Chapter iv. declares that the seats shall be occupied according

to grades of the hierarchy, and seniority of promotion. Other chapters set forth the officials, secretaries, notaries, masters of ceremonies, etc.--a matter of obvious necessity under the circumstances; establish six general committees, the members of which are to be elected by ballot; and make known some points of order to be observed in the religious exercises of the public sessions and the general congregations; and finally enjoin on the bishops attending the council to remain until the close of it, forbidding any one to depart before such close, save with regular leave of absence, duly applied for and obtained.

With a copy of this letter the bishops also received pamphlets containing the forms of prayers to be used, and a detailed account of the ceremonial to be followed, all based on or extracted from the ceremonial of the ancient councils.

For the people little preparation had been made, or indeed could be made in the church. St. Peter's has no pews; you will not find even benches or chairs. On grand occasions, when the pope is celebrant, seats are placed in the arms of the transept, capable of holding six or eight thousand persons, who are admitted by ticket, and must come in the proper costume. They are chiefly occupied by ladies. But on this occasion one half of this space was required for the council. On the other hand, Rome would be full, and it was felt that not one twentieth of those who would desire, and indeed who would ordinarily be entitled to receive tickets for such reserved seats, could be accommodated. The gordian knot was cut by dispensing with reserved seats altogether, and leaving full play to the democratic principle of _first come, first served_.

On Tuesday, Rome was in commotion, and given over to the mercies of free-trade in lodgings. Householders were waylaying strangers, striving to let their apartments at the highest possible rates. Strangers were wandering about seeking apartments which they might obtain on the lowest possible terms. Purchases were briskly made in preparation for the morrow. Everywhere, all day long, in carriages and on foot, and in all the different costumes of their several nations, might be seen bishops and priests passing to and fro, visiting the churches and the shrines of martyrs, or seeking out some friend of their youth, whom they had not seen, perhaps, for twenty-five or forty years, but who, they were told, had just arrived in Rome.

At noon precisely, the booming of the great bell of St. Peter's came over the Campus Martius and the seven hills of Rome. Instantly the thousand bells of the three hundred churches of the Eternal City answered in one united clamorous peal; and the cannon of St. Angelo, and the heavier metal of the new Aventine Fort, chimed in with the deep bass of a grand national salute. And thus, for an hour, was heralded the near approach of the great day. Again at nightfall the salute was repeated.

The morning of December 8th dawned--the Festival of the Immaculate Conception, and the day fixed for opening the council. A third repetition of the uproarious yet thrilling salutation awaked the sluggards, if there were any. We say if there were any; for although the clouds were hanging low and heavy, and the air was filled with mist, and at times the rain poured down, all Rome was astir. By five A.M., the murmur of voices and the tramping of pedestrians filled every street, and soon the rolling of carriages over the hard pavements sounded like distant thunder. By six A.M., tens of thousands were wending their way, despite the weather, to St. Peter's; and by seven, every eligible portion of the floor of the vast basilica was crowded. At half-past seven, the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops began to gather in the Vatican Palace, where they robed, putting on white copes and mitres, and then passed to the great hall at the front, and immediately over the vestibule of St. Peter's. Here the masters of ceremony assigned to each one his proper place, and they awaited the coming of the sovereign pontiff.

Punctual to the moment, he appeared. All knelt in prayer. In a clear and sonorous voice he intoned the _Veni Creator Spiritus_. The choir took up the strain, the bishops arose, and commenced to move in procession back to the Vatican Palace, through the ducal hall, down the unequalled Scala Regia, and into the vestibule of St. Peter's. Along the line the voice of chanting was heard. Without, the air was filled again with the sound of bells and the booming of cannon.

It was not like the grand processions on which Rome delights to look every year. The young orphan boys, with their snow-white dresses and angel faces, the various religious orders, Capuchins, Franciscans, Minor Observantists, Conventuals, Carmelites, Augustinians, Cistercians, Benedictines, Dominicans, and Canons Regular, in their varied and picturesque dresses, did not walk in it. There were no confraternities with their huge crosses, no groups of clergy from the many parish churches, no chapters of the ancient basilicas with their tent-like canopies and tolling bells. These appeared not in the ranks; but delegates from all of them formed lines on either side, between which, as guards, the prelates marched two and two, each one attended by his chaplain. It was a procession such as the world has seen but once before, and that six hundred years ago, at the Second Council of Lyons. First came the cross, surrounded with burning lights and clouds of incense from the censers, and a group of ecclesiastics attached to the Vatican and to St. Peter's. On came the long white line of mitred abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, patriarchs, and cardinals, slowly moving, joining in the chanted hymn, or else with subdued voices reciting psalms and prayers. The hall, the grand stairway, and the vestibule were packed by thousands who despaired of being able to enter the church, and hoped at least to look on the procession. All eyes seemed to scrutinize the line of prelates with reverent curiosity. Some in the line had not yet lost the smoothness of their cheeks. They had not yet closed their eighth lustre. The great majority had passed the half-century of life. Labors, cares, and study had brought furrows to many a brow and many a cheek; gray hairs had come, often prematurely; but the firm step told of still unexhausted strength. Their faces, full of intellect and decision, told of long and sturdy labor in the vineyard; you felt they could still bear the heat of the day and the brunt of labor. Many of them, too, far more than the younger ones, were aged and venerable prelates, who, like the rest, had come at the summons of the chief pastor. But when they should have borne their testimony to the faith in this council, they would soon say, _Nunc dimittis_.

It was a glorious line. The spectators, of every nation, looked to recognize the bishops each of his own land. They pointed out and whispered to each other the names of those who had won for themselves a world-wide reputation in the church, and looked with special attention on the oriental prelates, scattered here and there through the line, robed, not like those of the Latin rite, in unadorned white copes and white linen mitres, but in richly ornamented chasubles or copes of oriental fashion, glittering with gold and precious stones and bright colors, and wearing on their heads tiaras radiant with gems. On they passed, Italians, Greeks, Germans, Persians, Syrians, Hungarians, Spanish and Copt, Irish and French, Scotch and Brazilian, Mexican and English, American and Chinese, Canadian and South American and Australian; abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs.

Next came the cardinals--the senate of the church. If before you saw the strength of the church, here you looked on the embodiment of intelligence and wisdom, in the most venerable body in the world. Spotless purity of life, brilliant talents, long study, a longer experience of men and affairs in a series of responsible offices worthily filled--a thorough devotion of all their powers to the interests of religion, have led them to this dignity--Antonelli, Bilio, Bonnechose, Cullen, Schwartzenberg, Hohenlohe, Barnabo, Pitra, Patrizi--every one seemed worthy of, and to receive, special homage as they slowly moved on.

But even they were forgotten as the Holy Father approached. Surrounded by his chaplains and attendants, by Swiss guards in their picturesque costume, designed, it is said, with an eye to effect, by Michael Angelo himself, and by the Roman noble guard in their richest uniforms, he came borne, according to the old Roman custom which has come down from the times of the republic, in a curule chair, such as ediles and senators were borne in; such as that which the convert Senator Pudens appropriated to the Apostle St. Peter, which he and many of his successors used, and which is still preserved with care and veneration in St. Peter's. Pius IX. is, we believe, really eighty-one years of age. He is still robust, wonderfully so for that age. His countenance beams still with that paternal benevolence which has such power to charm. None ever looked on him without feeling it. No one, Catholic or Protestant, Israelite, Turk, or infidel, ever left his presence without carrying away a sense of reverence, and sweet memories of a blessing received. All knelt as he was borne by, blessing them on either side. In his train followed other attendants and the superiors of religious orders, who enter the council, but are not privileged to wear mitres. Conspicuous among them was the thin, ascetic, fleshless form of the superior-general of the Jesuits, in black--the little black pope, as they call him in Rome.

Meanwhile the head of the procession has long since reached the grand portals of the Basilica. From the door to the central line of the transept is about four hundred feet, and the nave of the church is about ninety-five feet wide. All this space is crowded with people standing so jammed together that there is not room to kneel, if one wished. Back on either side, under the broad arches, and into the side aisles, the vast mass of humanity extends. The bases of the columns and piers are seen to rise to the level of their heads, and, guided by this measure, the eye, for once, catches at a glance the immense proportions of this gigantic building. The partition which cuts off a portion of the transept for the special use of the council is not seen from the nave, and the church stands before you in all the grandeur of its architecture, unchanged for better or for worse by those vast masses of drapery and those lines of galloon, and the hundreds of immense chandeliers which sometimes are placed here to adorn it. To the Roman eye, familiar with every detail of the building, such an adornment may be pleasing as a change. But strangers love to see St. Peter's as they see it now, in its own native beauty and majesty. The eye loves to pass from the noble columns and the statues of pure Carrara to the unfading mosaics, the variegated marbles of the walls and piers, the ornaments in sculptured relief, the richly-wrought capitals, the vast line of cornice of classic accuracy, and the lofty arched ceiling, one hundred and fifty feet and more overhead, profusely decorated with panelling, roses, and richest gilding. It travels on to the main altar with its hundred ever-burning lamps around the tomb of the great apostle of Rome, and the spiral columns and canopy of bronze which rise full ninety feet above it. And hundreds of feet further away, in the western apsis, you catch a view of the bronze statues of the four great doctors of the church, who support the identical chair of St. Peter, and of the circular window of stained glass through which the Holy Dove seems to pour in a stream of golden light, giving life and heavenly beauty to that other flood which pours down into the church from the lofty dome.

Guards had kept free for the procession a passage-way through the crowd, from the door to the main altar. Up this lane the bishops walked with uncovered heads, for the blessed sacrament was exposed on the altar. Kneeling a moment in adoration, they arose, and, turning to the right, passed into the space set aside and prepared for the council hall. To each one, as he entered, his proper place was assigned by the masters of ceremony. The greater part were so placed, when a fuller burst of the choir told us that the Holy Father had reached the portals of the church, had been received by the chapter of canons, and was entering. He left the curule chair and doffed his mitre; for a greater than he is here enthroned, and even the pope must walk with uncovered head. He, and the cardinals with him, knelt at the main altar as the bishops had done, and waited until the last strophe of the hymn, _Veni Sancte Spiritus_, was finished by the choir. He arose, chanted the versicle and prayer to the Holy Ghost, and then, preceded by the cardinals, also entered the council hall. They passed each to his proper place, the pontiff to a _prie Dieu_ prepared for him in the middle, to await the commencement of the high mass.

