pas plus que ces lampes remplies De flotter devant le Seigneur." [Footnote 187]

[Footnote 187: In the absence of a suitable poetic version of the above, we subjoin--for such of our readers as are not familiar with the language of the original--the following prose translation of it, from Digby's _Ages of Faith_:

"Pale lamp of the Sanctuary, why, in the obscurity of the Holy Place, unperceived and solitary, consumest thou thyself before God? It is not, feeble spark! to give light to the eye of him who made the day: it is not to dispel darkness from the steps of his adorers. The vast nave is only more obscure before thy distant glimmering. And yet, symbolic lamp, thou guardest thy immortal fire, thou dost flicker before every altar, and mine eyes love to rest suspended on this aerial hearth. I say to them, I comprehend not; ye pious flames, ye do well. Perhaps these bright particles of the immense creation imitate before his throne the eternal adoration! It is thus, say I to my soul, that, in the shade of this lower place, thou burnest, a flame invisible, a fire which remains unextinguished, unconsumed, by which incense can be at all times rekindled to ascend in fragrance to heaven!"]

In these churches there was always an altar to the Virgin, too, adorned with lace and flowers, and streaming with gay ribbons and pennons, after the taste of the country. In one we found a wedding party, and were in season to hear the _Ego conjungo vos_ of the curé over a very modest and subdued-looking pair.

We often passed huge crosses of wood or stone erected by the wayside, to which were attached the instruments of the Passion. I noticed among the passers-by that the women made the sign of the cross and the men raised their hats. I did not find the villages very agreeable. The houses were of stone, with tiled roofs, and had a cold, forbidding look. The paved streets were narrow, with no sidewalks, and anything but cleanly. I thought of our fresh New England villages, their white cottages and green blinds, and front yards filled with flowers and shrubbery. But those of France were more antique and more picturesque--at a distance. Flocks of sheep dotted the country, each guarded by a shepherdess, who wore a bright scarlet _capuchon_, which covers the head and falls below the waist. It is picturesque, if not graceful, and at a distance the wearer looks like one of her native but overgrown _coquelicots_. They were generally spinning, after the manner of the country, with the distaff under one arm and twirling the spindle in the hand, thus laying their hands to the spindle and their hands hold of the distaff after the manner of Old Testament times. How they contrive to spin with these two instruments is past my comprehension, but they do succeed admirably.

Every now and then we met a donkey groaning under the weight of his ears and of a huge cage, or _panier_, as large as himself on each side, filled with live poultry or fruit and vegetables. Perched on the top between these queer saddle-bags was a bright-eyed, sunburnt _paysanne_, most patiently thwacking Old Dapple marketward. The oxen looked as if they fared better; they were sleek and clean, that is, what I could see of them, for they were almost entirely encased in great coverings, as if they were elephants. {647} Their drivers wore a blouse of blue cotton, and wooden shoes with most impertinently turned-up toes. They are worn (the shoes) both by men and women. They make a terrible clatter; you would think the Philistines upon you; but they are very durable.

The country reminded me of the interior of New England. The hills were finely wooded, more so than I had expected in that old country. On leaving Monléon, we entered a valley, narrow at first, but which gradually opened, forming a basin of considerable extent, with green meadows and shady thickets. It is bounded and crowned by hills, and a few hours distant are the Pyrenees. This valley is solitary--secluded, but not wild or uncultivated. Perhaps there is a score of houses in it. From about the centre rise the turrets of Notre Dame de Garaison. The whole country was once covered with magnificent oaks which had been planted by the old chaplains, but the vandals of a later day had cut away whole forests.

The rain poured down in torrents when we entered the valley of Garaison, but that did not prevent us from admiring the locality so favorable to devotion. Far from any city, free from noise, the chapel is buried among the hills and forests of Aquitaine, a spot chosen by God in which to reveal his presence and power! What a delicious solitude! We drove to a little _auberge_--Hotel de la Paix!--erected for the accommodation of pilgrims. In the olden time they were sheltered in a monastery, which was devastated during the Revolution, and now, when great festivals draw crowds of people, the women often remain in the house all night. Leaving our carriage at the hotel, we immediately went to the church in spite of the rain, passing through a long avenue of majestic oaks.

The principal entrance to this sacred retreat is quite imposing. The front is decorated with a statue of the Virgin, holding the dead Christ in her arms--the bodies of natural size, and the work of a skilful hand.

The buildings form a vast enclosure, in the centre of which is the chapel, having on the north and south two courts which separate it from the rest of the edifice. I was surprised to find so fine an establishment so far away from any city. We passed through a cloister shaded by cypresses to the chapel. Over the door and at the sides are niches, in which are statues. The vestibule, as in all these old churches, is very low. Here my attention was attracted by a great number of small paintings which cover the walls and vault, forming a complete mosaic. These _ex-voto_ are not remarkable as works of art, but precious on account of the miraculous events which they retrace. They represent the persons who have been cured of their infirmities by the intercession of Mary; to each is attached a label bearing the name of the person and the date of the cure. These paintings were left untouched at the Revolution, though the venerable guardians of this sanctuary were driven from their cherished solitude; and the sacred vestments, the holy vessels, the silver lamps, the jewels, and other _ex-voto_ of all kinds, which had been offered the Virgin in gratitude for grace received, were carried away; the fine statues of the twelve Apostles were destined to the flames, but were rescued by the people of Monléon, whose church they now adorn.

From the vestibule we passed into the nave. One feels an inexpressible emotion of piety and devotion on entering this beautiful church. {648} I went immediately to the grand altar to pay my devotions to our Lady of Garaison, while the servant took my letter of introduction to M. le Supérieur, who was fortunately at liberty. I found him a tall, fine-looking gentleman, instead of a hoary old hermit, and as polite as a Parisian. He wore a flowing _soutane_, confined at the waist by a fringed girdle, and on his head was a sort of skull-cap, such as the priests wear in that country--I imagine, to protect their tonsured heads from the cold. He conducted me over the whole establishment. In his room I saw the skull of the shepherdess to whom the Virgin appeared. She died a nun, and more than a century old. After her death, her body was given to the chapel, which had been erected during her life, and to which she had been permitted to resort from time to time. The fountain is under the grand altar; but the water is conducted into a basin in a vault to the east of the chapel. Every one says the waters still perform wonderful cures. The superior said it was not owing to any mineral qualities; and as I was not able to analyze them, I contented myself with drinking quite freely of them, bathing therein my forehead, and inwardly praying God to heal every infirmity of body and soul. On the basin is a bas-relief representing the Virgin's appearing to the shepherdess.

The arches and walls of the sacristy are covered with the frescoes of a by-gone age, but which have not lost their brilliancy of color. They represent the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles; angels bearing to our Saviour the instruments of the Passion, etc.

Over the grand altar of the church, in a niche, is a statue of Notre Dame de Garaison, the mother of sorrows, holding in her arms the inanimate body of her divine Son. There are four small chapels, two on each side, separated by walls which advance to the principal nave, and are there converted into pilasters to support the vault. In them are some oil paintings, two of which are very fine, the angel guardian and a Madonna. The niches, which were robbed in 1789, have been newly furnished with gilded statues of the twelve Apostles, large as life, and bearing the instruments of their martyrdom; and one of our Saviour in the midst. On the vault are painted the patriarchs and prophets of the old law. These gilded statues and altars give a most brilliant appearance to the lightly vaulted Gothic chapel.

In the south court is a fountain. Mary stands with her divine babe in her arms, sculptured in white marble. The water spouts out at her feet through four small masks, and falls into a basin of pure white marble, whence it flows into another still larger. The statue has been a little injured by exposure to the weather; but still it reminds one that Mary is the channel through which the grace of God comes to us--that through her flow the waters of benediction and of grace upon man!

The refectory is vaulted and paved. In it is a whispering gallery, common in the monasteries of the middle ages, so one could communicate from one corner to the other opposite in the lowest tone. I am sure the knight of the couchant leopard was no more surprised or awed by the midnight procession he witnessed in the little chapel of Engaddi, than was I at a late hour in the evening, when, while I was still rapt in prayer, and quite unconscious of what was going on around me in this still mountain chapel, I found the altar suddenly illuminated, and a door opened to a long procession of white-robed priests and about a hundred young men:

"Taper and Host and Book they bare, And holy banner flourished fair With the Redeemer's name.

