Chapter II.

The sun had by this time nearly penetrated through the heavy fog, which had hung since early dawn like a vail over the valley; and just as Nellie reached the foot of the path leading straight up to the castle, it fairly broke through every obstacle, and cast a gleam of wintry sunshine on her face. That face, once seen, was not one easily to be forgotten. The features were almost, and yet not quite, classic in their beauty, gaining in expression what they lost in regularity; and the frequent mingling, by intermarriages, of Celtic blood with that of her old Norman race, had given Nellie that most especial characteristic of Irish beauty--hair black and glossy as the raven's wing, with eyes blue as the dark, double violet, and looking even bluer and darker than they were by nature through the abundance of the long, silken lashes, the same color as her hair, which fringed them. She carried her small, beautifully-formed head with the grace and spirit of a young antelope, and there was something of firmness even in the elastic lightness of her movements, which gave an idea of energy and decision not naturally to be looked for in one so young and girlish, both as to form and feature. Her tight-fitting robe of dark and strong material, though evidently merely adopted for the convenience of travelling, rather set off than detracted from the beauty of her form; and over it hung that long, loose mantle of blue cloth which seems, time out of mind, to have been a favorite garment with the Irish. It was fastened at the throat by a brooch of gold, curious and valuable even then for its evident antiquity; and with its broad, graceful folds falling to her feet, and its hood drawn forward over her head, and throwing her sweet, sad face somewhat into shadow, gave her at that moment, as the sun shone down upon her, the very look and expression of a Mater Dolorosa.

Ten minutes' rapid walking up a path, which looked more like an irregular staircase cut through rock and turf-mould than a way worn gradually by the pressure of men's feet, brought her to the platform upon which the castle stood.

Moated and circumvallated toward the south and west, which were easy of access from the flat lands beyond, Netterville was comparatively defenceless on the side from whence Nellie now approached it; its builders and inhabitants having evidently considered the deep stream and valley which lay beneath as a sufficient protection against their enemies.

The great gate stood looking eastward, and Nellie could see from the spot where she halted that all the preparations for her approaching journey were already almost completed. A couple of sorry-looking nags, (garrans, the Irish would have called them,) one with a pillion firmly fixed behind the saddle, were being led slowly up and down in readiness for their riders. {89} Little sorrowful groups of the Irish dependents of the family stood here and there upon the terraces, waiting (faithful to the last as they ever were in those days) to give one parting glance and one sorrowful, long farewell to their deposed chieftain and his heiress; and a little further off, like hawks hovering around their prey, might be seen a band of those iron-handed, iron-hearted men in whose favor the transplantation of the present owners of the soil had been decreed, and who had been set there, half to watch and half to enforce departure, should anything like evasion or resistance be attempted. Something very like an angry frown clouded Nellie's brow as she caught sight of these men for whose benefit she was being robbed of her inheritance; but, unwilling to indulge such evil feelings, she suffered her gaze to pass quietly beyond them until it rested once more on the streamlet and valley as they stretched eastward toward the sea. Just then some one tapped her on the shoulder, and, turning sharply round, Nellie found herself confronted by a woman not many years older, probably, than herself, but with a face upon which, beautiful as it was, the early indulgence of wild passions had stamped a look of premature decay.

"What would you with me?" said Nellie, surprised at the familiarity of the salutation, and not in the least recognizing the person who had been guilty of it. "I know you not. What do you want with me?"

"Oh! little or nothing," said the other, in a harsh and taunting voice; "little or nothing, my fair young mistress--heiress, that has been, of the house of Netterville--only I thought that, may be, you could say if the old mistress will be after going with you into exile. _They_ told me she was," she added, with a gesture toward the soldiers; "and yet, as far as I can see, only one of the garrans has a pillion to its back. But, may be, she'll be for going later--"

"I have already said," Nellie coldly answered, for she neither liked the matter nor the manner of the woman's speech--"I have already said that I know you not, and, in all likelihood, neither does my mother. Why, therefore, do you ask the question?"

"Because I _hope_ it!" said the woman, with such a look of hatred on her face that Nellie involuntarily recoiled a step--"because I hope it; and then perhaps, when she is houseless and hungry herself, she will remember that cold December night when she drove me from her door, to sleep, for all that she cared, under the shelter of the whin-bushes in the valley."

"If my mother, good and gentle as she is to all, ever acted as you say she did, undoubtedly she had wise and sufficient reasons for it," Nellie coldly answered.

"Undoubtedly--good and sufficient reasons had she, and so, for that matter, had I too, when I put my heavy curse upon her and all her breed," retorted the girl, with a coarse and taunting laugh. "And see how it has come to work," she added wildly--"see how it has come to work! Ay, ay--she'll mind it when it is too late, I doubt not; and will think twice before she lets loose her Saxon pride to flout a poor body for only asking a night's shelter under her roof. Roof! she'll soon have no roof for herself, I guess; but if ever she has one again, she'll think better of it, I doubt not."

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"She will think next time just what she thought last time--that, so long as you lead the life you lead at present, you would not, though you were a princess, be fitting company for the lowest scullion in her kitchen."

Thus spoke a grave, sweet voice (not Nellie's) close at the woman's elbow. She started, as if a wasp had stung her, and turned toward the speaker.

A tall lady, dressed in widow's weeds, with a pale face and eyes weary, it almost seemed, with sorrow, had approached quietly from behind, and overhearing the girl's defiant speech, saved Nellie the trouble of an answer by that firm yet most womanly response. Then passing to the front, she put her arm round Nellie's waist, as if to protect her from the very presence of the other, and drew her away, saying:

"Come along, my daughter; the morning wears apace, and these long delays do but embitter partings. Your grandfather is already waiting. Remember, Nellie," she added in a faltering voice, "that he, with his seventy years, will be almost as dependent upon your strength and energy as you can be on his. He is my dead husband's father, and therefore, after a long and bitter struggle with my own heart, I have devoted you, my own and only treasure, to be his best support and help and comfort in the long and unseasonable journey to which the cruelty of our conquerors has compelled him. I trust--I trust in God and his sweet Mother that I shall see no cause later to repent me of this decision!"

Nellie drew a little closer to her mother, and a strange firmness of expression passed over her young face as she answered quietly:

"My own unselfish mother, doubt not that I will be all--son and daughter both in one--to him; and fear not, I do beseech you, for our safety. What though he has seen his seventy winters, and I but barely seventeen! We are strong and healthy, both of us; and with clean consciences (which is more than our foes can boast of) and good wits, I doubt not we shall reach our destination safely. Destination!" she repeated bitterly--"ay, destination; for home, in any sense of the word, it never can be to us."

"Say not so, my Nellie--say not so," said her mother gently. "Home, after all, is only the place where we garner up our treasures; and, therefore, in the spot where I may rejoin you, however wild and desolate it otherwise shall be, _my_ heart, at all events, will acknowledge it has found its home!"

As they thus conferred together, mother and daughter had been moving slowly toward the castle, in absolute forgetfulness of the woman who had originally made a third in the group, and who was still following at a little distance. She stopped, however, on discovering that they had no intention of making her a sharer in their conversation, and, gazing after them with a fearful mingling of hatred and wounded pride on her coarse, handsome features, exclaimed aloud:

"The second time you have flouted me, good madam! Well, well, the third is the charm, and then it will be my turn. See if I do not make you rue it!"

Shaking her fist, as she spoke, savagely in the air, she turned her back upon Netterville towers, and rushed down a path leading directly to the river.

As Mrs. Netterville and her daughter approached the castle-gates, a young man came out to meet them, and, with a look and bearing half-way between that of an intelligent and trusted servant and a petted follower, said hurriedly:

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"My lord grows impatient, madam. He says he is ready to depart at once, and that the sooner it is done the better. And, in troth, I am much of the same way of thinking my own self," he added, with that sort of grim severity which some men seem almost naturally to assume the moment they feel themselves in danger of giving way to grief, in the womanly fashion of tears.

Hamish was of the same age as Nellie, though he looked and felt at least eight years older. He was her foster-brother, as we have already said, and had been her companion in the nursery; but as war and poverty thinned the ranks of followers attached to the house of Netterville, he had been gradually advanced from one post of confidence to another, until, young as he was, he united the various duties of "bailiff" or "steward," as it would be called in Ireland--major-domo or butler, valet, and footman, all in his own proper person.

"True," said Mrs. Netterville, in answer to his communication--"too true. Every moment that he lingers now will be but a fresh barbing of the arrow. Come, my Nellie, let us hasten to your grandfather. Would that I could persuade him to take Hamish with him instead of Mat, who has little strength and less wit to help you in such a journey. I should be far more at ease, both on his account and yours, my daughter."

"Faix, madam, and it was just that same that I was thinking to myself awhile ago," cried Hamish eagerly. "Sure, who has a better right to go with Mistress Nellie than her own foster-brother? And am not I strong enough, and more than willing enough to fight for her--ay, and to die for her too, if any of them black-browed hypocrites should dare for to cast their evil eyes upon her or the old master?"

"Strong enough and brave enough undoubtedly you are," said Nellie, speaking before her mother could reply, "and true-hearted more than enough, my dear foster-brother, are you; but, if only for that very reason, you must stay here to help and comfort my dear mother. Bethink you, Hamish, hers is, in truth, the hardest lot of any. We shall have but to endure the weariness of long travel; she will have to contend with the insolence of men in high places--yes, and perhaps even to dispute with them, day by day, and hour by hour, for that which is her rightful due and ours. This is man's work, not woman's; and a man, moreover, quick-witted and fearing no one. Will you not be that man, Hamish, to stand by her against the tyrant and oppressor, and to act for her whenever and wherever it may be impossible for her to act for herself?"

Hamish would have answered with a fervor equal to her own, but Mistress Netterville prevented him by saying, with a mingling of grief and impatience in her manner:

"It is in vain to talk to you, Nellie! You have all your grandfather's stiff-necked notions on this subject. Nevertheless it would have been far more to my real contentment if he and you had yielded to my wishes, seeing that there is many a one still left among our dependents to whom, on a pinch, I could entrust the care both of cattle and of household gear, and but one (and that is Hamish) to whom willingly I would confide my child."

"Now, may Heaven bless you for that very word, madam," cried Hamish eagerly and gratefully; and then turning to Nellie, he went on: "See now, Mistress Nellie, see now, when her ladyship herself has said it--surely you would never think of going contrary to her wishes!"

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"Listen to me, Hamish," said Nellie, putting her hand on his shoulder and standing still, so that her mother unconsciously moved on without her. "Ever since that weary day when the sheriff came here to inform us of our fate, I have had a strange, uncomfortable foreboding that my mother will soon find herself in even a worse plight than ours. A woman, as she will be, alone and friendless--foemen all around her--foemen domiciled even in her household--foemen, the worst and cruelest of any, with prayer on their lips and hypocrisy in their hearts, and a strong sword at their hips, ready to smite and slay, as they themselves express it, all who oppose that wicked lusting for wealth and power which they so blindly mistake for the promptings of a good spirit! With us, once we have obtained our certificate from the commissioners at Loughrea, it will be far otherwise. Each step we take in our wild journey westward will, if, alas! it leads us further from our friends, set, likewise, a safer distance between us and our oppressors. Promise me, therefore, to ask no more to follow us who go to peace and safety, but to abide quietly here, where alone a real danger threatens. Promise me even more than this, my foster-brother--promise to stay with her so long as ever she may need you; and should aught of evil happen to her, which may God avert! promise to let me know at once, that I may instantly return and take a daughter's proper place beside her. Promise me this, Hamish--nay, said _I promise!_--Hamish, you must swear it!"

"I swear it! by the Mother of Heaven and her blessed Child, I swear it!" said Hamish fervently; for he saw at once that there was much probability in Nellie's view of the subject, though, in his overweening anxiety for the daughter, he had hitherto overlooked the chances of danger to the mother. "But, Christ save us!" he added suddenly, as some wild notes of preparation reached his experienced ear; "Christ save us, if the old women are not going to keen for your departure as if it were a burial!"

"Oh! do not let them--do not let them; bid them stop if they would not break our hearts!" cried Nellie, rushing on to overtake her mother, while Hamish, in obedience to her wishes, struck right across the terrace toward a distant group of women, among whom, judging by their excited looks and gestures, he knew that he should find the keeners. Long, however, ere he could reach them, a wild cry of lamentation, taken up and prolonged until every man, woman, and child within ear-shot had lent their voices to swell the chorus, made him feel that he was too late; and turning to ascertain the cause of this sudden outburst, he saw that Lord Netterville had come forth from the castle, and was standing at the open gates. A fine, soldierly-looking man he was, counting over seventy years, yet in appearance not much more than sixty, and as he stood there, pale and bare-headed, in the presence of his people, a shout of such mingled love and sympathy, grief and execration rent the air, that some of the Cromwellian soldiers made an involuntary step forward, and handled their muskets in expectation of an attack.

"Tell them to stop!" cried the old man, throwing up his arms like one who could bear his agony no longer. "For God's sake, tell them to stop! Let them wait, at least," he added, half bitterly, half sorrowfully, "until, like the dead, I am out of hearing."

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There was no need for Hamish to become the interpreter of his wishes. That sudden cry of a man's irrepressible anguish had reached the hearts of all who heard it, and a silence fell upon the crowd--a silence more expressive of real sympathy than their wildest lamentations could have been.

The old lord bowed, and tried to speak his thanks, but the words died upon his lips, and he turned abruptly to take leave of his daughter-in-law. She knelt to receive his blessing. He laid his hand upon her head, and then, making an effort to command his voice, said tenderly:

"Fare thee well, my best and dearest! It is the way of these canting times to be for ever quoting Scripture, and for once I will follow fashion. May Heaven bless and keep thee, daughter; for a very Ruth hast thou been to me in my old age; yea, and better than seven sons in this the day of my poverty and sorrow!"

He stooped to kiss her brow and to help her to rise, and as he did so, he added in a whisper, meant only for the lady's ear:

"Forgive me. Mary, if I once more allude to that subject we have so much discussed already. Are you still in the mind to send Nellie with me? Think better of it, I entreat you. The daughter's place should ever, to my poor thinking, be beside her mother!"

"I _have_ thought," she answered, "and I _have_ decided. If Nellie is my child, she is your grandchild as well; and the duty which her father is no longer here to tender, it must be her pride and joy to offer you in his stead. Moreover, my good lord," she added, in a still lower tone, "the matter hath another aspect. Nellie will be safer with you! This place and all it contains is even now at the mercy of a lawless soldiery, and therefore it is no place for her. Too well I feel that even I, her mother, am powerless to protect her."

Lord Netterville cast a wistful glance on the fair face of his young granddaughter, and said reluctantly:

"It may be that you are right, sweet Moll, as you ever are. Come, then, if so it must be, give us our good-speed, and let us hasten on our way."

He once more pressed her affectionately in his arms, then walked straight up to his horse, and leaped almost without assistance to the saddle. But his face flushed scarlet, and then grew deadly pale, and as he shook his reins and settled himself in his seat, it was evident to Hamish, who was holding his stirrup for him, that he was struggling with all his might and main to bear himself with a haughty semblance of indifference before the English soldiery. After he was seated to his satisfaction, he ventured a half glance around his people, and lifted his beaver to salute them. But the effort was almost too much; the big tears gathered in his eyes, and his hand shook so violently that he could not replace his hat, which, escaping from his feeble grasp, rolled under his horse's feet. Half a dozen children darted forward to recover it, but Hamish had already picked it up and given it to his master, who instantly put it on his head, saying, in a tone of affected indifference:

"Pest on these trembling fingers which so libel the stout heart within. This comes of wine and wassail, Hamish. Drink thou water all thy life, good youth, if thou wouldst match a sturdy heart with a steady hand, when thy seventy years and odd are on you."

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"Faix, my lord, will I or nill I," said Hamish, trying to fall in with the old man's humor by speaking lightly; "will I or nill I, it seems only too likely that water will be the best part of my wine for some time to come; leastways," he added in a lower voice, "leastways till your honor comes back to your own again, and broaches us a good cask of wine to celebrate the day."

"Back again! back again!" repeated Lord Netterville, shaking his head with a mixture of grief and impatience impossible to describe. "I tell thee, Hamish, that men never come back again when they carry seventy years with them to exile. But where is my granddaughter? Bid her come forth at once, for it's ill lingering here with this weeping crowd around us, and yonder pestilent group of fanatics marking out every mother's son among them, doubtless, for future vengeance."

Mrs. Netterville heard this impatient cry for her only child, and flung her arms for one last passionate embrace round Nellie's neck. Then, firm and unfaltering to the end, she led her to Hamish, who lifted her as reverently as if she had been an empress (as indeed she was in his thoughts) to the pillion behind her grandfather.

Lord Netterville barely waited until she was comfortably settled, ere he stooped to kiss once more his daughter-in-law's uplifted brow, after which, waving his hands toward the weeping people, he dug his spurs deep into his horse's sides, and rode swiftly forward.

Then, as if moved by one common impulse, every man, woman, and child in presence there, fell down upon their knees, mingling prayers and blessings, and howls and imprecations, as only an Irish or an Italian crowd can do; and yet obedient to the last to the wishes of their departing chief, it was not until he was well-nigh out of sight that they broke out into that wild, wailing keen, with which they were known to accompany their loved ones to the grave. But the wind was less considerate, and as it unluckily set that way, it bore one or two of the long, sad notes to him in whose honor they were chanted. As they fell upon the old exile's ears, the stoical calmness which he had hitherto maintained forsook him utterly; the reins fell from his hands, he bowed his head till his white locks mingled with his horse's mane, and, "lifting up his voice," he wept as sadly and unrestrainedly as a woman.

