Chapter XIII.

That whole night long the little farm of the Anabaptist was filled with partisans going and coming.

Hullin had established his headquarters in the large hall of the ground floor of the house; on this floor, too, was the hospital, and the farm people occupied the upper stories.

Although the night was calm and innumerable stars shone in the sky, the cold was so keen that the frost seemed almost an inch thick upon the window-panes.

Without, the cry of "Who goes there?" occasionally broke the stillness, while ever and anon the howling of wolves was borne on the air from the neighboring peaks; for since 1812 wolves had followed our armies by hundreds, and now, stretched on the snow, their pointed muzzles between their fore-paws, they called from Grosmann to Donon, and from Donon to Grosmann, until the breeze seemed filled with their plaintive cries. More than one mountaineer grew pale as he listened to them, and muttered:

"It is the song of death; he scents the battle from afar, and calls us to follow him."

Then the cattle lowed in their stables, and the horses neighed with affright.

Some thirty fires were burning on the plateau where was the camp; the old Anabaptist's wood-pile had paid tribute, and log after log was heaped on; but though the face might scorch, the back quivered with the cold, and frost hung from the beards and moustaches of those who stood warming their backs.

Hullin, in the house, sat before the great fir table, absorbed in thought. From the latest reports he had received, he was convinced that the first attack would be made the next day. He had had cartridges distributed, had doubled the sentries, ordered patrols through the mountain, and fixed the posts of all along the abatis. He had also caused Piorette, Jerome of Saint-Quirin, and Labarbe to send their best marksmen to him.

The hall where he sat was lit by a dim lantern, and full of snow; and every moment his officers came and went, their hats drawn far down over their heads, and icicles hanging from their beards.

"Master Jean-Claude, something is moving near Grandfontaine; we can hear horses galloping."

"Master Jean-Claude, the brandy is frozen."

"Master Jean-Claude, many of the men are without powder."

Such were the reports and complaints that every moment assailed the leader's ears.

"Watch well toward Grandfontaine and change the sentries on that side every half-hour."

"Thaw the brandy at the fires."

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"Wait until Dives comes; he has ammunition. Distribute what cartridges remain, and let all who have more than twenty rounds divide the surplus among their comrades."

And so the night passed.

Toward five in the morning Kasper reported that Marc-Dives with a load of cartridges, Catherine Lefevre, and a detachment from Labarbe had arrived and were at the farm.

The news eased the old sabot-maker's mind, for he feared greatly the result of a delay in the supplies. He rose at once and went out with Kasper.

At the approach of day, huge masses of fog had begun to rise from the valley; the fires crackled in the damp air, and all around lay the sleeping mountaineers. All was silent, and a cloud, purple or grey, as the fire rose or fell, hung around each bivouac. Further off, the dim outlines of the sentinels could be seen as they paced to and fro with arms shouldered, or stood gazing into the misty abysses.

To the right, fifty yards beyond the last fire, horses were neighing, and men stamping to keep their feet warm.

"Master Jean-Claude is coming," said Kasper approaching the group.

One of the partisans had just thrown a bundle of dry sticks upon the fire, and by the light of the blaze Hullin saw Marc-Dives and his twelve men on horseback, standing sabre in hand, motionless around their charge. Catherine was further on, half covered with the straw of her wagon, her back leaning against a large cask; behind her were a huge pot, a gridiron, a fresh-killed hog ready for cooking, and some strings of onions and cabbages for soup. All started for a moment from the darkness, and disappeared again as the blaze fell.

Dives left his party and rode forward.

"Is that you, Jean-Claude?"

"Yes, Marc."

"I have already several thousand cartridges. Hexe-Baizel is working night and day."

"Good! good!"

"And Catherine Lefevre is here with provisions."

"We shall need all, Marc. The battle is near."

"I do not doubt it; we shall not have long to wait. But where shall I put the powder?"

"Yonder; under the shed, behind the house. Is that you, Catherine?"

"It is indeed, Jean-Claude. A cold morning."

"Always the same, Catherine. Do you fear nothing?"

"Would I be a woman if I lacked curiosity? I must see all that is going on, you know."

"Yes, you have always excuses for your good deeds."

"No compliments, Hullin. People cannot live on air, and I have taken my measures. Yesterday we killed an ox--poor Schwartz--he weighed nine hundred, and I have brought a quarter for soup. Let me warm myself."

She threw the reins to Duchene and alighted, saying:

"Those fires yonder are a pretty sight, but where is Louise?"

"Louise has passed the night making bandages with Pelsly's two daughters. She is there in the hospital, where you see my lantern shining."

"Poor child!" said Catherine; "I will run and help her. It will warm me."

Hullin gazing at her retreating figure could only mutter, "What a woman! What a woman!"

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Dives and his men took the powder to the shed; and what was Jean-Claude's surprise, on approaching the nearest fire, to see the fool Yegof, his crown upon his head, gravely sitting upon a stone, his feet at the embers, and his rags draped around him like a royal mantle.

Nothing could be stranger than his figure. He was the only one waking there, and seemed a barbarian king surrounded by his sleeping horde.

Hullin, however, only saw the fool, and gently placing his hand upon his shoulder, said in a tone of ironical respect:

"Hail, Yegof! thou art come to offer us the aid of thine invincible arm and the help of thy numberless armies!"

The fool, without showing the least surprise, answered:

"That depends upon thee, Hullin. Thy fate and that of thy people around thee are in thy hands. I have checked my wrath, and I leave it to thee to pronounce the sentence."

"What sentence?" asked Jean-Claude.

The fool, without replying, continued in a low and solemn tone:

"We are here now, as we were sixteen hundred years ago, on the eve of a great battle. Then I, the chief of so many nations, came to thy clan to demand a passage--"

"Sixteen hundred years ago!" interrupted Hullin; "that would make us fearfully old, Yegof. But no matter; go on."

"Yes," said the fool; "but thine obstinacy would hear nothing; hundreds of dead lie at Blutfeld; they cry for vengeance!"

"Ah! yes, Blutfeld," said Jean-Claude; "it is an old story; I have heard you tell it before."

Yegof rose with flushed face and flashing eyes.

"Barest thou boast of thy victory?" he cried. "But beware, beware! Blood calls for blood!"

Then his tone softened, and he added:

"Listen! I would not harm thee; thou art brave, and the children of thy race may mingle their blood with mine. I desire thy alliance--thou knowest it."

"He is coming back to Louise," thought Jean-Claude, and, foreseeing another demand in form, he said:

"Yegof, I am sorry, but I must leave you; I have so many things to see to--"

The fool bent an angry look on him.

"Dost refuse me thy daughter?" he cried, raising his finger solemnly.

"We will talk of it hereafter."

"Thou refusest!"

"Your cries are arousing my men, Yegof."

"Thou hast refused, and for the third time. Beware! Beware!"

Hullin, despairing of calming him, strode away, but the fool's voice followed:

"Woe to thee, Huldrix! Thy latest hour is nigh. Soon will the wolves banquet upon thy flesh! The storm of my wrath is unchained, and for thee and thine there is no longer grace, pity, nor mercy! Thou hast spoken thy doom!"

And throwing the ragged end of his cloak over his shoulder, the poor wretch hurried toward the peak of Donon.

Many of the partisans, half awakened by his voice, gazed with dull eyes at his vanishing form. They heard a flapping of wings around the fire, but it seemed like a dream, and they turned and slept again.

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An hour later, the horn of Lagarmitte sounded the _reveille_. In a few moments every one was upon his feet.

The chiefs assembled their men. Some went to the shed, where cartridges were distributed; others filled their flasks at the cask, but everything was done in order. Then each platoon departed in the grey dawn to take its place at the _abatis_.

When the sun rose, the farm was deserted, and, save five or six fires yet smoking, nothing announced that the partisans held all the passes of the mountain, and had so lately been encamped there.

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Glimpses Of Tuscany.

The Passion At Prato.

IV.

As Good Friday drew near, I was more than once asked by our _maestro di casa_ if I meant to attend the Passion at Prato. Prato is an old walled town in the valley of the Arno, about ten miles from Florence. It contains some twelve thousand inhabitants, whose principal occupation consists in plaiting Leghorn straw, manufacturing Turkish red-caps, smelting copper, and quarrying the dark green serpentine, which figures so extensively in Italian church architecture. It is renowned in Christian art as the shrine of the Sacratissima Cintola. Our _maestro_ explained that once in every three years, from time immemorial, the citizens of Prato had celebrated Good Friday by a nocturnal representation of the Passion; that it was a sight well worth seeing, and famous throughout Northern Italy; that he and his family were going, and that they had a window, or stand, very much at my service. My aunt, who thought nothing worth seeing but the Cascine and her native Lucca, shook her head despairingly, leaving me somehow under the impression that the affair was a large puppet-show accompanied by fireworks. So the matter dropped, and I quite forgot it, until invited on Holy Thursday by an English gentleman, long resident in Florence, to make one of a party to Prato, Friday afternoon. As the trains were uncomfortably full, and all the better public barouches engaged weeks before, we had to put up with an old blue hack, drawn by two lank, slovenly bays. But the hack-horses of Florence are singed cats. Although not unlike crop-eared mules, they can hold a trot or canter all day long, without seeming much more distressed than when they started. We were hardly through the Porta al Prato before our team struck an honest, even, steady lope that soon brought us to the Villa Demidoff.

The spring is a slow one, but the violets are out, the fruit-trees in bloom, and the roses budding. There is no dust; the road, like all Tuscan roads, smooth and firm, curbed and guttered, weeded to the edge, fringed with unbroken borders of olive, mulberry, and vines. {317} Along the wayside, and in the doorways, old women and children are braiding straw. Men and girls, in holiday attire, are flocking to the great triennial festa; some in carts, drawn by mild-eyed, dove-colored oxen; some on foot; others in jaunty spring-wagons, jerked along by plucky little ponies. The whole country is astir, with a general concentration on Prato. It must surely be something worth seeing that provokes such a deliberate crowd. Still, I asked no questions. It is so much more interesting to anticipate a spectacle vaguely than exactly. The indefinite anxiety about the form in which a dawning unknown will finally present itself is always more engrossing than mere curiosity to realize a picture distinctly foreshadowed. Yet, while speculating on what the good people of Prato could possibly make of the awful mystery they were undertaking to represent, I must confess that I felt apprehensive lest some awkward handling should affront the unutterably sacred.

At sunset we reached the fine old walls, and came to a halt just inside the gate. To drive further was impossible. The city swarmed with _contadini_ from the neighborhood; with natives and _forestieri_ from Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Lucca, and even Milan; with the beautiful maidens of Segna and the dark silk-venders of Pescia. It was evident, at a glance, that the ceremony was to be a procession. The piazzas were all ready for illumination; every window along the line of march displayed at least two lamps suspended from brackets of thick iron wire; every door and balcony was thronged with still, expectant faces.

As two of our party, a young artist and a mature cosmopolitan, were bent on seeing the cathedral, we managed to reach it after toiling through the crowd. It is wonderful how many objects your disciplined sight-seer can absorb at once. He is never satisfied with less than a constellation in his field of vision. The emotional jumble that maddens a novice serves only to tranquillize his nerves. He is utterly insensible to the charm of a separately entertained idea--the undulating, widening waves of thought dispersed evenly and unbrokenly from one central point of agitation. He is, apparently, never so happy as when the surface of sensation is pelted with fresh impressions, overshowered with novelties, tremulous and titillating with myriads of clashing circlets. But, although the Duomo is partly of the twelfth century, although it is said to enshrine the Sacratissima Cintola, although its choir contains the best specimens of Fra Lippo Lippi, I was not sorry to find the doors locked. My mind was so preoccupied with the coming Passion that I scarcely cared to do more than glance at the fine balcony built by Donatello for the exposition of the treasured girdle.

