Chapter X.

"I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things."

Tennyson.

Polycarpe Poquet found it more difficult to conform himself to the rules of the establishment, and the law of obedience to the Elder Brother especially was peculiarly galling to him. The Father of the Family he could submit to; but this superior, the Elder Brother, elected every month by themselves from among themselves, was regarded by him as a kind of hypocritical upstart, whom he took every opportunity to annoy. Many were the insulting words he addressed to the poor boys who received this mark of their companions' esteem, but who by their very position were forced to report every fault committed by those same companions, and many a weary hour did he pass in solitary confinement, making nails, before he had learned that first duty of a good citizen, obedience to constituted authorities.

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Perhaps the visit of a venerable ecclesiastic who had come to examine the working-system of the colony might be taken as the turning-point in Polycarpe's conduct, though not the real date of his improvement, as we shall see hereafter. The good Abbé had been questioning the boys of Marcel and Polycarpe's family, when he suddenly requested them to tell him which were the three best lads among them. Need we say that our poor orphan was one of those who were instantly, and without hesitation, pointed out by their comrades?

"And the worst?" asked the abbé again.

Every eye remained fixed, immovable; every tongue silent. All at once Polycarpe stepped forward and said in a low but clear voice,

"'Tis I!"

"My boy!" exclaimed the worthy priest, as he clasped the young convict's hand in both of his, "I cannot believe it! I will not take even your word for it! This very acknowledgment proves that you are mistaken."

Polycarpe never from that day forth wore the ignominious mark of punishment, the ugly black gaiter on the left leg.

His progress in learning was slow, compared with that of Marcel; but he was an adept in the house-duties, which were performed by each family of boys in turns of a week at a time. He was skilled in sweeping and dusting, washing dishes and cleaning knives. He was the aptest pupil, too, that ever studied the culinary art, and, after a time, was wont to boast that he could dish up a savory dinner there where a less gifted individual could find nothing to eat. Not that Mettray could be considered as one of the best schools for learners, nor its wholesome dinners as specimens of the world-famed French cookery; for they consisted of vegetables entirely, with the exception of twice in the week, when bacon and beef figured on the tables; but Polycarpe felt that he had natural abilities, and could do more than was required of him in the simple kitchen where he practised. He was quite a favorite with the good Sisters who presided there; they were always glad when it was his week to assist them, and praised him constantly for his activity, good temper, and disposition to oblige.

But if Polycarpe was useful in the kitchen, he was invaluable in the infirmary. A handier fellow for helping the suffering never entered a sick-room. He was quick-eyed and _light-fingered_, (in the good sense of the word;) he saw in a moment how best to arrange the pillows for the weary, feverish head; he could dress a blister without drawing a single exclamation from the patient; he could make palatable gruel and ptisan; he was punctual in administering the potions, and, though last not least of his good qualities, he was wakeful and, at the same time, good-tempered and cheerful. The kind Hospital Sisters, who had charge of the infirmary, pronounced him the best of nurses, and would have rejoiced could they always have had him with them.

The very first week that he was on duty there, a poor boy, who had only been a month in the establishment, died of the disease whose germs he had brought with him. Polycarpe watched over him with the tenderest care, and the child became gratefully attached to him, and talked much to him of his past life--a short but sad one. His father, he said, was in the galleys for life; his mother in the hospital at Tours; his two elder sisters in prison for theft; his young brother, a miserable deformed child, was a street-beggar; and he knew not what had become of his little sister of six years old! The poor fellow loved this little sister with all the concentrated strength of a heart that had had but few objects to love, and he cried as he spoke of her.

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When the chaplain came to see him, the last evening of his short life, Polycarpe related the sad story to the good priest.

"Victor Bourdon," said the abbé gently, as he still knelt by the side of the bed, after having prayed with the dying boy, "Victor Bourdon, I will go to Tours, and find your little sister, and I will place her where she will learn to be a good and industrious girl. I promise you this, my child."

Victor turned his dim eyes toward his consoler, a smile of ineffable content played over his pain-drawn features; then, sighing rather than speaking these last words, "Oh! what a pity to leave the colony so soon!" the young earth-tried spirit passed away.

This death made a lasting impression on Polycarpe. The exclamation, "Oh! what a pity to leave the colony so soon!" was like a revelation to him; all at once he understood all that he had escaped--all the privileges he now enjoyed.

The Father of the family found the poor fellow in tears one day, and, after a few sympathizing questions, drew from him a touching confession of his repentance. He freely acknowledged that his good conduct had hitherto been prompted by pride only; "and if," added he, "I have not run away, "_it is only because there are no walls at Mettray_."

Singular proof of the innate sentiment of honor that exists in France! Even this ignorant boy felt it to be an unworthy, cowardly act to betray the confidence reposed in him; he considered himself a prisoner on parole, and scorned to take advantage of the liberty granted him.

All his in-door talents did not, however, prevent his working well at the harder labors out of doors. He was great at the plough, and no one groomed a horse better than he. His strongly-built frame, too, became admirably developed by the farm-work and the gymnastic exercises in which all took a part, but in which none excelled as he did. His stout, muscular form, the splendid glow of his cheeks, and perfectly healthful appearance, would have made him remarked anywhere.

He had at first chosen to learn the trade of a baker, as his future means of gaining a living; but his strong physical nature and necessity of movement soon inspired him with, a decided inclination for a military life, and the administration permitted him to revoke his first choice. Marcel had wished to be a gardener; he loved nature, and was passionately fond of flowers, and his desire had been granted.

So the two boys worked hopefully and cheerfully on; one day was a repetition of the other, until Marcel fully understood that higher life which brings its own recompense, and Polycarpe acquired the love of truth and of honest labor.

A year after his admittance into the colony, Polycarpe's name was inscribed on the tablet of honor by the side of Marcel's, which had already long gained its place there. A few months later, he succeeded to his friend as Elder Brother, and, after another interval of exemplary conduct, both lads received as a recompense a sum of money which was placed in the savings bank of the establishment for their future use, and were entitled to wear a corporal's stripe on their sleeve--a high and envied distinction.

"For the good workers there is a future!" is the hopeful salutation inscribed over the gate at Mettray.

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Yes! there is a future for all true workers! Labor, then, steadfastly; labor trustfully, poor children of earth; the good time cometh--the reward is sure!

To Be Continued.

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Catholicity And Pantheism.

Number Two.

Pantheism Examined From The Ontological Point Of View-- The Infinite-- Idea Of The Infinite According To The Pantheist.

The infinite of the pantheist is _something_ stripped of subsistence, limits, determinations, definiteness, qualities, or quantity; it is devoid of all consciousness, intelligence, will, individuality; it is something hanging between reality and unreality, bordering on possibility and existence; it is not altogether actual, nor entirely possible, but that which is _in fieri_, or becoming; in a word, that which is both being and nothing. It is pure, unalloyed abstraction, without a mind which makes the abstraction.

We acknowledge that pantheists do not all express themselves in the above manner with regard to the infinite; but, if we strip their systems of their various forms, all agree in presenting the same idea.

Whether, with the materialistic pantheists of old, we call the infinite a common principle or seed of liquid nature, from which everything sprang up, and which is the substratum of everything; or whether we call it the _primitive number_, with the Pythagoreans; or we like to exhibit it as the first _unity_ or _monas_, with Plotinus and the Neoplatonists; or we look upon it as the _infinite substance_ of Spinoza; or finally, with the Germans, we prefer to call it the _ego_ or the _absolute identity_, or the _ideal-being_; or the _impersonal reason_, with Cousin--all converge into this idea, that the infinite is something indeterminate, unconscious, impersonal; which, by an interior necessity, is impelled to unfold and develop itself, assuming all kinds of limitations and forms; and thus, from being undefined, indeterminate, abstract, it becomes real, defined, determinate, concrete; from being one, it becomes multiple. The genesis of creation in all its components, and the history of mankind, are the successive unfolding and realization of the infinite in a progressive scale. For, in its necessary development, it becomes matter, organism, sense; and in man it acquires intellect with the consciousness of itself. Here commence all the phases of the development of man recorded in history: phases of a progressive civilization, which are but necessary unfoldings and modifications of the infinite; and which will go on progressing perpetually, to what end, or for how long, pantheists and progressists are unable to determine.

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By means of this theory of the infinite, they endeavor to reconcile reality with the ontological ideas of being, the infinite, substance, and the absolute. For they reason thus: The idea of being is essentially universal, and as such it must embrace all reality, and therefore it can be but one. The same must be said of the idea of the infinite. This comprehends everything, and therefore absorbs everything.

The reader can easily see, from what we have thus far said, that the first problem which pantheism raises and which is to be solved, is the following: What is the nature of the infinite? We accept the problem, and shall discuss it by making the following inquiries.

1. Does the idea which pantheism gives of the infinite really resolve the problem?

2. What is the true solution of the problem?

With regard to the first inquiry we answer that the idea of the infinite, as given by the pantheists, when well examined, leads to one of two different conclusions:

1. Either it is the idea of finite being, and consequently requiring the existence of an infinite being as its origin.

2. Or, it is the idea of a mere abstraction, an absolute nonentity, and hence leading to absolute nihilism. In both cases pantheism, instead of resolving the problem, destroys it. We shall endeavor to prove both these propositions, assuming as granted that the principles of pantheism are these two:

1. The infinite is that the essence of which lies in becoming.

2. It becomes multiplicity, that is matter, organism, animality, etc., by a necessary interior movement.

The pantheistic idea of the infinite leads either to the idea of God given by the Catholic Church, or to absolute nihilism. Proven by the first principle of the pantheists.

Before entering upon the proof, we must lay down a few truths of ontology which are metaphysically certain.

First Principle. Being and actuality are one and the same thing.

The proof of this principle lies in the explanation of what actuality really means. Now, actuality is one of those ideas, called by logicians simple ideas, and which cannot be defined. We shall endeavor to explain it as follows.

Actuality is but a relation of our mind. When we think of a being, not as yet existing, but against the existence of which we see neither an interior nor an exterior reason, we call it possible being; and the perception of all this, in our mind, we call the perception of the _possibility_ of a being.

But when we think of the being, not as possible, but as having, so to speak, travelled from possibility to real existence, we call that being _actual_; and the perception of the mind, the perception of the actuality of a being.

It is evident that actuality adds nothing to being, beyond a mere relation of our mind, which, comparing the being, as really existing, with its possibility, calls it _actual_; because it is existence in act, in contradistinction to possibility, which is power or potentiality.

Actuality, then, and being or reality are one and the same thing.

Second Principle. Actuality and duration are one and the same thing.

An act or being which does not last, not even one instant, is nothing; because our mind cannot conceive a being to exist, and have no duration whatever. Therefore an act or being necessarily implies duration, and they are therefore one and the same thing.

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But it will be remarked: Are there no transitory acts? Do not all philosophers admit the existence of acts which are continually changing?

We answer, What is meant by a transitory act? Does it mean something which is continually changing, so much so that none of its elements has any duration whatever, not even for an instant; or does it mean that the parts or moments, if we may call them so, are in a state of continual transition? In both cases such acts do not and cannot exist.

Before demonstrating this, we observe that it was the ancient Italian school of Elea which, before every other school, raised the problem of transient acts, pointed out the great difficulty which existed in explaining their nature, and demonstrated the impossibility of their existence. To render the demonstration clear, we remark that a transient act may mean either one of two things: an act which is composed of different parts, each in continual transition; or an act which has a beginning, and, after a certain duration, also an end. We admit the existence of such acts in the second sense and not in the first. For if an act continually changes, none of the states which it successively assumes have any duration whatever. Otherwise it would no longer be a transient act in the first sense. But that which has no duration at all cannot be considered to exist. Therefore an act really transient cannot exist. What then is a transient act? We have seen that it supposes something standing or lasting. But what lasts is immanent, that is, has duration. Therefore a transient act can only be the beginning or end of an immanent act, or, in other words, the beginning or end of duration. To illustrate this doctrine by an example: suppose I wish to draw a line on this paper. If all the points, of which the line is to be composed, were to disappear the very instant I am drawing them, it is evident I should never have a line. Likewise, if all the states, which a transient act assumes, are supposed to have no duration whatever, the act also can have no duration, and hence no existence. A transient act, then, is the beginning or end of an immanent act.

Having laid down the foregoing propositions, we come to the discussion of the pantheistic idea of the infinite.

What, according to pantheism, is the idea of the infinite? Something the essence of which consists in becoming, in being made, in _fieri_. Now, we reason thus: a being the essence of which lies in becoming means either an act permanent and lasting, capable of changes, or it means something the essential elements of which are continually changing, and have, therefore, no duration whatever. If the last supposition be accepted as describing the pantheistic idea of the infinite, then the infinite is a sheer absurdity, an absolute nonentity. For, in this case, the infinite would be a transient act, in the sense that its essential elements are continually changing, and have no duration whatever. Now such acts are absolutely inconceivable. The mind may put forth its utmost efforts to form an idea of them, yet it will ever be utterly at a loss to conceive anything about them.

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Pantheism, on this supposition, would start from absolute nihilism, to build up the existence of everything. On the other hand, if the second supposition be admitted, that the infinite is a permanent being, capable of changes and developments, then it is a transient act in the second sense, that is, the beginning or end of an immanent act; in which case we object to its being self-existing, and insist that it leads to the admission of the idea of the infinite as given by the Catholic Church. We demonstrate this from the ontological idea of immanent and transient acts.

If there be transient acts, there must also be immanent acts, because transient acts are the beginning or end of immanent acts. But no immanent act can be the cause of its end, because no act could be the cause of its cessation; nor can an immanent act be the cause of its own beginning, since in that case it would act before it existed.

It follows, then, that an immanent act cannot be the cause either of its beginning or of its end. But a transient act, that is, the beginning or end of an immanent act, must have a cause, by the principle of causality. If, then, the transient act is not caused by the immanent act, of which it is either the beginning or the end, it must be caused by another immanent act.

Now this immanent act, which causes the transient act, has either itself a beginning, in which case it would be preceded by a transient act, or it has no beginning at all, and consequently can have no end.

If it be caused by a transient act, we should be obliged to admit another immanent act; and, if we do not wish to admit an infinite series of causes, (which would by no means resolve the difficulty, but only increase it,) we must finally stop at an immanent act which has neither beginning nor end.

If it be not caused by a transient act, then we have already what we seek for; an act without beginning or end.

But, the infinite of the pantheists, if it be not a mere abstraction, an absolute nonentity, is a transient act.

Therefore, it leads to the admission of a purely immanent act. We present the same demonstration in another form, to make it more intelligible.

A transient act is the beginning or cessation of an immmanent act.

Now, this beginning or cessation must have a cause, by the principle of causality. What can the cause be? It cannot be the same immanent act, of which the transient act is either the beginning or the end. Because, if the immanent act were the cause of its beginning, it would act before its existence; and if it were the cause of its end, its action would be simultaneous with its destruction or extinction, which is a contradiction in terms. On the other hand, it cannot be a transient act, because this _itself_ must have a cause. Nor can it be another immanent act, which has a beginning or end; for in that case it would be a transient act. Therefore, it must be a purely immanent act, without beginning or end. In short, a self-existing transient act, such as the infinite of the pantheists, is an absurdity, because this denotes an act which gives itself a beginning, or which gives itself an end. This beginning or end must be given it by another. Now, this second is either a purely immanent act, without beginning or end, or it has had a beginning, and may have an end. In the first supposition we have the Catholic idea of God. In the second we may multiply these causes _ad infinitum_, and thus increase _ad infinitum_ the necessity of the existence of God to explain those existences.

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We pass to the examination of the second leading principle of pantheism, which is thus expressed. The infinite, by a necessary interior movement, becomes multiple.

How is this to be understood? If the infinite of the pantheists, by a necessary interior movement, unfolds itself, and becomes multiple, it follows that it is the cause of transient acts. Our mind can attach no other signification to that principle, beyond that of an immanent act, producing transient acts. Now the question arises, Is this ontologically possible? We insist that it is not, and lay down the following proposition: No being, which moves or unfolds itself, that is, which performs transient acts, can do so by its own unaided energy; but requires the aid of another being, different from itself.

An immanent act which produces a transient one does so either by an eternal act, also immanent, and in that case it cannot be the subject of the transient act produced; or it produces a transient act of which it is the subject--so much so that the transient act is its own act, as, for instance, the act by which a sensitive being feels a new sensation, or the act by which an intelligent being begets a thought, are transient acts, the one of the sensitive principle, the other of the rational being. These transient acts modify the subject which produces them, and effect a change in it.

Now, in the first case, if an immanent act which produces transient acts is eternal in duration, these cannot terminate in the subject, by the supposition. For, if the transient act were laid inside the permanent act, it would be its cessation, and in that case the act would no longer be eternal according to the supposition.

In the second place, if an immanent act becomes the subject of transient acts, or, in other words, modifies itself, a sufficient reason must be given, a cause of such modification, by the principle of causality. Why does it modify itself? What is the cause of such a change? The being or subject, or immanent act, does not contain the sufficient cause of the modification or change; because if it contained it, the act produced would be permanent, and not transient, that is, it would have always been in the immanent act. For it is a principle of ontology of immediate evidence that, given the _full_ cause, the effect follows. Now the immanent act in question _was_ before the transient act existed; therefore, the immanent act is not full and sufficient cause of the transient act which modifies it. If it is not the full and sufficient cause of its modification, it cannot modify itself without the aid of exterior being. Now, this exterior being cannot be supposed to be of the same nature with the act in question, otherwise it would itself require aid. Therefore, it must be a being which does it by an eternal immanent act; and that Being is the _Infinite_ of Catholic philosophy.

Apply this demonstration to the second principle of pantheism, that the infinite, by a necessary interior movement, unfolds and develops itself, or modifies itself, it is evident that this second principle, like the first, is ontologically impossible; that the infinite must either be purely, simply, and eternally actual, or it cannot develop itself without the aid of another being of a different nature; consequently that the second pantheistic principle is nothing else but the idea of finite being perfecting itself by the aid of the Infinite of Catholic philosophy.

In order that this conclusion may appear more evident, we subjoin another argument, more adapted to the comprehension of most readers.

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According to the pantheistic hypothesis, the infinite, by a necessary interior action, is forced to expand, to develop itself. Now, we want to show that this it cannot do by its unaided energy. We prove it thus: This action of the infinite is a movement; we make use of the word movement in its widest signification, as meaning any action whatever. Now, this movement either existed always in the infinite or it had a beginning. In the system of the pantheists it has a beginning, because they hold that the infinite successively assumes different forms. There was then a time in which it did not move. Then the infinite had only the power, and not the act of moving; and when it _did_ move, it passed from the power to the act.

It will not do for the pantheist to endeavor to avoid this conclusion by saying that the movement of the infinite is eternal. Conceding that the movement is eternal, we ask, is the action only one, or is it multiple? In other words, is the full intensity of its energy concentrated in one movement, or is it divided? The pantheist cannot, in force of his system, admit that the whole intensity of its energy is concentrated in a single movement; otherwise, the successive unfoldings were impossible; the unfolding would be instantaneous, and not successive.

The infinite, then, in its successive unfoldings, passes from the power to the act. Now, it is an ontological principle, as evident as any axiom of Euclid, that no being can pass from the power to the act, from quiet to movement, but by the aid of another being already in act. For power is, in relation to action, as rest is to movement. If the being is in rest, it cannot be in movement; if, on the contrary, it is in movement, it cannot be in rest. Likewise, if the being is supposed to act, it cannot, at the same time, be supposed to be in potentiality. A being in power and action, with regard to the same effects, is as much a contradiction as a being in rest and motion at the same time. To make this more intelligible, let us take an instance. Suppose the seed of a tree, say of a lemon: this seed is in potentiality to become a lemon. But it could never of itself become a lemon; because, if it could, it were already a lemon; it were a lemon, not in power only, but in act. To become a lemon it must be buried in the earth, it must go through the whole process of vegetation, and assimilate to itself whatever it needs from the earth and the air and the sun; and not until then can it be the fruit-tree we call lemon.

No being, then, can pass from the power to the act, except by the aid of another being which is in act. Now, the infinite of the pantheist is continually passing from the power to the act; from being indefinite and indeterminate, it becomes limited and determinate. Therefore it cannot do so but by the agency of another being, which is all action and no potentiality.

This being is God.

We have examined the first principle of pantheism with regard to the infinite, and we have seen that a being the essence of which lies in being made, in becoming, either means something the essential elements of which are continually changing, so much so as to have no duration whatever, or it means a being which has a beginning and may have an end. In the first case, the infinite of the pantheist would be a mere absurdity, a pure abstraction. In the second, it expresses nothing else but the idea of a finite being, and leads to the existence of a purely immanent being or act. {366} Proceeding to discuss the second principle of pantheism, that the infinite, by a necessary, interior movement, unfolds itself, we have demonstrated that this is impossible; that, granting the possibility of the infinite unfolding itself successively, this it could never do by its own unaided energy, but requires the help of another being. That, consequently, the second principle of the pantheists leads also to the idea of God as proposed by the Catholic Church.

As a corollary following from the whole discussion, we draw the conclusion that the infinite is utterly inconceivable, unless it is supposed to be most perfect, most finished reality, if we may speak thus; that it is altogether absurd, unless it is supposed to be pure actuality, without the least mixture of potentiality; in a word, pure, simple action itself; in the language of the schoolmen, _actus purissimus_.

The discussion of the pantheistic idea of the infinite has led us to the main idea of the infinite as it is given by Catholic philosophy. We shall now proceed to fill up this idea and develop it to its utmost conclusions, so as to give an exact and full exposition of the doctrine of the infinite, as proposed by Catholic philosophy. The result of our discussion has been that the Infinite, or God, is action itself; or, in other words, pure actuality, an immanent act without beginning or end. Upon this we shall build the whole construction of the essential attributes and perfections of God, and admire how consistent, how logical, how sublime, is the Catholic idea of the Infinite.

I.

God Is Necessary Being.

Necessary being is that the essence of which is one and the same thing with its existence; and, _vice versa_, the existence of which is one and the same thing with the essence, so much so that the idea of the one implies the idea of the other.

But God's essence is to be; for we have seen that he is actuality or reality itself. Therefore, God is necessary or self-existing being.

Hence the sublime definition he gave of himself to Moses: "_I am WHO am_. _He who is_ sent me to you."

II.

God Is Eternal.

Eternity is duration without succession or change; _duratio tota simul_, as the schoolmen would say. Hence it excludes the idea either of beginning or end. But duration and actuality are one and the same thing. Therefore actuality itself is duration itself; that is to say, duration without succession or change.

Now, God is actuality itself. Therefore he is eternal.

III.

God Is Immutable.

Immutability is life without succession or change; or, in other words, life without beginning or end, and without being subject to modifications. Now life is action. Action then, without succession or change, is immutability.

God is action itself. Therefore God is immutable.

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IV.

God Is Infinite.

Infinity is being itself with the exclusion of limits, that is, of not being; or, to express ourselves more intelligibly, it is being or perfection in its utmost and supremest actuality, excluding the possibility of any successive actualization, for the reason of its being already all possible actualization. Human language is so imperfect and so inadequate that, even in our efforts to avoid in the definition of the infinite all idea of succession or development, we are forced to make use of words which seem to suppose it. Those who are trained to think logically will grasp the idea without much effort; for the words _being itself_, to the exclusion of not being or limitation, sufficiently and adequately define the infinite. Now, God, as action itself, is being itself. Therefore, God is infinite.

V.

Immensity Is The Presence Of The Whole Being Of God In His Actions.

This definition of immensity, being somewhat different in words from that commonly given by metaphysicians, requires explanation. Let the reader, then, pay particular attention to the following remarks.

Ubiquity implies residence of _being_ in space, both spiritual and material. By spiritual space we mean the existence of different created spirits and nothing more.

By material space we mean the extension of matter.

That God can act on or reside in spiritual beings does not involve any difficulty.

But how can he reside in material space, space properly so called?

It is evident that a spiritual being cannot dwell in space by a contact of extension, since spiritual being is the very opposite of extension.

Therefore, a spiritual being can only dwell in space by acting on it.

The presence of the whole being of God in the action by which he creates, sustains, and acts in spiritual and material space, is ubiquity.

Immensity is the presence of the whole being of God in his action. The difference between the two lies in this: that ubiquity implies a relation to created objects, whereas immensity implies no such relation. We say, then, the presence of the _whole being_ of God in his action, because God is pure actuality, action itself. If, therefore, in his action we did not suppose the presence of his whole being, we should establish a division in God; that is, we should suppose his being and his action to be distinct, which they are not, and this distinction would imply a development in God, which is contrary to his being action or actuality itself.

It will easily be remarked that immensity is an attribute which flows immediately from the idea of God being actuality itself. We may therefore conclude that he is immense.

VI.

God Is Absolute Simplicity.

Absolute simplicity, in its negative aspect, implies the absence of all possible composition or distinction in a being; the distinction, for instance, of essence and existence, of faculties and attributes.

Now, God is pure actuality, and this excludes all idea of such distinctions. Therefore, God is simplicity itself.

VII.

God Is One.

God is a necessary being, eternal, immutable, infinite, immense, all of which are sides of one idea--that of pure actuality.

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Now, such a being can be but one, as is evident to every mind which understands the terms. God is therefore one.

Before we leave this part of the subject, let us compare both the pantheistic and the Catholic ideas of _God_, so that, when brought together face to face, they may appear in a better and more distinct light.

God, according to the pantheists, is an eternal, self-existing _something_, devoid of all determination or limit, of all individuality, of all consciousness, of all personality, of all shape or form.

When well examined, the principle of the pantheists presents no other idea to the mind than that of possibility, a kind of self-existent possibility, if we may bring together two terms which exclude each other.

Starting from this possibility, the pantheists make it acquire determination, concreteness, consciousness, personality, by supposing an interior necessary force of development.

The Catholic idea of God is the very opposite of the pantheistic.

For, whereas they make God a possibility, something that is becoming, to be made; the Catholic Church exhibits him as reality, actuality, being itself. It is careful to eliminate from him the least idea of potentiality or possibility, of becoming something, or of being subject to development or perfection; because it insists that God is all reality, perfectly and absolutely actual. Any idea of further perfection is not only to be excluded from him, but cannot even be conceived; for the simple reason that he is all perfection, absolute, eternal perfection.

That this is the only reasonable idea of God is evident to every mind which is capable of understanding the terms. For happily it does not require a long and difficult demonstration to prove the falsehood and absurdity of the pantheistic, and the truth of the Catholic, idea of God. The understanding of the terms is quite sufficient.

Whoever says possibility, excludes, by the very force of the term, existence and reality. A self-existent possibility is a contradiction in terms; for possibility excludes existence, and self-existence implies it necessarily.

An eternal possibility is also a contradiction in terms; for eternity excludes all succession or mutation, and possibility implies it. An infinite possibility is yet more absurd; because infinite means absolute reality and actuality; possibility, on the contrary, implies only power of being.

But, on the contrary, how logical, how consistent, how grand, and how conformable to all ontological principles is the idea of God held by the Catholic Church! God is absolute, pure, unmixed actuality and reality. Therefore he is self-existing being itself; therefore he is eternal, because pure actuality is at the same time pure duration; therefore he is immutable, since pure actuality excludes all change and development; therefore he is infinite, because he is being itself, the essential being, _the_ being; therefore he is simplicity itself, because a distinction would imply a composition, and all composition is rejected by actuality most pure, so to speak, unalloyed, unmixed.

The God of the pantheist is a nullity, a negation; the God of the Catholic Church is really the Infinite. He is in himself whatever is real and actual in spirit, whatever is real and positive in matter, whatever is real and positive in the essence of all creatures. But he has all the reality of spirit without its limitation; all the reality of matter without its limitation; all the reality of all creatures without their limitation. All this reality in him is not such and such reality; but he is all reality, pure, unmixed reality, without limit and without distinction.

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What leads the pantheists into the admission of their principle is a false, wrong idea of the infinite. They suppose, and suppose rightly, that the infinite must contain all reality; and seeing around them such a multitude of different beings or creatures, each one with its particular difference and individualization, they ask themselves the question, How can all these differences be concentrated in one being?--the infinite--and in endeavoring to resolve it they admit a first something undefined, indeterminate, which assumes gradually all these different forms.

What is this but a very material and vulgar idea of the infinite? That it was the idea of the first who began to philosophize is intelligible. But that modern philosophers should have no higher comprehension of the infinite, that they should not conceive how the infinite can be all reality, in its being without distinction, composition, change, or succession, is quite inconceivable; and is much less than we should expect from men boasting so loudly of their enlightenment.

Let them hear a Catholic philosopher of the middle ages upon the subject. After having demonstrated that whatever is real in the creature is to be found in God as the infinite and most perfect, he proposes the other question, How can all these perfections be found in God? and he answers, that they are necessarily to be found in God, but in a most simple manner, as one and single perfection. We subjoin his words:

"From what we have said, it evidently follows that the perfections of creatures are essentially unified in God. For we have shown that God is simple. Now, where there is simplicity there cannot be found diversity in the interior of the being. If, then, all the perfections of creatures are to be found in the infinite, it is impossible that they could be there with their differences. It follows, then, that they must be in him as ONE.

"This becomes evident, if we reflect upon what takes place in the faculties of comprehension. For a superior power grasps, by one and the same act of comprehension, all those things known, under different points of view, by inferior powers. In fact, the intelligence judges, by a unique and simple act, all the perceptions of sight, of hearing, and of the other senses. The same occurs in sciences: although inferior sciences are various in virtue of their different objects, there is, however, in them all a superior science which embraces all, and which is called transcendental philosophy. The same thing happens with relation to authority. For in the royal authority, which is one, are included all the other subordinate authorities, which are divided for the government of the kingdom. It is thus necessary that the perfections of inferior creatures, which are multiplied according to the difference of beings, be found together as one, in the principle of all things--God!" [Footnote 132]

[Footnote 132: St Thomas's _Compendium Theologiae_, cap. 22.]

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{370}

The Right Path found through the Great Snow.

The drifting, wide-spread snowstorm of January 17th, 1867, will live in the memory of the "oldest inhabitant" among the strange things of that eventful year. It confirmed in its depth and fulness the weird stories of our grandsires, which our later years had come to look upon as myths; of benighted travellers buried in drifts that covered houses; of common roads only made passable by archways cut through the white heaps; of houses where the only egress was by the upper windows, or perhaps the chimneys. Among the multitudes who found themselves snow-bound on that memorable Thursday aforesaid, I was shut up to the cold comfort of a country inn, in a bleak, mountainous district, where I had arrived the previous evening with the intention of spending only a night and day; less, if the business that brought me could be transacted in a shorter time. I had engaged the parlor and bed-room adjoining, that I might occupy myself with necessary writing uninterrupted by any chance arrival. The dimensions of my suite of apartments were small, and the furniture of the plainest kind; a dingy carpet covered the floor, and green and yellow paper adorned the walls. The brilliancy of the _tout ensemble_ was heightened by a series of coarse, highly-colored plates, representing the life of the prodigal son in all its phases, and an equally radiant "family tree," laden with what was intended to represent tropical fruits, in red and yellow, the oranges bearing the names and dates of the female members of the family, and the lemons those of the males; a very suggestive picture certainly, and one that told some queer tales of my landlord's family, _Fox's Book of Martyrs_ and an almanac for '66 were the only books the room furnished. The chairs were of the stiffest pattern, arranged in funereal order around the sides of the apartment, with a notable exception in a large stuffed arm-chair, of the olden times, which I drew before the open grate piled with blazing peat.

That fire was a comfort indeed. A sight almost lost in these days in New England; it helped me to forget, in its beautiful variations, the dashing appearance of the youth pictured on the walls, and the cruel plates and malicious lies of the "English martyrologist."

Little did I dream, as I arranged my plans for the next day, of the change that would come over the outer world while I slept, although there were already signs of a coming storm. I looked from my windows in the morning, through the large elms, heavy with the accumulating weight, across the road and opposite fields which the snow had swept into one broad expanse of whiteness, obscuring landmarks and obliterating fences, and which the furious wind was now lashing into billows, all dead white, save where

"Some dark ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black Against the whiteness at their back."

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To be "snow-bound" may be very nice in a large, well-ordered household; but in solitude, with neither books nor companions, and with the remembrance of a family far away, who perchance may just then need your stout arm to release them from a like imprisonment, it is not a cheerful position; and I could not repress a sigh as I gazed over the trackless way, remembering that I was five miles from a railroad station, in a small upland village, not famous for the enterprise of the inhabitants. The sigh was scarcely breathed when, on the confines of the opposite meadow, I espied two figures struggling against the elements, evidently intent on working their way to the inn through the terrible drifts. It was weary work; for they fell and arose again often, during the short time I watched them before hastening to the old landlord, who was smoking his pipe where was once the barroom, and dreaming over the visions of his long-gone youth. As soon as the purpose of my call was known, he summoned three stout laborers from the kitchen, where they were rejoicing with the maids over the prospect of an idle day, and bade them go at once to the relief of the travellers. I grew impatient with the long delay of the servants, the more as but one of the two men was to be seen breasting the storm; the other must have fallen. Forgetting my delicate lungs and small physique, I donned my overcoat and hat, and, fortified with a flask of brandy, hastened to the rescue, reflecting that brains are often as useful as muscle in an emergency. The more successful traveller, a stout son of "green Erin," was quite exhausted when we reached him; but he found breath to articulate, in answer to our inquiries for his companion: "Indeed, he fell near the big tree. Oh! he be's a real gintleman." The informer was conveyed to the house by two of the men, while with what seemed to me supernatural strength, I made my way with the third toward the aforesaid "big tree," walking on the drifts where the stouter man went down, and though the strong, keen northwest wind nearly took away my breath, and the sleet almost blinded me, I was first on the spot. It seemed to me two hours, though it was less than half that time, from the moment when I lifted the head of the fallen man and succeeded in pouring into his mouth a spoonful of brandy, till we landed with our burden at the door of the inn.

There was something in my first glance upon that cold, handsome face that came to me like a dream of early days--something that claimed kindred with the associations of my youth. By the motherly solicitude of the landlady I knew that he would be speedily resuscitated, and, prostrated by my exertions, I was leaving him in her care, when I stooped to reach the hat of the gentleman from the floor where it had been thrown, when I saw the name "Redwood R. Hood," written in the crown. Immediately I knew why I had been impressed with his face, and turning to that form over which strangers were bending with curious gaze I said peremptorily, "Take the gentleman to my room; he is a friend of mine; and, Mrs. S----," I added to the landlady, who looked incredulous, "with your help we can very soon restore the circulation, and he will have more quiet there than here." I will not enter into the process of resuscitation; let it suffice that by evening my friend was the occupant of the large arm-chair before the piles of burning peat, and we had gone over the years intervening between us, with the circumstances of our meeting again in a summary manner, and we now sat in the early twilight quietly looking at one another.

{372}

"The 'wolf' snow came near devouring little 'Red Riding Hood' this time," I said, bursting into a laugh again at the joyous memories that name recalled.

"Even so," replied the pale figure opposite, "and I owe my life to you, William Dewey, the '_billet doux_' of early days. Happy hours of our youth!" he added, almost regretfully. "Yes, they were happy," I responded, "even with all their drawbacks; yet what do you think now of the sermons of two hours in length filled with the strong meat of total depravity, election, inability, foreordination, and reprobation, to which we were under bonds to listen and to give a rehash at home, and the tedious prayers which we were obliged to take all standing; a much more respectful attitude, however, than the lounging, sitting posture of the present generation of the so-called orthodox?"

"Do you remember," he said, a smile spreading all over his face, "when we were at Parson Freewill's school in L----, in the old meeting-house with the square pews, with seats that lifted when the congregation arose for prayer, and the vigorous slam we gave the covers when we reseated ourselves? I think that powerful stroke rather compensated for the length of the prayer; it was something to look forward to. But my most fearful remembrance is the hour after supper devoted to the Assembly's Catechism. I can see my poor aunt now, shaking her grey curls over the old family Bible, from which she was endeavoring to prove to me the words of the Catechism which said I had lost all communion with God, was under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life and the pains of hell for ever, and that through no fault of mine; but that such was the corruption of my nature that I was utterly indisposed and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to evil, and that continually!" (_Vide_ Catechism of Westminster Assembly.)

"How is it possible you have your catechism at your tongue's end even at this date?" I replied. "Really I doubt if I could repeat an answer correctly; but I thank God who has brought me out of such terrible darkness."

"Then you have escaped?" he inquired, putting out his hand to grasp mine; "you, a deacon's son, brought up in the very midst of 'Brimstone Corner'! Well, well! I must believe the age of miracles has not passed, for this cannot be anything less than a miracle!"

"Yes, a miracle indeed," I replied gravely. "A double miracle, that I escaped, and am at last anchored."

"Anchored!" he exclaimed incredulously, "do tell me where you can find bottom after such uprooting."

"Where you will perhaps despise me more than if I had been content to walk the Calvinistic rut through life," was my reply, as I gave into his hand my prayer-book. He examined it with curiosity and surprise. "A Catholic! a Roman Catholic!" he exclaimed at length, with a shade of what I thought savored of contempt in the tone of his voice; "you, William Dewey, son of Deacon Norman Dewey, of the puritanical city of Boston, you a Papist! Excuse me if I cannot help saying, it seems to me, 'out of the frying-pan into the fire.'"

"And pray, may I ask where you find yourself religiously?" I said; "men of our years, after the fifties, ought to be fixed somewhere."

{373}

"On the other pole from yourself," he replied quickly; "I believe in no creed, no church, no--"

"No God?" I questioned, a little satirically.

"A great first cause, certainly," he said slowly. "Yes, the God in everything, 'Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,' the true Shekinah is man. But let us not mar this pleasant reunion with discussions. With your fixed faith, you can have no sympathy religiously with one the pride of whose creed is, that it is changing daily, wholly unfixed and afloat."