To Be Continued.

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The Church Review and Victor Cousin. [Footnote 31]

[Footnote 31: _The American Quarterly Church Review_. New York: N. S. Richardson. January, 1868. Art. ii., "O. A. Brownson as a Philosopher. Victor Cousin and his Philosophy. _Catholic World_."]

The article in the _Church Review_ promises an estimate of the character of Dr. O. A. Brownson as a philosopher; but what it says has really no relation to that gentleman, and is simply an attempt, not very successful, nor very brilliant indeed, to vindicate M. Cousin's philosophy from the unfavorable judgment we pronounced on it, in the magazine of last June. Dr. Brownson is not the editor, nor one of the editors, of _The Catholic World_; the article in question was signed by no name, was impersonal, and the _Review_ has no authority for charging its authorship to any one but ourselves, or for holding any but ourselves responsible for its merits or demerits. When the name of a writer is signed to an article, he should be held answerable for its contents; but when it is not, the magazine in which it appears is alone responsible. According to this rule, we hold the _Church Review_ answerable for its "rasping" article against ours.

The main purpose of the reviewer seems to be to prove that we wrote in nearly entire ignorance of M. Cousin's philosophy, and to vindicate it from the very grave charges we urged against it. As to our ignorance, as well as his knowledge, that must speak for itself; but we can say sincerely that we should be most happy to be proved to have been in the wrong, and to see Cousin's philosophy cleared from the charge of being unscientific, rationalistic, pantheistic, or repugnant to Christianity and the church. One great name would be erased from the list of our adversaries, and their number would be so much lessened. We should count it a great service to the cause which is so dear to us, if the _Church Review_ could succeed in proving that the errors we laid to his charge are founded only in our ignorance or philosophical ineptness, and that his system is entirely free from them. But though it talks largely against us, assumes a high tone, and makes strong assertions and bold denials, we cannot discover that it has effected anything, except the exhibition of itself in an unenviable light. It has told us nothing of Cousin or his philosophy not to be found in our article, and has not in a single instance convicted us of ignorance, malice, misstatement, misrepresentation, or even inexactness. This we shall proceed now to show, briefly as we can, but at greater length, perhaps, than its crude statements are worth.

The principal charges against us are: 1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophy eclecticism; 2. We wrongly denied scepticism to be a system of philosophy; 3. Showed our ignorance of Cousin's doctrine in saying it remained in psychology, never attained to the objective, or rose to ontology; 4. Misstated his doctrine of substance and cause; 5. Falsely denied that he admits a nexus between the creative substance and the created existence; 6. Falsely asserted that he holds creation to be necessary; 7. Wrongly and ignorantly accused him of Pantheism; 8. Asserted that he had but little knowledge of Catholic theology; 9. Accused him of denying the necessity of language to thought.

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In preferring these charges against M. Cousin's philosophy, we have shown our ignorance of his real doctrine, our contempt for his express declarations, and our philosophical incapacity, and the reviewer thinks one may search in vain through any number of magazine articles of equal length, for one more full of errors and fallacies than ours. This is bad, and, if true, not at all to our credit. We shall not say as much of his article, for that would not be courteous, and instead of saying it, prefer to let him prove it. We objected that M. Cousin assuming that to the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary, can never, on his system, establish such reality; the reviewer, p. 541, gravely asserts that we ourselves hold, that to the operations of reason no objective reality is necessary, and can never be established! This is charming. But are these charges true? We propose to take them up _seriatim_, and examine the reviewer's proofs.

1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophical system eclecticism. To this the reviewer replies:

"'Eclecticism can never be a philosophy;' making, among other arguments, the pertinent inquiry: 'How, if you know not the truth in its unity and integrity beforehand, are you, in studying those several systems, to determine which is the part of truth and which of error?'

"We beg his pardon, but M. Cousin never called his philosophical system Eclecticism. In the introduction to the _Vrai, Beau, et Bien_, he writes:

"'One word as to an opinion too much accredited. Some persons persist in representing eclecticism as the doctrine to which they would attach my name. I declare, then, that eclecticism is, undoubtedly, very dear to me, for it is in my eyes the light of the history of philosophy; but the fire which supplies this light is elsewhere. Eclecticism is one of the most important and useful applications of the philosophy I profess, but it is not its principle. My true doctrine, my true flag, is spiritualism; that philosophy, as stable as it is generous, which began with Socrates and Plato, which the gospel spread abroad in the world, and which Descartes placed under the severe forms of modern thought'

"And the principles of this philosophy supply the touchstone with which to try 'those several systems, and to determine which is the part of truth and which of error.' Eclecticism, in Cousin's view of it, as one might have discovered who had 'studied his works with some care,' is something more than a blind syncretism, destitute of principles, or a fumbling among conflicting systems to pick out such theories as please us."

If M. Cousin never called his philosophical system eclecticism, why did he defend it from the objections brought on against it, that, i. Eclecticism is a syncretism--all systems mingled together; 2. Eclecticism approves of everything, the true and the false, the good and the bad; 3. Eclecticism is fatalism; 4. Eclecticism is the absence of all system? Why did he not say at once that he did not profess eclecticism, instead of saying and endeavoring to prove that the eclectic method is at once philosophical and historical? [Footnote 32]

[Footnote 32: See _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. 39-42.]

Everybody knows that he professed eclecticism and defended it. As a method, do you say? Be it so. Does he not maintain, from first to last, that a philosopher's whole system is in his method? Does he not say, "Given a philosopher's method, we can foretell his whole system"? And is not his whole course of the history of philosophy based on this assumption? We wrote our article for those who knew Cousin's writings, not for those who knew them not. There is nothing in the passage quoted from the reviewer, quoted from Cousin, that contradicts what we said. We did not say that he always called philosophy eclecticism, or pretend that it was the principle of his system. We said:

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"There is no doubt that all schools, as all sects, have their part of truth, as well as their part of error; for the human mind cannot embrace pure, unmixed error any more than the will can pure, unmixed evil; but the eclectic method is not the method of constructing true philosophy any more than it is the method of constructing true Christian theology. The Catholic acknowledges willingly the truth which the several sects hold; but he does not derive it from them, nor arrive at it by studying their systems. He holds it independently of them; and having it already in its unity and integrity, he is able, in studying them, to distinguish what they have that is true from the errors they mix up with it. It must be the same with the philosopher. _M. Cousin was not unaware of this, and he finally asserted eclecticism rather as a method of historical verification, than as the real and original method of constructing philosophy_. The name was therefore unhappily chosen, and is now seldom heard." (_Catholic World_, p. 335.)

Had the reviewer read this passage, he would have seen that we were aware of the fact that latterly Cousin ceased to profess eclecticism save as a method of verification; and if he had read our article through, he would have seen that we were aware that he held spiritualism to be the principle of his system, and that we criticised it as such.

2. Cousin counts scepticism as a system of philosophy. We object, and ask very pertinently, since he holds every system has a truth, and truth is always something affirmative, positive, "What, then, is the truth of scepticism, which is a system of pure negation, and not only affirms nothing, but denies that any thing can be affirmed?" Will the reviewer answer the question?

The reviewer, of course, finds us in the wrong. Here is his reply:

"In the history of the progress of the human mind, the phase of scepticism is not to be overlooked. At different periods it has occurred, to wield a strong, sometimes a controlling, often a salutary, influence over the thought of an age. Its work, it is true, is destructive, and not constructive; but not the less as a check and restraint upon fanciful speculation, and the establishment of unsound hypotheses, it has its _raison d'être_, and contributes, in its way, to the advancement of truth. Nor can the works of Sextus, Pyrrho, Glanvil, Montaigne, Gassendi, or Hume be considered less 'systematic' than those of any dogmatist, merely from their being 'systems of pure negation.'" (P. 533.)

That it is sometimes reasonable and salutary to doubt, as if the reviewer should doubt his extraordinary genius as a philosopher, we readily admit; but what salutary influence has ever been exerted on science or morals by any so-called system of scepticism, which denies the possibility of science, and renders the binding nature of virtue uncertain, we have never yet been able to ascertain. Moreover, a system of pure negation is simply no system at all, for it has no principle and affirms nothing. A sceptical turn of mind is as undesirable as a credulous mind. That the persons named, of whom only one, Pyrrho, professed universal scepticism, and perhaps even he carried his scepticism no farther than to doubt the reality of matter, may have rendered some service to the cause of truth, as the drunken helotae promoted temperance among the Spartan youth, is possible; but they have done it by the truth they asserted, not by the doubt they disseminated. There is, moreover, a great difference between doubting, or suspending our judgment where we are ignorant or where our knowledge is incomplete, and erecting doubt into the principle of a system which assumes all knowledge to be impossible, and that certainty is nowhere attained or attainable. It seems, we confess, a little odd to find a Church Review taking up the defence of scepticism.

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3. We assert in our article that M. Cousin, though he professes to come out of the sphere of psychology, and to rise legitimately to ontology, remains always there; and, in point of fact, the ontology he asserts is only an abstraction or generalization of psychological facts. The reviewer is almost shocked at this, and is "tempted to think that the time" we claim to have spent in studying the works of Cousin with some care "might have been better employed in the acquisition of some useful knowledge more within the reach of our 'understanding.'" It is possible. But what has he to allege against what we asserted, and think we proved? Nothing that we can find except that Cousin professes to attain, and perhaps believes he does attain, to real objective existence, and, scientifically, to real ontology. But, my good friend, that is nothing to the purpose. The question is not as to what Cousin professes to have done, or what he has really attempted to do, but what he has actually done. When we allege that the being, the God asserted by Cousin, is, on his system, his principles, and method, only an abstraction or a generalization; you do not prove us wrong by reiterating his assertion that it is real being, that it is the living God, for it is, though you seem not to be aware of it, that very assertion that is denied. We readily concede that Cousin does not _profess_ to rise to ontology by induction from his psychology, but we maintain that the only ontology he attains to is simply an induction from his psychology, and therefore is, and can be, only an abstraction or a generalization. We must here reproduce a passage from our own article.

"What is certain, and this is all the ontologist need assert, or, in fact, can assert, is, that ontology is neither an induction nor a deduction from psychological data. God is not, and cannot be, the generalization of our own souls. But it does not follow from this that we do not think that which is God, and that it is from thought we do and must take it. We take it from thought and by thinking. What is objected to in the psychologists is the assumption that thought is a purely psychological or subjective fact, and that from this psychological or subjective fact we can, by way of induction, attain to ontological truth. But as we understand M. Cousin, and we studied his works with some care thirty or thirty-five years ago, and had the honor of his private correspondence, this he never pretends to do. What he claims is, that in the analysis of consciousness we detect a class of facts or ideas which are not psychological or subjective, but really ontological, and do actually carry us out of the region of psychology into that of ontology. That his account of these facts or ideas is to be accepted as correct or adequate we do not pretend, but that he _professes_ to recognize them and distinguish them from purely psychological facts is undeniable.

"The defect or error of M. Cousin on this point was in failing, as we have already observed, to identify the absolute or necessary ideas he detects and asserts with God, the only _ens necessarium et reale_, and in failing to assert them in their objectivity to the whole subject, and in presenting them only as objective to the human personality. He never succeeded in cutting himself wholly loose from the German nonsense of a subjective-object or objective-subject, and when he had clearly proved an idea to be objective to the reflective reason and the human personality, he did not dare assert it to be objective in relation to the whole subject. It was impersonal, but might be in a certain sense subjective, as Kant maintained with regard to the categories." (_Catholic World_, PP. 335, 336.)

The reviewer, after snubbing us for our ignorance and ineptness, which are very great, as we are well aware and humbly confess, replies to us in this manner:

"And yet nothing in Cousin is clearer or more positive than that this 'pure and sublime degree of the reason, when will, reflection, and personality are as yet absent'--this 'intuition and spontaneous revelation, which is the primitive mode of reason'--is objective to the whole subject in every _possible_ sense, and is, consequently, conformed to the objective, and a revelation of it.

"Can the critic have read Cousin's Lectures on Kant, 'thirty or thirty-five years ago'? If so, we advise him to refresh his memory by a re-perusal, and perhaps he may withdraw the strange assertion that Cousin held an 'absolute idea to be impersonal, but that it might be in a certain sense subjective, _as Kant maintained with regard to the categories_.' 'The scepticism of Kant,' says Cousin, [Footnote 33] 'rests on his finding the laws of the reason to be subjective, personal to man; but here is a mode of the reason where these same laws are, as it were, deprived of all subjectivity--where the reason shows itself almost entirely impersonal.

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"How the critic would wish this impersonal activity to be objective to the 'whole subject,' and not to the 'personal only,' as if there was any greater degree of objectivity in one case than in the other, it is not easy to see. It looks like a distinction without a difference. The abstract and logical distinction is apparent, but though distinct, the 'whole subject,' and the 'human personality,' cannot be separated, so that what is objective to one, shall not be so to the other also. The 'whole subject' is, simply, the thinking, feeling, willing being, which we are, as distinguished from the world external to us. If an idea, then, is revealed to us by what is completely foreign to us--if an act of the reason is spontaneous and unreflective, +hat is, impersonal--what is there that can be more objective to the subject?

"We have said, that such an act is objective to the subject in every _possible_ sense. For we are not to forget the conditions of the case. 'Does one wish,' says Cousin, 'in order to believe in the objectivity and validity of the reason, that it should cease to make its appearance in a particular subject--in man, for instance? But then, if reason is outside of the subject, that is, of myself, it is nothing to me. For me to have consciousness of it, it must descend into me, it must make itself mine, and become in this sense subjective. A reason which is not mine, which, in itself being entirely universal, does not incarnate itself in some manner in my consciousness, is for me as though it did not exist. [Footnote 34] Consequently, to wish that the reason, in order to be trustworthy, should cease entirely to be subjective, is to demand an impossibility.'" (Pp. 534, 535.)

[Footnote 33: Lecture viii.]

[Footnote 34: Lectures on Kant, viii.]

We have introduced this long extract in order to give our readers a fair specimen of the reviewer's style and capacity as a reasoner. It will be seen that the reviewer alleges, as proof against us, what is in question--the very thing that he is to prove. We have read Cousin's Lectures on Kant, and we know well, and have never thought of denying, that he criticises Kant sharply, says many admirable things against him, and professes to reject his subjectivism; we know, also, that he holds what he calls the impersonal reason to be objective, operating independently of us; all this we know and so stated, we thought, clearly enough, in our article; but we, nevertheless, maintain that he does not make this impersonal reason really objective, but simply independent in its operations of our personality. He holds that reason has two modes of activity--the one personal, the other impersonal; but he recognizes only a distinction of modes, sometimes only a difference of degrees, making, as we have seen, as quoted by the reviewer, the impersonal reason a sublimer "degree" of reason than the personal. He calls the impersonal reason the spontaneous reason, sometimes simply spontaneity. All this is evident enough to any one at all familiar with Cousin's philosophical writings.

But what is this reason which operates in these two modes, impersonal and spontaneous in the one, personal and reflective in the other? As the distinction between the personal and impersonal is, by Cousin's own avowal, a difference simply of modes or degrees, there can be no entitative or substantial difference between them. They are not two different or distinct reasons, but one and the same reason, operating in two different modes or degrees. Now, we demand, what is this one substantive reason operating in these two different degrees or modes? It certainly is not an abstraction, for abstractions are nullities and cannot operate or act at all. What, then, is it? Is it God, or is it man? If you say it is God, then you deny reason to man, make him a brute, unless you identify man with God. {100} If you say it is man, that it is a faculty of the human soul, as Cousin certainly does say--for he makes it our faculty and only faculty of intelligence--then you make it subjective, since nothing is more subjective than one's own faculties. They are the subject itself. Consequently the impersonal reason belongs as truly to man, the subject, as the personal reason, and therefore is not objective, as we said, to the whole subject, but at best only to the will and the personality--what Cousin calls _le moi_. The most distinguished of the disciples of Cousin was Theodore Jouffroy, who, in his confessions, nearly curses Cousin for having seduced him from his Christian faith, whose loss he so bitterly regretted on his dying-bed, and who was, in Cousin's judgment, as expressed in a letter to the writer of this article, "a true philosopher." This true philosopher and favorite disciple of Cousin illustrates the difference between the impersonal reason and the personal by the difference between _seeing_ and _looking_, _hearing_ and _listening_, which corresponds precisely to the difference noted by Leibnitz between what he calls simple _perception_ and _apperception_. In both cases it is the man who sees, hears, or perceives; but in the latter case, the will intervenes and we not only see, but look, not only perceive, but apperceive.

Now, it is very clear, such being the case, that Cousin does not get out of the sphere of the subject any more than does Kant, and all the arguments he adduces against Kant, apply equally against himself; for he recognizes no actor in thought, or what he calls the fact of consciousness, but the subject. The fact which he alleges, that the impersonal reason necessitates the mind, irresistibly controls it, is no more than Kant says of his categories, which he resolutely maintains are forms of the subject. Hence, as Cousin charges Kant very justly with subjectivism and scepticism, we are equally justified in preferring the same charges against himself. This is what we showed in the article the reviewer is criticising, and to this he should have replied, but, unhappily, has not. He only quotes Cousin to the effect that, "to wish the reason, in order to be trustworthy, should cease entirely to be subjective, is to demand an impossibility," which only confirms what we have said.