We have said that this council hall occupies nearly all of the northern arm of the great transept. That arm alone is over two hundred feet long, and ninety-five feet broad. Its northern extremity is a semi-circular apsis, and midway of its length it is crossed by the northern aisle of the church, which opens into it by a lofty and wide arch on either side. These arches are now closed at the top by temporary partition walls. In front--that is, on the south, toward the main altar and nave--another partition wall, perhaps fifty feet high, shuts the hall off from the main body of the building. All these walls are exquisitely colored, so as to correspond even in minute details with the decorations and color of the marbles of the church. In the last-named wall is a large doorway, fully twenty feet wide, through which the prelates and cardinals and the pontiff have passed in. It is open now, (though when necessary it can be closed,) and you may look in and see the interior arrangement. In the further extremity, the semi-circular apsis, a number of steps rise to a platform, in the middle of which other steps lead to the throne of the pontiff, surmounted by a canopy with hanging drapery. On either hand, elevated one step less, are placed the cardinals, before each one a kneeling-stand, which may be changed into a writing-desk. Before the cardinals, and a little lower, sit the patriarchs. Down either side of the hall, for the full length, run seven rows of benches with high backs. The front row is on the floor, the others rising as they recede, so that the last one next the wall is about the same level with the platform. In the middle, about one fifth of the way from the door, with its face toward the pope and the bishops, and its back toward the door stands a temporary altar prepared for the mass, with which every public session and every general congregation will commence. Here and there, on the floor, are seats and tables for the use of the secretaries, notaries, stenographers, and other officials. Of the altar we need not speak. It is simple though rich in materials, and without accessory ornamentation, which would take up space and impede the view. The platform is covered, as is the floor, with Brussels carpeting. The seats of the cardinals are covered with red damask; those of the patriarchs with purple. The seats of the bishops are covered with Brussels tapestry of a greenish hue. They are roomy. Each bishop uses the back of the seat before him as a _prie Dieu_ when he kneels. Should he at other times wish to write, there is a table hinged to it in front of him, which he may raise up and render firm by a movable support. When he is done, he simply moves back the support and lets down the table to its former position. All is simple, yet very satisfactory. There is, near at hand, a refreshment room, and, indeed, every convenience that is needed. The artistic decorations of the hall also deserve attention. They are not many, but are excellent and appropriate, and were prepared, of course, for this occasion. Over the doorway, as you are about to enter from the church, there is a majestic painting of the Saviour enthroned in the clouds, holding the Gospel open in his left hand, while the right is stretched forth in command to the apostles. Underneath is the inscription, "GO, TEACH ALL NATIONS. I AM WITH YOU ALL DAYS, EVEN TO THE CONSUMMATION OF THE WORLD." In the interior of the hall, over the seat of the pope, is a painting of the Descent of the Holy Ghost. On either side are the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, and the Councils of Nice, of Ephesus, and of Trent. Higher up are large medallion paintings of the twenty-two popes who called or presided personally or by legates over the various oecumenical councils of the church; while higher still are colossal figures of the four great doctors of the church, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. John Chrysostom. All the seats we have mentioned are for the prelates and officials. There are several galleries opening through the wall rather than projecting forward. On the left of the pope, as he is seated, is one for the singers of the Sistine chapel. On his right is another, to be occupied by sovereigns and members of royal families. The Empress of Austria, the Queen of Würtemberg, and the King of Naples were present at the opening. Another much larger one, on the side of the singers, is for the diplomatic corps. It was filled with ambassadors in their state uniforms, with full display of jewelled decorations. Two other similar galleries are for the theologians.

The council hall, as we have described it, is about two hundred feet long and nearly one hundred feet broad. The ceiling above is that of the transept; like that of the nave, arched, panelled, and decorated with gilding, and is one hundred and fifty feet above you. The seemingly low partition wall in front shuts out the view of the lower portions of the church, but you have a full view of the upper half of the columns and piers, with their statues and decorations, and of the cornice and lofty-arched ceiling, and above all, of the magnificent dome, with its mosaics of the evangelists and the angelic host. You see and feel all the time that you are in St. Peter's. But there are drawbacks. The size of the hall, the height of the ceiling, and, perhaps more than either, this want of disconnection from the church, render it impossible for any but the strongest voices with eminently clear enunciation to fill it and be understood. Weak, and even moderate voices, are simply inaudible to the majority. As things are now arranged, discussion would seem impossible, and already there is talk of changes which may have to be indicated in our next article. But let us return to the pope and the bishops, whom we left awaiting the commencement of the pontifical high mass. This should have been celebrated by Cardinal Mattei, the dean of the body. But his age and infirmities are too great to permit so great an exertion. Accordingly, the next in rank, Cardinal Patrizi, took his place, and was the celebrant. The pontiff approached the altar with him, recited the _Judica_ and the _Confiteor_, and then retired to his own seat, and the cardinal ascended to the altar and continued the mass. The music was that of Palestrina, executed by the papal choir as they alone can sing, and without any instrumental accompaniment. Such voices as theirs need none. Just before the last gospel, a portable pulpit was brought out near the altar; Mgr. Passavalli, Archbishop of Iconium, ascended it, wearing cope and mitre, and preached the introductory sermon. It was in Latin--the language of the council--and occupied just forty minutes. It has since been published, and the reader will not fail to recognize and admire the eloquence and fervor of his thoughts and the elegance of his Latinity. But no pages can give an idea of the clear, ringing voice, the musical Italian intonations, and the dignified and impressive, almost impassioned gesture of the truly eloquent Capuchin. The sermon over, the pope gave the solemn blessing, the Gospel of St. John was recited, and the mass was over.

The altar being now clear, the attendants brought in a rich, throne-like stand, and placed it on the altar in the centre. Monsignor Fessler, secretary of the council, attended by his assistant, brought in procession a large book of the Gospels, elegantly bound, and reverently placed it on the throne. It was the place due to the inspired record of the life and teachings of our divine Lord--a ceremony touching and most appropriate at the opening of a council of his followers, assembled in his name, to declare and vindicate his teaching, and promote and carry out the commission he gave them.

The Holy Father then assumed his full pontifical robes. The cardinals and all the prelates, in their proper order, then approached, one by one, to pay him homage, kissing his hand or the stole he wore. Their numbers made it a long ceremony. It told of the union of all with the head of the church.

This over, all knelt while the pontiff chanted the sublime prayer, _Adsumus, Domine_. Solemn and subdued were the chanted _amens_ of the entire assembly.

Four chanters next intoned the litany of the saints in the well-known varying minor strains of Gregorian chant. Most impressive were the responses made by the united voices of the fathers. But when, at the proper time, the pope rose to his feet, and, holding the cross of his authority in his left hand, replaced the chanters, and raising his streaming eyes to heaven, and in his own majestic and sonorous tones, trembling just enough to tell how deeply his great heart was moved, thrice prayed our divine Lord to bless, to preserve, to consecrate this council, tears flowed from many an eye. All were intensely moved, and not bishops alone, but the crowds of clergy outside, and thousands of the laity, joined, again and again, in the response, _Te rogamus, audi nos_. Then, if never before, St. Peter's was filled with the mighty volume of sound. Back it came to us from arch and chapel, from aisle and lofty nave and transept, _Te rogamus, audi nos_. We seemed to hear it murmured even from the aerial dome, as if the angels repeated the words as they bore the petition to heaven, _Te rogamus, audi nos_.

The chanters resumed, the litany was terminated, and the pope recited the prayers that follow it. Cardinal Borromeo then, acting as deacon, chanted the Gospel taken from Luke x., narrating the mission of the disciples. He used the volume that had been enthroned on the altar. When he concluded, the volume was carried back as before, and reverently replaced on the throne. The assembly were seated, and the Holy Father, himself seated and wearing his mitre, delivered a discourse or allocution full, as all his discourses are, of unction, and replete with the thoughts and words of divine inspiration.

At the conclusion of this discourse all knelt, and the Holy Father again intoned the _Veni Creator Spiritus_. The choir took it up, and the members of the council responded in the alternate strophes. The pope sang the versicles and prayer that follow it, and all again were seated.

The secretary now mounted the pulpit and read aloud the first proposed decree, "That this Holy Vatican Council be, and is now opened." The fathers all answered, _Placet_; the pope gave his sanction; the formal decree was passed and proclaimed, and the notaries instructed to make an official record of it.

A second decree was similarly proposed, voted, and sanctioned, fixing the second public session for the festival of the Epiphany, January 6th, 1870. The first general congregation was announced for Friday, December 10th, in the same hall of the council.

This closed the proceedings of the first public session, which necessarily were purely formal. The Holy Father arose and intoned the solemn _Te Deum_ of thanksgiving. The choir--the unrivalled one of the Sixtine chapel--took up the strain, intertwining the melody with subdued but artistic harmonies. The assembled bishops, the clergy without, thousands of the laity, familiar from childhood with the varying strains of its Gregorian chant, responded with one accord, in the second verse of the grand old Ambrosian hymn. The choir sang the third verse as before, the crowd responded with the fourth, and so on they alternated to the end. It is impossible to tell in words the thrilling power of such a union of voices. It moved, overcame, subdued one. It was impossible to resist it if you would. Tears came unbidden to the eye, and the lip quivered as you instinctively united your voice to that of the multitude. No one sought to make himself heard, all united in those subdued, thrilling tones in which the heart speaks. Catholic and Protestant all felt it. Even the infidel for the time believed, and, bowing his head, joined in this praise and thanksgiving to God.

At half-past two, the _Te Deum_ was finished, and the services closed. The Holy Father unrobed, and withdrew with his attendants. But it was past three ere all the bishops could issue from the hall and leave the church. The crowds looked on as they slowly departed, their own numbers long remaining seemingly undiminished. Many could not tear themselves away from the hallowed spot. The shades of evening found hundreds still lingering there, contemplating the place where they had seen the hierarchy of the church gathered around the chief pastor, or kneeling in prayer at the tomb of the great apostle to whom our Lord said, "On this rock I will build my church."