{649}

They passed around the chapel, chanting _Tantum Ergo_, and then returned to the altar to give the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The richly gilded chapel was radiant with reflected light, and the strains of _O salutaris Hostia!_ seemed to float upward in celestial tones, as they issued from lips purified by solitude and prayer. I never felt more devotion at this solemn rite than there, in the shadow of the Pyrenees. I forgot my fatigue, and yielded to heartfelt emotion. Exiled from my native land, to which I might never return, and among those who were almost entire strangers to me, I felt myself folded to the bosom of divine Providence, and that the All-Father would have me consider every part of his world as my home, and all those souls, which he has breathed into human forms, as my brethren and sisters.

It was a late hour when I fell asleep on my hard bed at the Hotel de la Paix. Coldly looking down upon me from a rude frame was, for my guardian saint, a picture of _Napoleon le Grand;_ but, though he had routed many a formidable host, he did not put to flight a single sweet fancy or holy thought that thronged my brains, waking or sleeping.

At an early hour I was again before the altar of Our Lady. Priests were celebrating the holy mysteries at every altar when I entered the chapel. At seven o'clock, M. le Supérieur offered the Holy Sacrifice for my intentions, at which I communicated. ...

My devotions ended, I rambled around the garden and through the cloisters, drank again from the fountain, and then prepared for my departure. I had gone to Garaison with a deeper intent, more serious purpose, than is my intention to unveil here. I bore in my heart a burden--a burden common to humanity--which I laid down at the feet of Mary, thinking, as I did so:

"Oh! might a voice, a whisper low, Forth from those lips of beauty flow! Couldst thou but speak of all the tears, The conflicts, and the pangs of years, Which at thy secret shrine revealed Have gushed from human hearts unsealed!"

I left that chapel in the strong embrace of the everlasting hills, and with sunlight flooding its walls like a glory. Turning to give it a last look, at the last turn in the valley, it seemed like a lily rising up in the green meadows--fit type of her to whom it is dedicated.

Since that time I have visited many a shrine of _la belle France_, but I turn to none with a more grateful heart than NOTRE DAME DE GARAISON.

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Count Ladislas Zamoyski.

Translated From The French Of Ch. De Montalembert.

The nineteenth century, which is already drawing to a close, will in the course of its history present nothing more grand, more touching, more deeply impressed with the stamp of moral beauty, than Poland--vanquished, proscribed, abandoned by the world.

This nation in mourning and in blood, which yet will not die--this race of indomitable men and women, which survives all tortures, all treasons, and all catastrophes, what a spectacle and a lesson does it present! Its existence is at once a defiance and an appeal: a defiance to adverse fortune, and an appeal to what seems the too tardy justice of an avenging God. Abandoned and calumniated by successful iniquity, by selfish opulence, by the ever-ready worshippers of success, a sight intolerable to their conquerors, and a reproach to the powerful of the world--there they abide, like Mardochai before Aman, firmly resolved to forget not, to despair not, nor to capitulate; incomparable types of suffering, of sacrifice, of unwearying patience, of lofty patriotism; invincible martyrs and confessors, not only of faith, but of right, of country, and of liberty!

In the centre of this group of proscribed and oppressed, like some great oak struck by lightning in the midst of a burning forest, stands out in bold relief the noble figure of Count Ladislas Zamoyski.

Ere yet the waves of forgetfulness and indifference have effaced his noble memory, let us endeavor to recall and rescue from oblivion some traits of an existence which, by every title, belonged to ourselves; for in France he was born, (during a journey of his parents there,) and in France he died, [Footnote 188] having passed here the greater part of the thirty-seven years which he spent in exile, without having at any time returned to his true country.

[Footnote 188: January 11th, 1868.]

Here it would seem appropriate to speak of the ancestors of the illustrious dead. But how can we fitly portray to this generation the splendor and power of those ancient houses of Poland and Lithuania, whose immense possessions, countless adherents, and extent of influence find no parallel in our own country, even at the most aristocratic periods of its history? It was a Zamoyski who headed the embassy which came to offer the crown of Poland to a brother of Charles IX.; [Footnote 189] and some one of this race is ever to be found dominant in their country's annals. They may have had equals, but I know that in their native land none ever assumed to be their superiors.

[Footnote 189: For an account of this embassy, see the excellent work of the Marquis de Noailles, _Henri de Valois et la Pologne in 1572_.]

Nothing is more _a propos_ to our immediate subject than the legend of their device and bearings. A King of Poland, whose people had some cause for discontent, being engaged in a conflict with the Teutonic chevaliers, saw on the field of battle a Zamoyski dying, his breast pierced with three lances. The king approached to aid and comfort him. "_To mnicy [Transcriber's note: blurred.] boli!_" exclaimed the dying hero. "_It is not that which pains me!_" or in other words, "_A wound does less harm than a bad prince or a bad neighbor_."

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These three words and three lances have ever since been the armorial bearings of the Zamoyski family. Reflecting upon them, we find in them a singular appropriateness to that one of the line whom we have best known; that illustrious and wounded hero whom we have had so long before our eyes with the deadly steel in his heart, and on his lips a word of proud resignation or intrepid disdain.

Fortunate are those great races who, before they are submerged by the rising tide of equality and modern uniformity, can give forth one last flash of glory, and furnish to the historian some great heart enthusiastic for a good cause and a noble faith; some vigorous lover of right and duty, capable of signalizing himself by a generous death, like our own Duke de Luynes, or by an entire life of devotion and sacrifice, like Count Ladislas Zamoyski. For reason as we will, so long as men are men, they will be always and everywhere moved by a something--I know not what--a kind of realization of completeness, which nobility of birth imparts to great virtues or great misfortunes.

Ladislas Zamoyski, in his 28th year, was an officer of the lancers in the Polish army, and aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke Constantine; he was desirous above all things to serve his country as a soldier and a citizen, when the military insurrection of Warsaw broke out, at the end of November, 1830.

It was, as has often been repeated, the advance-guard of the Russian army, directed against the France of July, which turned back against the main body. Although the count had taken no part in the insurrection, the high rank of his family and the precocious maturity of his mind enabled him to profit by the particular position which he held near the prince, whose arbitrary and unwise acts had contributed more than anything else to provoke the revolt. He obtained from the brother of the emperor the order which separated the Polish troops from the Russian, and gave a sort of method to the military movement, which soon expanded into a national revolution. Believing himself freed now from all allegiance to the grand duke, the young count took part in all the exploits of the campaign of 1831--a campaign which has left imperishable recollections in the minds of all who were living at that time.

For ten months all Europe stood breathless, gazing with deep and varied emotions on those fearful turns of fortune. Every incident produced vehement agitations at the French tribune, in the streets of Paris, and even in the reviews held by the French king. There was something both of heroic and legendary interest in this conflict, so disproportioned yet so prolonged, between a handful of brave men on the one side, and the colossal resources of Russia on the other--a conflict where the veteran comrades of Dombrowski and Poniatowski were led on by youths inflamed with holy zeal for their country's liberty, where the first place was so long held by the Generalissimo Skrzynecki, true paladin of the middle ages, who always put in the orders of the day for his army prayers to the Holy Virgin as Queen of Poland, and who, brave in the field and devout at the altar, was so pre-eminently hero, Christian, and Catholic. I know not how upon this point the young Poles of our own day stand; but I know they would be faithless to the most noble examples of the heroes of 1831 if they should suffer themselves to be enervated by religious indifference, or, sadder still, should they ever trail through the depths of atheism and modern materialism that banner which their ancestors never separated from the cross of Jesus Christ.

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When, finally, the countless masses which Russia threw upon Poland had dislodged the insurgents from all their positions; when the attempts at intervention made by the French government were rendered nugatory by the icy and cynical indifference of Lord Palmerston; [Footnote 190] when Europe resigned herself to be a tranquil spectator at the sacrifice of a nation, Ladislas Zamoyski, firm to the end, in the front rank of combatants, holding then the grade of colonel, laid down his arms with the last division of the Polish army, that of Ramorino, defeated in Gallicia. He crossed then the frontiers of that country which he was destined never more to see, and came, wounded and suffering, but not less resolute than in the first days of his manhood, to put himself at the disposal of his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, the venerable chief of the Polish emigration, as he had been president of their national government.