We pursue in our article the argument still further, and add:

"Reduced to its proper character as asserted by M. Cousin, intuition is empirical, and stands opposed not to reflection, but to discursion, and is simply the immediate and direct perception of the object without the intervention of any process, more or less elaborate, of reasoning. This is, indeed, not an unusual sense of the word, perhaps its more common sense, but it is a sense that renders the distinction between intuition and reflection of no importance to M. Cousin, for it does not carry him out of the sphere of the subject, or afford him any basis for his ontological inductions. He has still the question as to the objectivity and reality of the ideal to solve, and no recognized means of solving it. His ontological conclusions, therefore, as a writer in the _Christian Examiner_ told him as long ago as 1836, rest simply on the credibility of reason or faith in its trustworthiness, which can never be established, because it is assumed that, to the operation of reason, no objective reality is necessary, since the object, if impersonal, may, for aught that appears, be included in the subject." (_Catholic World_, p. 338.)

We quote the reply of the reviewer to this at full length, for no mortal man can abridge or condense it without losing its essence.

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"If a man speaks thus, after a careful study of Cousin, it is almost useless to argue with him. He either has not understood the philosopher, or his scepticism is hopelessly obstinate. Intuition, as asserted by Cousin, is not reduced to its proper character, but simply misrepresented, when it is called empirical; for it is the primitive mode of reason, and prior to all experience. It is a revelation of the objective to the subject, and to be a revelation must, of course, come into the consciousness of the subject. Cousin has carefully and repeatedly established the true character of intuition as a disclosure to the understanding in the reason, and free from any touch of subjectivity. _Of course, his ontological conclusions rest on a belief in the credibility of reason, and, of course, this credibility can never be established in a logical way, although, metaphysically, it is abundantly established_. One may 'assume,' to the end of time, that 'to the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary, since the object may, for aught that appears, be included in the subject,' but the universal and invincible opinion of the human race has been, and will be, to the contrary of such an assumption.

"As firmly as Reid and Hamilton have established the doctrine of sensible perception, and the objective existence of the material world, has Cousin that of the objective existence of the absolute, and, on the very same ground, the veracity of consciousness. And the mass of mankind have lived in happy ignorance of any necessity for such arguments. When they sowed and reaped, and bought and sold, they never questioned the real existence of the objects they dealt with; _nor did they, when the idea of duty or obligation made itself felt in their souls, dream that, 'for such an operation of reason, no objective reality was necessary_.'

"Men have an unquestioning but unconquerable belief, that the very idea of obligation implies _something outside of them_, that obliges. Something other than itself it must be, that commands the soul. Right is a reality, and duty a fact. The philosophy, that does not come round to an enlightened and intelligent holding of the unreflecting belief of mankind, but separates itself from it, is worse than useless. In such wisdom it is indeed 'folly to be wise.' And this philosophic folly comes from insisting on a logical demonstration of what is logically undemonstrable--of what is superior, because anterior to reasoning. We cannot _prove_ to the understanding truths which are the very basis and groundwork of that understanding itself." (Pp. 536, 537.)

This speaks for itself, and concedes, virtually, all we alleged against Cousin's system; at least it convicts us of no misapprehension or misrepresentation of that system; and the reviewer's sneer at our ignorance and incapacity, however much they may enliven his style and strengthen his argument, do not seem to have been specially called for. Yet we think both he and M. Cousin are mistaken when they assume that to demand any other basis for science than the credibility or faith in the trustworthiness of reason, is to demand an impossibility, for a science founded on faith is simply no science at all. There is science only where the mind grasps, and appropriates, not its own faculties only, but the object itself. The reason, personal or impersonal, is the faculty by which we grasp it, or the light by which we behold it; not the object in which the mental action terminates, but the medium by which we attain to the object. If it were otherwise, there might be faith, but not science, and though reason might search for the object, yet it would always be pertinent to ask, Who or what vouches for reason? Descartes answered, The veracity of God, which, in one sense, is true, but not in the sense alleged; for on the Cartesian theory we might ask, what vouches for the veracity of God? The only possible answer would be, it is reason, and we should simply traverse a circle without making the slightest advance.

The difficulty arises from adopting the psychological method of philosophizing, or assuming, as Descartes does in his famous _cogito, ergo sum_, I think, therefore, I exist, that man can think in and of himself, or without the presence and active concurrence of that which is not himself, and which we call the object. Intuition, on Cousin's theory, is the spontaneous operation of reason as opposed to discursion, which is its reflex or reflective operation, but supposes that reason suffices for its own operation. {102} In his course of philosophy professed at the Faculty of Letters in 1818, he says, in the consciousness, that is, in thought, there are two elements, the subject and object; or, in his barbarous dialect, _le moi et le non-moi_; but he is careful to assert the subject as active and the object as passive. Now, a passive object is as if it were not, and can concur in nothing with the activity of the subject. Then, as all the activity is on the side of the subject, the subject must be able to think in and of itself alone. The fact that I think an existence other than myself, on this theory, is no proof that there is really any other existence than myself till my thought is validated, and I have nothing but thought with which to validate thought.

The _cogito, ergo sum_ is, of course, worthless as an argument, as has often been shown; but there is in it an assumption not generally noted; namely, that man suffices for his own thought, and, therefore, that man is God. God alone suffices, or can suffice, for his own thought, and needs nothing but himself for his thought or his science. He knows himself in himself, and is in himself the infinite Intelligibile, and the infinite Intelligens. He knows in himself all his works, from beginning to end, for he has made them, and all events, for he has decreed them. There is for him no medium of science distinguishable from himself; for he is, as the theologians say, the adequate object of his own intelligence. But man being a creature, and therefore dependent for his existence, his life, and all his operations, interior and exterior, on the support and active concurrence of that which is not himself, does not and cannot suffice for his thought, and he does not and cannot think in and of himself alone, in any manner, mode, form, or degree, or without the active presence and concurrence of the object, as Pierre Leroux has well shown in his otherwise very objectionable _Réfutation de l'Eclecticisme._ The object being independent of the subject, and not supplied by the subject, must exist _a parte rei_, since, if it did not, it could not actually concur with the subject in the production of thought. There can arise, therefore, to the true philosopher, no question as to the credibility or trustworthiness of reason, the validity or invalidity of thought. The only question for him is, Do we think? What do we think? He who thinks, knows that he thinks, and what he thinks, for thought is science, and who knows, knows that he knows, and what he knows.

The difficulty which Cousin and the reviewer encounter arises from thus placing the question of method before the question of principles, as we showed in our former article. No such difficulty can arise in the path of him who has settled the question of principles--which are given, not found, or obtained by the action of the subject without them--and follows the method they prescribe. The error, we repeat, arises from the psychological method, which supposes all the activity in thought is in the subject, and supposes reason to be operative in and of itself, or without any objective reality, which reality, on Cousin's system, or by the psychological method, can never be established.

The reviewer concedes that objective reality cannot be established _in a logical way_, but maintains that there is no need of so establishing it; for "men have an unquestioning, an unconquerable _belief_ that the very idea of obligation implies something outside of them." Nobody denies the belief, but its validity is precisely the matter in question. {103} How do you prove the validity of the idea of obligation? But the reviewer forgets that Cousin makes it the precise end of philosophy to legitimate this belief, and all the universal beliefs of mankind, and convert them from beliefs into science. How can philosophy do this, if obliged to support itself on these very beliefs?

The reviewer follows the last passage with a bit of philosophy of his own; but, as it has no relevancy to the matter in hand, and is, withal, a little too transcendental for our taste, he must excuse us for declining to discuss it. We cannot accept it, for we cannot accept what we do not understand, and it professes to be above all understanding. In fact, the reviewer seems to have a very low opinion of understanding, and no little contempt for logic. He reminds us of a friend we once had, who said to us, one day, that if he trusted his understanding and followed his logic he should go to Rome; but, as neither logic nor understanding is trustworthy or of any account, he should join the Anglican Church, which he incontinently did, and since, we doubt not, found himself at home. Can it be that he is the writer of the article criticising us?

The reviewer, in favoring us with this bit of philosophy of his own, tells us, in support of it, that Sir William Hamilton says, "All thinking is negation." So much the worse, then, for Sir William Hamilton. All thinking is affirmative, and pure negation can neither think nor be thought. Every thought is a judgment, and affirms both the subject thinking and the object thought, and their relation to each other. This, at least sometimes, is the doctrine of Cousin, as any one may ascertain by reading his essays, _Du Fait de Conscience_ and _Du Premier et du dernier Fait de Conscience_. [Footnote 35] Though even in these essays the doctrine is mixed up with much that is objectionable, and which leads one, after all, to doubt if the philosopher ever clearly perceived the fact, or the bearing of the fact, he asserted. Cousin often sails along near the coast of truth, sometimes almost rubs his bark against it, without perceiving it. But we hasten on.

[Footnote 35: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t. i. pp. 248, 256.]

4. We are accused of misstating Cousin's doctrine of substance and cause. Here is our statement and the reviewer's charge:

"'M. Cousin,' continues _The Catholic World_, 'professes to have reduced the categories of Kant and Aristotle to two--substance and cause; but as he in fact identifies cause with substance, declaring substance to be substance _only in so much_ [the italics are ours] as it is cause, and cause to be cause _only in so much_ as it is substance, he really reduces them to the single category of substance, which you may call, indifferently, substance or cause. But, though every substance is intrinsically and essentially a cause, yet, as it _may be something more_ than a cause, it is not necessary to insist on this, and it may be admitted that he recognized two categories.'

"What is exactly meant by these two contradictory statements it is not easy to guess; but let Cousin speak for himself: [Footnote 36]

[Footnote 36: VI. Lecture, Course of 1818, on the Absolute.]

"'Previous to Leibnitz, these two ideas seemed separated in modern philosophy by an impassable barrier. He, the first to sound the nature of the idea of substance, brought it back to the notion of force. This was the foundation of all his philosophy, and of what afterward became the Monadology. ... But has Leibnitz, in identifying the notion of substance with that of cause, presented it with justness? Certainly, substance is revealed to us by cause; for, suppress all exercise of the cause and force which is in ourselves, and we do not exist to ourselves. It is, then, the idea of cause which introduces into the mind the idea of substance. But is substance nothing more than cause which manifests it? .... The causative power is the essential attribute of substance; it is not substance itself. In a word, it has seemed to us surer to hold to these two primitive notions; distinct, though inseparably united; one, which is the sign and manifestation of the other, this, which is the root and foundation of that.'

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"One would think this sufficiently explicit for all who are not afflicted with the blindness that will not see." (P. 539.)

We see no self-contradiction in our statement, and no contradiction of M. Cousin. We maintain that M. Cousin really, though probably not intentionally or consciously, reduces the categories of Kant and Aristotle to the single category of substance, and prove it by the words italicized by the reviewer, which are our translation of Cousin's own words. Cousin says, in his own language, in a well-known passage in the first preface of his _Fragments Philosophiques_, "Le Dieu de la conscience n'est pas un Dieu abstrait, un roi solitaire, rélegué pardelà la création sur le trône desert d'une éternité silencieuse, et d'une existence absolue qui ressemble au néant même de l'existence: c'est un Dieu à la fois vrai et réel, à la fois substance et cause, toujours substance et toujours cause, _n'étant substance qu'en tant que cause, et cause qu'en tant que substance_, c'est-à-dire, étant cause absolue, un et plusieurs, éternité et temps, espace et nombre, essence et vie, indivisibilité et totalité, principe, fin, et milieu, au sommet de l'être et à son plus humble degré, infini et fini, tout ensemble, triple enfin, c'est-à-dire, à la fois Dieu, nature, et humanité. En effet, _si Dieu n'est pas tout il n'est rien._" [Footnote 37] This passage justifies our first statement, because Cousin calls God substance, the one, absolute substance, besides which there is no substance. But as our purpose, at the moment, was not so much to show that Cousin made substance and cause identical, as it was to show that he made substance a necessary cause, we allowed, for reasons which he himself gives in the passage cited by the reviewer from his course of 1818 on the Absolute, that he might be said to distinguish them, and to have reduced the categories to two, instead of one only, as he professes to have done. But the reviewer hardly needs to be told that, when it is assumed that substance is cause only on condition of causing, that is, causing from the necessity of its own being, the effect is not substantially distinguishable from the substance causing, and is only a mode or affection of the causative substance itself, or, at best, a phenomenon.

[Footnote 37: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t. i. p. 76.]

5. Accepting substance and cause as two categories, we contend that Cousin requires a third; namely, the creative act of the causative substance, and contingent existences, as asserted in the ideal formula. _Ens creat existentias_. To this the reviewer cites, from Cousin, the following passage in reply:

"In the fifth lecture of the course of 1828, M. Cousin says:

"'The two terms of this so comprehensive formula do not constitute a dualism, in which the first term is on one side and the second on the other, without any other connection between them than that of being perceived at the same time by the intelligence; so far from this, the tie which binds them is essential. It is a connection of _generation_ which draws the second from the first, and constantly carries it back to it, and which, with the two terms, constitutes the _three_ integrant elements of intelligence. ... Withdraw this relation which binds variety to unity, and you destroy the necessary bond of the two terms of every proposition. These three terms, distinct, but inseparable, constitute at once a triplicity and an indivisible unity. ... Carried into Theodicy, the theory I have explained to you is nothing less than the very foundation of Christianity. The Christians' God is at once triple and one, and the animadversions which rise against the doctrine I teach ought to ascend to the Christian Trinity.'" (P. 540.)

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We said in our article, "Under the head of substances he (Cousin) ranges all that is substantial or that pertains to real and necessary being, and under the head of cause the phenomenal or the effects of the causative action of substance. He says he understands, by substance, the universal and absolute substance, the real and necessary being of the theologians; and by phenomena, not mere modes or appearances of substance, but finite and relative substances, and calls them phenomena only in opposition to the one absolute substance. They are created or produced by the causative action of substance. [Footnote 38] If this has any real meaning, he should recognize three categories as in the ideal formula, _Ens creat existentias_, that is, Being, existences, or creatures, and the creative act of being, the real nexus between substance or being and contingent existences, for it is that which places them and binds them to the Creator."

[Footnote 38: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. xix. xx.]

The passage cited by the reviewer from Cousin is brought forward, we suppose, to show that it does recognize this third category; but if so, what becomes of the formal statement that he has reduced the categories to _two_, substance and cause, or, as he sometimes says, substance or being and phenomenon? Besides, the passage cited does not recognize the third term or category of the formula. It asserts not the _creative_ act of being as the _nexus_ between substance and phenomenon, the infinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative, etc.; but _generation_, which is a very different thing, for the generated is consubstantial with the generator.

6. We were arguing against Cousin's doctrine, that God, being intrinsically active, or, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say, _actus purissimus_, most pure act, must therefore necessarily create or produce exteriorly. In prosecuting the argument, we anticipated an objection which, perhaps, some might be disposed to bring from Leibnitz's definition of substance, as a _vis activa_, and endeavored to show that, even accepting that definition, it would make nothing in favor of the doctrine we were refuting, and which Cousin undeniably maintains. We say, "The doctrine that substance is essentially cause, and must, from intrinsic necessity, cause in the sense of creating, is not tenable. We are aware that Leibnitz, a great name in philosophy, defines substance to be an active force, a _vis activa_, but we do not recollect that he anywhere pretends that its activity necessarily extends beyond itself. God is _vis activa_, if you will, in a supereminent degree; he is essentially active, and would be neither being nor substance if he were not; he is, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say, most pure act; ... but nothing in this implies that he must necessarily act _ad extra_, or create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his own divine nature, but not necessarily out of the circle of his infinite being, for he is complete in himself, is in himself the plenitude of being, and always and everywhere suffices for himself, and therefore for his own activity. Creation, or the production of effects exterior to himself, is not necessary to the perfection of his activity, adds nothing to him, as it can take nothing from him. Hence, though we cannot conceive of him without conceiving him as infinitely, eternally, and essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute substance or being, without conceiving him to be necessarily acting or creating _ad extra_."

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The reviewer says, sneeringly, "This is the most remarkable passage in this remarkable article." He comments on it in this manner:

"Thus appearing to accept the now exploded Leibnitzian theory, which Cousin has combated both in its original form, and as maintained by De Biran, our critic tries to escape from it by this subtle distinction between the southern and south-eastern sides of the hair. He enlarges upon it. God, according to him, is indeed _vis activa_ in the most eminent degree, but this does not imply that he must act _ad extra_, or create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his nature, but not necessarily out of the circle of his own infinite being. Hence, though we cannot conceive of him but as infinitely and essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute substance without conceiving him to be necessarily creating, or acting _ad extra_. M. Cousin, he says, evidently confounds the interior acts of the divine being with his exterior or creative acts.

"We have no wish to deny that he does make such a confusion. To one who holds that 'to the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary, and that such reality can never be established,' this kind of subjective activity of the will, which seems so nearly to resemble passivity--these pure acts, or volitions, which never pass out of the sphere of the will into causation--may be satisfactory; but to one who believes that God is not a scholastic abstraction--to one who worships the 'living God' of the Scriptures--it will sound like a pitiful jugglery with words thinly veiling a lamentable confusion of ideas. God is a person, and he acts as a person. The divine will is no otherwise conceivable by us than as of the same nature as man's will; it differs from it only in the mode of its operation--for with him this is always immediate, and no deliberation or choice is possible--and it is as absurd to speak of the activity of his will, the eminently active force, never extending 'out of the circle of his own infinite being,' as it would be to call a man eminently an active person whose activity was all merely purpose or volition, never passing into the creative act _ad extra_, or out of the circle of his own finite being.