Since the day of the opening session, two general congregations have been held. The chief work has been to organize and elect members for the various committees. Where all are desirous of having the best men on these committees, the bishops seem to consider it well to proceed slowly, until they gain an acquaintance with each other, which will enable them to act with greater knowledge. Meanwhile they are evidently studying up the matters before them. What those subjects are, no one outside their body appears as yet to know. They are remarkably reticent, and so far have not been "interviewed" by newspaper reporters.

It is thought the council must last several months. But at the present stage not even the prelates themselves can form more than a vague conjecture on this head. It may be that a month will throw light on the subject. In that case, we may be able to speak more definitely in our next article on the council.

ROME, Dec. 15, 1869.

FOOTNOTE:

[170] An example has just come under our notice. The special correspondent of the _London Times_, writing from Rome on the 8th of December, has a long story of a mysterious bull prepared to be promulgated on the 8th, in the grand ceremony, and secretly confided only to a trusty few. Somehow, within twenty-four hours of the time appointed, that is, on the 7th of December, some bishops got wind of it beforehand, and so great a storm of opposition arose that the bull was kept back, perhaps suppressed. The writer actually got sight of a copy, and makes an extract. This was taking a little too much rope. For the extract is from this apostolic letter, which was dated November 27th, was soon after printed, was distributed on December 2d, to all the bishops then in Rome--further copies of which were carefully supplied to the bishops arriving later; and which is in full force, regulating the procedure of the council, not only without a murmur, but to the perfect satisfaction of all the prelates. A "special correspondent" of the _Times_, who had retired from business after years of service, defined the chief qualification of such a correspondent to be, the ability to write frankly and boldly about persons and things as if he knew every thing about them, even though, as was generally the case, he knew nothing at all. For doing this _acceptably_, he would get £600 a year, and travelling expenses paid.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

The renowned Captain Dugald Dalgetty, that redoubtable man of war, orthodoxy, and _provant_, firmly held and was known occasionally to express the opinion that Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, was the Lion of the North and the _bulwark of Protestantism_. In so far as the 'bulwark' was concerned, that clever soldado merely reflected the estimate of the Swedish hero held by the contemporary Protestant world--an estimate still clung to by the same world of the nineteenth century. That opinion and that estimate have lately received fatal injury in the house of their friends. For thus has it come about. Catholic historians have never hesitated to state that the facts bore them out in claiming that the governing motive of Gustavus Adolphus in taking the important part he did in the Thirty Years' War, was not religious enthusiasm, nor even a religious motive; but on the contrary one that was far from possessing any greater elevation than self-interest and political advantage. So thought and wrote Hurter and other Catholic authors. Of course these authors were not listened to in the Protestant world any more than were vindications of Mary, Queen of Scots, until they began to come from Protestant pens. But in the course of a few succeeding years no less than four distinguished Protestant historians--Klopp, Barthold, Leo, and Gfrörer, (who afterward became a Catholic,) fully confirmed all that Hurter had advanced. And now, within the past three months we have a new historical work on Gustavus Adolphus, from the pen of another Protestant--Professor G. Droysen--an eminent name in German literature--which certainly appears to place the question of motive on the part of the king of Sweden beyond further controversy. Professor Droysen's work is written not so much as a biography as with special reference to the political necessities and ambition of the Swedish king when he interfered in the German struggle, and is written, also, mainly with materials from the Swedish archives. The result of Professor Droysen's research is not only to more than confirm the position assumed by Hurter, but to leave no room for serious discussion. Professor Droysen expressly denies that the interference of Gustavus Adolphus in the affairs of Germany was in favor of the liberty of conscience and religion, and he quite as explicitly asserts that motives purely political decided and even forced him to put forward those pretexts.

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_Aux Incrédules et aux Croyants. L'Athée redevenu Chrétien. Ouvrage posthume de M. Delauro Dubez, Conseiller à la Cour de Montpellier._ Paris, 1869. The author was judge of the court of appeals at Montpellier, and until his sixty-fourth year lived an irreligious life. His conversion was the result of reflection, and he wrote this book solely for the sake of one of his relatives who had refused to read any thing favorable to Christianity. The work is preceded by an opinion of Rev. M. Foulquier, Superior of the Seminary of Rodez, and by a letter from a Polish officer brought back to the Catholic faith by its perusal.

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A late number of the _Theologisches Literaturblatt_, published at Bonn, contains an excellent review by Professor Aberle of Tübingen of a remarkable work on the year of our Saviour's birth--_Das Geburtsjahr Christi. Geschichtlich-Chronologische Untersuchungen von A. M. Zumpt._ The same number also has an admirable notice, by Professor Hefele, of Kampschulte's new work on Calvin, _Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf._

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_San Tommaso, Aristotele, e Dante, ovvexo della prima filosofia Italiana._ Firenze, 1869. In 4to. The Marquis Palermo in this work shows philosophy and science traversing the middle ages under the protection of the clergy, and particularly of St. Thomas. He specially dwells upon the purely Christian character of the philosophy set forth by Dante in his divine comedy.

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_Le Monde et l'Homme Primitif selon la Bible, par Monseigneur Meignan, Evêque de Chalons sur Marne._ The right reverend author expresses the opinion that, in our day, one of the causes of the weakening of faith in divine revelation is certainly the false idea formed of the Bible in connection with the sciences. In this respect times have greatly changed, and opinion has passed from one extreme to the other. Formerly, no important discovery was made without seeking to confirm its truth by Scripture testimony. The support of a text, of a word, was then necessary, even if they had to be slightly wrested from their received acceptation. Galileo undertook to prove his theory by Bible texts badly interpreted. But the contrary course now prevails to such an extent that there exists almost an affectation of contradicting the Scriptures. The author takes up the six days of the Mosaic account of the creation, the six days being six indeterminate periods of time--illustrating each day with modern scientific views of the unity of the human race, the primitive unity of language, Chaldean and Egyptian chronology, etc. On the unity of the human race the right reverend author insists with some emphasis--as indeed he well may, recognizing in it, as we all must, the well-established doctrine of the Catholic Church--and takes occasion to address himself specially to Americans of the United States on the subject of the man of dusky hue. "Let us not forget," he says, "that he is a child of the same God, a descendant of Adam, having the same faculties, the same soul, the same heart; that the unity of the human species has made him our equal, and the Gospel our brother." The work evidences great research and learning, especially on the subject of the primitive unity of language, where the author shows entire familiarity with all the results of modern treatise and investigation from Bopp down to Ewald and Delitsch.

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We are aware that Bohemian and Hungarian literature has but few attractions for the very great majority of readers in the United States. Nevertheless, it may not be uninteresting to note that in Bohemia, as in Hungary, there exists a general awakening of interest in their respective national literatures. In both these countries many talented authors are coming into notice, who confine their literary labors to their mother tongue. Palacky in Bohemia has lately won high praise as a historian, even in Germany and France. Besides his _History of Bohemia_, he has lately written several works on the historical period of John Huss.

Of these the most important is Palacky's _Documenta mag. Joannis Hus vitam, doctrinam, causam spectantia_. Divided into four parts, the first includes all the letters of Huss in Latin and in Tcheck, the latter accompanied by a Latin translation by Professor Kviezala; the second part gives the trial of Huss; the third, an account of his trial and death by a contemporary, Peter Mladenowicz; and the fourth, the largest, all the documents relative to the religious controversies of Bohemia from 1403 to 1418. In all cases the Tcheck documents are accompanied by Latin translations. While on the subject of Bohemian literature, it may be well to mention that the best general work upon it is that of M. Hanusch,[171] late librarian of the University of Prague. For the bibliography of the literature, the most complete work is that of Jungmann, written in Tcheck. For literature proper, the best is perhaps that of Sabina, which, however, only comes down to the seventeenth century. Sabina's work may be said to be completed by that of M. Sembera--_Histoire de la langue et de la littérature Tcheque_, the third edition of which is lately published at Vienna.

FOOTNOTE:

[171] _Quellenkunde und Bibliographie der boehmische-slavonischen Literatur-Geschichte._

* * * * *

On the subject of baptism, or baptismal water, Dr. Heino Pfaffenschmid publishes a work[172] in which he undertakes to show that baptism was a custom of both Jewish and pagan rites before the introduction of Christianity.

FOOTNOTE:

[172] _Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus_, etc.

* * * * *

We see announced a work by Dr. J. H. Tomassen on the age of the human race, _Enthüllungen aus der Urgeschichte; oder, Existirt das Menschengeschlecht nur 6000 Jahre?_ There is a slight dash of charlatanism in the title, calculated to make one suspicious of the book.

* * * * *

Professor Döllinger, of Munich, has in press a new work, entitled, _The Religious Sects of the Middle Ages_.

* * * * *

The _Chronology of the Roman Pontiffs during the last three Centuries_, by Professor Lipsius, of Kiel, is announced as nearly ready for publication.

* * * * *

Volumes xiii. xiv. and xv. of the reprint of the continuation of the _Histoire Littéraire de France_, commenced by the Benedictines, are lately published by Palmé, Paris.

* * * * *

The following important works are announced as soon to appear: Volume xviii. of the reprint of the _Annales Ecclesiastici_ of Cardinal Baronius, issued under the direction of Father Theiner. The first volume of a magnificent edition of the Bible, printed at Rome, at the expense of the Propaganda. This edition reproduces textually, with a _fac-simile_, the famous _Codex Vaticanus_. The present volume contains the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua. The fifth volume, containing the New Testament, was printed last year.

* * * * *

The work of Cardinal Jacobatius, entitled _De Concilio_, is also in press at Rome, and will be printed as an introduction to the great work forming a collection of all the councils.

* * * * *

A decided success in historic literature is the latest work on Calvin and his times,[173] by F. W. Kampschulte, professor of history at the University of Bonn. The first of its three volumes has appeared, and meets with almost universal approbation. The author appears to have spared no labor, and has brought to light fresh and valuable authorities. The manuscripts, mostly for the first time used, far out-number the printed works referred to. Heretofore, the archives of Geneva have been considered sufficient to furnish material for a life of Calvin. But Professor Kampschulte rightly judged that, in view of the intimate connection between Geneva and Berne during Calvin's life, the archives of the latter city must be rich in documents for his purpose. A similar reason induced him to visit Strasburg, and both places yielded largely in fresh and important matter. For Calvin's correspondence, previous historians have contented themselves with Beza's edition of the _Epistolæ et Responsa Calvini_, or with Bonnet's collection. Professor Kampschulte, with indefatigable research, has succeeded in gathering a large number of Calvin's letters, heretofore unpublished, which he found scattered in every direction. In this he was greatly aided by MM. Reuss, Cunitz, and Baum, of Strasburg, who for many years past have been making a collection of the letters of Calvin for a new edition of the _Epistolæ_ in the _Corpus Reformatorum_. With a liberality deserving all praise, these scholars generously placed all this valuable material at Professor Kampschulte's disposition.