[Footnote 190: See the correspondence between Prince Talleyrand and Lord Palmerston on the Polish question, July, 1831, in the documents submitted to the English parliament by order of the Queen, in 1861.]

It was then that we saw him for the first time among us. Young, tall, commanding, active, and untiring, he carried in his deportment and in those glorious wounds the credentials of his mission. Always occupied with the cause of his country, but with a serenity and stability far beyond his years, he attracted to himself all attention. A solitary and embarrassed wanderer in a world which was so soon to grow heartlessly indifferent to Poland, he entered calmly and resolutely upon that obscure, laborious, and uncongenial path which honor and duty had traced for him.

I must be permitted here a just homage to that first Polish emigration of 1831, which, preceded by the members of the national government, by the Count Platen and General Kniacewicz, and grouped about Prince Czartoryski, the Generals Dembinski, Dwernicki, Rybinski, and the former ministers, Malachowski and Morawski, have given us, for nearly forty years, such noble examples of fortitude and devotedness, of modest dignity and magnanimous resignation. How many of these yet remain to whom I can address this last testimony of an admiration which I shall always account among the most salutary and most lasting emotions of my life? I owe to them a great good--the power to know and to comprehend the grandeur and beauty of a vanquished cause!

Forced by circumstances to immolate everything in the worship of their assassinated country, not one hesitated before this stern requisition. Rich and poor, old and young, citizens and soldiers, all were called on for sacrifices painful and unexpected, and none shrank back; indeed, to many the privations they were obliged to endure formed a strange contrast to their previous habits of prodigality and almost oriental luxury. Ladislas Zamoyski was conspicuous in this career, so new to himself and his comrades. The subsidies which his friends forced him to accept were invariably reserved for some general object, or divided among his less fortunate companions, saying: "_I learn every day to do without something._" One thing only did he guard carefully--his _beloved sword_, as, with juvenile _naïveté_, he was accustomed to call it, in the warm hope and belief that it might yet serve his country.

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The French refugees, whom the Edict of Nantes expelled from their homes, represented liberty of conscience odiously persecuted, and by this title they won the active sympathies of all the Protestant nations. The Irish emigrants, who, about the same time, were the victims of an intolerance as bitter and inconsistent in Protestant England, found in France and Spain places freely opened to them, and which they honorably filled. The French emigration of 1792 represented not only loyalty to a monarchy, but an entire social order, whose end no one believed so near--an order which still reigned in nearly the whole of Europe; to this they owed, at least during the first years of their exile, the aid and support of all the powers affected or threatened by the Revolution. It was quite otherwise with the Polish emigration of 1831, which, nevertheless, personified, at one and the same time, liberty both political and religious, and, more than all, a grand people, erased, by injustice, by a crime without a parallel, from the list of nations, and unanimous in protesting against that decree. They received from perplexed and divided Europe not one of those consolations and encouragements which it was their right to expect.

France and England had generous alms to solace needs purely material, but nothing more. Ruled by a double fear--that of the Muscovite preponderance from without, and that of dangers from demagogues within--no statesman, even the most liberal, was able or willing to espouse the Polish cause. It was a sadder thing still that a misapprehension prevented their receiving a sympathy which otherwise would have been first offered. Beyond the little circle of liberal, free-hearted Catholics--a circle then very limited--the Polish refugees, victims of the most bitter persecutor of the church in the nineteenth century, met no response from the religious world. It was a time when Catholic Europe, monarchical and aristocratic, was miserably prostrate before the Austria of Prince Metternich and the Russia of the Emperor Nicholas. Consequently, at Paris, and, above all, at Rome, there was to be caught not one glimpse of salvation. There existed among the defenders of the throne and the altar an animosity to the Poles truly revolting, unjustifiable traces of which even yet remain. It was the heaviest cross, for a multitude of Christian souls, which the Polish emigration hid in its bosom. I have the right to speak of it, for no one, perhaps, on this subject, has received more mournful confidences, and no one, I venture to believe, has done more to induce among Catholics a happy change--a change commencing with the good and fatherly Pope Gregory XVI., and precisely on occasion of Count Ladislas Zamoyski, whom he was pleased, at my request, to encourage to visit him in Rome. [Footnote 191]

[Footnote 191: Until 1837, no Pole was allowed to enter Rome, without a passport visé by Austria, Prussia, or Russia; consequently, this excluded the exiles of 1830.]

But how time and efforts must fail in making reparation for this strange misunderstanding! and how much it must have aggravated the sorrows inseparable from prolonged exile--those sorrows which every noble heart must comprehend, even without having experienced them, and which inspired, in a sad, gifted soul, the last ray of its genius!

"He passed, a wanderer on earth. May God guide the poor exile! I move among the crowd; they gaze at me, and I at them, yet each to each is unknown. The exile is alone everywhere," [Footnote 192]

[Footnote 192: _Paroles d'un Croyant_. 1833.]

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Count Zamoyski, always sincerely attached to the faith of his fathers, even before the death of a beloved mother had developed in him a fervent piety, lived long enough to witness this happy change in Catholic opinion. He had the consolation of seeing the entire church moved, at the voice of its chief, by the incomparable sufferings of Poland. In France, at least, every Catholic worthy the name addressed prayers without ceasing to the divine mercy, that the country of St. Hedwige and Sobieski might one day resume her place, free among the nations. This harmony between the irrepressible aspirations of his patriotism and the daily increasing fervor of his religious sentiments threw over the last years of his life a warm and consoling light.

But before arriving in port, how stormy the voyage! Bound by soul yet more than by the ties of blood to his uncle, Prince Adam Czartoryski, he had been twenty-five years his lieutenant, his coadjutor, and the sharer of his fortunes; like him, too, encountering continually repulse, deception, and injustice, without being embittered or discouraged.

Belgium, always hospitable, took full possession of her nationality in the same year, 1831, when Poland seemed to have lost hers. She immediately opened the ranks of her army to Count Ladislas, with the grade of colonel, a position he had won on the bloody banks of the Vistula.

For fifteen years [Footnote 193] he watched in vain for an opportunity to once more draw his sword in behalf of his own land, or for some cause which might even indirectly serve her interests.

[Footnote 193: From 1832 to 1847.]

He was obliged to content himself with employing his intercourse with the political men of the two great constitutional countries, to secure to the Polish question, in the order of the day, some parliamentary discussion or some diplomatic bias, and to obtain from the French chambers and the English parliament those periodical demonstrations which seemed to him so many protestations of right against the most odious of political crimes; so many guarantees against a proscription which the sad destinies of men too often drew down on them, to the profit and encouragement of injustice.

At length, in 1846, he thought he saw the dawn of better days. In the short counterfeit alliance between Pius IX. and Italian liberty, he hastened, with sixty other Polish officers, to offer their devotedness and military experience to the new pontiff, whom all believed menaced by Austria even more than by the Revolution. From thence he passed as a volunteer into the army of Charles Albert, and shared, by the side of that noble and unfortunate sovereign, in all the vicissitudes of the struggle between Piedmont and Austria. Austria, we must remember, at the time we speak of, was not the liberal Austria of the present day; and no Pole could look on this empire as aught save the author and accomplice of the calamities of his country. Piedmont being defeated and restricted to its ancient limits, it was to Hungary that Count Zamoyski next turned his steps. Hungary was then in a state of insurrection against Austria, but was also a victim herself to an insurrection of her Sclavic population, unwisely irritated. To gain from Hungary a recognition of the rights of these people--rights so misunderstood or ignored by the rest of Europe--was the mission of Count Zamoyski, and for which he was willing to confront new perils. The Russians, however, soon arrived, and, combining their armies with those of Austria and with the revolted Croats, Hungary was soon crushed. {655} After the decisive defeat of Teneswar, the remnants of the Polish legion passed into Servia, and from thence to Turkey.

For two years he occupied himself here in disciplining those indomitable spirits for future contests; for to the honor of the Ottoman Porte be it recorded that it refused the demands of the Russian and Austrian governments for the extradition of the Polish and Hungarian refugees.

During a short revisit which he made to France, the Eastern question arose, and he immediately returned to Turkey. He took part, with the rank of general, in the campaign on the banks of the Danube, and through the entire Crimean war devoted his strength, his rare intelligence, his military experience, to forming regiments of Polish Cossacks, ostensibly for the service of the sultan, but indulging in the hope of seeing them ultimately admitted to the ranks of the allies.