We drifted about the piazza till dark, when an electrical movement and murmur of the people announced the near approach of the initial moment. Instantly a thousand ladders are up against the house-sides; swiftly and mysteriously the throng of on-lookers melts away; the bands of Pistoia and Prato unite in a minor march; the momently deserted streets are filled with radiance and music--the great triennial festa has begun. Half-past seven; a perfect night; no moon, a low breeze, and faint starlight. We are in the rear of the starting-point; the procession must traverse the whole town--two hours--before it reaches us. But we shall have the best of it then, for the close is said to be even more solemn and better ordered than the start.

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The narrow sidewalks are lined with spectators; doors, windows, and balconies alive with faces; but there is little movement and less conversation. Although we had a room of our own, we found ourselves addressing each other in whispers. At nine o'clock the silence deepened; the low rustling in the balconies ceased; our hostess crossed herself; the glare of coming torches lights up a living lane of men bare-headed, of women mutely praying with clasped hands; and then a solitary Roman knight, with casque and spangled robe, and steed unshod, glides noiselessly into view, like an apparition. After him a band of mounted knights, clad as at Calvary, ride slowly, silently together; then a blast from twenty trumpets, in superb unison, by twenty Bersaglieri of the Guard; and then--a sight which to this day brings the tears to my eyes as I recall it--thirty gladiatorial lictors, ten abreast, stripped to the waist, bare-headed, belted, filleted--all picked men of equal height--moving with a step that spurned the ground, light but swift and stern as fate. How that wonderful step startled us! How its determined energy transported us to Jerusalem! They have sustained it for two hours without the slightest symptom of weariness. They march on as if they could keep the pace forever.

After these, in helmet and cuirass, with shield and sword and spear, come the Roman legionaries, true to tradition in gait, garb, and array.

"Watch the sway of their spears," whispered our artist friend, as the long lances flashed through the air with the even sweep of an admiral's oars.

It was worth watching: nearly as much so as the wonderful stride of the lictors. And, all the while, you could not hear a footfall, a comment, or a murmur; the procession passed like a vision through the heart of that still, torchlit, reverent multitude. But, as the dread sequel approached, I began to tremble--began to fear they might overdo it--although the marching of those drilled lictors and the swaying of those legionary spears might have reassured me. Fresh companies of knights, fresh sections of the cohort are filing forward, every man of them as earnest and absorbed as if he were climbing the hill of the Crosses Three. Not a sign or gesture of levity, distraction, or fatigue; not even a side-glance at the living walls that hemmed them in.

As the vanguard melts away, the sudden glare of many torches, the sudden chaunt of many voices, again invade the solemn stillness with music and light. Marshalled groups of ecclesiastics, each group with its separate choir, are seen advancing in endless perspective; and in the centre of each choir, between two torch-bearers, a lovely boy, with downcast eyes and rigid face, supports some symbol of the Passion. One by one, at measured intervals, the precious emblems of salvation are thus successively displayed--each with its guard of acolytes, its escort of deacons and sub-deacons, its swelling choral, its angelic boy-bearer. Those rapt, concentrated, inspired young faces! I see them now bending in meek beauty over the Scourge, the Crown, the Reed, the Cross, the Nails, the Sponge, the Spear.

And when these too have passed, there is another pause, another interval of darkness, another pulseless silence, broken as before by the tide of radiance and song. Seven white banners inscribed with the Seven Last Words are borne by with the same mournful pomp, the same separate array. Whose the music, I know not: neither Haydn's, I am sure, nor Mercadante's, I think; but quite as effective, for the moment, as either. {319} We looked and listened spell-bound; an overpowering illusion held us speechless and motionless; a dread expectation weighed at our hearts like lead; we were body and soul at Calvary, as once more the torchlight died away. And in the darkness, we asked ourselves, "Will they venture farther? Will they attempt the act of sacrifice itself? Why, the city of Prato would reel like Jerusalem--her graves would open and her dead would walk!"

But Prato is too merciful for that. After an interval of profound suspense, a lofty sable catafalque, encircled by priests arrayed in stole and surplice, is borne silently along--and on it, pale and unmoving, the shrouded image of the divine Victim, with all the agony of the Passion on the white lips and crimson brow. _Consummatum est!_--But as we sat unexpectant of more, another figure emerged from the settling gloom--the life-size effigy of the Mater Dolorosa, "following with clasped hands and streaming eyes the dead form of her Son." After all that long array of _living_ actors, the introduction of any effigy, however perfect, must create a disillusion. And this one is far from perfect--far more suggestive of the Prado than of Calvary. The dead on the catafalque is appropriately represented by the inanimate; but when knights, soldiers, lictors, centurions, are moving, breathing flesh and blood, its application to the equally living Mother is a violent incongruity. The action has been too intensely vitalized to assimilate a counterfeit vitality, however sacred its significance.

"But what then?" asks the genius of Prato. "Am I to forego this tribute to my dear Padrona because it shocks the sensibilities of a speculative tourist? Does not my cathedral enshrine the very girdle of the Assumption that fell to the kneeling Thomas? Can you fix a single unorthodox or unscriptural significance upon these time-honored obsequies? In the final throes of crucifixion, was not the last thought of the dying Son, the last concern of the expiring Redeemer, for his Mother? Was not 'Behold thy Mother!' the last charge of the thirsting lips? We obey the _Ecce Homo_ of Pilate: dare we disobey the _Ecce Mater_ of Jesus?"

Let it be discriminated, however, that in the _Ecce Mater_ we are summoned to contemplate our Blessed Lady, not in her agony, but in her maternity--in her relationship rather to the future than to the present. The Evangelists are singularly careful not to distinguish any finite sorrow--not even _hers_--from the overwhelming spectacle of immolated Deity. Had the Mater Dolorosa formed _part_ of the funeral tableau, had she been pictured _Dolentem_ CUM _filio_, had she been stationed directly _at_ the bier so as to constitute a group or Pietà--although the inconsistency of effigy remained, yet the marbles of Angelo and the canvas of Raphael would have abundantly prepared us for the sight. But at that supreme moment, to present her, _after a distinct interval_, as a _separate_ spectacle, was at variance with all the examples of Christian art. The Stabat Mater does not wander an inch from the Cross; though here, with exquisite propriety, as the sorrow of the Mother is revealed, the cross she clings to is so dimmed by her tears that we catch only mournful twilight glimpses of the DULCEM _Natum_--veiled, infinite, triumphant woe, but none of the vivid, minute, specific agony of the Passion.

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The sublime reticence of the Evangelists, so far from diminishing the true glory of the Handmaid of the Lord, is in inspired accord both with her maiden humility and maternal dignity. The fathomless processes of redemption present themselves to our limited perceptions rather as consecutive than simultaneous. The paternal, the filial, the spiritual aspect of the Holy Trinity seems each consecutively prominent in the church. As the special work of the Redeemer is consummated, the special work of the Comforter begins. The sphere of the Paraclete is as broadly defined, as lovingly respected by the Son, as the sphere of the Padre Eterno. Infinitely dear as is the bond between babe and mother, we instinctively sympathize with the mystical courtesy that reserved the full exaltation of the Bride of the Dove, like the gift of the cloven tongues of fire, for the operation of the Holy Ghost.

"Vergine sola al mondo sensa esempio, Che'l ciel di tue bellezze innamorasti."

And the hearts of the faithful, now as at Ephesus, are jealously alive to the full significance of her paramount title, "_Mater Dei_."

The mission of Peter, to feed the sheep, is not more emphatic than the mission of John as the child and guardian of Mary. The apostolic inheritor of the keys, and the executor of the cross who took her as his own, walk side by side through the ages, _not in the flesh, indeed, but in the spirit_, following the Lord till his coming. In this relation, the dearest disciple is as deathless as the church; under this aspect, Christian art loves to depict him; under this aspect he becomes the preferred of the Paraclete, as he has been the best beloved of Jesus--becomes the great herald of the incarnation; the prophet to whose vision the doors in heaven are opened; the bearer of the mystic challenge, "_And the_ SPIRIT _and the_ BRIDE _say come!_"

Salve Regina! Much as I should have preferred the chime of the Stabat Mater to any more direct suggestion, or to aught in imitative art save the very face of the San Sisto transformed by maternal sorrow, yet no man in Prato bows with deeper heartfelt reverence than I to the image of our ever honored Lady. Tuscany is not Mariolatrous enough for me. I should like it better with a Madonna presiding over every fountain and hallowing every pathway. And, in the deep hush that precedes the stir with which Prato struggles back to herself, the soul's conception of the _Juxta crucem lacrymosa_ takes the place of the vanishing effigy, and, aided by the inspired seers of art, constructs some tenderer semblance of the blessed countenance.

"----ch' a Christo Piu s' assomiglia."

There was but little conversation as we drove back in the midnight. And when at last, in the starry distance, arose the mighty cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore, I caught myself searching among the towers of Florence for the lonely spire of Santo Spirito.

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Galileo-Galilei, [Footnote 125] the Florentine Astronomer.

1564-1642.

"Even so great a man as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn. ... Bacon had not all the means of arriving at a sound conclusion which are within our reach; and which secure people who would not have been worthy to mend his pens from falling into his mistakes."--Macaulay.

[Footnote 125: _Galileo--The Roman Inquisition_. Cincinnati. 1844.

_Galileo e l'Inquisizione_. Marino-Marini. Roma. 1850.

_Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques en Italie_. Par Libri. Paris. 1838.

_Notes on the Ante-Galilean Copernicans._ Prof. De Morgan. London. 1855.

_Opere di Galileo-Galilei._ Alberi. Firenze. 1842-1856. 16 vols. imp. 8vo.

_Galileo-Galilei, sa Vie, son Procès et ses Contemporains_. Par Philarète Chasles. Paris. 1862.

_Galileo and the Inquisition_. By R. Madden. London. 1863.

_Galilee, sa Vie, ses Découvertes et ses Travaux_. Par le Dr. Max Parchappe. Paris. 1866.

_Galilee_. Tragédie de M. Ponsard. Paris. 1866.

_La Condamnation de Galilée_. Par M. l'Abbé Bouix. Arras. 1866.

_Articles on Galileo, in Dublin Review_. 1838-1865.

_Articles on Galileo, in Revue des Deux Mondes_. 1841-1864.

_Mélanges Scientifiques et Littéraires_. Par J. B. Biot. 3 vols. Paris. 1858.

_Galilée, les Droits da la Science et la Méthode des Sciences Physiques_. Par Thomas Henri Martin. Paris. 1868.]

Very few years of life now remain to the Galileo story as heretofore accepted. It has received more than one mortal wound, and, writhing in pain, must soon "die among its worshippers." And yet some of them still battle for its truth. For these, too, the end approaches. We therefore hasten to glean the field and gather in our harvest of historic leaves, while yet the controversial sun shines with fading warmth. We wish at once to present the Galileo story as truly told; for soon there will be nothing left of it to discuss, and the moving drama of

"The starry Galileo, with his woes,"

will cease to be played to crowded and delighted anti-Catholic audiences. A flood of historic daylight has been gradually let in behind the scenes, and our pensive public now begin plainly to discern the bungling framework, the coarse canvas, and the roughly-daubed paint, that, in a light shed by a blaze of religious bigotry, seemed the brilliancy of science and the beauty of truth.

The "persecution," the "torture," the "_e pur si muove_" the "shirt of penance," and all the other properties, scenery, dresses, and decorations, constituting the "_mise en scène_" of the wretched play that so long has had a sort of historic _Black Crook_ run, are now about to be swept away with other old rubbish, and the curtain will fall never again to rise.