"If St. Anselm is right, that, to be _in re_ is greater than to be _in intellectu_, then has the creature man, according to the critic, a higher faculty than his Creator _essentially and necessarily_ has. For his will is by nature causative, creative, productive _ad extra_, and it is nothing unless its activity be called forth into act external to his personality, while the pure acts of the divine will may remain for ever enclosed in the circle of the divine consciousness without realizing themselves _ad extra_!" (Pp. 540, 541.)

We do not like to tell a man to his face, especially when he assumes the lofty airs and makes the large pretensions of our reviewer, that he does not know what he is talking about, or understand the ordinary terms and distinctions of the science he professes to have mastered, for that, in our judgment, would be uncivil; but what better is to be said of the philosopher who sees nothing more in the distinction between the divine act _ad intra_, whence the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost, and the divine act _ad extra_, whence man and nature, the universe, and all things visible and invisible, distinguishable from the one necessary, universal, immutable, and eternal being, than in "the distinction between the southern and south-eastern sides of the hair"? The Episcopalian journals were right in calling the _Church Review's_ criticism on us "racy," "rasping," "scathing;" it is certainly astounding, such as no mortal man could foresee, or be prepared to answer to the satisfaction of its author.

In the passage reproduced from ourselves we neither accept nor reject the definition of substance given by Leibnitz, nor do we say that Cousin accepts it, although he certainly favors it in his introduction to the _Posthumous Works of Maine de Biran_, and adduces the fact of his having adopted it in his defence against the charge of pantheism, [Footnote 39] but simply argue that, if any one should adopt it and urge it as an argument for Cousin, it would be of no avail, because Leibnitz does not pretend that substance is or must be active outside of itself, or out of its own interior, that is, must be creative of exterior effects. This is our argument, and it must go for what it is worth.

[Footnote 39: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. p. xxi.]

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We admit that in some sense God may be a _vis activa_, but we show almost immediately that it is in the sense that he is most pure act, that is, in the sense opposed to the _potentia nuda_ of the schoolmen, and means that God is _in actu_ most perfect being, and that nothing in his being is potential, in need of being filled up or actualized. When we speak of his activity, within the circle of his own being, we refer to the fact that he is living God, therefore, Triune, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As all life is active, not passive, we mean to imply that his life is in himself, and that he can and does eternally and necessarily live, and in the very fulness of life in himself; and therefore nothing is wanting to his infinite and perfect activity and beatitude in himself, or without anything but himself. This is so because he is Trinity, three equal persons in one essence, and therefore he has no need of anything but himself; nothing in his being or nature necessitates him to act _ad extra_, that is, create existences distinct from himself. Does the reviewer understand us now? He is an Episcopalian, and believes, or professes to believe, in the Trinity, and, therefore, in the eternal generation of the Son, and the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. Do not this generation and this procession imply action? Action assuredly and necessarily, and eternal action too, because they are necessary in the very essence or being of God, and he could not be otherwise than three persons in one God, if, _per impossibile_, he would. The unity of essence and trinity of persons do not depend on the divine will, but on the divine nature. Well, is this eternal action of generation and procession _ad intra_, or _ad extra?_ Is the distinction of three persons a distinction _from_ God, or a distinction _in_ God? Are we here making a distinction as frivolous as that "between the southern and south-eastern sides of a hair"? Do you not know the importance of the distinction? Think a moment, my good friend. If you say the distinction is a distinction _from_ God, you deny the divine unity--assert three Gods; if you say it is a distinction in God, you simply assert one God in three persons, or three persons in one God, or one divine essence. If you deny both, your God is a dead unity in himself, not a living God.

The action of God _ad intra_ is necessary, proceeds from the fulness of the divine nature, and the result is the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost. Now, can you understand what would be the consequence, if we made the action of God _ad extra_, or creation, proceed from the necessity of the divine nature? The first consequence would be that creation is God, for what proceeds from God by the necessity of his own nature is God, as the Arian controversy long ago taught the world. The second consequence would be that God is incomplete in himself, and has need to operate without, in order to complete himself, which really denies God, and therefore creation, everything, which is really the doctrine of Cousin, namely, God completes himself in his works. Can you understand now, dear reviewer, why we so strenuously deny that God creates or produces existences distinguishable from himself, through necessity? Cousin says that God creates from the intrinsic necessity of his own nature, that creation is necessary. You say he has retracted the expression. Be it so. {108} But, with all deference, we assert that he has not retracted or explained away his doctrine, for it runs through his whole system; and as he nowhere makes the distinction between action _ad intra_ and action _ad extra_, his very assertion that God is substance only in that he is cause, and cause only in that he is substance, implies the doctrine that God, if substance at all, cannot but create, or manifest himself without, or develop externally. What say we? Even the reviewer sneers at the distinction we have made, and at the efforts of theologians to save the freedom of God in creating. Thus, in the paragraph immediately succeeding our last extract, he says, "But all this quibbling comes from an ignorant terror, lest God's free-will should be attacked." The reviewer, on the page following, admits all we asserted, and falls himself, blindfold, as it were, into the very error he contends we falsely charge to the account of Cousin. "The necessity he (Cousin) speaks of is a metaphysical necessity, which no more destroys the free-will of God, than the metaphysical necessity of doing right, that is, obligation, destroys man's free-will." [Footnote 40] (P. 542.)

[Footnote 40: The reviewer, misled by the evasive answer of Cousin, supposes the objection urged against his doctrine, that creation is necessary, is, that it destroys the free-will of God; but that, though a grave objection, is not the one we insisted on; the real objection is, that if God is assumed to create from the necessity of his own nature, he is assumed not to create at all, for what is called his creation can be only an evolution or development of himself, and consequently producing nothing distinguishable in substance from himself, which is pure pantheism. Of course, all pantheism implies fatalism, for if we deny free-will in the cause, we must deny it in the effect; but it is not to escape fatalism, but pantheism that Cousin's doctrine of necessary Creation is denied, as we pointed out in our former article.]

_Metaphysical_ necessity, according to the reviewer, p. 537, means real necessity, since he says, "Metaphysics is the science of the real," and therefore God is under a real necessity of creating. Yet it is to misrepresent Cousin to say that, according to him, creation is necessary! But assume that, by _metaphysical_, the reviewer means _moral_; then God is under a moral necessity, that is, morally bound to create, and consequently would sin if he did not. But we have more yet, in the same paragraph: "A power essentially creative _cannot but create._" Agreed. But to assert that God is essentially creative, is to assert that he is necessary creator, and that creation is necessary, for God cannot change his essence or belie it in his act. But this assertion of God as essentially creative, is precisely what we objected to in Cousin, and therefore, while asserting that God is infinitely and essentially _active_ in his own being, we denied that he is essentially _creative_. He is free in his own nature to create or not, as he pleases. The reviewer does not seem to make much progress in defending Cousin against our criticisms.

7. That Cousin was knowingly and intentionally a pantheist, we have never pretended, but have given it as our belief that he was not. We do not think that he ever comprehended the essential principle of pantheism, or foresaw all the logical consequences of the principles he himself adopted and defended. But his doctrine, notwithstanding all his protests to the contrary, is undeniably pantheism, if any doctrine ever deserved to be called by that name. It is found not here and there in an incidental phrase, but is integral; enters into the very substance and marrow of his thought, and pervades all his writings. We felt it when we attempted to follow him as our master, and had the greatest difficulty in the world to give him a non-pantheistic sense, and never succeeded to our own satisfaction in doing it.

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Cousin's pantheism follows necessarily from two doctrines that he, from first to last, maintains. First, there is only one substance. Second, Creation is necessary. He says in the _Avertissement_ to the third edition of his _Philosophical Fragments_ that he only in rare passages speaks of substance as one, and one only, and when he does so, he uses the word, not in its ordinary sense, but in the sense of Plato, of the most illustrious doctors of the church, and of the Holy Scripture in that sublime word, I AM that I AM; that is, in the sense of eternal, necessary, and self-existent Being. But this is not the case. The passages in which he asserts there is and can be only one substance, are not rare, but frequent, and to understand it in any of these passages in any but its ordinary sense, would make him write nonsense. He repeats a hundred times that there is, and can be, only one substance, and says, expressly, that substance is one or there is no substance, and that relative substances contradict and destroy the very idea of substance. He is talking, he says in his defence, of absolute substance. Be it so; interpret him accordingly. "Besides the one only absolute substance, there is and can be no substance, that is, no other one only absolute substance." Think you M. Cousin writes in that fashion? But we fully discussed this matter in our former article, and as the reviewer discreetly refrains from even attempting to show that we unjustly accused him of maintaining that there is and can be but one substance, we need not attempt any additional proof. The second doctrine, that creation is necessary, the reviewer concedes and asserts, "In Cousin, as we have attempted to explain, creation is not only possible, but NECESSARY," repeating Cousin's own words.

"As to Cousin's pantheism, if any one is disposed to believe that the systems of Spinoza and of Cousin have anything in common, we can only recommend to him a diligent study of both writers, freedom from prejudice, and a distrust of his own hastily formed opinions. It is too large a question to enter upon here, but we would like to ask the critic how he reconciles the two philosophers on the great question he last considered--the creation. In Spinoza, there is no creation. The universe is only the various modes and attributes of substance, subsisting with it from eternity in a necessary relation. In Cousin, creation, as we have attempted to explain, is 'not only possible but necessary.' The relation between the universe and the supreme Substance is not a necessary relation of substance and attribute, but a contingent relation of cause and effect, produced by a creative fiat." (P. 545.)

A necessitated creation is no proper creation at all. And Cousin denies that God does or can create from nothing; says God creates out of his own fulness, that the stuff of creation is his own substance, and time and again resolves what he calls creation into evolution or development, and makes the relation between the infinite and the finite, as we have seen, not that of _creation_, but that of _generation_, which is only development or explication. He also denies that individuals are substances, and says they have their substance in the one absolute substance. Let the reviewer read the preface to the first edition of the _Fragments_, reproduced without change in subsequent editions, and he will find enough more passages to the same effect, two at least in which he asserts that finite substances, not being able to exist in themselves without something beyond themselves, are very much like phenomena; and his very pretension is, that he has reduced the categories of Kant and Aristotle to two, substance or being, and phenomenon.

Now, the essential principle of pantheism is the assertion of one only substance and the denial of all finite substances. {110} It is not necessary, in order to be a pantheist, to maintain that the apparent universe is an eternal mode or attribute of the one only substance, as Spinoza does; for pantheism may even assert the creation of modes and phenomena, which are perishable; its essence is in the assertion of one only substance, which is the ground or reality of all things, as Cousin maintains, and in denying the creation of finite substances, that can act or operate as second causes. Cousin, in his doctrine, does not escape pantheism, and we repeat, that he is as decided a pantheist as was Spinoza, though not precisely of the same school.

The reviewer says, p. 544, "We proceed to another specimen of the critic's accuracy; 'M. Cousin says pantheism is the divinization of nature, taken in its totality as God, But this is sheer atheism.'" Are we wrong? Here is what Cousin says in his own language: "Le panthéism est _proprement_ la divinisation du tout, le grand tout donné comme Dieu, l'universe Dieu de la plupart de mes adversaires, de Saint-Simon, par example. C'est au fond un veritable athéisme." [Footnote 41] If he elsewhere gives a different definition, that is the reviewer's affair, not ours. We never pretended that Cousin never contradicts himself, or undertook to reconcile him with himself; but the reviewer should not be over-hasty in charging inaccuracy, misrepresentation, or ignorance where none is evident. He may be caught himself. The reviewer stares at us for saying Cousin's "exposition of the Alexandrian philosophy is a marvel of misapprehension." Can the reviewer say it is not? Has he studied that philosophy? We repeat, it is a marvel of misapprehension, both of Christian theology and of that philosophy itself. The Neoplatonists were pantheists and emanationists, and Cousin says the creation they asserted was a creation proper. Let that suffice to save us from the scathing lash of the reviewer.

[Footnote 41: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. 18, 19.]

8. We said, in our article, "It was a great misfortune for M. Cousin that what little he knew of Catholic theology, caught up, apparently, at second hand, served only to mislead him. The great controversies on Catholic dogmas have enlightened the darkest passages of psychology and ontology, and placed the Catholic theologian on a vantage-ground of which they who know it not are incapable of conceiving. Before him your Descartes, Spinozas, Kants, Fichtes, Hegels, and Cousins dwindle into pigmies." The reviewer replies to this:

"This is something new indeed, and we think the great Gallican churchmen of the seventeenth century, whom Cousin understood so intimately, and for whom he had so sincere an admiration, would be the last to claim an exclusive vantage-ground from their knowledge of the controversies on Catholic dogma. For these men, alike of the Oratory and of Port Royal, were Cartesians, and their faith was interwoven with their philosophy; it was not in opposition to it. And they knew that that philosophy was based upon a thorough understanding of the great 'controversies on Catholic dogma,' which had been carried on in the schools by laymen as well as by ecclesiastics.

"But who is the Romish theologian the critic refers to, and how is it he makes so little use of his 'vantage-ground'? Since Descartes brought modern philosophy into being by its final secularization, we do not recollect any theologian so eminent that all the great men he has named dwindle into pigmies before him. Unless, indeed, this should take place from their being so far out of the worthy man's sight and comprehension, as to be 'dwarfed by the distance,' as Coleridge says." (Pp. 546, 547.)

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We referred to no _Romish_ theologian in particular; but if the reviewer wants names, we give him the names of St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Anselm, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas of Aquino, Fonseca, Suarez, Malebranche, even Cardinal Gerdll, and Gioberti, the last, in fact, a contemporary of Cousin, whose _Considerazioni sopra le dottrine del Cousin_ prove his immense superiority over him, and of the others named with him. Cousin may have admired the great Gallican churchmen of the seventeenth century, but intimately understand them as theologians, he did not, if we may judge from his writings; moreover, all the great churchmen of that century were not Frenchmen. As great, if not greater, were found among Italians, Spaniards, Poles, and Germans, though less known to the Protestant world. Has the reviewer forgotten, or has he never known, the great men that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries flourished in the great religious orders, the Dominicans, Franciscans, the Augustinians, and especially the Jesuits--men whose learning, genius, and ability were surpassed only by their humility and sanctity?

But we spoke not of Cousin's little knowledge of churchmen, but of his little knowledge of Catholic theology. The reviewer here, probably, is not a competent judge, not being himself a Catholic theologian, and being comparatively a stranger to Catholic theology; but we will accept even his judgment in the case. Cousin denies that there is anything in his philosophy not in consonance with Christianity and the church; he denies that his philosophy impugns the dogma of the Word or the Trinity, and challenges proof to the contrary. Yet what does the reviewer think of Cousin's resolution of the Trinity, as cited some pages back, in his own language, into God, nature, and humanity? He says God is triple. _"Cest-à-dire, à la fois Dieu, nature, et humanité."_ Is that in consonance with Catholic theology?

Then, of the Word, after having proved in his way that the ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good are necessary and absolute ideas, and identified them with the impersonal reason, and the impersonal reason with the Logos, he asks what then? Are they God? No, gentlemen, they are not God, he answers, but the Word of God, thus plainly denying the Word of God to be God. Does that prove he knew intimately Catholic theology? What says the reviewer of Cousin's doctrine of inspiration and revelation? That doctrine is, that inspiration and revelation are the spontaneous operations of the impersonal reason as distinguished from the reflective operations of the personal reason, which is pure rationalism. Is that Catholic theology, or does it indicate much knowledge of Catholic theology, to say it is in consonance with that theology?

In his criticism on the Alexandrians or Neoplatonists, he blames them for representing the multiple, the finite, what they call creation, as a fall, and for not placing them on the same line with unity, the infinite, or God considered in himself. Is that in accordance with Catholicity, or is it a proof of his knowledge of Catholic theology to assert that it is, and to challenge the world to prove the contrary? But enough. No Catholic theologian, not dazzled by Cousin's style, or carried away by his glowing eloquence and brilliant generalizations, can read his philosophical works without feeling that he was no Christian believer, and that he neither knew nor respected Catholic faith or theology. In his own mind he reduced Catholic faith to the primitive beliefs of the race, inspired by the impersonal reason, and as he never contradicted these as he understood them, he persuaded himself that his philosophy did not impugn Christianity and the church.

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9. The reviewer says:

"One more extract, by way of capping the climax. Seemingly ignorant of Cousin's criticism upon De Bonald's now exploded theory of language, and his exposition of De Biran's, the critic thinks, 'He would have done well to have studied more carefully the remarkable work of De Bonald; had he done so, he might have seen that the reflective reason cannot operate without language.' Has this man not read what Cousin has written, on the origin, purpose, uses, and effects of language, that he represents him as believing that the reflective reason can operate without language, without signs!" (P. 547.)