In January, 1856, the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris came to dash aside once more his patriotic day-dreams, and to destroy every chance of resuscitation which had seemed offered to Poland in this rupture, so pompous but so fruitless, between France and England and Russia.

No adequate reason has yet been given for that blind delusion which prevented the powerful allies, in 1855, or Napoleon I., in 1812, from using against Russia the only power which she could not control, to recall Poland to that national existence which was her sacred right; and which, at the same time, was the only efficient guarantee for the independence and security of Europe.

Made desperate by this thwarted expectation, Poland suffered herself, in 1863, to be drawn into that strenuous but unfortunate effort whose miserable consequences are in the memories of all. Count Zamoyski, now suffering with age and infirmities, made one last attempt to prevail on England to unite in some kind of action with France, and not to stand by in silence at those massacres and outrages which Russia perpetrated with such impunity, a mockery to the civilization of the nineteenth century. He failed, and this was his last attempt.

He died, leaving Europe more than ever exposed to perils he had warned her against, more than ever recklessly serving the Muscovite power.

He died, seeing Russia supremely powerful in the East, and free to put the seal on all the bloody hypocrisies of her history: _here_, making the world resound with her solicitude for the civil and religious liberty of the Cretans, while she crushed out with her unholy foot the last palpitations of Polish freedom, and extirpated, with infernal perfidy, the last vestiges of Polish Catholic faith: _there_, instigating against regenerated Austria a formidable conspiracy of her Sclavic subjects, while the highways and mines of Siberia are strewn with the skeletons of heroic Poles, whose only crime was to spurn the yoke of those Russians who are a hundred-fold less truly Sclavic than their victims.

The history of Count Ladislas Zamoyski is, then, a sad one; it is the story of a life-long shipwreck.

All his designs were frustrated, all his hopes deceived. Always hastening from disappointment to disappointment, from defeat to defeat, he wearied never, paused never, was successful never.

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Deeming no sacrifice too great, and no detail too minute for the service of his country, he was prompt to avail himself of any circumstance or encounter any new risk which might gain for her a friend, remove an error, or stimulate in her behalf the indifferent. Self-armed against disasters, he raised himself from each defeat with the tenacity of an old Roman on the battle-field, where he had been once overthrown, to fall again, wounded and crushed down by an implacable adversity.

It would seem as if so many trials, mental and material, public and private, might suffice to fill that measure of suffering which is the lot of all below. But no! he had still to endure those which would appear more fittingly the portion of the idle and prosperous.

Crippled with wounds and infirmities, the last ten years of his life were passed in physical sufferings which made them one prolonged torture. He endured, during all this time, the prolonged weariness, the distastes, the feebleness of failing health; and he supported them with the same imperturbable patience, the same tranquil and unconquerable courage, which had sustained him through the sad vicissitudes of his public life.

How great the virtue, crowned by those great sufferings! There is in it a grand and mysterious lesson, and one, above all, which God seems to have designed for our instruction and edification; for his character more than his career at all times raised him far above the mass of human kind. No one could approach him without feeling a profound respect before a strength of mind so determined, a patience which never failed; before that singular union of bravery and gentleness, that generous sense of honor, that equanimity, that integrity. Rich in the domestic happiness which Providence accorded to his declining years, he was content to live, content to suffer; yet appreciating any relief, and humbly thankful for those rare moments of respite which were permitted to his numerous infirmities. Without disavowing the aspirations of his youth, he had purified and transformed them in the crucible of self-denial and sacrifice. What remained to him of generous pride was so tempered that the most exacting could not have reproached him. His Christian fervor brightened as the chills of age encircled him; and the destinies and well-being of the church inspired him no less than those of his country.

He gave a proof of this devotion in the past summer, (1867,) when, so broken in health, he went to Rome to lay at the feet of Pius IX. a last homage. In the midst of those _fètes_ of the Centenary of St. Peter, where were gathered the bishops and the faithful of the entire world, except those bound fast and gagged by the Muscovite autocrat, Ladislas Zamoyski appeared, like the living spectre of absent, enchained Poland.

Nor was it only faith: it was still more--charity--which animated this soul, so Christian and chivalrous. How can we depict that compassion and generosity, so irrepressible, toward his destitute compatriots! or how sufficiently admire that charity of forgiveness to his enemies--the pitiless enemies of his nation! Never one word of bitterness crossed his lips.

"What is to be thought of the Russians?" said a friend to him, one day, "and how far are they implicated with the emperor?"

"I never judge them," he replied: "I pray for them."

For us, who are not bound to exercise such superhuman moderation, who are witnesses and not victims of these atrocities, we raise beside the tomb of this just man a cry of grief and indignant surprise.

"_Usquequo, Domine sanctus et verus, non judicas et non vindicas, sanguinem nostrum de iis qui habitant in terrâ?_"

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How long, O Lord! shall crime and falsehood triumph? How long wilt thou leave unpunished this martyrdom of a Christian nation, which will soon have lasted an entire century?

But all rebellious thoughts against the tardiness of divine justice are checked, all the poignancy of sorrow is subdued, by the remembrance alone of the departed dead. He is gone! His long and cruel trials are over! He has entered into light and peace! He lives in the bosom of his God, and his memory will be for ever cherished among men, with the annals of his illustrious house and of his unfortunate country. He leaves behind a name which will be a crown of glory to his children, born in the land of exile where he died, and rocked in their frail cradle on a stormy sea. He leaves a sacred grief, which is a treasure to her alone, to the youthful and admirable woman who gave herself to him in his darkest hour; the intrepid sharer in his vicissitudes and perils, the loving and faithful consoler of his sufferings and decline, and who enjoyed a happiness with him in this world which is to be interrupted only for a few brief days.

Finally, he leaves a great and profitable example to all who have known and loved him; above all, to those who, subjected to slighter trials, submit to them with less patience and less courage.

The Catholic Church And The Bible.

_Does the Catholic Church condemn the Bible and forbid her people to circulate and read it?_

We answer: NO! On the contrary, the Catholic Church believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God himself, and constantly incites her people to its diligent perusal. In testimony of which, we offer: first, her official declarations; and second, her unvarying practice.

First, her official declarations.

The holy Council of Trent, which closed its sessions in the year 1564, and whose canons and decrees are the voice of the universal church, binding upon every Catholic under pain of sin, distinctly says:

"The Holy OEcumenical and General Council of Trent, ... following the example of the orthodox fathers, does with due veneration and piety receive all the books of the Old and the New Testament, of both which God himself is the immediate author. ... And, lest any doubt should exist as to what books this council has thus received, a catalogue of the same is annexed to this decree. (Here follows a list of the sacred books, as found in. English Catholic Bibles.) Now, if any one shall refuse to receive these books entire, with all their parts, according as they are accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical, ... let him be anathema." [Footnote 194]

[Footnote 194: _Can. et Dec. Conc. Trid._ Sess. iv.]

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Again, the Pope, who, as the head and mouth-piece of the Catholic Church, administers its discipline and issues orders to which every Catholic, under pain of sin, must yield obedience, has positively declared, "that the faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures: for these are the most abundant sources which ought to be left open to every one, to draw from them purity of morals and of doctrine;" which declaration may be found in the preface to the English Catholic Bibles now in use.

Second, her unvarying practice.

The Catholic Church, from the beginning, has provided effectual means, not only for the distribution of the Bible among her people, but also for their knowledge of the truths which it contains. One of her holy orders is that of _Reader_, "whose duty," as her catechism says, "is to read the Sacred Scriptures to the people in a clear and distinct voice, and to instruct them in the rudiments of faith." [Footnote 195]

[Footnote 195: _Catechism. Cone. Trid._ pars. ii. De Ordin.]

Again, from the beginning, it has been made the daily duty of her priests and religious persons to recite "the divine office," which consists of psalms, of readings from the Bible, and of prayers. The new revision of this office made by Gregory VII., in which its different parts were first collected into one volume, became known as the "Breviary," and is still so called. From this was translated and compiled, in great part, the "Daily Morning and Evening Prayer" of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the epistles, gospels, lessons, and psalms of which, thus borrowed, present, as is well known, so large a portion of the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, the Breviary is but the Bible, in a form adapted to devotional uses, and illustrated with pious meditations and devout prayers. Before us lies a copy, published in the year 1632, during the Huguenotic wars and persecutions. It bears the official order of the great Richelieu; and, as we turn over its leaves, we find that a large part of the whole Bible is embraced within its pages, and we perceive that as long as this book can be found in the hands of all her clergy, and is accessible to every one who seeks it, so long, within the borders of the Catholic Church at least, the Holy Scriptures will be widely circulated and intimately known.