The Galileo controversy is of comparatively recent date in our literature. In the year 1838 a well-known article in the _The Dublin Review_ gave the best statement of the case which, up to that period, had ever been presented to English readers. It was in this country generally attributed to Cardinal Wiseman, but was in fact written by the Rev. Peter Cooper. Republished in 1844 at Cincinnati, with a timely preface, it has been largely circulated among the Catholic reading public throughout the United States. Since the dates mentioned, however, there are many valuable accessions to our knowledge on this interesting subject; and, not to mention others, the publications of Marini, Alberi, and Biot have cleared up several important points heretofore in doubt, and placed some disputed facts in an entirely new light.

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The occasion of _The Dublin Review_ article was the appearance of Whewell's _History of the Inductive Sciences_, and Powell's _History of Philosophy_. Its republication in Cincinnati, accompanied by an American introduction, was provoked by some remarkable statements made concerning Galileo by John Quincy Adams, in a discourse delivered before the Astronomical Society of that city. In like manner, the controversy was lately brought to the surface in France by the production of M. Ponsard's five-act drama (_Galilée_) at the Théâtre Français. Before it is put upon the stage, the play is objected to by official censorship, on the ground of historical misrepresentation. M. Ponsard justifies, censure responds. M. Ponsard's friends, the _Avenir National_ and a compact phalanx of ardent young _feuilletonistes_, spring to the rescue; pamphlets fly from the press as thick as autumn leaves, and the whole controversy is once again put in agitation.

Generally speaking, English and American boys emerge from their school or college reading with an idea, more or less vague, that the moment Galileo announced the doctrine of the earth's rotation he was seized upon by the Inquisition, cast into prison, tortured in various ways until all his bones were broken; that he pretended to recant, but, with broken bones aforesaid, stood up erect, stamped his foot, and-thundered out, "_e pur si muove_"--and yet, it moves. We believe this is no exaggeration of the main features of the version that in an undefined and misty form still holds possession of the public mind; and the distinguished Biot appears to recognize this fact in the title of his memoir (1858) on the subject. _La Vérité sur Galilée_-- The truth at last--or, in other words, we have had enough of fiction.

And no wonder; for, up to within comparatively few years, the story has been systematically obscured by thick shades of fable and falsehood. Falsehood as gross as that of Montucla, that the astronomer's eyes were put out; or of Bernini, that he was imprisoned for five years. Falsehood as flippant as that of Moreri, (_Grand Dictionnaire Biographique_,) that Galileo was "kept in prison five or six years," prefacing his statement with "_je sais bien_." Fables as transparent as that of Pontecoulant, who says Galileo was a martyr, leaving you free to imagine the astronomer beheaded or burned, at your choice.

As liberal a quarterly as the _Westminster_ says of Galileo: "For the remainder of his life he was subjected to the persecution of the Inquisition." Even the last edition of the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ tells us that "at the end of a year the Grand Duke had the influence to procure his release from prison;" and Sir Benjamin Brodie informs us, in his _Psychological Inquiries_, that "the Inquisition of Rome subjected Galileo to the torture because he asserted that the earth moved round the sun, and not the sun round the earth." But for a specimen of the most daring intrepidity of statement on this topic, see an article by Libri in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1841; and for one out of a thousand silly rhetorical flourishes, see _Introduction à l'Etude Philosophique de l'Histoire de l'Humanité_, par Altmeyer, (p. 95,) "Galilée fut forcé par un clergé retrograde de demander pardon à Dieu d'avoir révelé aux hommes les éternelles et ravissantes harmonies par lesquelles il régit l'univers."

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Summing up this peculiar phase of historical treatment, there is left from it a general impression that Galileo was persecuted, imprisoned, maltreated, and tortured, wholly and solely by reason of his scientific belief; that he pretended to abjure, but said "_e pur si muove_" and did not abjure.

The Ponsard controversy in France, which had hardly died out at the latest advices, produced many assertions, strong expression of weak theories, loose statement, some fine writing, pleasing amenities, such as "exagération," "inexactitude de transcription," "menteurs," "mensonge complet," and very little historical proof.

Throughout the entire range of the discussion one capital feature appears, as usual, to be left totally out of sight. We mean

The Condition Of The Scientific Question.

The theory of the earth's motion, A.D. 1868, is demonstrated. There is no one to question it--unless, indeed, we except Pastor Knaack, an orthodox Lutheran, or, at any rate, Protestant preacher, in Berlin, who lately had an exciting controversy with Pastor Liscow, in which he maintains that the accounts given of the creation of the world in the first chapters of Genesis are literally true; that the earth does not move, etc., etc. And most persons nowadays, taking it for granted that Galileo had demonstrated the truth of his system, appear to be satisfied that the tribunal by which he was judged must have been perversely blind and disgracefully ignorant in refusing assent to a proposition so evident. Even in many books that treat this discussion with comparative thoroughness, the true condition of the scientific question in Galileo's day is passed over in silence, or presented with startling incorrectness. Thus any one might read Dr. Parchappe's pretentious work carefully through, and never suspect that Galileo had not triumphantly demonstrated the system.

For another, out of many examples, listen to M. Philarète Chasles: "Galileo accomplished the noblest conquest of modern science after that of Newton. _He determined the problem of the movement of the earth_, and thus became culpable of three crimes--against society, the _savants_, and the power of his time." So intent is M. Chasles on his antithetical three crimes, that he loses sight of the fact that this assertion prostrates the whole _échafaudage_ of his defence of Rome--for, ultra-liberal though he be, his book is written with unusual fairness of intention. If Galileo did what M. Chasles thus claims for him--namely, determine the problem of the movement of the earth--_there is no excuse for Rome!_ But a candid examination of the condition of astronomical science at that period, and of the extent of Galileo's acquisitions, will show that not only was

THE SYSTEM NOT DEMONSTRATED BY GALILEO,

but that, with the entire fund of astronomical and physical knowledge in existence in his day, it was not then susceptible of demonstration by him or by any one else.

This examination we now proceed to make. And we set out with the proposition that Galileo, with all the aid of the eighty years of confirmation that grew with the theory of Copernicus, with the light of his own remarkable discoveries, with his brilliant genius and intimate conviction of the truth of his theory, was yet not only powerless to prove it, but was so far wide of demonstration that he assigned as evidence in its support reasons that were utterly erroneous and delusive.

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The truth is--and it is no derogation of Galileo's magnificent talent to say so--it was not given to any single intellect here below to solve a problem so gigantic. It was not possible for any mortal to concentrate the patient labor of centuries within the space of one short life, to master all the avenues of all the sciences that approach it, to storm the firmament and lead captive the stars. No! only the combined genius and ceaseless toil of the illustrious men of science of all Christendom barely succeeded in accomplishing the demonstration of which we speak, nearly two centuries after the grave had closed over Galileo and his judges.

It would require a volume to do the entire subject the merest justice; for, in addition to the examination proposed, it is absolutely necessary, if only for the sake of chronological clearness, to present at least a sketch of Galileo's career, the main events of his personal and scientific life, and a statement of the difficulties that brought on his trial. This we will endeavor to do.

BIOGRAPHY.

Born at Pisa, February 28th, 1564, Galileo-Galilei was, at the age of twenty-six, noticed by the Cardinal Del Monte, and on his recommendation installed lecturer on mathematics in his native city. At this period the doctrines of Aristotle reigned in the schools, although Leonardo da Vinci, Nizzoli, Benedetti, and others, had, by many valuable experiments, already shaken the authority of the Stagyrite on matters of science. The young Pisan followed diligently in their path, and, with the favoring locality of the Leaning Tower, demonstrated the incorrectness of the accepted axiom that the velocity of falling bodies is proportionate to their weight. He was also the first to whom the mechanical principle, since denominated that of the _virtual_ velocities, had occurred in its full extent; and in pure geometry there is no doubt that, at a later period, he anticipated Cavalcanti in the discovery of the calculus of the indivisibles.

Unfortunately, his indiscreet zeal had only words of harshness and rebuke for those who hesitated to accept his demonstrations, and his sarcasms rapidly begot alienation and ill-will. For a prejudice respectable by age he could make no allowance, and with the blindness that in a blaze of light is unable to command vision he had no patience. Galileo was, however, still young, and not yet, if ever in his life, wise enough to reflect, with another great astronomer, that men are not necessarily obstinate because they cleave to rooted and venerable errors, nor are they absolutely dull when they are long in understanding and slow in embracing newly discovered truths.

The young lecturer made so many enemies at Pisa that he was glad to leave it and accept the chair of mathematics at Padua.

THE TELESCOPE.

Here he invented, or rather improved, the telescope. Galileo expressly states in his _Nuncius Siderius_ (March, 1610) that he had heard that a certain Hollander constructed (_elaboratum_) a glass, (_perspicillum_,) by means of which distant objects were made to appear near. Whether this unknown optician was Zachary Jansen, Moetius of Alkmar, or Henry Lippersheim of Middleburg, it seems impossible to determine.

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Indeed, it seems strange that the idea of the telescope had not long before been put to practical use. Passing over the "perspective glasses" of the English astronomer Dee, or modifications of the suggestion in the _Pantometria_ of Digges in 1571, we find that the idea of bringing nearer the image of distant objects by means of a combination of lenses is to be traced almost clearly to a very remote period. Baptist Porta, in his _Magica Naturalis_, published in 1589, speaks of crystal lenses by which he could read a letter at twenty paces, and was confident of being able, by multiplying such lenses, to decipher the smallest letters at a hundred paces. Going further back, we read in the _Homocentrica_ of Fracastorius, who died in the year 1553, of glasses through whose aid we can decipher writing at a great distance; and yet further, Roger Bacon, who died A.D. 1300, speaks of glasses by which very small letters could be read at an incredible distance.

Galileo's first telescope had only a power of three, his second magnified eight times, his third thirty-three, [Footnote 126] and was soon succeeded by a better one made on a suggestion of Kepler, who wrote to Galileo: "There is as much difference between the dissertations of Ptolemy on the Antipodes and the discovery of a new world by Columbus as between the bilenticular tubes which are everywhere hawked about and thine instrument, Galileo, wherewith thou hast penetrated the depths of the skies."

[Footnote 126: The largest telescopes we now have are at Cincinnati, 204 focal feet: Greenwich, (England,) 210; Cambridge, (Mass.,) 270; Pultowa, (Russia,) 289; E. Cooper, (private observatory, Ireland,) 302. Auzont (Paris) is said to have made one of 600 focal feet, but it was found to be unmanageable.]

These embryo telescopes were from twenty to thirty inches in length. Now, from a mere portable toy which Galileo held in his hand, this instrument has become an immense construction capable of supporting the astronomer himself, and which complicated and powerful machinery is requisite to move.

It is a remarkable fact that, as late as 1637, no glasses could be produced in Holland, the cradle of the telescope, capable of showing the satellites of Jupiter, which, in our day, can be discerned with a good field or opera-glass.

With his baby-telescope, then, in 1610, Galileo discovered the irregularities or mountains of the moon, forty stars in the Pleiades, and the satellites of Jupiter. These discoveries were announced in a work bearing the appropriate title, The _Herald of the Skies, (Nuncius Sidereus;)_ and it would be difficult to describe the profound sensation this publication created. Kepler, in a letter to Galileo, describes his impressions on hearing of the discovers of the satellites of Jupiter in the following graphic manner: "Wachenfels stopped his carriage at my door to tell me, when such a fit of wonder seized me at a report which seemed so absurd that, between his joy, my coloring, and the laughter of both, confounded as we were by such a novelty, we were hardly capable, he of speaking, or I of listening."

GALILEO GOES TO ROME.