Dr. J. B. Abbeloos, professor at the Seminary of Mechlin, assisted by Canon Lamy, professor of Oriental languages at the University of Louvain, is preparing for publication an important historical and literary monument, of which a small portion only has heretofore been printed. It is the great Syriac chronicle of Bar Hebreus, Primate of the Oriental Jacobites. The first part of this work was edited in 1788 at Leipsic, by two well-known oriental scholars, Brusis and Kirsch. The second and third parts contain the Ecclesiastical History, and present, as to the beginnings of Christianity in the East and on the history of the first four ages of the church, a number of valuable details not elsewhere to be found. The distinguished Assemanni (Oriental Bible, vol. ii. p. 312) says that the ecclesiastical history of Bar Hebreus admirably sets forth the religious history of the Nestorians and of the Jacobites, which is entirely unknown to the Greeks and Latins.

FOOTNOTE:

[173] _Johann Calvin. Seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf._ Leipzig. 8vo, 493 pp.

* * * * *

Ever since the period of the fatal and futile attempt of certain unbelieving astronomers to foist the Zodiac of Denderah upon the Christian scientific world, infidel and rationalistic writers have never allowed an occasion to pass to seek to elevate or praise old pagan manners and systems of morality. The more remote their field of disquisition, the more positive are they. This attempted rehabilitation of ancient systems most remarkable for their profound immorality is thoroughly defeated by M. François Lenormant in his lately published _Manuel d'histoire Ancienne de l'Orient_, 3 vols., _avec un atlas de 24 cartes_. His exposition of ancient paganism is thorough and learned. M. Lenormant's father was a co-laborer of Champollion, and he has a European reputation as an oriental scholar. The work here announced was, in the form of an essay, previously crowned by the French Academy.

* * * * *

The third and last volume of _Möhler's History of the Church_, edited by the Rev. Father Gams, has appeared in Germany, and a French translation of the same by the Abbé Belot at Paris. Wherever it was practicable, F. Gams has filled voids left by Möhler with review articles, written by Möhler on the same subject. Möhler has given special attention to the study of Protestantism, and is convinced that the "judgments passed on the condition of the church during the century anterior to the reform itself, greatly need reforming." He refutes with great force the erroneous opinions of men, either ignorant of the past or willingly blind, who have attributed to Luther the honor of bringing the Bible to the light of day. Nothing can be more false. Immense works on the Bible were produced during the middle ages, and, rapidly following the discovery of printing, numerous translations made their appearance. From 1460 to the first version of Luther in 1521 there were printed in Germany at least sixteen Bibles in High German and five in Low German. Up to 1524, there were nine editions in France, not counting those of Italy, the first of which appeared in 1471.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE ROMAN INDEX AND ITS LATE PROCEEDINGS. A Second Letter, etc. By E. S. Ffoulkes. American edition. Pott & Amery.

After the publication of Mr. Ffoulkes's letter, entitled, _The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed?_ he was refused the sacraments, as it was perfectly plain he must be according to the certain rules of moral theology by which priests are guided. Archbishop Manning submitted the letter to the examination of four theologians, who, separately and without mutual consultation, gave in their opinion that it was heretical. The archbishop, with the greatest delicacy and kindness, began to treat with Mr. Ffoulkes, for the purpose of inducing him to make a sufficient retractation, in order that he might repair the scandal he had given and be restored to the enjoyment of his privileges as a member of the church. On the 22d of March, 1869, Mr. Ffoulkes submitted the following letter to the archbishop:

"Having learned from my bishop that a pamphlet, lately published by me, entitled, _The Church's Creed or the Crown's Creed?_ has been examined, and pronounced by him to be heretical, I desire hereby to submit myself to that judgment, and to express my sorrow that I should in any thing have erred from the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith. Although I trust I have not intentionally erred from the truth, nor wilfully opposed myself to the divine authority of the church, nevertheless I am well aware how easily I may have done so. I therefore hereby, without reserve, retract all and every thing that I have written, there or elsewhere, which is contrary to what the church has defined as of faith.

"Having learned also from him that scandal, offence, and pain have been given by my writings, and especially by the pamphlet above named, to the faithful; and that the same pamphlet has been used by those who are separate from the Catholic and Roman Church as an excuse or argument for not submitting to its divine authority, I hereby desire to explain myself categorically on two points in particular, the most likely to have caused such results of any that occurred to me, from not having been brought out as prominently there as they might have been, but on which it never was my intention that my meaning should be ambiguous.

"1. Whatever I may or may not have been called upon to profess fourteen years ago myself, I nevertheless believe, and believe heartily, in the inerrancy, _by perpetual assistance of the Holy Ghost in all ages_, of the one Catholic Church in communion with the pope, and of which the pope is head by divine right, '_in fidei ac morum disciplinâ tradendâ_,' as the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches. And 2, as regards matter of fact, my own personal investigations enable me to affirm the verdict of history to be, that the see of Rome, as such, has been preserved in all ages from upholding or embracing heresy. _I say this more particularly with reference to the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost, on which I fear my meaning may have been misapprehended._ Therefore, negatively, should I have ever seemed to say or imply that the true church has ever ceased to be one _visibly_, or that the see of Rome was not constituted its centre of unity upon earth, so that communion with the one should be the indispensable condition of participating in the unity of the other, I hereby declare my heartfelt sorrow at having, in any of my writings, so expressed myself on these points as to have offended any or misled any by seeming to say or imply, _in language injurious to the Holy See_, what I never meant to assert, and hereby repudiate.

"And as the best reparation now in my power, I willingly undertake that this explicit declaration of mine shall be printed and distributed gratuitously by my publisher, and appended as a fly-leaf to all copies of my pamphlet, of which the copyright is not in my own hands, and other published works of mine that may hereafter be sold, should it be desired. Lastly, I freely, and from my heart, renew my assent to what follows, taken from the profession of Pope Pius IV.: 'I acknowledge the _Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church_ for the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise true obedience to the _Bishop of Rome_, successor to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ.'" (Pages 37, 38.)

On the 18th of December, 1868, a work, entitled _Christendom's Divisions_, by the same author, had been placed on the Index, and, on the 26th of March, the letter was placed there likewise. The archbishop made some further suggestions to Mr. Ffoulkes on the 2d of May, which he accepted, and, on the 4th, wrote to Mr. F., "I have received with sincere pleasure the declaration as last amended, and I trust it will complete what I have daily prayed may be accomplished." On the 17th of May, Mr. F. wrote to a clergyman of the Church of England, "_I would be excommunicated a dozen times a day sooner than retract my pamphlet_; and Archbishop Manning, to his credit let it be said, never proposed any such thing. What he proposed, however, I rejected; and substituted for it a declaration of my own, _which is merely justificatory_.[174] This, slightly altered, he has since accepted; so that my part is over." This letter was made known by the person who received it, and came to the knowledge of Archbishop Manning, who requested Mr. F. to obtain the letter and hand it over to him, a request which the latter gentleman considered as insulting to his "English feelings," and refused. He himself writes to the archbishop, and to the public also, (p. 43,) "Your grace was apprehensive lest this loose statement of a well-known tale-bearer, duly reported to Rome, should give rise to your being inhibited from accepting my declaration. Though I thought this extremely probable, I contented myself with assuring your grace, by letter, that, if the individual in question had reported me to have said, 'I would rather be excommunicated than retract, (_sic_,)'[175] he had either misrepresented me wilfully, or stated what was not the fact. My English feelings would not allow me to do more." The archbishop may certainly be excused for not accepting this statement, since the Anglican clergyman had read the first paragraph of the letter to the person designated, we hope unjustly, as a "well-known busybody," and had communicated its contents to several other persons "in strict confidence." The archbishop had communicated Mr. F.'s retractation or justification to the Congregation of the Index, and, on the 6th of August, a letter from Mgr. Nardi to the archbishop was read to Mr. F., in which his document was pronounced insufficient, particularly because not containing an expression of submission to the decree of the sacred congregation. A general form of retractation of every thing which the congregation had condemned in his writings, and of submission to its judgment, was sketched out for his guidance in preparing a proper statement, and he was informed that when such a declaration had been sent to Rome and accepted, no public notice would be taken of it except to append to the censure in the Index the words, _auctor laudabiliter se subjecit_--the author has submitted in a laudable manner. Mr. F. refused to make this submission, and was, accordingly, notified by the archbishop that he could not be admitted to the sacraments. Mr. F. also notified his grace that if any official sentence was pronounced upon him, he should appeal to the civil tribunal. At the conclusion of his pamphlet he says, respecting the "arbitrary sentence of a foreign court," "Please God, I shall live to contribute my quota toward being the death of the system from which it proceeds.... Please God, one of two things--for which I shall continue to labor through life--either that Christianity and Rome may become convertible terms, which it is my sincere wish that they should be; or else that fresh halting-places for sober, ordinary Christians, between Rome and infidelity, maybe developed amongst us, and new life be vouchsafed to those which exist already." Finally says Mr. F., in his last paragraph, "All we of the west are lying under more than one solemn anathema of more than one pope, speaking as head of the church--if popes have ever spoken as heads of the church--for having changed a syllable in the creed authorized by the Fourth Council."

This is Mr. F.'s case. It is evident that he became a member of the Catholic Church under a great misapprehension of her doctrine and law, and has never been any thing more than an Anglican. He is disposed to blame those who received him; but it is plain that they had no reason for suspecting that his misconception of the obvious meaning of the profession he made of submission to the Roman Church was so fundamental, and that he has only his own confused state of mind to blame for it. He has never really believed in the ever-living, supreme, infallible authority of the church, or had any other principle than the Protestant one to guide him. Hence, he has bewildered and lost himself in a maze of historical difficulties which he is unable to understand or remove. His letters are the most conclusive proof possible that the bogus Catholicity of unionists is fit only to complicate instead of solving the controversies among Christians. It shows the necessity of the most explicit teaching of the principle of infallible authority in all its practical applications, and proves that it is only by fully understanding and submitting to the doctrinal supremacy of the Roman pontiff as the vicar of Christ we can have any sufficient and certain criterion by which to distinguish genuine from spurious Catholicity.