Again, in every age, the most eminent and pious of the pastors and scholars of the Catholic Church have devoted their lives to the study and explanation of the Bible. The sermons of the first eight centuries were principally oral commentaries on the sacred text. The great libraries of valuable Christian works, which have come down to us from the primitive church, are made up of volumes directly based on Holy Scripture. Their writers are well known as men of great intellect, of unwearied zeal, of deep and humble piety. Look at this list of some of them: In the second century, Pantaenus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen; in the third century, Pierius, Pamphilus, Hesychius, and Eusebius; in the fourth century, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, Chrysostom, and Ephrem; in the fifth century, Cyril, Theodoret, and Isidore of Pelusium; in the sixth century, Gregory the Great, Cassiodorus, Procopius, and Primasius; in the seventh century, Maximus, Isidore of Seville, Julian of Toledo, and John Damascene; in the eighth century, Venerable Bede, Alcuin, and Rabanus Maurus; in the ninth century, Christian Druthmar, Walafridus Strabo, Remigius of Auxerre, and Sedulius; in the tenth century, OEcumenius and Olympiodorus; in the eleventh century, Nicetas, Lanfranc, and Theophylact; in the twelfth century, Euthymius, Anselm, and Rupert; in the thirteenth century, the great Thomas Aquinas and Hugo de Sancto Caro; in the fourteenth century, Nicholas de Lyra, Paul of Burgos, and Gerson; in the fifteenth century, Laurentius Valla, Tostatus, Denis the Carthusian, Marsilius, and Le Fèvre: in the sixteenth century, Cornelius à Lapide, Maldonatus, and Jansen of Ghent; in the seventeenth century, Natalis Alexander and John Baptist du Hamel; in the eighteenth century, the learned Calmet, of whose work the famous Dr. Adam Clarke has written: "This is, without exception, the best comment on the sacred writings ever published, either by Catholics or Protestants." [Footnote 196]

[Footnote 196: Horne's _Introduction_. Vol. ii. part. iii. chap. V. sec. iii. § 3, Am. ed. 1836.]

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Certainly, no age, illuminated with such lights as these, deserves to be called "_dark;_" no people, taught by such teachers, could ever have been ignorant. And when we remember that, as an eminent Protestant clergyman has said, "the writings of the dark ages are made of the Scriptures;" not merely, "that the writers constantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to them as authority on all occasions, but that they thought and spoke and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this constantly as the natural mode of expressing themselves," (_The Dark Ages._ By Rev, S. R. Maidand, D.D. London, 1853;) and remember, further, that this could not be so, unless the people who wrote and those who read alike had free access to Holy Scripture both possessing the books and being permitted to circulate and use them, we shall be far enough from believing that in the Catholic Church the Bible has ever been "_a hidden book,_" or that the doors of its rich treasure-house were ever closed to men.

Again, the efforts of the Catholic Church to preserve and perpetuate the Bible have been unceasing. As early as the fourth century, by the direction of Pope Damasus, St. Jerome entered on the work of preparing a full and perfect copy of the Scriptures. He devoted twelve years to the study of the Hebrew, Syriac, and other oriental languages. He collected at Jerusalem and in the East all the most accurate versions, both of the Old and New Testaments. From these, revised, compared, and corrected with each other, he prepared that Latin version which is commonly called the "Vulgate," and which, as all biblical critics allow, is the most perfect and complete copy of the Bible which now exists. During the period between the fourth and sixteenth centuries, every great monastery (and Europe was full of them) had its "scriptorium," or writing-chamber, in which copies of the Scriptures were constantly produced. Of the 1400 manuscripts of the New Testament which are now extant, not one was written earlier than the fourth century, or by other than Catholic hands; and Protestants themselves have no higher origin for their Scriptures than these Catholic copies, and no surer ground of reliance on their accuracy than the fidelity and learning of Catholic scholars. How easy, if the Catholic Church condemned the Bible, would it have been to neglect this multiplication of the sacred books, and to silently destroy existing copies! Yet those who depend altogether on her labors for their boasted Scripture, have said, and still will say, that she fears the Bible and would gladly banish it from men. But when the age of printing came, her efforts were redoubled. {660} According to the popular idea, translations of the Scripture into the vulgar tongues were never made before the Reformation, or even till long after it, by Catholics. Nothing could be more false. The Bible, either wholly or in part, had been translated and published in no less than _seven_ of the common languages of Europe, before Luther and his Reform were ever dreamed of. In the year 1466 a translation into German was printed, copies of which still exist. This translation passed through _sixteen_ different editions at Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Augsburg, in the course of a few years, and was followed by another translation, of which _three_ editions were published at Wittemberg in 1470, 1483, and 1490; _two_ at Cologne in 1470 and 1480; _one_ at Lubeck in 1494; _one_ at Haberstadt in 1522; and _one_ each at Mayence, at Strasburg, and at Basle, in 1517. Luther first published his translation in 1530, nine years after the Diet at Worms and twelve years after he had turned Reformer. Before his time, therefore, there were no less than _twenty-seven_ different editions of the Bible in the German language in circulation among the people, besides almost innumerable editions in Latin, a tongue with which the clergy and the learned of that age were well acquainted. In the year 1471 a translation of the Bible into Italian was printed both at Rome and Venice, and passed through _thirteen_ different editions before the year 1525. Two different translations into French were also published; one in 1478, which was printed in _seventeen_ successive editions before 1546; and the other in 1512, which also passed through many editions. In 1478 a translation into Spanish was published, which was reprinted in 1515 _with the express sanction of the Spanish Inquisition._ In 1475, a translation into Flemish was published at Cologne, of which _seven_ new editions were printed before 1530. In 1488, the Bible, in the Bohemian language, was printed at Prague, and again produced at Cutna in 1498, and at Venice in 1506 and 1511. An edition in Sclavonian was also published at Cracow in the first part of the same century. Add to these the different versions made in the "dark ages," and you have no less than _twenty-two_ translations and _seventy_ printed editions of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongues of England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Sweden, prepared by the Catholic pastors and scholars of Europe, and distributed among their people, before Luther and his Bible were ever heard of. When Protestant historians relate that this renowned Reformer never saw a Bible till he was twenty years of age, and had been a student at the university upward of two years, and depict his wonder and delight at its discovery, (_Hist. Ref. D'Aubigné_, vol. i. p. 131,) we hardly know whether to condemn the ignorance of the Reformer or the dishonesty of the historian, one of which must be true. Circumstances certainly seem to cast the odium of falsehood on the latter, rather than that of unparalleled stupidity upon the former.

After the Reformation began, the Catholic Church applied herself to preserve and perpetuate the Scriptures with the same diligence and zeal as of old. A new translation into German appeared in 1534, and passed through _twenty_ different editions within the century. Another was printed in 1537, and also passed through several editions. Still another was published in 1630, and during the past fifty years there have been several others. Between the years 1525 and 1567, _eight_ different editions of the Italian translation of 1471 were printed, with the formal permission of the Holy Office at Rome. {661} Another translation appeared in 1532, which passed through _ten_ editions within twenty years. Another still was published in 1538, 1546, and 1547, and more recently there have been several others; the principal of which is that of Antony Martini, which in 1778 received the written endorsement and recommendation of Pope Pius VI. _Thirty-nine_ different editions of the French translation of Le Fèvre, as revised by the doctors of Louvain, were published between 1550 and the year 1700, since which latter date many new versions, and many reprints of former versions, have appeared in France; of one of which the great Bossuet is said to have distributed _fifty thousand_ copies with his own hands. In Spain, likewise, the Bible, and especially the New Testament, has been frequently reprinted. The most famous Spanish edition is the renowned Polyglot Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, in six folio volumes, published at Alcala in 1515. In the year 1582, the New Testament in English was issued from Rheims, and in 1609, the Old Testament, in the same language, was printed at Douay, the two together forming the Douay Bible, an edition which, if not the most elegant in phraseology, is still generally admitted by all critics to be more faithful and correct than any other version in the Anglo-Saxon tongue. This latter version has appeared in almost every form, from the largest and most ornate to the smallest and least expensive, and may be found in almost every Catholic family which possesses the ability to read it. Nearly the same may be said of all other versions in the common languages of the present age. They were intended not for the learned, but for the people. The encouragement which they received came from the people, not in opposition to, but in consequence of, the permission and recommendation of the pastors of the church: and it is simply incredible that all these different translations should have been made, and these numerous editions printed, unless the Bible had been freely read and freely circulated among the Catholic masses both of Europe and America.