Galileo visited Rome for the first time in 1611. His fame had preceded him, and his stay there was one long ovation. Attentions beset him and honors were heaped upon him. "Whether we consider cardinal, priest, or prelate," says Salsbury, "he found an honorable welcome from all, and had their palaces as open to him as the houses of his private friends." His reception was indeed, as was beautifully remarked, "as though one of his own starry wonders had dropped from the sky."

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He erected his best telescope in the garden of Cardinal Bandini, and for weeks all classes, priest and layman, noble and plebeian, flocked to see the wonders for the first time given to human gaze.

In 1611 and 1612, he had a protracted controversy, and wrote treatises on the question whether "the shape of bodies has any influence on their disposition to float or sink in a fluid," and displayed much acute reasoning in support of the true principles of hydrostatics.

HIS SUCCESS.

Galileo had now obtained wealth, reputation, station, and high honors. His pupils were received as professors. His disciples and correspondents were philosophers, princes, and prelates. Opposition was for him but a bridge to triumph, and even his scientific errors were not noticed to his detriment. Not his the fate of Kepler and Tycho Brahe, compelled to seek in exile the hospitality of an opposing faith. Not his the essays of the discouraged Fulton, jeered at up to the instant that demonstration silenced cavil. Not his the labors of sad and silent nights, destined only to see the light when the hand that traced them was cold in the tomb. Not his the constant struggle with years of poverty, of hope deferred, in spite of which Columbus found a new world, not, like Galileo's, visible in the vault of heaven, but unseen, unknown, beyond the trackless wave.

He wrote and spoke _ex cathedra_, and, whether with or without proofs, in a tone of overbearing confidence. When argument failed to enlighten the judgment of his adversaries, says Lardner, "and reason to dispel their prejudices, he wielded against them his powerful weapons of ridicule and sarcasm." His progress was a triumphant march. Sovereigns received his dedications, and learned academies sought a reflection of his fame in sending forth his works with all the illustration of their high authority. The path to the full establishment of the Copernican system was open and broad before him; but the pride of the man [Footnote 127] was stronger than the modest science of the philosopher, and he made it rugged and difficult by obstacles of his own erection. He strove not for truth, but victory.

[Footnote 127: Like Cicero, Galileo was "_avidior gloriae quam satis est_," a phrase used by himself when on his defence.]

THE COPERNICAN THEORY

was, so to speak, born, cradled, nurtured and developed in the Church and under the very shadow of St. Peter's.

Nicholas Copernicus was a priest, acquired his scientific education at Bologna, was shortly afterward appointed to a professorship in Rome, where he lectured many years, and announced and discussed his theory of the solar system long before it was published. The printing of his great work was long urged in vain by Cardinal Scomberg, who sent money to defray the expense. The Bishop of Culm superintended its publication, and Copernicus dedicated it to the Head of the Church, Pope Paul III., on the express ground "that the authority of the pontiff might silence the calumnies of those who attacked these opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture." {327} It was well understood that the authority of the pontiff might be relied on; for in 1533, ten years before the publication of _De Revolutionibus_ by Copernicus, John Albert Widmanstadt, just arrived in Rome from Germany, was invited by Pope Clement VII. to give in his presence at the Vatican an explanation of the Copernican system. Widmanstadt accordingly delivered a lecture on the subject in the garden of the Vatican; and his holiness, in token of his high gratification, presented the distinguished German a valuable Greek manuscript, (long preserved at Monaco, and now belonging to the royal library at Munich,) on the fly-leaf of which is recorded, by Widmanstadt, the gift and the incident connected with it.

From that time (1533) to 1610, a period of seventy-seven years, the Copernican theory was widely discussed and written upon throughout Europe. Lectures were delivered and books published in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, without let or hindrance, in which the new system was thoroughly debated and, to a great extent, controverted--controverted, too, far more bitterly by astronomers than theologians. It was, moreover, discussed amongst all classes of men. So much so, indeed, that it was publicly satirized in a farce put upon the stage at Elbing. So great, however, was the personal popularity of Copernicus that the piece was hissed.

Intentionally or not, the impression has been strongly made on the English and American Protestant mind that before Galileo the new system scarcely existed, and that he was the first to announce it to the astonished and benighted priests and cardinals at Rome. In like manner a certain amount of literary industry appears to have been used to pass over in comparative silence the merit of Copernicus and his fellow-priests--simply because they were priests. [Footnote 128]

[Footnote 128: In the interest of truth and historical accuracy, it is highly gratifying to be able to point out a signal and honorable exception in the following passage, which we read in the _National Quarterly Review_, a Protestant periodical published in this city: "Thus we are bound to admit, as beyond all dispute, that not only was the system of the universe now universally received founded by a priest of the church which is said to be an enemy to science, but that it was a bishop and cardinal of the same church who, above all others, took most pains to have the system promulgated to the world. It was, in fact, they who paid all the expenses of printing the work, and finally, it was to the head of the church the book was dedicated; nor was it dedicated to the pope without his having given full permission, and it is further proved that Paul III. had not given the permission until he had made himself acquainted with the character of the work."--_National Quarterly Review_, October, 1868, p. 219.]

Much of this reprehensible effort is chargeable to English literature, and even Hallam, fair and honorable usually, is not free from the reproach of an apparent fear of stating boldly that Copernicus was a Catholic priest.

As remarked, more than three quarters of a century--that is to say, from the period of the Widmanstadt lecture to the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter--the new theory as propounded by Copernicus was publicly taught or discussed by numbers of the first scholars and men of science in Europe.

Among them were Erasmus, Reinhold, and George Joachim Rheticus; personal friends and survivors of Copernicus.

_Francis Patricias_, the distinguished Platonist, who from 1592 to 1597 taught the diurnal motion of the earth at Rome under the patronage of the pope. In connection with the name of Patricius it is interesting to note the fact that the most careful biographers of Galileo have been unable to fix the precise time when he abandoned the Ptolemaic system for that of Copernicus. True, M. Libri, (in his _Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques en Italie_,) with his usual readiness undertakes to inform us, by stating that "_Dès sa première jeunesse Galilée avait adopté le système de Copernic_," which statement, in a question of dates, we find eminently unsatisfactory. {328} The weight of authority, however, appears to place it somewhere between 1593 and 1597, precisely the period when Patricius was lecturing at Rome.

_Christian Urstisius_, who died in 1588, publicly taught the theory of Copernicus in a course of lectures delivered in Italy, and to him also is ascribed, by some, the conversion of Galileo to Copernicanism.

_Diego_ or _Didacus a Stunica_, a Spaniard, a decided Copernican, the first it is said who discussed the Bible arguments, quoting Job: "Who shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble."

_Peter Ramus_, who began his philosophical career by a public attack on the authority of Aristotle, in offering to maintain the contrary of any assertion of his whatever. It is noted as a curious coincidence that the publication of the opinions of Copernicus and of Ramus, controverting ancient astronomy (Ptolemy) and ancient logic, (Aristotle,) were made in the same year, (1543.) Although called by Bacon "a skulking-hole of ignorance," a "pernicious book-worm," etc., he was nevertheless a man of great powers and acquirements. Before Galileo came on the stage, he appeared to favor the system of Copernicus.

_Christopher Rothman_, who, although a friend and at one time a follower of Tycho Brahe, was a defender both of the annual and diurnal motion of the earth.

_William Gilbert_ and _Edward Wright_, two English scientific men, who may be classed among the opponents of the Copernican system.

_Benedetti_, who cautiously favored the system.

_Christopher Clavius_, a celebrated Jesuit, whose vast learning was the admiration of his age. In 1570, he spoke of Copernicus as the excellent restorer of astronomy whom all posterity will gratefully celebrate and admire as a second Ptolemy. We shall meet Clavius again.

Not to speak of Kepler, we might mention Raimarus, Maestlin, Vieta, and many others who wrote or lectured on the subject of the theory of Copernicus previous to the year 1610.

And yet we now reach a period when a professor of this same Copernican theory, in its home in Italy, was to be subjected to what are called the terrors of the Inquisition!

WHENCE THE CHANGE?

How came it about? Were there elements in the controversy other than scientific? And was it, or not, the fault of Galileo that the question was shifted from the safe repose of the scientific basis in which it had remained undisturbed more than four-score years?

SECOND VISIT TO ROME.

In 1615, Galileo was denounced to the Inquisition by Lorini for having asserted, in a letter to Castelli, the consistency of his theories with the Scriptures. Lorini produced a copy of the letter in support of his charge. The officials demanded the original, which the complainant could not produce, although every one in Rome knew where it was. Galileo's denunciator was, so to speak, _non-suited_, and there the matter ended. Meantime, through Ciampoli, Cardinal Barberini, afterward Pope Urban VIII., conveyed to Galileo the advice "not to travel out of the limits of _physics_ and _mathematics_, but confine himself to such reasonings as Ptolemy and Copernicus used; because, declaring the views of Scripture the theologians maintain to be their particular province." {329} This advice, together with the opinion of the eminent Bellarmine, shows precisely the condition of opinion and feeling in Rome at the period in question.

Galileo did not leave Rome after the inquiry of 1615, and then writes to Picchena Feb. 16th, 1616: "My affair has been brought to a close, so far as I am individually concerned; the result has been signified to me by all their eminences the cardinals, who manage these affairs in the most liberal and kind manner, with the assurance that they had felt, as it were with their own hands, no less my own candor and sincerity, than the diabolical malignity and iniquitous purposes of my persecutors. So that, so far as I am concerned, I might return home at any moment."

But he did not choose to return, and remained in order to obtain a decision that should declare his scientific opinion in accordance with Scripture. His friend Cardinal Orsini entered warmly into his views, and after having failed in having the question taken up by the cardinals, had the imprudence to force it (_arreptâ potius quam captâ occasione_) upon the attention of the pope and the cardinals while in deliberation upon matters of weighty concern in one of their largest meetings. On a second interruption the pope, naturally impatient, declared he would send the matter before the Inquisition. He kept his word, and eleven consultative theologians had orders from him to report, which they did, February 24th, 1616. By virtue of an order, said to have been written by the pope himself upon this report, and notified on the 25th February, to the Commissary of the Holy Office by Cardinal Mellini, Galileo was summoned the next day to the palace of the Inquisition, where he was brought before Cardinal Bellarmine. The decree was not one of utter condemnation, but a declaration that the system appeared to be contrary to the sacred Scripture. Galileo was enjoined by the decree to abandon the opinion of terrestrial motion, and neither to teach nor treat of it. Nor was this a discrimination against Galileo merely because he was a layman. A few days afterward the congregation condemned the work of Foscarini, a Carmelite friar and professor of philosophy, who published a letter defending the systems of Copernicus and Galileo. It is important here to remark that the decree of 26th February, 1616, forbidding Galileo to teach the doctrine of the immobility of the _sun_ was scientifically correct, even tried by our modern scientific standard. "Ut supradictam opinionem quod sol sit centrum mundi et immobilis ... omnino relinquat, nec eam de cetero quovis modo teneat, doceat, aut defendat." Will any man of modern science undertake to say that Galileo was right in denying the rotation of the sun? Nevertheless, Galileo writes to Picchena: "The result has not been favorable to my enemies, the doctrine of Copernicus not having been declared _heretical_, but only as not consonant with sacred Scripture; whence, the whole prohibition is of those works in which that consonance was maintained."