One other point remains to be noticed. Mr. F.'s complaint that the sacred congregation violated its own rule, by failing to give him notice of the errors in his writings and the opportunity of explaining himself and making corrections. This is a mistake on his part. When erroneous statements are found in the works of a Catholic author of high repute for learning and orthodoxy, he receives this notification, and, in any case, when a book is placed on the Index merely on account of some particular errors, the phrase _donec corrigatur_ is added. Mr. F. is not an author of high repute for learning and orthodoxy. His writings are thoroughly unsound and mischievous. There was no occasion to cite him for a formal hearing or defence of himself, since the whole question was in reference to his writings, which speak for themselves. The only thing necessary for a judgment was an examination of his books, and that they were not hastily condemned is evident from the fact that the censure was pronounced three years after they were published. M. Renan has just as much reason to demand a hearing as Mr. Ffoulkes.

FOOTNOTES:

[174] The italics are our own.--ED. C. W.

[175] This _sic_ is Mr. Ffoulkes's; what it means is known only to himself and heaven.--ED. C. W.

* * * * *

ACROSS AMERICA AND ASIA. By Raphael Pumpelly, Professor in Harvard University, and sometime Mining Engineer in the service of the Chinese and Japanese Governments. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1870.

Mr. Pumpelly has given in this volume an account, some parts of which are interesting even to fascination, of a five years' journey round the world, by way of Arizona, California, Japan, China, Tartary, and Siberia, whence he returned across Europe and the Atlantic to New York. His accounts of what fell immediately under his own observation during his travels are no doubt accurate, and give an excellent idea of the natural features of the regions and people through which he passed--particularly of the former; for the author's profession and tastes made him observe nature closely, and detect and describe things which an ordinary traveller would have left unnoticed. His description of the plateau of Central Asia is specially striking and valuable, and the strictly scientific information contained in this as in the other parts of his work important; but he has, of course, treated purely professional subjects more fully elsewhere.

The work is interspersed with historical sketches and political essays, some of which perhaps are not without value; but the egregious blunders made in the account of the expulsion of Christianity from Japan, on page 97, would lead one to suspect that the author has not always been duly careful in collecting his information. He seems to profess to be a Christian, as he speaks in one place of "our Lord's sermon on the mount;" but was evidently much impressed by what he saw of Buddhism, from the practices of which he wisely says that "western ritualism, and much of the superstition on which it is based," (p. 166,) is derived. The same idea is brought in on page 383. Other forms of heathenism also impressed him favorably, and he thinks well of the Mohammedans, judging from what he says of those at Kazan; but this admiration for, and fascination by every thing except the truth is not unusual among men without faith.

He could not, of course, avoid noticing the failure of Protestant missions, whose converts he regards as hypocrites, influenced solely by the hope of soup, and frequently shows an appreciation of the genius, devotedness, and success of Catholic missionaries.

The author appears to be a man of undaunted courage, great humanity, and a high sense of both honor and morality. His exposure of the villainous conduct of white men toward the Indians in our own country, and the dark races of Asia, deserves our cordial thanks. His remarks on the question of the effect of Sclavonian advancement in the old world and Chinese immigration in the new, on the destinies of the coming age, are fitted to awaken many deep and anxious thoughts. The chapter on Japanese art by Mr. John La Farge is worthy of that accomplished artist. On the whole, with the exceptions above noted, this is one of the best books which has appeared from the American press.

* * * * *

THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL. By Janus. Authorized translation from the German. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

This is not a book which can be reviewed as to its contents in a critical notice, or in any thing less than a volume. It goes over the entire field of the relation of the papacy to the church, considered historically, and is a work of some show of learning. We cannot, therefore, touch on the question of its intrinsic truth or falsity at present, but simply on the point of its orthodoxy, as judged by the criterion according to which doctrine is to be judged by the canons actually making the law of the Catholic Church at the present moment. According to this criterion, it is heretical, and therefore to be rejected by every Catholic, as much as Dr. Pusey's _Eirenicon_, or Guettée's _Papacy Schismatic_. The review of this last-named book in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for July and August, 1867, written by one of the ablest of our contributors, will furnish _ad interim_ a sufficient refutation of the anti-Catholic principles on which it rests. We cite a few passages in proof of the statement we have made. In the preface it is stated that the book is "a protest, based on history, against a menacing future, against the programme of a powerful coalition." This "programme" means the whole preparatory work of the body of theologians summoned to Rome by the pope to prepare for the council. Again, that "a great and searching reformation of the church is necessary and inevitable." Speaking of those who follow the teaching of the supreme pontiff in all things as their authoritative rule, the authors say, "While in outward communion with them, we are inwardly separated by a great gulf from those," etc. "The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in its train." They say that there has been a development "of the primacy into the papacy, a transformation more than a development, the consequences of which have been the splitting up of the previously united church into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other." These extracts prove the attitude of open rebellion against the pontifical authority assumed by the authors. The following shows their utter defiance of the authority of the Council of the Vatican:

"An oecumenical assembly of the church can have no existence, properly speaking, in presence of an _ordinarius ordinariorum_ (equivalent to bishop of bishops) and infallible teacher of faith.... Bishops who have been obliged to swear 'to maintain, defend, increase, and advance the rights, honors, privileges, and authority of their lord the pope'--and every bishop takes this oath--cannot regard themselves, or be regarded by the Christian world, as free members of a free council; natural justice and equity require that. These men neither will nor can be held responsible for decisions or omissions which do not depend on them.

"With abundant reason were the two demands urged throughout half Europe in the sixteenth century, in the negotiations about the council--first, that it should not be held in Rome, or even in Italy; and, secondly, that the bishops should be absolved from their oath of obedience. The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in Italy, but in Rome itself; and already has it been announced that, as the sixth Lateran council, it will adhere faithfully to the fifth. That is quite enough--it means this, that whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free council. Theologians and canonists declare that without complete freedom the decisions of a council are not binding, and the assembly is only a pseudo-synod. Its decrees may have to be corrected." (Pp. 343-345.)

Such is the harsh, dissonant cry of discord which interrupts the harmonious accord of voices from all the world, rising in responsive welcome to the call of the vicar of Christ, summoning together the whole church around the tomb of the apostles. Naturally, it gives great delight to the enemies of the church, who see no hope for their cause except in dissension among her own rulers and members, and who welcome these faithless Catholics, applaud them, and disseminate their writings, as allies of their own within our camp. Their rejoicing, however, is premature. The number banded together in this clique is extremely small. Neither Mgr. Maret, Mgr. Dupanloup, or the so-called Liberal Catholics, represented by _Le Correspondant_, hold the extreme opinions of _Janus_, which has been placed on the Index in company with Mr. Ffoulkes's productions. Gallicans and liberals acknowledge the supreme authority of the Council of the Vatican, and will readily give up any private opinions which may be condemned by its judgment. Although the disciples of Bossuet's school maintain that the papal decretals do not become irreformible until they have received the at least tacit assent of the bishops, yet they admit their binding and obligatory force over all the faithful and over each bishop, taken singly, as soon as legally promulgated. All the pontifical decretals which are proposed as dogmatic judgments by the Roman Church have received at least the tacit assent of the bishops, and are, therefore, now irreformible, even by a council, on Gallican principles.

_Janus_ is in open rebellion against the authority of these decretals, and against the Council of the Vatican itself. The persons concerned in its publication, and all ecclesiastics who share their sentiments, will be interdicted from all exercise of sacerdotal functions in the church, and excluded from her communion, unless they retract their heresy and submit to the authority of the council, or else hide themselves under the cloak of anonymous secrecy. The only importance which _brochures_ of this sort have, comes from the supposed fact that their authors maintain a tenable position in the Catholic Church. When they are cut off from her communion, as they certainly will be if they prove contumacious, they mix with the great mass of unbelievers, and are of no account. We have had a succession of these traitors, from Judas to Gavazzi, and it is quite probable that the Council of the Vatican will prove the occasion of a certain number of apostasies. The departure from her outward communion of those who have already lost the faith is, however, an advantage rather than an injury to the church, and the places of these deserters will be better filled by the new converts who will be gained.

* * * * *

LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. By George Ticknor Curtis, one of his literary executors. Volume I. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 90, 92, and 94 Grand street. 1870.

Among the numerous regrets caused by the death of Edward Everett, many felt a disappointment because he had not added to our literature and to his own memoir of Mr. Webster a complete biography of that distinguished statesman. As far as we can judge from the present volume of Mr. Curtis's work, there is little cause, however, to regret that the task of writing it should have devolved on him. Its typography and paper deserve special praise; while the elegant yet modest appearance of the book is in harmony with the dignity of its subject, the style of the author, and the taste of that portion of the community who will constitute its most attentive readers.

The story of Mr. Webster's rustic boyhood, of the fireside legends of Indian and British warfare, whence he drew the patriotism of his riper years, the history of his struggle with poverty, and of the warm ties which bound him to his elder brother, are all told in a vividly interesting manner, and will recall similar scenes to the mind of many a reader. The successful career at school and college of the poorly-clad, sensitive lad, developing gradually into his splendid manhood and growing daily in the esteem of all is also graphically portrayed. In his habits of toil and deep study we see the foundations of that solidity of character, that grasp of intellect, which gave to his eloquence its commanding force, and to many of his forensic efforts their present character of legal authority.

The rising generation will admire the record of Mr. Webster's entrance into public life, and the independence, integrity, and loyalty which marked his course therein. From his youth he seemed to know of no other policy than right. Though party lines are nowadays more sharply defined than in his time, we think this broad and true American spirit is still the surest guide to lasting political influence. And the young politician who will place patriotism and devotion to principle before private ambition will secure the highest triumph for both, and need never fear the lash of party despotism.

In the present state of political affairs, which proves in so many ways and on so many points the correctness of Mr. Webster's views, and the deep, far-seeing genius of his statesmanship, we heartily approve the moderation and historical calmness with which Mr. Curtis records the exciting scenes of the "nullification" and "expunging" times, and also Mr. Webster's views on the hushing up of discussion on the abolition petitions of '36 and '37.