So far, therefore, from ever hiding the Holy Scriptures, or even keeping them in the background, history proves, beyond the possibility of doubt or denial, that the Catholic Church has always occupied the foremost position in the preservation and diffusion of the written word of God; and that to her efforts, and to her efforts alone, is due not only the continued existence of the Bible itself, but also of those vast treasures of research and investigation which tend to throw light upon its meaning, and enforce its teachings on the hearts of those who read it; nay more, that Protestants themselves possess a Bible, only so far as the same church has bestowed it on them; and that their commentaries and expositions are but mere digests and abridgments of the laborious and extensive works of Catholic philosophers and theologians.

How, then, when the Council of Trent--which is the unerring voice of the universal church--when the Pope, who is the head and ruler of the faithful--when the unvarying practice of all ages of Catholics throughout the world--proclaims that the Catholic Church believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God, and one of the great means for the enlightenment and instruction of mankind--how, then, can Protestants ask whether the Catholic Church condemns the Bible, and forbids its members to circulate and read it? Does not all history answer them? {662} Do not thousands of sermons, homilies, and commentaries answer them? Do not hundreds of translations, scattered over all ages and all lands, answer them? Does not their own possession of the Bible at the present day, which they profess to prize so highly, and for which they are indebted to that same church, answer them? How, then, can they believe those slanders which have, for so many years, been uttered against the church of God in reference to the Scriptures? Above all, how can they _repeat_ them, after the often made and complete demonstration of their falsehood?

Still it is asked, _What, then, about these Bible burnings, this actual hinderance, in particular instances, to the use of the Bible? And why does not the Catholic Church join with the great Bible societies of the age in the diffusion of the Bible, or at least form societies of her own for the same purpose?_

These are important questions, and questions, too, which must be answered, if the preceding demonstration would have its full effect upon the mind; and for this reason we will now consider them.

What is the Bible? Very few Protestants ever seem to know, or at least to remember, what the Bible really is. Most of those whom we have met appear to regard it as a book, delivered in its present form directly by God to man. But this is not so. On the contrary, the Bible is a collection of different books, written at various periods during the space of more than fifteen hundred years. Some of them were originally in Hebrew, some in Chaldaic, some in Greek. They had no less than thirty-six different authors, most of whom were widely separated from each other either in place or time; and they were neither collected into one volume nor arranged in the shape of the present Bible, until many years after the establishment of the Christian church.

Now, it is evident that, when we say, "The Bible is inspired," "The Bible is the word of God," we mean just this, and nothing more, namely, that the original manuscript, which any one of these authors wrote with his own hand, exactly as dictated to him by the Holy Ghost, was inspired, and contained the revelation of God. When a copy of that original manuscript was made, the copy was not inspired. If it precisely corresponded with its original, it would give a perfectly correct idea of that original; if it differed from it, it would, so far, fail to give such idea; and would, to that extent, fail to be a sure guide to the knowledge of the written word of God. So with a translation; if it rendered the ideas contained in the original manuscript into another language so exactly that a reader of the translation would receive precisely the same impressions that were intended to be conveyed by the original--supposing them to be rightly understood by him--then would the translation, in its turn, make known the exact truth of God. But if there was in this the smallest deviation, and the ideas imparted by it were not precisely those imparted by the original, then it would not convey the word of God. And since not one of these original manuscripts is now preserved, it becomes evident that there is not an inspired book in existence; but, at the best, only copies and translations of books that were inspired, but have long ago been lost or destroyed.

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But even these copies which we now possess are not _first_ copies, made directly from the original manuscripts themselves. Moses wrote his five books of the Old Testament upward of three thousand years ago; and the oldest existing copy of them was made within the past nine hundred years. How many successive generations of copies, so to speak, filled up the intermediate two thousand years, no one can tell. The same is true, in their degree, of the remaining books; copy of these also being made from copy, and so on, until the art of printing was discovered. All of these copies, both of the Old and the New Testament, were made by hand, in rude characters, and with ruder implements, while languages were constantly changing, and different ideas were being conveyed to different generations by the same words and phrases. From these copies all of the modern translations have been made, and these translations are the "Bible," as commonly read and circulated among men.

Now, we ask in all candor, what certainty there is, on Protestant grounds, that any of these modern translations is the real word of God? To be such, the translation must be an infallible rendering from the copy; the copy must have been exactly like the preceding copy, and that, again, exactly like its predecessor, and so on back to the original inspired manuscript itself. And are Protestants so certain of this, that they have any right to feel sure that, when they open their Bible, the ideas which they receive are precisely those which God intended that the words of Moses, Samuel, Daniel, or the Evangelists should convey? And yet, unless they are sure of it, how can they really believe what they read in it, and stake the salvation of their souls on the correctness and fidelity of copies and translations, about which they can never, by any possible evidence short of a new revelation, become satisfied?

Our object is not, however, to destroy faith in the Bible as the word of God, (a truth which, on Catholic grounds, is thoroughly demonstrable,) although it is worth while to reflect on the difficulties which surround the attempt to make it the sole teacher of divine revelation; but to call to mind how important, how _absolutely necessary_, it is, that the Bible which we read should be a _true translation_ from a _correct copy_ of the original inspired book. And we think the reader will agree with us when we say, that the greatest care to secure correctness is none too great, and the most rigid exclusion of all erroneous, or even suspicious, copies and translations cannot be too rigid; but that, on the contrary, it is the duty of every Christian to obtain, and of the Christian church to provide, the very best and most perfect Bibles possible; and then to abandon and condemn all others.

And this is exactly what the Catholic Church has always done and is doing at this day. We have already mentioned the labors of St. Jerome. This holy man lived at an age when most of the old manuscripts were still existing, when those copies of the Old Testament which had been in use during the life of Christ had not all perished, and when the originals of the New Testament, or, at least, copies of them which had been made under apostolic supervision, were still attainable. All these, and many others--Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic, Greek, Latin, and Syriac--he collected, and, having thoroughly compared them with each other, and restored the original text to its highest possible purity, he translated it into the Latin tongue, which was then, and probably always will be, the most definite and expressive of human languages. {664} This translation is called the "Vulgate." It is the most complete and accurate version of the Bible in existence, and the only one which was made from the originals, or first copies, of the New Testament, and from authoritative copies of the Old. Protestant critics have said of it: "The Vulgate may be reasonably pronounced, upon the whole, a good and faithful version." [Footnote 197] "It is allowed to be, in general, a faithful translation, and sometimes exhibits the sense of Scripture with greater accuracy than the more modern versions." [Footnote 198] "The Latin Vulgate preserves many true readings where the modern Hebrew copies are corrupted." [Footnote 199] "It is in general skilful and faithful, and often gives the sense of Scripture better than modern versions." [Footnote 200]

[Footnote 197: Campbell's _Dissertations on the Gospels._ Diss. X. part iii. § 10.]

[Footnote 198: Horne's _Int._ Vol. i. p. i. ch. iii. § iii. p. 277. Am. ed. 1836.]

[Footnote 199: _Ibid_.]

[Footnote 200: Gerard's _Institutes_. Chap. iv. sec. 4, p. 82. Am. ed. 1823.]

This most excellent Vulgate edition is the very one which the Catholic Church has sanctioned as the authorized text of Scripture. The Council of Trent decreed, "that the ancient and Vulgate edition ... should be deemed authentic in public readings, disputes, sermons, and expositions, and that no one should dare or presume, on any pretext, to reject it." [Footnote 201]

[Footnote 201: Sess. iv.]