"There you mistake," I replied earnestly. "I can and do most heartily sympathize with you; for I floated for years on that same waste of waters--that shoreless sea of doubt."

"Is it possible! and came at last where you are? I know nothing about the Catholic faith, I must own, from actual study, and from what I have heard I did not think it would bear examination; but there must be something in it if it has caught you, and, if you like, it would give me pleasure to hear the process: but perhaps you will object?"

"Not at all," I replied, "but it would take me all night to tell you the course I run in this matter, and fatigue you after your misadventure to listen."

"I think it would do me good," he said more earnestly than he had yet spoken; "I am really impressed with a desire to know how such a transformation could take place, and you come to embrace what you were brought up to hate. As to my strength and ability to listen, I am about as well as usual, but miss my tobacco sadly. My meerschaum probably lies in the drift that had nearly been my winding-sheet." I went to the hall and despatched a servant, who soon returned with a box of clay pipes and tobacco in one hand, and the missing meerschaum in the other.

"We must be in a remarkably primitive region to find this again, and without reward," he cried, looking tenderly at the old friend. "Now go on," he added, after the first puff; "begin at the beginning, where you used to be flogged about every Sunday for going reluctantly to catechism. Oh! if there is any one thing more than another that upset that old cross-grained theology of our childhood, it was those dreaded Sundays; when, after two sessions of Sunday-school, two long sermons, and an hour's sitting on the Westminster Divines, we were allowed some spiritual sugar-plums in the shape of the _Memoir of Nathan Dickerman, Life of Mrs. Harriet Newell_, or some other questionable saint. Yours was a large family at home, and did not feel what it was to be the sole recipient of the full vials of reprobation. What saved us from being arrant hypocrites or open infidels?"

Though I questioned in my own mind how far my friend's religion was from infidelity, I replied, "The fact that we felt that our teachers' hearts were better than their creed; for surely never did there exist a man more free from every taint of hypocrisy than my honored father, who held tenaciously to the five articles agreed to by the Synod of Dort, which represented most of the Calvinistic churches of Europe, looked upon Calvin's Institutes as binding next to the Bible, and I believe worshipped this terrible God in whom he believed with the most earnest faith."

{374}

"And you a Catholic!" he said, striking his hands together. "Excuse me if I repeat what I said. I cannot see how you have bettered the matter, since the Catholic Church holds to total depravity and foreornination, and moreover excludes all from any hope of salvation who do not bow their necks to her yoke."

"Excuse me for flatly contradicting you, but the Catholic Church does not hold the doctrine of the total depravity of the human race; on the contrary, she ever teaches that man did not lose by the Fall the image of God, or his own free will, or the powers of his reason. But you asked me how I became a Catholic. I am more interested in telling you that than in refuting what her enemies say of the church, because that you can find in books any day; but you must allow me to echo your surprise when I see a large, earnest soul like yours satisfied with a simple negation of faith."

"Satisfied! if by satisfaction you mean certainty, I say no; for I do not believe it is to be found. The best, I find, is to follow the light that comes to me," he added, with, I thought, a shade of sadness in his tone; "I broke the fetters of Calvinism with a bound, and when I had started, there was nothing for me to do but to cut loose from everything traditional, and rest solely on reason. But tell me of yourself, for any man who is in earnest, thinking for himself, I respect, be he Mormon or Mohammedan."

"I thank you for my share of the respect," I replied, "though I do not consider it very flattering. I never was a Calvinist; my earliest reason rebelled against the teachings, and many a snubbing did I get in my youth for daring to question--'_cavil_,' it was called. I went through all the phases of the system, trying to believe as I was taught; for I had large human respect and strong desire to please, with a devout turn of mind, making many a violent effort to be in a condition to become, what my friends wished, 'a professor;' but my conscience was too clamorous to allow me to pretend that I had 'obtained a hope,' or 'experienced religion.' Invariably, after a few weeks of fervor, I settled back into a state of indifference or doubt, although, to please my father, I was a constant attendant on all 'inquiry-meetings' and 'anxious-seats.' When I think of those meetings and the self-constituted teachers, who came there to hear the confessions, and to guide anxious souls in the road to heaven, a flash of indignation passes through my frame. About five years after, we parted as school-mates; you for the South and a stirring business life, I to New-England and the meditative days of a student. I was attracted and fascinated by the specious talk of transcendentalism; it was my first taste of liberty. I read, thought, and dreamed; tried to feed my soul on naturalism, and to renounce everything supernatural; talked very flippantly about the God in everything as the object of my worship; but my hungry soul was unsatisfied; there was a cold, dreary chilliness, and undefined nothingness, a rejoicing in uncertainty, which brought nothing like food to my spirit. This _faith_ (if it deserves the name) flattered my proud heart, giving me the 'genus homo' as an object of worship; but I saw plainly that it could never reach the needs of humanity, and though 'brotherhood' was its watchword and cry, it could never be a religion for the masses. It was only for the refined, the cultivated, the gentle, and the good. Where were the abandoned, the dissolute, the coarse, vulgar herd to find a God in such a snare? I often asked myself this question, and this specious infidelity gave me no answer. {375} Of the Catholic Church, I am ashamed to say, I then knew nothing, except that I had often heard her called 'the mother of harlots,' 'Babylon,' 'the scarlet woman,' and such like attractive names, but it did not once occur to me that I ought to examine her claims; floating as I was, seeking for foothold, she was not presented to my mind as an object to be looked at or feared, only to be despised. At that time I was associated with many of the purest and noblest spirits, longing and feeling after God by the dim light of nature; trying to think him out for themselves; finite minds blinded by vain efforts to comprehend the infinite. The first genuine wave of affliction brought me to a standstill on the brink of the abyss that says there is no God. I lost my mother; she was one of those timid, fearful souls, and had not that 'assurance' of which Calvinists make their boast; the words spoken of my precious mother after her burial nearly drove me wild; they snapped the last cord that bound me to the iron system of opinions which had thrown their shadow over my young life. Three years of rushing into the world to drive away thought followed this terrible blow, and then came a blessing--the best blessing of my life."

"A wife?" questioned my friend, as I paused a moment in my recital; "a wife, yes, I have it," as a smile twinkled in the corners of his clear grey eyes and spread over his handsome face; "I see it, she knocked the transcendentalism out of you with the Catholic hammer."

"Hardly," I replied, joining in the hearty laugh that followed his remark; "being a fearfully high-church woman, and looking upon hers as the only pure branch--the _via media_--the only barrier against Rome, 'Romanism,' as she sedulously named the Catholic Church, was the only thing her loving soul was bitter against."

"Then you came through the gate of ritualism?" he questioned again; "a very natural sequence."

"You are excellent in jumping at conclusions," I answered; "I could never embrace the Anglican myth, though I was bound by my own creed not to trouble myself about that of other people. I was brought behind the curtain of this household, however, and saw the cruel intestine warfare between high and low church; the vital difference in the teaching of the two classes of clergymen, the 'sacramental' and the 'evangelical;' and I saw within her fold young, earnest hearts becoming partisans in these divisions and calling it zeal for God. I often heard more talk of an evening over the particular shade of an altar-cloth, the size and pattern of book-marks for the altar, the proper position of faldstools, credences, sedilia; the way in which a clergyman read or pronounced, the depth of the genuflection he made in the creed, and so forth, than I have heard the whole ten years I have been in the Catholic Church. I saw, too, that she was eminently the church of the fashionable, 'the most genteel denomination,' as I heard one of her members declare, with much self-satisfaction, containing the 'cream of society;' the poor shut out from her churches, and compensated by mission-chapels for their exclusive use. Of course my wife was very earnest to make me a convert to Episcopacy, and by her repeated solicitations I examined the 'Book of Common Prayer,' as she so often said (what is a truth everywhere) that one must not judge of a religious body by individual members or teachers, but by her standards. {376} I was strongly confirmed, by this examination, in my opinion of the want of conformity to their own rules by many of the clergy, and the helplessness to reach them by discipline, which is the first requisite in a well-ordered household. That the body of the book contradicted the thirty-nine articles was as plain as that 'Protestant' was on the title-page; for while one acknowledged priest, altar, and sacrifice, the other stoutly denied all three."

"And did you make known the result of your investigations to Mrs. Dewey, or did you leave her in ignorance of what you had found?"

"I dreaded to shake her faith, knowing that I had nothing to give her in its place, and I withheld my conclusions, till she insisted so earnestly, assuring me that she could not be moved, that I yielded. I could see that she was moved by what I said; but she was only carried forward, grasping more firmly the fragments of Catholic truth she already held, and growing, as I afterward knew, into a more Catholic spirit. At length I said to her, as she was mourning over the want of unity among her chosen people, and the alarming progress of 'Romanism,' which had just clasped in its embrace one of her dearest friends, 'Suppose, my dear, you and I were to look into this matter; I have no doubt you would be more of an Anglican than ever, and I less in favor of creeds. It is but fair we should give Catholics a hearing; for my part, I know nothing of them except from their enemies.' She was inclined to listen to my proposition; but her spiritual pastor, from whom she hid none of her religious difficulties, put a veto on the examination, by forbidding her to read or to talk with any one on the subject. Indignant at what I then thought his narrow-mindedness, but which I now see was only proper self-preservation, I determined to pursue my investigations alone, though it was the first time in our married life that any subject of interest had not been common with us. I procured such books as were within my reach, and commenced my inquiries. It was a most interesting study, and opened a new world of thought to me; every moment of leisure for six months was given to the search, into which I entered as I would into a question of law, consulting and comparing authorities, examining both sides, questioning and cross-questioning witnesses. But we are touching on the time of sleep," I said, as the hall-clock struck the hour of midnight.

"Oh! no, go on," he replied eagerly, "you don't know how interested I am."

"No," I said firmly, "your experience of to-day requires that you should rest; and as there is no prospect of getting away from here, I shall have ample time to finish my tale to-morrow." I insisted upon his occupying my quarters, being the most comfortable in the house, and as I went to my rest in another apartment, and thought of the eagerness with which he had listened to my recital, I breathed a prayer that God would give him light.

The sun arose clear and bright the following morning, and the wind, that had made such havoc with the snowdrifts the previous day, had died away into a cold calm. I watched from the window the long line of men and boys, with patient oxen, tugging and toiling at the great white heaps. I had _Snow Bound_ in my coat-pocket, and took this opportunity of assuring myself of the truth of the beautiful word-pictures therein painted. {377} It was quite late when my friend appeared from the inner room, and in answer to my inquiry if he had rested well replied, "I have not once wakened since I succeeded in driving our conversation from my mind, which I did after a long process, by repeating the multiplication table over and over till I fell asleep. We cannot get away to-day," he added, going to the window. "I am glad of that, for I am impatient to hear you out." He was uneasy till breakfast was dispatched, our grate and pipes replenished, and we seated again for a talk.

"Now tell me the result of your lawyer-like examination of authorities," he said by way of commencement.

"Yes, it was indeed lawyer-like," I replied; "for prejudice, feeling, early impressions, all went against the decision. But the logical conclusion, from what I read, was this: _if_ (mind I got no further than the _if_) the Bible is the word of God, it certainly teaches that our Lord established a church, and gave to that one body apostles and teachers, conferring on them wonderful powers, to be continued for all time in some way; for he says, 'I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world;' with the same breath with which he tells them to preach the Gospel, he bids them to bind and loose, to work miracles and to feed his flock. These are the facts on the face of the Gospel narrative. I tried to explain these things in some other way; I even went to commentators; but the candid examination I had promised forbade my trusting any man's opinion. I went to the early Fathers, (whom, by the way, I had always ignored, as is the fashion;) I found that they reasoned very much like other men; they asked questions, and answered them. I saw that if these powers were given, as the Scripture asserts, to the chosen twelve, these were the men to whom they were transmitted. Without exception they confirmed the teaching of the Bible with regard to the church, and opened still more fully the dogmas of Scripture. I compared them one with another, and found that, without any denial or variation, they declared the authority of the church and the necessity of the sacraments. It was also plain that this church being one and universal, having the same faith and discipline wherever established, until some body of men _protested_ against some received doctrine, no dogma assumed prominence, the faith was one perfect whole. But while, as I told you, I had gone no further than 'if,' my wife, by an entirely different road, was coming to the same gate. Her pastor had given her two very beautiful devotional works, that charmed her beyond anything she had ever seen; but during one of the rare calls of her Catholic friend, (for her guide had advised her to renounce this friendship, but I, with a higher claim on her obedience, had forbidden this sacrifice,) during this call, these books were the subject of discourse, and Miss M---- told her she wished her nothing better to read, as they were both translations of Catholic authors, which she proved by bringing the originals in French at her next visit. My wife saw at once the absurdity of denying her Catholic books, and giving them to her in disguise. This honest guide of souls had also told her that 'Romanists' altered the commandments, leaving out the second entirely, lest it should condemn their idolatry; while her friend gave her the Catechism which is taught to all Catholic children, where the commandments are written as they were spoken on Mount Sinai. I think these two mistakes (I will call them by a mild name) of her pastor shook her faith in him very essentially. {378} From that day we talked freely; I gave her my conclusions, with the '_if_,' and she took the Fathers for daily reading. I had gone no further than the _if_--my pride prevented--when it pleased Almighty God to take from us our eldest son, and to bring my wife to the borders of the grave. What could comfort me, as I looked at my beautiful boy cold and lifeless, and my wife at that point where earthly help is unavailing? The cheerless creed that I had held with so much pride gave me not a glimmer of light. I called reason to my aid, but I called in vain; it was no pleasure to me to think of those I had loved and lost reabsorbed into Deity, never more to be anything to me. How could it satisfy me, yearning for the treasures I was losing, to feel that 'there is no time, no space; we are we know not what, light sparkles in the ether of Deity.' The words which I had used in answer to my wife's questioning, 'if this be true,' followed me continually; now, I needed to know if it were true; I needed something firm to rest me in that weary hour. It was many years since I had knelt in prayer; now I was bowed to the earth, and my whole cry was, 'Lord, give me light.' I am ashamed to tell you of the fearful struggle with my pride, when at last the light of faith came into my bewildered and darkened soul, the many worldly ties that held me back, the loss of position and favor which I feared; I blush for my cowardice, it was unworthy of the name of man made in the image of God. My beloved wife knew not of this strife in my soul; in her extremity she had sent for her pastor, and received all he could give her of the rites of his church; but she was not satisfied. What was my surprise to hear her say, as if the sight of death had given her boldness, 'There is the command of St. James for the comfort and help of the sick and dying; why may I not have it? 'Ah! my child,' he replied, 'that was given for the early ages of the church, and passed away with them.' 'But why do we not need it as well as they?' she questioned, 'It is too much for you to argue in your present state,' was his cold reply, 'but it is sufficient for me, as an obedient son of the church, to submit to the deprivation, since our holy mother has not seen fit to retain it.' I saw the speciousness of the reasoning wherewith he silenced her, and I sat by the patient sufferer after the departure of the divine so faithful to his church, hesitating as to my duty in the matter, when she cried out as if in anguish, 'Oh! if I only knew it was right, only knew--'

"'What was right?' I questioned, holding her trembling hand. 'I want confession, I want absolution, I want the anointing of the sick,' she said eagerly, her dark eyes bent on me imploringly. 'You shall not be denied,' I replied, and, leaving her with the nurse, I went for the nearest Catholic priest. I will not enter into details; let it suffice that, before two hours had passed, my wife was a member of the Catholic Church, improved in physical condition and mental quietness, and I was preparing for baptism."

I paused in my recital; I saw that my friend was much moved, even as I had been, by the memories of the past. After a moment, he gave me his hand cordially, saying, "Thank you heartily, it has done me good;" then, after another pause. "But tell me one thing candidly, have neither of you regretted the step; never wished yourselves back again?"

{379}

"Regretted!" I cried indignantly, "wished ourselves back to a region of doubt and uncertainty! Why, I say a _Gloria_ every morning that I am a Catholic; and my wife sings _Te Deum_ all the time."

"And did you suffer all you expected," he asked, "in the way of loss of friends?"

I had nothing in my experience worthy of the name of suffering; but my wife endured much in the way of reproach, withdrawal of friendship, and the cold shoulder socially."

"But let me ask one thing, and don't feel hurt; how do you, with your fastidious tastes, worship in churches crammed to the full with the laboring Irish, before those tawdry altars which I have sometimes seen?" I felt the color rising to my cheek at this question, but I replied calmly, crushing the temptation to be severe, and remembering what this thought was to me before the light of faith illumined my soul, "You can never know what it is to forget distinctions till you believe in that Presence which dwells on Catholic altars. It would ill become sinful man to object to other company he finds in church when Jesus our God condescends to be present for our sake. My wife seeks out the churches frequented by the very poorest; she says she feels nearer God when she has his poor by her side. As to the tawdry altars, you must remember that the love and devotion of an uneducated and unrefined taste is as truly expressed by something common and showy, as your refined delicacy would be by more exquisite adornment. God looketh at the heart; and the poor servant-girl who presents to her favorite altar bouquets of gaudy artificial flowers, for the sake of her dear Lord whom she really believes to be present there, is as acceptable as the lady who sends her lovely blossoms from the hot-house. In the Catholic Church in this country--and may I not say in every country?--the poor are in the majority among her members."

As I spoke, the steam-whistle, the first since the storm, sounded through the air. With a regretful look, Mr. Hood went to the window. "That reminds us," he said, "that the world is moving again."

"You will go to my home with me," I replied; "you must."

"Not now," he answered; "but when the business that brought me to this part of the country is accomplished, I will come and talk with your wife about this matter before I leave for California."

According to promise, he came; and when he left us for his Southern home, we were not without hope that our long talks had had an effect; my wife would not leave him till she had his promise that he would examine for himself, prayerfully, earnestly, and thoroughly, and would write me the result, which I have in a letter by to-day's mail.

San Francisco, Cal., Oct. 24, 1867. S. _Raphael the Archangel_.

My Dear Dewey: I was received into the Catholic Church to-day. _Laus Deo!_ I wonder how any one can remain out of it; it is such a joy to have a foothold, to know that one stands on something, and that something firmer than the "everlasting hills." I must give up my business in this publishing house; for I cannot have my name any longer linked with the falsehoods that teem from the press, against Christ's Church. It is a disgrace that American school-books should contain such lies as you find on the pages of the Readers, Geographies, and especially the Histories, which are the text-books of our institutions of learning. May the good God help me to repair the injustice I have done in this matter as a publisher.

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I am the wonder and pity of the old transcendental clique here, who, as one of them said to me yesterday, "can't understand how a man can go back to the dark ages for his religion." I told him my faith illumined what he called the "dark ages" till they transcended the nineteenth century in brilliancy. My younger children were baptized with me; I hope in time to see all my dear ones safely housed. Tell Mrs. Dewey, with my kindest remembrance, to sing _Te Deum_ for me, and don't forget me and mine in your prayers, Very sincerely yours in the blessed faith,

Redwood Raphael Hood.

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Translated From The Revue Generale, Of Brussels.

The Good Old Time And Our Own.

In the daily struggle for truth and right, in our hours of lassitude and discouragement, how willingly we believe that formerly the battle of life was less severe than nowadays. We love to compare ourselves with our predecessors, pigmies to us giants of the nineteenth century, and sincerely believe them so, either because of our short-sightedness or because of the great distance from which we regard them. But when, by the study of history, we have drawn nearer the distances which separate these epochs of the different evolutions of humanity, we become at the same time more modest and more courageous; more modest, because we know our fathers have had to struggle as much if not more than ourselves; more courageous, because by their example we learn how we should battle for triumph in moral struggles; and of these alone we would here speak.

Many of our contemporaries think they have done their duty if they have abused their own time, praised the past, and predicted a sombre future unable to confer upon us any blessings. It is so sweet to live in abstract contemplation of heroes or epochs of which inexorable time has deprived us; it is so easy to make an apology for them without combating the living men and the concrete ideas which in real history form the shadows to these brilliant pictures; it is so easy to choose from former ages models of virtue, of civil courage and faith, without preoccupying ourselves with obstacles that these just people, these citizens, these saints have conquered, and that our indifference, our idleness, our weakness, or our cowardice hinders us from looking fairly in the face, through the medium in which we live. We do not perceive often enough that the vulgar expression of the "good old time," which has been forbidden in every age, is in the moral history of a people a truly vicious circle. Indeed, we cannot pretend that every age is worth only so much, and, interpreting badly the proverb, "Man proposes, but God disposes," go to sleep in the false historical security called fatalism. It is legitimate to have our preferences for such and such an epoch, and it is not always difficult to give good reasons for them; but between these rational preferences and an unjustifiable disdain for our own time, there is an abyss.

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To act with our own epoch we must love it; then we work with ardor and confidence for its reform. Who loves well, chastises well. I wish to show that our age merits to be loved as well as any other that has preceded it; and I will demonstrate this clearly by a moral, religious, and political sketch of the Christian age the most justly praised--the thirteenth. To circumscribe this vast subject as much as possible, I will speak of Italy alone; of that Italy which then, as now, was the object of the most audacious attacks and the theatre of the most instructive resistance. I will first tell what was the condition of the "Christian republic" at the end of the twelfth century. Then I will show the radiant transformation of society in the thirteenth century while determining its general causes, and finish by comparing this heroic age with our own.

I.

For most of Belgium, the history of civilization commences only with the day when General Dumouriez "brought them liberty at the point of the bayonet." Before the French revolution, it was the common error that the era of political and religious revolution only opened with the sixteenth century, and such error is common to-day. Yet Gnosticism, Manicheism, Arianism, and Greek schism have produced in Christian Europe commotions much greater and more fatal than those of which the predictions of Martin Luther have been the occasion, and of which the Protestant princes have so abundantly reaped the fruits. From the tenth to the thirteenth century, the Catholic Church suffered on the part of the state--of the empire, as they then termed it--assaults in comparison to which the thirty years' war and the revolutions fomented by the _statolatres_ of the thirteenth century were only children's play.

Never was the spirit of sectarianism more active than in the twelfth century. The disguised partisans of Gnosticism, Manicheism, or Arianism, these habitual forms of antichristianism, were spread all over civilized Europe under the most diverse names: _Cathares, Pauliciens, Petrobrusiens, Tanchelmites, Henriciens, Bogomiles, Apostoliques, Endistes, Arnoldistes, Circonsis, Passagieres, Publicains, Vaudois Bons Hommes_, etc., etc. These names appear strange, but they are not more so than their actual partisans: socialists, free-thinkers, solid men, Fourierists, Saint Simoniens, etc.

And do not suppose that these sects, or these schools, as they are called nowadays, confined themselves to the innocent publication of their programme, and simply distributed a few partisans through anonymous societies, among the councils of administration, or in the senates of empires.

The Ambrosien church was during a certain time directed by the Nicolite priests of Milan, and supported violently by the emperor and by the government. Our compatriot, Dankelm, a deist a little sore, who preached against the corruptions of the monks, their artifices, the tithes and mortmain, was head of an organized church at Bruges, and also at Anvers. If the Vaudois had, like Luther, obtained the support of the corrupted and sensual bishops, and the ambitious princes so powerful and rapacious, their church would have taken root in a great part of Europe during the twelfth century; it has endured longer than will any Protestant church; for it still existed in the last century, and I believe there are still some communities in Holland and Suabia.

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All these sects agreed on one point, their hatred of the Church of Rome. M. Renan, in his last book, _Questions Contemporains_, writing with a haughty moderation almost disdainful, feared for the Catholic Church of the nineteenth century a grand schism resulting in the simultaneous election of two popes. Such an apprehension denotes in this writer a defect of memory or a strange want of perspicacity; for in the church, anti-popes were counted by dozens, and in the twelfth century, this kind of schism appeared several times. The competitors or anti-popes of Calixtus II., (1119-1124,) of Innocent II., (1130-1143,) and of Alexander III., (1159-1181,) were sustained by emperors whose material power had but little weight in the then known world. Under Innocent II., the schism lasted only eight years. Sixty years later, Innocent III. governed Europe.

Heresies and schisms are always accompanied by social revolutions. However, the irreligious antagonism of capital and labor, which is one of the causes of modern socialism, did not exist in the twelfth century under the learned and redoubtable form of our day. The reason is a simple one, and we should be proud of our age: labor, of which Christianity has made a duty, had not then in political society the great and legitimate importance it has now. The problem of pauperism had never been solved politically except in densely populated countries, and in the twelfth century the population of Europe was relatively less considerable. Hatred of capital only manifested itself among the idle, among certain sects, (the Cathares, the Frerots, the Apostoliques, the Begghards, the Lollards, etc.,) and particularly in "the wars of the castle and the hut;" violent wars which were not only carried on by poor devils hardened by passions, but by the _châtelains_, (governors or keepers,) thieves only distinguishable from the others by new titles given them through euphemism. This category of men was then more numerous than in our time. We respect a mill, but we steal a province. Then they took the province and the mill also.

Great luxury existed in all the towns of Italy. Money was a courted power. The bankers' families became the source of dynasties.

A portion of the secular clergy lived in the relaxation of discipline, and even morals. Neither the energy of the great Hildebrand, nor the activity of the admirable Alexander III., the friend of the Lombard communities, had been powerful enough to completely reform the regular clergy. Neither in the fifteenth nor in the eighteenth century were more scandals seen than those which disheartened the great St. Bernard. "Oh! for the power to see again, before my death," wrote he to the pope, Eugene III., "those happy days of the church when the apostles cast their nets for souls, and not for gold." This Pope Eugene was not permitted to die at Rome. The Eternal City was in the hands of the Garibaldians of the time, the Mazzini of whom was named Arnold, a clerk of Brescia, of austere manners and quick-witted oratory. After having studied philosophy in Paris under the cold and licentious Abelard, Arnold commenced to traverse the Lombard cities. Imposing upon himself a mission altogether political, he pretended not to wish to injure the Catholic faith.

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"Detractor of clergymen and bishops, persecutor of monks, he reserved," said a chronicler of the time, "all his flattery for the laity. He sustained the theory of no salvation for clergymen possessing lands, for bishops disposing of regal rights, or monks owning valuables; that all these things belonged to the state, and it alone should dispose of them in favor of the laity. It is said also that he did not reason sanely on the eucharist and the baptism of infants." His partisans, called _politicians_, called him to Rome, where he had resolved to establish a new government. Forced to fly from this city after the second council of Lateran, he wandered for several years in France, in Germany, and in Switzerland, promulgating everywhere the doctrines which he applied to his Italian friends. During an insurrection, the pope, Lucius II., was killed by a blow from a stone, (to-day they only kill ministers,) and his successor, Eugene III., took refuge in Viterbo, and afterward in France. Arnold was in Switzerland with 2000 soldiers collected there; the multitude having granted him the dictatorship, he proclaimed the fall of the temporal power of the popes, and the re-establishment of the Roman republic; then, carried away by the logic of his ideas rather than by his situation, he called to Rome the emperor, the monarch of Italy, in order that he would deign to restore to the empire the lustre it had under Justinian. Demagogues naturally advocate Caesarism.

The emperors rushed to Rome. Arnold and his government were thrown into the Tiber. Then recommenced, under a new form, the quarrel between the priesthood and the empire, existing still in Europe. Never had the pride of the depositaries of the civil power, the absolutism of the god state, and the tyranny of the supreme authority, representatives more complete, and in certain respects more sympathetic, than the emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen. How many laws vaunted by certain schools of our day of progress have been dressed in the signature of these fierce Sonabes, then abrogated as despotic and contrary to the liberty and dignity of citizens.

The Staufen were fanatics in law when it was a question of their authority. Frederic I. had for his witnesses the four famous doctors of Bologna, who, with Irnerius, their professor, were masters of the study of modern law. It was these four doctors who, by the aid of texts and juridical interpretations, were ready to impose on the Lombard cities represented at the diet of Roncaglia the chains which the entire material power of the German emperors had never been able to forge. It was the chancellor of Frederic II., Pierre Des Vignes, who is the author of the _Recueil des Lois de Sidle_, the first code of despotism of modern times.

In few words, then, we have here the state of Europe, in its most civilized centre, in the second half of the twelfth century. The truth was at once attacked in church and state, with the view of corrupting both; in the church, with an aim at her authority; in the state, to banish liberty.

II.

It is the glory of the epoch which begins with the Lombard League and the pontificate of the English Mendicant, Adrian IV., to have re-established a moral equilibrium in Christian society, and to have saved Europe from a lethargy similar to that in which a Caesaro-papacy has plunged the East.

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That which distinguished the civilizing genius of this epoch was a moral vigor, a consequence of the intimate union existing between the citizen and the Christian, between the scholar and the theologian; I say union, not confusion. In the _Cid_ of Guillaume de Castro, from which P. Corneille has borrowed largely, there is a scene in which the hero seated at table exhorts his companions to render homage to the patron of Spain, "a chevalier himself, and with a large rosary suspended to his sword." A leper enters and asks charity. The warriors take flight. Alone the Cid remains, and forces him to sit on his cloak and eat with him from his own plate. The repast finished, the mendicant blessed the Cid, and betrays himself as Lazarus, who has come to reveal his future destiny. The sword, which for the chevalier is the sign of the citizen, serves to sustain the rosary, the emblem of the Christian.

In the _Traité de l'Office du Podestà_, extract of Book III. of the _Tresor_ of Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante, we find in old French the exposition of the public law as understood by the communicants of that time. The podesta of our time could learn from it much that is useful and necessary to know. This, for example, is the beginning of the chapter where the author treats of things "that gentlemen should know and teach to those over whom they are placed":

"_Remember then, thou who governest a city, from whence comes the power to possess thy seignory. Remember thou the law and the commandments, and never forget God and his saints, but often_ approach the altar and pray God for thee and thy subjects; for David and the prophets say, 'God guardeth the city and every thing that laboreth within it.' Honor the pastor of pastors of the holy Church; for God says, 'He who receiveth thee receiveth me.' Be religious, and evidence the true faith; for nothing is more beautiful to the prince of the earth than true faith and right belief: for it is written, 'When the just king is on his throne, no harm can befall him.' Guard the churches, the houses of God, take care of widowed women and orphans; for it is written, 'Be defenders of orphans and widows.' Defend the poor against the wickedness of power; for thou hast in thy care the great, the small, and the mean. _Such things become thee from the beginning, etc._"

Have you observed the character of the figures seen on the tombs of this period? The dead are lying on their backs, with hands clasped; they do not bear the impress of death; they seem to sleep and await the resurrection. Their attitude is simple, naturally humble, but at the same time naturally proud. They are armed; it is understood that they have fought the battle of life, and in passing to the other shore have vanquished the enemy of the human race with the arms of prayer. The citizen and the Christian are so blended that it is impossible to distinguish them; and this harmonious whole presents an appearance at once humble and martial, tender and manly, which fills one with respect without imposing fear.

Such is the character of the epoch I would depict while portraying the causes of its grandeur. Let it be remarked, however, I do not seek to make an apology for the thirteenth century or the middle ages. My ideal is in the future, not in the past. But the past being the mirror of the future, I love to regard in the thirteenth century the memorable examples of what could be done by the citizen under the influence of Christian faith and reason in the midst of a society agitated and upset by heresy, schism, socialism, the power of demagogues, and Caesarism.

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I suppose that the son of a rich merchant of Anvers, transported by that enthusiasm for good which is the fruit of a grace divine, renounces suddenly the luxury of a paternal home, and a dissipated and idle life, which is too often the consequence of a bad education, pampered by fortune. After having trained his soul by fasting and prayer, and the contemplation of the divine attributes toward the supernatural regions of life, he robes himself voluntarily as a poor man and traverses the industrial centres of the country, communicating to his equals the ardent faith which escapes from his mouth in luminous characters. At Gand, at Charleroi, at Liege, some young men become his followers, and between them form an association for the service of the humble, the weak, the poor, the miserable. Their mission is to go about in the dress of workmen, living as they do, and preaching from the steps of buildings, at the cross-roads, and in the fields. To the rich, the obligation of working for and befriending the poor; to the poor, the duties of sufferance and respect; to all the world, the love of God and the church which he has made the depositary of his graces. What might not be accomplished by such missionaries of love, labor, science, and peace? What would not be their influence and their authority?

Again, let me suppose the son of a rich English lord renouncing the ostentation, the privileges and errors of his family and religion, and, seized with an irresistible love for his neighbor and humanity, seeking his old friends of Eton and Oxford, communicating to them the flame of his convictions, and then proposing to them to travel through England, Europe, the world, and propagate Christianity; arguing everywhere with the adversaries of the church; in the universities, in the public-houses, before the door of the palace, or in the junk-shops and the huts; preaching justice to the English, to the Irish respect for the laws, to all the world peace, science, liberty; opening here a school, there a hospital, and drawing after him his contemporaries, by the authority of faith, the power of science, the contagion of devotion. If you can imagine the results obtained by the O'Connells, the Fathers Mathews, and the Newmans, you will form a feeble idea of a revolution that could produce a phalanx of men of such vigorous temperament.

This son of the wealthy merchant, and this child of an illustrious house, existed in the beginning of the thirteenth century. "The one," said Dante, "was surrounded by all the _éclat_ of the seraphim, and the other walked in wisdom and sanctity in the splendor of the cherubim."

The history of the life and works of these two extraordinary men contains most precious teachings, the deep import of which often escapes us, because given to us in such a common way, without explaining their actual life. This seraphim (Saint Francis) and this cherubim (Saint Dominic) governed the entire thirteenth century by the extraordinary movement they impressed on souls, and by the moral conquests, political, scientific, literary, and artistic, with which their disciples enriched humanity.

The Mendicant friars, as they were later called, were not only cloistered religious, giving themselves solely to a contemplative life, and only leaving their convents for the church; they were citizens in every acceptation of the word, but vowed to no ambitions, mingling with their contemporaries, living in the forum, and mounting the tribune of the popular assemblies as well as the pulpits of the universities. When this tribune or pulpit was forbidden them, they improvised one of their own, and made appeals to the people who wished to hear the well-known voices, simple, disinterested, loving, and therefore eloquent.

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Thus the Franciscans penetrated even into China, "on the horse of St. Francis"--that is, on foot--and traversing, wonderful as it may appear, the whole continent of Asia. They founded a Christian colony at Pekin, where the ships of France and England could only enter with noise of cannon--a result assuredly more imposing but not half so certain. During the Renaissance, when the first Holland vessels arrived at Greenland, they found there a convent of Dominicans.

In the thirteenth century, there were, even in civilized Europe, more Chinese and Laplanders than would be supposed. To convert them, the Franciscans and Dominicans applied themselves assiduously, vanquishing them by science, and convincing them by charity.

I understand the word science in its old acceptation; a deep rational research into the first principles of things and the origin of our knowledge. At no epoch of history, I dare to say, has this research been carried on by more passionate lovers, by more powerful intelligences, by more magnanimous hearts, than the Mendicant monks of the thirteenth century. To prove this, let me only mention four names.

The first in date is the Count de Bollstaedt, first Bishop of Ratisbon, then Dominican; a professor of Cologne, and a perfect encyclopedia; his gigantic works replete with all the ideas of his time, and the initiator of German learning.

This scientific knowledge was only surpassed by that of his pupil and companion, the Count d'Aquin, descendant of Staufen on his mother's side, and called by his comrades "the ox of Sicily," by the learned world "the angel of the schools," and by the church Saint Thomas. His principal theological work (_Summa Totius Theologiae Tripartita_) remained unfinished with the grand cathedrals of the middle ages; but what we know of this and the other works of this prodigious man will suffice to place him in the rank of the greatest geniuses that have appeared on the earth.

However he himself emulated in science the genius of his friend, the _seraphic doctor_, Jean de Fidanza, of Tuscany, professor in the University of Paris, an admirable man, of whom his master, the English Franciscan, Alexander Hales, said: "_Verus Israelita in quo Adam non peccasse videtur_." When they brought him the cardinal's hat, Saint Bonaventura was occupied in placing the plates on the table of his convent. He died at the general council at Lyons, (1274,) just at the moment when he was endeavoring to reunite the Greek to the Roman Church.

The fourth of these great doctors, who truly indoctrinated science, is the great English Franciscan, _the admirable doctor_, Roger Bacon, philologist and naturalist, who predicted steam navigation and railroads. He is also supposed to have invented the telescope, and foreseen the discovery of America. The Protestants of the sixteenth century, who pretended to shed light on the world, unfortunately burnt the convent that held the manuscripts of this precursor of natural science.

A French writer, who does himself honor in protecting the church with his valiant pen as others have done with their swords, M. L. Veuillot, and of whom it may be said, "brave as his pen," says somewhere that the thirteenth century has produced such great things in the moral order that Saint Thomas had been able to build up the colossus styled _La Somme_; yet during this epoch people went on foot, and time was not lost running over the world on railroads. {387} I am persuaded the contemporaries of Roger Bacon would not have approved of this apologetic argument; for if they had known the great discoveries of our day, of what works would not such vigorous and universal minds have been capable? If such men, consumed by activity, by love of science and humanity, ran from Naples to Oxford, from Bologna to Paris, professing, preaching, writing, administering the sacraments, directing their communities, or working with the pope and the bishops in the government of the church; if such men have produced such great things on foot, what would they not have undertaken with railroads at their disposal? To-day there come from Italy but few philosophers measurable with the Count d'Aquin and Jean de Fidanza; but, to make amends, how easy to convoke an oecumenical council and send zouaves to Rome!