We have evidences, in portions of his correspondence brought into the work, of the true place which Mr. Webster assigned to principles, and of his contempt for openly immoral men. Writing to Mr. Ticknor in 1830, he says of a certain eminent literary character, whose sins have not been left to disappear with his ashes:

"Many excellent reasons are given for his being a bad husband, the sum of which is that he was a very bad man. I confess, I was rejoiced then, I am rejoiced now, that he was driven out of England by public scorn; for his vices were not in his passions, but in his principles."

On the whole, there are few biographies of public men more healthful to the moral system of the reader than that of Mr. Webster. We see his acknowledgment of true principles, and if in his private life he at any time afterward lost sight of them, this weakness has not the sanction of his genius, but stands condemned by it.

As an orator, his natural powers rank him with Demosthenes, with Chatham, with O'Connell. The legal profession will look upon him as one of its lights and ornaments. And all who love America will honor in him one whose heart beat in unison with the mighty pulse of this nation. We venture to hope that the rest of the work will equal the present volume, and that it will be read by every intelligent young man in the United States.

* * * * *

MISSALE ROMANUM. Tours Edition. Royal quarto. 1869. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Bros.

This is a very fine edition of the Roman Missal. It is carefully bound in morocco, tastefully ornamented, and opens easily. The page is pleasant to the eye, the type being large and clear, and the paper very good. All the recent masses will be found at their proper places in this edition, which is in itself both a convenience and recommendation. At the commencement of the canon there is a very good steel-plate engraving of the Crucifixion. We recommend this missal to the notice of the reverend clergy and members of altar societies.

* * * * *

THE HISTORY OF ROME. By Theodor Mommsen. Translated by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, D.D. With a preface by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz. New edition, in four volumes. Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

This is a philosophical history. It is difficult to do justice to the depth and accuracy of the erudition it displays. The style is also singularly happy--especially for a translation. We accept the author's facts, but not all his theories. Some of the latter would account for certain religious beliefs and practices by ignoring, on the one hand, primitive tradition, and attributing, on the other, to peoples but just emerging from barbarism the sublimest poesy and the keenest wisdom. Rationalism will never succeed in accounting for what was true in the religions of Greece and Rome, any more than for Christianity. The great philosophical historian of our age is Professor Leo, of Halle, whose account of Rome is especially admirable. Those who read German will probably find in Leo and Mommsen, together with Niebuhr, all they need to know of the principles, constitution, origin, and historical development of pagan Rome. For a correct and condensed narrative of events, Cantu's _Universal History_ is the best.

* * * * *

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE: A REFORM AGAINST NATURE. By Horace Bushnell. New York: Scribner & Co. 1869. 12mo, pp. 184.

We agree with Dr. Bushnell, as our readers are aware, in opposing female suffrage and eligibility as repugnant to the law of God, the natural relations of the sexes, and the interests of the family, of society, and indeed of woman herself; but in the course of his essay he uses so many weak arguments, and concedes so much to the women's rights folks, that his conclusions, though just, are not well sustained, and are not likely to carry conviction to the minds of those women who aspire to be men. We do not believe the lot of woman in society as it is can be truly said to be harder than that of men. The curse of our age is its femineity, its want of manliness, its sentimentalism, and its pruriency; and it could only be aggravated by female suffrage and eligibility. "The reigns of queens," said a queen of France to a duchess of Burgundy, "are conceded to be more successful than those of kings." "True," responded the duchess; "but it is because queens follow the counsel of men, and kings the counsel of women." The age, or what is called the age, needs reforming, we grant; for it has been formed by Protestantism, which is simply in principle a resuscitation of gentilism; but not more for woman than for man, and reformed it cannot be without faith in the doctrine and obedience to the commands of the church of God.

The modern economical and industrial system, which enriches the few at the expense of the many, and which is boasted as the grand achievement of modern progress, is the source of most of the evils which our political and social reformers seek to redress. This system, which sees in man only an instrument of producing, distributing, and consuming the material goods of this life, and takes no account of the divine sovereignty, or of man's moral and spiritual wants, we are quite willing to concede is a natural product of the Reformation. It creates wants beyond its power to satisfy, tastes and habits of life which demand for their gratification great wealth, and great wealth can be the lot of only the few. It creates a large class of men and women, especially of women, for whom it does and can make no provision, and who suffer just in proportion to their cultivated and refined habits and tastes. The system is in fault, is based on the false principle that the more wants you can stimulate or develop in a man or a woman the better. Hence, it creates a large class who are ill at ease, misplaced, discontented, and maddened by wants that they cannot satisfy, and prepared to be not reformers, but revolutionists.

There is no way of curing the evil, which was as great in ancient Greece and Rome as it is in modern Britain or America, but by returning to the Christian principle of self-denial, and following the admonition of our Lord, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all things shall be added unto you." Would you make a man happy, study not to increase his possessions, but to diminish his desires. While material riches are held up as the supreme good, and poverty is treated as a disgrace, if not as a crime, there is no remedy for individual, domestic, or social evils, as the history of all heathen nations amply proves. Let the poor be held in honor as our Lord and his church held them, let voluntary poverty for Christ's sake be counted highly meritorious, and the evils our radicals feel, and our women's rights people complain of, will soon disappear, and woman will find her proper place, and man his. No political or social revolution is needed; none will do any good; all that is needed is to substitute the Christian economy for the pagan that now governs modern society.

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NIDWORTH AND HIS THREE MAGIC WANDS. By E. Prentiss. Boston: Roberts Bros.

A beautiful allegorical story, the moral of which is that riches and knowledge are worthless if not accompanied by the love of your neighbor. Brotherly love is the great lesson of this little volume, without which no one can be happy, and with which every one may be happy, even though one's home be only a cabin. It is the best book of the kind we have read in a long time, and should be placed in the hands of the ambitious youth of our country, whose God seems to be riches and unlimited power.

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BIBLE ANIMALS: Being a Description of every living Creature mentioned in the Scriptures, from the Ape to the Coral. By the Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S., etc. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870. Pp. 652.

This book merits unqualified praise. It is so complete that it will probably become the standard authority upon this branch of biblical literature. Indeed, it appears almost to exhaust the subject; so that, although the work was written more especially to aid biblical students, yet the scientific exactness of Mr. Wood's explanations and descriptions will make the volume extremely valuable to all who are interested in natural history. The identification of the animals and birds mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy is particularly useful. Many of the words used in the ordinary translations do not really designate the creatures that are intended. Mr. Wood seems to have brought good sense and great fairness to this difficult portion of his task. Where he is unable to decide with probability, he is not ashamed to say that he "is lost in uncertainty, and at the best can only offer conjectures." But this uncertainty refers principally to the smaller and less conspicuous species. The larger animals and birds are nearly all identified with tolerable certainty. The illustrations of the volume are numerous and finely executed. They are mostly taken from living animals, while the accessory details have been obtained from Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, and from the photographs and drawings of modern travellers. In every respect the book offers a rich and varied treat to those who feel an interest in knowing something of the land and the people which our divine Saviour chose for his own.

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ART THOUGHTS: The Experiences and Observations of an American Amateur in Europe. By James Jackson Jarves. 12mo, pp. 379. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

Mr. Jarves is one of the few American writers on art whose works are worth reading and preserving. He has devoted to the subject the study and travel of many years, and has gathered one of the finest collections of genuine masters ever brought to this country. To a certain extent, his verdict upon painting and sculpture is entitled to the greatest weight; for it is founded upon intelligent study and a natural artistic appreciation. For the antique and the modern schools we may cheerfully accept him as a guide; but in the great realm of Christian art, which lies glorious and beautiful between these two extremes, he is but a blind leader of the blind--a pagan of the nineteenth century, unable to comprehend true religious inspiration, or to feel the artistic value of religious symbolism; and for whom much of the sublimity of the _Renaissance_, as well as the ruder but sincere and often eloquent art of the earlier Christian period, is therefore covered with an impenetrable veil. It is one of the canons of Mr. Jarves's criticism that every species of asceticism, either in life or in art, is a violation of nature and of truth. That is false art, therefore, which deals with representations of physical suffering, and the Apollo is a nobler subject than the crucified Saviour. What a wealth of spiritual beauty is shut out by this sensual conception, we need not stop to say. It is no wonder that, with such views, Mr. Jarves, while he admires the enraptured saints of Fra Angelico, cannot feel the divine pathos and sublimity of Michael Angelo's "Pieta." It is no wonder that he believes that "every religion in the form of a creed restricts and narrows art;" that he hates the Roman Church for its inculcation of the virtue of self-mortification; denounces our worship as rank idolatry of the most degrading kind; and can hardly speak with decent moderation his contempt for the crucifix and his detestation of the uncomfortable doctrine of eternal punishment. To Catholics, indeed, almost every page of his book conveys offence, and the blasphemy of some passages is too horrible for quotation.

The book is manufactured with due regard to magnificence of exterior, and many typographical niceties appropriate to a work on the fine arts. There is so much care, in fact, evident in its print and binding that we have a right to complain of there not being a little more, and especially to protest against the constant disfigurement of proper names--partly through the fault of the author, and partly through insufficient proof-reading. "Giusti," for instance, is printed "Guisti," "Giuliano" appears as "Guliano" and "Giulano," never, we believe, in its proper form. We have also "Guliana," and "Lucca" _della Robbia_ uniformly, instead of "Luca." St. Simeon Stylites is called sometimes "St. Stylus," (which is nonsense,) and sometimes "St. Simone;" and sometimes, we may add, "that filthy fanatic." The union of Italian forms of common Christian names, like Simone and Francesco, with the English prefix "St.," is another common fault. For the words "King Ca_u_daules," "So_u_briquet," and "_Casa_" as the Italian for "thing," we must hold the proof-readers alone to blame.

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AMONG THE TREES: A Journal of Walks in the Woods, and Flower-Hunting through Field and by Brook. By Mary Lorimer. Sq. 8vo, pp. 153. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

This is a pleasant, readable, feminine sort of book, written by an ardent and intelligent lover of nature, and quite equal to inspiring almost any body with more or less enthusiasm for the pursuit to which it is devoted. The writer catalogues minutely the botanical charms of all the different seasons--midwinter as well as the depth of summer; describes the flowers of each month, and tells where to look for them; and gives practical instructions for making miniature conservatories of wild flowers, and doing various other pretty things such as young ladies delight in. The book is written for the latitude of New York. Excellent wood-cuts accompany the text, and the paper and binding are suitable for the holiday season.