Moreover, as the original manuscript of St. Jerome was no more imperishable than others which had gone before it, and as it could be perpetuated only in copies, the church has put forth every effort to secure these in abundance and perfection. They were all written in her own monasteries, under the very eyes of her priests and bishops. They have been subject to constant and thorough revision. When printing was invented, and Bibles began to multiply on every side, (some of them filled with dangerous errors and perversions,) she remedied this evil by stringent legislation. Thus, the same council says: "Desiring to impose some limit upon printers in this matter, who, ... without licenses from their ecclesiastical superiors, do print these books of Holy Scripture, ... this Holy Synod decrees and declares, that hereafter the Holy Scriptures, and especially the ancient and Vulgate edition, shall be printed with the utmost exactness; and that it shall be lawful for no one to print, or to have printed, any books concerning sacred things, ... unless they shall have been examined and approved by the ordinary. ... This approval shall be given in writing, and shall appear, either written or printed, authentically in the front of the book; and both the approval and the examination shall be made _gratis_, to the end that good things may be countenanced and evil things condemned." [Footnote 202]

[Footnote 202: Sess. iv.]

In this manner has the Catholic Church secured the preservation of the pure text of Scripture. Starting at an age when it was possible, if it ever was, to obtain an exact version of the word of God, she, by the hand of St. Jerome, prepared one which has stood the test of the most hostile criticism. Exercising over this her constant vigilance, she brought it down to the age of printing. Then, rigidly excluding all editions which could not undergo the most searching scrutiny, she openly endorses all those which are genuine and faithful, so that the Catholic reader of to-day, seeing in his Latin Bible the approval of his bishop, and knowing that no bishop could sanction any false version without being immediately discovered and punished, knows also that what he reads and studies is the Holy Scripture, as Moses and the prophets wrote it, as Christ and his apostles used it, and as the church of all ages has received it.

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Advancing one step further, the care of the church next manifests itself in the Bibles for the people. These are, of necessity, translations into the vulgar tongues. They are all made from the Vulgate by persons duly authorized for the purpose, and must also be certified as correct by ecclesiastical authority, before they can be printed, sold, or read. Take, for instance, the English translation, commonly called the Douay Bible. This version was prepared by some of the most eminent English scholars on the continent of Europe, who possessed a wide acquaintance with the Greek and Hebrew as well as with the Latin and more modern tongues. This version is admitted by all critics to be exact and literal, and to exhibit, as far as a translation can do so, the precise sense of the original text of Scripture. It has received the approbation of the Holy See and of innumerable bishops; and every new edition bears the official recommendation of the ecclesiastical superior, who vouches for its completeness and its purity. It is hardly possible that, with all these precautions, the Douay Bible should fail to be, in fidelity of rendering, the most perfect copy of the Scriptures that exists in the English tongue.

But the Catholic Church has not stopped even here. No one denies that in the Bible there are many passages difficult to understand, and that it is impossible for those who have no access to the original manuscript and no opportunities for critical research, to ascertain the true meaning of these passages without external aid. The object of commentaries and expositions is to supply this aid; but these have long ago grown so voluminous and costly as to be beyond the reach of ordinary men. And so, to meet this final difficulty, the church accompanies every translation into a vulgar tongue with proper notes and comments, prepared by competent and pious persons, for the illustration of the sacred text.

From this brief sketch of what the Catholic Church has done concerning the Bible, it will be perceived:

1. That the church possesses, in the Latin Vulgate, the earliest, purest, and most exact version of the Holy Scriptures which exists in the whole world;

2. That her translations of the Vulgate into the languages of the people present them with the purest and most exact version of the Bible which they can possibly obtain;

3. That by her notes and comments she affords to them freedom from serious error and mistake in their perusal of the sacred text.

Now, for a moment, let us turn to the Bibles which Protestantism offers, and inquire as to their reliability. The ordinary translations of Protestants are made from Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. These manuscripts, as we have seen, are copies, not originals, and, of course, are not inspired. They are, therefore, reliable so far as they present the exact ideas presented by their originals, and no further; and the fidelity with which they do this depends, in a great measure, upon their own antiquity and their nearness to the originals themselves. But not a manuscript of the Old Testament in Hebrew now exists which dates back further than the eleventh century. The oldest extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament are not older than the fourth century; and these are confessedly imperfect, and, in some places, entirely wanting. {666} Out of these manuscripts and later ones, however, Protestant translators are first compelled to select a text which shall represent, as near as they can make it do so, the original Greek and Hebrew, and then, from this text make their translation.

To the first translation this work presented no small difficulties. They were unskilled in the languages in which these manuscripts were written. the manuscripts disagreed extensively among themselves, and many of them were without lines or punctuation marks, and in characters long fallen into disuse. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first Protestant versions were, both in the text and in the translation, exceedingly erroneous, and in some portions, utterly unreliable. Most of these difficulties have vanished with advancing years. Protestant scholars have become versed in Greek and Hebrew. They have learned to read with accuracy the ancient characters in which the manuscripts were written, and their extensive research among the various versions has done much to clear their text from ambiguity. But the fact still remains, that the best Greek or Hebrew text, which they can reach, is later by many centuries, and more fallible by numerous successive copyings, than those from which the Latin Vulgate was prepared; and, consequently, can bear no comparison in purity and genuineness with that which St. Jerome produced from the first copies, if not from the originals themselves, of the New Testament, and from versions of the Old, which Christ had sanctioned by his personal use. And it is this difference, between the sources of the text of Catholic and Protestant Bibles, which gives the Catholic version its deserved preeminence, and has won for it the encomiums to which we have referred.

Extending our view to the translations made and used by Protestants we perceive this difference still subsisting. Most of these were the result of private enterprise, and never have received the sanction of great ecclesiastical authority. Even the ordinary English, or "King James" version, (which is the one in common circulation in this country,) was a private venture of the king whose name it bears; and though indorsed by him as the head of the state church of England, it has never received the approval of any authority which can strictly be called ecclesiastical. The people who now use it have no other guarantee of its correctness than the fact that their fathers used it before them. They look in vain for any mark upon its pages which shall assure them, on an authority they know to be reliable, that what they read is the true word of God. On the contrary, if they examine their own writers, they find the sentiment prevailing the the "king's version" is _not_ the word of God. It is accused of being "without fidelity," "ambiguous and incorrect, even in matters of the highest importance;" [Footnote 203] and a well-known commentator has even said, "That it is not so just a representation of the inspired originals, as merits to be implicitly relied on for determining the controverted articles of the Christian faith." [Footnote 204]

[Footnote 203: _Horne's Int._ Bibliographical Appendix, p. 37, Am. ed. 1836.]

[Footnote 204: Macknight. _General Preface to Epistles_, sec, 2, vol i. p. 26, Am. ed. 1810.]

These general statements are applicable to other Protestant translations as well as to the English. None of them are perfect, or are even claimed to be so. Each is in turn vilified and condemned by the authors of the others; and not one of them has yet received the sanction of such an authority as can assure the reader that he will find upon its pages the revelations of God. [Footnote 205]

[Footnote 205: In 1833, the Rev. T. Curtis, an English Protestant clergyman, published a work _On the Errors and Corruptions in Modern Protestant Bibles_. The work contains "Four Letters to the Hon. and Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of London, with specimens of the intentional and other departures from the authorized standard, to which is added a postscript, containing the complaints of a London committee of ministers on the subject; the reply of the universities, and a report on the importance of the alterations made." In the course of his work, Mr. Curtis gives various instances of "the largest church Bibles" "found very erroneous." On one occasion "an important part of a text he had taken in the lesson of the day, to his great astonishment was not in the church Bible when he came to read the lesson. In a note on the same page, Mr. Curtis says: "The church Bible still in use in the parish church of St. Mary's, Islington, is a remarkably erroneous one. A clergyman, who some years ago officiated in this parish, assured me he was occasionally at a loss to proceed in reading the lessons from it. One passage (l John i. 4) has, I have reason to believe, been read erroneously in this church four times a year for many years." Mr. Curtis says, (page 80,) "The British and Foreign Bible Society _have never circulated a single copy of the Scriptures_ that has not contained THOUSANDS of _intentional departures_ from the authorized version!" Who can now say with truth that the pure word of God is read or heard in Protestant churches or families?]