The observation I have just made is not a digression, for it tends to demonstrate the profoundly practical aim of science in the thirteenth century. These professors of Paris, Cologne, and Oxford did not content themselves with teaching their doctrines from the privileged benches of a university to a few cultivated, delicate, and critical minds. They did not style themselves philosophers, as the wise men by profession, who in the last century wished thus to distinguish Christians. They practised their doctrines, and their teaching was democratic, (pardon the so much abused expression,) not only on account of their principles but in regard to the public whom they addressed. They called all the world to the feet of their pulpits, and after distributing the bread of faith and science, that of charity was not wanting. "Thus," said Ozanam, "the poor knew and blessed their names. And even to-day, after six hundred years, the inhabitants of Paris bend the knee before the altars of "the angel of the schools," and the workmen of Lyons are honored in carrying once a year, on their robust shoulders, the triumphant remains of the "seraphic doctor." [Footnote 133] Can we believe that six centuries hence they will do the same for the ashes of Kant, Fichte, or Hegel?

[Footnote 133: _Dante et la Philosophie Catholique_, p. i. ch. ii. p. 88.]

This enthusiasm of holy people for science was not entirely the fruit of the doctrines of St. Francis and St. Dominic, or of the personal tendencies of their disciples. When the zeal for such subjects weakened, the church tried to revive the flame. Let us recall the bull of 1254, published by Innocent IV., for the re-establishment of philosophical studies: "A deplorable rumor, spread abroad and repeated from mouth to mouth, has reached our ears, and deeply afflicts us. It is said that the many aspirants for the priesthood, abandoning, repudiating even, philosophical studies, and consequently the teachings of theology, have sought the different schools to explain the civil laws. Sarah then is the slave, and Hagar has become mistress. We have tried to find a remedy for this unexpected disorder. We would bring back minds to the study of theology, which is the science of salvation, or at least to philosophical studies, in which it is true the tenderest emotions of piety are not met with, but where the soul discovers the first lights of eternal truth, and frees itself from the miserable preoccupations of cupidity--the root of all evil, and a species of idolatry. {388} Therefore we decide by these presents, that in future no professor of jurisprudence, no lawyer, whatever may be his rank or the renown he may enjoy in the practice of law, can pretend to any prebend, honor, or ecclesiastical dignity, nor even to an inferior benefice, if he has not given proofs of requisite capacity in the faculty of arts, and if he is not recommended by the innocence of his life and the purity of his manners."

Such admirable teaching could not remain barren in a Christian society. In 1256, just as Pope Alexander IV. had declared all the serfs emancipated who would abandon the cause of _Ezelin le Féroce_, the authorities of Bologna proceeded to the general enfranchisement of those of their territory. The city was not contented to set free only its own serfs; it extended the benefit to those belonging to private masters, indemnifying the proprietors, as some modern states have done in the slavery of the blacks: the middle age was distinguished always for its respect for acquired rights. The state paid ten livres for every serf over fourteen, eight livres for those below that age. The freedmen were bound to pay to the state some moderate tax in cereals. The suggester of this generous measure was Bonacursio de Sorresina, _capitano del popolo_, elected podesta the following year. He placed the names of all the enfranchised on a register called the _Paradise of Joy_. "An all-powerful God," said he in the introduction to this register, "created man free; original sin poisoned him; from immortal he became mortal, from incorruptible corruptible, from free the slave of hell. He sent for man's redemption his only Son, begotten by him from all eternity. It is then just and equitable that man saved and freed by God should not stagnate in servitude, where human laws have precipitated him; that he should be set free. By these considerations, Bologna, which has always fought for public liberty, which recalls the past and weighs the future, has for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed all the serfs of its territory, and proclaimed, for the future, slavery will be no more tolerated. A little leaven leavens the whole lump; the presence of one degraded being dishonors society."

It is right to observe that this noble language is the reproduction, often textual, of the well-known words of the holy Pope Gregory I., the Great, against the slavery of the Anglo-Saxons.

Ten years afterward Bela, king of Hungary, having rejected a bishop because he was born a serf, the pope wrote him that "the will of man could not prescribe against nature, that has given liberty to the human race."

"It is a frequent error among men," said the Count d'Aquin, "to believe themselves noble because they are the issue of noble families. ... It is well not to have failed in examples of noble ancestors; but it is far better to have adorned an humble birth with great actions. ... I repeat, then, with Saint Jerome, that nothing appears to me worth envying in this pretended hereditary nobility, if the nobles themselves are not restrained in the paths of virtue by the shame of derogating from it. The true nobility is that of the soul, according to the words of the poet:

'Nobilitas sola est animum quae moribus ornat.'" [Footnote 134]

[Footnote 134: _De Eruditione Principum_.]

A disciple of this great master, the B. Egide Colonna, cardinal archbishop of Bourges, wrote in his book, _De Regimine Principum:_ "Society cannot attain to the supreme end assigned it without a combination of three means--virtue, light, and exterior well-being. A prince should, then, in his kingdom first watch with wise solicitude over the culture of letters, in order to multiply the number of the learned and skilful.

[Footnote 135 (no reference; probably _De Regimine Principum_): Liv. iii. p. 2, c. viii.]

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For where science flourishes, and the sources of study spring up, sooner or later instruction is disseminated among the crowd. So, to dissipate the shadows of ignorance which shamefully envelop the face of royalty, the king should encourage letters by a favorable attention. Still more, if he refuses the necessary encouragement, and does not wish his subjects instructed, he ceases to be a king--he becomes a tyrant."

To finish the picture of the ideas of this time, let us quote again these words of a sermon of the gentle and seraphic Bonaventura: "We find today great scandals in governments; for while an inexperienced pilot would not be placed on a ship to manage the rudder, we put at the head of nations those who ignore the art of governing them. When the right of succession places children on a throne, woe to empires!"

The doctrines of the thirteenth century on the formation of public power, on the duties of supreme authority, on the rights of people, on sedition, etc., are so rigorous that they appear bold, even in our time, when the defect is not precisely an excess of reserve and respect. Truth alone can free the human mind from every prejudice, develop character, and inspire a language at once so proud and so simple. What reflections it provokes when one has listened to the magnificent platitudes of so many men of our time, who believe they think freely because they are not Christians.

When Innocent IV., Celestin IV., St. Thomas, the B. Egide Colonna, and St. Bonaventura spoke thus, the Caesarism of the middle ages was decidedly vanquished for several centuries. This is one of the grandest facts of history since the incarnation of the Word.

The emperors of the house of Swabia, assuming with greater power and more science the despotic plans of the Saxon emperors, had the monstrous pretension to realize to the letter these texts of _The Digest_: "The will of the prince is law," (Ulp.;) "The prince is above all laws," (Paul.) By virtue of these texts the prince commanding would have been the absolute sovereign of the world, the proprietor of the Christian universe, and not only of the royalties of the earth, but also of private property. Interpreters taught without blushing the Caesarian theory of the _dominium mundi_. _Le Recueil des Lois_ of Sicily, revised by Pierre de Vigne for Frederic II., and promulgated by this autocrat in the kingdom of Naples, is a model of this abominable legislation that progressists of our day sometimes dream of restoring.

The Roman Church alone resisted these false principles, these monstrous politics, and, thanks be to God, she triumphed.

The ruler of modern times has become what he was in the age of pretorian law, corrupted by the Caesarian jurors of the empire, of the middle ages, and particularly the Renaissance, that is to say, _the_ people, who by a so-called "royal law" would have relinquished their rights into the hands of the Roman emperors. But if the sovereign people could not but be a majority purely numerical, arrogating in its turn the pretended laws of Caesar, the struggles of the middle age between the clergy and the empire would certainly be renewed.

This indissoluble alliance between Christian truth and civil liberty is one of the most striking facts to those who study history without prejudice; one of the best apologetic arguments I know. {390} In the east, Caesarism has only been able to succeed through the corruption of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and through schism; and we know only too well what has become of the countries where Homer sang, where Plato wrote, and where Saint Gregory of Nazianzen and St. Basil preached. Europe has had to suffer frequently from an excess of power in individuals in the church; but they must not be confounded with the church itself, which has introduced into the world the distinction of two powers: this salutary distinction was not known of old, and is only menaced in our day by rationalism in the state.

The people have understood this august _rôle_ of the church, and do not cease to invoke with the poet: "Hail, mighty parent." In the midst of ruin accumulated by the ambition of princes, the corruption of governments, human passions, or time that has no respect for truth, there remains today nothing but the good old pope, and young nations ask the benediction of the aged man. In modern democracies there will soon exist but one historical institution, the papacy. The old religions of paganism have left us but cold and gigantic pyramids of stone inclosing the ashes of their priests. Christianity, on the contrary, has transmitted us the living stone of the church, which will outlive the dust of ages.

In all these struggles against heresies, schism, materialism, Caesarism, the Roman Church had from the tenth to the thirteenth century its allies, the communes, who were the masses of those days. Civil liberty was, so to say, the fruit of the preachings of the church. It was from this epoch we date _the Mass against tyrants_, which can be found in the old missals. It was at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries, under the pontificates of Alexander III. and Innocent III., two of the noblest successors of St. Peter, that this alliance, so natural, so necessary, between the church that represents the human conscience, and the communes who represent the liberty and independence of the citizen, produced the most happy and considerable results. In 1183 was signed _the peace of Constance_, which assured definitively the liberty of the Lombard people. In the final clause of the petition of the citizens of Plaisance, the preliminary of this celebrated peace, the deputies of the Lombard League had expressly stipulated "that it would be permitted to the cities of the society to remain always in unity with the church." The great charter of the liberties of England dates from 1215. At the head of the signatures of this memorable act for the English people is found, for the church and for liberty, a disciple of the pope, the learned Cardinal Stephen Langton, whose statue has recently been introduced into Westminster Palace, where it will be a significant witness of the past, and of the salutary breath which is passing to-day over old England. And not only in England, but in Spain and Hungary, had the church surrounded the cradle of modern representative rule with its maternal cares, by its celebrated "Golden Bull" establishing the law of peoples and communities on the basis which to-day it enjoys in this _apostolical kingdom_.

But in the Italian cities particularly is best observed the fecundity of this salutary alliance between the sentiments of the citizen and those of the Christian.

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I have spoken of the scientific and religious _rôle_ of the Mendicant friars; it would be better to call them citizen-monks. At Bologna, it was one of them who fulfilled the function of _inspector-general_ to the people. _Ezelin le Féroce_, tyrant of the marshes of Verona, and the terror of the Lombard cities, was only afraid of the Franciscans, especially Saint Antony of Padua.

After ten years of penitence, Saint Francis, having prayed and watched for forty nights, ordered Brother Leonard to take a pen and write what he should dictate; and this angelic man, entranced by the ravishments of divine love, improvised the following beautiful canticle:

"Most high, most powerful and gracious Lord, to thee belong praise, glory, and every blessing. All is due to thee; and thy creatures are not worthy so much as to call thy name.

"Praised be God my Lord for all creatures, and for our brother the sun, who gives us the day and the light. Beautiful and radiating in all his splendor, he does homage to thee, O my God!

"And praised be thou, my Lord, for our sister the moon, and for the stars. Thou hast formed them in the heavens, clear and beautiful.

"Praised be thou, my God, for my brother the wind, for the air and the clouds, and for good and bad weather, whatever it may be! for by these thou sustainest thy creatures.

"Praised be my Lord for our sister the water, which is so useful, humble, precious, and chaste.

"Praised be thou, my God, for our brother the fire! By him, thou illuminest the night; beautiful and pleasant to see, untamable and strong.

"Praised be my God for our mother the earth, which sustains us, nourishes us, and produces every sort of fruit, of various flowers, and herbs!"

A few days after this admirable scene, there occurred between the Bishop of Assisi and the magistrates of the people one of those quarrels so frequent in the Italian cities of the thirteenth century. Saint Francis, distressed at such discord, added to his canticle the following verse:

"Praised be thou, my Lord, for those who forgive for the love of thee, and who patiently bear infirmity and tribulation. Happy those who persevere in peace; for it is the Most High who will crown them at last."

Then he ordered the minor brothers to hasten to the magistrates and go with them to the bishop, before whom they were to chant the new verse of the canticle of the sun. The adversaries present could not resist the chanting of the _mineurs_, and they were reconciled.

Since I have mentioned the canticle of the sun, one of the models of Franciscan poetry of this age, I cannot forego the pleasure of relating the end of it. After the pacification of Assisi, Saint Francis, who suffered terribly from his stigmata, had gone, to recruit his health, to Foligno, where it was revealed to him he would die in two years. He then composed the last verse:

"Be praised, my God, for our sister, corporal death, from which no man living may escape! Woe to him who dies in mortal sin! Happy he who at the hour of death is found conformable to thy most holy will! for death cannot injure him.

"Praise and bless my God, render him thanks, and serve him with great humility."

The spirit of party had become truly a moral malady in the Italian cities of the thirteenth century. If among my readers there are those who abuse their own time because the spirit of party condemns them to the struggle, I will tell them that in Italy, in the time of Saint Francis and Saint Louis, they saluted each other "in Ghibelline style" and cut their bread "à la Guelph," and for a trifle parties attacked each other in the cross-streets and in the public places. We have certainly progressed since then.

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In 1233, the nobles and the people of Plaisance were in open warfare; the Franciscan Leon, selected as arbiter, published a law, and divided equally all the employments of state between the two inimical factions; he exacted, besides, a confirmation of the sentence through the kiss of peace. In the same year the brother Gerard, of the same order, reconciled the parties at Modena. At Parma, he reformed the statutes of the people and recalled the proscriptions. In 1257, the Dominican Eberhard caused to be set at liberty the Guelphs imprisoned at Brescia. One of his companions had the same success at Parma. But the most interesting example of the powerful influence of religion on civil life was the mission of the brother John of Vicenza, in the Lombard towns.

Inspired by an apostolic zeal, the aged Pope Gregory IX. charged the Dominican, John of Vicenza, (_Fra Giovanni Chio_,) to go preach peace to the inimical factions, and re-establish everywhere among the people union and concord. Brother John, endowed with winning eloquence, commenced his mission at Bologna. He obtained immense and unhoped-for success in the city where Saint Francis and Saint Anthony had already achieved extraordinary triumphs; nobles and people, professors and students, all laid down their enmities at the feet of the brother preacher; the magistrates handed him the statutes of the people, in order that he might correct all that could give rise to new discussions. The Paduans, informed that he was coming to them, went to meet him, preceded by their magistrates and the _carroccio_, to Monselice, four or five miles from the city; Brother John, seated on the patriotic car, made a triumphal entry among the people; the success in Padua surpassed that of Bologna; the people assembled at the Place de la Valle, applauded him with joy, and begged him to reform the statutes. The same triumphs at Trevise, Feltre, Belluna, and Vicenza. At Verona, Ezelin and the Montecchi promised him under oath to do everything the pope might order. The eloquent monk again visited such places as Camino, Conegliano, Saint Boniface, Mantua, Brescia, preaching everywhere universal peace, reconciling factions, and setting prisoners at liberty. At last, he appointed the 28th of August, the feast of Saint Augustine, for a general assembly to be held on the plain of Pacquara, on the borders of the Adige, about three miles from Verona. On the day determined, the entire populations of Verona, Mantua, Brescia, Padua, Vicenza, with their magistrates and _carroccio_, arrived at the appointed place; a multitude of people from Trevise, Feltre, Venice, Ferrara, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Bologna, and most of them barefooted in sign of penitence; the bishops of Verona, Brescia, Mantua, Bologna, Modena, Reggio, Trevise, Vicenza, and Padua; the patriarch of Aquila; the margrave of Este, Ezelin and Alberic de Romano, the Signers de Camino, and all of Venetia. Parisio de Cereta, a contemporary author, in his Veronese chronicle, enumerates his auditory at four hundred thousand persons. The Dominican took for his text: "My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you." Never had Christians witnessed a more august spectacle. The enthusiasm was carried even to excess. It was a delirium of peace and union. Brother John ordained, in the name of God and the church, a general pacification, and devoted those who infringed upon it to excommunication and eternal malediction. He proposed the marriage of Renaud, son of the margrave of Este, with Adelaide, daughter of Alberic of Romano, and obtained also from the brothers Romano the promise they would sell to the town of Padua for fifteen hundred livres the possessions they had in the territory of this city. The act embraced divers clauses, and contained promises of pacification.

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Sixty years after the assassination of Pope Lucius II. by the Arnoldites, the spiritual power of the papacy was, so to say, omnipotent in Italy, if not in the whole of Europe. And it is precisely about this epoch that in proportion as the civil power of the Roman Church determined, limited, and fortified itself, in Italy the ecclesiastical principalities were extinguished; while for centuries they have been maintained in other countries, less submissive to the Holy See. This fact will not astonish us, if we follow with attention the progression of ideas propagated by Christianity, and taking such deep root in the thirteenth century.

Thus the sap of Christianity mounts in all the branches of this immense tree called humanity, and produces abundant fruit. The Gothic art is displayed while developing the Roman; the ogive comes out from the arch by a natural elevation toward the summit or the roof. Elliptical forms, wiser and more perfect than circular ones, (the circle is an ellipsis in which the focuses are blended,) transform the architecture, and give to the monuments an apparent flight to heaven, just as the study of the ellipsis in analytical geometry conducts to the infinite. The austere energy of St. Bernard had no time for art. He needed the science of Roger Bacon and the poetry of St. Francis. The Roman basilica gives place to the Gothic cathedral, and throws its gracious shadows on the mansions of the neighboring town. The whole of Europe is covered with a vegetation of admirable monuments, epic poems of stone--as the church of Assisi, the cathedral of Florence, the cathedral of Cologne--poetry of the highest order, not for rich idlers, or delicate minds, but for the people _en masse_. Art agrees with the epoch of which it is the emanation--it is for the people themselves. "The more I see of these Gothic monuments," wrote M. David, (d' Angers,) "the more I experience the happiness of reading these beautiful religious pages so piously sculptured on the secular walls of the churches. They were the archives of an ignorant people; it was therefore necessary the handwriting should be legible. The saints sculptured in Gothic art have an expression of serenity and calmness, full of confidence and faith. This evening, as I write, the setting sun gilds the façade of the cathedral of Amiens: the calm faces of the saints in stone diffuse a radiant light."

Mysterious power of truth! M. David was attracted to it by art; M. Pugin was converted, it is said, by studying the cathedral of York. In truth, there are few languages more perfect than that of the symbolism, so deep and complete, of the thirteenth century. "The men of the middle age," said one whose works and remembrances are very dear to me--"the men of the middle age were not satisfied to simply raise stone upon stone; these stones were to speak, and speak a language of painting, equally understood by rich and poor; heaven itself must be visible, and the angels and saints remain present by their images, to console and preach to the people. The vaults of the two basilicas of Assisi were covered with a field of blue, strewn with stars of gold. On the walls were displayed the mysteries of the two Testaments, and the life of St. Francis formed the sequel to the book of divine revelations. {394} But, as if it were impossible to approach with impunity the miraculous tomb, the painters who ornamented in fresco seemed inspired with a new spirit; they conceived an ideal more pure, more animated, than the old Byzantine types which had had their day, but which for eight hundred years had continued to degenerate. The basilica of Assisi became the cradle of a renaissance in art, and evidenced its progress. There Guido of Sienna and Giunta of Pisa detached themselves more and more from the Greek masters whose aridity they softened and whose immobility they shattered. Then came Cimabue. He represented all the sacred writings in a series of paintings which decorated the principal part of the church, and which time has mutilated. But six hundred years have not tarnished the splendor of the heads of Christ, of the Virgin, and of St. John, painted at the top of the vaults; nor the images of the four great doctors, where a Byzantine majesty still carries with it an air of life and immortal youth. At last Giotto appeared, and one of his works was the triumph of St. Francis, painted in four compartments under the vault which crowns the altar of the chapel. Nothing is more celebrated than these beautiful frescoes; but I know nothing more touching than one in which is figured the betrothal of the servant of God to holy poverty. Poverty, under the appearance of a lady perfectly beautiful, but the face attenuated, the clothing torn; a dog barks at her, two children throw stones at her, and put thorns in her way. She, however, calm and joyous, holds out her hand to St. Francis; Christ himself unites the two spouses; and in the midst of clouds appears the Eternal Father accompanied by angels, as if too much of heaven and earth could not be given to assist at the wedding of these two mendicants. Here, nothing suggests the painting of the Grecian school; all is new, free, and inspired. Progress did not cease with the disciples of Giotto appointed to continue his work: Cavalini, Taddeo Gaddi, Puccio Capana. In the midst of the variety of their compositions, we recognize the unity of the faith shed so lustrously through their works. When one pauses before these chaste representations of the Virgin, the Annunciation, the Nativity, before the crucified Christ, with the saddened angels weeping around the cross, or collecting in cups the divine blood, it would require a very hardened heart not to feel the tears flow, and not to bend the humbled knee and strike the breast with the shepherds and poor women who pray at the feet of such images."

And this is the art of the thirteenth century; it caused to weep under the same vault, and caused to pray on the same slab with poor peasants, one of the purest-minded intelligences, one of the noblest hearts of our time, one that the thirteenth century would have styled "the seraphic Ozanam."

And let us again remark this attraction, at once logical and living with facts produced by the germination of Christian thought in civil society. St. Francis and St. Dominic no longer preach as the disciples of St. Benedict to the few members of a military oligarchy, or to a flock of serfs; they address themselves to a civilized society, living in the midst of the benefits of Christianity, without having to give an account of the origin of these benefits; in the midst of a society aggrandized by the progress of Christian equality, and still desirous of enlargement. There is no longer a fierce Licambre, but haughty jurists. {395} No more cruel Anglo-Saxons, but emperors, elegant, educated, poetical, seductive, who hide their despotic projects under titles the most pompous and the most fallacious. No more pagan kings martyrizing the Christian; but Catholic kings more or less sincere, who, in the name of social and state interests, seek to torture consciences. There are no more lords whose brutality scandalizes the coarsest minds; but there are rich citizens, softened and blinded by selfishness, who weary under the Christian yoke, and who hide their sensualism under the interest they profess for Caesar or the prince. It is, then, from the time of St. Francis the chanter of poverty, from the time of St. Dominic the descendant of the Guzman, of the race of Cid, that is born in Italy, by the side of the citizens, a new class which completes the political emancipation of the Christian people. After having grown up, the people disappeared under the Renaissance when Protestantism triumphed, not to appear again until modern times, in our own age, when the sap of Christianity forces the church to remount into the branches of the tree of which I spoke. Art has resented this moral revolution of the thirteenth century, and literature also. The grand writer whom I have already quoted, I was going to say the poet who has founded the society of St. Vincent de Paul, makes somewhere a reflection which has struck me forcibly. Have you remarked, with him, that the church has put poetry into the choir, while she has banished reasoning into the pulpit--into the grand nave? I do not say reason, for true poetry is the chant of reason. Poetry that I call real and practical, that which elevates the soul toward its end, which balances the sighs of humanity, and clothes itself in spoken or written form, rhythmical or not, the sentiment which attracts us toward the infinite, and which St. Francis designates love, such poetry is simply prayer. A poet is naturally sacerdotal. He is really the _vates_ of antiquity. David and Solomon prayed with lyre in hand, and their prayers became the hymns of Christianity. Isaiah chanted the coming of the Messiah.

So in the thirteenth century, poetry was everywhere, a consequence of the Christian sentiment, spread in every direction through the moral life. To Innocent III., who under the name of the Count de Signa was considered one of the most learned men of his time, is attributed the _Dies Ire_. He has composed other spiritual songs. St. Thomas has left us the _Pange Lingua_. St. Francis is the chief of the poetic Franciscan school, in which shone St. Bonaventura, St. Antony, and the blessed Jacopone de Todi, of whom every one knows the beautiful stanzas _Stabat Mater Dolorosa_, etc. Then comes Dante, who governs Christian ages as Homer did the olden time. And lastly in the same age in Italy, at Vercelli, it is said, lived and died the great unknown who has left us the most beautiful book from the hand of man, _The Imitation_, the true poem of humanity redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The fall, the redemption, the grand drama of the moral history of the world, the battle of life, the art of vanquishing passion and matter, the effort of man to reach his ideal on the wings of simplicity and purity --where are those things better chanted than in _The Imitation?_

The thirteenth century, then, merits to be cited among the grandest epochs of history. However, it would be a false idea to imagine society elevated to a high degree of perfection. {396} Many Christians of our day, charmed by the recital of the life and works of these great saints, and by the sight of the magnificent monuments of the first era of ogival style, become almost melancholy, and have a disposition to blame everything new in the world, and defy their contemporaries or future generations even to imitate the virtues of the age of Innocent III. I think this tendency all wrong, and Christians who permit themselves to be so carried away, lack firmness and faith; for Christianity cannot decay, and the more the saints of the past, the greater the protectors of the church for the future. Besides, it is so easy to regard only the virtues of the thirteenth century, and ignore the vices. We must remember St. Anthony was the neighbor and the contemporary of Ezelin the Ferocious, the type of the tyrant of the modern world. Frederick II. lived in the same age as St. Louis. _The Sicilian Code_ was revised fifty years after the peace of Constance, at the same time as the _Magna Charta_ of England. St. Thomas d'Aquin and Roger Bacon are contemporaries of the Albigenses. You cannot point out in our age an error or a calamity that has not its equal, or rather its precursor, in the thirteenth century.

Caesarism, vanquished in politics, was protected by the literary men and the jurists. Dante in his old days wrote the Caesarian treatise, _De Monarchico_. It was in the beginning of the fourteenth century, a hundred years after Innocent III., that the popes, chased from Rome and Italy, set out for the exile of Avignon, which lasted seventy-five years.

III.

A reasonable study of such grandeur and such fall, the review of which must demonstrate human liberty, should make us better know our own age, and love it the more.

We possess more elements of material prosperity and material progress, and we jealously preserve the depository of all the moral truths. We enjoy greater political security, and the sentiment of right is more general in our day than in any other.

What we want, what has given an expansive power and grandeur and beauty to the thirteenth century, is a moral unity in the general direction of civil society. Our epoch feels its instinct, it seeks it, it desires it. People submit to the heaviest sacrifices, and agitate themselves to obtain what they call their unity. It is a false, factious, exterior unity, I know, but after all, it is unity.

But a true, living, and moral unity can only be found in efforts such as I have tried to depict; and moral unity, which should be the only legitimate aim of a people, is not established by force, nor even by the splendor of industrial production, nor the attractions of an economical well-being. It will only grow as the people liberally accept the direction of the Christian law. Expelled from political constitutions, I see this unity reconstitute itself in the masses. The neighboring democracies should be Christian. Recently we have met a battalion of crusaders, going to Rome, and coming from North America, which will soon add to the number of its bishops as many as presided at the Council of Nice. To manifest with new _éclat_ the fact of Christianity, and advance so salutary a movement, which will perhaps produce moral splendors unknown to the thirteenth century, we must arm ourselves, under the buckler of faith, with the science and rights of the citizen, as did the great doctors of the thirteenth century.

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This struggle, I know, is to-day more difficult, but therefore more meritorious, more glorious. Nowhere have we the support of governments. I do not complain--I state a fact; and perhaps this very support is a defect because it has been so much abused. The purity of the moral struggle of the thirteenth century is tarnished by the religious persecutions. I know the adversaries of the church have exaggerated their intensity; but I know also that never has the church, as a church, persecuted, nor given or proclaimed the right to persecute. Besides, we must not lose sight of the fact that the alliance of church and state was such that a heresy was considered above everything a crime against the state. For example, we are astonished to see a Saint Louis condemn severely the blasphemers of God as state criminals; but we do not consider it extraordinary nowadays to see the blasphemers of a sovereign or minister condemned to prison, exile, or transportation. It is necessary to remark that the greater part of the sects of the middle ages proclaimed principles the realization of which would have consequences of great civil and political importance. I defy our contemporary societies, so proud of their religious tolerance, to support the worship of the Mormons, those pests of our age. Only Christian societies are strong enough to resist such currents of corruption, to preserve their integrity, to endure and develop by the side of such sects. Christians alone can be tolerant with impunity, because tolerance for them is not a social necessity, but a virtue. Only they can repeat with Saint Augustine: "Let us convert the heretics, but let them not be sacrificed." So when we think of the universal blame of which St. Ambrose and St. Martin made themselves interpreters, against the condemnation to death of the Priscillians, those Mormons of the fourteenth century, we are justly astonished at the rigors exercised in the thirteenth century against the Albigenses and other sectarians. To-day, thanks be to God, a religious persecution could not be possible in countries where the Catholic religion predominates. Persecutions are only prevalent among the Mussulmans of Asia Minor or the schismatics of Poland; and if the Protestants of Ireland or the liberal anti-Catholics of the Continent have such tendencies, they devise some form which to them alone appears as progress.

For the contest, then, we must act as citizens, and use the pen and the word, and without truce or relaxation. When St. Francis Xavier made in the Indies his great and admirable spiritual conquests, destroyed by the Holland Protestants and the English, he asked for reinforcements from the superior of his order. "Especially," said he, "send me from Belgium those robust and broad-shouldered men." With such, this great saint believed himself able to encounter every difficulty. Their race is not extinct, thank God; and it seems to me Europeans are easier conquered than Asiatics.

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Brittany: Its People and its Poems.

Progress is the order of the day; the very watchword of the nineteenth century. Our times are possessed by an ever-active, restless spirit. Here and there only, in this surging sea, sheltered havens are found, where the quiet waters can reflect the fair forms and hues of heaven, floating above them in the deep and far-off blue. Here and there, out of the beaten track of the world's highways, lie rich and fertile retreats, among whose hills and fountains, woods and mossy stones, the spirit of the past, with music on her lips, poetry in her soul, and the cross clear and bright on her brow, still loves to dwell.

In scarcely another corner of Europe is the influence of this spirit so tenacious, so pervading, as in Brittany. Nor to those among us who may be descended from, or linked with, the original inhabitants of the British island, can Europe furnish many more interesting studies than this granite promontory--the bulwark of France against the wild Atlantic--and the Celtic tribes there, who guard, even to-day, their old Armorica from invasion of the novelties of Paris in manners and in thought.

Brittany preserves the same characteristic relations with regard to France as Wales, Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland preserve toward England. Its geographical position, its mountains, and the sea, have continued to protect it in a great degree from foreign influences. Indeed, this isolation is observable throughout its history. Almost from the first, the Breton Celts were the sole occupants of their own corner of the earth. The Gauls, the original inhabitants of the country, were outnumbered and absorbed by the influx of British emigrants; who, of the same original stock with themselves, speedily became the dominant sept, and possessors of the country.

The first extensive emigration of the insular Britons from what is now Great Britain into Armorica, took place about the year 383, by order of the tyrant Maximin. It was not, however, undertaken by compulsion, but was a willing adventure. The second took place when they fled in great numbers from the Saxon domination, after A.D. 450, when Ambrose and the great Arthur had fought so bravely and so long, in vain. This time they were _driven_ from their land, and as they crossed the sea to find a home with their brethren in Armorica, they sorrowfully chanted the psalm which their Christian bards had translated into their native tongue, "_Thou hast given us, O Lord, as sheep for the slaughter; and thou hast scattered us among the nations._" A terrible pestilence with which, about this time, various parts of Britain were visited, is said to have done more than anything else toward confirming the sway of the Saxons in England, and diminishing the old Britons to a mere remnant in the island. They themselves regarded it as a sign that the kingdom was taken from them, and given by God to their enemies. The emigrations thenceforward became so frequent and so numerous that the British isle was almost depopulated of its ancient inhabitants; and King Ina, of Wessex, who was also Bretwalda, coming to the throne in A.D. 689, grieved to lose so many of his subjects, sent to entreat the emigrants to return. {399} At that period, they more than equalled the indigenous population of Armorica, upon whom they had imposed their own laws and form of government. Thus, in the fifth century, Armorica was, like Cambria, divided into small independent states: those of Vannes; Kerne, or Cornouaille; Leon; and Tréguier--all Celtic in language, customs, and laws, and each division having its own bishop and its own chief. Among the chiefs, one often obtained a predominating power over the rest, with the title of _konan_, or crowned chief. Hence, all the earlier kings of Armorica of whom we hear in history, Meriadek, Gradlon, Budik, Houel, and others, were Britons from the Island. Their bards, who formed an essential part of every noble family among the Cambrians, accompanied them into their adopted country. Of this number was Taliessin, "the prince of the bards, the prophets, and the Druids of the West." He took up his abode in the land of the Venetes, (Vannes,) near to his friend and brother bard, Gildas, who had emigrated thither, and who is said to have converted Taliessin to the Christian faith. Three other celebrated bards of the same period were Saint Sulio, Hyvarnion, and Kian Gwench'lan.

Tradition gives the following account of the manner in which St. Sulio received his vocation. When very young, he was one day playing with his brothers near the castle of their father, the lord of Powys, when a procession of monks passed by, led by their abbot, and chanting, to the sound of his harp, the praise of God. The sweetness of their hymns so delighted the child, that, bidding his brothers return to their sports, he followed the monks, "in order to learn of them how he might compose beautiful songs." His brothers hastened to tell their father of his flight, who sent thirty armed men, with a charge to kill the abbot and to bring back Sulio. He had, however, been sent at once to a monastery in Armorica, of which in due time he became prior. The Welsh, who call him Saint Y Sulio, possess a collection of his poems.

The Christian faith won its way more slowly in Armorica than it had done in Britain. They who had inherited the harp of the ancient Druids, with the mysteries of their religion and the secrets of their knowledge, were often reluctant to submit to the belief which despoiled them of their priesthood. "If Taliessin," says M. de la Villemarqué, "consecrated to Christ the fruits of a mysterious science, perfected under the shadow of proscribed altars; if the monks, taking the harp in hand, attracted to the cloister the children of the chiefs; if the Christian mother taught her little one in the cradle to sing of him who died upon the cross, .... there were, at the same time, in the depth of the woods, dispersed members of the Druidic colleges, wandering from hut to hut, like the fugitive Druids of the Isle of Britain, who continued to give to the children of Armorica lessons on the divinity, as their fathers had been taught; and they did so with sufficient success to alarm the Christian teachers, and oblige them to combat them skilfully with their own weapons."

Even after paganism had fallen before the cross, we find curious traces of the Druidic element scattered here and there in the early poems of Brittany. Her bishops of that period are spoken of as "Christian Druids, who grafted the faith of Christ on the Druid oak;" and of her poets it is said, "They did not _break_ the harp of the ancient bards; they only changed some of its chords."

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The most ancient poems preserved in Brittany which bear evidences of being the scientific compositions of the bards, are: _The Series, or the Druid and the Child; The Prediction of Gwench'lan; The Submersion of the City of Ys; The Changeling; The Wine of the Gauls; The March of Arthur;_ and _Alain the Fox_. These are the last breathings of the _learned_ poetry of the Bretons of Armorica.

But, besides the scientific poems of the descendants of the Druids, there grew up, at the same time, a large amount of popular poetry, both in Wales and in Armorica. As early as the sixth century, this divided itself into three distinct kinds: theological, heroic, and historical poems; domestic poems and love-songs; and poems on religious subjects, including the versified histories of saints. This whole class of poetry sprang from the people; it was the expression of their heart, the echo of their thoughts, the depository of their history and of their belief.

Upon this poetry of the people, both in the British island and in Brittany, the bards made war. And when, among the Bretons, the popular minstrels overcame the bards, the Welsh triads put the Armoricans in the number of "the three peoples which have corrupted the primitive bardism by mixing with it heterogeneous principles."

"It is only the _kler_, (scholar-poets,) the vagabonds, and the beggars," says Taliessin, "who give themselves no trouble."

"Bark not against instruction in the art of verse. Silence! miserable pretenders, who usurp the name of bards! You know not how to judge between truth and fables! ... As for me, I am diviner and general-in-chief of the bards of the west!"

Gildas is equally energetic in protesting against all "who take pleasure in listening to the vociferations" of the popular poets of his time.

Reality and good faith are the two principal qualities inherent in popular poetry in its primitive state. The poet's aim is always to paint faithfully something which actually occurred, or which he _believed_ did occur.

Chronicler and novelist, legendary and sacred psalmodist, the poet of Brittany is all this to the mass of the Breton population--to twelve hundred thousand uneducated persons, without any other learning than that which they gain from the oral instruction of their clergy. A thoughtful and imaginative people, full of poetic instinct, and of the desire of knowledge; and to whom every event, possessing a moderate share of interest, furnishes subject-matter for a song.

We will now attempt translations of a portion of the _bardic_ poems which remain to us. We omit the first, entitled _Ar Rannoce_, or _The Series:_ a dialogue between a Druid and a child who is one of his disciples. Its length would unduly prolong the present article; but, inasmuch as it conveys an interesting sketch of the cosmogony and theology of the bardic system, we may find for it a place in some future page.

To come, then, to the second poem on our list, _The Prophecy of Gwench'lan_. The bard Kian, surnamed Gwench'lan, or "_Pure Race_" was born in Armorica at the beginning of the fifth century, and was never won to the Christian faith. His enmity to it, indeed, was embittered by the treatment he received at the hands of a foreign prince, calling himself a Christian; who threw the bard into a dungeon, and, after depriving him of sight, left him there to die. {401} During his hard captivity he composed the following poem, called _Diougan Gwench'lan_, or _The Prophecy of Gwench'lan_, in which he predicts the fate of his captor, who was shortly afterward slain in battle fighting against the Bretons.

The composition of this poem is exactly after the pattern of the ancient Welsh bards. Like Taliessin, Gwench'lan believes in the _three cycles of being_ of the Druidic theology, and in the doctrine of metempsychosis. "I have been born three times," says Taliessin. ... "I have been dead; I have been alive; I am that which I was. ... I have been a wild goat upon the mountains; I have been a spotted cock; I have been a fallow-deer; now I am Taliessin."

Like Lywarc'h-Hen, he mourns over his old age and decrepitude. He is melancholy, and a fatalist.