Meantime these proceedings, imperfectly known abroad, doubtless gave rise to reports which the "diabolical malignity" of Galileo's enemies (as he styled it) did not fail to exaggerate. Hence, the certificate which he procured shortly after from Cardinal Bellarmine. The enemies Galileo speaks of were at first not in Rome but in Tuscany, as Libri, in his _Histoire des Sciences_, (p. 231,) is at some pains to explain. {330} The sermon of Caccini, who took for his text Josue x. 12, "Move not, O sun, toward Gabaon; nor thou, O moon, toward the valley of Ajalon," quoting from the Acts of the Apostles, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand you here looking up to heaven?"--was preached in Florence, and the friar-preacher was called to severe account for it by his superior at Rome, the general of the Dominicans. Here is the estimate in which Caccini's performance was held at the time in Rome: "All to whom I have spoken," writes an eminent ecclesiastic, Castelli, "think it great impertinence in preachers to mount their pulpits to treat of such high, professor-like matters, _(matterie di cattedra e tanto elevate,)_ before women and people where there are so few to understand them." And really Castelli's sentiment is not without its salt, even when we transfer it from the 17th to the 19th century. Cardinal Bellarmine's opinion as to Galileo appears in an extract from a letter of Ciampoli, March 21st, 1615, who states the conclusion of a long conversation between Cardinal del Monte and Cardinal Bellarmine on the subject of the new opinions to be as follows: "_By confining himself to the system_ AND IT'S DEMONSTRATION, without interfering with the Scriptures, the interpretation of which they wish to have confined to theological professors approved and authorized for the purpose, Galileo would be secure against any contradiction; but that otherwise explanations of Scripture, however ingenious, will be admitted with difficulty when they depart from the common opinion of the fathers."

The sensation and consequent discussion resulting from Galileo's discoveries had induced Bellarmine to submit them to four of the most scientific fathers of his order (Jesuits) for their opinion. One of these fathers was the renowned Clavius. Their answer is published in _Venturi_, part I, p. 167, and shows that they approved the discoveries. As to Cardinal Bellarmine himself, it would take us too far out of our way to show from overwhelming testimony that he never questioned the _truth_ of Galileo's doctrine, but only his imprudent manner of propounding it. His position, in his own words, was this, and his words are full of wisdom: "_When a demonstration shall be found_ to establish the earth's motion, it will be proper to interpret the sacred Scriptures otherwise than they have been hitherto in those passages where mention is made of the stability of the earth and movements of the heavens." So ended the first judicial inquiry, and these two great men, Cardinals Barberini and Bellarmine, thus appear to have providentially left on record a sufficient answer to modern misrepresentation, while showing themselves to be the true friends of science. "Prove your system"--"Demonstrate it," they substantially say to Galileo--"and give yourself no concern about the Scriptures!--the theologians will take care of them." Indeed, the sentiments of these cardinals of the 17th seem to anticipate the language of the Holy Father in the 19th century. "This most tender mother, the Catholic Church, recognizes and justly proclaims," says Pius IX. as cited by Father Hecker in his _Aspirations of Nature_, "that among the gifts of Heaven the most distinguished is that of reason, by means of which we raise ourselves above the senses, and present in ourselves a certain image of God. Certainly, the church does not condemn the labors of those who wish to know the truth, since God has placed in human nature the desire of laying hold of the true; nor does she condemn the effort of sound and right reason, by which the mind or cultivated nature is searched and her more hidden secrets brought to light." {331} (Pius IX.'s letter to the bishops of Austria.) The Holy Father, in his various encyclicals, has repeatedly given eloquent expression to the necessity and true use of reason and of science; and these are the worldly arms whose skilful use by our priests and missionaries will most avail where worldly arms are needed to carry the outposts of intrenched positions in which there are conversions to make or souls to be saved.

On the termination of the inquiry of 1616, Galileo had an audience with Pope Paul V., who received him very graciously and gave him every assurance of good-will and friendship, his Holiness assuring him in parting that the Congregation were no longer in a humor to listen lightly to calumnies against him, and that so long as he occupied the papal chair Galileo might consider himself safe. In his introduction to the Dialogue, (1630,) Galileo thus speaks of this visit: "_Mi trovai allora presente in Roma; ebbi non solo udienze ma ancora applausi dei piu eminenti Prelati di quella Corte_."

Here is the certificate referred to, which was given to Galileo by Cardinal Bellarmine:

"We, Robert Bellarmine, having learned that the Signor Galileo-Galilei has been subjected to false imputations, and that he has been reproached with having made before us abjuration of his errors, and that by our order certain penances were imposed upon him, declare conformably with truth that the said Galileo, neither before us nor before any other person whomsoever in Rome, nor in any other place that we are aware of, made any sort of retraction in relation to any of his opinions or of his ideas, that no punishment or penance was inflicted on him; but that a communication was made to him of a declaration of his Holiness, our sovereign, which declaration was promulgated by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, from the tenor of which it results, that 'the doctrine attributed to Copernicus as to the pretended movement of the earth round the sun, and as to the place which the sun occupies in the centre of the world without moving from its rising to its setting, is opposed to the Holy Scriptures, and consequently may not be defended or held.'

"In faith of which we have written and signed the present the 26th of May, 1616, as here below. (Signed)

"Robert Cardinal Bellarmine."

The expression "Holy Scriptures," gives the key to the whole difficulty. The Congregation, in the first place, discriminated properly in refusing to recognize as a demonstrated proposition that which as yet was and only could be hypothesis.

We have seen that it was the unyielding obstinacy of Galileo in continuing to make it a theological or scriptural question that created all the trouble; and if any one doubts it, he may be corrected, as was Mr. Drinkwater, by an authority which will hardly be questioned:

"Mr. Drinkwater seems to be mistaken in supposing that Galileo did not endeavor to prove his system compatible with Scripture. In a letter to Christina, Grand-Duchess of Tuscany, the author (Brenna) of the life in Fabbroni's work tells us that he argued very elaborately for that purpose. It seems, in fact, to have been his over desire to prove his theory orthodox, which incensed the church against it." (Hallam, _Hist. Lit. Europe_, vol. iv. p. 171.)

In vain Bellarmine cautioned him, "It was essential that he should _confine himself within his mathematical studies_, if he wished to secure tranquillity for his labors." In vain Cardinal Matteo Barberini gave him the same advice. Still Galileo persisted, although from 1616 to 1632 he was not in the slightest degree interfered with, and during all that time never ceased receiving distinguished marks of honor and esteem from pope and cardinals.

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URBAN VIII. (BARBERINI.)

In August, 1623, Cardinal Barberini was elected pope. His promotion was hailed by scientific men with enthusiasm. He had proved himself the friend of Galileo, and on his accession addressed a letter to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, felicitating him on the glory redounding to Etruria by reason of the genius and discoveries of Galileo.

Meantime, in 1618, Galileo had published his _Theory of the Tides_, chiefly noted for its hostile tone of sarcasm, and its scientific incorrectness. He had also been deeply occupied with his method of finding the longitude at sea, and imagined he had succeeded. He was, however, mistaken. His method was a failure.

GALILEO'S THIRD VISIT TO ROME

was made in the spring of 1624. He was again enthusiastically received, and admitted to six long and gratifying audiences with Urban, whose kindness was most marked. Galileo returned home laden with presents, besides a pension from Urban of one hundred crowns yearly, and another of sixty pounds for his son Vincenzo.

"Thus," says the _Edinburgh Review_, "did the Roman pontiff propitiate the excited spirit of the philosopher, and declare before the Christian world that he was neither the enemy of Galileo nor of science."

And now, honored with all these marks of esteem, confidence, and favor; with the fullest license to prosecute his researches and publish his discoveries, provided only that he abstained from any theological complication by dragging the Scriptures into the discussion, how did Galileo act?

But before answering the question, let us pause a moment to see what was the condition and reputation, at Rome itself, of astronomical research in the direction of the new doctrines, and the estimate in which they were held.

ASTRONOMY IN ROME.

The papal court was filled with the personal friends and adherents of Galileo and his system. The Pope; Ciampoli, his private secretary; Castelli, his mathematician; Caesarini, the Grand Chamberlain, and the most distinguished among the cardinals, were known to entertain the Copernican doctrine. The distinguished Jesuit Torquato de Cuppis was delivering lectures in the Roman College in support of Copernicanism. At the Sapienza another Jesuit gave similar lectures. Yet another, the distinguished Scheiner, advanced the system with observations and discoveries, and, says Bailli, was the first astronomer who observed and explained (_Sol ellipticus_) the elliptic form which the sun takes in approaching the horizon. The celebrated work of the Carmelite friar Foscarini, at Naples, was published for Roman circulation, and boldly argued not only the Copernican hypothesis in all its fulness, but its consistency with Scripture. But more than and beyond all this, the chair of astronomy in the pope's own university of Bologna, vacant by the death of Magini in 1616, was tendered to Kepler; thus offering the teaching of heretical astronomy to a Protestant heretic, who was if not the most active yet the most efficient advocate of Copernicanism!

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Indeed, it may be remarked, since Kepler's name is mentioned, that astronomers were far better off in Catholic Italy than in Protestant Germany; for while Galileo was teaching in peace and honor from his professor's chair at Padua, Kepler and Tycho Brahe met for the first time at Prague. Protestant exiles from Protestant lands, they found in the munificent protection of Rudolph safe asylum and an appreciation of their scientific merits denied them at home.

TYCHO BRAHE.

Hostility was excited against Brahe at the court of Denmark, and, on the ground of an exhausted treasury and the _inutility_ of his studies, he was degraded from his office, deprived of his canonry, his pension, and his Norwegian estate, and both his wife and family obliged to seek shelter in a foreign land. His injuries and sufferings preyed upon his mind, and he survived only two years the shameful treatment he had received at the hands of his Lutheran countrymen. Lalande, in referring to the persecution of Tycho Brahe, holds up the Minister Walchendorf to execration and infamy.

KEPLER

was forced to leave home, to accept a professorship at the Catholic University of Gratz. Why? Wolfgang Menzel informs us, (_Geschichte der Deutschen_, vol. ii. p. 645:) "The theologians of Tübingen condemned his discovery, because the Bible teaches that the sun revolves about the earth, and not the earth about the sun. He was about to suppress his book, when an asylum was opened at Gratz. The Jesuits, who better knew how to prize his scientific talent, retained him, although he openly avowed his Lutheranism. It was only at home that he suffered persecution, and it was with difficulty that he succeeded in saving his own mother from being burnt alive as a witch." [Footnote 129]

[Footnote 129: For other remarkable features of this persecution, see _Johann Kepler's Leben und Werken, von G. L. C. Freiherrn von Breitschwert_.]

If we maybe permitted such homely phrase, English literature "draws it very mild" when obliged to refer to the shameful treatment of Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Their persecutors were the Protestant theologians of Tübingen, and the Lutheran ministers of the Danish court. Consequently, these barbarous transactions are always delicately alluded to when not suppressed, and are but little known. If these preachers had been Roman priests and cardinals--ah! then indeed! As astronomer, Kepler's first task was to draw up the Styrian Calendar for 1594. This only served to add fuel to the flames of the wrath of the Würtemberg divines, inasmuch as Kepler used the Gregorian calendar. Having no antipathy to popes as such, he was willing to take the good and the useful without asking whence it came, and gladly used the better measure of time.

The Academic Senate straightway addressed Duke Louis in protest against the introduction of the detested papal calendar; and their memorial is so eminently characteristic and comical that we cannot deny our readers the enjoyment of its perusal. Here it is:

"A Christian, sensible, and good-hearted governor knows that in reformations of this kind he should take counsel of the ministers of the church. As long as the kings of Judah followed the counsel of the prophets and other highly enlightened ministers of the church, they ruled laudably and well--pleasing unto God. It is only when the temporal power is in a member of the true church of God that it has authority, with the counsel of the ministers of the church, to change the outward ceremonies of the church.

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"As the emperor holds the pope to be the vicar of Christ on earth, it is not to be wondered at that he has introduced his calendar into his hereditary dominions, and sent it to the estates of the Roman empire. Julius Caesar had not members of his empire who were lords and rulers themselves like the estates of the present Roman empire. The imperial majesty understands itself, and, in its letter to the estates, merely gives them to understand that this accommodating themselves to his word will give the highest satisfaction.