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Here, then, the matter comes to a distinct issue between the Catholic and Protestant Churches. The Catholic Church has a reliable and accurate text from which to translate; a competent and literal translation, containing all sufficient notes and explanations; and never publishes a copy of even this without the express sanction of one whom her people know to be able to judge and impartial[ly] to decide on its fidelity and truth. The Protestant churches, on the other hand, have a text confessedly corrupt and unreliable; innumerable contradictory translations, each of which is admitted to be, in many respects, erroneous, and none of which enjoys the sanction of any spiritual authority. How could the Catholic Church do less than to command those of her children who wish to read the Bible, to read the one which she has provided for them? How could she do less than expose to them the faults and errors of the Protestant translations, and forbid their use by the faithful? What right would this church, what right would any church, have to be called a spiritual guide, if, having the pure wheat herself, she permitted those who follow her to feed on coarse grain, gathered from the store-house of her enemies? In reference to such a matter, reason and common-sense dictate a rigidly exclusive policy; and that is just the policy which has been, and is now, pursued by the Catholic Church. Her rules are few and simple, but sufficient. They are these:

1. That those who would read the Scriptures in a vulgar tongue must read a Catholic version.

2. That not only must this version be a Catholic one, but it must also have been approved by the proper spiritual authority.

3. That the version must not only be Catholic and properly approved, but must be accompanied by approved notes and explanations.

4. That those who in the judgment of their pastors would derive more hurt than good from the perusal of the Scriptures, may be forbidden to read them altogether.

Strict as these rules may seem, we believe that any one who reviews the reasons for them will now say, that at least the first three of them are eminently just, and that the Catholic Church, in prescribing and enforcing them, has acted wisely and for the best interests of men. And when we further state that she has never prevented the circulation of any Bible, or taken any Bible from her people, or burned any Bible, except those false, imperfect translations which, so far as they are imperfect, are not the word of God, we believe that it will be admitted that in this also she has done nothing but her duty toward the people committed to her care.

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But that the fourth rule is also just, we think a moment's reflection will determine. At the date of the Reformation, as we have seen, the Bible had been largely printed in many languages. When Luther and the other reformers began to preach, they pointed to their own translations of the Scriptures as the sole divine authority, and bade all the people to read them and examine for themselves. And hence arose a Babel of religions, of which we, at this day, can form no adequate conception. Text was pitted against text, author against author. Men claimed the most outrageous license under the name of Christian liberty. The sacred words of God were bandied from mouth to mouth in jest and song and ribaldry. The contagion spread even into the borders of the Catholic Church. The danger was most imminent that, by this fearful abuse, men might lose all respect, not only for true learning, but also for the Bible and for Christianity itself. It became absolutely necessary to put a check somewhere; and the Council of Trent, therefore, decreed that in order "to repress all that rashness by which the words of Holy Scripture are turned about and perverted to profane uses, to wit, to buffoonery, to fables, vanities, detractions, impious superstitions, devilish incantations, divinations, lots, and even impious libels," no one should dare to take the words of Holy Scripture in any manner for these uses, but that all such "presumers upon, and violators of, the word of God," should be punished. [Footnote 206]

[Footnote 206: Sess. iv.]

When further measures became necessary, on account of the increasing turmoil and disputes, the rule which we have cited was adopted; a rule under which no one who is able to be profited by the reading of the Bible was ever hindered from perusing it, and by which, probably, thousands who, but for it, might have made utter shipwreck of their souls through the abuse of God's holy word, have been saved from pride and error. But this rule is now virtually rescinded. The occasion for its exercise has long since passed away. The increasing learning of biblical scholars, the progress of intelligence among the masses, the subsidence of the wild storm of fanaticism and impiety which marked the age of its enactment, have removed the necessity for enforcing it; and the sole restraint now placed upon the reading of the Scriptures, is that contained in those three rules which we have seen to be so wise and just.

How then, when no conditions are imposed upon the use of the original Greek, Hebrew, or Latin texts of Scripture, and when only such ones are imposed upon the use of popular translations as tend to give the people a more accurate and reliable version of the word of God, how can it be said, with even the semblance of truth, that the Catholic Church forbids or even discourages the reading of the Bible; or how can it be denied that, in providing her children with complete and accurate Bibles, she has given them every inducement to their careful and continued study?

But now we think we hear it asked, with redoubled earnestness:

_If the Catholic Church possesses the most perfect of all copies of the Bible, and really desires it to be read among her people, why does she not coëperate with the existing Bible societies in its diffusion, or, at least, form such societies of her own?_

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The answer is an easy one. The commandment which the Catholic Church received from Christ was, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel," not "Go, distribute Bibles;" and the commandment which she received she has obeyed. The energies, the money, which Protestants would have expended in printing and circulating translations of the Scriptures, she has expended in founding churches, hospitals, convents, and seminaries, and in providing the whole world with missionaries, by whose labors, nations, to whom the Bible could have no access, have been subjugated to the faith. She recognizes but one means for the conversion of mankind, and that is, the voice of the living teacher; and never can she substitute another in its stead.

Moreover, God gave the sacred books of the Old Testament to his own Israel, not to heathens. Our Lord, through his apostles, bestowed on Christians, not on pagans, the inestimable treasures of the New. The Bible is for those who believe already, for the "man of God," "that he may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works," not for the infidel and heathen, who perhaps read it, but are infidels and heathens still. Such is the will of God, as the Catholic Church has received the same, and the facts of history prove that she is right. For when Protestantism arose, its great aim was to spread the Bible. Its history has been the history of Bible-circulation, and in the Bible Society has culminated the Reformation. These societies have labored bravely,0. We read that previous to the year 1834, a single society in Germany had distributed nearly 3,000,000 copies of the entire Bible, and 2,000,000 more of the New Testament. That by another society in Great Britain, over 35,000,000 copies of the Bible, or New Testament, had been put into circulation before 1859; and that another in New York publishes every year more than 250,000 Bibles, and twice that number of New Testaments, and parts of Scripture. But what are the results? Where are the nations which have been added to the Christian fold? Where are the signs of well-developed and intelligent piety in the great Protestant empires of the age? Have not their own writers told us that the boundaries of Protestantism are the same to-day that they were when Luther left it--that no new nations have been added to its numbers, and, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon portion of this continent, that no new territory has been subjected to its sway; that for the heathen it has done comparatively nothing, and for the irreligious of its own lands but little more? Look at the United States, for instance, all of whose people come of good Christian stock. The census of 1860 fixes the population at over 30,000,000, while a census of professing Christians, of all Protestant denominations, estimates their number at less than 6,000,000. Is the proportion greater in Germany or in England? And what a comment is this upon the boast of these societies, that they evangelize the world, and that the work they are performing is the work of God!

And has the Catholic Church by preaching done no better? While men yet lived who heard the voice of Luther, the Catholic preachers of Europe had won back to the church more than one half of what she lost by the Reformation. In a few years longer the continent of South America, the Canadas, and thousands of the inhabitants of India, China, and Japan, were sheltered in her bosom. Another century, and again the Catholic faith was blossoming in England, and springing green and vigorous from the soil of our own land. To-day where is the country in which she is not strong and valorous, strong in the blood of her martyrs, valorous in the surety of her victory?

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Does history leave a doubt upon the mind as to the true means of Christian labor? Or who can wonder that the Catholic Church refuses to substitute the human means for the divine, or even to waste her energies and money on what experience has shown to be so fruitless? She has the Bible for her children. She places it within the reach of all. Those who are able, can buy it for themselves. To those who are unable to buy, she gives it when they ask. But never has she taken pains to strew the pure pearls of written revelation underneath the feet of infidels and heathen--mindful that, as the Lord warned her, "they will turn again and rend you."

In conclusion, let us ask of every Christian reader a single favor more. It is, that he will candidly examine the best authorities upon this important subject; that he will carefully reflect upon the reasons we have offered, and decide for himself the great questions which we have tried to answer. And when he finds, as he surely will, that the Catholic Church does not condemn the Bible, or forbid her people to circulate and read it--that she has never prohibited or burned a Bible which she did not know to be erroneous and liable to lead her children into error--that she has never cast her lot in with the Bible society, simply because she follows the command of Christ--let him undo the evil he, perhaps, has done, in stating that concerning her which he now knows is false, and manfully assert the truth he now has learned, thus doing justice to the church of God.

[Footnote 207(No reference *): Macaulay's Misc., art. Ranke's _History of the Popes_.]

Sketches Drawn From The Abbé Lagrange's Life Of St. Paula.

In Three Chapters.

Concluded.