Like Aneurin, who had been made prisoner after the battle of Kattracz, and in his captivity composed _The Song of Gododin_, Gwench'lan sings in his chains and in the darkness of his dungeon.

It was not unusual among the bards to compare the leader of the enemy to the wild boar of the woods, and the champion who withstood him to the war-horse, or the white horse of the sea.

Gwench'lan is said to have composed many songs in praise of the warriors of his country--those who marched to battle invoking the Sun-god, and, on returning victorious, danced in his honor to the "_Sword, King of Battle_." A collection of his poems and prophecies was preserved until the French revolution, in the abbey of Landevenec; but the ferocious joy with which, in some fragments that remain, he contemplates the slaughter of the Christians in the Menez Bré, and the extermination of their faith, makes their destruction small matter of regret to any but the antiquary.

Gwench'lan, however, continues to be famous throughout Brittany, where the remnants of his compositions still are sung; especially _The Prophecy_, of which a part has been translated by M. de Villemarqué from _Barzaz Breiz_, (_Breton Ballads_.)

Diougan Gwench'lan.

Prophecy Of Gwench'lan.

I.

When the sun is setting, When the sea is swelling, I sit upon the threshold of my door. I sang when I was young, And still, grown old, I sing, By night, by day, though with sad heart and sore.

If my head is bent low, If my trouble presses; It is not causeless care that weighs me down. It is not that I fear; I fear not to be slain: For long enough my life has lingered on.

When they seek not Gwench'lan, Gwench'lan, they will find him: But find they shall not, when they seek for me. Yet, whatsoe'er betide, To me it matters not That alone which _ought_ to be, will _be_. Thrice all must die, ere rest at last they see.

II.

Wild boar, I behold him, From the wood forth comes he; Much he drinks; he hath a wounded foot: His hair is white with age; Round him his hungry young Are howling. Bloodstained is his gaping throat.

White horse of the sea, lo! Comes to the encounter. The shore for terror trembles 'neath his tread. Bright and dazzling he, Bright as the sparkling snow; And silver horns are gleaming on his head.

Foams the water 'neath him, At the thunder-fire Of those fierce nostrils. Sea-horses around Press, thick and close as grass Upon a lakelet's bank. Horse of the sea! strike well! Strike--strike him to the ground!

......

III.

As I was sweetly sleeping, in my cold, cold tomb. I heard the eagle calling, at midnight calling, "Come! Rise on your wings, O eaglets! and all ye birds of heaven. To you, nor flesh of dogs, nor sheep, but _Christians_, shall be given!"

"Old raven of the sea, What hold'st thou?--say to me."

"The chieftain's head I bear away: His two red eyes shall be my prey, For taking thy two eyes away."

"And thou too, what hast thou, O Reynard sly?"

"His heart, which was as false as mine, have I; It sought thy death, and long hath made thee die."

"What dost thou by the corner of his mouth, O toad?"

"I wait to seize his soul upon her road, Long as I live must I be her abode."

Thus he meeteth his reward For his crime against the bard Who dwells no more between Roch-allaz and Porz-Gwen'n.

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The _Submersion of the City of Ys_, or Is, presents to us one of those legends which has its counterpart in so many other branches of the Celtic race. Its historical basis is as follows:

"In the year 440, there reigned in Armorica King Gradlon-veur, or the Great. His capital was the city of Is, since destroyed; and he occasionally consulted a holy man named Gwenolé, founder and abbot of the first monastery erected in Armorica.

"This is all which contemporary and authentic history tell us of this city, this prince, and this monk; but popular tradition, always more rich than history, furnishes us with additional particulars. According to this, the city of Is was protected from the invasions of the sea by an immense basin or reservoir, which at high tide received the waters of the ocean, as formerly the Lake Moeris those of the Nile. This basin had a secret door, of which the king alone had the key, and which he opened or closed himself when needed. One night, while he slept, the Princess Dahut, wishing to crown the follies of a banquet given to a suitor, stole the key; she, or, according to another variation of the story, her suitor, who was in truth the author of evil under an assumed form, opened the door, and, as had been foretold by Saint Gwenolé, submerged the city.

"This tradition, adds M. de Villemarqué, ascends to the very cradle of the Celtic race, and is common to its three great branches, the Bretons, Welsh, and Irish.

"The _Is_ of Armorica is the _Gwaeleod_ of Wales, and the _Neaz_ of Ireland; the name in each instance signifying _low_ or _hollow_. According to all three, the daughter of the king is the cause of the catastrophe, and is punished by being changed into a siren, after a death by drowning. The Welsh version of this ballad, which is apparently of the date of the fifth century, and composed by the bard Gwezno, contains two strophes which are almost literally repeated in the Armorican. It begins in a way very like the conclusion of the latter. Some one comes to awaken the king, whom the bard calls Seizenin:

"'Seizenin! arise, and look! The land of warriors, the country of Gwezno, is overwhelmed by the ocean.'

"The Welsh sailors in Cardigan Bay, which, they assure us, now occupies the submerged territory, declare that they can see beneath the waters the ruins of ancient edifices. The same is said of the Bay of Douarnenez in Basse-Bretagne.

"Also, the Irish fishermen, at a much earlier epoch, (according to Giraldus Cambrensis,) the middle of the second century, believed that they could see glimmering under the waters of the lake which covers their city of Neaz the round towers of ancient days.

"With regard to the horse of Gradlon, Marie de France assures us that, in struggling through the flood, the force of the water bore his master off his back; that the life of Gradlon was saved by a beneficent fay, but the horse, on reaching the land without the king, became wild with grief.

"The original tradition says that Gradlon, fleeing for his life, bore his daughter behind him, when a terrible voice cried three times, 'Push off the demon that sits behind thee.' The unhappy king obeyed, and forthwith the waters were restrained."

Submersion Of The City Of Is.

I.

Oh! hast thou heard--oh! hast thou heard Of Gwenolé the rede, Which unto Gradlon, king of Is, He spake, but gat small heed?

"To earthly love, ah! yield thee not, With evil cease to toy; For after pleasure cometh woe, And sorrow follows joy.

"Who bites the flesh of fishes, soon The fishes him shall bite; And he who swallows, shall himself Be swallowed up some night.

"And he who drinks both beer and wine, Shall water drink amain: To him who cannot scan my speech It soon shall be made plain."

II.

One eve spake Gradlon, king of Is, King Gradlon thus spake he "My merry friends, by your fair leave, A little sleep would we."

{403}

"To-morrow 'twill be time enough-- With us this evening stay; But if it be thy mind to sleep, We would not say thee nay."

And thereupon her lover spake, Full softly whispered he, To Gradlon's daughter, "Sweet princess, Sweet Dahut--_and the key!_"

"Hush! I will bear the key away That locks the floodgates fast, And Is shall be within thy power Ere little time be past."

III.

Now, whosoe'er had seen the king, As on his couch he lay, With admiration had been filled At sight of his array.

The aged king, in purple robed, With long and snow-white hair, Which o'er his shoulders flowed upon His golden collar fair.

And whosoe'er had lain in wait Had spied the princess white, Unsandalled, steal into that room, In silence of the night.

She to the king her father crept, Sank softly on her knee, Loosed from his neck the golden chain, And bore away the key.

IV.

He sleepeth on--he sleepeth on, Till, from the plains, a cry-- "The deep is o'er us! Is overwhelmed Beneath the waters high!

"My lord the king, arise, arise! To horse! and swiftly flee. The dykes are burst--the land o'erflowed By the triumphant sea."

Accursed be the treacherous maid Who opened thus the gate After the feast--who drowned the land, And made it desolate!

V.

"Oh! tell me now, brave forester, The wild-horse hast thou seen Of Gradlon? Hast thou seen it pass Along this valley green?"

"The horse of Gradlon saw I not At any time pass by; But in deep night '_trip trap_' I hear, With lightning swiftness fly."

"Say, hast thou seen, O fisherman! The daughter of the sea, Combing her golden hair at noon, Where sparkling breakers be?"

"Yes, I have seen the mermaid white: She sings among the waves. Her songs are plaintive as the sound Of deeps o'er dead men's graves."

We come now to _The Changeling_; and here again we trace not so much a resemblance as an all but literal reproduction of an Irish legend, known to all readers of _The Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland_ under the title, _The Brewery of Egg-shells_. It must be confessed, however, that the non-Catholic medium through which the Irish version reaches us, has deprived it of the religious turn it may possibly have had in the original. Our Lady does not appear in it, as here in the Breton ballad.

The Changeling.

Grieved to the heart is la belle Marie. Where may her Laoik, her little one, be? Carried away by the Korrigan he.

"Forth to the fount as I went on a day, Safe in his cradle my little one lay; Home when I came he had vanished away.

"This wretched monster I found in his place. Rough, like a toad, with a horrible face, Dumb, greedy, fierce, like the rest of his race.

"Mary most pure, on your snow-gleaming throne, In your maternal arms holding your Son, You are in joy, while in sorrow I moan.

"Your Holy Child evermore you are keeping, Mine I have lost, whom I thought safely sleeping; Mother of Pity, ah! pity my weeping!"

"Daughter, my daughter, oh! sorrow no more. Lost is he not whom you thus would deplore, Laoik, your darling, short time shall restore.

"Who in an egg-shell shall feign to prepare All that ten laborers need for their fare, Forces the dwarf into speech, then and there.

"When he has spoken, then whip--whip again! Whip, till he cry out with anger and pain! He will be heard: and be borne off amain."

"Prithee, my mother, what do you?" he cries, "What make you, mother?" he asks in surprise. Dwarfling can scarcely believe his own eyes.

"What am I doing, my son, would you ken? Dinner I make, in this egg-shell, for ten, Ten of the farm-servants, laboring men."

"Ten! in an eggshell! The egg I have seen Fresh, of the oldest white hen that has been: Acorn, whose oak is far-spreading and green.

"Oaks have I seen, widening out from their core, Old oaks of Brézal wood, rugged and hoar; Nothing like this have I e'er seen before."

"Too many things hast thou seen," she replies: Flip, flap! flip, flap!--thus upon him she flies. "Little old man, now I have thee!" she cries.

{404}

"Whip not, nor strike, but restore him to me; Harm hath been none to thy boy, belle Marie; King over all in our country is he!"

When to her home returned Marie that day, Safe in his cradle her own baby lay, Sweetly asleep, as if wearied with play.

While she stands gazing, entranced at the sight, Bending to kiss the fair cheeks with delight, Laoik, her lost one, his eyes opens bright.

Half rising up, and with wondering eyes, Soft arms outstretched in a dreamy surprise, "Mother! how long I've been sleeping!" he cries.

We will conclude our present instalment from these interesting relics of Celtic antiquity by a spirit-stirring fragment; for the reader will perceive that it is incomplete. This is _Arthur's March_, (_Bale Arzur,_) written, like the last, in the _Ies Kerne_, or dialect of Cornouaille--_Cornu Galliae_--a district of Brittany. There is a complete change of metre between the parts marked I. and II.; the former being so arranged, that the poetical foot composing the lines is of three short syllables following a long one, and produces a spirited and martial effect, somewhat like the beat of a modern drum.

M. de Villemarqué, from whose _Barzaz Briez_, or _Breton Ballads_, we have drawn so largely in these pages, speaks thus of the ballad before us:

"The popularity which the name of Arthur enjoys in Brittany is one of the most curious phenomena in the history of Breton fidelity. Neither defeat nor exile could make the Bretons forgetful of Arthur. His magic renown, crossing the sea with them, received new life in Armorica; he became there, as he was in the Isle of Britain, an armed symbol of national liberty; and the people, at all periods from the sixth century to our own time, repeated, with adaptation to circumstances, the traditions and the sayings or prophecies of which he was the subject. Thus, whenever war is impending, they see, as a warning sign, the army of Arthur defiling at break of day over the summit of the Black Mountains; and the poem here given has for twelve centuries been in the mouth of Bretons armed to defend their hearths and altars. I learnt it from an aged mountaineer named Mikel Floc'h, of Leuhan, who told me that he had often sung it when marching against the enemy in the last wars of the west."

The last strophe, which is of later date than the preceding ones, may in some measure have contributed to save from oblivion the _March of Arthur_. It is always sung three times over, and with the greatest enthusiasm.

Some of the strophes, breathing the savage vengeance of pagan times, have been omitted in the English translation. They retain in the original so much of the Cambrian dialect and idiom as to be scarcely in the least understood by the Bretons who sing them.

The March Of Arthur.

I.

Haste, haste to the combat! Come kinsman, come brother, Come father, come son, to the battle speed forth! The brave and the dauntless, come, speed one another! Come all! there is work for the warriors of worth.

II.

Said to his father, at day-dawn, the son of the warrior, "Horsemen I see, on the far mountain summits, who gather.

"Horsemen all mounted on war-steeds of gray, like the mist-wreaths; Coursers that snort with the cold on the heights of the mountains.

"Close ranks of six by six: three by three: thousands of lances Flash in the beams of the sun, to our vale yet unrisen.

"Double ranks follow the banners that wave in the death-wind, Measuring nine casts of a sling from the van to the rearward."

"Pendragon's army! I know it! Great Arthur Pendragon Leading his warriors, marches 'mid clouds of the mountain.

"If it be Arthur, then quick to our bows and swift arrows! Forward, and follow him. Set the keen death-winged dart flying!"

{405}

E'en as he spake rang the fierce cry of war through the mountains: "Heart for eye: head for arm; death for wound!" through hill and valley.

If in such manner we die as befits Breton Christians, Too soon we cannot sink down on the field of our conflict!

If our readers are not yet wearied with details of the ancient poetry of this exceptional part of France, we hope to present them in our next number with further specimens; including the death of Lord Nann from the spells of a malignant Korrigan, or Breton fairy, and the argument by which a Breton maiden persisted in choosing the cloister against all the persuasions of a suitor to her hand. Both these poems date at least from the sixth century of Christianity.

----------

Indian Summer.

Upon the hills the autumn sun His radiance pours like golden wine; And low, sweet music seems to run Among the tassels of the pine; Around us rings the wild bird's scream; Above, an arch of dark-blue sky; While, like a maiden's summer dream, The mists upon the meadows lie.

O peerless Indian Summer hours, With bracing morn and slumbrous noon! How pale are June's bright, flaunting flowers Amid thy wealth of gorgeous bloom. The river ripples softly on, With purple hills upon its breast; And soft cloud-shadows, floating down, Have found a scene of perfect rest.

The evening darkens; from the hills The glory fades, so proudly worn; And in the west serenely fills The fair young moon her silver horn; While from the deep'ning blue above The stars steal slowly, singly forth; And night-winds, like the breath of love, Come floating o'er the silent earth.

Veronica.

Cornwall Landing.

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{406}

Creative Genius of Catholicity. [Footnote 136]

[Footnote 136: We take pleasure in presenting in our pages the following able article, from the pen of the late lamented Colonel James Monroe. Few writers have left behind a testimony more striking of their devotion to our holy faith, or of their confidence in its elevating social power. It meets living questions of the day with a rare aptitude, and presents views and applies principles in a manner worthy of attentive and thoughtful consideration.--ED. C. W.]

If the creative genius of Catholicity were to be stated from an _a priori_ point of view, it would reduce itself to the form of an axiom; for Catholicity being the body of revealed truth, confirming and agreeing with truth in every order, truth being essentially "that which is," (to employ the words of Bossuet,) Catholicity must be pre-eminently endowed with the germinative and fruitful spirit of origination. But inasmuch as truth has in this world a clouded scene for her activity, as effects arise constantly, and almost invariably, from an intermixture of causes of a diverse and contending character, and as the divine, the human, and the material elements are incessantly conjoined in action, it becomes necessary to trace the chain of events and to elucidate the influence of principles. This process does not, with the mind which is gifted with faith, arrive at the dignity of the highest proof; it rather serves to record examples and to collect illustrations.

In executing such a process, the difficulty is, not to find instances, but to decide which of them to choose amidst the boundless variety. I think it germane to the subject to compare Catholic genius with that of the most polished nation of the Gentile world, as the two have been displayed under the sensuous relation of form. The Greeks, beyond all other people, possessed a native capability in art, and there remains of the productions of the Greek mind enough for a just estimate of its rich capabilities. The models of Greek genius have won the enthusiastic admiration of mankind, and they dominate with a strong mastery over all cultivated minds which lack the Catholic faith. "Even from their urns, they rule them still."

Whatever difficulties language, poetry, philosophy, may labor under from the lapse of time, that which is tactual and visual needs but to be present to be appreciated. If art be the emanation of a creative spirit; if it be not, in its highest sphere, a copy or an imitation, then must it be admitted that the evolution of the Greek orders of architecture, combining majestic strength, radiant grace, and flowery beauty, embodied in pure and enduring material, is the loftiest expression of impassioned heathen genius. It is higher than their types of the human form, because it was wrought without a model and shaped directly from the mind's ideal. The conception is one so strong and great that it has never had a rival outside of Catholicity--and indeed hardly a respectable imitator. The coarser capability of the Roman mind not only originated nothing and added nothing to Greek invention, but it marred and misapplied that which it undertook to adopt. Later copyists have aimed no higher than a restoration of what their masters had created.

{407}

All that addresses the eye, and through it the mind, under form alone, may be objectively resolved into lines and surfaces, which may be again subdivided into yet simpler elements. The combinations of these elements--their union, tangencies, and contrasts--may be classified, and may furnish certain deductions which are incontrovertible general conclusions. Indeed, the deduction may become so far generalized as to pass beyond the boundary of the art which suggested it--as "the perfection of form is said to annihilate form;" it then arrives at abstract truth, which seeks its illustration in matter, without deriving its validity therefrom. This is so far true that the science whose highest deductions fall short of such generalization is yet in a rudimentary condition. [Footnote 137]

[Footnote 137: As an example, we may take the principle of beauty as shown in the simplest and least beautiful of the regular curves, the circular. In the circle variation in direction is combined with identity in the distance from a fixed point. There is, then, unity in diversity--a general principle, of which the circle is but an example. Nature, ever affluent in resources, varies the tameness of the circle by presenting it to the eye as a right line, an ellipse, etc., according to the point of view. Thus again illustrating the law of unity in diversity; for the knowledge that the figure is still a circle is _one_, while the gradations in its appearance are many.]

In adjusting the elements of form under harmonious combinations, and in expanding them into imposing dimensions, the Greek mind was so subtle and appreciative that it missed nothing, and exhausted everything within the reach of its science, "unwinding all the links of grace, without a blunder or an oversight." If the Gothic architecture had borrowed from the Greek, or had simply carried forward into further development the same formative idea, it might be said that the case was that of the dwarf upon the giant's shoulders, who sees further than the giant himself. But the fact is entirely otherwise. The projectors and moulders of the Gothic church architecture found the field of invention limited--as must ever be the case--by preceding invention. The genius, therefore, must have been the greater which not only discovered new combinations of excellence, but anticipated and antedated yet surpassed all predecessors.

Among tribes of men whom the Greek styled "barbarous" emanates a life in art which transcends his highest conception. We encounter fabrics loftier, broader, deeper; the arch which _he_ did not employ is lifted from its circular character into a higher curvature, and its key-stone boldly stricken out. We find pillars massed, scalloped, and filleted; mouldings of a more graceful contour, every way flexure of contrast and gradation; a mazy web of tracery combining lightness, symmetry, permanence, and equilibrium; in mid air, a shapely dome, poised by the daring hand of science, where the cloud might visit it and the rainbow circle it. All this prodigality of invention and unequalled execution, springing forth as from an exhaustless fountain, is not confined to some favored peninsula, but is common to Italy, Germany, France, and England. The common cause of an effect so uniform and remarkable was the inspiring and elevating influence of the One Catholic faith.

I will quote here a Protestant writer's view of the difference in design between the Greek and Gothic building:

"The essential, germinal principle of difference between the temple and the cathedral is, that the former is built for exterior effect, the latter for interior. On occasions of worship, the multitude surrounded one edifice, but filled the other. The temple has, as regards architectural impression, really no interior at all; for the small _cella_ or _naos_ which hid the _penetralia_ entered not at all into the effect of the structure. From this difference in character and design, the whole diversity between the characters of Greek and Gothic forms and decorations may be derived. To the former, viewed from without, an aspect of elevated repose must belong; and all the decorations must be superficial. The elaboration of an impressive and inspiring interior led necessarily to soaring height and a general upwardness of all the courses; to long-drawn vistas, side by side; to grand portals to give entrance, and a multitude of windows to give light; and to a general style of decoration, concave, receding, and perspective."

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The same writer says:

"If England's cathedrals are inferior to those of France, they are more beautiful than anything else in the world. Durham and Ely, and Winchester and Salisbury, what needs the soul of man more impressive, glorious, transcendent, than these?"

Another competent authority--also a Protestant--says:

"There is infinitely more scientific skill displayed in a Gothic cathedral than in all the buildings of Greece and Rome; nor could these latter have resisted the shock of time so long, had they not been almost solid masses of stone, with no more cavity than was indispensably necessary."

Let us examine the principle of delineation in the human form--that which has ever captivated the efforts of the greatest artists. In the classic execution of the highest human types there is an evident straining after the expression of something above the actual. Sir Charles Bell has shown that this effect is attained by a refined species of exaggeration. It consists in exaggerating whatever distinguishes man from the animals in enlarging, for example, the facial angle. It is a further remove from the animals than man is, but _in the same direction_. The Hercules, for instance, is an embodiment of the central form of strength--it is an exaggeration of muscular development. The highest expression is the embodiment of human passion. In this way the Greeks attained the delineation of the _superhuman_. Under the tutorage of Catholicity the human lineaments achieved the expression of the supernatural. One was the idealization of nature; the other the supernaturalization of humanity. Of this latter classic art had no conception; while therefore it may equal or surpass Catholic art in execution, it must fall far below in its ideal. [Footnote 138]

[Footnote 138: In this connection let us record a few remarks from the ablest writers upon the subject.

Solger has said: "Philosophy can create nothing: it can only _understand_. It can create neither the religious inspiration nor the artistic genius: but it can detect and bring to light all that is contained therein."

Hegel, in stating the relation of art, religion, and philosophy, says:

"Art fulfils its highest mission when it has established itself with religion and philosophy in the one circle common to all, and is merely a method of revealing the godlike to man, of giving utterance to the deepest interests, the most comprehensive truths pertaining to mankind. Nations have deposited the most holy, rich, and intense of their ideas in works of art, and art is the key to the philosophy and religion of a nation."

Schilling, with his peculiar theory, says: "That artist is to be accounted happy to whom the gods have granted the _creative spirit_. When the artist _recognizes_ the aspect and being of the _indwelling creative idea_, and produces it, he makes the individual a _world in itself_, a _species_, an _eternal type_."

Not one of these three statements is beyond the reach of cavil or of just exception; but, for the purpose in hand, we see that the first says that "philosophy can create nothing;" the second, that "art is a method of revealing the godlike to man, and of giving utterance to his most holy and intense ideas;" and the third, that it involves a gift or endowment of the "creative spirit."]

Finally, all art is expression. Given a knowledge and mastery of the instruments of expression, and the thought will determine its character; the nature of the thought expressed depends upon the conceiving mind; the highest conception of the mind is the offspring of religious affection, the Catholic is the true religion; therefore the expression of Catholic genius is the summit of art. It is by no means a necessity that the soul shall express itself under sensuous forms; but to all outward manifestation a power over the instrument is a condition--in which sense the body is itself an instrumentality. What the soul expresses must be thought--either its own, or another's--it must either imitate or originate; imitation is merely repetition, and is in the power of a mirror. So that what in every art cannot be taught is expression. {409} The highest effort of the soul is spontaneous and original. Herein we find the superiority--visible at a glance--of Catholic architecture over the Greek orders, of Catholic delineations of the human countenance over the finest models of antiquity.

We have sufficiently considered the originative character of Catholicity under the aspect of constructed form. We have contemplated her moulding and shaping matter in her flexible fingers, and evolving that wilderness of artistic grace and loveliness which, in the ruins of a Tintern or Melrose Abbey, compels the admiration, but defies the rivalry, of the apostate sons of Catholic sires. We shall now consider her influence in the building up of states and the organization of societies.

Christianity took its rise under a universal military despotism. It sustained for three hundred years the superincumbent pressure of a hostile heathen empire. It exhausted the malice and the power of a pagan and brutalized temporal order; and when the Roman empire shook the world with its fall, Christianity survived the death-throes of that mighty organization.

When she rose from the catacombs, she did not sweep away the temples of the heathen gods; she drove from those fanes the unclean spirits which so long had dwelt within them; she rescued them from their demon desecration, monuments of her triumph, trophies of her victorious agonies; she made them the basilicas of her majestic worship.

When the fierce tribes from the north poured over Southern Europe, the church preserved what was sound in the Roman civilization, instructed the barbarians in agriculture by the example of her laborious monks, and taught them all the arts of life; instituted laws and polity; tempered and restrained tyranny; planted and nourished the seeds of liberty; developed civilization and refinement, and built up the whole grand fabric of Christendom.

In this formation of new states out of new populations, they did not become perfect exemplars of Christian ethics and morals, nor exact exponents of the formative power of Catholicity. The church encountered in those ages, as she does in this, incessant obstacles, difficulties, and resistance. Whatever was good and admirable in those constitutions came to them from the Catholic religion and was derived from the papal see.

The canon law had, under the emperors, tempered and modified the civil code; and among the new states it operated a beneficial change in the feudal principles. Both these systems prescribed for the mass of men an unchristian servitude. Enlightened equity and justice, and equality before the law, originated in the jurisprudence of the church, and not in barbarous feudalities, nor in the capricious and tyrannical decrees of Roman emperors. There are men in this age and country who profess great love for the people and great regard for the rights of labor, but who are stanch partisans of the tyrants of the middle age in the contentions which arose between them and the papal see. Inherited ill-will blinds them to the fact that the only power in those days which could hold tyranny to an accountability or check kingly license was that of the pope. The exercise of the papal protectorate not only tended to prevent causeless wars, but it controlled the corrupting influence of royal vices by stamping them with reprobation and, where needful, with degradation. It was the bulwark of the feebler states, the barrier against princely ambition, and everywhere the advocate, the friend, and the defender of the toiling multitude.

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The new organization of states was to be marked by a characteristic which was also new. Human government is ordained of God. Christianity was to recognize and to exemplify this truth. She was to legitimate and ennoble human government in its own separate order. To effect this in the fullest manner, there must be an exemplification directly from the personality of the hierarchy; for, sacrifice being the most exalted human action, the priest, whose office it is to offer sacrifice, is by his function first among men. The highest recognition must therefore derive from the priesthood. But there would always be something lacking of the _highest_, unless the head of the hierarchy were a temporal ruler. The temporal power of the pope is the consecration of human government. Unlike others, he receives no dignity from the office, but confers grace upon it and upon its order; and Christendom, created by the church, receives the key-stone of its strength and its crowning symmetry when the first of Christian priests becomes a ruler among the nations. And consequently, religion suffers its direst outrage when, reversing the order, the temporal power lays its unfaltering hand upon the vessels of the sanctuary.

The church not only created the interior coherency of states by introducing just principles into their constitution; she not only bound them in links of fellowship whose _nexus_ was at Rome; she also organized their exterior defence. In uniting Christendom during the crusades to repel the Moslem invasion, the popes caused the reconstruction of systematic and scientific strategy, which had disappeared with the Roman legion, thus furnishing to civilization a needful defence and a desirable superiority, while at the same time the narrow spirit of the feudal method and its local strifes were rendered obsolete.

For a thousand years the struggle begun by Mohammedan invasion continued to rage on the confines of Europe. At its early period it penetrated to Tours in France, where it was checked by Charles Martel, in 732. But the triumph was not completed on that wing of Christendom till the capture of Granada, and the annihilation of the Moorish power in Spain in the year of the discovery of America. On the other border, the Turks besieged and took Belgrade, and suffered a final repulse at Vienna from John Sobieski, King of Poland, in 1683.

But, so far as human causes indicate, the question whether the faith of Europe should be Christian or Moslem was decided in the Gulf of Lepanto, in 1571. These were all European battle-fields. The struggle was against an invasion which struck at the existence of Christianity. The master-spirit which created, combined, informed, and directed the resistance dwelt in the Vatican.

The modern age is distinguished for the intense application of human intelligence to the laws and conditionalities of time, space, and matter, in their triple relations; and Providence seems to be permitting to man the reassertion of his dominion over the earth. "Knowledge is power," but the right employment of power is _virtue_; and unless the moral forces keep pace with the conquests of mind in the realm of matter, there will ensue antagonisms more destructive than before, as well as a more profound desolation of the human race. The rectification of the will is of an importance prior and superior to the activity of the intelligence; and without a religious faith and sanction the fruits of the understanding are but dust and ashes.

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When we consider the spirit of invention and examine its results, three great products assume an acknowledged superiority. These are, the magnet, with its corollary, the extension of geographical discovery; the printing-press in its action upon intelligence; and gunpowder in its relation to physical forces in war. The magnet can never again point the way to a discovery like that which was achieved by Columbus; the art of printing cannot be applied to a higher purpose than that of multiplying copies of the Holy Scriptures; and gunpowder, which still controls the practice of the art of war, was never employed upon an occasion so critical to civilization and so momentous in the world's affairs, as when the cannon of Don John of Austria won for Christendom the great fleet-fight of Lepanto. These three commanding discoveries, and these their greatest applications, belong to Catholic nations and to Catholic individuals. The Protestant religions have no part in these discoveries, because there is an awkward metaphysical axiom which says that the cause must exist before the effect, and these greatest of inventions all preceded--some of them by centuries--the birth of Protestantism.

Some writers have claimed that the inventive spirit began with the dawn of the Reformation, at which time, according to Robert Hall, the nations "awoke from the sleep of ages to run a career of virtuous emulation." If this be so, why is it that later discoveries have not equalled those which we have just specified? According to this theory, the dawn eclipses the noon-day; and Protestantism would seem to belong to that class of things of which the _less_ you have of them the _better_.

The revival of letters is usually dated in the thirteenth century, and that honor is universally accorded to Italy. The first bank and the first newspaper are found at Venice. The Bible had been published in numerous editions before Luther began to dogmatize from a printed copy of it in Saxony. The system of modern commerce took its rise under the papacy, and ran a brilliant career in the Italian republics, and in the free cities of Germany, long before the era of the Protestant religions. Columbus had discovered the New World, and Vasco da Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope and marked the pathway to India, before the rise of England's commercial greatness. The "progress" had been installed, and had achieved such works as these, before the century in which Lord Bacon lived to write his _Inductive System of Philosophy_.

It would be an incomplete view of the subject if we failed to remark the _enduring_ character of the work which is of Catholic creation. Not like the mutable religions which protest against her; nor struck with incurable sterility, like the Greek schismatic; nor frozen into lifeless forms, like those of the Asiatic world; the living faith of the church incessantly and indefinitely advances the nation and the individual who faithfully correspond to it. That vitality, once infused into the pulses of a people, goes forth from them only with its lifeblood. There is an exemplification of this truth in the persecution which the Irish people have sustained, and are sustaining, at the hands of the English government. History presents no parallel to this antagonism of physical power, on the one hand, and moral determination on the other. {412} To sustain her wars of aggression, and to uphold her detestable system of classes and privileged orders, England has taxed everything, even the air and the light of heaven. This legalized oppression has ground down the English laborer and operative, but it has fallen with crushing cruelty upon the Irish peasant, whose country, in addition to the evil of partial and jealous legislation, has been compelled to pay tithes to a hostile and hating creed.

This merciless system has depopulated the land, and in the enforced emigration the Irish peasant has found no powerful government to aid him in his going; he has paid, to the last farthing, the exactions and robberies of English domination, and then has made his own unassisted way, dogged by an inflicted poverty but with his gallant spirit still unbroken. What has England gained by this conflict of centuries with Ireland? She has sapped her own strength and merited the condemnation of mankind. Moral causes control the universe, and the moral heroism of Ireland has vanquished every odds and every disaster. A temporal power far greater than that of Rome when her eagles were invincible has pursued for ages the determined purpose of forcing the people of the sister-island to join in protest and hostility against the Apostolic See. But the imperial monarchy, the riches, the splendor, the craft of England have found their master in the stern, unyielding, unconquerable fidelity with which the Irish people have clung to the Catholic faith.

The existence of this hemisphere was made known by agencies altogether Catholic. The first act of Columbus on his landing in the New World, that of planting a cross upon its soil, the meaning even of his baptismal name, was significant. In South America, in those self-same years that nations were torn from her communion by the abuse of learning and liberty derived from herself, Catholicity was engaged in widening the domain of Christendom and adding a continent to the faith.

I will briefly quote a New England Protestant writer in this connection. In the second volume of his _Conquest of Peru_, Prescott says:

"The effort to christianize the heathen is an honorable characteristic of the Spanish conquests. The Puritan, with equal religious zeal, did comparatively little for the conversion of the Indian. But the Spanish missionary, from first to last, has shown a keen interest in the spiritual welfare of the natives. Under his auspices churches, on a magnificent scale, have been erected, schools for elementary instruction founded, and every rational means taken to spread the knowledge of religious truth, while he has carried his solitary mission into remote and almost inaccessible regions, or gathered his Indian disciples into communities, like the good Las Casas in Cumaná, or the Jesuits in California and Paraguay. At all times the courageous ecclesiastic has been ready to lift his voice against the cruelty of the conqueror, and when his remonstrances have proved unavailing, he has still followed to bind up the broken-hearted, to teach the poor Indian resignation under his lot, and light up his dark intellect with the revelation of a holier and happier existence. The same nation which sent forth the hard-hearted conqueror from its bosom sent forth the missionary to do the work of beneficence, and spread the light of Christian civilization over the farthest regions of the new world."

Elsewhere the same historian speaks thus of the Spanish conqueror of Mexico:

"The conversion of the heathen was a predominant motive with Cortes in his expedition. It was not a vain boast. He would have sacrificed his life for it at any time; and more than once, by his indiscreet zeal, he actually did place his life and the success of his enterprise in jeopardy. It was his great purpose to purify the land from the brutish abominations of the Aztecs by substituting the religion of Jesus. This gave to his expedition the character of a crusade. It furnished the best apology for the conquest, and does more than all other considerations toward enlisting our sympathies on the side of the conquerors."

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For the benefit of those who have a tender sympathy for the Incas and Montezumas, and naught but execrations for the Spanish invaders, it may be remarked that the religions of Mexico and Peru were stained with human sacrifices, followed in the former by cannibalism. The same unerring and irresponsible Being--ever adjusting the retribution to the crime--who hurls the avalanche from its mountain, gives its mission to the tempest, and scourges the city with pestilence, likewise directs the fearful visitation of the sword, whether in the hand of a Joshua, a Cyrus, an Attila, or a Pizarro. On the southern continent Catholic colonization preserved, christianized, and elevated the aboriginal races; while in the north, Protestant colonization swept away even their graves.

It is time to consider, and in a more special manner, the agency of the Catholic religion in the formation of this majestic Republic of the United States.

The fundamental principle upon which our ancestors based their resistance to England was, that they were Englishmen, and had lost none of the rights of British subjects by being transplanted to these shores. They claimed the system of the common law as an inheritance, and also all those guarantees which had grown up into that frame-work called the English Constitution. Upon this issue they went into the Revolution, and upon the same issue Chatham, and Burke, and others defended the cause of the colonists in the British parliament. The definite question, then, is, What were those principles, and whence were they derived?

The first declaration of public rights in England is the document called Magna Charta, delivered by King John, at Runnymede, in 1215. This instrument begins as follows:

"John, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Earl of Anjou: To the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries of the forests, sheriffs, governors, officers, and to all bailiffs, and other his faithful subjects, Greeting: Know ye that we, in the presence of God, and for the health of our soul, and the souls of all our ancestors and heirs, and the exaltation of his holy church, and amendment of our kingdom, by advice of our venerable fathers, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin; William, Bishop of London, ... have, in the first place, granted to God, and by this our present charter, confirmed for us and our heirs for ever.

"ART. I. That the Church of England shall be free, and enjoy her whole rights and privileges inviolable," etc.

Many of the articles are occupied with matters relating to feudal tenures, which, of course, are without application to this country. The twentieth article is as follows:

"ART. XX. A freeman [that is, a free-holder] shall not be amerced for a small fault, only according to the degree of his fault; and for a great crime, in proportion to the heinousness of it, saving to him his contenement, [means of livelihood;] and after the same manner a merchant, saving to him his merchandise; and a villein shall be amerced after the same manner, saving to him his wainage, [carts, etc.,] if he falls under our mercy; and none of the aforesaid amerciaments shall be assessed but by the oaths of honest men of the neighborhood.

"ART. XXX. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take horses or carts of any freeman for carriage, without the consent of the said freeman.

"ART. XXXI. Neither shall we or our bailiffs take any man's timber for our castles or other uses, unless by the consent of the owner of the timber.

"ART. XXXIX. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or any way destroyed; nor will we condemn him, or commit him to prison, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

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"ART. XL. To none we will sell, to none will we deny, nor delay, right or justice.

"ART. LI. And, as soon as peace is restored, we will send out of the kingdom all foreign soldiers, cross-bowmen, and stipendiaries, who are come with horses and arms, to the injury of the kingdom.

"ART. LV. All unjust and illegal fines, and all amerciaments imposed unjustly, and contrary to the law of the land, shall be entirely forgiven," etc.

The sixty-third and last article is:

"ART. LXIII. Wherefore we will, and firmly enjoin, that the Church of England be free, and that all men in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions peaceably," etc.

Copies of this charter were found to have been deposited in the cathedrals of Lincoln, Salisbury, and Gloucester. When, in the next reign, that of Henry III., circumstances required that the charter should be confirmed, the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other bishops. Coming before the king, in Westminster Hall, with tapers in their hands, they denounced excommunication against the breakers of the charter; and, casting down their tapers, exclaimed, "So may all that incur this sentence be extinguished." To which the king responded, "So help me God, I will keep all these things inviolate."