"But the new calendar has manifestly been devised for the furtherance of the idolatrous popish system, and we justly hold the pope to be a cruel, devouring, bear-wolf. If we adopt his calendar, we must go into the church when he rings for us. Shall we have fellowship with Antichrist? And what concord is there between Christ and Belial?

"Should he succeed through the imperial authority in fastening his calendar about our neck, he would bring the cord in such a way about our horns that we could no longer defend ourselves against his tyranny in the church of God.

"The pope hereby grasps at the electoral hats of the princes of the empire. If the new calendar be not generally adopted, the world will not go to ruin on that account. Summer will not come sooner or later if the vernal equinox should be set a few days further back or forward in the calendar; no peasant will be so simple as, on account of the calendar, to send out his reapers at Whitsuntide, or the gatherers into his vineyard at St. James' day. These are merely the pretexts of the people who stroke the foxtail of the pope and would not be thought to do so. Satan is driven out of the Christian church. We will not let him slip in again through his representative the pope."

And since we speak of Kepler, it may here be remarked that the appreciation in which Galileo and Kepler are held in general historical literature is far from according with the estimate of scientific men. It is assumed that Galileo was persecuted, and that the church was his persecutor. Elevated on the pedestal of his trial at Rome, the man of science is lost in the martyr, and the Tuscan philosopher appears in bold relief on the page of history, while Kepler, the greater astronomer, remains invisible. It is thought, and not without reason, that, but for the Inquisition, the relative reputation of these two great men would be reversed, and the transcendent genius of Galileo's Lutheran contemporary, the legislator of the planets, have been long since recognized. In their anxiety to make the strongest possible case against Rome, anti-Catholic writers have, some perhaps unconsciously, and some with set purpose, greatly exaggerated all the abilities and good qualities of Galileo, and invested him with a superiority far from merited. To believe them, one must look upon Galileo as immeasurably excelling all his predecessors and contemporaries--centring within himself almost superhuman qualities of research and scientific attainment. Merit, talent, genius, Galileo certainly possessed; but tried by a scientific standard, it was inferior to that of the more modest and less clamorous Kepler.

Galileo's true and enduring merit as founder of the modern science of dynamics, and as the author of the grandly suggestive principle of the virtual velocities, is entirely overlooked to claim for him a position in modern astronomy which cannot justly be accorded to him except as secondary to Copernicus, to Kepler, and probably to Newton. The preeminence claimed for the Tuscan astronomer will not stand the test of examination. With English readers, it mainly rests on Hume's celebrated parallel between Bacon and Galileo. "The discoveries of Kepler," remarks Professor Playfair, "were secrets extracted from nature by the most profound and laborious research. The astronomical discoveries of Galileo, more brilliant and imposing, were made at a far less expense of intellectual labor." [Footnote 130]

[Footnote 130: M. Thomas Henri Martin, author of the very latest work on Galileo, is not at all of the Scotch professor's opinion, but follows and even surpasses Hume in laudation of Galileo.]

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MARTYRS OF SCIENCE.

But to return. If, besides Kepler and Tycho Brahe, another martyr of science is needed, he may be seen in the person of Descartes, hunted clown by the Protestant churchmen of Holland.

Nay, if suffering science herself is looked for, she may be found in the Gregorian calendar, for more than a century refused admission or recognition by an English parliament that would rather quarrel with all the stars in heaven than count time with Rome! "Truth," as Hallam remarks, "being no longer truth when promulgated by the pope!" Among the very few men in all England who treated the Gregorian calendar with any degree of politeness was Lord Chesterfield, then a member of parliament. He writes, (March 18th, 1751, old style,) "The Julian calendar was erroneous, and had overcharged the solar year with eleven days. Pope Gregory XIII. corrected this error. His reformed calendar was immediately received by all the Catholic powers of Europe, and afterward adopted by all the Protestant ones except Russia, Sweden, and England. It was not, in my opinion, very honorable for England to remain in a gross and avowed error, especially in such company. The inconvenience of it was likewise felt by all those who had foreign correspondences, whether political or mercantile."

Lord Chesterfield was mainly instrumental in getting up the bill for its introduction. On mentioning the project to the prime minister, the Duke of Newcastle, then in the zenith of his power, the noble duke seemed most conservatively alarmed at such an undertaking, and conjured the earl (Chesterfield) not to stir matters that had long been quiet; adding that he did not love new-fangled things. Lord Mahon, in his history, gives several curious instances of the resentment of the English people against those who aided in bringing about the change in the calendar; thus, when in 1754 Lord Macclesfield's son stood a great contested election in Oxfordshire, one of the most vehement cries raised against him was, "Give us back the eleven days we have been robbed of!" and even several years later, when Bradley, the astronomer, worn down by his labors in the cause of science, was sinking under mortal disease, many of the common people ascribed his sufferings to a judgment of Heaven for having taken part in that infamous undertaking.

Suffering science may again be found in England in the person of Alban Francis, insultingly refused the degree of A.M. by the University of Cambridge in 1687, but afterward mockingly offered it on condition that he--a Benedictine monk--should take the state oath pronouncing the Catholic religion damnable and idolatrous, when it was well known that the degree had been given to men of every variety of nationality and religious profession, even in one case to the Mohammedan secretary of the ambassador of Morocco!

Suffering science again in the English statutes, 7th Will. III., ch. 4, s. 1 and 9, by virtue of which:

1. If a Catholic in Ireland kept school, or taught any person any species of literature or science, such teacher was punishable by law with banishment; and if he returned, he was subject _to be hanged as a felon_.

2. If a Catholic child received literary instruction from a Catholic, either privately or at school, such child, even though in its infancy, incurred a forfeiture of all its property present or future.

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3. And thus deprived of the means of knowledge, if the Catholic child went into a foreign country for education, the child incurred the same penalty, as also the person making any remittance of goods or money for its maintenance!

Suffering science again, within but a few years, in the persons of such geological writers as Dr. Buckland, denounced by leading English periodicals and respectable quarterlies--recognized organs of Protestant opinion--(each one a special, self-constituted, oecumenical council _ad hoc_,) for assigning dates to rocks and fossil remains, which were supposed by alarmed Protestant theologians to vary from the Mosaic accounts.

We present these facts not by way of the justification that, ignorance and persecution being alleged to exist on the Catholic side, there are also such things as Protestant persecution and ignorance; for the one will not excuse the other, any more than two wrongs will make a right.

Pass your own conscientious verdict, reader, on all these transactions, and bear in mind that Galileo's real enemies were of the same class of men who persecuted Kepler in Würtemberg, Tycho Brahe in Denmark, and Descartes in Holland. The first were Catholic, all the last were Protestants; but all were adherents of the old Ptolemaic system and the Aristotelian philosophy. And that was the field on which the battle was fought in Italy, until Galileo insisted on dragging in the Scriptures. The pope and the cardinals esteemed and honored Galileo personally, and, as we see, were far from being in the Peripatetic ranks.

But how did Galileo act after leaving Rome in 1616, and why was he, of all the well-known Copernicans, singled out for prosecution?

WHENCE THE CHANGE?

How came it about? Were there elements in the controversy other than scientific? Was it, or not, the fault of Galileo that the question was shifted from the safe repose of the scientific basis on which it had remained more than fourscore years?

Now we could readily answer these questions thoroughly in very few words, feeling certain, in advance, that the reply would be satisfactory to our Catholic readers. But, writing for the general public, we prefer to present the results ascertained in this much vexed matter by historians, astronomers, and men of science removed by nationality and by religion from any possible bias.

"It was not the doctrine itself," says Mr. Drinkwater, "so much as the free, unyielding manner in which it was supported, which was originally obnoxious."

"The church party," admits Sir David Brewster, "were not disposed to interfere with the prosecution of science, however much they may have dreaded its influence."

In the opinion of Dr. Whewell, "Under the sagacious and powerful sway of Copernicus, astronomy had effected a glorious triumph; but under the bold and uncompromising sceptre of Galileo, all her conquests were irrevocably lost." And he adds, referring to the misfortunes that assailed the reformers of philosophy, "But the most unfortunate were, for the most part, the least temperate and judicious." (_Philosophy of Discovery_, pp. 101-2.)

Even Fra Paolo (Sarpi) thought that if Galileo had been less impetuous and more prudent, he need not have had the slightest difficulty.

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Tiraboschi expresses himself to the same effect. And Alberi, the learned editor of the only complete edition of Galileo's works, says: "Crediamo col Tiraboschi, che il fervore e l'impetuosità sua contribuissero ad irritare gli avversari del sistema Copernico."

"It is doubtless an extraordinary fact," says the _Edinburgh Review_, (October, 1837,) "in the history of the human mind, that the very same doctrines which had been published with impunity by Copernicus, and in a work, too, dedicated to the Roman Pontiff, Paul III., for the avowed purpose of sheltering them under his sacred aegis, should, nearly a hundred years afterward, when civilization had made some progress, have subjected Galileo to all the terrors of the Inquisition. If we study, however, the conduct of Galileo himself, and consider his temper and tone of mind, and his connection with a political party unfriendly to religion, as well as to papal government, we shall be at no loss to account for the different feelings with which the writings of Copernicus and Galileo were received. Had the Tuscan philosopher been a recluse student of nature who, like Copernicus, announced his opinions as accessions to knowledge, and not as subversive of old and deeply cherished errors; had he stood alone as the fearless arbiter and champion of truth, the Roman pontiffs would, probably, like Paul III., have tolerated the new doctrine; and like him, too, they might probably have embraced it. But Galileo contrived to surround the truth with every variety of obstruction. The tide of knowledge which had hitherto advanced in peace, he crested with angry breakers; and he involved in its surf both his friends and his enemies. When the more violent partisans of the church, in opposition to the wishes of some of its higher functionaries, and spurred on by the school-men and the personal enemies of Galileo, had fixed the public attention upon the obnoxious doctrine, it would not have been easy for the most tolerant pontiff to dismiss charges of heresy and irreligion without some formal decision on the subject."

The astronomer Délambre: "On aurait passé à Galileo, de parler en mathématicien de l'excellence de la nouvelle hypothèse; mais on soutenait qu'il devait abandonner aux théologiens l'interpretation de l'Ecriture." (It was free to Galileo to speak as a mathematician of the merit of the new doctrine; but it was claimed that he should leave interpretation of Scripture to the theologians.)

The historian Hallam: "For eighty years the theory of the earth's motion had been maintained without censure, and it could only be the greater boldness of Galileo which drew upon him the notice of the church."

Philarète Chasles, (Professor in the College of France:) "Galileo, a man of vast and fertile intellect, was not in advance of his age and country; he was incapable either of defending the truth or eluding the efforts of those who endeavored to destroy it. In his contests with the latter, he showed neither grandeur of mind nor frankness of character. Unstable, timorous, equivocating, and supple," etc., etc.

Alfred von Reumont, many years Prussian minister at the Court of Tuscany, (see his _Beiträge zur Italienischen Geschichte_, Berlin, 1853:) "Galileo's great mistake was, that he insisted on bringing into conformity with the Scriptures the doctrine of the earth's motion--a hypothetical and then incomplete doctrine, and one denied by many of the most learned, such as Bacon and Tycho Brahe. {338} So that, in the interpretation of certain passages in the Bible, an arbitrary discretion was assumed which the Church, according to her invariable principles, could not concede to an astronomical doctrine as yet unproved."

Such citations as these might be multiplied indefinitely. But they are sufficient, and more than sufficient.

Copernicus, as we have seen, dedicated his great work to Pope Paul III., with these remarkable words: "Astronomers being permitted to imagine circles, to explain the motions of the stars, I thought myself equally entitled to examine if the supposition of the motion of the earth would make the theory of these appearances more exact and simple."