If M. Cousin maintains that the reflective reason cannot operate without language, as in some sense he does, it is in a sense different from that in which we implied he had need to learn that fact. We were objecting to the spiritualism--we should say intellectism, or noeticism--which he professed, that it assumed that we can have pure intellections. Cousin's doctrine is that, though we apprehend the intelligible only on the occasion of some sensible affection, yet we do apprehend it without a sensible medium. This doctrine we denied, and maintained, in opposition, that, being the union of soul and body, man has, and can have in this life, no pure intellections, and that we apprehend the intelligible, as distinguished from the sensible, only through the medium of the sensible or of a sensible representation, as taught by Aristotle and St. Thomas. The sensists teach that we can apprehend only the sensible, and that our science is limited to our sensations and inductions therefrom; the pure transcendentalists, or pure spiritualists, assert that we can and do apprehend immediately the noetic, or, as they say, the spiritual; the peripatetics hold that we apprehend it, but only through the medium of sensible representation; Cousin, in his eclecticism, makes the sensation the occasion of the apprehension of the intelligible, but not its medium. On his theory the sensible is no more a medium of noetic apprehension than on that of the transcendentalists; for the occasion of doing a thing is very different from the medium of doing it.

Now, language is for us the sign or sensible representation of the intelligible, and, as every thought includes the apprehension of the intelligible, therefore to every thought language, of some sort, is essential. The reviewer stumbles, and supposes that we are accusing Cousin of being ignorant of what he is not ignorant, because he supposes that we mean by reflective reason the discursive as distinguished from the intuitive faculty of the soul, which, if he had comprehended at all our philosophy, he would have seen is not the case. Intuition with us is ideal, not empirical. It is not our act, whether spontaneous or reflective, but a divine judgment affirmed by the Creator to us, and constituting us capable of intelligence, of reason, and reasoning. Reflective reason is our reason, and the reflex of the divine judgment, or the divine reason, directly and immediately affirmed to us by the Creator in the very act of creating us. Not only discursion, then, but what both Cousin and the reviewer call intuition, or immediate apprehension, is an operation of the reflective reason. Hence, to the operation of reason in the simple, direct apprehension of the _intelligible_, as well as in discursion or reasoning, language of some sort, as a sensible medium, is necessary and indispensable. When the reviewer will prove to us that Cousin held, or in any sense admitted this, he will tell us something of Cousin that we did not know before, and we will then give him leave to abuse us to his heart's content.

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But we have already dwelt too long on this attempt at criticism on us in the _Church Review_--a _Review_ from which, considering the general character of Episcopalians, we expected, if not much profound philosophy or any very rigid logic, at least the courtesy and fairness of the well-bred gentleman, such as we might expect from a cultivated and polished pagan. We regret to say that we have been disappointed. It sets out with a promise to discuss the character of Dr. Brownson as a philosopher, and confines itself to a criticism on an article in our magazine without the slightest allusion to a single one of that gentleman's avowed writings. Even supposing, which the _Review_ has no authority for supposing, that Dr. Brownson wrote the article on Cousin, that article was entitled to be treated gravely and respectfully; for no man in this country can speak with more authority on Cousin's philosophy, for no one in this country has had more intimate relations with the author, or was accounted by him a more trust worthy expositor of his system.

As to the reviewer's own philosophical speculations, which he now and then obtrudes, we have, for the most part, passed them over in silence, for they have not seemed to us to have the stuff to bear refuting. The writer evidently has no occasion to pride himself on his aptitude for philosophical studies, and is very far from understanding either the merits or defects of such a man as Victor Cousin, in every respect so immeasurably above him. We regret that he should have undertaken the defence of the great French philosopher, for he had little qualification for the task. He has provoked us to render more glaring the objectionable features of Cousin's philosophy than we wished. If he sends us a rejoinder, we shall be obliged to render them still more glaring, and to sustain our statements by citation of passages from his works, book and page marked, so express, so explicit, and so numerous, as to render it impossible for the most sceptical to doubt the justice of our criticism.

The Tears Of Jesus.

"And Martha said: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ... Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again. ... And Mary saith to him: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ... And Jesus wept."

DISCIPLE.

"Kind Lord, Dost Martha's love prefer? Cheer Mary's heavy heart likewise, And say to her, Thy brother once again shall rise.

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"Why fall those voiceless tears In sad reply To her, as if thine ears Heard not her cry?

"What opens sorrow's deep abyss At Mary's word? When Martha spoke, no grief like this Thy spirit stirred."

MASTER.

"My child, Remember what I said to her-- The elder of the twain, When she, the busy minister, Of Mary did complain.

"Know, they who choose the better part And love but me alone. Ask only that my loving heart Shall make their griefs mine own.

"To Martha is the promise given That Lazarus shall rise from sleep; But Mary is the bride of heaven-- With her shall not the bridegroom weep?"

DISCIPLE.

"Kind Lord, When breaks my heart in agony, Dost ever shed a tear with _me_?"

MASTER.

"My Child, Wilt all things else for me resign? Wilt others' love for mine forego Wilt find thy joy alone in me? Then will I count thy griefs as mine. And with thy tears my tears shall flow In loving sympathy."

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Sister Simplicia.

"What a wet, disagreeable day it is! If papa hadn't bought the tickets last evening, I don't believe I should have come out to-day, even for the sake of hearing Ristori in Marie Antoinette. She can't do better than she does in Mary Stuart, and I already wish ourselves back in your cosy little library again; besides, I haven't half finished looking at those curious old illuminated books of your father's, and, as we go home to-morrow, I fear I shan't have time, for papa has an invitation for us all this evening."

So spoke Anita Hartridge as she and Mary Kenton took their places in the Broadway stage on their way to a matinee at the French Theatre. Anita's father was a Baltimore merchant. He was often in the city buying goods, but this was the first time he had brought his daughter with him. The two girls were warm friends. They had been educated together, and it was not yet a year since they had bidden adieu to the convent walls, the one to thread, motherless, the gay mazes of Baltimore society; the other to come home as a household angel to the father and mother, who were already beginning to grow old. It has been a happy week, a week all too soon coming to an end; and Mary Kenton sits thinking sadly, so wrapped in her reveries that she does not even raise her eyes when the stage stops to take in more passengers.

She is thinking of Anita, of her beauty and brilliancy, her quick, flashing, Southern gayety, and yet deep, true, sympathetic heart; and she wonders what will become of her friend, with no mother to restrain her impulsiveness and a father who thinks only of gratifying her lightest wish. How gladly she would share with her her own mother's tender care; and if she could but be taken from this whirl of amusement for a short time; but no; they return to-morrow. Well, here they are at Union Square, and Anita is speaking softly.

"Mary, did you ever see so beautiful a face? No, not opposite; over there in the corner next the door--that younger Sister of Mercy. She looks like Elizabeth of Hungary. I have been watching her all this time, and she has never looked up once. She seems inspired. Do you believe any one _can_ be so happy as she looks, I mean any one who leads so self-denying a life?"

But there is no time to reply. They leave the omnibus and are soon entranced under the magic power of the great tragedian.

"I wish I were Ristori," said Anita, as they left the theatre. "To have her power and to be admired as she is admired; oh! that were grand. That were a life worth living. What is it to live as we do--to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day again--no grand purpose; and when we die, have the world go on just the same as before? Such lives are not worth living. I wish I could be great as Madame de Staël, or beautiful as Madame Recamier."

"'O world! so few the years we live, Would that the life that thou dost give Were life indeed!'"

repeated Mary slowly; "and yet, there are other lives that I had rather take for my model than any of these."

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"Yes, I know, Mary. You would take rather the life of some saint, St. Elizabeth herself, perhaps; you are always so good and gentle; and Sister Agnes used to say that she knew you would come back to her some time as a sister yourself. But I am not at all so; I love the world, and society, and amusement, and am only dissatisfied because I am neither so brilliant nor beautiful as I should like to be. I feel that your ideal is the better one, but I have not strength of character enough to live anything but a gay, butterfly life. You know my favorite song is, 'I'd be a butterfly,' and indeed I do wish for beauty more than anything else in the world. And yet, after all, that face that I saw under the plain black bonnet was of a heavenly beauty that I cannot forget. Page's copy of the _Madonna della Seggiola_ that we admired so much yesterday is scarcely more beautiful."

"And her life has been as beautiful as her face, they say. But there is our stage. Let us hurry a little; mother will be waiting dinner for us already."

A low rap at Mrs. Kenton's door. It is the hour after dinner, and Dr. Kenton and Mr. Hartridge are in the library, alternately discussing business and their meerschaums. There are two hours yet before the ladies need dress for the evening. Mrs. Kenton is sitting in her large chair before the grate, and the girls come in quietly and draw up two low ottomans at her feet. The gas is not yet lighted, and the twilight throws long, deep shadows from the curtains and the quaint, old-fashioned high bedposts.

"Mother, we have seen Sister Simplicia to-day. Anita very much wishes to hear her history, and you have never told it to me yet. It is just the night to tell a story, just such a night as we read of, 'without, the snow falling thick and fast, but within a bright fire throwing its cheerful light around the room and lighting up the countenance of the narrator,'" said Mary, smiling.

"I imagine the fire you are quoting about was of hickory logs in a great, wide fireplace; and this is only a city grate," said her mother in the same tone; and then more seriously, "but I will tell you the story, since you wish it, and all the more readily as I was thinking of her at the moment you entered.

"Eight years ago Rose Harding was the belle of our circle. I loved her as I would have loved a little sister of my own, had I been blessed with one. She was the younger sister of my dearest friend; and when Rachel died, she left Rose half in my care, for their mother was dead and the father only too indulgent. But Rose was not easily spoiled, and looking back now at this distance, I think that I have never known another that was her equal. Mr. Harding was wealthy, and she had all that heart could wish. Of course she was much sought after and much loved; but few were made unhappy through her, for she was far too generous and too conscientious to be a coquette; and when one evening she came to me, blushing and trembling, and told me that Willis Courtney loved her--"

"Willis Courtney, the son of papa's old partner?" asked Anita.

"You have seen him?"

"Yes; he was my ideal when I was still a very little girl. But then I was sent away to be educated, and never saw him afterward."

"He was worthy of Rose, though very different. How proud he was of her! I loved to watch them together. He was so gentle and thoughtful of every little attention, and she trusted and honored him so fully. It seemed there never could be a brighter future in store for any than for these two, and surely there never could be any more deserving of the choicest blessings of earth. {117} Mr. Harding was happy in his child's happiness, and Willis only waited a visit from his father to give him the glad surprise. Mr. Courtney was at that time the senior partner in your father's firm, Anita! Willis was in the second year of his law studies, and in less than a year he could look forward to establishing a home; for his father was growing old, and had told him often that he only wished to see him happily settled in life before he died. And so the weeks passed in happiness, and tomorrow Mr. Courtney should come. I shall never forget how anxiously Rose awaited this coming--expectant, hopeful, timid. 'Willis says his father is a stern man. I shall be so afraid of him. Perhaps he will not approve of me'--with a half-frightened laugh; 'I do so want him to like me. Willis honors him so, and yet says he always stood in awe of him. _Do_ you think he will like me? I wish to-morrow were past, I dread it so; and yet Willis says he is sure to love me, and that he will be so glad to have a daughter.'

"And Willis was at the depot, impatient to see his father again, and still more impatient to have the crowning seal of approval set upon his choice.

"At length the shrill whistle of the distant train, a few anxious glances through the darkness, and the bright red light of the engine glides past slowly. Why is it that this red glare, shining as it passes, seems to throw a sort of supernatural glare over the platform and the waiting figures? A strange, weird feeling comes over him. Is it himself standing there, or is he, too, only some phantom of his own imagination? In a moment he lives over his whole past life in one comprehensive flash, as people who are drowning are said to do. But the train has stopped, and there is his father's bald head among the crowd of rushing passengers. Willis passes his hand quickly over his forehead, as if to brush away the illusion, and advances to meet him.

"It is a glad meeting. Mr. Courtney looks at his son, and, as he looks, the benignant smile on his face broadens and deepens. It is something to have delved in the counting-house all these years, and bent his shoulders over the dull ledgers, that these shoulders may have no need to bend, and that this intellect shall have the means of making the best of itself; and, as he walks beside him to the waiting carriage, he says in his heart, 'There is none equal to _my_ son.'

"And now they sit in their parlor at the '---- House,' and the bottle of old port is almost emptied, for Mr. Courtney is fond of good wine. The waiter has arranged the fire, and brought in a fresh bottle, and father and son are alone.

"'And now, Willis, who is she, this divinest of her sex; and when am I to see her?'

"'To-morrow, or this evening if you prefer. Mr. Harding is almost an invalid, and so spends his evenings at home, and Rose seldom leaves him.'

"'_Harding!_ What Harding is this? You always spoke of her as "Rose," and I never thought to ask her family name,' said Mr. Courtney, in ill-suppressed anxiety.

"'Thomas Harding, formerly of New-Orleans. Why, father, what is it; are you ill? What can I do for you?' said Willis, rising from his chair quickly, as Mr. Courtney arose and staggered toward the mantle piece. He stood there, resting his folded arms on it, with his head so buried in them that the son could see nothing of his face. {118} John Courtney was not a man to be approached easily. Whatever the joys or sorrows of his life might have been, his son was as ignorant of them as the stranger who met him just an hour ago. So Willis stood now at a little distance, not feeling sufficient freedom to approach, and anxiously awaiting some word or movement that should give him permission to speak. But none such came, and, after a few moments, Mr. Courtney raised his head, saying, 'A glass of wine, Willis. I felt a little faint a moment ago. Travelling is tiresome work for an old man.' And Willis filled the glass silently; for there was a look in the white face that chilled, while it awed him--a look of determination, and yet of indecision at the same time.

"It seemed as if a cold, misty atmosphere had suddenly entered the room; and the two men spent the remainder of the evening in a vain effort to sustain a conversation upon all manner of general subjects, which the son seemed always to succeed in shaping till it just approached the subject in which alone he was then interested, and the father always to turn it off just in time to prevent its touching. At length Willis arose, saying:

"'But your journey has tired you very much, father. I will go now, that you may have a long night's rest.'

"'Yes, yes. I am no longer so young as I was once.'

"But after his son had gone, he forgot his weariness, and spent the night in walking up and down the length of the parlor, and drinking wine, as the waiter said in the morning, 'like a high-bred gentleman;' and when the morning came, the look of indecision had passed away, and the determination alone remained.

"And Willis passed the long hours of darkness in a nightmare of undefined dread, half asleep, but yet entirely conscious of all around; a state that confused imagination and reality, till the most frightful dreams became impressed with all the power of real events--so real that only the morning, with the unchanged, familiar face of the servant could make him feel certain that they were all waking dreams, and that he had not lived a horrible year. But the cold water, and the cheerful breakfast-table, and all the invigorating morning influences served to restore him; and he laughed at the absurd fancies, and went around to his father's hotel, wondering that he should have felt so discouraged and uncomfortable in his presence last evening, and mentally resolving to let no such chill come over their intercourse this morning.

"As he stepped into the hall, he noticed the well-known baggage, with the initials, 'J. C.,' and said to the waiter:

"'What carelessness is this? You have never carried up my father's baggage.'

"'As soon as you had gone last evening,' said the waiter, 'I went up to his door, sir, and asked if I should send it up then; but he said, "No," as he should leave early in the morning, sir.'

"Willis hurried up and found the old man at breakfast, or rather sitting there beside it, for he had evidently eaten nothing, although he said he had finished.

"'Why, father! your baggage--'

"'Yes, yes, a telegram. Must return immediately; and now sit down a moment. There is half an hour yet before going to the train. When do you finish your studies?'

"'In two months.'

{119}

"'So I thought--so I thought. There is no hurry about your beginning to practise, and I need your assistance in my business just at present. There are some speculations in the West that must be attended to. There is money in them, but I can't trust Stephens to go alone, and I want to send you with him. I shall make all arrangements for you to start at the end of two months.'

"'But, father--Rose?'

"'Time enough. There's nothing will test your affections like a little absence. Besides, you aren't either of you old enough to know what you want yet. If in two years you both feel as you do now, why, then we'll see about matters; and you know your means don't depend on your practice; besides, you'll get along better in that for seeing something of the world before you commence. I'm getting to be an old man, Willis, and need my son's help a little now. Surely he won't make any objections to doing what I desire?'

"Filial respect and affection was a strong trait in Willis Courtney's character. Disobedience to the father whom he had always feared, and to whom he was really so much indebted, was a thing of which he had never thought before, and thought of now only to put away the idea as one unworthy of him; and Rose, who loved her own father devotedly, respected him the more for his duty to his; and so it came about that when the two months had passed, he went to California with Stephens, the head clerk of the firm, and Rose had only the long, tender letters; and Mr. Harding, who had never been dissatisfied while Willis was here, grew suddenly restless, and longed to travel.

"'As long as Rose was so happy, I was contented here,' he said, 'but now she is often sad, and I think a little change will be good for both of us. I have travelled too much in my life to be satisfied to settle down in one spot and remain there. I must see Italy once again before I die.'

"And so their passage was taken, and one morning we stood on the deck of an English steamer to bid them 'God speed;' and after we had come on shore again, stood long watching the ship till it was far down the bay.

"At first Rose wrote long, cheerful, descriptive letters. A summer at a German watering-place had almost entirely restored Mr. Harding's health, and in the early autumn they began their tour, intending to visit Vienna, and, passing directly from there to Venice, make a short stay in two or three cities of Northern Italy, and then go on to Rome to spend the winter.

"Letters came seldom now--it was at the beginning of our civil war--and when they came, there was no longer any mention of Willis, nor of glad anticipations of return; and later, in a letter dated at Brescia, she wrote: 'I am in the city of Angela da Brescia. How was it possible for her to be what she was? I cannot understand it. To rise up out of the shadow of a great grief, and to go forth cheerfully into the world and work to do good and make others happy. It needs more than human will. God alone can give the strength to do this, and yet if he does it sometimes, as he did for her, why not always?'