Hallam says, of this great charter:

"It is still the key-stone of English liberty," "and all that has since been obtained is little more than as confirmation or commentary."

Sir James Mackintosh and Sir William Blackstone agree essentially with Hallam. In respect to the merit of obtaining the charter, Mr. Hallam says:

"As far as we are guided by historical testimony, two great men, the pillars of our church and state, may be considered as entitled beyond the rest to the glory of this monument--Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of Pembroke."

Of the charter, Sir William Blackstone says:

"It protected every individual of the nation in the free enjoyment of his life, his liberty, and his property, unless declared to be forfeited by the judgment of his peers."

The Petition of Right, passed in 1628, was based confessedly upon Magna Charta. Its principal provisions are:

1. That no loan or tax might be levied, save by consent of parliament.

2. That no man might be imprisoned but by legal process.

3. That soldiers might not be quartered on people against their will.

4. That no commissions be granted for executing martial law.

This Petition of Right, in its third article, quotes entire the thirty-ninth of the charter, which is there styled "the great charter of the liberties of England." Coke, who drew up the petition, in his speech against the king's prerogative, says: "In my opinion, it weakens Magna Charta and all our statutes."

The Bill of Rights, passed at the Revolution of 1688, assumes it as the clear duty of the subjects "to vindicate and assert their ancient rights and liberties." The Act of Settlement declares that "the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof."

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The correspondence and analogy between the principles of the great charter, together with its successive commentaries and confirmations, and those upon which the American Revolution rests, are obvious and striking. We may particularly instance the royal infringements upon the rights of the colonists, in refusing assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary to the public good; keeping up standing armies in time of peace without the consent of the legislature; affecting to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power; quartering armed troops upon the inhabitants; imposing taxes upon them without their consent; depriving them, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury; and altering fundamentally the form of their government.

Without a basis of right principle, the American Revolution would have been a rebellion against legitimate authority, and the people would have been deprived of that rectitude of conscience which bore them through the war; they would have been demoralized by the overthrow of their inbred loyalty, without which no free government is secure. If there was not a violation of conscience in withdrawing their allegiance to the British crown, it was because they had sovereign rights which were above that allegiance. It was because there was a Magna Charta which, in the words of Coke, "would brook no sovran." The contest was for those transmitted liberties which the American people claimed as a birthright under the British Constitution. Nearly six centuries divide 1776 from 1215; but the gulf is spanned by that arch of immortal principles which was projected by Cardinal Stephen Langton and his Catholic compeers in the meadow of Runnymede.

In violating the unity of Christendom in the sixteenth century, England thus outraged the national conscience, and her disloyalty to the truth that she had inherited for a thousand years was followed by the oppression of her colonies, which finally led to their separation from her. There was this great principle involved in that contest, and this great difference in favor of the colonists: England oppressed them, from her want of Catholic guidance and restraint and the observance of her own organic principle; _they_ resisted _her_ on that basis of public right, and loyalty, and reason, which had been embedded in the English Constitution by their common Catholic ancestry. Not for the defence only of those rights, but for the knowledge of them--for their very existence--were our ancestors indebted to the Roman Catholic religion.

Upon the traditional laws and free principles of the English Constitution, we have erected an unrivalled system of order and right, while in English hands they have degenerated into a scheme of legalized oppression which is without a parallel among nations claiming to be free. Providence, acting on events, has so disposed them that England's persecution of the faith has transferred the Catholic population from that country to this, where with the language are found also the true tradition and the just development of the English Catholic constitution.

What is wanted to the perfection of American nationality is a firm moral, that is, religious foundation. It is easily susceptible of proof that no strong nationality has ever subsisted without such a basis. I do not, of course, limit the proposition to the Christian religion. But the foundation must be the more stable as the religion which underlies and props it is nearer to a conformity with unmixed truth. The first step in our career of greatness was to turn from England and to advance toward that unity which she had abandoned--when we seized upon the traditional Catholic principles and defended them against her attempted despotism. {416} The true course of our national welfare and security lies still in the same direction--toward unity, and toward the Catholic Church. For what is to supply the spiritual needs of this young, and energetic, and glorious people? Surely not these transmitted and transplanted heresies which have passed into their decline and are tottering in their dotage. The creed which might answer for some bounded island, a petty electorate, or a mountain canon, is too narrow for this continental power, which needs a religion confederate as its own union and wide as the expansion of its own domain.

We have here many difficult and dividing moral questions already pressing for a solution. The fusion of the Caucasian tribes--already harmonized by the Catholic traditions, and never very remotely divided by characteristics--will probably serve but as the origination of a superior race: at least physiological laws give no ground to fear a deterioration. But we have here a numerous distinct race which must ever remain distinct, and which increases more rapidly than the white population.

I am not aware that history furnishes an instance of the just _reconciliation_ of two distinctly different races of men upon the same soil, except by the aid of the Catholic religion. In Mexico and in South America the Catholic religion is establishing such a reconciliation, and it is the only harmonizing element in those societies.

It is impossible to say what peaceful solution of the problem will be reached here; but the ultimate destiny of the African blood planted and rooted on this soil will be either adjudicated upon Catholic principles, or else philanthropic theories, veil them as we may, will apply to the evil the remedy still worse of civil war. Questions like this demand a guide to conscience and a clear and uniform exposition of moral obligations.

The United States government has never denied the due spiritual authority of the Head of the Church--has never done aught to infringe his just prerogatives. There has never been enacted here an original or formal protest against the rights of the Apostolic See.

This people have never thrown off the claims of the Catholic religion, and they have not rejected it. The nation is not under the ban of a misguided defiance of the right spiritual authority.

In no sense, therefore, has this nation as a nation compromised itself as against those fundamental principles of unity and liberty of which the Catholic Church is, in the spiritual order, the true and only representative. As from her and her alone it can receive the perpetual impulse of a free, progressive, national development, so in yielding to her influence is it guilty of no inconstancy to its organtic law, of no infidelity to its historic past. The destiny which it is destined to accomplish in the political depends upon the position which it voluntarily assumes in the moral order, and this in turn upon the source from which it drinks in the springs of its religious life.

It needs but to be true to its origin, its constitution, its equity, and its ancestral virtues to become and to remain the foremost of the nations of the earth. But truth to these necessitates fidelity to her from whom visibly and directly not only they, but all that is noble and elevating in art or arms or civilization has originated, and in whom they have found an impregnable defender--the Catholic Church, the Communion of the Apostolic See.

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Translated From The Historisch-politische Blaetter.

Schaff's Church History.

In the year 1854 appeared a work of great merit, entitled _A History of the Apostolic Church_, together with a _General Introduction to Church History,_ from the pen of Philip Schaff, a professor in the Lutheran Seminary at Mercersburg, and a literary colleague of Dr. Nevin, called "the American proto-martyr of the suffering church." At that time, Professor Schaff, who is a native of Graubündten, in Switzerland, was making a long stay in Europe. In the same year he published two other works--_St. Augustine_, Berlin, 1854, pp. 129, a brochure or precursor of the present large work, and _America--the Political, Social, and Ecclesiastico-Religious Condition of the United States_, which is a continuous eulogy of his adopted country. That Dr. Schaff has for thirteen years zealously prosecuted the study of ecclesiastical history, the unusual size of the work before us sufficiently evinces. It is dated from the Bible House in New York, January, 1867, and dedicated to the teachers and friends of the author, August Tholuck, Julius Müller of Halle, J. A. Dorner of Berlin, and J. P. Lange of Bonn.

From the preface and dedication we learn that Schaff studied exegesis in Tübingen under Dr. Schmid, history under Dr. Bauer, and attended the lectures on systematic theology of Dr. Dorner. At this time he resided in Halle, "under the hospitable roof" of Tholuck, and by him and Julius Müller he was encouraged to choose an academical career. Since his residence in North America he has twice visited Europe, in 1854 and in 1865. His friends frequently wished him to obtain a professor's chair in Germany, but he could not determine to separate himself from a land in which since his twenty-fifth year he had found a second home, and desired his days to close in the "noble mediatorship between the Evangelical Christianity of the German and English languages." His book shows that he has defended in America, not altogether unworthily, the German theology--"the true, liberal, catholic, and evangelical theology."

An English translation of the present history of the ancient church, entitled _History of the Christian Church; or, History of Ancient Christianity,_ appeared at the same time. Editions of this work were simultaneously published in New York and Edinburgh, in the years 1859 and 1862. It is indeed a continuation of _The Apostolic Church_, but, like it, a separate work "it contains the fruits of twenty years' active labor as professor of church history in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania."

Dr. Schaff remained in New York two years, for the purpose of availing himself of the use of its larger libraries. Here the Astor Library was at his command. {418} This library, founded in the year 1850, by the German, John Jacob Astor, with a capital of four hundred thousand dollars, has been extensively increased by his son. It contains in a magnificent building one hundred and fifty thousand carefully selected volumes, among which are many costly and classic works on all branches of literature. He had also access to the library of the Union Theological Seminary, "which has purchased the Van Ess Library, (that of the well-known Catholic Bible translator,) with a collection of the fathers of the Church and the great learned compilations; it has since been increased by the addition of the library of E. Robinson, and the productions of recent Protestant theology. It is worthy of remark that the libraries of our celebrated German church historians find their way to America. Thus, the Neander library has been for a length of time in the Baptist Seminary at Rochester; the Thilo Library in Yale College, New Haven; and the Niedner Library in the Congregationalist Seminary at Andover. Neander's library, together with the manuscript of his church history, are shelved in a separate room at Rochester." This is unfortunately the customary way in which the important libraries of German theologians find their way either to England or North America, or, at least, are sold under the hammer.

The author honors the truth when he acknowledges and prefers the older and mostly Catholic investigators to the labors of Protestant inquirers. He mentions the Benedictines in the editions of the fathers of the church, the Bollandists in hagiography, Mansi and Hardouin in the collection of the councils, Gallandi, Dupin, Ceillier, Oudin, Cave, and J. A. Fabricius in patrology and the history of church literature; in particular branches he mentions Tillemont, Peteau, (Petavius,) Bull, Bingham, and Walch as his favorite guides. Whether he will prepare for the press his numerous manuscripts on the church history of the middle ages and modern times, the author refers to a distant and indefinite time. It will be done if "God grants him time and strength." For the present, his leisure time will be employed with the enlarged English edition of Lange's biblical works.

The peculiarity of our author consists in working up and turning to advantage the studies of others. In Schaff we find little or no independent research, for which he needs both time and inclination, but he excels in an exact and erudite employment of that which has been prepared by others. We are not finding fault with this, but rather approve of and commend it. In more personal and independent investigation, the present lacks the results of his previous intellectual labors. Dr. Schaff may make these once more respected; indeed, he avails himself more extensively of the labors of Catholic authors than any other modern Protestant historian.

In a book so rich in its contents, we are obliged to confine ourselves to a notice of special points only; we prefer this limitation to an estimate of the general contents, which of course embrace the ordinary well-known topics. The author treats of the inner life of the church, monasticism, ecclesiastical customs, worship, and Christian art more minutely than any of his predecessors.

The author discusses more briefly than we expected the two important chapters on the church's care of the poor, and of prisoners and slaves. {419} The question of slavery is considered in paragraphs 89 and 152, in _The History of the Apostolic Church_, paragraph 113, and in a separate treatise published in 1861, _Slavery and the Bible_. More than thirty-four years ago, as Möhler for the first time treated of this subject, he could say that he had searched with ardor both large and small works on church history for the purpose of instructing himself on the mode of the abolition of slavery, but all to no purpose; so that here he was compelled to open the way himself. Frequently since that time this question has been historically treated, but by no means exhausted. With a few words Dr. Schaff dismisses the important decrees of the Emperor Constantine in the years 316 and 321. He only remarks: "Constantine facilitated their liberation, granted Sunday to them, and gave ecclesiastics the privilege of emancipating their slaves of their own will and without the witnesses and ceremonies which were otherwise necessary." Here he cites _Corpus Juris_, 1. i. art. 13, 1. 1 and 2. The fact is, that the Emperor Constantine issued a command, April 18th, 321, to Bishop Hosius, of Cordova, according to which the liberation of slaves in the Christian churches should have the same effect as manumission under the Roman law. The principal law of this decree reads thus: "Those who liberate their slaves in the bosom of the church are declared to have done this with the same authority as if it were done by the Roman state, with her accustomed solemnities." This statute may be found in the _Theodosian Code,_ lib. iv. tit. 7, _De Manumiss. in Ecclesia_; Lex 2, _Codex Justin. De his, qui in Ecclesia manumittuntur_. It is mentioned by Sozomen in the _Historia Tripartita_, and by Nicephorus Callisti, vii. 18. It does not appear to us that Dr. Schaff has seen the text of the decree; for this does not refer only to the slaves of ecclesiastics, but to slaves in general. Whoever declared in the church that his slaves had received their liberty, they were from that fact free. Schaff is of the opinion that Möhler, (who was also ignorant of this decree,) in his able treatise on the abolition of slavery, has overestimated the influence of the sermons of St. Chrysostom on the subject, and we cannot say that he is entirely incorrect. On the other hand, the latter raised the question of the so-called _inner_ liberation of the slaves, that is, their Christian treatment, the solicitude and care of Christian masters for their servants. The emancipation of slaves who were not prepared for liberty was always injurious to the slaves themselves, and not at all promotive of the general welfare.

Dr. Schaff treats the life and teaching of St. Augustine with becoming respect. He does him, however, a great injustice when he makes him teach, after the example of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, [Footnote 139] a symbolical doctrine of the Last Supper, which at the same time includes a real spiritual repast through faith, and thus in this respect he makes him approach the Calvinistic or orthodox reformed doctrine. St. Augustine a Calvinist in the doctrine of the Eucharist! But the few passages which Dr. Schaff advances for this purpose prove directly the faith of St. Augustine in the real, not in the symbolical, presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar. In his twenty-sixth tract on John we read: "Who abides not in Christ, neither eats his flesh, nor drinks his blood, even though he should press with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ."

[Footnote 139: It is Dr. Schaff, and not the author of the article, who attributes this doctrine to the two writers mentioned.--ED. C. W.]

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Our Lord says: "He who eateth my body, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him." (John vi. 57.) Jesus refers to those who receive it with living faith and devotion, since the mere corporal partaking of the Eucharist is no abiding in Christ; therefore St. Augustine could say, and so can every Catholic teacher at the present time, "Who abides not in Christ, neither eats (truly) his flesh, nor drinks his blood, even though he should press with his teeth the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ." The same doctrine is contained in the familiar hymn, "_Sumunt boni, sumunt mali, sorte tamen inoequali, vitae vel interitus_" [Footnote 140]

[Footnote 140: "The good and the bad receive, yet with the different lot of life or of destruction."]

The wicked, then, who receive the body, receive it not to life, but to judgment, for Christ lives not in them. With no better reason can Schaff adduce the words of St. Augustine in the preceding tract: "Why prepare your teeth and your stomach? Believe and eat." Every Catholic teacher must declare the same; it is not the corporal participation, but the spiritual disposition, which is faith and love, which must be impressed upon the mind of the faithful in receiving the Holy Eucharist.

Dr. Schaff is quite unfortunate in adducing the passage, (_De peccator, meritis et rem_. ii. 25,) "Although it is not the body of Christ, yet it is holy, since it is a sacrament." The impression is created in the mind of the reader that St. Augustine here denies in plain words the real presence of Christ. When we examine more closely, it is found that the question is not of the Eucharist at all, but of the blessed bread called Eulogia, and of which catechumens were allowed to partake. The entire passage runs thus: "Sanctification is not of one mode; for I think that even catechumens are sanctified in a certain way through the sign of Christ and the prayer of the imposition of hands; and that which they receive, although it is not the body of Christ, yet it is holy, more holy than the food by which we are nourished, since it is a sacrament." Here the saint distinguishes three kinds of food. First, that which is used for sustenance; second, the Eulogia, or the blessed bread, which catechumens received after they were set apart for the laying on of hands and blessings--this is called a sacrament; and third, the Eucharistic bread, which he calls the "body of the Lord." This blessed bread (which twenty years ago the author saw handed around in French churches) is indeed holier than common bread, a very sacrament, or, as we would say, a _sacramental_, but still it is not the body of the Lord. The real presence is, then, taught in this passage, and Schaff would have been guilty of a falsification if he had read it in its proper connection. For his credit let us suppose that he has not done so. We find this quotation in Professor Schmid's _Compendium of the History of Dogma_, the first edition of which was often before Dr. Schaff. Schmid at least permits the truth to appear (second edition, p. 109) when he quotes St. Augustine saying, "That which they receive, although it is not the body of Christ, yet it is holy," etc. Since we find so many passages in St. Augustine, which prove his belief in the real presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, we are bound to explain the other passages, in which he speaks of a figurative partaking, in conformity with them.

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These defects, however, do not prevent us from heartily acknowledging the excellence of Professor Schaff's work, and expressing the hope that the author may employ his undoubted talents in the service of Christian truth.

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Penitence.

A Sonnet.

A sorrow that for shame had hid her face, Soared to Heaven's gate, and knelt in penance there Beneath the dusk cloud of her own wet hair, Weeping, as who would fain some deed erase That blots in dread eclipse baptismal grace: Like a felled tree with all its branches fair She lay--her forehead on the ivory stair-- Low murmuring, "Just art Thou, but I am base." Then saw I in my spirit's unsealed ken How Heaven's bright hosts thrilled like the gems of morn When May winds on the incense-bosomed thorn The diamonds change to ruby. Magdalen Arose, and kissed the Saviour's feet once more, And to that suffering soul his peace and pardon bore.

Aubrey De Vere.

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New Publications.

Cradle Lands. By Lady Herbert. With Illustrations. New-York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1869.

We welcome the appearance of this handsome volume with especial heartiness and interest for at least two reasons. It is the first attempt ever made by a Catholic publisher in this country to produce an illustrated work, of other than a strictly religious character, suitable as a holiday gift and valuable at the same time from its intrinsic merit; and it is one of the few good narratives in the English language of travel in the Holy Land written by a devout Catholic, and filled consequently with a genuine religious spirit. We have had Christmas books, annuals, etc., some of them excellent in their way; but their way was rather a narrow one, and we have never until now attempted to rival the Protestant publishing-houses on their own ground. _Cradle Lands_, however, is just the book which hundreds of our friends will be glad to buy for presents, and hundreds more will be glad to have for their own use. It is very handsomely made, is clearly printed on excellent paper, and well bound; and the illustrations, faithfully reproduced from the London edition, are everything that could be desired.

The book is well worth the pains that have been spent on it. Lady Herbert is an experienced traveller; with a quick eye for whatever is interesting, and a style sufficiently lively to make her chapters easy reading. She has not the graceful pen of a Kinglake or a Curtis; but she is rarely or never dull, and her power of description is by no means contemptible. But, as we said before, a peculiar interest belongs to her narrative on account of the spirit of Catholic piety which permeates it--not breaking out inopportunely in religious commonplaces, but coloring the scenes she paints with a graceful light of faith, and enticing us to look upon the land of our Lord not with the eyes of modern scepticism, but in the devout spirit in which a good Christian ought to look at it. She travelled with a party of friends from Egypt through Palestine, visiting the holy places, and afterward passing into Asia Minor. She describes not only the venerable relics of the past scattered through those sacred spots, and the condition of the modern native population, but the state of Christianity, the convents, schools, asylums, and other religious foundations, in which she appears to have found frequent hospitality. We need not follow her closely over ground which, in its principal features, is already familiar to most of our readers; but, as specimens of her style, we shall reproduce a few episodical passages. Here is a picture of harem life, a subject trite enough, yet always fresh:

"Before leaving Cairo, the English ladies were invited to spend an evening in the royal harem, and accordingly, at eight o'clock, found themselves in a beautiful garden, with fountains, lit by a multitude of variegated lamps, and were conducted by black eunuchs through trellis-covered walks to a large marble-paved hall, where about forty Circassian slaves met them, and escorted them to a saloon fitted up with divans, at the end of which reclined the pacha's wives. One of them was singularly beautiful, and exquisitely dressed in pink velvet and ermine, and priceless jewels. Another very fine figure was that of the mother, a venerable old princess, looking exactly like a Rembrandt just come out of its frame. Great respect was paid to her, and when she came in every one rose. The guests being seated, or rather squatted, on the divan, each was supplied with long pipes, coffee in exquisitely jewelled cups, and sweetmeats, the one succeeding the other without intermission the whole night. The Circassian slaves, with folded hands and downcast eyes, stood before their mistresses to supply their wants. Some of them were very pretty, and dressed with great richness and taste. Then began a concert of Turkish instruments, which sounded unpleasing to English ears, followed by a dance, which was graceful and pretty; but this again followed by a play, in which half the female slaves were dressed up as men, and the coarseness of which it is impossible to describe. The wife of the foreign minister kindly acted as interpreter for the English ladies, and through her means some kind of conversation was kept up. But the ignorance of the ladies in the harem is unbelievable. They can neither read nor write; their whole day is employed in dressing, bathing, eating, drinking, and smoking.

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"Before the close of the evening, Princess A----, addressing herself to the mother of the party, through her interpreter, spoke very earnestly and seriously about her daughters, (then twelve and fourteen years of age,) remonstrating with her on their being still unmarried, and adding: 'Next Friday is the most auspicious of all days in the year for betrothal. I will have six of the handsomest and straightest-eyebrowed pachas here for you to choose from.' In vain the English lady refused the intended honor, pleading that in her country marriages were not contracted at so early an age, to say nothing of certain differences of race and of faith! The princess was not to be diverted from her purpose, and persisted in arranging the whole of the Friday's ceremonial. Let us hope that the young 'straight-eyebrowed pachas' found some other fair ladies, to console them for the non-appearance of their wished-for English brides on the appointed day. The _soirée_ lasted till two o'clock in the morning, when the royalty withdrew; and the English ladies returned home, feeling the whole time as if they had been seeing a play acted from a scene in the _Arabian Nights_, so difficult was it to realize that such a kind of existence was possible in the present century."

The original plan of our travellers was to proceed from Cairo across the desert, but they were afterward obliged to choose an easier route on account of the sickness of one of the party. Preparations for the desert journey, however, had been made, and there is a pleasant description of their outfit:

"At last, thanks to the kindness of an English gentleman long resident in Cairo, Mr. A----, five tents were got together and pitched, on approval, in the square opposite the hotel. One was a gorgeous affair, sky-blue, with red-and-white devices all over it, looking very like the tent of a travelling wild-beast show. But as it was the only large and roomy one, and was capable of containing the four ladies and their beds and bedding, it was finally decided to keep it, and to make it the drawing-room by day, reserving the more modest ones for the gentlemen of the party, as well as for the servants and the cooking apparatus. Their numbers were so great, with the 'tent-pitchers' and the other necessary camp-followers, that our travellers decided to dispense with chairs and tables--rather to the despair of a rheumatic member of the company!--and to content themselves with squatting on their carpets for their meals in true oriental fashion, and making use of the two wicker-baskets (which were to sling on each side of the mules, and contained the one dress for Sunday allowed to each lady) for dressing and wash-hand stands. A cord fastened across the tents at night served as a hanging wardrobe, to prevent their getting wet on the (sometimes) damp ground; some tin jugs and basins, with a smarter set in brass of a beautiful shape, (called in Cairo a '_tisht_' and '_ibreek_,') together with a few '_nargeeleh_' pipes for the use of their guests on state occasions, completed their furnishing arrangements. They had brought from their boats a 'Union Jack,' so as to place themselves under the protection of their country's flag, and also an elaborate 'Wyvern,' the fabrication of which, in gorgeous green, with a curly tail, had afforded them great amusement in their start four months before.

"This life in tents is a free and charming way of existence, and, except in wet weather, was one of unmixed enjoyment to the whole party. The time spent by the leaders of the expedition in providing these necessary articles was occupied by the younger ones in buying presents in the bazaars: now struggling through the goldsmiths' quarter, (the narrowest in all Cairo,) where you buy your gold by the carat, and then have it manufactured before your eyes into whatever form you please; now trying on bright '_kaffirs_' made of the pure Mecca silk, and generally of brown and yellow shades, with the '_akgal_,' a kind of cord of camel's-hair which binds them round the head; or else the graceful burnous, with their beautifully blended colors and soft camel's-hair texture; or the many bright-colored slippers; or, leaving the silk and stuff bazaar, threading their way through the stalls containing what we should call in England 'curiosities,' and selecting the beautiful little silver filagree or enamel cups called '_zarfs_,' which hold the delicate, tiny Dresden ones within--meant to contain that most delicious of all drinks, the genuine Eastern coffee, made without sugar or milk, but as unlike the horrible beverage known by that name in England as can well be imagined! {424} In the same stalls were to be found beautiful Turkish rosaries, of jasper and agate, or sweet-scented woods, with long-shaped bottles of attar of roses, enamelled '_nargeelehs_' and amber-mouthed pipes, and octagonal little tables made of tortoise-shell inlaid with mother-of-pearl."

Here is a good story of Egyptian law-courts:

"A certain French gentleman entrusted an Englishman with £90 to buy a horse for him. The Englishman, accordingly, gave the money to a native, whom he considered thoroughly trustworthy, with orders to go into Arabia and there purchase the animal. The Arab, however, spent most of the money in his own devices, and returned to Cairo, after a few months, with a wretched horse, such as would appear at a Spanish bull-fight. The Englishman, immensely disgusted, returned the £90, to his French friend, simply saying that he had failed in executing his commission; but he determined to try and recover it from the Arab. So he went and told the whole matter to the governor of Cairo, who appointed his deputy as judge. While the case was being tried, dinner-time came; and the judge, the prosecutor, and the prisoner, all sat down together, and dined in a friendly way. No embarrassment was caused thereby; but after dinner, the judge, turning to the prisoner, quietly said: 'Can you pay the Frank gentleman the money you owe him?' On receiving a simple reply in the negative, the judge added, 'Then you had better go off at once to prison, and delay this gentleman no longer.' The Arab went without a word, and remained in this miserable place (for the prisons are infamous) for two months, after which his brother took his place for him. Finally the money was paid by instalments."

With the following beautiful description of a "Good-Friday service at Jerusalem," we commend Lady Herbert's book to the favor of our readers:

"It is a beautiful and solemn service, in which even Protestants are seen to join with unwonted fervor; and on this special day it was crowded to excess. When it was over, the two friends returned to the altar of St. Mary Magdalen, the words and tones of the hymn still lingering in their hearts:

'Jesu! dulce refugium, Spes una te quaerentium. Per Magdalenae meritum Peccati solve debitum.'

To those who are sorrowful and desponding at the sense of their own unworthiness and continual shortcomings, there is a peculiar attraction and help in the thoughts of this saint, apart from all the rest. The perfections of the Blessed Virgin dazzle us by their very brightness, and make us, as it were, despair of following her example. But in the Magdalen we have the picture of one who, like us, was tempted and sinned and fell, and yet, by the mercy of God and the force of the mighty love he put into her heart, was forgiven and accepted for the sake of that very love he had infused.

"Presently the English stranger rose, and, approaching one of the Franciscan monks, begged for the benediction of her crucifix and other sacred objects, according to the short form in use at the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre; a privilege kindly and courteously granted to her. And now the shades of evening are darkening the aisles of the sacred building, and the pilgrims are gathered in a close and serried mass in the Chapel of Calvary, waiting for the ceremony which is to close the solemn offices of that awful day. By the kindness of the duke, who had been their companion in the Via Crucis, the two ladies were saved from the crowd, and conducted by a private staircase from the Greek chapel to the right of the altar of Calvary. The whole is soon wrapped in profound darkness, save where the light is thrown on a crucifix the size of life, erected close to the fatal spot. You might have fancied yourself alone but for the low murmur and swaying to and fro of the dense crowd kneeling on the floor of the chapel. Presently a Franciscan monk stepped forward, and, leaving his brethren prostrate at the foot of the altar, mounted on a kind of estrade at the back, and proceeded to detach the figure of our Blessed Lord from the cross. As each nail was painfully and slowly drawn out, he held it up, exclaiming, 'Ecce, dulces clavos!' exposing it at the same time to the view of the multitude, who, breathless and expectant, seemed riveted to the spot, with their upturned faces fixed on the symbol represented to them. The supernatural and majestic stillness and silence of that great mass of human beings was one of the most striking features of the whole scene. Presently a ladder was brought, and the sacred figure lifted down, as in Rubens's famous picture of the 'Deposition,' into the arms of the monks at the foot of the cross. {425} As the last nail was detached, and the head fell forward as of a dead body, a low deep sob burst from the very souls of the kneeling crowd. Tenderly and reverently the Franciscan fathers wrapped it in fine linen, and placed it in the arms of the patriarch, who, kneeling, received it, and carried it down to the Holy Sepulchre, the procession chanting the antiphon, 'Acceperunt Joseph et Nicodemus corpus Jesu; et ligaverunt illud linteis cum aromatibus, sicut mos est Judaeis sepelire.' The crowd followed eagerly, yet reverently, the body to its last resting-place. It is a representation which might certainly be painful if not conducted throughout with exceeding care. But done as it is at Jerusalem, it can but deepen in the minds of all beholders the feelings of intense reverence, adoration, and awe with which they draw near to the scene of Christ's sufferings, and enable them more perfectly to realize the mystery of that terrible Passion which he bore for our sakes in his own body on the tree.

"And with this touching ceremony the day is over; the crowd of pilgrims disperses, to meet on the morrow in the same spot for the more consoling offices of Easter-eve.

"But in many a heart the memory of this day will never be effaced; and will, it is humbly hoped, bear its life-long fruit in increased devotion to the sacred humanity of their Lord, and in greater detestation of those sins which could only be cancelled by so tremendous an atonement."

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The Bird. By Jules Michelet. With 210 illustrations by Giacomelli. New York: T. Nelson & Sons. 1868.

It is not often that nature finds so charming an interpreter as Michelet. He throws around us the very perfume of the flowers; and his birds not only sing, but sing to us, speak to us, and become our dearest friends. Reading, we forget the close walls of the city, the weary noise, the heavy air of overcrowded human life; we follow the birds in their flight, drink in their spirit of liberty, joy, tenderness, and love, till, with Michelet, we almost give them a personality, a soul. It is difficult to cull from a bed of choice flowers a single specimen, for one will appeal to us through its beauty of form, another of color, another by its delicacy and fragrance; so here, where every page is charming, we know not how to choose between the grandeur and magnificence of the tropical forests, or the stern and silent melancholy of the polar regions, or the more home-like charm of scenes that we know. The last, perhaps, cannot fail to please. Here is his description of an autumnal migration:

"Bright was the morning sky, but the wind blew from La Vendée. My pines bewailed their fate, and from my afflicted cedar issued a low, deep voice of mourning. The ground was strewn with fruit, which we all set to work to gather. Gradually the weather grew cloudy, the sky assumed a dull leaden gray, the wind sank, all was death-like. It was then, at about four o'clock, that simultaneously arrived, from all points, from the wood, from the Erdre, from the city, from the Loire, from the Sèvre, infinite legions, darkening the day, which settled on the church roof, with a myriad voices, a myriad cries, debates, discussions. Though, ignorant of their language, it was not difficult for us to perceive that they differed among themselves. It may be that the youngest, beguiled by the warm breath of autumn, would fain have lingered longer. But the wiser and more experienced travellers insisted upon departure. They prevailed; the black masses, moving all at once like a huge cloud, winged their flight toward the south-east, probably toward Italy. They had scarcely accomplished three hundred leagues (four or five hours' flight) before all the cataracts of heaven were let loose to deluge the earth; for a moment we thought it was a flood. Sheltered in our house, which shook with the furious blast, we admired the wisdom of the winged soothsayers, which had so prudently anticipated the annual epoch of migration."

This book was to the author a sort of oasis; it was undertaken or rather grew up in the interval of a rest from historical labors; it was for him a refreshment, a rest; and such it could not fail to prove to any one of us in the midst of the weary cares of every-day life. Unfortunately, Michelet has not interpreted history so successfully as he has nature, and the results of his labor are far less praiseworthy than the results of his recreation.

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_The Bird_ is most beautifully illustrated by Giacomelli, Doré's collaborateur on his celebrated Bible.

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Tablets. By A. Bronson Alcott. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.

No one who has ever enjoyed the pleasure of an interview with the "Orphic Alcott," and felt the charm which his rare conversational powers throw around every subject to which they are directed, can fail to find a renewal of that pleasure while perusing the genial volume which has just emanated from his too infrequent pen. Elegant in its external garniture, it brings upon its pages the faint odor of the roses that bloom on the broad Concord lawns, the rustle of the leaves that shelter the secluded nook in which the writer finds "the leisure and the peace of age," the cool air that floats across clear Walden-water, filling both library and studio with its bracing breath; so giving to the reader, familiar with the scenes amid which these _Tablets_ were inscribed, a double satisfaction in the thoughts which they suggest and in the memories which they revive.

The book itself consists of two series of essays: the first, "Practical;" the second, "Speculative." The former will most interest the ordinary reader. The latter will be appreciated by few who are not otherwise instructed in the peculiar views of their author. The "Practical" essays are entitled "The Garden," "Recreation," "Fellowship," "Friendship," "Culture," "Books," "Counsels," and each is subdivided into different heads. Hackneyed as several of these subjects appear to be, the reader will experience no sense of weariness while following Mr. Alcott over them. Were not his ideas original, "the method of the man" would be alone sufficient to give an interest of no common order to his well-weighed words. Many of his aphorisms are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver;" and some deserve to become household truths with all thoughtful men. Such is his verdict upon political partisanship on page 148; his strong, courageous plea for individuality on page 145; and his high view of education on pages 103 _et seq_. From these and various other passages, which space alone forbids us to distinguish, we may say that, if "a man's speech is the measure of his culture," there are few men into whose sphere one can be brought whose kindliness and courtesy, whose flowing spirits and sprightly wit, can more captivate and charm than the gray-haired student who sits in the arbors, groves, and gardens, and day by day treasures up on the tablets of his diary the choice things of mankind, and illustrates them with choice memories of his own.

At this period of Mr. Alcott's life, we anticipated, in reading his _Tablets_, which speak so charmingly of this world, finding some light shed on the world to come. It makes us sad to think we found nothing.

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A New Practical Hebrew Grammar, With Hebrew-English And English-Hebrew Exercises, And Hebrew Chrestomathy. By Solomon Deutsch, A.M., Ph.D. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.

Text-books should be valued according to the perfection of the method adopted, and the precision and arrangement of details, rather than on account of abundance of matter or exhaustive explanations. Books which contain copious treatises are useful, and even necessary, for the master, but injurious to the advancement of the pupil. The author of the school-book should aim at arranging the elements in the department in which he writes so that the scholar may, with the least trouble, acquire a knowledge of the rules, principles, and leading features of the subject. Students should not be expected to learn everything in school. The professor who aims at imparting a complete knowledge, or all he may know on a subject, will confuse his students, be found too exacting, and will be finally punished by disappointment. School exercise was very appropriately called _disciplina_ by the Romans, a term which implied rather a training in the manner in which the various branches should be studied, than the attainment of their mastery.

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Mr. Deutsch's Hebrew course, according to the principles just enunciated, is beyond doubt the best schoolbook of its kind that has appeared from the American press. Rödiger's revision of Gesenius's Grammar, translated from the German by Conant, is much too extensive for beginners, and was never intended by its eminent author to fall into the hands of the uninitiated. Yet it is commonly used in the colleges and seminaries of this country as an introductory treatise. The same objection should be urged, in union with others, against Green's Grammar; while his chrestomathy is more of an exegetical than a grammatical treatise. The student is frequently terrified from the study by the vast array of particulars, and he who has courage to persevere must learn to shut his eyes to the greater portion of these works, in order to clearly discern that which is truly valuable in them.

Mr. Deutsch has succeeded, to a considerable extent, in giving a concise and lucid exposition of the elements of the Hebrew language, but has greatly diminished, if not destroyed, the usefulness of his grammar as a class-book by introducing his elaborate system of "Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew exercises." These exercises, which compose the greater portion of his work, will be found to be merely cumbersome material, which will prevent its adoption in the schools.

Living languages, or such as are partially so, might be, perhaps should be, learned by acquiring a facility of rendering the phrases of one's mother tongue into those of the language he is endeavoring to acquire; but it is not easy to understand how such a readiness can be, or need be, acquired in Hebrew, which is nowhere spoken, and living in no form if not in its degenerate offspring, the rabbinic of the Portuguese, German, or Polish Jews.

Those who are looking for a concise and lucid exposition of the elements of Hebrew will not be pleased with Mr. Deutsch's repetition of the nine declensions of nouns, as given by Gesenius. This constitutes an additional encumbrance to the work, not unlike that which would arise in a Latin grammar from an attempt to form a new declension from each of the various inflections embraced in the third.

A Hebrew course for Catholic schools has been supplied, as to the more important part, and the portion requiring the greater amount of labor, by Paul L. B. Drach, in his _Catholicum Lexicon Hebraicum et Chaldaicum_. Mr. Drach had been a Jewish rabbi in Paris before his conversion to the Church, and as he was an eminent oriental scholar, the last Pontiff, Gregory XVI., requested him to publish a Hebrew lexicon for the use of Catholic schools. His work resulted in a corrected and enlarged edition of Gesenius' Lexicon, from which all Jewish and rationalistic errors were excluded. It received the special approbation of Pius IX. in 1847, and was published by the greatest promoter of ecclesiastical literature in this century, Abbé Migné. This is undoubtedly the best work of its kind, and its complement, consisting of a grammar and chrestomathy, is all that is wanting to constitute a course of Hebrew for the Catholic schools of this country.