Eighty years had gone by, and the system had undergone no "persecution," in Italy at least. Galileo was now sixty years of age; nearly forty of these years had been passed, not only in the safe but triumphant and even aggressive and defiant vindication of his astronomical and physical doctrines, without let or hindrance save the warning not to trench on the theological view. But this he could not bring himself to consent to, and in 1618, in publishing his _Theory of the Tides_, he indulged in a stream of sarcasm and insult against the decree of 1616. "The same hostile tone, more or less," says Drinkwater, "pervaded all his writings; and while he labored to sharpen the edge of his satire, he endeavored to guard himself against its effects by an affectation of the humblest deference to the decisions of theology." Nor was Galileo's letter to Christina forgotten. It was a letter, widely diffused at Rome and in Tuscany, in which he undertook to prove theologically, and from reasons drawn from the fathers, that the terms of Scripture might be reconciled with his new doctrines, etc. Délambre, Hallam, and Biot all take the same view of it.

THE CELEBRATED DIALOGUES.

Galileo had now resolved to publish a work demonstrating the Copernican theory, or rather, his own views of the earth's motion. But he lacked the courage or the sincerity to do it in an open, straightforward manner, and adopted the plan of discussing it in a supposed dialogue held by three disputants. The two first, Sagredo and Salviati, are represented as accomplished and learned gentlemen, whose arguments are marked by talent and ability. The third, Simplicio, is an old Peripatetic, querulous and dogmatic, measuring everything by Aristotle, and accepting or rejecting accordingly.

This work, entitled _The System of the World of Galileo-Galilei_, was completed in 1630; but, owing to the delays attending the procuring a certificate, it was not published until 1633. "It is prolix and diffuse," says Délambre, "with high estimate of his own discoveries, but depreciation of others." "Indeed, I would advise scholars," says Arago, "not to lose their time reading it."

More than one historian has remarked that, in obtaining the license to print, Galileo exhibited a dexterous management, tinged with bad faith. Biot mentions, "par quels detours il s'en procura une approbation a Rome;" Délambre speaks of his "manque absolu de sincérité;" and Sir David Brewster says, "His memory has not escaped the imputation of having acted unfairly, and of having involved his personal friends in the consequences of his imprudence."

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In as few words as possible, the history of the license affair is as follows. The censor of new publications at Rome was Riccardi, a friend and pupil of Galileo, and devoted to his master. Anxious to oblige him, Riccardi examined the manuscript of the dialogues, suggested the change of some imprudent language, and required absolutely that the Copernican doctrine, dogmatically presented, should be--either in the exordium or peroration of the argument--produced simply as a mathematical hypothesis. Under these stipulations Riccardi returned the manuscript with his written approbation, only to be used when the suggested alterations should be made.

This was in 1630. In 1633, Galileo applied for leave to have his book printed in Florence. Riccardi, with full confidence in Galileo's fulfilment of his promises, merely inspected the beginning and end of the book, which was all that Galileo then submitted to his examination, and gave the desired leave to print.

The introduction, addressed, with an air of sarcasm, "_to the discreet reader_" was, to the last degree, imprudent. He speaks of the decree of 1616 in language at once ironical and insulting, and does not even spare his benefactors. In Simplicio, every one instantly recognized Urban VIII., who was naturally wounded beyond expression to find language put in Simplicio's mouth that he, Urban, had used to Galileo in a private conversation at his own table. And, as if to leave no doubt possible, Galileo says, in introducing these passages, that he had them from a most learned and eminent personage, ("_già appreso da doctissima e eminentissima persona._")

Thus held up to ridicule and contempt, and made the butt of the severest irony and sarcasm, Urban was placed in the false position of the enemy of science, and forced into the attitude of an antagonist of his former friend--unless, indeed, he would consent to be dragged, a disgraced prisoner, at the chariot-wheels of Galileo's philosophy.

We do not refer, in speaking of Galileo's philosophy, to a mere astronomical theory, but to the philosophical and theological opinion which the actual condition of science, the ability of Galileo's adversaries, and the treacherous counsels of his false friends had forced him to couple with it.

Alberi, who is high authority, denies that it was Galileo's intention to attack Urban VIII. through Simplicio. But Olivieri, quite as good authority, is of the contrary opinion.

We know certainly that Urban always maintained, in his conversations with Galileo, the worthlessness of the tidal theory, and told him plainly that he injured his position by resting upon it. Now, the tidal theory was precisely Galileo's cherished argument, and he devotes the whole of the fourth dialogue to its development.

Concluded In Our Next.

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Translated From Der Katholik.

The Ancient Irish Church.

II.

We must say something about St. Columbanus, and his labors in Luxeuil, Braganza, and Bobbio; and of St. Gall, the apostle of Alemania; for it was through these two that the ancient Irish Church did so much in Switzerland and south-western Germany.

Columbanus was born in the province of Leinster, about the year 534, when Christianity began to bear its first fruits in Ireland. While the child was yet in the womb, his mother saw, in a vision, as it were, a sun proceeding from her body and enlightening all parts of the world. The son whom she bore became in fact, through the light of his wisdom and the splendor of his virtues, a star in the church; not only in Ireland, but also in Burgundy, Alemania, and Italy. Instructed, from early youth, in grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and in the study of the holy Scriptures, he left his mother's house in manhood, in order to enter the monastery of Cluain-Inis, and consecrate himself entirely to God. In the year 565 he asked to be received among the monks of the monastery at Bangor, which the Abbot Comgall, equally distinguished by his personal sanctity as well as by the rigor of the discipline which he used in governing, ruled with applause. Columbanus became so remarkable here that Abbot Comgall entrusted him with the directorship of the schools. The fame of the new teacher spread far beyond the limits of Bangor, and the nobles of the land deemed themselves happy to be able to leave their sons to be educated by a man as well skilled in profane science as in Christian perfection. Gall, born in Ireland in 545, became one of his pupils. Columbanus and Gall taught and learned in a blessed abode. Three thousand monks were united in the monastery of Bangor, under Abbot Comgall, in common prayer, the practice of virtue, and a virtuous life. The monastery was built in the year 558, by Comgall, and was, in its first form, a collection of many cells and huts, somewhat straggling in their arrangement. Bangor was fruitful in holy men and apostolic missionaries. Many convents were founded from it. Comgall himself founded the monastery of Heth, in Scotland, A.D. 565, and the monastery of Cambar, and several other smaller communities, in Leinster. Comgall died on the 10th of May, 602, in the 85th year of his age, and the forty-fourth after the foundation of Bangor. Bangor was laid waste by the Danes in the year 823, afterward entirely destroyed by pirates, and on one day the Picts murdered 900 monks. Archbishop Malachy, of Armagh, re-erected Bangor. There now remains on the coast of the bay of Belfast, where the renowned cloister once stood, no vestige of its former greatness.

Columbanus had lived and taught a number of years in the cloister of Bangor, when the desire of travelling and announcing the gospel of Christ filled his soul. He was obliged, however, to make repeated requests before Abbot Comgall gave him permission to depart, and allowed him to choose a certain number of monks as his companions. {341} Columbanus chose twelve, recommended himself to the prayers of the rest, and set out, after receiving the blessings of his abbot, with his chosen band about the year 589-590. We know the travels of Columbanus, and must mention them here. The chosen followers of the great apostle were: Gall, founder of Saint Gall, and apostle of Alemania; Cominnius, Emroch, and Equanach, Lua, and Patentianus, afterwards made bishop of Constance, in Armorica, where he erected a monastery; Antiernus, who, becoming homesick at Luxeuil, wished to return to Ireland, but was retained by Columbanus; Columbanus the younger, a near relative of our apostle, died in the early part of his life, at Luxeuil; Deicola, the founder of the monastery of Lutra, in the diocese of Besançon; Sigibert, the founder of Dissentis, in Croatia; Aldan, later Bishop of Calboaldus. (_Greith_, p. 272.) In British Cambria the holy company joined several British clerics to its ranks.

Whither did these apostolic men wish to go?

It was not advisable to remain in Britain at that time. In the south of this land the Anglo-Saxon conquerors laid waste the country, destroyed the churches; both heathenism and barbarism raised their heads triumphantly in the most populous parts and cities of the island. The two last bishops of Britain, he of London and he of York, fled to the mountains of Wales, with all the holy relics and church vessels which they could save. On account of these circumstances Columbanus determined to leave Britain, to sail for Gaul, and there improve the moral condition of the people, so that if success attended his labors, the good seed might be scattered there with fruit; but if the people were stiff-necked, he would turn to other nations.

The company went to Gaul. This land was divided into three kingdoms: Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy. King Guntram ruled in Burgundy; King Childebert in Austrasia; but after Guntram's death, (A.D. 593,) Burgundy also fell to the share of Childebert.

Columbanus was warmly received at Metz by King Childebert, was invited to remain in the land, and received from Count Agnoald the ancient ruined castle of Luxovium in the Vosges, where the apostle and his monks dwelt, and exercised an extraordinary influence on the people of the neighboring countries.

But how did the noble wanderers find life in the Vosges?

They first rested at Anegrai. "In the wide circle around, the region was a wild desert of thick woods, and steep, rock-ribbed hills; bears and wolves dwelt in them, and only the shrill cry of the birds of the forests broke the frightful stillness. The friars built their huts with twigs and branches. They lived on the bark of trees, wild vegetables, and apples, until, on the third day after their arrival, a countryman brought them better food on a wagon. But, as want returned after a short time, they were well supplied with bread and herbs by the abbot of the monastery of Sancy, three miles distant from them."

But the first monastery was erected, and the mission opened in France. Soon the place in Anegrai was not large enough for the increasing number of the brethren.

Columbanus looked around for a second place in the wilderness of the Vosges. His eyes rested on Luxovium, which had already been offered to him. It was eight miles from Anegrai. There were in it the ruins of cities, of old baths; and in the thickest part of the wood, stone idols, which had been worshipped in ancient times.

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In this spot Columbanus began the building of a larger monastery. Soon so many came and consecrated themselves, under the guidance of Columbanus, to piety and science, that the saint was compelled to erect on a height, supplied by a fountain of fair water, a third monastery, to which he gave the name of Fontaine, (Fontanas.) Whilst he appointed approved men as rulers over these monasteries, he maintained a general supervision over them all, and gave them a common rule, which he copied in part from the rule of the Abbot Comgall, of Bangor.

The Right Rev. Dr. Greith gives us a very interesting account of the life and works of the monk Columbanus in the three monasteries; but we can only give a small portion of it here.

In the year 600 the number of the monks at Luxeuil had increased to 220; and crowds of scholars were instructed in the monasteries.

"All must fast daily, but also daily take nourishment; and as all must eat daily, so must they daily partake of spiritual food, pray, work, and read in books every day." The special usages of monastic discipline were observed most strictly in the three cloisters; violators of rules were punished with rods, imprisonment, or a portion of their food was kept from them. "Before eating there was an examination of conscience, then grace was said, and there was reading during the meals. Before a monk used his spoon, he should make the sign of the cross; the same should be done in taking his lamp, in undertaking any work, or in going out of the cloister. He was commanded to pray before and after labor, and on his return to the monastery he should go before the abbot or superior and ask a blessing. Whoever cut the table with his knife, spilled beer or anything else on the table, did not gather the bread-crumbs, neglected to bow his head at the end of the psalms, or disturbed the chaunt with coughing or loud laughter, was punished," etc. Divine service at Luxeuil consisted in the daily reciting of the psalms, and, especially on Sundays and other festivals, in the celebration of Mass. The custom of uninterrupted psalmody by day and night never prevailed at Luxeuil, as was the case among the monks of Agane in Wallis, and of Haben in Burgundy, and among the nuns of the convent of St. Salaberga.