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CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. Lectures delivered during Advent, by the Rev. Thomas S. Preston. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 126 Nassau Street. 1870.

This volume is by far the most original and the best in every respect of several excellent volumes by the reverend author. The style and method of treating the subject remind us of Archbishop Manning. The discourses here published were preached to overflowing congregations, on the Sunday evenings during the last Advent. They develop a most important and interesting line of argument, not frequently handled, but likely to be most useful to the best class of Protestants. They are intended to show how those doctrines of the church and sacraments which are distinctively Catholic flow necessarily from the doctrines of original justice, the fall, the incarnation and redemption. They address, therefore, directly, and in the most conclusive manner, those Protestants who are called orthodox or evangelical, in common parlance. They cannot be too strongly recommended to those persons who believe in the true divinity of Jesus Christ and seek to know his doctrine and law. Pious Catholics, also, will derive great instruction and edification from this volume. It is published in the neatest and most attractive form, and is especially to be welcomed at a moment when so much glittering but counterfeit coin is in circulation.

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SADLIER'S CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO, for the year of our Lord, 1870. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1870.

We are pleased to see that our suggestion of last year, with regard to the binding of the _Almanac_, has been acted upon this year; and we now have a work we can at least open without tearing it to pieces. We would suggest other improvements--in the matter of better paper, more margin on the page, less advertisements, and a little more correctness in names and places in next year's issue--all of which would be a great improvement on the present volume, which is in some points superior to former ones.

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HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES. By K. R. Hagenbach, D.D. Translated by the Rev. I. F. Hurst, D.D. 2 vols. New York: Scribner.

This author, who is a moderately orthodox Protestant, is well acquainted with German Protestantism, and his work will therefore be useful to those who wish to study the phases of that rapidly dissolving view of Christianity.

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THE LIFE, PASSION, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Being an Abridged Harmony of the Four Gospels in the Words of the Sacred Text. Edited by the Rev. Henry Formby. With an entirely new series of engravings on wood, from designs by C. Clasen, D. Nolen, and others. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1870.

Fr. Formby is well known as a writer of great taste and remarkable skill in preparing books for children and grown people who require reading that is easily understood. His pictorial series has long been popular in England, and will now be republished, with the author's permission, by the Catholic Publication Society. The present volume is the first of the series. It is a continuous narrative taken from all the four Gospels, according to the Rhemish version, judiciously compiled according to the best harmonies, and abridged in such a way as to simplify without curtailing in any important respect the history. The illustrations are numerous and spirited, and, with one or two exceptions, are pleasing. The book is a charming one, as well as one most useful and important for children. Nothing can be more suitable, also, for good, plain Catholics, who ought by all means to be familiar with the Gospel history, and who will find this arrangement of it much better for their use than the Gospels themselves read separately. This book ought to be in every Catholic family, day-school, and Sunday-school, and to be circulated by the ten thousand.

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THE LIBRARY OF GOOD EXAMPLE. In twelve volumes. New York: P. O'Shea. 1870.

This series is mainly composed of tales, etc., already before the public in manifold guises. Hence an enumeration of the titles of the several volumes, or a review of their contents, would be to our readers "a thrice-told tale." We will only say that, in our opinion, although they are admirably adapted for the perusal of children, the temper, at least of the juvenile reader, in search of "fresh fields and pastures new," will not be improved by the discovery that, in expending his pocket-money for the _Library of Good Example_, he has, for the third time, in some instances, purchased the same book. In one respect, however, this series is an improvement on its predecessors--it is _not_ illustrated.

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CONCILIEN GESCHICHTE. Hefele. Vol. vii. Part I. Council of Constance. 1869.

This part of the learned bishop's great work is especially interesting at the present moment, on account of the pretence raised by a certain number of persons that the Council of Constance was, in all its sessions, oecumenical. It is, besides this temporary interest, of lasting and intrinsic importance, for reasons well known to every scholar. Dr. Hefele not only gives us a learned and accurate historical work, but also a graphic picture of the intensely exciting and interesting events of the great Council of Constance. We cite the author's concluding sentence on the authority of the decrees of the council: "That (Eugenius IV.) intended to exclude the decrees of Constance respecting the superiority of general councils over the pope from his approbation is indubitable. In accordance with this, and according to modern law, which declares the papal approbation of general councils necessary in order to make them such, there can be no doubt that (_a_) all the decrees of Constance, which are not prejudicial to the papacy, are to be considered oecumenical; on the other hand, that (_b_) all which infringe against the _jus_, the _dignitas_, and _præeminentia_ of the apostolic see, are to be considered as reprobated." This is in harmony with the sentiment of all the soundest canonists and theologians, namely, that which excludes the Council of Constance from the number of the councils strictly called oecumenical, and relegates it to a second class of general councils some of whose decrees are rejected and others approved.

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THE STATUS OF THE CATHOLIC CLERGY IN THE UNITED STATES. Bishop McQuaid!--Father O'Flaherty!--The Imbroglio in the Diocess of Rochester.

This vile anonymous pamphlet, printed without any publisher's name and signed, "Priests of the Diocese of Rochester," is a disgrace to its authors, especially if they are really priests. A publication of this kind, which is in itself a grievous offence, cannot claim even a hearing for any thing it may contain. If any priests of the diocese of Rochester have so far lost all sense of sacerdotal duty as to put forth this pamphlet, taking advantage of their bishop's absence, it is evident that a little more application of ecclesiastical discipline in that diocese will prove salutary.

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THE BYRNES OF GLENGOULAH. A True Tale. By Alice Nolan. New York: P. O'Shea.

SALLY CAVANAGH; OR, THE UNTENANTED GRAVES. A Tale of Tipperary. By Charles J. Kickham. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.

The foul wrongs to which the existing laws between landlord and tenant expose the peasantry of Ireland are made the ground-work of both these stories of Irish life. While these wrongs are familiar to all, so also are their sad effects, as narrated in the volumes before us. Of these, the former is undoubtedly more racy of the soil; though the latter, we think, will leave a more pleasing impression on the reader. The great fault with Miss Nolan is a talent for exaggeration; her _favorites_ are always right; their enemies are ever harsh in word, cruel in act, and villainous in appearance. The landlord's victims are almost too ethereal for humanity--only a little less than angels; he and his myrmidons too diabolical for fiends.

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GREAT MYSTERIES AND LITTLE PLAGUES. By John Neal. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1870.

The author proves that he has fully studied his subject, and that his title-page, though rather mysterious, is still most expressive and true. He shows by nearly three hundred anecdotes that children are really great mysteries and little plagues. His fairy story of "Goody Gracious! and the Forget-me-not" is the very model of a fairy story--plenty of imagination without going into the impossible and improbable.

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ACTA EX IIS DECERPTA QUÆ APUD SANCTAM SEDEM GERUNTUR, etc. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This is a fac-simile reprint of the Roman edition. It is a work of the greatest utility to ecclesiastics. We noticed some errors of the press, which suggests the remark that the proofs should invariably be carefully revised by a clergyman.

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P. Donahoe, Boston, announces for early publication, _Life Pictures of the Passion of Christ_, translated from the German of Dr. Veith, by Rev. Father Noethen; _The Our Father_, translated from the German of the same author; _The Monks of the West_, by the Count Montalembert, and a _Life of Pius IX_.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From P. O'Shea, New York, The Key of Heaven; or, A Manual of Prayer. With the approbation of the Most Rev. John McCloskey, D.D., Archbishop of New York. Revised, corrected, and improved. 1869. Pp. 532.

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From J. W. SCHERMERHORN & CO., New York: Scottish University Addresses by Mill, Froude, Carlyle. Paper.

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From E. CUMMISKEY, Philadelphia: Considerations upon Christian Truths and Christian Duties; digested into Meditations for every day in the year. By Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner. New edition. 1 vol. 12mo. Controversy between Rev. Messrs. Hughes and Breckinridge on the subject, "Is the Protestant Religion the Religion of Christ?" Sixth edition. 1 vol. 12mo.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. X., No. 60.--MARCH, 1870.

CIVIL AND POLITICAL LIBERTY.[176]

That evangelical romancer, M. Merle d'Aubigné, not long since published a discourse having for title, _Jean Calvin, un des Fondateurs des Libertés Modernes_, or "John Calvin, one of the Founders of Modern Liberty." The discourse, as the Abbé Martin says, is of no importance; but the title is significant. It claims for the Genevan reformer the merit of being one of the founders of liberty in modern society. Mr. Bancroft in his _History of the United States_ does the same. A Lutheran might with equal truth claim as much for Luther, a Scottish Presbyterian as much for John Knox, and an Anglican as much for Henry VIII. and the Virgin Queen Elizabeth. Nearly all Protestant and anti-Catholic writers assume, as an indisputable maxim, that liberty was born of the Reformation. All your Protestant and liberal journals assert it, and the ignorant multitude believe it. Whoever contradicts it is denounced as an ultramontanist, a tool of the clergy, or a Jesuit, and, of course, is silenced. Protestant nations enjoy, even with many Catholics, the _prestige_ of being free nations; and all Catholic nations are set down as despotic, and, owing to the influence of the church, as deadly hostile to every kind of liberty, religious, political, civil, and individual. Protestantism and liberty, or Catholicity and despotism, is adopted as the formula of the convictions of this enlightened age.

This alleged connection of Protestantism and liberty, and of Catholicity and despotism, the Abbé Martin maintains, is what gives to Protestant missions in old Catholic nations the principal part of their success in unmaking Catholics. The Protestant missionaries, seconded by all the liberal journals, proclaim their Protestantism as the liberator of nations, as that which emancipates the people from political despotism, and the mind from spiritual thraldom. The great argument used in this country against the church is her alleged hostility to liberty, and the certainty, if she once gained the ascendency here, she would destroy our free institutions, and reduce the nation to political and spiritual slavery. Such is the allegation; such the argument.