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The New Adam; or, Ten Dialogues on our Redemption and the Necessity of Self-Denial. Edited by the Very Rev. Z. Druon, V.G., and approved by the Right Rev. Bishop of Burlington. Claremont, N. H. 1868.

This little book was first published in Paris, A.D. 1662. From a second and more complete edition, the present translation was prepared and edited. The subjects of the "Ten Dialogues" are as follows:

I. The State of Original Righteousness.

II. Adam's Fall.

III. The Penance of Adam and Eve after their Fall.

IV. The State of Penance we are in is preferable, in some respects, to the earthly Paradise.

V. The Infinite Perfection with which Jesus Christ, the new Adam, performed the penance imposed on the old Adam.

VI. Self-Denial.

VII. Obligation of Self-Denial.

VIII. Imitation of the Self-Denial of Christ.

IX. Scriptural texts concerning Self-Denial.

X. The Self-Denial of Jesus Christ.

From this view of its contents, and the cursory glance we have been able to bestow upon its pages, we believe it to be, as its editor claims, "well grounded on the Holy Scriptures, sound in doctrine, remarkable for its clearness and depth of thought, full of pious and practical reflections, instructive, and, at the same time, interesting and pleasing."

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The Life Of St. Thomas À Becket, of Canterbury. By Mrs. Hope, author of _The Early Martyrs_, etc. With a Preface, by the Rev. Father Dalgairns, of the London Oratory of St. Philip Neri. 16mo, pp. xxiv., 398. London: Burns, Gates & Co. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

Veneration for the memory of St. Thomas, of Canterbury, has undergone recently a remarkable revival in England, and this meritorious compilation by Mrs. Hope is one of the fruits of it. She has drawn most of her materials from the more elaborate biographies by the Rev. Dr. Giles and the Rev. John Morris, and from the _Remains_ of the Rev. R. H. Froude, and, of course makes no pretension to the rank of an original investigator; but she has done a very serviceable work nevertheless, and, upon the whole, has done it well. Her narrative is interesting and rapid. The style possesses the merit--rare with female writers on religious subjects--of directness and simplicity; the story being unencumbered by either ambitious rhetoric or commonplace reflections. From this reason, as well as from the care with which she seems to have studied the subject, the book not only gives us an insight into the saint's personal character, but leaves on the reader's mind a very clear comprehension of the nature of that long struggle for the rights of the Church and for the independence of the spiritual order which resulted in his martyrdom, and which modern historians have done so much to obscure. Mrs. Hope is rather too fond of telling dreams, which she apparently half-believes and half does not believe to have been prophetic inspirations, although most of them were like the answers of the pagan oracles--susceptible of almost any interpretation, and only to be understood in the light of after-events; but that is a habit which she borrowed of the mediaeval chroniclers, and she shares it with a very large class of modern biographers. Of course, God may speak to man in a dream as well as in other ways; but when the dreams are clearly referable to distinct physical causes, as some of those recorded in this book are, when, in fact, they are just like ordinary nightmares, the attempt to elevate them to the dignity of supernatural visions is more pious than prudent.

The preface, by Father Dalgairns, comprises a very effective answer to some of the misrepresentations in Dean Stanley's life of the saint, contained in the _Memorials of Canterbury_.

------

Vermont Historical Gazetteer: A Magazine embracing a digest of the History of each town, civil, educational, religious, geological, and literary. Edited by Abby Maria Hemenway, compiler of _The Poets and Poetry of Vermont_. Burlington, Vt. 1860-1868.

We have received the first eleven numbers of this magazine. The authoress has evidently endeavored to produce a first-class work of its kind, and has, to a great extent, succeeded. It is to be regretted, however, that some of the numbers are printed on inferior paper, a serious fault in a work of so much local interest and so permanent a character.

Miss Hemenway does not content herself with the historical and topographical, as is usual with the authors who produce most of our local annals. Biography and literature form a large portion of her work. Art also lends its charm, and adorns her pages with portraits of distinguished men and representations of memorable scenes. To us the work seems almost exhaustive. The Green Mountain State has reason to congratulate itself on so laborious and persevering a historian, and its sons should certainly reward her toil with the most prompt and liberal pecuniary recognition.

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Gropings After Truth. A Life Journey from New England Congregationalism to the One Catholic and Apostolic Church. By Joshua Huntington. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1868.

This little work, which has been some weeks before the public in pamphlet form and already promises to shed "light in many dark places" in the hearts of candid seekers after truth, has at last been issued in a permanent and elegant edition. It is with great pleasure that we commend it to our readers, not only for their own perusal, but for distribution among their non-Catholic acquaintances and friends. As the Reverend Father Hewit says in his preface, the impulse toward a new and more vigorous life "will be quickened and directed in many souls" by the present volume; and we believe that few whose earlier religious life was similar to that of Mr. Huntington can read the book without misgivings for themselves, and a longing to discover, by some means, that peace and light which the author deems himself to have attained. That God will make known this truth and bestow this peace to them and to all others is, as it should be, the chief object of our labors and our prayers.

------

An Outline Of Geography For High Schools And Families. With an Atlas. By Theodore S. Fay. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1867.

We are inclined to regard this work as a very valuable aid to the study of its subject, which is treated more scientifically in it than in any other equally elementary book which we have seen. The plan is decidedly original, and evidently is the result of careful thought, aided apparently by experience.

Prominence is given in it to the astronomical and physical aspects of the earth. The political division, which from its artificial and mutable character is an obstacle to a clear view of geography in its unity, is kept in the background, but is by no means neglected. A map showing the changes produced by the war of 1866 may be specially mentioned in this connection.

The astronomical part is very full, and in the main correct; there are, however, a few inaccuracies, as in the time occupied by light in coming from Neptune, and in the statement that the sun could hardly be distinguished in brightness from a fixed star by an observer on that planet. But these are small matters. The explanations in this part are clear and interesting, and the reticence of the author on points beyond the scope he has proposed to himself is specially commendable. To satisfy the student without misleading or puzzling him is an admirable talent.

We doubt the propriety of the items of historical information occasionally introduced; they seem unnecessary, and spoil the unity of the work.

Considering the strength of memory generally possessed in youth, the advantage claimed by the author that his method makes no direct demand upon this faculty seems doubtful; but, as he states in the preface, the work must be used to be judged; and the lessons can be memorized if desired.

We must protest against the use of small initial letters in the national adjectives; as british, french, etc.

The maps deserve the highest praise for their conception and execution.

------

Asmodeus In New York. New York: Longchamp & Co. 1868.

This work appeared last year in Paris, and is now translated and published in this country by the author. It pretends to give an inside view of American society, and to do this the author picks out all that is bad, vicious, and immoral in this country, North and South, and calls this conglomeration "American Society." He, however, should have told his readers that the first specimen of "American Society" he presented them was that of _one of his own countrywomen!_ We need hardly say that most of the other characters in the book are as good samples of American society as those given in the first chapter.

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The Holy Communion: Its Philosophy, Theology, and Practice. By John Bernard Dalgairns, Priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 440. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1868.

The Catholic Publication Society has just issued an American edition of this work, which has been for a long time much sought after in this country. We take occasion to recommend it as one of the very best works on its august theme in the English language. The most remarkable and original portion of the work is that which treats of the philosophy of transubstantiation. The author has handled this difficult and abstruse matter with masterly ability, explaining the doctrine of various philosophical schools respecting substance and accidents with clearness and precision, and has furnished most satisfactory answers to rational objections against the Catholic dogma. Both Catholics and those who are investigating Catholic doctrine will find this volume one of great interest and utility.

------

The Roman Martyrology. Translated into English, with an introduction by the Archbishop of Baltimore. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1868.

One of the most beautifully executed books which has been issued by the Catholic press in this country, printed in the ritualistic style, with red marginal lines and red edges. The publication of books of devotion which are standard and have the sanction of the Roman Church cannot be too much encouraged, and we cordially congratulate the enterprising publishers who have added this gem to our collection.

------

Sydnie Adriance; or, Trying the World. By Amanda M. Douglas, author of _In Trust, Stephen Dane, Claudia_, etc. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Pp. 355. 1869.

Those who read novels, and their name is Legion, will find this--the latest production of Miss Douglas's pen--nowise inferior to its predecessors. While avoiding the sensational characters and incidents, her language is always pleasing and unaffected.

------

The Life And Times Of Robert Emmet. By R. R. Madden, M.D., M.R.I. A. With numerous Notes and Additions, and a Portrait on Steel.

Also, A Memoir Of Thomas Addis Emmet, with a Portrait on Steel. New York; P. M. Haverty. Pp. 328. 1868.

Few, if any, of the Irish patriots of modern days have a stronger hold on the affection of the people than Robert Emmet. Perhaps, with the exception of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, we might have written none other. His deep love of country, his abiding trust in her future, his daring but futile attempt to accomplish her liberation, his death upon the scaffold, these were his, in common with many others, who are remembered but with gratitude, not, like him, treasured in the popular heart. Like our own immortal Washington--the man is loved, the patriot revered.

This history of his life and times should find readers wherever a friend to liberty dwells; but for us, this volume has a special interest, containing, as it does, a _Memoir of Thomas Addis Emmet,_ the last twenty-three years of whose life were spent in this city, and whose monument may be said to form one of the sights of the metropolis. The volume is very neatly got up; the steel portraits excellent, both as likenesses and works of art.

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{431}

Memoirs Of The Life Of The Right Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. By Thomas Moore. New York: W. J. Widdleton. 2 vols. pp. 307, 335.

Moore's _Life of Sheridan_ has long since passed beyond the province of the critic. We will, therefore, merely call attention to the present edition as being very handsomely got up; containing, also, a very fine portrait of Sheridan, after the original painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. We ought, perhaps, in this connection, to award a meed of praise to the enterprising publisher for placing within reach of all, books such as this, which, as of standard excellence, should be, but were not, of easy access.

------

The Poetical Works Of Thomas Moore. Brooklyn and New York: William M. Swayne. Pp. 496.

Moore's complete works for fifty cents! Truly, a marvel of cheapness. The typography--something unusual in cheap books--is very good.

------

Marks's First Lessons In Geometry, objectively presented and designed for the Use of Primary Classes in Grammar Schools, Academies, etc. By Bernhard Marks, Principal of Lincoln School, San Francisco. New York: Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman & Co. Pp. 157. 1869.

We can unhesitatingly recommend this little work. We have often felt the need of just such a text-book as this, and have no doubt its appearance will be hailed with equal pleasure by both teachers and pupils. The style in which it is got up reflects the highest credit on the publishers.

------

A Thousand Miles' Walk Across South America. By Nathaniel H. Bishop. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Pp. 310. 1869.

A journey on foot of more than a thousand miles across the South American continent, from Montevideo to Valparaiso, could not but furnish to an inquiring mind and an adventurous spirit abundant material for interesting detail and startling incidents, and of these there is certainly no scarcity in the present volume. There are some portions, however, open to objection, where allusion is made to the religion of the people, less, indeed, it must be confessed, than we almost, as a matter of course, expect from Protestant tourists in Catholic countries; and some attempted caricaturing of the Irish residents, which might be deemed insulting if they were not so very puerile. These excepted, it is a book both useful and entertaining.

------

The Trotting Horse Of America-- How To Train And Drive Him. With Reminiscences Of The Trotting Turf. By Hiram Woodruff. Edited by Charles J. Foster, of _Wilkes's Spirit of the Times_. Including an Introductory Notice by George Wilkes, and a Biographical Sketch by the Editor. New York: J. B. Ford & Co. Pp. 412. 1868.

The papers comprising this work were originally published in _Wilkes's Spirit of the Times_, and are a record of the author's forty years' experience in training and driving. While especially intended for those who are interested in the breeding, training, etc., of horses, there is abundance of matter likely to prove attractive to the general reader; biographies, so to speak, of famous trotters, whose names are familiar as household words; and graphic descriptions of the various matches in which they were engaged. In fact, it is one of those rare books which, while got up for a special purpose, and seemingly suited to the few, overleaps the narrow limits apparently prescribed, and attracts to itself the favorable notice of the entire community.

It makes a very handsome volume, is neatly bound, well printed, and illustrated with a fine steel portrait of the author.

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{432}

Synodus Dioecesana Baltimorensis Septima, etc. Joannes Murphy, Baltimore. 1868.

The constitutions adopted at the above Synod of September 3d, 1868, were:

1. Of the Publication of the Decrees of the Plenary Council of Baltimore.

2. Of the Officers of the Archbishopric and the Government of Dioceses.

3. Of the Pastoral Care of Souls.

4. Of the Sacraments.

5. Of Divine Worship.

6. Of Discipline.

The Two Women. A Ballad, written expressly for the ladies of Wisconsin. By Delta. Milwaukee. 1868.

A poem in five parts, celebrating the creation of Eve and the motherhood of Mary.

------

M. Duruy's History Of France.

Several esteemed correspondents have written to the editor of this magazine expressing regret at the commendatory notice of the above work, which appeared in our columns. Our judgment and sympathy are entirely with Mgr. Dupanloup in his contest against M. Duruy respecting religious education. This does not, however, affect the question of the value of his book as a secular classic and a manual of political and civil history. In respect to the ecclesiastical portion of the history, it is very true that the work is deficient; nevertheless, it is far superior to the English historical works which our readers, whether Protestant or Catholic, are likely to be familiar with; and we think that, in spite of the author's liberalistic bias, the general tone and effect of the work justifies our recommendation. If any of our correspondents will send us a history of France equal to this in other respects, and at the same time perfectly Catholic in its spirit, we will gladly recommend it in preference. We will add, however, that it is not for sale at the Catholic Publication House.

------

The Catholic Publication Society will publish _The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac_ on November 25th. It will be sold for 25 cents a copy. The same Society will issue, on December 1st, _The New Illustrated History of Ireland_.

------

Mr. Donahoe, Boston, has just published

_Verses on Various Occasions_, by John Henry Newman, D.D.

------

Books Received.

From D. APPLETON & Co., New York:

Mental Science; a Compendium of Psychology, and the History of Philosophy. Designed as a text-book for High-Schools and Colleges. By Alexander Bain, M.A., Professor of Logic and Mental Philosophy in the University of Aberdeen, author of "The Senses and the Intellect," "The Emotions of the Will," etc. etc. Pp. 428; Appendix, 99. 1868.

------ From CHARLES SCRIBNER & Co., New York:

Guyot's Elementary Geography for Primary Classes.

Felter's First Lessons in Numbers. An illustrated Table Book designed for elementary instruction.

------

Footprints Of Life; Or, Faith And Nature Reconciled. By Philip Harvey, M.D. New York: Samuel R. Wells. 1868.

------ D. & J. SADLIER & Co., New York:

Outlines of the History of Ireland. Being the substance of a lecture recently delivered at Honesdale. By Rev. J. J. Doherty. In behalf of the Sunday-schools. Pp. 35.

A new edition of Carleton's Valentine McClutchy.

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The Catholic World.

Vol. VIII., No. 46 January, 1869.

------

Galileo-Galilei, [Footnote 141] The Florentine Astronomer. 1564-1642.

[Footnote 141: _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.

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

_Galilée_. 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 de la Science et la Méthode des Sciences Physiques_. Par Thomas Henri Martin. Paris. 1868.]

"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.

An Unwritten Chapter.

Galileo's "connection with a political party, unfriendly to religion as well as to the papal government," is correctly referred to by the _Edinburgh Review_ as one of the causes of his difficulties concerning a question upon which Copernicus met with none whatever.

Our space will not permit us to treat this interesting chapter of the Galileo story, or we might show that not only such a connection, but Galileo's associations with the partisans and friends of such men (and in some cases with the men themselves) as Sarpi, (Fra Paolo,) Antonio de Dominis, etc. etc., contributed powerfully to encourage in him an insulting aggressiveness that even the indulgent admonition of 1616 could not restrain.

In various ways, these men stirred up strife that might otherwise have slumbered, and instigated Galileo to fresh infractions of a rule by which he had solemnly promised to abide. They are referred to by the _North British Review_ (Nov., 1860) in energetic language as "the band of sceptics who hounded him on to his ruin."

{434}

In like manner, since we have spoken of the treatment of Urban at Galileo's hands, we cannot, for want of space, dwell upon the personal bearing of Urban toward him after the trial was resolved upon. The law that compelled the trial was as binding upon the pope as upon any layman. It had to be fulfilled; but so far as Urban's personal demeanor and acts are evidence, there was nothing in them, and nothing in his heart, but kindness, forbearance, and generosity toward the offender; and it will be remembered that he carried these so far as to allow the decree of the Inquisition to go forth unsigned and unconfirmed by him.

If revenge for any conceived personal affront had actuated him, he could, by his signature and approval, have given that decree a vigor and a value it could never otherwise possess.

We resume the thread of our relation, and proceed to recount the main facts of

The Trial.

Galileo was now summoned to Rome to answer for his infraction of the injunction of 1616.

The summons was issued September 23d, 1632. There was, however, neither hurry nor precipitation; and after a delay of some months, caused partly by Galileo's endeavors to have the trial deferred, partly by his illness, and partly by the prevalence of an epidemic in Florence, he reached Rome on the 13th of February, 1633, and became the guest of the Tuscan ambassador.

Still there appears to have been no haste with the proceedings, and Galileo passed his time in perfect freedom, surrounded by his friends and the attentions of his noble host, who could not help remarking that this was the first instance he had ever heard of in which a person cited before the Inquisition--even though they were nobles or bishops or prelates--was not held in strict confinement.

When, at last, Galileo's presence at the holy office was absolutely indispensable, the best and most commodious rooms were placed at his disposition, and his formal interrogatory commenced April 12th.

On the termination of this preliminary examination, he was assigned the more spacious and pleasant apartments of the Fiscal of the Inquisition.

"Galileo," says Mr. Drinkwater, "was treated with unusual consideration;" and Sir David Brewster states that "during the whole trial, which had now commenced, Galileo was treated with the most marked indulgence."

On the 22d of April, the commissary charged with the conduct of the trial was ready to proceed, but postponed it on Galileo's statement that he was suffering from severe pain in his thigh.

So matters rested, until, on the 30th, Galileo asked for a resumption of the examination, and presented a complete and utter disavowal of his book and its principles. He declared that, having again read over his _Dialogues_, in order to examine whether, contrary to his express intention, he had inadvertently disobeyed the decree of 1616, he found that two arguments were too strongly presented; that they were not conclusive, and could be easily refuted. "If I had to present them now," he said, "I should assuredly do it in terms that would deprive them of the weight they apparently have, but which in reality they do not possess."

His error, he admitted, arose from a vain ambition, pure ignorance and inadvertence: "_E stato dunque l'error mio, e lo confesso, di una vana ambitione, e di una pura ignoranza e inavertenza._"

{435}

Galileo's Voluntary Retraction.

Here the examination closed for the day; but Galileo voluntarily returned, and reopened it with the declaration ("_et post paululum rediens dixit_") that he had not held the condemned opinion of the earth's motion, and that he was ready, if time were granted him, to prove it clearly.

"I will take up," said he, "the argument in my _Dialogues_, and will refute with all possible energy the arguments presented in favor of that opinion."

He closes by reiterating his request to be allowed the opportunity of putting these resolutions in execution: "_Prego dunque questo S. Tribunals che voglia concorrer meco in questa buona risolutione col concedermi facoltà di poterle metter in effetto_."

It is painful to see a man's convictions so lightly held. Why, all this voluntary proffer is more than was imposed on Galileo by the decree of 1616, and no more than assumed by the decree of 1633, not yet pronounced!

Alas, poor Galileo! Of such stuff martyrs never yet were made.

It seems strange that this phase and these incidents of the trial should never have been commented upon, as showing the scientific question to be entirely secondary in the estimation of the Congregation.

Had that question been the only point or the important point, this voluntary retraction, confession of judgment, plea of guilty, offer of reparation, and self-imposed sentence on the part of Galileo should have been more than sufficient to end the case, and leave naught for the tribunal to do but to put the self-imposed sentence in legal form.

But not so. As Galileo well knew, he might have gone on to the end of his life teaching, in peace and honor, the astronomy taught by Copernicus and others for the previous century. Copernicanism was not his crime, and therefore his retraction, as made, could not reach his criminal infraction of the decree of 1616, and of his own solemn pledges, nor could it modify the accusation of deception in the matter of the license to print his _Dialogues_, and the improper means taken to obtain that license.

The Trial Goes On.

On the same day Galileo made his voluntary retraction, he was permitted to return to the palace of the Tuscan ambassador.

On the 10th of May, he was notified that a further delay of eight days would be allowed him for the preparation of a defence, when he immediately presented it already prepared, in a written statement of two pages, accompanied by the Bellarmine certificate of 1616.

Meanwhile, the Congregation deliberated; and such was the friendly feeling in Rome toward Galileo that, as late as the 21st of May, Cardinal Capponi thought he would be acquitted.

Giuducci asserted it positively, and Archbishop Piccolomini made preparations to take Galileo with him to Sienna as his guest.

A large mass of documentary evidence, letters, reports, etc., had accumulated in the case, and on the 16th of June a preliminary decree was entered, by which Galileo was enjoined from writing either _for_ or _against_ the theory of the earth's motion, ("_injuncto ei ne de cetero scripto vel verbo tractet amplius quovis modo de mobilitate terrae nec de stabilitate soils et e contra_" etc.)

{436}

On the 21st of June, Galileo was interrogated, and stated in his replies that, before the decree of 1616, he had held both opinions as to the sun or the earth being the centre of the world; but that since that time, convinced of the prudence of his superiors, all doubt had ceased in his mind, and he had adopted as true and undoubted the opinion of Ptolemy; that in his _Dialogues_ he had explained the proofs that might be urged against one or the other system, but without deciding for either.

To this he was answered that he asserts positively the immobility of the sun and the movement of the earth, and that he must make up his mind to acknowledge the truth, or that he should be proceeded against according to the law and the facts of the case, "_devenietur contra ipsum ad remedia juris et facti opportuna._"

Again Galileo replies that he neither holds nor has held that opinion of Copernicus since he received the order to abandon it.

Being admonished that, if he does not tell the truth, he refuses under penalty of torture, "_et ei dicto quod dicat veritaiem alias devenietur ad torturam,_" he replies, "_Io son qua per far l'obedienza e non ho tennta questa opinione dopo la determinatione fatta come ho detto_," "I am here to make my submission. I do not hold and have not held this opinion since the determination taken as I have already stated."

"_Et cum nihil aliud_" proceeds the record, "_posset haberi in executionem decreti, habita ejus subscriptione, remissus fuit ad locum suum_." [Footnote 142]

(Signed) _Io_, Galileo-Galilei, "_ho deposto come di sopra._."

[Footnote 142: "And as nothing else remained to be done, he signed the record, and was sent back to his place of abode."]

On the following day, (Wednesday, June 22d, 1633,) Galileo appeared again before the Congregation to hear the decree in his case, and pronounce his abjuration.

The Decree [Footnote 143]

[Footnote 143: So far as it relates to the scientific question, this decree was suspended by Benedict XIV., and repealed in full consistory by Pius VII. Meantime, his _Dialogues_ were repeatedly published in Italy with all the usual ecclesiastical approbations. The edition in the Astor Library is that of Padua, 1744, and shows what we here state.]

was based upon and mainly taken up with the recital of the proceedings of 1615, the injunction of 1616, the violation of that injunction, the effect of the Bellarmine certificate, the violation of Galileo's pledges, the improper means taken to obtain the license to print his _Dialogues_, and his confessions and excuses. There was no discussion of the scientific question.

"Wherefore," recites the decree, "as here," namely, in the Bellarmine certificate, "there is no mention made of two particular articles of the said precepts--that is to say, that you should not teach--_doceri_--and in any manner--_quovis modo_--write of the same doctrine, you argued that it was to be believed that in the course of fourteen or sixteen years those things passed out of your memory, and that, on account of the same forgetfulness, you were silent about that precept when you solicited a license for publishing the said work of yours. And this was not said by you to excuse error, but, as it is ascribed, rather to a vainglorious ambition than to malice. But this very certificate produced by you in your defence rather aggravates the charge against you, since in it, it is declared that the said opinion was contrary to Scripture, and nevertheless you dared to treat of it, to defend it, and even to argue in favor of its probability. Neither did that certificate give you the faculty, as you interpret it, so artfully and subtly extorted by you, since you did not make known the prohibition that had been imposed on you. {437} But as it appeared to us that you did not speak the entire truth with respect to your intention, we indicated that it was necessary to proceed to a rigorous examination of you, in which, without prejudice to the other things which were confessed by you, and which are deduced against you with respect to your intention, you answered Catholically.

"Which things, therefore, having duly considered, and examined into the merits of this cause, together with the above-mentioned confessions and excuses of yours, and whatever other matters should be rightly seen and considered, we come to the following definitive sentence against you:

"We say, judge, and declare that you, the above-named Galileo, on account of those things set forth in the documents of this trial, and which have been confessed by you as above stated, _have rendered yourself to this holy office vehemently suspected of heresy;_ that is, that you believed and hold that doctrine which is false and contrary to the sacred Scriptures, namely, that the sun is the centre of the orbit of the world, and that it moves not from east to west, and that the earth moves, and is not the centre of the world; and that an opinion can be held and defended as probable, after it had been declared and defined as contrary to the sacred Scriptures. And consequently, that you have incurred all the censures and penalties by the sacred canons and other general constitutions and particular statutes promulgated against delinquencies of this kind, from which it is our pleasure that you should be absolved; provided, first, that with a sincere heart and faith, not feigned, before us you abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and every other heresy and error contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church, by that formula which is presented to you. But lest this grave fault of yours, and pernicious error and transgression, should remain unpunished altogether, and for the time to come that by more caution you should avoid them and be an example to others, that they should abstain from this sort of crime, we decree and by public edict prohibit the book of the _Dialogues_ of Galileo-Galilei; we condemn you to the prison of the holy office during our pleasure; and as a solitary penance, we prescribe that for three years you shall once a week recite the seven penitential psalms; reserving to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking away in whole or in part the above-mentioned penalties and penances.

"And thus we say, pronounce, and by sentence declare," etc.

Then followed Galileo's abjuration of his errors and heresies; that is to say, abjuration of his error as to the earth's movement, and of his heresy as to the decisions of the Congregation.

We thus give, in all their crudity, and without comment, the only portion of the trial and the decree at all available to the advocates of the old version of the Galileo story. Let them make the most of it.

The Record Of The Trial Of Galileo,

or the Procès Verbal, still exists in all its original integrity. The history of these documents is singular. The archives of the Inquisition at Rome were carried off to Paris at some time during the reign of Napoleon. Lord Brougham says in 1809. M. Biot (who cites _M. Delaborde, Directeur des Archives Françaises_) says in 1811. {438} A French translation of the Galileo trial, begun by order of Napoleon, was completed down to April 30th, 1633. Just before the Hundred Days, Louis XVIII. desired to see the documents, and all the papers connected with the trial were brought to his apartments. His hasty flight from Paris soon followed, and the MSS. were forgotten and lost sight of. When the plundered archives were returned to Rome, it was found that the Galileo trial was not among them. Reclamation was made, and it was not until 1846 that Louis Philippe had the documents returned by M. Rossi. They are now in the Vatican.

In this connection, it is an interesting fact to note that seventy folio volumes of the archives of the Inquisition are now in the library of the University of Dublin. The archives at Rome were plundered a second time in 1849, whether by Garibaldians or French is not known. The plunder was brought to Paris by a French officer, and there, in 1850, sold to the late Duke of Manchester, who sold them to the Rev. Mr. Gibbings, a Protestant clergyman of the Irish Establishment. Mr. Gibbings again sold them to the late Dr. Wall, vice-provost of the university, aided by Dr. Singer, Bishop of Meath, who presented them to the library of Trinity College, Dublin.

We return to the Galileo record. In 1850, Signor Marino-Marini, Prefect of the Vatican Archives, published _Galileo e l'Inquizitione_. This Signor Marini is the same who is so highly spoken of by William von Humboldt. (See Schlesier's _Lives of the Humboldts_.) His work originally appeared in the form of a discourse addressed to the Archaeological Academy of Rome.

Looked for with anxiety, the book was received with some disappointment. Instead of the text, and the _entire_ text of the trial, Signor Marini gave extracts and fragments, stating at the same time that the French, who had these documents in their possession so many years, had not dared to publish them, because they were disappointed at not finding in them what they sought for.

To this it was objected--and the point was well taken--"Why, then, did not you publish the whole?" The truth is, the choice of Signor Marini for the task was unfortunate. An excellent scholar and accomplished man, he was yet too timid or too narrow-minded for it, and undertook the function of an advocate rather than the far more important one of a historian.

He shrank from the publicity of such passages as, "_Devenietur contra ipsum ad remedia juris et facti opportuna,_" "_Alias devenietur ad torturam,_" as though we were not aware of the universality of the use of torture in all the criminal procedure of all Europe, and that the Inquisition took it not from ecclesiastical, but from the secular tribunals of the day; as though we did not only deplore, but openly reprobate, the fact, and as though we did not hold the Inquisition responsible for the odium it has entailed on the Catholic Church, very much, we presume, as any right-minded Protestant holds star-chambers and Elizabethan tortures responsible for burdens they find hard to bear.

A distinguished French writer, M. Henri de l'Epinois, expressed his regret to the present prefect of the Vatican Archives as to the unsatisfactory manner in which Sig. Marini had presented the Galileo record, whereupon the Rev. Father Theiner immediately offered to place all the documents at his disposition for any examination or publication he might wish to make. {439} The result is M. L'Epinois's work, _Galilée, son Procès, sa Condamnation, d'après des Documens Inédits_, in which are given all the original passages omitted by Marini.

The record of the trial covers two hundred and twenty pages, and includes, besides the interrogatories and replies of Galileo and of several witnesses, sixty-three letters, orders, opinions, depositions, etc., besides the various decrees and Galileo's defence and abjuration.

The interrogatories are all in Latin, the answers in Italian.

Thus, for example, where Galileo is examined as to the publication of his _Dialogues_, the record runs:

"_Interrogate_. An si ostenderet sibi dictus liber paratus sit illum recognoscere tanquam suum?

"_Respondit_. Spero di si che mi sara monstrato il libro lo riconoscero.

"Et sibi ostenso uno ex libris Florentiae impressis, anno 1632, cujus titulus est _Dialogo di Galileo-Galilei_ linceo, in quo agitur de duobus sistematibus mundi, et per ipsum bene viso et inspecto, dixit: lo conosco questo libro benissimo, et e uno di quelli stampati in Fiorenza, et lo conosco come mio e da me composto.

"_Interrogatus_. An pariter recognoscat omnia et singula in dicto libro contenta tanquam sua?

"_Respondit_. Io conosco questo libro mostratomi, ch'è uno di quelli stampati in Fiorenza e tutto quello che in esso si contiene lo riconosco come composto da me."

"E Pur Si Muove!"

The temptation of the dramatic effect of this phrase has been too strong for writers who should have known better than to give it currency. In the declamation of a school exhibition, we are not surprised to find it; but from a serious historian it comes with a bad grace. M. Ponsard has, of course, preserved it in his drama.

It is simply fable, and like the "Up, Guards, and at them!" of Lord Wellington, "un de ces mots de circonstance inventés après coup." [Footnote 144]

[Footnote 144: "One of those impromptus composed at leisure."]

"Unstable, timorous, equivocating, and supple," says Philarète Chasles, "he never had the heart to exclaim, 'E pur si muove!'" He never exhibited that heroical resistance which has been attributed to him.

The penitential shirt or sack is also fabulous, notwithstanding even so distinguished a man as Cousin speaks of Galileo as "forcé d'abjurer á genoux, en chemise, son plus beau titre de gloire." [Footnote 145]

[Footnote 145: "Forced to abjure on his knees, and clad in a shirt, his noblest title to greatness."]

Value Of The Decree.

A few words--and but few are needed--as to the common assertion that the Catholic Church, claiming infallibility in matters of faith, decided the doctrine of the earth's immobility to be a truth affirmed in the Scriptures. Granting the decree of the Inquisition in the case of Galileo to have been all that is claimed against it, it was, after all, nothing but a decree of the Inquisition; no more, no less.

And first, what was the Inquisition?

The Inquisition forms no permanent or essential part of the organization of the Catholic Church. It was always a purely local tribunal, and the original appointment of its officers as _quaesitores fidei_, or inquisitors, seems to have been designed to prevent civil wars on the score of religion. The prevailing sentiment as well as the positive jurisprudence of the middle ages approved the punishment of heresy by temporal penalties. {440} Indeed, such principles, abhorrent to us, seem to have come down out of the so-called dark ages far toward our own time. For full confirmation of this statement, you may read John Calvin's treatise in defence of persecuting measures, in which he maintains the lawfulness of putting heretics to death; and for illustration, you may peruse the account of his treatment of Castellio and Servetus, who found Calvin's reasoning of such peculiar strength that they did not survive its application; or his letter to Somerset, (1548:) "You have two kinds of mutineers: the one are a fanatical people, who, under color of the gospel, would set all to confusion; the others are stubborn people in the superstition of the Antichrist of Rome. _These altogether do deserve to be well punished by the sword_." (See Froude's _History of England_, vol. v.) Charming impartiality!

More than a hundred years afterward, Calvin's followers embodied his doctrine in their solemn confession of faith, wherein they say (_Westminster Confession_, ch. xxiii.) that "the civil magistrate hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed."

Although inquisitors existed in Italy from the time of Innocent IV., their authority was so rarely exercised that it was scarcely known until Paul III., in the year 1545, organized the Congregation of the Inquisition, consisting of six cardinals. To these were added two more by Pius V. They formed a strictly ecclesiastical tribunal, charged with matters regarding the integrity of faith throughout the world; their duty being to examine and censure erroneous propositions, condemn and proscribe bad books, inflict ecclesiastical censures on clergymen convicted of error, and exercise a superintendence over the local tribunals of faith.

It still exists, acts, and exercises its ecclesiastical attributes.

But however powerful to suppress opinion or to exact obedience the Inquisition might be within the limits of its own special jurisdiction, we have never yet heard that any decree of any inquisition ever determined a question of faith, or, in other words, ever attempted to usurp the functions of a general council.

Even Riccioli, the original source, up to within a few years, of all accounts of the trial and sentence of Galileo, and himself one of the strongest theological opponents of the theory of the earth's motion, expressly protests against the assertion that any declaration whatever had been made on the subject by the church itself. He says: "The Sacred Congregation of Cardinals, taken apart from the Supreme Pontiff, does not make propositions to be of faith, _even though it should actually define them to be of faith, or the contrary ones heretical_. Wherefore, since no definition upon this matter has as yet issued from the Supreme Pontiff, nor from any council directed and approved by him, it is not yet of faith that the sun moves and the earth stands still by force of the decree of the Congregation; but at most and alone, by the force of the sacred Scriptures to those to whom it is morally evident that God has revealed it. Nevertheless, Catholics are bound, in prudence and obedience, at least so far as not to teach the contrary."

And yet, plain as is this distinction, men of professedly theological acquirements, for the sake of inflicting a wound on the church, systematically ignore it whenever they have "a point" to make with the Galileo story.

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And the distinction is not only plain at the present day, but was expressly made at the time of Galileo's trial. "It was not in the power of the holy office to declare it (Galileo's scientific theory) or any other doctrine heresy; it would take an OEcumenical Council for that." (Letter of September 4th, 1632: Cardinal Magalotti to Galileo.) Even Descartes, six months after the trial, remarks that the decision of the Inquisition had received the ratification of neither pope nor council.

The Torture.

The relators of the torture fable ask us to believe that an old man bending under the weight of seventy years, after undergoing imprisonment and mental anguish, suffered the _peine forte et dure_ of torture on the 21st of June, and on the next day was capable of remaining more than an hour on his knees to receive his sentence, and then, unaided, arose, stamped his foot, and thundered out, "E pur si muove!" Truly a vigorous performance, but not more hardy than the story which relates it.

No; these fables can no longer have place in history; and we know positively that Galileo, who, on the evening of June 24th, after his three days' detention at the holy office, (the sentence of imprisonment being immediately commuted by the pope,) was conducted by Niccolini to the Villa Medici, and who, on the 6th of July, old as he was, was able to walk four miles without inconvenience, could not have been tortured on the 21st of June.

"Those who undertake," says the German Protestant Von Reumont, "to accuse the Inquisition on this point, are forced to have recourse to fiction."

Lord Brougham, after an examination of the case, says, in his Analytical View of the Principia, that "the supposition of Galileo having been tortured is entirely disproved by Galileo's own account of the lenity with which he was treated."

Biot dismisses the matter thus: "II y a là une réunion d'invraisemblances qui ne permet pas de concevoir raisonnablement un soupçon pareil." [Footnote 146]

[Footnote 146: "There is here such a conjunction of improbabilities as to exclude all reasonable possibility of such a suspicion."]

Galileo survived his sentence eight years. Is it credible that, during that long period spent in intimate personal intercourse and literary correspondence with his friend, no word or hint of complaint of such an outrage as torture should have escaped his lips?

Castelli was constantly with him to the hour of his death, and heard no whisper of it.

In August, 1638, writing to Bernegger, Galileo could boast that neither the freedom nor the vigor of his spirit was repressed.

Three months before his death, with the certainty of its approach, he sent for Torricelli, and spent long hours in unreserved discourse with him. Not a word of torture!

Finally, in his last letter, just three weeks before his death, to Beccherini, he bewails his endurances and his troubles in a spirit that could not and did not fail to unseal his lips for everything he had to say in the spirit of complaint; but here, too, not a word of torture!