Columbanus, well educated in both profane and sacred literature, taught his own monks, made them acquainted with the discipline of the _Quadrivium_, and gave them a knowledge of holy Scripture.

Columbanus often retired at the approach of the principal feasts into the solitude of the forests to devote himself to piety and meditation. He sometimes remained fifty days or longer in those places. As in the ages of persecution the blood of the martyrs tamed the tigers and leopards, so that they learned to pity the saints in the circus and amphitheatre; as in the deserts of Africa and Asia Minor holy monks formed a league with nature and its animals, so Columbanus and Gall, whose life was like that of the early fathers of the desert, stood in the most friendly relations with the wild beasts of the Vosges. "As Columbanus was walking one day in the wide forests of the Vosges with a book under his arm, he saw a pack of wolves approaching. The saint stood unmoved. {343} The wolves surrounded him on both hands, smelled the hem of his garments while he prayed to God for protection; they did him no harm, left him and went farther into the wood." Once Columbanus found in a cave a tame bear, which left its abode at command of the saint, who made it his place of shelter. Often, as he reposed under the shadow of old oaks, he called the beasts of the forest to him, and they followed him. He caressed them tenderly; and the birds often flew to him, and sat quietly on his shoulders. A little squirrel had become so accustomed to him as to leap from the branches of the trees and hide in his bosom, run up his sleeves, and then go back to the nearest boughs. A raven was so obedient to him as to return the glove which he had stolen from the saint. (Page 294.)

Columbanus could not remain long in his cloister. He became engaged in a controversy with some French priests, and was persecuted by the corrupt Merovingians, who finally compelled him to quit Luxeuil.

The fact that the Irish clergy clung to the ancient custom of the Irish Church regarding the celebration of Easter, and to the Irish traditions regarding the liturgy of the Mass, gave the French bishops and priests occasion to complain and make opposition. Columbanus wrote three letters on the Easter Controversy to Pope Gregory I. Two of them miscarried; the third reached its destination, but was unsuccessful, because Gregory I. maintained the discipline of the Roman Church on this disputed point. A synod in France, A.D. 600-601, to which Columbanus sent a memorial, did not favor him any more than the Pope. The controversy gradually died out.

The controversy with the Merovingians was far more serious. The crimes of Queen Brunhilda are well known; for instance, how she systematically ruined her grandson, King Theodoric of Burgundy. Columbanus on one occasion having refused to give his blessing to the illegitimate sons of Theodoric, presented to the saint by Brunhilda, she swore vengeance against him. A royal decree was published that no monk of the order of Columbanus should leave his monastery; that no Burgundian convert should for the future hold communion with him, and that no one should establish another foundation according to his discipline. Columbanus expostulated in vain; he wrote a severe protest to the king and threatened him with excommunication. This was the moment of revenge for Brunhilda. She prevailed on the king to cause the abduction of the saint to Besançon by Count Bandulf. Columbanus remained there for some time, highly honored by the people, and doing much good. But he soon returned to Luxeuil. The king, however, sent a whole cohort to seize him and take him out of the kingdom. The soldiers unwillingly executed their orders. The saint left the monastery amid the sighs and tears of his monks, who followed him in funereal procession with weeping and wailing. Only those whom he had brought from Ireland and Britain were allowed to accompany him. Columbanus lived twenty years in the wilderness of the Vosges, and left it in the seventy-fourth year of his life. (A.D. 609-610.)

Let us be brief. Columbanus was brought to Nantes to sail for Ireland; but God prevented him. King Clothaire of Neustria allowed him to return to Austrasia. He went to Metz, then to Mayence, up the Rhine, until he came to Zurich, where he decided to make a longer stay. {344} But the inhabitants of the place were fierce idolaters. Many were converted, while others took arms in hatred of the saint, determined to kill himself and his companions. They consequently left this region and went to Arbon, where they dwelt seven days; thence travelling to Braganza, where they built cells near the ancient Aurelia Church. St. Gall took the three idols from the walls of the church, in the presence of a vast multitude, broke them to pieces, and threw them into the sea. A portion of the people became Christians, and the Aurelia Church was reconsecrated. Columbanus remained a few years in Braganza, when persecutions of various kinds compelled him to quit this region also. (612-613.) He crossed the Rhetian Alps, accompanied only by Attala, and arrived at Milan, where he was well received by Agilulf, king of the Lombards, who offered him a new field for the exercise of his apostolate. King Agilulf and Queen Theodolinda used the holy man for the evangelizing of the Lombards. But his days were numbered. After building a monastery and a chapel at Bobbio, he lived only an entire year, and died on the 21st December, in the year 615, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, one year before the death of Agilulf, king of Lombardy.

"Whilst Ireland glories in being the fatherland of Columbanus, France remembers him in her old abbeys in the Vosges, and his vocation to Italy still lives, not only in the dear relics of Bobbio, in his coffin, chalice, and holly staff, but also in the still living monument of his glory the town of St. Columbano, in the district of Lodi. The writings of this distinguished man, which have come down to us, display a comprehensive and varied knowledge not only of ecclesiastical but also of classic literature. His eventful life has been written by the monk Jonas of Bobbio."

We shall conclude with a few details of the mission of St. Gall, the apostle of Alemania. We already know in what an illustrious school he studied. When Columbanus was preparing himself for the journey to Italy, Gall was sick with a fever, and excused himself from travelling with his superior. In order to keep him and compel him to go, Columbanus harshly said to him, "If thou wilt not partake in my labors, I forbid thee to say Mass as long as I live." He suspected that Gall feigned sickness out of love for the place, so as not to depart from it. Thus Gall, who had been so long under obedience, was at length left to his own will.

He went to Arbon to visit a priest, Willimar, and was nursed during his illness by the clerics Maginald and Theodore, and, having recovered his health, became again an efficient apostle through the assistance of Christ. In 612-613, he began, with his companion Hittibold, the building of a monastery on the bank of the little river Steinach. This valley on the banks of the Steinach, together with Thurgau, belonged at that time to the kingdom of Austrasia, from which it had been severed under Childebert II. (594) for a short time, and separated from Burgundy, to which it was again annexed by King Dagobert. (A.D. 630-38.) Two hundred years later, in the days of Charlemagne, this region was called High Alemania. When Gall came to it, it was almost without dwellings or inhabitants. It was a primeval forest, never inhabited for a thousand years, and never touched by human hands. It was like the woods of the Vosges, a wilderness for savage beasts to roam in without danger. {345} The wood which Gall and Hittibold found was full of underwood in which serpents nestled; the Steinach was full of fish; on the heights hawks built their nests; bears, wolves, and wild boars were numerous around. In this spot St. Gall built his monastery. Wonderful things happened at the building of this convent, all of which is charmingly told in Greith's book. "As, in every spot where, after the migration of the Germanic races, (p. 355.) holy men founded religious institutions, a new life was infused and a new impetus given to civilization, and the wild and savage districts around the monasteries became changed into fertile and well-tilled plains; so did it happen in the neighborhood of St. Gall's monastery from the very beginning of the foundation. The blessed place drew inhabitants near it; Christian worship became the focus around which they gathered; religious instruction ennobled their morals, led them to an orderly family life, made their new home dear to them, and made them love labor and industry. Under the mild protection and guidance of the monastic fraternity, strangers and colonists came from far and near; they became fiefs of the monastery, and aided in spreading its influence and its possessions. From this centre civilization spread far over the surrounding country, so that it became by cultivation transformed from a wilderness into a blooming garden. For twelve hundred years the numerous subjects of the monastery of St. Gall led a happy and peaceful life without soldiers or police. The only bayonet that governed them was the breviary of the monk; and the only sword was the crosier of the abbot. We must also remember that Gall and his followers, axe in hand, hewed down the forest, or with the spade freed the earth from thorns, thistles, and roots. He must therefore be considered as the founder and originator of the agricultural and social glories of Switzerland; for by the law of nature and of intelligence the glories of the effect must redound to the honor of the cause."

The building of the monastery of St. Gall was far advanced when Gall expelled an evil spirit from Fridiburga, the daughter of the German Duke Cunzo, of Ueberlingen. Duke Cunzo gave him many presents on this account, as did also King Sigibert, to whom Fridiburga was affianced. Sigibert sent him a donation letter, the first on record in the life of St. Gall. Gall had at this time only twelve disciples with him, deeming it improper to overstep, in the smallest particular, the limits of the rule. The Irish monks had a peculiar preference for the apostolic number twelve in all their foundations. When Columbanus died, on December 21st, 615, the hour of his death was revealed to St. Gall, and from that time he began again to celebrate Mass.

Gall declined the bishopric of Constance, and had the mitre given to his disciple John; the monks of Luxeuil wished him to be their abbot, but this honor he likewise declined. After the man of God had thrown aside the burden of worldly affairs, he retired to his cloister, to devote himself more completely to a spiritual life. His nightly vigils were renewed, and the fastings of his early days repeated, and the discipline frequently used.

Finally, at an advanced age, he left his cell to visit Arbon, and after preaching to the people, he was attacked by a fever as he was about to return. The malady became so violent that he could no longer take any food. The eternal reward of his great works and services approached. {346} His strength almost gone, almost reduced to skin and bone by disease, he nevertheless persevered in prayer, held pious conversations, and remained faithful to the service of Christ to the end of his life. He rendered his soul to God, after fourteen days' illness, on the 16th of October, A.D. 640. His body was brought by Bishop John to the monastery which the saint had inhabited, and buried between the altar and the wall, with mournful chanting. Many infirm persons were healed, partially or entirely, at his sepulchre.

Even during his life Gall was compared to the early fathers; after his death, the Church honored him as a saint; holy Mass was offered at his tomb; his intercession was invoked with success; and his life presented as a model for Christians to imitate. Eleven years after the death of the saint, his tomb was broken open by robbers; but shortly after replaced by Bishop Boso, of Constance. (A.D. 642-676.) When the great monastery church was consecrated, on October 17th, 839, by Abbot Gotzbert, the bones of the saint were placed on the high altar. They are partially preserved there to this very day.

A glance now at the disciples of Gall. The disciples of this great apostle went forth in all directions from his sepulchre to evangelize the nations, and establish among them new foundations and centres of learning and piety. Theodore built the abbey of Kempten, in ancient Norica; Magnus travelled on foot to the entrance of the Julian Alps; Sigibert, Gall's former fellow-student, went to Dissentis, in Croatia, where they founded monasteries which, after a lapse of more than a thousand years, still exist as firm supports of the Christian religion, learning, and civilization. These monasteries must be considered as daughters of the great metropolis which the holy Irish missionary built on the side of the lofty Alps. The monastery of Reichenau, in Untersee, and that of Braganza, were closely united with St. Gall's foundation. The former was founded, under Charles Martel, by the Irishman Pirminus; the latter, 130 years earlier, by Columbanus and Gall, in the beginning of their missionary labors. The countless churches and chapels built even at an early period in honor of St. Gall, as well as the numerous acts of donation to the monastery bearing his name, prove the powerful influence of the disciples and successors of the saint in spreading Christianity, education, and civilization to the farthest regions. The bishoprics in Switzerland, Germany, and in the Austrian provinces, in the Tyrol and Bohemia, hold a special festival in honor of St. Gall, and give him a special office, honoring him now as well as formerly as the Apostle of Alemania. "The temporal inheritance which St. Gall left to his people was long enjoyed: the higher inheritance which he has left us with the eternal possessions of Christianity in our Church is still with us; and our constant prayer to God and strenuous effort must be to guard it intact, and render it fruitful in the future." (_Greith_, p. 401.)

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{347}

Translated From The French.

The Story Of Marcel, The Little Mettray Colonist.