"And still there was no mention of any personal grief; but the whole tone of her letter was sad, and I felt that something more than a mere transient annoyance had occurred to thus destroy her accustomed cheerfulness.

{120}

"At first, the genial climate and the revival of old associations--for he had spent several winters there in his youth--had seemed to give Mr. Harding a new life, and almost a second youth, while they visited the familiar places, and he pointed out to his daughter the glorious relics of past architecture and the grand works of the old masters; but it was only for a time, and when we heard again, his strength was failing rapidly. At Rome they had met an old friend who was staying there with his wife, so they joined company, and planned their return together for the ensuing summer.

"And all this time we had only heard of Willis Courtney that he had, without returning home, joined the Union army as a private, and that his father, whose sympathies were entirely Southern, was very much displeased; and, in addition, that he had sold out his interest in the business, some said in order to retire and enjoy his wealth, others, to avoid a financial crisis which he imagined to be impending.

"In May came another letter from Rose. The time of their return was uncertain; her father was feeble, and wished neither to leave the mild climate, nor to risk the danger of a voyage, till he should be stronger. And in reply to some question of mine--'I have heard no word from Willis Courtney this winter, and even last autumn his letters had changed and were no longer like him. But I cannot write of this. I do not understand it all. ... I have spent almost the entire day in St. Peter's. I do this often. It is God's grandest monument on earth, and I never feel so near him as here. I never truly felt the love of holiness before; but here, under the influence of the inimitable grandeur of his church, and in the presence of his earthly representative, I can almost shut out the vanities of the world, and bow before God alone, worshipping him in supreme love and reverence. I love the beautiful rites of the church. Ah! how gladly I would lie down beneath the shadow of her walls, and sleep the last sleep--or if that may not be, take the vows which should make me the bride of heaven alone, and shut out for ever the coldness and deceptions of the world. But my poor father needs me so much, and is so entirely dependent upon me, that I cannot leave him while he lives. He is fearfully changed, and has grown so much older within the last two months that you would scarcely recognize him now. I hope he may soon be better, and am sure he must be, for he is always so cheerful.'

"But this was not to be, and after lingering a few weeks longer, he died amid the scenes he had loved so well, having first exacted a promise from Rose that she would return to New York with Mr. and Mrs. Rowland.

"They had a pleasant voyage, good weather and a smooth sea, and the vessel glided along, making every day her full number of knots, and making glad the hearts of the passengers, who were returning to home and friends.

"Mr. and Mrs. Rowland spent much of the time on deck, and Rose sat near them, always with a book lying open on her lap; to the careless observer she appeared to be reading, but those who, after a few days, began to notice the sad face, noticed, too, that the leaves of the book were never turned and that her glance rested always on the sea. These were days of rest. The slow rolling of the waves lent her an artificial calmness. The events of the last few months had stunned her, and this was the transition state before reaction. A sort of veil seemed to have been cast between her vision and the past, and the future seemed a blank, a desert that she had no wish to explore, and before which she shut her eyes. {121} She seemed to be falling into that dreamy melancholy which so often precedes insanity, and Mrs. Rowland watched her anxiously, and Mr. Rowland made every exertion to distract her attention, making every little excuse to get her to walk on deck, and to notice some peculiar cloud or singular fish. And so the days passed till they were within two days of New York; then the pilot came on board, and they began to realize, for the first time, that they were almost home. He brought the last papers, three days old now, and the hitherto quiet passengers were all excitement, gathered here and there in little groups eagerly discussing the news he had brought, for those were times full of interest, and this news was the defeat at Bull Run.

"Mr. Rowland had put a paper into Rose's hands, and as she read, she became first interested; then the quick blood mounted to her face, and Mr. Rowland remarked:

"'You have not yet forgotten that you are an American, Miss Harding.'

"She replied quickly and continued reading. Presently the paper dropped from her hands; her face became deadly pale, and she leaned heavily against the rail for support. Mr. Rowland took up the paper and searched the page she had been reading; but in vain; he saw nothing that should have startled her, and so turned away, thinking he had been mistaken, thus leaving her alone to accustom herself to the reality of what she had read.

"What she had read? It was only a name, and that the name of a common soldier.

"In looking over the list of the names of those found dead on the battle-field of Bull Run, she had found that of Willis Courtney.

"The next day they reached Sandy Hook. But it was already evening, and they were obliged to anchor over night, and defer running up to the city till the next morning. There were many impatient at this detention, but none more so than Rose Harding. What has come over her? her kind friends asked each other in vain; but she was no longer indifferent, and her face expressed a cheerful determination. It was a conviction of duty, and a resolution to fulfil it. All the night after the news, she had lain awake and pictured to herself the horrors of lying wounded on the battle-field, and of dying alone in the cold and darkness. She had loved Willis Courtney with the full depths of a first matured affection, and she loved him now, despite the indifference and coldness with which he had rewarded that love. And now he was dead, and whatever had come between them on earth had passed away; and, strange as it seemed to her, she felt that he had come back to her, and that they were nearer together than they had ever been. But he was dead, and he had died in a noble cause, and she felt ashamed of her own selfish grief, that had shut out the world and its cares and sorrows. The old words came ringing in her ears:

'The noblest place for man to die, Is where he dies for man.'

"Had he not died nobly? And then she contrasted her own life with his. What had _she_ done to make any of God's creatures better or happier! 'Nothing! nothing!' Then came bitter regrets, and accusations against her destiny. Why had she not been permitted to be near him in the last struggle? Had not her own pride been perhaps somewhat to blame? He had suffered alone.

"Then suddenly he seemed to stand beside her, and pointing upward, to repeat to her those words of Christ: 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'

{122}

"It was a revelation. What God had done for Angela da Brescia, he had done for her. Darkness had passed away, and in its place was light, and the warmth of renewed life. 'Unto the least of these.' Willis was gone. On earth she could do nothing more for him; but there were others, others who were laying down their lives as nobly and in the same cause; for these she could work; and whatever she could do 'unto the least,' she should be doing for _him_ and for _Christ_.

"It was no mere momentary enthusiasm. She came home to join the devoted band of the Sisters of Mercy, and among these she was one of the bravest and truest. No duties were too arduous and no dangers too great, for this child of luxury to encounter. Herself, and the great wealth which she had inherited from her father, she consecrated to the service of God. Like the noble Paula of old, who went forth from pagan Rome to assemble around her a community of sisters in Palestine, 'she was piteous to them that were sick, and comforted them, and served them right humbly,' and 'laid the pillows aright' with a tender hand; and many a poor soldier thanked her for his life, and many more blessed with dying lips the name of her who had robbed the grim messenger of his terrors, and shown the light of God's love gilding the horizon of the valley of the shadow of death.

"And when the war was ended, she came back to New York, to continue, in another field, her labors of love. Here she visited hospitals and prisons, carrying the promises of the Father's forgiveness to the repentant, and words of comfort and consolation to those who were sick and weary of life.

"One morning, about a year ago, as she was visiting prisoners in company with an older sister, she noticed in the Tombs a new prisoner, who attracted her attention by his dignified bearing, and evident reluctance to speak to any of his companions; and as he turned, and she caught a view of his profile, she was startled with a feeling that it was familiar to her; and yet she had surely never seen the man. But he seemed glad to talk of religion; and when she left, she gave him a pocket Bible to read until she should next visit the prison. But all that day the face seemed to haunt her. It came between her and her prayers; it visited her dreams in the night, and hung over her like an incubus that would not away at her entreaties; and she found herself looking forward to her next visit with a mixed feeling of anxiety and curiosity. When at last she went again, the old man recognized her, and asked suddenly, in a trembling voice:

"'Are you Rose Harding?'

"'I am Sister Simplicia. I _was_ Rose Harding,' she replied, shocked at the suddenness and eagerness of the question.

"He looked at her wonderingly, and then said:

"'Are you happy? But what use to ask. Your face and voice show it. See here,' he added, and handed her back the open Bible. It was one that Willis had given her years ago, and on the fly-leaf to which the man now opened was written--

'Rose Harding. From Willis Courtney.'

{123}

"This was the one relic she had kept of her past life. She had fastened those leaves together with thin white wafers, so that the names should be invisible, and had felt still that _his_ book must be especially blessed, and so had given it often to prisoners to read. She had intended to destroy everything that should remind her of Rose Harding; but these names, written in his hand, she could not destroy, but had thought to hide them even from herself.

"And this man had torn them open. It was as if he had committed a sacrilege; as if he had opened the grave of the dead; for were these not buried long ago?

"But he was speaking hurriedly:

"'I am John Courtney. I have something to tell you; something that has hunted me down for years, and driven me here at last.' And she listened.

"He had been her father's confidential clerk years ago in New Orleans. In an evil moment, he had allowed himself to take a small sum from the drawer; for his salary, large though it was, was not sufficient to meet the expenses of a young man who loved gay company, drank much and gambled more. It was not discovered, and so he had helped himself again, and Mr. Harding, who was scarcely older than himself, and had absolute confidence in him, had still made no discovery; but when it became time to balance the yearly accounts, he knew it could be concealed no longer, and so one night he took enough more to pay travelling expenses, and to help him in starting into some business for himself, and left on a night-boat for the North. He remained secreted in St. Louis till he had discovered through the papers that Mr. Harding had no intention of prosecuting him; then, after having adopted the precaution of changing his appearance as much as possible, and his name from James Rellerton to John Courtney, had come to Baltimore and gone into business, in which he had prospered, and had married into one of the first families in the place. His wife had died while Willis was yet a child, and he had centered his pride and affection upon this only boy. For his sake he had worked untiringly, and had showered his wealth upon him, that he might never know the temptation that had overcome his father. But from making any acknowledgment to Mr. Harding his pride shrunk. He had, indeed, sent back the money he had taken, but to see Mr. Harding he had felt to be impossible. James Rellerton was dead, and John Courtney must stand without reproach before the world, and no man living must know that there was any connection between the two.

"But when Willis had spoken the name of Thomas Harding as that of the father of his affianced bride, it seemed that retribution, from being so long delayed, had come upon him with double harshness, as the interest of a debt that has run long is sometimes greater than the principal itself. Should he destroy the happiness of the son for whom he would have given his life, or run the risk of being recognized by Mr. Harding?

"He could do neither; and besides, would Mr. Harding allow his daughter to marry the son of James Rellerton?

"Then he had resolved to separate them, and let time and events decide the future means to be employed. It had been a double game. If Willis had been instructed to watch Stephens, Stephens had been no less definitely instructed to watch Willis; and when, after six months, he had reported that the correspondence between him and Rose was undiminished, he had received instructions that he must 'see to it that it should cease gradually;' and so the letters had been intercepted, a few times changed, and then no longer sent in any form. The father had said:

{124}

"'My son will blame her, and his pride will prevent his suffering.'

"But when did pride prevent suffering? It may prevent the showing of any sign, and it did here; but Willis had been one of the first volunteers, and then he had fallen; and the old man had been left desolate with a double crime upon his conscience. He had no object in attending to business and making money now, so had sold his interest, and tried to find in travel that alleviation from thought which could alone make life endurable. But he could not leave himself--the one thing he desired to leave--and an attraction beyond his control had brought him back to New Orleans. Here the necessity for excitement had again led him into the old temptation of gambling. But he was not always successful; and when the Mississippi was again open, he had travelled on the boats, at first with better success, but at last had become too well known, and in looking for a new field, had fallen in with a band of counterfeiters, and so had come to New York in their employ.

"And this was the end of it all.

"At first Rose had listened with an intense loathing for the man. Had he not wronged her father, and blighted her own youth, and even chased his own son to his death; and was he not a counterfeiter and a gambler; an outcast before God and man?

"Then, as she turned her glance, it fell upon her cross, and it brought back the scene on Calvary and the face of Him who had prayed 'Father, forgive them.' Then she looked again at the old man, and, trembling with emotion, he cast himself on the floor at her feet, crying:

"'Merciful sister, pray for me!'

"And the peace of God came back to her, as she clasped her hands, and raising to heaven her eyes filled with the tears of a gentle pity, prayed aloud:

"'O Jesus! be merciful; and deal with me even as I deal with this repentant man.'

"The Bible of his son first, and the labors of the appointed ministers of God afterward, brought him again under the benediction of the church. But she it was who stood beside him in the last struggle, and closed the eyes with more tenderness than a daughter; for hers was that holy love, born of heaven and earth, which dwells only in the consecrated heart."

......

Mrs. Kenton had finished. The long shadows had grown longer and mingled together, till it had become only darkness; and then the moon had arisen and was shining with a pale light through the masses of heavy clouds. They arose silently and went each to her own room. But for Anita Hartridge this night was the turning-point in life. The "butterfly" was such no longer, and in its place grew up the noble woman.

Did Sister Simplicia, as she knelt at her prayers that night, know the work she had done for her Master that day?

{125}

The Merit Of Good Works

In a recent article we endeavored to explain the catholic doctrine, that good works as well as faith are an essential condition of justification. This implies, of course, that good works are meritorious, and that eternal life is due to them as a recompense. We wish to elucidate this point a little more fully, and to show what is the nature of that merit which is ascribed to good works proceeding from the principle of faith informed by charity.

In the widest sense of the word, merit signifies any kind of excellence or worthiness. In this sense, a picture is said to have merit; and purely physical or intellectual perfections, which are merely natural gifts, are said to merit admiration and praise. In the strict sense of the word, merit signifies the quality by which certain free, voluntary acts entitle the person who performs them to an adequate recompense. It is in this sense that merit is ascribed to the good works of a just man. These works are said by Catholic theologians to deserve eternal life by a merit of condignity and a title of justice.

What is meant by merit of condignity? It means that there is an equality of dignity or intrinsic worth and value between the work performed and the recompense bestowed. This is easily understood in regard to merely human affairs. It is not easy to understand, however, how a creature can deserve the reward of eternal life from the Creator. Good works, however excellent they may be in the finite order, and as measured by a human standard, appear to be totally incommensurate with the infinite, and therefore wanting in all condignity with an infinite recompense. So far as the mere physical entity of the works is concerned, this is really so. The gift of a cup of cold water to a person suffering from thirst, the recital of a few prayers, a trivial act of self-denial, evidently bear no proportion to eternal beatitude. Neither does a life like that of St. Paul, filled with labors, or a long course of penance and prayer like that of St. Romuald, or a martyrdom like that of St. Polycarp. The mere extent or duration of the labor or suffering, considered as something endured for the sake of God, is nothing in comparison with the crown of immortal life. The condignity of good works is not derived from an equality or proportion between their physical extent and duration and the physical extent and duration of the recompense. It is derived from an equality in kind between the interior principle from which good works proceed, and the interior principle of beatitude. The interior principle of good works is charity; not a merely natural charity, but a supernatural, a divine charity, produced by the Holy Spirit. Good works proceed from a supernatural principle, and are performed by a concurrence of the human will with the divine Spirit. They have, therefore, a superhuman, divine quality, and are elevated to the supernatural order, the same order to which eternal beatitude belongs. They are, therefore, equal to it in dignity in this sense, that they are equally supernatural. {126} The principle of divine charity in the soul is, moreover, the germ of the eternal life itself, which is promised as the reward of the acts which proceed from charity. The life of grace is the life of glory begun, and the life of glory is the life of grace consummated. The germ is equal in grade and quality with the tree which it produces, though not equal in extent and perfection. In the same manner, a little act, like that of giving a cup of water to another for the love of God, although trivial in itself, contains a principle which is capable of uniting the soul to God for all eternity. It is the principle of divine love, making the soul like to God, imitating on a small scale those acts of the love of God toward men which are the most stupendous, and therefore, making the soul worthy to be loved by God with a love of complacency similar in kind to that love which he has toward himself.

Again, the value and merit of services rendered by one person to another are estimated, not alone by the substance of the services rendered, but by the quality of the person who renders them. An article of small utility or cost is sometimes more valued as a token of affection from a dear friend, or as a sign of esteem and honor from a person of high rank, than a large sum of money would be which had been accumulated by the industry of a servant. The good works of a just man fall under this category. They are estimated according to the quality and rank of the person who performs them. The just man is the friend of God, and the services he renders to God are valued accordingly, not as so much work done, but as tokens of love and fidelity. As a friend of God, the just man is a person of high rank in the scale of being. He is a "partaker of the divine nature," as St. Peter distinctly affirms. His human nature is exalted and sublimated to a certain similitude with the nature of God; and the acts which proceed from it have a corresponding dignity and elevation, proportioned to their end, which is eternal life, or the consummation of the union between human nature and the divine nature in eternal beatitude. The just man is the adopted son of God the Father, through his union with God the Son incarnate. This adoption into a participation with Jesus Christ in his sonship reflects the dignity and excellence of the person of Christ upon his person and upon all his works. As a member of Christ and a son of God, his person and his works are superior to the whole natural order, and, therefore, there is nothing which has the relation of condignity toward them except the supernatural order itself.

It is evident, therefore, that regenerate nature has condignity with the state of glory, and that the good works which proceed from it have condignity with degrees of splendor in this state of glory. Regenerate nature bears the image of God, aspires after union with God, is fitted to find its beatitude in the vision of God, is made apt and worthy to be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. It demands, therefore, as its last complement, the _lumen gloriae_ which enables it to see God face to face. The personal love of the soul to God as its friend and Father, and the personal love of God to the soul as his friend and son, require that they should have mutual vision of each other and live together. This living with God is eternal life, which is, therefore, the only fitting recompense for the love of God exercised by the just man upon earth.