The majority of the French feuilletonists on the Ponsard drama manifest disappointment at not finding any torture, and straightway seek solace in such reflections as, "Ainsi, Galilée ne fut point mis à la torture; on en a aujourd'hui la pleine certitude."! [Footnote 147]

[Footnote 147: "Thus, then, Galileo was not put to the torture. Of that we now have the fullest certainty."]

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But the feuilletonist wants to know if the persecutions, bitterness, and vexation of every kind to which Galileo was subjected were not the equivalent of physical torture?

And what, then, does he take to be the equivalent of the irony, sarcasm, ingratitude, and insult gratuitously heaped upon Urban, the kind friend and liberal benefactor of Galileo?

No reasonable doubt can now exist as to the fact that it was not Galileo's assertion of the hypothesis of the earth's rotation that brought him into trouble. It was his intemperance of language, impatience of wise counsel, disregard of sacred obligations, violation of solemn promises, and above all, his insane perversity in dragging the scriptural element into the controversy. Of the scores of distinguished adherents, disciples, advocates, and professors of the heliocentric doctrine, Galileo alone gave annoyance and created difficulty.

To the extent of examining and discussing the question scientifically, the freedom at Rome was perfect. But when the point was reached when it was gratuitously thrust into collision with Scripture, a degree of demonstration was needed that could not be produced.

After The Trial.

To complete the chronological statement of events, it is only necessary to add that on the 6th of July Galileo left Rome for Sienna, where he remained with Archbishop Piccolomini, one of his most intimate friends, until the month of December. He then returned to his own home at Arcetri, near Florence.

It was here he received the oft-described and well-known visit of Milton, then in the prime of youth. In 1638, he transferred his residence to Florence, where he occupied himself with scientific pursuits, his negotiation with Holland for the use of his discovery concerning the longitude, the publication of his book _Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze_ at Leyden, (1638,) correspondence with scientific men, and visits from his friends.

He died on the 8th of January, 1642, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.

"The noblest eye," wrote his friend Father Castelli, announcing his death, "which nature ever made, is darkened; an eye so privileged and gifted with such rare powers that it may truly be said to have seen more than the eyes of all that are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all that are to come."

We now pass to the consideration of the exact condition of

The Scientific Question

as it existed in 1633, leaving, of course, aside all discussion of its theological or scriptural connection.

Without going back so far as Pythagoras, the new system in 1633 was not original with Galileo, nor even with Copernicus, who is said to have received the germ of his new doctrine at Bologna from the hypothesis of Dominicus Maria on the variability of the axis of the earth; and it would be most interesting, did space allow, to review the intellectual struggles of the predecessors (_ad astra_) of the Polish priest with a theory they felt to be true, but were powerless to demonstrate even to themselves.

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Among these men were:

1. The great mystical theologian, Richard of St. Victor, who described the true method of physical inquiry in terms which Francis Bacon might have adopted. "It would not be easy at the present day," says Dr. Whewell, (_Philosophy of Discovery_, pp. 52-53,) "to give a better account of the object of physical science."

2. Celius Calcagnini, (born 1479,) who published (Tiraboschi says _divolgò_, which may or may not mean simply printing) a work in which he endeavored to prove "_quod coelum stet, terra autem moveatur_."

3. Cardinal Cusa, sometimes called Nicholas the Cusan, an intellectual giant of his time, the highest expression, probably, of the active mental movement that marked the 15th century. He was equally distinguished in science, in letters, and in philosophy, and in 1436, at the Council of Basle, proposed the reform of the calendar afterward carried out by the pope. His knowledge of astronomy was, for his time, profound, and he asserted and published that "the sun is at rest, the earth moves," ("_istam terram in veritate moveatur._") [Footnote 148]

[Footnote 148: "That heaven is motionless, but that the earth moves."]

4. Novara, the preceptor of Copernicus; for it is certain that Copernicus found his new doctrine in Italy.

5. Jerome of Tallavia, whose papers are said to have fallen into the hands of Copernicus.

6. Leonardo da Vinci, who, in 1510, connected his theory of bodies with the earth's motion, "showing," as Whewell says, "that the heliocentric doctrines were fermenting in the minds of intelligent men, and gradually assuming clearness and strength."

Although Da Vinci constructed no system of explanation, he nevertheless held the motion of the earth, as appears from one of his manuscripts of the year 1500.

Some light may be thrown upon the actual condition of astronomical science during the Galileo period by a short statement of the arguments most in vogue between

Ptolemaists And Copernicans,

and of what the latter had to present in the way of proof.

The Copernicans contended generally for the greater simplicity of their system, and the incredibility of the enormous velocity which the sphere of the fixed stars must have if the ancient system be true. To this it was answered that God doeth wonders without number.

But the earth would corrupt and putrefy without motion, whereas the heavens are incorruptible. To which the answer was ready that wind would give sufficient motion.

But the most movable part of man is underneath, since he walks with his feet; whence the most unworthy part of the universe, the earth, should be movable.

Objected that, if the earth moves, the head of a man moves faster than his feet.

But again, "Rest is nobler than motion, and therefore ought to belong to the sun, the noble body."

Replied to, "For the same reason, the moon and all the planets ought to rest."

Again, "The lamp of the world ought to be in the centre." Answered by, "A lamp is frequently hung up from a roof to enlighten the floor."

"Can we fancy," asked the Copernicans, "that God has not acted on a scheme so impressive and so beautiful as ours?"

"Can we fancy," replied their opponents, "that this earth is constantly in motion, which we feel to be the stablest of all things? that our senses are given to deceive us? that during the greater part of our lives we cling to the earth with our head downward?"

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Finally, the Copernicans were utterly silenced by the unanswerable argument of throwing up a stone.

"Would they please explain," was asked of them, "why, if the earth moved, the stone, being thrown directly upward, should fall on the spot from which it was thrown?"

The Copernicans were silent, for they could assign no reason. "In the sixteenth century," says Professor De Morgan, "the wit of man could not imagine how, if the earth moved, a stone thrown directly upward would tumble down upon the spot it was thrown from." It was reserved for a man who was born on the same day Galileo died to furnish the reason.

Astronomy In 1633.

To one seeking for a demonstrated system, astronomy was then a hopeless chaos of irreconcilable facts--an impenetrable jungle of conflicting theories. That such was the actual condition of the science in Galileo's day, we find fully recognized and aptly described by a distinguished English Protestant, a great name in English literature, who, himself "an exact mathematician" and astronomer, was most active in research and observation precisely during the period of Galileo's greatest fame. We refer to Burton, author of the celebrated _Anatomy of Melancholy_.

This remarkable book was written by Burton during the years extending from 1614 to 1621, when the first edition was published. The subsequent editions of 1624, 1628, 1632, and 1638 were all issued during the life of the author, who died in 1639, a succession of years precisely covering the period of Galileo's controversies and trials; and yet its author, vicar of St. Thomas and rector of Segrave, (Church of England as by law established,) who never misses an opportunity ever so slight of giving Catholicity a thrust or a stab, makes 'mere mention' of Galileo's condemnation thus: "These paradoxes of the earth's motion which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical."

The truth is, that in that day the course pursued by the Congregation at Rome was generally approved even by Protestants. In their eyes, nothing but a paradox was condemned. Having exhausted all his proof, where does Galileo leave our exact English mathematician, who evidently read and knew of everything published on the subject in his day?

Why, Burton speaks of "that main paradox of the earth's motion now so much in question," and devotes five full pages to a presentation of all the theories then current, giving Galileo's as of no more value than the others! He thus sums them up:

"One offends against natural philosophy, another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as not answering to astronomical observations. One puts a great space between Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis, he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five upper planets; to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion; eccentrics and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly exploded; and so, _dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currant_, [Footnote 149] as a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself: reforms some and mars all. In the mean time, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their pleasures: one saith the sun stands; another, he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he finds certain spots and clouds in the sun. ...

[Footnote 149: "While they avoid one mistake, they run into the contrary."]

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And thus they disagree amongst themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemaeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus Tycho, thus Ramerus, thus Raeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and his adherents," etc.

Not a word here of Galileo.

The whole chapter is very curious, and will well repay the trouble of reading. See pages 323 to 329, London edition.

Notwithstanding his condition of paradox as seen by disinterested men of science, Galileo claimed three propositions as settled:

_First_. The system was demonstrated.

_Second_. He demonstrated it.

_Third_. His was the honor of furnishing the demonstration from the flux and reflux of the tides.

To these three propositions it is replied that the system was not at that day demonstrated by Galileo or by any one else, and that his tidal argument was worthless.

Indeed, a sufficient answer is found in the simple statement, in which all astronomers must certainly accord, that before the time of Sir Isaac Newton there was nothing to make the Copernican system more plausible and reasonable than the Ptolemaic theory, because the English astronomer first explained the one law on which planetary revolutions depended.

The theory of the earth's rotation was, in 1633, barely a matter of induction--strong, it is true, yet nothing more than induction. Strong, if the two arguments taken from the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter are duly weighed; but weak without them.

The discovery of the satellites of Jupiter was called by Herschel "the holding turn of the Copernican system," but Galileo had no conception of its value; he passed it by as insignificant, and settled down complacently upon the flux and reflux of the tides as the crowning proof. To this proof, and to no other, he clung during the citation of 1616.

Astronomers express great surprise that Galileo makes no mention of the belts of Jupiter, although they are visible with the aid of the smallest glass.

Zucchi, a Jesuit, was the first to note them in Rome, (1630.) In like manner, the discovery of the spots on the sun do not appear to have benefited him in ascertaining the sun's rotation. "Galilée," says Arago, "n'a pas non plus la moindre apparence de droit à la découverte du mouvement de rotation du soleil. On a vu les taches; aucune conséquence de cette observation n'est indiquée." [Footnote 150]

[Footnote 150: "Neither has Galileo the slightest apparent claim to the discovery of the sun's rotation. The spots are observed, but no deduction is drawn from the observation."]

The oversights concerning Jupiter are the more remarkable as Galileo's labors in investigation of the satellites were long and exhausting. It is only within a few years that this fact has been ascertained through the discovery by Professor Alberi of a long series of observations of the satellites of Jupiter, with tables and ephemerides drawn up for the purpose of comparing the longitude.

These manuscripts, described as a "mighty monument of his labors"--and doubtless they must be, for all his calculations were necessarily made without the aid of logarithms--were found in the Pitti Palace library, and are published by Alberi in the fifth volume of his magnificent edition of Galileo's work.

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Herschel says that the science of astronomy was yet in its infancy at the period of Newton's death, and after all that Newton had done for it. What, then, must we think of its condition in the hands of Galileo, with his toy telescope, his fallacious tidal theory, and his necessary ignorance of the great discoveries that followed him?

In 1618, he published his _Theory of the Tides_. In 1623, he again puts it forward in a letter to Ingulfi; and finally devotes the fourth and last day of the _Dialogue_ to the development of the same argument.

Nay, more, in this dialogue he scoffs at the simplicity of Kepler, who has had the temerity, after his (Galileo's) satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, to listen to such stuff as the occult properties of the moon's influence on the tides, and other like puerilities! We find by reference to a marginal note in the Padua edition of the _Dialogues_ at the Astor Library, that a prelate, Girolamo Borro, wrote a pamphlet setting forth the theory of the moon's influence on the tides, and Simplicio is made to quote him: "E ultimamente certo prelato ha publicato un tratello dove dice che la luna vagando per il cielo attrae e solleva verso di se un cumulo d'acqua, il quale va continualmente seguitanclo," etc. [Footnote 151]

[Footnote 151: "And lately a certain prelate has published a pamphlet, in which he says that the moon, traversing the heavens, attracts and draws after her a mass of water which continually follows," etc.]

Here Sagredo stops him abruptly, saying, "For heaven's sake, Signor Simplicio, let us have no more of that; for it is a mere loss of time to listen to it, as well as to confute it, and you simply do injustice to your judgment by regarding such or similar puerilities."

No wonder, as Bailli says, "la foule d'astronomes etaient centre!" [Footnote 152]

[Footnote 152: "The mass of astronomers were of the contrary opinion."]

Galileo died in profound ignorance of the true tidal theory, and the credit of pointing it out is ascribed by Mr. Drinkwater to the College of Jesuits at Coimbra.

But more than all this, Galileo had already made great mistakes, and committed errors that were publicly rectified by his contemporaries.

Thus, one of the most remarkable astronomical phenomena of the age, the three comets of 1618, was totally misunderstood by Galileo, who pronounced them atmospheric meteors.

The Jesuit Grassi, in his treatise _De Tribus Cometis_, (1618,) had the merit of explaining what had baffled Galileo, who at first held them to be planets moving in vast ellipses around the sun.

Charity For All.

In referring to these errors of Galileo, Laplace says that it would be unjust to judge him with the same rigor as one who should refuse at present to believe the motion of the earth, confirmed by the numerous discoveries made in astronomy since that period.

And John Quincy Adams, in a memorable discourse delivered at Cincinnati in 1843, says of Tycho Brahe, (who maintained that the earth is immovable in the centre of the universe,) "The religion of Tycho in the encounter with his philosophy obtained a triumph honorable to him, but erroneous in fact."

All which maybe very true; and if Laplace and Mr. Adams err at all, they err certainly on the side of charity and kindness.

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But are we to have one standard of justice for one class of men, and a far different one for another class? Is that which is excusable in an Italian and honorable in a Danish astronomer, ignorant, bigoted, and vile in a cardinal? Or is there any good reason why that which in Denmark is a "triumph of religion" should in Rome become a "victory of ignorance"?

Tycho Brahe, in his day a profound astronomer, noble and wealthy, devoting his whole life to science in unremitting observation of the heavens, with the aid of the most complete and costly apparatus in existence at the time, might surely be supposed to have reached a safer conclusion than an ignorant churchman.

And how, moreover, could such a churchman be expected to pin his faith to the sleeve of an astronomer like Galileo, whose errors and blunders were frequent and serious, and who, when in his conjectures he stumbled upon the truth, could hardly distinguish it from error, and was therefore as likely to give a bad as a good reason for his doctrine? Or, as M. Biot admirably expresses it, "si l'état imparfait de cette science l'exposait ainsi à donner parfois de mauvaises raisons comme bonnes, il faut pardonner à ses adversaires de n'avoir pas pu toujours distinguer les bonnes des mauvaises." [Footnote 153]

[Footnote 153: "If the imperfection of this science thus made him liable to give bad reasons for good, his adversaries should surely be pardoned for not always being able to distinguish the good from the bad."]

Anti-Catholic controversialists will persist in endowing the Galileo period with an amount of astronomical and physical science that then had no existence. Intelligent, industrious, and learned the cardinals of Galileo's day certainly were; but it is absurd to attribute to them or to their times a knowledge of the Copernican system, as afterward explained by Kepler, Newton, and two centuries of men of science. Kepler's _Laws of the Universe_ were not published until 1619, and even then, and long years afterward, who could possibly apply them until Newton's discoveries gave them force and authority?

If our modern sciolists, who prattle so much about "the ignorant and bigoted court of Rome," knew enough to be a little modest, they might take to heart the reflection of the great English essayist, and remember it is no merit of theirs that prevents them from falling into the mistakes of a cardinal "whose pens they are not worthy to mend." It certainly was asking a great deal of men that they should abandon settled tradition, the teachings of authority, the evidence of their senses, and the warrant of Scripture, as they understood it, to embrace a strange, startling, and incomprehensible doctrine, in no degree better off in demonstration than the old one. Even the weight of scientific authority was in their favor, as is readily seen when we look at the relative strength of

Copernican and Anti-Copernican.

Tycho Brahe was far from being alone in his dissent from Copernicus and Galileo. Saving only the bright spot made by Kepler and a few of his disciples, all Germany, France, and England were still in comparative darkness, and it is difficult to believe that at the period of Galileo's trial there were as many avowed Copernicans in all Europe together as in the single city of Rome.

In Germany, the new system was almost universally rejected, and Wolfgang Menzel, in his _History of Germany_, speaks of it as "die unter den Protestanten in Deutschland noch iminer bezweifelte Wahrheit des Copernikanischen Welt-systems." [Footnote 154:]

[Footnote 154: "The even yet (by German Protestants) contested truth of the Copernican system."]

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The frontispiece to Riccioli's _Almagestum Novum_, Astor Library copy, published in 1651, presents a curious illustration of the prevalent estimate of the new doctrines. A figure with a pair of balances is seen weighing the Tychonian against the Copernican system, and the truth of the former is shown by its overwhelming preponderance. Riccioli cites fourteen authors who up to that day had written in favor of the Copernican theory, and thirty-seven who had written against it. He adduces seventy arguments in favor of the Tychonian, and can find but forty-nine in support of the Copernican; consequently, the mere force of numbers proves the improbability of the latter.

In France, Ramus, the Huguenot Royal Professor at Paris, utterly refused the doctrine ten years after the death of Galileo.

Thomas Lydiat, a distinguished English astronomer of his day, and so good a scholar as to come victorious out of a controversy on chronology with Scaliger, openly opposed the Copernican system in his _Praelectio Astronomica_, (1605.) In fact, no man of astronomical acquirements of that day, and for more than fifty years afterward, dared risk the success of a book by putting in it anything favoring the Copernican theory.

Even as late as 1570, we find John Dee, an English Copernican, who, despairing of the ignorant prejudice around him, would not so much as hint at the existence of the system in his preface to _Billingsley's Euclid_.

In Great Britain, the system was discredited by the illustrious Gilbert. Milton, too, seems to have doubted it. Its most active opponent was Alexander Rosse, a voluminous Scotch writer, alluded to in _Hudibras_.

Hume tells us Lord Bacon "rejected the system of Copernicus with the most positive disdain." [Footnote 155] It is but fair to say, though, that this statement, like too many of Hume's, should be qualified. It is true that in his _De Augmentis_ Bacon says that the absurdity and complexity of the Ptolemaic system has driven men to the doctrine of the earth's motion, which is clearly false, "_quod nobis constat falsissimum esse;_" but, on the other hand, in the _Novum Organum_, he distinctly speaks of the question of the earth's motion as one to be examined. Now, the latter work, although published before, was written after the _De Augmentis_, which is less serious and argumentative than the _Novum Organum_.

[Footnote 155: Macaulay should have said, "theory of Copernicus," instead of "theory of Galileo." Bacon never credited Galileo with a system, and did not hold his scientific merits in much esteem.]

Even in 1705, the Hon. E. Howard published in London a work entitled _Copernicans of all Sorts Convicted_.

In 1806, Mercier, a Frenchman, wrote to prove "l'impossibilité des systèmes de Copernic et de Newton;" and even so recently as 1829 an individual was found so retrograde as to publish a work entitled The _Universe as it is; wherein the Hypothesis of the Earth's Motion is Refuted,_ etc., by W. Woodley.

The Undemonstrated Problem.

And now, having spied out the nakedness of the astronomic land throughout Europe, let us return for a moment to the scientific position of the tribunal that tried Galileo.

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What solid proof was presented to it? None whatever. And those familiar with the history of astronomy will readily recognize the fact that, so far from seeing in the new opinion a scientific novelty, they recognized in it substantially the old hypothesis of Pythagoras, which, after obtaining credit for more than five hundred years, was triumphantly displaced by the Ptolemaic theory; which was that the earth is a solid globe at rest in the centre of the universe, with the various planetary bodies revolving in larger and larger circles, according to the order of their distances.

The new doctrine had not even the form of a system:

"'Twas neither shape nor feature."

Indeed, as has been truly said, it was nothing more than a paradox for the support of which its authors had to draw upon their own resources.

High astronomical authority, Délambre, thus sums up the utter absence of proof, in Galileo's time, of the theory of the earth's rotation:

"What solid reason could induce the ancients to disbelieve the evidence of their senses? Yes, and even despite the immense progress which astronomy has subsequently made, have the moderns themselves been able to allege any one direct proof of the diurnal motion of the earth, previous to the voyage of Richer to Cayenne, where he was obliged to shorten his pendulum? Have they been able to discover one positive demonstration to the point, to prove the annual revolution of the earth, before Roemer measured the velocity of light, and Bradley had observed and calculated the phenomena of the aberration?

"Previous to these discoveries, and that of universal gravitation, were not the most decided Copernicans reduced to mere probabilities? Were they not obliged to confine themselves to preaching up the simplicity of the Copernican system, as compared with the absurd complexity of that of Ptolemy?"

What "solid reason," indeed, could be given? But Galileo in his presumption did not consider himself reduced to "mere probabilities," and, relying on his tidal fallacies and unexplained phenomena, sought to pass hypothesis for dogma, and his _ipse dixit_ for demonstration.

Of the great discoveries enumerated by Délambre, Galileo was necessarily ignorant, and we must insist upon the fact that the cardinals and the Inquisition were equally ignorant of them.

There was, in reality, no astronomical science in Galileo's time worth speaking of, except as we compare it with the astronomy that preceded it, which is the only fair test of its value. Compared with what Ptolemy knew, it was twilight.

Compared with what we know, it was darkness.

It is moderate to say that in 1633 astronomy was in its infancy. To all that was then known, add Kepler's magnificent labors, Torricelli's discovery, Newton's principle of gravitation, and all the English astronomer did for science--come down to the year 1727, in which he died, and what was the condition of astronomical science even then?

Herschel has told us: "The legacy of research which was left us by Newton was indeed immense. To pursue through all its intricacies the consequences of the law of gravitation; to account for all the inequalities of the planetary movements, and the infinitely more complicated and to us more important ones of the moon; and to give, what _Newton himself certainly never entertained a conception of,_ a demonstration of the stability and permanence of the system under all the accumulated influence of its internal perturbations; this labor and this triumph were reserved for the succeeding age, and have been shared in succession by Clairault, D'Alembert, Euler, Lagrange, and Laplace. Yet so extensive is this subject, and so difficult and intricate the purely mathematical inquiries to which it leads, that _another century may yet be required to go through the task_."

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The Legacy Of Research

left by Newton may truly be called "immense." And Herschel does well to modify his statement as to the "triumph," and postpone it yet another century.

For it must be borne in mind that no astronomical system is a strictly verifiable fact. The circulation of the blood is a verifiable fact, and it has been verified. No announcement of the discovery of a new demonstration of its truth could now attract any attention on account of its merits as proof.

Not so as to the earth's motion. The proofs of that have always been merely referential and cumulative. The final, the crowning point of demonstration has never been made, and probably never can be reached. Who can say that he ever saw the earth move? Hence it is that every successive item of cumulative evidence is hailed with pleasure and excitement. Thus was it with Torricelli's, Newton's, Richer's, Roemer's, and Bradley's discoveries; thus with all the brilliant inventions in mechanics by means of which the illustration and explanations of these discoveries became possible--explanations which, after all, not one man in a thousand can understand.

Post-Galilean Astronomy.

A few words in addition to what we have already said concerning the great discoveries made since Galileo's time, and we close.

Three of these discoveries, without which the Copernican theory as to demonstration would be but little better off than the Ptolemaic, merit special mention. They are:

_First_. The Newtonian theory of gravitation.

_Second_. The discovery of the shortened pendulum, showing the diurnal motion of the earth.

_Third_. The velocity and aberration of light, showing the annual motion.

It is scarcely necessary to enter into any detail concerning the so generally known, great, and universal principle of gravitation.

The Shortened Pendulum.

Up to the year 1672, no doubt had been entertained of the spherical figure of the earth, and, as a consequence, of the equality of all the degrees of the meridian; so that one being known, the whole circumference was determined.

In that year, the French Academy of Sciences, then occupied in the measurement of an arc in the meridian, sent the astronomer Richer to Cayenne, on the coast of South America, to make observations of the sun's altitude.

In the course of these observations he was surprised to find that a superior clock, furnished with a pendulum which vibrated seconds, was found to lose nearly two minutes and a half a day.

The astonishment created by the report of this fact in France was very great, particularly after the accuracy of the clock had been fully tested.

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Other scientific men then visited different points on the coasts of Africa and South America, and were convinced of the absolute necessity of shortening the pendulum to make it vibrate seconds in those latitudes.

The phenomenon was explained by Newton in the Third Book of his _Principia_ (1687)--see p. 409 _et seq._, American edition--where he shows it to be a necessary consequence of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the centrifugal force created by it. That force, in modifying the gravity, gives to the earth an oblate spheroidal figure, more elevated at the equator than on the poles, and makes bodies fall and pendulums vibrate more slowly in low than in high latitudes.

There is, unfortunately, such a thing as national jealousy even in science, and to such a motive only can we ascribe the fact that Newton's explanation was not accepted in France until presented by Huyghens, several years afterward, in a different and less accurate form.

The Velocity And Aberration Of Light.

In the entire range of scientific literature, there are few chapters of greater interest than those which recount the rise and gradual development of all the principles involved in the triumphant demonstration of these two beautiful discoveries.

They admirably illustrate the total ignorance of Galileo concerning a problem upon which he experimented with utter failure, as also the slow pace of scientific progress, and the necessity of the co-operative efforts of many men and many sciences to perfect it.

It required the genius and research of Roemer, Bradley, Molyneux, Arago, Fizeau, Foucault, and Struve, joined to the patient experiment and mechanical skill of Bréguet, Bessel, and Graham--the labor of all these men extending through a period of one hundred and ninety years (1672 to 1862)--to complete its demonstration.

And first, as to the velocity of light. In 1672, Roemer, a Danish astronomer residing in France, began observations on the satellites of Jupiter and their eclipses, which resulted in the discovery of progressive transmission of light and the determination of the value of its velocity. Up to his day, it had almost become a fixed principle that the passage of light through space was absolutely instantaneous.

From the time of Galileo, an immense mass of exact calculations of the eclipses of the first satellite of Jupiter had been accumulating, and Roemer found that at certain times the satellite came out of the shadow later, and at other times sooner, than it should have done, and this variation could not be accounted for on any known principles. Remarking that it always came too late from the shadow when the earth in its annual movement was at more than its mean distance from Jupiter, and too soon when it was at less, he formed the conjecture that light requires an appreciable time to traverse space.

Becoming satisfied of the truth of his theory, he, in September, 1676, announced to the French Academy of Sciences that an emersion of the first satellite, to take place, on the 16th of November following, would occur ten minutes later than it should according to ordinary calculation.

The event verified his prediction. Nevertheless, doubters and cavillers abounded, and Roemer's theory was not accepted without dispute. It was claimed that the delays and accelerations in the immersions and emersions, instead of being attributed to change of position of the observer, and to the progressive transmission of light, might be regarded as indicating a real perturbation in the movement of the satellite, due to a cause not yet discovered.

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These doubts were removed fifty years later by the English astronomer Bradley, who discovered the phenomenon of _aberration_, which consists in an apparent displacement which all the stars and planets experience on account of the combination of the velocity of the earth with the velocity of light.

Bradley's discovery was accidental. A superior instrument, constructed by Graham, and destined to observe with the greatest precision the passage of the stars near the zenith, had been placed at the observatory of Kew for the purpose by Molyneux.

Bradley used this instrument to arrive at some precise data of the annual parallax of the stars. His first observations led him to the discovery of _aberration_, the details of which, of the highest possible interest, may be found in the _Philosophical Transactions_, Royal Society, No. 406, December, 1728.

Thus confirmed by Bradley, Roemer's progressive transmission of light became an incontestable fact.

Then followed the experiments projected by Arago to determine the velocity of light, (1838,) which for eleven years remained a merely ingenious suggestion, until realized by MM. Foucault and Fizeau.

From 1840 to 1842, Struve, in Russia, made numerous observations to obtain the exact value of aberration.

In 1856, the Institute of France awarded to M. Fizeau, for his successful demonstration of Arago's suggestion, the triennial prize of thirty thousand francs founded by the emperor, "for the work, or the discovery, which, in the opinion of the five academies of the institute, has done most honor and service to the country."

Finally, in 1862, M. Foucault, perfecting his apparatus, measured the velocity of light by an admirable experiment in physics, which renders not only sensible, but even measurable, the time employed by light to run over a path of twenty metres, (65 feet 7.4 inches,) although this time barely equals 1/15000000 of a second!

And yet, after all this, there still remains a doubt as to positive certainty of accuracy in the calculations.

The sun's parallax, calculated from observations of the last transit of Venus over the disk of the sun in 1769, is fixed at 8.58 seconds, and on this basis is ascertained the distance from the earth to the sun.

For reasons too long to detail here, many distinguished astronomers are not entirely satisfied with the determination of 8.58 seconds, and prefer to wait for the next transit of Venus, in 1874, for a full and satisfactory solution of all doubts on the subject!

Conclusion And A Proposition.

Thus, after a lapse of two hundred and thirty-five years, filled with unremitting labor and triumphant results in the field of astronomical discovery, it appears from the showing of those most competent to judge that something yet remains to be produced in the way of demonstration of the astronomical system as now accepted.

We will not ask those who differ with us concerning the Galileo question to wait another century--the period assigned by Sir John Herschel as "requisite"! Herschel gave that opinion in 1828, which would send us to A.D. 1928 "to go through the task."

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As it might not probably be convenient either for us or for those who differ with us to resume the controversy in that year, namely, 1928, we will--in the spirit of compromise, and taking all the rest for granted--content ourselves with and abide by the "satisfactory solution" promised for 1874, to which period it would seem proper, on scientific grounds, to adjourn any attempt to show that a system not yet proved in 1868 was, nevertheless, fully demonstrated in 1633.

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"Out Of The Depths Have I Cried Unto Thee O Lord!"

A Christmas Sketch.

"Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants! And your purple shows your path, But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence Than the strong man in his wrath."

"If wishes were horses, beggars might ride," says the proverb.

What a pity it is that wishes are not horses!--that at seasons when almost every tongue drops the words, "A merry Christmas!" "A happy New-Year!" the will should not rise and breathe the breath of life into those words; make them move, make them work; put bit and bridle on them, and direct them to go where they are most needed. Wishes might then be made into very excellent horses, and beggars might ride at least once a year; might be lifted for a day out of the mire of care and suffering that dulls the light of heaven to their eyes, and stops out the voices of heaven from their ears; lifted into a belief in the humanity of man and the mercy of God; might be given a little restful journey into that easy land where the rich dwell every day.

There is more truth than poetry in the line,

"Leave us leisure to be good."

One who has no time for thought will almost certainly go astray; and men and women whose lives are spent in fighting the wolf from their doors, will fight him with whatever comes to hand, and will sometimes catch up strange weapons.

So it might chance that these living wishes may have wings also, and the beggar's soul may rise as well as his body.

I should like to set a regiment of such wishes galloping down Grind street this coming Christmas, and stopping at every door.

That was a sorrowful street a few years ago, and I don't know that it has grown merry since. A tall block of tenement-houses walled the northern side from end to end, leaving off so abruptly that, had they been written words instead of brick houses, there would have been a ---- after them. Indeed, if the reader has a fancy for a miserable pun, he might say that there _was_ a dash after them, houses being scarce.

A very sensitive person, on looking at that block, would be likely to straighten himself up, draw his elbows close to his sides, and feel as though his nose was unnecessarily large. It is not impossible that he might "toe in" a little in walking, unless he reached the next street. {454} Not a curve was visible in the whole block, horizontal and perpendicular reigning supreme. The mean brick front came to the very edge of the sidewalk, and the windows and doors were as flat as though they had been slapped in the face when in a soft state. Every house was precisely like every other house, and the only way of finding any particular one was by counting doors.

"These houses toe the mark," the builder had said when he looked on his completed work, standing complacently with his hands in his pockets, and his head a little on one side.

"Toe the mark" was the right phrase. The two meagre steps that led to each front door suggested the thought, and the whole had an air of soul obedience.

The tenants in this block were of that pitiable class called "decent," which generally means poor; too independent to beg, straining every nerve to live respectably, and making an extra strain to hide the first one; people whose eyes get a little wild at the prospect of sickness, who shudder at the thought of a doctor's bill and workless days, who sometimes stop their toil for a moment, and wonder what may be the meaning of such words as "ease," "contentment," "pleasure." There were clerks and book-keepers whose families burst out through their incomes in every direction; starving artists of all sorts; and the rest, people who toiled down in the dark, at the foundations over which soared the marble palaces of the rich, darkening heaven.

These people had got in a way of dressing alike; they had the same kind of curtains, and the same plants stretching beseeching shoots toward the tantalizing line of sunshine that let itself down, slow and golden, to the middle of the second floor windows, then drew back over the roofs of the houses opposite, while little flowers of all colors looked lovingly and reproachfully after it, cheated so day after day, but never quite losing faith that some day the bright-winged comforter would come quite down to their hearts.

Eyes of angels, to whom these roofs and walls were transparent, saw, doubtless, variety enough under the surface: aspirations that reached to the house-top and looked over; aspirations that soared even to the clouds and the stars, catching a heavenly likeness; aspirations that stopped not at the stars, but climbed so high that their flowers and fruitage hung in the unfailing sunlight of heaven beyond reach of earthly hands, but seen and touched by ineffable hopes ascending and descending. What dark desires crawling upon the earth and covering their own deeds those poor eyes looked upon, I say not; what hate, deep and bitter; what cankering envy and disappointment; what despair, that with two tears blotted the universe; what determination; what strongly rooted purpose; what careless philosophy eating its crust with a laugh. Let the angels see as they may, with human eyes we will look into one room, and find our story there.

This room is on the second floor, and consequently gets its windows half full of sunshine every pleasant afternoon. The furnishing of it shows that the occupants had seen better days; but those days are long past, as you can see by the shabbiness of everything. There are evidences of taste, too, in a hanging vase of ivy, a voluble canary, a few books and pictures; and everything is clean.

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It was a bright gloaming in December of 186-, when a woman sat alone in this room. She was evidently an invalid, looking more like a porcelain image than a flesh-and-blood woman, so white and transparent was she, so frail the whole make of her. Soft light-brown hair faintly sprinkled with gray was dropped beside each thin cheek, dovelike eyes of an uncertain blue looked sadly out from beneath anxious brows, and the mouth, which once must have expressed resolution, now, in its comparison, showed only endurance. This was a woman who had taken up life full of hope and spirit, but whom life had turned upon with blow after blow, till finally both hope and spirit were broken. Her days of enterprise were over.

She sat there with her hands listlessly folded, her work fallen unnoticed to the floor, and her eyes flushed with weeping. She had been sitting so an hour, ever since a visitor had left her; but, hearing a step on the stair and a child's voice singing, she started up, wiped her eyes, and mended the fire, her back turned toward the door as it opened.

A little girl of eight years old came in and gave her school-books a toss upon the table, crying out, in a boisterous, healthy voice, "O mother! I am starved! Give me something to eat."

"Supper will soon be ready, Nell," the mother said gently, drawing out the table.

"I can't wait!" cried the child. "My stomach is so empty that it feels as if there was a mouse there gnawing. You know we had nothing but bread and butter for dinner, and I do think that's a mean dinner. Why don't you have roast beef? I know lots of girls who have it every day."

"We can't afford it," the mother said falteringly. "Beef is very high."

"Well, what have you got for supper?" demanded the child. "You promised us something good."

"I have nothing but bread and butter, dear. I couldn't get anything else."

"Well, Mother Lane, I declare if that isn't too bad!" And the child flung herself angrily into a chair. "We don't have anything fit to eat, and I wish I could go and live with somebody that wouldn't starve me. I won't eat bread and butter, there now! I'm so sick of it that it chokes me."

The mother's face took a deeper shade, and her lip trembled, but she made no reply; and Nell sat angrily kicking her heels against the chair, and pouting her red lips.

Mrs. Lane knew well how vain is the attempt to teach a child gratitude for the necessaries of life. Children are grateful only for that which is superfluous, taking the rest as a matter of course, and they are not to be blamed either. For gratitude is a fruit, and not a flower, and those budding natures know not yet what it means. After a little while, another and a louder step sounded on the stairs, this time accompanied by a whistle; and the door opened noisily to give admittance to a boy of ten years old, who also flung his books down, and opened his cry:

"Mother, give me some money, quick! The oysterman is just at the end of the street, and I can get oysters enough for our supper for thirty cents. Hurry up, mother, or he'll go away!" And the boy performed a double-shuffle to relieve his impatience.

"I can't spare the money," his mother said faintly.

"Well, what have you got for supper, then?" he asked fretfully.

The mother made no answer, and the boy turned to his sister for an explanation.

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"Bread and butter!" said Nell, with an air of ferocious sarcasm.

"Well, if I ever!" pronounced her brother, standing still with his hands driven emphatically into the uttermost depths of his pockets, and looking at his mother with an air at once astonished and accusing. "If we live like this, I'll run away; see if I don't!"

She turned upon them with a look that was either desperate or angry.

"Children, wait till your sister comes home. Don't ask me for anything."

Frank gave the door a bang, pulled his cap still closer on to his head, since he ought to have pulled it off, and taking a seat by the window, sat kicking his chair in concert with his sister. The mother continued her preparations with the air of a culprit watched by her judges.

Unheard in this duet of heels, a softer step ascended the stairs, and a young lady opened the door and entered, a smile on her pretty face, her breath quickened and her color heightened by the run up-stairs, and waves of yellow hair drawn back from her white forehead. She tossed her hat aside, and sank into a chair.

"There, mother, I do feel tired and hungry," she said; then, catching a glimpse of her mother's face, started up, exclaiming, "What is the matter?"

"Mr. Sanborn has been here," Mrs. Lane answered unsteadily, without looking up.

The daughter's countenance showed her anticipation of evil news.

"And what of that?" she asked.

"He has raised the rent," was the faint answer.

"How much?"

"Eight dollars a month?"

"Impossible!" cried the daughter, flushing with excitement. "We pay now all that the three rooms are worth. He knows what my salary is, and that I cannot give any more."

"He says he can get that for the rooms," her mother said.

"Then we will go elsewhere!"

"We cannot!" whispered the mother despairingly, for the first time raising her woeful eyes. "Every place is full. They are going to tear down houses to widen two or three streets, and Mr. Sanborn says that people will have to go out of town to live."

"What are we to do!" exclaimed the girl, pacing excitedly to and fro. "We only just managed to get along before. Did you tell him, mother?"

"I told him everything, Anne; and he said that he was very sorry, but that his family _was_ an expensive one, and it cost him a good deal to live; and, in short, that he must have the eight dollars more."

"He is a villain!" cried Anne Lane. "And I will tell him so. I should think his family was an expensive one. Look at their velvets, and laces, and silks! Look at their pictures and their curtains! One of my scholars told me to-day that Minnie Sanborn said they were going to have a Christmas-tree that will cost five hundred dollars. Think of that! And this is the way they pay for it!"

"Don't say anything to him, Anne," pleaded her mother, in a frightened tone. "Remember, he is one of the committee, and can take your school away from you."

The young teacher's countenance fell. It was true; her employment did, in some measure, depend on the good-will of this man.

She choked with the thought, then broke out again.

"The hypocrite! I have seen him at prayer-meetings, and heard him make long prayers and pious speeches."

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The mother sighed, and remained silent. She had been wont to check her daughter's somewhat free animadversions, and to make an effort, at least, to defend them of whom Anne said, "Their life laughs through and spits at their creed;" but now the bitter truth came too near.

There was a moment of silence, the children sitting still and awed, the mother waiting despondently, while the fatherless girl, who was the sole dependence of the household, did some rapid brain-work.

"You think he really means it, mother?" she asked, without pausing in her walk.

"Yes, there is no hope. I almost went on my knees to him."

There the widow's self-control broke down suddenly, and, putting her hands over her face, she burst into a passion of tears.

It is a terrible thing to see one's mother cry in that way; to see her, who soothed our childish sorrows, who seemed to us the fountain of all comfort, herself sorrowing, while we have no comfort to give.

Anne Lane's face grew pale with pain, and it seemed for a moment that she, too, would lose courage. But she was a brave girl, and love strengthened her.

"There, there, mother!" she said. "Don't cry! I guess we can make out some way. Couldn't we do with two rooms? I could sleep with you and Nell, and Frank could have a pillow out here on the sofa."

"I thought of that," the mother sobbed drearily. "But he said that the rooms go together."

The girl's breath came like that of some wild creature at bay.

"Then we must draw in our expenses somewhere. We must give up our seats in church, and I will do the washing."

"I meant to do the washing, dear," her mother said eagerly. "And perhaps I might get some work out of the shops. You know I have a good deal of time to spare."

Even as she spoke, a sharp cough broke through her words, and her face flushed painfully.

"No, mother, no!" the daughter said, resolutely holding back her tears. "You are not able to work. Just leave that to me. Washing makes round arms, and I find my elbows getting a little sharp. I can save money and bring the dimples back at the same time."

There was a knock at the door, and their laundress came in, a sober, sensible-looking Irishwoman.

"Good-evening, ma'am! Good-evening, miss! No, I won't sit down. I must go home and take my young ones off the street, and give 'em a bit of supper. I just stepped in to see if you want your washing done to-morrow."

Mrs. Lane looked appealingly to her daughter to answer.

"We are sorry, Mrs. Conners," Anne said, "but we shall have to do our own washing, this winter."

"O Lord!" cried the woman, leaning against the wall.

"There is no help for it," the girl continued, almost sharply, feeling that their own distresses were enough for them to bear. "Our rent has been raised, and we must save all we can."

"Oh! what'll I do, at all?" exclaimed the woman, lifting both hands.

"Why, the best you can; just as we do," was the impatient reply.

Mrs. Conners looked at them attentively, and for the first time perceived signs of trouble in their faces.

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"The Lord pity us!" she said. "I don't blame you. But my rent is raised, too. I've got to pay five dollars a month for the rooms I have, and I don't know where I'll get it. It's little I thought to come to this when Patrick was alive--the Lord have mercy on him! The last thing he said to me when he went away to California was, 'Margaret, keep up courage, and don't let the children on the street; and I'll send you money enough to live on; and I'll soon come back and buy us a little farm.' And all I ever heard of him, since the day he left me, is the news of his death. Now I'll have to take the children and go to the poor-house. All I could do last winter only kept their mouths full, let alone rent. I couldn't put a stitch on them nor me; and you wouldn't believe how cold I am with no stockings to my feet, and little enough under my rag of a dress. I couldn't buy coal nor wood. The children picked up sticks in the street, and after my work was over I had to go down to the dump, and pick coal till my back was broke."

"Who is your landlord?" Mrs. Lane asked.

"Mr. Mahan--Andrew Mahan, that lives in a big house in the square. And he asks five dollars for two rooms in that shanty, that's squeezed into a bit of a place where nothing else would go. Besides, the house is so old that the rats have ate it half up, and what's left I could carry off on my back in a day. When Mr. Mahan came to-day, his dog crawled through the door before it was opened. I said to him, says I, 'Sir, when the wind and the rain take possession of a house, it belongs to God, and no man has a right to ask rent for it.' You see, I was mad. And so was he, by that same token."

"But he is an Irishman, and a member of your own church," said Anne.

"And why not?" demanded the woman. "Do you think that Yankees are the only ones that grind the poor? Yes, Mr. Mahan is rich, and he lives in style, and sends his daughters to a convent school in Montreal. And often I've seen him in church, dressed in his broad-cloths, and beating his breast, with his face the length of my arm, and calling himself a sinner; and troth, I thought to myself, 'that's true for ye!'"

Anne Lane went into her school-room the next morning with a burning heart, and it did not soothe her feelings to see Mr. Sanborn, her landlord, appear at the door, a few minutes after, smilingly escorting a clerical-looking stranger, who had come to visit the school.

Mr. Sanborn, though not an educated man, chose to consider himself a patron of education; made himself exceedingly consequential in school affairs, and had now brought a distinguished visitor to see his pet school, the "Excelsior." Anne Lane had one of the show-classes, and he began the exhibition with her.

"Commence, and go on with your exercises just as if there were no one here," he said, with a patronizing smile, after they had taken their seats. "This gentleman wishes to see the ordinary daily working of our system."

The first exercise was a reading from the Bible, and a prayer by the teacher, and Anne's fingers were unsteady as she turned over the leaves for a chapter. Her eyes sparkled as she caught sight of one, and her pulses tingled as she read, her fine, deliberate enunciation and strong emphasis arresting fully the attention of her hearers:

"Times are not hid from the Almighty: but they that know him, know not his days.

"Some have removed landmarks, have taken away flocks by force, and fed them.

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"They have violently robbed the fatherless, and stripped the poor common people.

"They have taken their rest at noon among the stores of them, who after having trodden the wine-presses suffer thirst.

"Out of the cities they have made men to groan; and God will not suffer it to pass unrevenged.

"Cursed be his portion upon the earth: let him not walk by the way of the vineyards.

"Let him pass from snow-water to excessive heat, and his sin even to hell.

"Let mercy forget him: may worms be his sweetness; let him be remembered no more, but be broken in pieces like an unfruitful tree."

Closing the book then, Anne Lane dropped her face into her shaking hands, and repeated, almost inaudibly, the Lord's prayer.

Mr. Sanborn was not dull, but he was incredulous. It was almost impossible that this little school-mistress would dare to mean _him_. Yet that new sternness in the young face, ordinarily so smiling, the passion in her voice, with the remembrance of his last interview with Mrs. Lane, altogether made up a pretty strong case against her.

"She makes a strange selection from the Scriptures to read to children," whispered the stranger to him, as Anne hurriedly went through with the first recitations.

"Very strange, sir! very strange!" answered the other, stammering with anger. "And what is worse, it is intended as an insult to me. I have found it necessary to raise the rent of my houses. She is a tenant of mine, and this is her revenge. I hope, sir, that if you have anything to say on the subject, you will not hesitate to speak freely."

The Rev. Mr. Markham sat and considered the case, laying down certain points in his mind. Firstly, women should be sweet, humble, and modest. Secondly, sweetness, modesty, and humility, with firmness and patience, should especially characterize a teacher of youth. Thirdly, persons in authority, clergymen, school-committee men, etc., should be treated with scrupulous respect by all their subordinates.

The reverend gentleman put on his spectacles, the better to see this young woman who had so boldly vetoed his fundamental doctrines. She held herself very erect, no modest droop whatever; there was a little flicker of heat-lightning in her eyes, and a steady, dark-red spot on each cheek; moreover, she had red hair. Verdict for the plaintiff. She must have a reprimand, a warning, and, on repetition of the offence, must be informed that she is no longer considered a suitable person to mould the minds of youth.

Poor little Anne Lane! This great, stupid, conceited man did not dream that her aching heart was laden with sweetness as a hive with honey, and that what he called a sweet woman was a sugar-coated woman. He did not allow that there might be some exceptions to his third rule. The reprimand was delivered pitilessly, the warning made sufficiently plain then, the two gentlemen withdrew, leaving the teacher pale and stunned. The visitor had taken the coldest possible leave, and Mr. Sanborn had not noticed her at all.

"Oh! why did I yield to anger?" she thought, in terror and distress. "What right have the poor to feelings, to thoughts? How dare they denounce wrong, even when they die by it? What was I thinking of?"

A thrill of pain ran through her every nerve at this last question.

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She had been thinking all the time of her mother's sobbing words, "I almost went on my knees to him!"

The month crept on toward Christmas. Unknown to her daughter, Mrs. Lane had spent day after day going about the shops and vainly soliciting work. She had not sufficient clothing to protect her from the weather; she was weakened by sorrow and anxiety, and the disease, which had long been threatening and reaching out for her, made a final grasp. With a terror, all the more terrible in that she could not speak of it, she felt her lungs give way and her breath grow shorter. What would her young children do without her? If she should be long ill, how were the doctor's bills to be paid? How were the funeral expenses to be met? What crushing burden, beside the sorrow, was she going to lay upon the already burdened shoulders of her poor little girl? She only prayed that the blow might fall swiftly. Poor people can't afford to die leisurely.

One day, about a week before Christmas, Anne came home and found her mother lying senseless upon the floor. Mrs. Lane had held up as long as she could, and now her powers of endurance were gone. But she had her prayer, for the blow fell swiftly. On Christmas morning all her troubles passed away.

Christmas evening came, and all was still in the house. The neighbors had kindly done what they could, and two of them sat with the lifeless form of what had once been the mother of these children. Frank and Nell had cried themselves to sleep, and Anne was left with the night upon her hands. She could not sleep, and she could not pray. The faith that comforts in sorrow she knew not. She had wept till her head reeled, and the air of the house stifled her.

"I must get out and take the air, or I shall go crazy," she thought. And, dressing hastily, she went out into the bright and frosty night. She wandered aimlessly about the streets, scarcely knowing where she went; not caring, indeed, so long as she walked and felt the wind in her face.

"Christ on earth?" she thought. "I don't believe it! It's all a fable."

On her way she met Mrs. Conners, weeping bitterly. She was going to the watch-house after her little girl. Biddy had stolen a turkey from a shop-window, and a policeman had caught her.

"It is the first thing the child ever stole," the poor woman said; "and what made her do it was hunger. We haven't had a taste of meat in the house this month, and poor Biddy heard the other girls tell what they had for dinner, and it made her mad."

Anne listened as one in a dream, and went on without a word. Presently she came into a sharp glare of light that fell across the sidewalk from a brilliantly illuminated window. She paused to look in, not because she cared what it was, but because she longed for distraction. There was a long suite of parlors, showily if not tastefully furnished, and filled with a gay company, many of them children. In the farthest end of the rooms stood a magnificent Christmas-tree, decked with colored candles, flowers, and fruits, and hanging full of presents. The company were all assembled about the tree, and, as she looked, a smiling gentleman stepped up, with the air of a host, and began to distribute the Christmas gifts.

Anne Lane's heart stood still when she recognized Mr. Sanborn.

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"O you murderer!" she moaned, as she sank exhausted on the icy steps. "Your candles and your flowers are red with my mother's blood!"

When the Christmas angels looked down upon the earth that night to see how fared the millions, to whom in the morning they had sung their song of joy, their eyes beheld alike the rich man in his parlor and the stricken girl who lay outside his door.

Did they record of him that he had "kept the feast," and worthily remembered one who came that day "to fill the hungry with good things"?

Or did they write against him the fearful judgment which had once already sounded in his ears,

"Let mercy forget him: Let him be remembered no more"?

----------

The General Convention Of The Protestant Episcopal Church.

The General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which has just closed its labors, was looked forward to with much interest by all Episcopalians. Each of the two important sections of which their communion is composed was anxious for a better explanation of some disputed points, or, at least, for a vindication of its own interpretation of doctrine. It was supposed that something would be settled in regard to the many vexed questions of dogma and ritual which perplex the public no less than the members of the church itself. For even the public are interested to know what a church believes and professes, and especially if that church makes any pretensions to authority. On a careful review, however, of the journal, we believe that, while a few are gratified, many are disappointed. Some are gratified that no direct attack was allowed against their own favorite opinions; while both High-Churchmen and Low-Churchmen stand precisely where they stood before, no nearer each other, and no better satisfied with the condition of things. Moderation, we are told, is the characteristic of the Episcopal Church, by which we are led to understand the sweet blending of contrarieties and contradictions, and the permission to every one to believe what approves itself to his private judgment. Catholics can hardly comprehend such a harmony in discord, or discord in harmony. Even candid minds, with no religious bias, are unable to appreciate how contrary doctrines can be held in one and the same church, and by equal authority. Our own opinion of this convention is, that it has accomplished nothing for doctrine, nothing to heal the disputes of its members, very little for discipline, and not very much for the extension of the Episcopal communion, although some of the plans proposed are good in themselves. We strongly incline to think that very many Episcopalians will coincide with our judgment. Under these three heads--of doctrine, discipline, and church extension--let us briefly review the labors of the convention.

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I. It seems that the Nicene Creed was under consideration, and that there was a strong intention to restore it to its "original form;" but the _Church Record_ says that it was left untouched _for the present_. If this important and ancient symbol had been altered, there would have been quite an advance in doctrine. A committee has been appointed to prepare an accurate translation from the original Greek for the use of the next convention. It therefore bides its time, when the same body which expunged the Athanasian Creed may leave out the proper doctrine of the Trinity, or the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, or the communion of saints, or any other point of Christian dogma. Nevertheless, by this convention nothing was done on this subject.

The project of bracketing those portions of the Prayer-Book which embody the doctrine of baptismal regeneration was not favored by the committee on canons; and a motion to refer a proposition for striking out the words, "Whosesoever sins thou dost remit, they are remitted," was very summarily disposed of. It was decided not to alter anything, to leave regeneration in the baptismal service for the gratification of High-Churchmen, and also the denial of it in the Articles for the consolation of Low-Churchmen.

This was the wisest course, and on this point we record with satisfaction, "Nothing done."

As to the ordinal, the bishops are not obliged to say, "Whose sins thou dost remit," etc., when they do not believe it, as it is only to be used at option, and can therefore put the whole offensive doctrine in their pockets. Why, then, should the wisdom of an ecclesiastical body be disturbed on a mere matter of opinion? Here, again, nothing was done.

So by the convention in both orders, nothing has been done in the way of doctrine, save to leave all matters precisely as they were, in full freedom for both sides. And here an anecdote comes forcibly to our memory which illustrates the moderation and liberty of the Episcopal communion. A young candidate was under examination for deacon's orders before one of the oldest and wisest of the High-Church bishops. "How," said that prelate, "do you receive the Thirty-nine Articles?" "I receive them," said the candidate, "in such a way as not to contradict the rest of the Prayer-Book." "Perfectly right," replied the bishop; "and moreover, it is the General Convention which imposes the articles upon you, and this body is composed of all degrees of churchmen, from those who hang on the walls of Rome to those who breathe the atmosphere of Geneva. Between these two extremes, my son, you have perfect liberty." And the young man was made a deacon, and went away rejoicing that he had freedom of conscience and a wide range of opinion, which he certainly had. But if the Lower House, consisting of ministers and laymen, has been so prudent, the Upper House has terribly committed itself. In the Catholic Church the bishops alone are allowed to give judicial opinions in doctrine; while among the Episcopalians, we believe that both houses of the convention are equally authoritative, and, that one has a negative upon the other. What the bishops have done, therefore, does not propose to bind the conscience of any one, we presume; yet certainly their solemn pastoral ought to be received with great respect, and be considered at least as an indication of the doctrinal position of their church. In this pastoral, we find some remarkably interesting points, in regard to which, though we may say nothing was _done_, we cannot say nothing was spoken.

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This address to the whole Episcopalian body asserts first that "the incarnate God hath committed the great commission wherewith he came into the world to _fallible_ men." What, then, is to prevent the utter failure of this great commission, and the complete ruin of all Christ's work? "To his ministers," saith the pastoral, "thus weak and subject to error, he hath given his infallible word, that, without peril of misleading their flock, they may instruct them with all authority by speaking always according to the Scriptures." Who is to know, then, that these ministers speak according to the Scriptures, especially when they differ one from another? Bishop Lee spoke very plainly at the opening of the convention, and his interpretation of the Scriptures gave some offence. Common sense pauses for a reply. Each one must decide for himself whether his minister speaks according to the Bible; and this being granted (which is the fundamental position of all Protestant bodies) we do not see the use of ministers, much less of bishops, much less of a council of bishops. Christ's great commission, according to the Episcopalian prelates, hinges on the chance that the Bible will be circulated and rightly interpreted. The history of religion since the Reformation does not cause us to think much of this chance.

The next point asserted in the pastoral is the necessity of communion with the visible church. It is indeed asserted somewhat equivocally, and with a _caveat_, that "the proper individuality of every soul must not be merged in its corporate relations to the body of Christ," an expression which we do not at all understand. How the merging is to be accomplished we do not see, unless by some physical process, and we are very glad the bishops do not recommend it. Yet they say that "the necessity of membership in the communion of which Christ is the head, is a truth of vital importance." We presume they mean here a union with the _visible_ body of Christ, for otherwise they would really assert nothing, since what Christian denies the necessity of union with Christ? And again, where would be the danger of merging an individual in an invisible body?

But then comes the great question, Where is the body of Christ, with which membership is necessary? Do the bishops mean to say it is the Episcopal Church, and that it is necessary to belong to their communion in order to be saved? We do not really know what they mean, but are quite persuaded that they do not intend to unchurch all the rest of mankind, and hence come to the conclusion that these words are to be taken in a figurative sense, that having spoken _much_ they have said nothing.

Now comes the great trouble which oppresses the prelates. "The unscriptural and _uncatholic_ pretensions of the Bishop of Rome, as in times past, so now, are a fruitful source of error and evil." The pope has done all the mischief, he did it in the early times, he did it in the middle ages, and he will keep doing it now. What is it that he does "which is the bar to the restoration of the unity of Christendom?" Why, he fulfils the promise of our Lord: "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." {464} There is no visible body without a head, and he is that head by the appointment of Christ. We think the blame ought to be laid upon him who founded the church and made the Papacy. He made his church to be _one_, with one head, when it seems that he ought to have made it capable of division.

The bishops then urge upon their brethren to teach that "Jesus Christ is the living centre of unity;" that "his true vicar is the Holy Ghost;" that "the visible expression of catholic unity is the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers."

Is it the English language which here we read, and is it our mother-tongue which thus is made to confuse our minds? If any one understands these phrases, we compliment him upon his sagacity. We do not honestly believe that the venerable prelate who wrote them knows what he means, or intends others to know.

"Jesus Christ is the living centre of unity." Certainly; but we have been speaking of a _visible_ unity, and Jesus Christ is not visible to us. The vicar of Christ is the Holy Ghost, a singular office for the third person-of the undivided Trinity, and he is not visible either. The invisible Christ has an invisible vicar on earth, and this is the coequal and coeternal Spirit! The visible expression of Catholic unity is the "apostles' doctrine and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers."

Oh! for the good and honest heart among the Episcopalians to see that these words are empty sounds which mean nothing at all. "Where is the apostles' doctrine and fellowship?" Is it in the Episcopal Church alone, and if not, where is it? The bishops ought to have said that _their_ doctrine was the apostles', that _their_ fellow ship was the apostles', or if they had doubts on the point, they should have told us unequivocally where to find these important and absolutely necessary "expressions of catholic unity." We are here reminded of an old negro who in our young days used to speak Latin fluently; but as his phrases were made up of plural genitives, we could only hear the sonorous "_Bonorum, filiorum, malorum, optimorum_," without comprehending one single word. In like manner, with at least the common intelligence which God has given us, we do not comprehend this pastoral, unless it really means, in circumlocution, to say nothing.

The bishops then go on to defend the Anglican reformation, and hold up to condemnation the attempts made by some High-Churchmen to disparage it. And in this connection they "especially condemn any doctrine of the Holy Eucharist which implies that after consecration the proper nature of bread and wine does not remain, which _localizes_ in them the bodily presence of our Lord, which allows any adoration other than that of Christ himself." Here we do think the prelates have said something, and we can understand what they mean. We would have preferred that they should have used language more direct, and without any insinuations. But we understand them to say that the bread and wine are unchanged by their consecration, and that there is no presence of Christ at all in the Eucharist. For as he is very man, his presence must necessarily be a _bodily_ one, and must be localized. We Catholics adore the blessed sacrament only because it is Christ himself; because the bread and wine are changed into his body. {465} The bishops here deny any such presence of Christ, and go on to assert that the humanity of our Lord is only to be found at the right hand of God in heaven.

For this reason, very appropriately, the ceremonies of the ritualists are denounced, because they are built upon a doctrine which supposes Christ to be present on the altar. Will it now be believed that the organ of the ritualists, in New York, expresses itself pleased with this part of the pastoral? We blush for the insincerity and dishonesty of men who love to call themselves "_Catholic priests_." They are satisfied with this open denial of any real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and "they will work on with new vigor, cheered and _sustained_ by the admonitions of their fathers in God." If such admonitions cheer them, what kind of admonition would dishearten them?

No, my friends, you are not cheered, nor sustained; but being determined to make the best of your cause, you strive to look pleasant. God is the judge. You may deceive yourselves and mislead others, but you are responsible to him for calling white black, and black white.

On questions of doctrine we find, then, that the convention has done nothing, save that the bishops have asserted, on their own authority, that Christ's commission has been committed to a _fallible_ instrumentality; that communion with the body of Christ is necessary, while no instructions are given as to what and where that body is to be found; that the pope is the great obstacle to catholic unity; that the vicar of our Lord on earth is the Holy Ghost; that the Anglican reformation is good and to be imitated; that there is no presence whatever of Christ in the Holy Eucharist; and that the extravagances of the ritualists are entirely to be condemned.

We do not remember any ecclesiastical body which has said more striking things than these; but as no canons have been made, we must only take them as the opinions of the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1868.

II. In regard to discipline, we find that there were discussions on many subjects, but that very few laws were passed.

In the early part of the session, an attempt was made to change the name of their body from "General Convention" to "National Council," or something similar. The disputes were quite racy, one member insisting that "convention" was a _dirty_ word. But the delegates were unwilling to rebaptize themselves, and after three or four days the whole thing was dropped.

The singing by the boys in surplices, which we believe is usual in Trinity chapel, was so much objected to by some of the members, that they withdrew from the church during the service, until the point was conceded and the boys were put away. No canon, however, was introduced on this subject. Shortly after, the sessions of the deputies were removed to the church of the Transfiguration, where the _Church Record_ tells us that "the music was led by some of the deputies, and a beautiful marble altar, with a _large_ brass cross, and a pair of candlesticks _with candles_, added to the solemnity of the scene." We are glad that our ritualistic friends had such great consolations.

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The question of adopting the provincial system of the Catholic Church, which would have practically made Dr. Potter an archbishop and Bishop Smith a kind of patriarch, was under consideration, but finally gave way to the "federation of dioceses," which means, we believe, the small convention of a few dioceses, instead of the large one of them all. The small one is, however, to be subject to the large one.

A canon was passed that no clergyman shall unite in marriage any divorced persons having a husband or wife living, except the innocent party in a suit for divorce on the ground of adultery. This is a great advance toward the law promulgated by our Lord, St. Matthew v. 32 and xix. 9. The next time they will probably take the whole verse, and adopt the latter clause, as well as the former. We congratulate the Episcopal Church upon this really serious improvement in a practice pregnant with great evil.

Some canons were also adopted concerning clerical support and the trials of ministers, which have no general interest and need not here be enumerated.

The Rev. Mr. Tyng and his friends were quite anxious to get the canon, in pursuance of which he was admonished, altered or interpreted; but after several discussions they failed to accomplish anything favorable to their cause, the temper of the majority of the convention being adverse to any changes. A slight amendment to what the _Church Record_ calls the "canon on _intrusion_" was passed, and the officiating of _dissenting_ ministers is positively forbidden. The most unpleasant part of this matter is that, in the opinion of the Low-Churchmen, the canon is not yet quite clear. They do not understand it as some of their brethren do; and we are told that, even during the session of the convention, the Rev. Mr. Tyng permitted a Presbyterian minister to preach in his church.

A very important improvement was made, however, by which Catholic priests who leave the church, and desire to become Episcopalian ministers, shall be put upon a longer probation. Heretofore only six months were necessary; now a full year is required. We think this change important for the Episcopal Church, because, as far as our experience goes, priests, who put themselves in such a position, require quite a long period to fit themselves for so honorable a profession. We hope, for the well-being of the Protestant Episcopal ministry, they will at the next convention extend this probation to six years. They may rest assured they will have no cause to regret it.

The subject of ritual attracted considerable attention. Various memorials were presented against the innovations of late days, by which the practices of the Catholic Church have been fitted into the Prayer-Book. It was proposed to prohibit by canon the wearing of other vestments than the surplice, black stole, bands, and gown; surpliced choirs, candlesticks, crucifixes, super-altars, bowing at the name of Jesus, the use of the sign of the cross, elevation of the _elements_ or _of the alms_, and the use of incense. After some excitement, the whole matter was referred to the committee on canons, who, being divided in opinion, gave two contradictory reports. The majority report recommends moderation and forbearance, that every one be careful to do right, and that then there can be no just cause of offence. In any doubt as to what is right, reference should be made to the Ordinary, whose godly counsel in each diocese should be the rule of opinion. {467} The minority of the committee were in favor of passing a law forbidding the objectionable practices which we have enumerated. After a very protracted discussion, neither of the reports was accepted; but a resolution was adopted which asks "the House of Bishops to set forth at the next convention such additional rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer as, in their judgment, may be decided necessary;" and that in the meanwhile reference should be made in each case to the diocesan. The House of Bishops replied that, while they would not think of altering the Prayer-Book, they would consider the whole subject, with a view to action, if it should be thought expedient at the next convention.

Thus the whole matter is postponed for three years, and, in the interim, ritualists must seek such dioceses as are favorable to their views. While Dr. Potter has no objection to the use of Catholic vestments, we see no reason why Dr. Dix and his friends should not come out at once with the chasuble and the incense. We earnestly hope, for the cause of honesty and truth, that they will do so. The case is different under the _régimes_ of Bishops Coxe and McIlvaine who are seriously opposed to any alterations of the existing ritual. Ritualists must migrate to the bishops whose godly counsels will allow them freedom of action. It is true, as we have seen, that the pastoral of the whole House of Bishops condemns their practices; but in spite of this each one of the prelates may have his own counsel, "not having merged his individuality in his corporate relations to the body of Christ."

III. It remains to consider what the convention has done in regard to the extension of their own church, as was its first interest. Under this head we can briefly review what was said upon the relations of the Episcopal Church to other Christian bodies, and the views expressed by the deputies upon the condition and growth of their own communion.

In regard to other Christian denominations, the Episcopal Church is singularly unfortunate. It has communion with no other body of Christians in the entire world. It objects to the other Protestant sects, on the ground that they are irregular, and refuses to allow any of their ministers to officiate in its churches, as we have seen by "the canon on intrusion." It calls itself a _branch_ of the catholic church, that is to say, those who speak for it call it by this title. The other branches are the Eastern churches and the Roman Catholic Church; at least, we are told so by those who say anything on this branch theory. With these other branches the Episcopal Church has no communion, however, and is not likely to have any. Nothing need be said of the Roman Church, for its action and language have always been decided and clear. But the Eastern branches have condemned the Anglican doctrine and orders much more plainly than the Episcopalians have condemned their Protestant brethren. Not one single instance has been found where a Greek bishop has been willing to give communion to a member of the Anglican branch, without the abjuration of his errors; and the rejection of the orders of the English ministers is as unequivocal in the East as it is in the West. Moreover, the doctrines specially condemned by the Thirty-nine Articles are held as firmly in the Eastern branch as in the Western. With all due respect, therefore, we agree with Bishop Lee, and say that, if the Episcopal Church is not a Protestant church, it has no right to be a church at all. Why then do our High-Church friends hanker after the patronage of the Greek Church? {468} It will not help them any as far as the Catholics are concerned, and it will certainly fail to make the disinterested public think any better of their claims. They may go upon their faces before the Archbishop of Moscow, and "compromise themselves;" but though like a gentleman he will treat them with courtesy, he will have a meaner opinion of them, and in his heart will say, "Gentlemen, if you have no feet of your own to stand upon, it seems to me you had better sit down."

The High-Churchmen, who seemed to have had the upper hand in the convention, have established a committee on church unity. This able body is to labor on this important subject, with probably the same results as hitherto. No care seems to be given to the thousand Protestant bodies who came into the world either before or after the Episcopal Church. They are out of the question, and, if they want religious unity, must look for it by themselves. But all attention is devoted to the East, where, if they could get even a passing smile, as if of recognition, it would do their hearts good. Perhaps now they will get it, because they have gone so far as to recognize the jurisdiction of the Greek Church in Alaska. The _Church Record_ calls this a great advance, and we suppose it means that they will send no ministers to Alaska, because, if they did, it would conflict with the authority of the Greek bishop. This makes it bad for any Episcopalian who may go up there, since they will have no church to go to. The Greek Church will not admit them to its communion, and they cannot have any, of their own. The upholders of the branch-theory must, however, put up with this small inconvenience.

Three years are now to be spent in making an accurate translation of the Nicene Creed in "the original Greek." Then we expect to see "the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son" omitted in the Prayer-Book. The question is not whether it is true, or whether the Scriptures teach it. The only question is, Does the Eastern branch receive it? If it does not, then it must go. But we venture to inquire if the learned committee has made itself sure that the authorities at Moscow will be satisfied with this simple concession. We know that there is no evidence like that of sight, and hence respectfully recommend the authorities of the convention to go to the East, and there ask for a recognition. Then, when three years come around, we shall hear some positive answer. It would be a pity to alter the Creed, without any recompense whatever.

Sympathy is also expressed with the Italians who are trying to subvert the temporal power of the pope, and especially with those priests who would like to reform the Catholic Church after the model of the Anglican communion. One gentleman of much information asked, in the convention, if there really was any movement of the kind in Italy. He said he had read many travels, and had travelled himself extensively, and had never seen or heard of any _good_ priests who were disposed to turn Protestants, and as for the bad ones, he had not much faith in them. The committee replied that, in their opportunities for correspondence, they had seen much, and the results would one day appear. We wait in patience, then, to see how many good and moral priests will appear in what will probably be called the Protestant Episcopal Church in Italy. {469} As the East, however, is nearer to them than the United States, and as England is somewhat passive, we would suggest that this new church be placed, for a time at least, under the jurisdiction of some Greek bishop. This will be more convenient, and less likely to offend, because the Greek bishops cannot marry as the Anglican bishops have power to do. But then a perplexing question will arise. If the Eastern branch has jurisdiction in Alaska, has not the Roman branch some jurisdiction in Italy? This is among the perplexities of the branch theory. To plain common sense, a church with branches is not _one_ church, and to Catholics the ultra-Protestant theory is far more tenable. We believe, therefore, that the efforts toward church union will only prove more plainly the isolation of the Episcopal Church from all other Christian bodies. We are for the largest liberty possible with truth, but we are not for falsehood; and we have a right to demand that a man shall call himself what he _is_, and not persist in calling himself what he _is not_.

The view of the state of the church given by the committee is quite a favorable one, though we do not see that Episcopalians are largely increasing by conversion. Several new dioceses were formed, which will, no doubt, divide labor if they do not multiply population. The most important subject which engrossed the convention was that of education; and the principle, so long acted upon by the Catholic Church, was virtually adopted.

It was resolved to establish parochial schools wherever possible, in order to save the young from perversion by the many popular errors of our day. We earnestly hope that this resolution will generally be acted upon. It is quite evident that any denomination which has positive doctrines to teach must take care early to teach its children the principles of faith, and that a system of education without Christianity is effectually an infidel system. When the Episcopalians shall have built their parochial schools, they will be able to appreciate the labors of Catholics, who, far poorer, and far more numerous, have never been willing to trust their children to the public schools. Then perhaps they will unite with us in asking the state legislatures for a just proportion of the funds raised by taxation and devoted to the education of the young. We could never see anything but simple justice in this demand. The action of the Episcopal Convention, if carried out, will be an advance in favor of our practice, and an argument for the propriety of our claims.

The bishops express themselves in their pastoral as anxious to promote the works of mercy and education, by the establishment of communities of men and women. We understand that such organizations are to be devoted to the service of the poor, sick, and ignorant, and that they are to be modelled after the plan of our Christian Brothers or our Sisters of Charity and Mercy. They are to be, however, "free from ensnaring vows or enforced confessions." The members are to come and go when they please, and devote themselves to the labors of the community as long as they are disposed, free to leave, without scruple, at any time. We fear that on such principles communities would not hold together long, nor always act together but we are very desirous that the Episcopalians should thoroughly try them. Confession is to be permitted, it seems, when it is not forced; hence it would appear that the House of Bishops is in favor of _voluntary_ confession for the members of these proposed associations. {470} Any step of this kind is a great advance, for it leads the earnest mind toward the true Bride of the Lamb, "whose clothing is of wrought gold." It is hard to see why voluntary confession should be permitted to these communities and not to the Episcopalians in general. But perhaps the bishops did not mean to favor sacramental confession, although they would seem to do so by the language of the pastoral.

In this brief summary we have given what seems to us a candid review of the work of the last Episcopal Convention, as it interests Catholics and the public generally. If at any time there has been anything savoring of the ridiculous or comical in our language, we beg our reader to refer it to the subject-matter, and not to any intention of ours. He that makes assumptions of prerogatives to which he has no title will certainly excite the laughter of his neighbors. The historian who simply records facts is in no way to blame. When Episcopalian ministers call themselves Catholic priests, people will innocently laugh: and perhaps we ourselves, with all our courtesy, could not refrain from a smile. In like manner, when a church isolates itself from all the world by claims which everybody else on earth denies to it, there is something of the ridiculous in its position, and, while we may be pained, we are at the same time amused. If the committee on church union will only labor a little harder, and once in a while travel abroad, they may perhaps open the eyes of not a few.

The Episcopal Church must work either for us or for Protestantism. It has no harvest of its own to reap, and there is no middle ground for the honest mind. It has already sent many a gifted and pure soul to the home of truth and purity, and we Catholics are daily gathering in those whom it has led to our gates. We wish it God-speed in this work of conversion--in this, perhaps unintentional, labor of love. Let the so-called "Catholic priests" go on, and unprotestantize and catholicize their flocks. They will never be able to feed the hunger they have excited, nor satisfy the cravings of the heart in which God the Redeemer is showing the marks of his love. We stand ready for them and their children, to show them a truth and beauty which are real--a church which is not the work of imagination, but a living reality, formed and sustained by the incarnate Word. God grant that they sport not too long with shadows--that they delay not too long before the portals of Sion! "The night cometh in which no man can work." "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

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{47l}

Christmas.

God an Infant--born to-day! Born to live, to die, for me! Bow, my soul; adoring say: "Lord, I live, I die, for Thee." Humble then, but fearless, rise: Seek the manger where He lies.

Tread with awe the solemn ground: Though a stable mean and rude, Wondering angels all around Throng the seeming solitude: Swelling anthems, as on high, Hymn a second Trinity. [Footnote 156]

[Footnote 156: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are called by theologians "The Earthly Trinity."]

Lo, in bands of swathing wrapt, Meekly sleeps a tender Form: God on bed of straw is lapt! Breaths of cattle keep Him warm! King of glory, can it be Thou art thus for love of me?

Hail, my Jesus, Lord of might! Who in tiny, helpless hand Thy creations infinite Holdest as a grain of sand! Hail, _my_ Jesus--all my own! Mine, as if but mine alone!

God made Man, and Man made God-- Natures Two in Person One, I adore Thy Precious Blood, Pulsing, burning to atone: I adore Thy Sacred Heart, Surest proof of what Thou art.

{472}

Hail, my Lady--full of grace! Maiden Mother, hail to thee! Poring on the radiant Face, Thine a voiceless ecstasy; Yet, sweet Mother, let me dare Join the worship of thy prayer.

Mother of God--O wondrous name! Bending seraphs hail thee Queen. Mother of God--yet still the same Mary thou hast ever been: Still so lowly, though so great: Mortal, yet immaculate!

O'er our exile's troubled sea, Thou the star, no sky shall dim: Christ our Light we owe to thee-- Him to thee, and thee to Him. Take my heart, then: let it be Thine in Him, and His in thee.

Joseph, hail--of gentlest power! Shadow of the Father thou: Thine to shield in danger's hour Whom thy presence comforts now. Mary trusts to thee her Child; He, His Mother undefiled.

Teach me thou, then, how to live All for them--my only all; Looking to thy arm to give Help in trial or in fall; Till 'tis mine with thee to prove What it is to die of love.

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{473}

From The French Of Erckmann And Chatrian.

The Invasion; Or, Yegof The Fool.