{127}

Theologians do not, however, regard the title in strict justice to a supernatural reward, or the ratio of condign merit, as consisting solely in the condignity of the meritorious works themselves. They place it partially in the promise of God, or the decree of his providence which he has promulgated, in which special rewards are assigned as the recompense of good works performed in the state of grace. Therefore, they say, the reward of eternal life is due in strict justice, not by an obligation arising _per se_ from the act of the creature, but by an obligation of the Creator to himself to fulfil his own word. They say that God may require, by virtue of his sovereign dominion, any amount of service from the creature as his simple due, without giving him any reward for it; that he may even annihilate him if he pleases, and, moreover, that the holy acts of the blessed in heaven, although they have a perfect condignity with supernatural rewards, do not receive any. Therefore, they say, a creature cannot merit a reward from God according to rigorous justice, but only according to a rule of justice derived from the free determination and promise of God. Scotus and some others even hold that the condignity of meritorious works with the promised reward is altogether extrinsic, and denotes merely that they are conformed to the standard or rule which is laid down by the divine law. It is, therefore, only required in strictness by the definition of the church, that one should confess that the good works of the just man entitle him to a supernatural reward by virtue of a promise which God has given. Those who are so extremely frightened at the sound of the phrase, "merit of condignity," as applied to men, can adopt the opinion of Scotus if they please. For our own part, we prefer the other and more common doctrine of condignity which we have already explained. We do not apprehend any danger to the glory of the Almighty from the exaltation of his own works, or any diminution of the merits of Christ from the glorification of his saints. On the contrary, the power and glory of God are magnified the more, the more like to himself the creature is shown to be which he has created. "God is admirable in his saints;" and, the more excellent their works are, the greater is the praise and homage which accrues to him from these works which are offered up to him as acts of worship. The only error to be feared is the attributing of something to the creature which he derives from himself, as having self-existent, independent being. To attribute to angel or man as much good as is in a withered leaf, is equivalent to a total denial of God, if this good is not referred to God as first cause. But to attribute to created nature all possible good, even to the degree of hypostatic union with the divine nature, does not detract in the slightest degree from the truth that God alone is good in himself, if the good of the creature is referred to him as its source and author. No doubt all right to existence, to immortality, to felicity of any kind, is derived from God, and is originally a free gift to the creature from him. But the right is a real right, of which the creature has just possession when God has given it to him, one which may be an inalienable right in certain circumstances, that is, a right which God cannot, in consistency with his own attributes, withdraw. When God creates a rational nature, in which he has implanted the desire and expectation of immortal existence and felicity, he implicitly promises immortality and felicity. We do not like to hear it said that he can annihilate such a creature or withhold from it the felicity after which it naturally aspires, unless it be as a just punishment for sin. {128} So, when God creates man anew in the supernatural order, by giving him the grace of regeneration, he gives him an implicit promise of eternal beatitude. It is very true that he can exact from him any amount of service he pleases, as a debt that is due to his sovereign majesty; yet he cannot justly withhold from him final beatitude, unless he forfeits it by his own fault. The special reward annexed to every good work is undoubtedly due only by virtue of the explicit promise which God has made, to reward every such good work by an increase of grace and glory. It is also true that God does confer some degrees of glory on the just out of pure liberality and beyond the degree of merit. Moreover, the period of merit is limited by the decree of God to this life, because it is fitting that the creature should increase and progress, during his probation, toward the full measure of his perfection, and should afterward remain in that perfection when he has arrived at his term. We think, therefore, that we have made it plain enough that good works have a merit of condignity in relation to eternal life, and nevertheless derive this merit from the promise and appointment of God, subject to such conditions as he has seen fit, in his sovereign wisdom and liberality, to establish.

The doctrine we have laid down detracts in no way from the merits of Christ. Christ alone has the principle of merit in his own person as an original source. He alone has merited of condignity grace to be bestowed on others. His merits alone are the cause of the remission of sins, and the bestowal of regenerating, sanctifying, saving grace. His merits merits of the saints as the head is superior to the inferior members of the body. His incarnation, life, and death are, in a word, the radical meritorious cause of human salvation from the beginning to the end; and, in their own proper sphere or order of causation, are entirely alone. Christ is the only mediator of redemption and salvation between God and man, in whom the Father is reconciling the world to himself. His acts alone are referable to no principle higher or more ultimate than his own personality. All merely human grace, sanctity, or merit is, therefore, to be referred to him as its chief author, and to merely human subjects only as recipients or secondary and concurrent causes. It is easy to understand, therefore, what is meant by presenting the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints before God as a motive for bestowing grace. The saints have not merited anything over and above that which Christ has merited, nor have they merited, by a merit of condignity, even the application of the merits of Christ to others. Through their personal merits, they have obtained a kind of right of friendship to ask in a specially efficacious manner for graces and favors to be conferred on those for whom they intercede. Their mediation and merits are, therefore, only efficacious by way of impetration and prayer, and not by virtue of a right which they have obtained by a title of justice. This is what is meant by merit of congruity, which denotes a certain fitness in a person to obtain from God the favors for which he asks. This merit of congruity is all that is ascribed to the Blessed Virgin or the saints, as a groundwork of their intervening power, by any Catholic theologian. It is the same in kind with that which the just on earth possess, by virtue of which they obtain, through their prayers, blessings and graces for other persons. It is easy to see, therefore, how completely the Catholic doctrine is misunderstood by those who imagine that it either places man in the room of Christ, as his own Saviour, or substitutes the mediation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints for the mediation of Christ.

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Full Of Grace.

Flowers in the fields, and odors on the air, The spring-time everywhere; Music of singing birds and rippling rills, Soft breezes from the hills; So broke the sweetest season, long ago, Far from this death-cold snow. In that blest land which smiles to every eye, Most favored from on high; And in one town whose sheltering mountains stand Broad breast-plates of the land; So fair a spring-time sure was never seen, Since Eden's walks were green.

A sudden glory flashed upon the air, A face unearthly fair; A beauty given but to those alone The nearest to the throne; The great archangels who upon their hair The seven planets wear. Lightly as diamonds--such the form that now, With brilliant eyes and brow. Paused by the humble dwellings of the poor. Entered the humblest door, Veiling his awful beauty, far too bright, With wide wings, strong and white.

Within the dwelling where his flight was stayed A kneeling woman prayed. The angel bowed before that holy face, And hailed her "Full of Grace." No other title, not the kingly name Which David's line can claim; Not highest rank, though unto her was given Queenship of earth and heaven; Not as that one who gave life to the dead, Bruising the serpent's head; Not even as mother of the Sacrificed, The world-redeeming Christ.

This thought might be a sermon, while yet we, Heirs of eternity, Walk this brief, sin-surrounded tract of life. Wage this short, sharpest strife, Which must be passed and won before the rest. The triumph of the blessed. And when the hour supreme of fate shall come, And at our promised home We wait in breathless and expectant dread Between the quick and dead, Then may the angel warders of the place Welcome us, "Full of Grace."

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Translated From L'Economiste Belge.

How Our History Will Be Told In The Year 3000.

In those days--our latest posterity _loquitur_--the people were not entirely freed from the savage instincts of their ancestors, the anthropophagi, those ferocious contemporaries of the deluge and such great inundations of the world. True, they did not still eat their enemies, nor break their skulls with clubs; they did not pierce their bodies with arrows of bone and flint; but they did the work more delicately, entirely according to the rules of art, with the precision of a surgeon who cuts off a limb, or the coolness of a butcher who bleeds a sheep. By dint of inventions, calculations, and trials of every kind, they fabricated, at last, most ingenious tools, very convenient and very simple, and which they handled with equal dexterity. They were not instruments of natural philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, or mathematics; our fathers possessed, it is true, objects of this kind, but they did not think it proper to put them in the hands of the people. Their thermometers, microscopes, telescopes, and electrical machines remained in the shade of libraries or the cabinets of the learned. The people were ignorant of their names and uses, while they well understood the management of the tools of which I speak. So you will suppose these were very useful articles, as they were so generally employed in every clime and nation, and their object to moralize and instruct mankind, as governments consented to their gratuitous distribution among their subjects--went farther, even, and imposed their use. But alas! no; they were only tools of death and carnage, worthy to figure among the arms and instruments of torture of preceding ages; for while some shot off bullets, others threw to enormous distances balls of brass and steel, that made holes in human walls, burnt up towns, and sunk ships.

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The men of this time were called _"civilized"!_ Strange to say, they had abolished torture, and wished to do away with the pain of death. The scaffold horrified them, and the sight of the gallows gave them a vertigo! They had journals and books filled with beautiful phrases in honor of peace and civilization. But they did not comprehend the sense of aphorisms which they repeated incessantly and inscribed everywhere, on the fronts of their temples, and the first page of their constitutions.

Their age to them was the age of light, and they seemed ready to burst with pride when they considered their enormous riches, the fame of their arts, and the extent of their sciences. And, in appearance, one might have believed them wise, and as good as the beings who inhabit the more favored planets of our solar system. They had noble aspirations and a generous ardor.

In the penumbra in which they were plunged, a confused mass of whirling and exasperated workers was alone distinguishable, hungry, indefatigable, running up and down, like busy ants seeking their subsistence. The ear heard only a deafening and monotonous noise, like the buzzing of a hive. But in spite of shocks and hurts, inevitable from such a clamorous multitude, order and harmony seemed about being established, when suddenly the same beings who until then had appeared so laborious and active, were seized with a sort of rage, and set violently upon each other. The red light of incendiarism and the thundering brightness of battle thus demonstrated to the astonished gaze of philanthropists and thinkers, that vices, sanguinary passions, and brutal instincts, always alive and always indomitable, were only hidden in shade, and awaiting the favorable moment to break their bonds and annihilate civilization. By the artificial and slightly tarnished light of their sciences, philosophers had gathered round them men of policy and amiability, civilized and peaceable, distinguished by good manners, and saying pretty things about fraternity and progress; but the light that broke upon them, the evidence that disenchanted them in this shock of nations, showed them only coarse and ignorant crowds, capable of committing, in their folly and cruelty, every crime and every infamy. They had believed that the type of their epoch was the man of business, industrial or negotiating, the sharp worker, armed for competition, and prepared for the incessant struggles of production; and behold! suddenly this personage quits the scene, transforming himself into a fantastical being, clothed in brilliant colors, his head ornamented with cock's feathers, his step stiffened, his manners brusque, and his voice short and sonorous. At the first boom of the cannon, the rolling of the drum, or the sound of a warlike march, millions of men, clothed in red, like the common hangman, marched out of the shade, furnished with instruments suitable for bleeding, scorching, disembowelling, crushing, burning, and stopping the breath of their neighbors. And perhaps you think these men were the refuse of society; that they came from low haunts and prisons; had neither heart nor intelligence; that they were given up to public execration. You never were more mistaken. Each one of these auxiliaries of death was considered healthy in mind and body, vigorous and intelligent, honest and disciplined. {132} To exercise his trade suitably, he was obliged to possess a crowd of precious qualities, know perfectly how to behave himself, be honorable, and of unimpeachable integrity!

As to the great generals, they were wise men, and men of the world. They were expected to study mathematics, as it specially teaches order and harmony; history, which proves that violence and force have never established anything; and many other sciences, which one would have imagined capable of directing their thoughts from their impious career, and rendering them pacific and humane.

Toward 1866 a great invention agitated the world. You are ready to believe it was some means of aerial locomotion, or some process for utilizing central heat, or placing our planet in communication with the neighboring ones of Mars and Venus. Alas! no. Such discoveries were not yet ripe; and besides, men of this age had other preoccupations. A small province of the north of Germany, with an erudite and philosophical people, had the honor of giving to the world the celebrated _needle-gun_. Tired of thinking, they relinquished their ideal, to move heavily and noisily under the sun of reality, and set about acting; but instead of inventing a philosophy, they considered a new engine of destruction more creditable, and having tried it with the most magnificent results, they offered to the public the instrument which was entirely to change the map of Europe, break the equilibrium of power, and annihilate all international right. After having laid low several millions of men on the field of battle, this comparatively insignificant people on the borders of the Spree, who until then had won more academical laurels than cannons, and more truths than promises, began to comprehend that they could play a splendid _rôle_, and exercise a preponderating influence in Europe. Formerly they had invented an absolute philosophy; now they invented and practised an absolute policy. And this was the union of the German people, the triumph of Prussian institutions, the decay of the Latin and rise of the Germanic races, and many other changes which only absolute power can effect. These little people on the borders of the Spree awoke to a new life, and determined to take all and absorb all; they threatened Holland; coveted Alsace; were disposed to swallow up Bavaria, the grand-duchy of Baden, and Würtemberg. Other nations were troubled, and justly; for the power of the Germans seemed to them very much like absolutism. So each of them, in great haste, began to perfect their own instruments of death with the faint hope, too, that they might very soon make use of them. Old France, tired of conquests and interior struggles, wished only to rest. Having disturbed the tranquillity of Europe so often, she had come to that age when repose is the chief good; so she feigned ignorance of the insolent aspect and gestures of defiance of her young rival; but unhappily a few judicious men, and many more of an intriguing nature, fools and ambitious ones, were at the head of affairs. These loved war as a golden egg, and birds of prey, we know, derive their sustenance from a field of battle. Some already dreamed of wading through blood to conquer an epaulette, others that they gained millions in supplies, and became great dignitaries in the empire. {133} So they went about repeating that their country was degraded, reduced to a second rank; that Germanic insolence must be chastised, and the glorious tricolor planted on the left shore of the Rhine. The journals commented on their words, and the rustic in his hut, the laborer at his forge, and the financier in his counting-house dreamed with terror of the dawning evil. Certain politicians, meditating on the situation and the march of events, declared war inevitable, necessary, providential, and alone able to reëstablish the influence of the country and the _prestige_ of the government. So they burst out in eloquent discourses in favor of military armaments, while on their side strategists, inventors, and administrators set to work, believing they were the foundation of the future prosperity of their country.

Their theory was very simple. The power of a nation, they said, depended on the number of men capable of bearing arms, and on the quantity and quality of the engines of destruction that they possessed. That is, our country must be powerful in order to be rich, prosperous, and free. _Ergo_, let us increase to every extent the effectiveness of our troops and fabricate without parsimony such arms as are unparalleled in Europe. Weak patriots and economists, the _Sancho Panzas_ of these _Don Quizotte_ politics, murmured a little, but they found themselves obliged to be silent and bow their heads under the taunts and reproaches with which they were loaded. "Utopists," cried the inventors, "you say our machines are not useful; but look down there in the direction of Sadowa and Custozza, and tell us afterward if we have not rapidly and economically fabricated smoke and glory. Ask the surgeons, and they will describe to you the gaping wounds, the deep rents they can produce; [Footnote 42] ask statesmen, and they will tell you the services they render to the ambitious, and the good livings they secure thereby." "Miserable citizens! men without energy and honor," cry they to others, "you lazily prefer well-being to glory, and the success of your personal enterprises to that of the national glory; but let the hour of danger come, and we will make you walk at the point of the bayonet, notwithstanding your cries and menaces." ... And people who cared nothing for truth, and judged by appearances, echoed the cry, and called them utopists, hollow dreamers, theorists, and, after all, cowardly and egotistical.

[Footnote 42: _At Strasbourg the effects of the Chassepot gun have just been certified by experiments on a corpse hung at a distance of fifteen yards. The experiments were made by M. Sarazin, and corroborated by the medical faculty. We will hear the good doctor in his own words: "I am far from exaggerating," said he modestly, "the practical value of my experiences, and I well know the desiderata, easier to distinguish than resolve, that they present from the point of view in which the effect of the Chassepot gun is produced according to distance and on the living being. However, everywhere I have drawn the following conclusions:

"At a short distance, and on a corpse the projectiles have not deviated in their course.

"1. The diameter of the orifice, as it enters, is the same as that of the projectile.

"2. The diameter of the orifice, as it goes out, is enormous, seven to thirteen times larger than that of the ball.

"3. The arteries and veins are cut transversely, drawn back and gaping. The muscles are torn and reduced to the consistency of pulp.

"4. The bones are shattered to a considerable extent, and out of all proportion to the shock of the projectile.

"To sum up, the effects present a remarkable intensity, and it is well to note that, after having traversed the corpse, the projectile pierced two planks, each an inch thick, and buried itself deeply in the wall."_]

So soon as such a river of ink flowed from the desks of the journalists, dragging in its course these insults and injuries, the workmen commenced their labors. They made rifled cannon of steel; hammered coats of mail for their men-of-war; pointed their sword-blades with steel and iron; made bullets, balls, bombs, and howitzers, heaped up in their arsenals great quantities of powder. {134} And one bright day the government announced with pride to the country that it owned 9173 brass cannons, 2774 howitzer cannons, of the same material, 3210 bronze mortars, 3924 small bronze howitzers, 1615 cast-iron cannons, 1220 howitzers, 20,000 carriages for ordnance, 10,000 covered wagons, 4,933,688 filled cannon-balls, 3,630,738 howitzer-balls, 18,778,549 iron bullets, 351,107,574 ball-cartouches, 1,712,693 percussion guns, 817,413 guns of flint, 10,263,986 pounds of powder--in short, enough to exterminate the entire globe. Admirable litany, which the good citizens were to recite mentally every time they thought of the future of their country! Yet profound politicians said it was not enough, and the great statesmen were not at all satisfied. "We must have," said they, "some terrible invention that will strike our enemies with terror. We would like a machine that would mow them down like the scythe of the reaper in the harvest, with movement so regular and continued that it would be impossible for one to escape."

They did speak of a new apparatus, ornamented by its inventor with the pretty name of the grape-gun, and which could send off, twice a minute, a shower of fifty balls. But public opinion demanded something better, and the mortified death-seekers recommenced their labors.

In those days philanthropists and politicians tried to think of the best means of establishing peace an Europe. So they met in a town of Switzerland, on the borders of a beautiful lake, and in presence of grand and lovely scenery--a place which ought to have inspired them with high and holy resolutions. But, unfortunately, they brought with them the bellicose thoughts of their own countries; and so they concluded the only way to promote peace was to destroy all bad and weak governments, abolish abuses, upset society, and so unite all peoples. One might have suggested that a state of peace could alone have produced such harmony; but they did not so closely consider the question.

They were so-called democrats, and they sincerely believed the aurora of justice would shine in the future on the field of battle, and brighten the smoking ruins of its former society. ...

But let us pardon our ancestors: they were more ignorant than wicked. Peace to their ashes! which, mingling now with the elements, circulate in the universe.

Since their time, the globe has many times recommenced its eternal evolutions; the sun has gone out of its orbit, and carried with it the planets into the depths of space; science has become the principal work of human existence, and order is established everywhere; and we, the latest comers on the earth, live happily, because we are free--free, because we are united--united, because we are members of the same family, and children of the same God.

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Plan For A Country Church.

At the request of several bishops and clergymen, we intend to publish from time to time in this magazine, architectural plans suitable for churches of moderate size and costliness. There are many churches of this kind, especially in small country places, required by the wants of the people, where an architect cannot be found, and where the materials, furniture, and other necessary parts or appendages of the sacred edifice must be of the cheapest possible kind. Generally speaking, churches of this sort are built and furnished without any regard to beauty or rubrical propriety. It is, however, just as cheap and easy to make them attractive, neat, and strictly ecclesiastical in their style and proportions as the contrary, if only proper plans and directions can be obtained. These we purpose to furnish after various styles of architecture, and suitable to the different exigencies and tastes of different places and persons. In so doing, we hope to supply a want that has long been felt, and to assist a great number of priests who are laboriously engaged in the meritorious but difficult task of building churches with but limited means for carrying out their plans.

Description.

The design which we have engraved in this number will give accommodation to two hundred and fifty persons seated, the area of the floor of the church being 41 x 25 feet in the clear, with a sanctuary of 12 x 16 feet, a sacristy 12 x 15 feet, and a porch to the front of the church sheltering the door against exposure. The confessional is placed in such a position that the comfort of the priest as well as the convenience of the people may be secured.

The church should be framed with good, stout sills 8x12 inch section, resting on a substantial wall of rubble masonry, where stone can be obtained, or of brick where this material becomes necessary, which wall should be carried deep enough to be unaffected by the frosts of winter, and raised one foot at least above the earth, a wall of rubble or brick being built along the centre to bear the joists of the floor. The joists should be (3 x 10) framed into the sills so that the top of the floor, when finished, may be twenty-eight inches, above the earth, giving four steps to the church, the floor of the sanctuary and sacristy being one step higher, and both on a level. The corner-posts should be 8 X 8 pine timber, and four intermediate posts of 4 x 8. under each principal of the roof. The plate on the top should be 4 x 8, and carried round the whole building except where the chancel intervenes, and care should be taken that all the scarfs of this piece of timber should be carefully made. The posts should all be braced with 4x6 pieces, and the walls studded with 4x4, so that, should it be deemed necessary, in particular localities, to render the building less susceptible to the changes of temperature, the inner space may be filled.

The roof should be framed as high as shown on the elevation, with a slope of 60° with the horizon, in order to obtain greater height to the interior and greater strength to the truss, with a collar about midway of the height, but not lower, and curved braces, resting on hammer beams projecting from the side-walls at the height of the plate, and a curved brace underneath this beam, bringing the strain of the truss as low as possible on the side-walls, but not incommoding the congregation.

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[Image: Front Exterior image of church building.]

Elevation

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[Image: Floor plan of church building.]

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This simple roof should be framed of the best seasoned timber, 4x6 inches scantling, and should be dressed neatly, and, wherever desired, may be moulded and have chamfered edges, and the spandrels filled with two-inch tracery.

In the sanctuary should this more especially be done to mark the distinction of this part of the church. The principals of the roof should be 10 ft. 3 in. apart from the centres, with rafters of 2 x 8 laid across the same 2 ft. 6 in. apart, and the plank covering to be laid neatly with narrow tongued and grooved boards where it may not be desired to plaster the under side of the rafters; in case it may be thought advisable to plaster the ceiling, the plaster should be colored a light blue. The chancel arch should be struck with a curve from the same centre as the roof-braces, with the edges of the jambs and soffit chamfered and moulded.

The walls plastered up to the plate and floated with two coats and finished a light, pleasing, and warm color. If means sufficient warranted, a good cornice neatly moulded should finish the side-walls and break against the principals of the roof, and may be of wood or run in plaster.

A label moulding should be run around each door and window, and in the sanctuary should be enriched whenever possible.

The window over the altar should be two lights wide or more, filled with good geometrical tracery, like that in the front of the pattern shown, the side-windows having pointed heads to the frames and sashes enclosed in segmental heads on the inside. All the windows should be glazed with plain diamond quarry glass of a warm color, and where it may be possible, the chancel window should have enriched borders and the tracery filled with appropriate symbols.

The front of the chapel has been shown covered with shingles, the timbers showing the framing prominently, and should be dressed and the angles chamfered in the manner indicated; the corner-post that carries the bell-cot should be made in one length, and the bell-cot sheltered by a roof of considerable projection and surmounted by a cross, which feature may not inappropriately be transferred to the gable of the chapel at the option of the priest. In structures like the one presented, it is a simpler and at the same time better arrangement to allow the eaves of the roof to project and to dispense with the gutter, the earth below being protected by flagging, or a properly graded gravelled slope. The chimney shown on the plan should be placed in the position marked, to render the draught more equable; in general, all other details of the church, such as pews, and a gallery if needed, and the doors, must be made to accord with the style of the building, and the painting should be the natural color of the wood, stained, unless it be sought to grain the roof or color in bright colors.

In presenting these directions for the builder, many details and features are omitted which can only be supplied by specifications.

This building can be executed for the sum of $3150, the work being plain but substantial, in accordance with the description.

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Miscellany.

We learn with much regret that on the 12th of February the printing establishment of the Abbé Migne, at Mont Rouge, in the southern suburb of Paris, was totally destroyed by fire. No particulars of the occurrence have yet been given. The enterprise, conducted with extraordinary vigor and ability by the abbé, was unique in the history of publishing. It was founded for the purpose of supplying books for the Catholic clergy of France and the whole world. Nearly two thousand volumes, in large imperial octavo, comprising the whole of the Greek and Latin fathers of the church, and writers on theology and ecclesiastical history, were edited, published, and kept constantly in print, employing a staff of several hundred persons, including literary men, printers, binders, etc.--_London Publishers' Circular._

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_Amaurosis from Tobacco-Smoking._--Mr. Hutchinson has reported thirty-seven cases of amaurosis, of which he says thirty-one were among tobacco-smokers. Mr. Hutchinson concludes:

1. Amongst men, this peculiar form of amaurosis (primary white atrophy of the optic nerve) is rarely met, except among smokers.

2. Most of its subjects have been heavy smokers--half an ounce to an ounce a day.

3. It is not associated with any other + affection of the nervous system.

4. Amongst the measures of treatment, the prohibition of tobacco ranks first in importance.

5. The circumstantial evidence tending to connect the affection with the habit of tobacco-smoking is sufficient to warrant further inquiry into the matter on the part of the profession.--_Popular Science Review._

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_The New Laboratory at the Sorbonne._--This magnificent establishment, which is to be devoted to the pursuit of chemical investigation, seems to provide for the student's wants on even a more liberal scale than its celebrated rival at Berlin. Besides the various rooms for researches in chemistry, _pur et simple_, there are numberless apartments exclusively intended for investigation in optics, electricity, mechanics, and so forth. Motive-power is provided for by a steam-engine of great force, which is connected by means of bands with wheels in the several laboratories. Again, besides the ordinary pipes carrying coal-gas, there will be a series of pipes supplying oxygen from retorts kept constantly at work. Indeed, altogether the new laboratory will be a species of Elysium for the chemical investigator.

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_The Bessemer Steel Spectrum._--Father Secchi, who lately presented to the French Academy his fine memoir on the Stellar Spectra, compared the spectra of certain yellow stars with the spectrum produced in the Bessemer "converter" at a certain stage of the process of manufacture. The employment of the spectroscope in the preparation of this steel was begun a couple of years since; but the comparison of the Bessemer spectrum with the spectrum of the fixed stars has not, so far as we can remember, been made before. The Bessemer spectrum is best seen when the iron is completely decarbonized; it contains a great number of very fine lines, and approaches closely to the spectrum of _a_ Ononis and _a_ Herculis. The resemblance, no doubt, is due to the fact that the Bessemer flame proceeds from a great number of burning metals. The greatest importance attaches to the analogy pointed out by Father Secchi. Father Secchi suggests that beginners could not do better than practise on the Bessemer flame before turning the spectroscope on the stars. Difficult an instrument to conduct investigations with as the spectroscope undoubtedly is, the difficulty almost becomes perplexity when the student tries to examine stellar spectra.

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New Publications.

Count Lucanor; or, The Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio. Written by the Prince Don Juan, A.D. 1335-1347. First done into English, from the Spanish, by James York, Doctor of Medicine, 1868: Basil Montague Pickering, Piccadilly, in the City of Westminster. For sale at the Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau Street, New-York.

Mr. Pickering seems to revel in literary oddities. His book on the _Pilgrim's Progress_ was quaint enough, and this volume is scarcely behind it in any of its queer qualities. A more totally _foreign_ book we do not remember ever seeing. In style, idiom, turn of thought, everything, it is remote, _toto caelo_, from all the ideas and criteria of English and modern criticism. Its publication strikes us as being a remarkably bold stroke; we cannot imagine for what class of readers it could have been intended. The only market we could conceive of for such a work in this country, would be a class of Mr. George Ticknor's, if he were to have one, in Spanish archaeology. In Spanish, and as Spanish, we should think it would prove most interesting; even though the translation is intensely Iberian, both in structure and thought.

The "Fifty Pleasant Stories" are very simple as to the machinery, so to speak, of the telling of them. "Count Lucanor" throughout the book asks advice of his friend Patronio, stating his case, and being responded to with a story. Who Count Lucanor may have been is a mystery for ever. The book shows him to posterity only as a Spanish gentleman of apparent consequence, whose forte, as poor Artemus Ward would say, seems to have been to fall into difficulties and ask advice of Patronio. This gentleman appears as a sort of Don Abraham Lincoln, or Señor Tom Corwin, rather. Every question instantly and irresistibly reminds him of "a little story, you know," etc., etc. This is all of their history. What the end of a man must have been who answered every question with an anecdote, we can only shudderingly decline to conjecture. Whether the gallant Count Lucanor sportively ran him through the body after one story too many some roystering day; whether he went mad when the stories gave out, or whether death interrupted him in a sage narrative, with his sapient hand button-holing the count's doublet, it is not said.

There is a world of dry, old-world, dusty, aged pithiness about the stories. They are generally very fairly to the point, and often full of the peculiar patness so characteristic of Sancho Panza. The most remarkable thing about the book, though, is the really large number of apparent originals it contains. In it are gems of all manner of precepts and principles that others have amplified into poetry, and tragedy, and novels, and almost everything. Still, we cannot call this more than a seeming originality, because directly alongside of a tale we are surprised to trace in Shakespeare, or La Fontaine, (a principal debtor to Count Lucanor,) or some other admired author, we are as likely to find some story so aged, so thread-bare, so worn and torn and sapless with the use of centuries, that one is tempted to refer it back to the year 1. Several of the tales are taken from the _Arabian Nights_, and Don Juan Manuel generally modernized them (?) to suit the enlightened Castilian and anti-Moorish tastes of A.D. 1335, The old, old story of Alnaschar, for instance, is dished up as "What happened to a Woman called Pruhana," and the note to the story quietly goes on to the original original, (skipping old Alnaschar with a word as a mere junior copy,) namely, "the fifth part of the _Pantcha Pantra_," which, all will be charmed to learn, is entitled "Aparickchita Kariteva," which latter an Irish friend translates, "Much good may it do ye," and our annotator "Inconsiderate Conduct." {141} We will not quote the intensely thrilling narrative of this Hindoo classic, but content ourselves with assuring our readers, on our honor as a Brahmin, that the point is identically the same.

One of the best examples of the characteristic aptness of the book is Chapter vii.--"The Invisible Cloth." Count Lucanor's quandary is all of a man who offered the count great advantages if he would trust absolutely in him and in no one else. Three impostors (we condense the good Patronio mercilessly) come to a king as weavers of a peculiar cloth that no man but a legitimate son of his father could see; to any one with even a secret taint upon his authenticity it was utterly invisible. The king, delighted with this test of so interesting and gossipable a matter, shuts them up in his palace to make the cloth, furnishing them rich raw material of all sorts. After some days the king is invited alone to see the wonderful woof. King-like, the king sends his chamberlain first. The chamberlain, trembling for his pedigree, opens his mind's eye, sees the cloth distinctly, and returns full of its praises. The king goes next, can't see it either, is terrified for his title to his throne, and decides to see it also; does see it, and admires it extravagantly. Finding it still rather puzzling, he sends his Superintendent Kennedy (_alguacil_) to work up the case. This functionary, likewise failing to see it, and fearing supersedure by the senior inspector of police, makes up his mind that the king's eyes are good enough for him, and, through them, sees it too. Next a councillor goes to report, and, like a true councilman as he is, honors his father and mother by seeing it in the same light as the powers that be. Finally, for some one of the three hundred and sixty-five extraordinary feast-days of Spain, the king orders a suit of the invisible cloth, doesn't dare not to see it, and rides forth among his leal subjects in a costume strikingly like that famous fatigue uniform of the Georgia cavalry, that we used to hear so much of during the war. His people generally, out of respect to their parents, submit to the optical illusion, till, finally, a Spanish citizen of African descent, "having (says Patronio--not we) nothing to lose, came to him and said: 'Sire, to me it matters not whose son I am; therefore, I tell you that you are riding without any clothes.'" The result is a general opening of eyes, a sudden change of tailors, it is hoped, by the king, and the disappearance of the weavers with the rich raw material. Moral (slightly condensed from one page of Patronio)--"Don't Trust."

"James York, Doctor of Medicine," has wasted valuable medical time in translating this, with a good deal of fidelity to the spirit of the Spanish. His style really does render much of its quaintness; as much, perhaps, as today's English will hold in solution. He is also very fairly fortunate with certain small mottoes, or couplets, which close each story, prefaced thus, with slight variations: "And Don Juan, (another utterly mystical character, who does nothing but what follows,) also seeing that it was a good example, wrote it in this book, and made these lines, which say as follows:

'Who counsels thee to secrecy with friends, Seeks to entrap thee for his own base ends.'" (Chapter vii., above given.)'

The notes appended to each story are as odd, many of them, as the stories. Generally, they are little more than notes of admiration, but often brief _excursuses_, showing quite a varied range of reading, and full of all manner of reconditeness. These would seem to be mainly Mr. York's, and they do him credit in spite of their ludicrously high praise now and then.

In the mechanical execution of the volume, Mr. Pickering, we observe, cleaves to his chosen model, the Aldine press, and so gives us in great perfection that accurate and studious-looking print which we all feel we ought to like, and which none of us do like. For our own part, we frankly own our preference for the short _s_, and all the modern improvements. {142} Still, one must bear in mind a thing very obvious in all this line of publications, that it is expressly to meet and foster a kind of taste almost unknown in this country, and that the publisher is evidently carrying out with consistency and energy a peculiar policy of his own, whose success must at last be the test of its own merit.

The general American reader will find this a thoroughly curious book; the lover of cheap learning, a perfect treasure-house of rather uncommon commonplaces; and the Spanish scholar, "a genuine, if rugged, piece of ore from that rich mine of early Spanish literature which yet lies hidden and unwrought."

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Peter Claver: A Sketch of his Life and Labors in behalf of the African Slave. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1868. For sale at the Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau street, New York.

This little book is a brief compendium of the life of a great saint, who was the apostle of the negro slaves in South America. Its publication is very timely, as it shows to the philanthropists of New-England and of the country at large, who interest themselves so much in behalf of the African race, what Catholic charity has done and can do in their behalf. We recommend it to their attention. The Catholic religion, and it alone, can really and completely meet the wants of this much-to-be-compassionated portion of mankind. The striking vignette of this little volume, representing St. Peter Claver supporting the head of a dying negro, who holds a crucifix clasped to his dusky bosom, is an expressive emblem of this truth. It would be an excellent thing if our philanthropists, in Congress and out of Congress, would get a copy of this very suggestive photograph framed and hung up in some place where they are accustomed to say their prayers.

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The Book of Moses; or, The Pentateuch in its Authorship, Credibility, AND Civilization. By the Rev. W. Smith, Ph.D.