Now, every man who knows anything of history knows that the reverse of what is here alleged is true. The church has, undoubtedly, always opposed lawlessness, and set her face against revolutions for either king or people; but she has never favored slavery or despotism, and has always favored that orderly liberty, the only true liberty, which consists in the reign of law, instead of passion, caprice, or arbitrary will. She has always and everywhere insisted that the laws should be just and supreme, alike for ruler and ruled. She has sometimes submitted to despotic authority, but she has never approved it, or recognized it as legitimate; and when a courtier monk preached before Philip II. of Spain that the king is absolute, and may do whatever he wills, the Spanish Inquisition arraigned him for his false doctrine, and compelled him to retract it publicly from the same pulpit from which he had preached it.

The fact is, not that liberty was born of or with the Reformation, but that the Reformation itself was born of absolute monarchy, despotism, or Cæsarism, revived and confirmed at the epoch of its birth. Prior to the Reformation, which marked the triumph of Cæsarism over feudalism, there was, no doubt, much barbarism in Christian Europe; but there was no absolutism. A reminiscence of Græco-Roman imperialism remained, indeed, and was cherished by the civil lawyers or legists, whose maxim was, _Quod placuit principi, legis habet vigorem_; but absolutism never succeeded in getting itself established. The German emperors, especially the Hohenstauffen, Cæsarists in principle as well as in name, attempted to revive the Roman empire, but did not succeed. Power was divided. There were free cities and _communes_ that governed themselves as veritable republics under the guardianship, nominal rather than real, of a suzerain. The royal power was limited by the great vassals of the crown, and the authority of these in turn was limited by the lesser nobles, by the estates, and by the laws, and usages which had the force of laws. What characterizes the middle ages is the spirit of liberty. Few men in our time have better understood the middle ages, save as to the action of the church, than Sir Walter Scott, who, if a romancer, was also something more and better. He says in his _Anne of Geierstein_:

"We may remind our readers that, in all feudalized countries, (that is to say, in almost all Europe during the middle ages,) an _ardent spirit of liberty_ pervaded the constitution; and the only fault that could be found was, that the privileges and freedom for which the great vassals contended did not sufficiently descend to the lower orders of society, or extend protection to those most likely to need it. The two first ranks in the state, the nobles and the clergy, enjoyed high and important privileges, and even the third estate, or citizens, had this immunity in peculiar, that no new duties, customs, or taxes of any kind could be exacted from them save by their own consent."

The fault Sir Walter mentions was not peculiar to the middle ages, and is not less in European countries to-day than it was then. The representatives or delegates of the cities and _communes_ constituted the third estate, and sat in the assembly of the estates as early as the reign of Philip the Fair. If the rural population were not represented in the estates, they were not forgotten. The church had received that population as either slaves or serfs. She had succeeded in completely abolishing slavery in all continental Europe before the fifteenth century, and had made much progress toward putting an end to serfage. The enslaved populations were emancipated in nearly all Catholic Europe before the Reformation, and in the early part of the seventeenth century the French courts decided that "a slave could not breathe the air of France." The maxim of the English courts was plagiarized from the French judges. There may be a question whether the European peasant has gained much since the middle ages; whether his increased wants have not more than kept pace with his increased means of supply; and as for protection, they who most need it never find it under any political _régime_. The most cruel and heartless landlords could not have been more cruel and heartless than are your cotton-mills and mammoth moneyed corporations, especially when Mammon was not exclusively worshipped.

But be all this as it may, this much is certain: that during the feudal ages there was, under the influence and untiring exertions of the pope and the monastic orders, a constant social amelioration of society going on, and the whole tendency of those marvellous ages, so little understood, and so foully belied, was toward the establishment in every nation of a well-ordered liberty, under the safeguard of the church, and of Christian or Christianized traditions and manners. The fifteenth century came, and brought with it not only the revival of pagan literature, but of pagan politics, which gave to the secular order a predominance over the spiritual, as we have explained in previous articles. The unhappy residence of the popes at Avignon, that "Babylonian captivity," as it has been called, and the great schism of the west, which followed it, in the fourteenth century, had served much to diminish the splendor and to weaken the political power of the papacy. This, coupled with the secular development of the age, and the pagan revival, gave a chance for Cæsarism to raise its head, and for the sovereigns to declare themselves absolute, and responsible to God alone for their exercise of power. The feudal constitution of Europe was crushed, and the pagan empire took its place. Not only the emperor and the mightiest kings, but the pettiest sovereign duke or count became a Cæsar in his own dominions.

At this moment, just as Cæsarism was on the point of winning the victory, the Reformation broke out, not in behalf of the old liberties, but to help abolish them and secure to Cæsar his triumph. So far from founding or even aiding liberty, it interrupted its progress, and gave the movement in its favor, which had from the seventh century been going on, a false and fatal direction. The originators of the Reformation may have been simply heterodox theologians; but they could not sustain themselves without the aid of the princes, and that aid could be obtained only by ministering to their love of power, and submitting to their supremacy alike in spirituals and temporals. The princes that favored the Reformation became each in his own principality absolute prince and _pontifex maximus_. The prince protects the reformers, and uses his civil and military power to crush their enemies, and to extirpate the old religion from his dominions. Dependent on him, and sustained only as upheld by him, the Reformation was impotent to restrain his arbitrary power. The reformed religion, like gentilism, of which it was in fact only a revival, assumed at once the character of a national religion; and the reformed church was absorbed by the state, and became one of its functions, an instrument of police, which must always be the fate of a national religion.

But the Protestant nations not only helped on Cæsarism, which was the spirit of the age, but they gave up or were despoiled of their old liberties, which they had long possessed and enjoyed under the benign protection of the church. England saw her parliament practically annulled, and the prince governing, under Henry VIII., his daughter Elizabeth, and the first two Stuarts, as a Byzantine Basileus or an oriental despot; and it cost her a century of insurrections, revolutions, and civil wars to recover some portion of the political and civil freedom of which the Reformation had despoiled her. Even the Abbé Martin seems to forget that from 1639 to 1746 England was in a state as unsettled as France has been since 1789. She has not even yet recovered all her old liberties. She has, indeed, depressed the crown to exalt the aristocracy of birth or wealth, and is now entering upon a fearful struggle between aristocracy and democracy, most likely to end either in reviving the pagan republic, or in establishing once more the absolute authority of the crown.

The author very justly maintains that Protestantism has not created liberty, and that it has arrested or falsified it. He recalls that,

"At the breaking out of Protestantism slavery had entirely disappeared, and serfage or villenage, the transition state from slavery to complete liberty, was gradually disappearing, and giving place to free labor and domestic servants. The third estate was everywhere constituted, and nowhere had it more life and vigor than in the neighborhood of the churches and monasteries. This emancipation was the work of the Catholic Church, and never had a more signal service been rendered to liberty. The basis of all liberties, I say not of modern but of Christian liberties, was laid.

"Impartial history testifies that Protestantism has not accelerated this movement in behalf of liberty, but has arrested it. A few facts, gathered at random from the immense number that might be adduced, will sufficiently prove this assertion.

"'In Denmark,' says Berthold, 'the peasant was reduced to serfage as a dog.' The nobility profited by the reform, not only to appropriate to themselves the greater part of the goods of the church, but also the free goods of the peasant.

"'The _corvées_,' says Allen, the best historian of Denmark, 'were arbitrarily multiplied; the peasants were treated as serfs. It happened frequently that the children of the preachers and sacristans themselves were reduced to serfage. In 1804--mark the late date--personal liberty was granted for the first time to twenty thousand families of serfs. Sweden and Norway fared no better. In Mecklenburg, the oppression of the peasants, who had no one to defend their rights since they had lost the effective and vigilant protection of the Catholic clergy, followed immediately the triumph of the Reformation. At the diet of 1607, they were declared simple tenants at will--_colons_--who must yield up to the landlords, on their demand, even the lands which they had possessed from time immemorial. Their personal liberty was suppressed by the ordinances of 1633, 1648, and 1654. They sought to escape from this intolerable servitude by flight. The emigration was large. But the severest punishments, the lash, the carcan, even death, could not arrest it, nor prevent the depopulation of the fields. The lot of those miserable creatures hardly differed from that of negro slaves. The only difference was, that the masters were prohibited from separating families, and selling the members to the highest bidder at public auction; but they eluded it by trading off their serfs as horses and cows. Serfage was abolished in Mecklenburg only in 1820.

"The introduction of the Reform into Pomerania gave birth there to all the horrors of slavery. The ordinance of 1616 decreed that all peasants are serfs without any rights.... The ministers were required to denounce the fugitive serf from the pulpit. People are astonished to-day at the emigration from Germany, which nearly doubles that from Ireland. May not the cause be found in that old state of things, which, though recently abolished, has left but too many traces of its existence?

"A single fact will enable us to judge of the magnitude of the evil in Prussia. Under Frederick II., the contemporary and friend of Voltaire, who labored so energetically to make of his infant kingdom an immense barrack, the soldiers themselves, the support and instrument of his power, when discharged, returned to the common lot of serfs, after having fought his battles and won his victories. They were subjected anew to their landlords; and not only they, but also their wives, their widows, and their children, even though born in a state of freedom....

"Calvinism has not produced so sad results of the same kind. Less hierarchical in its nature than Lutheranism, and having taken its rise in Geneva, a free state, it has preserved something of its original constitution. Thus it has prevailed generally in countries organized under a republican form; in France, even, it aspired to a federation. But the liberty it has found, rather than created, it turns into an odious tyranny. It has, above all, no respect for individual liberty. The system which Calvin established at Geneva was even surpassed by that of John Knox in Scotland. The ecclesiastical domination over the faithful, and the inquisition into all their doings, were frightful. Every detail of private life could be brought before the presbyterial _forum_; nobody could feel himself safe. Espionage and domestic accusation were the soul of the system. The secrets of the family were scrutinized and inventoried; and the terrible arm of excommunication struck without relaxation and without mercy. Woe to him who fell under its blows; for him there was no social right. Will it be believed? The Puritans of England, who, to escape oppression and death, free, and masters of a virgin territory, became only the more rigorous, and their communities in North America were even more exclusive and tyrannical than those of their brethren in Europe." (Pp. 326-330.)

The author is too lenient toward Calvinism. It had, indeed, no partiality for monarchy, and just as little for democracy. What it aimed at was an aristocracy of the saints. Only those in grace could be freemen or exercise any authority in the community. The church was composed of the saints alone; and hence, in the colony of Massachusetts, only church members could be selectmen, or magistrates, or vote in elections. Church members had equal rights indeed; but those who were not church members had no rights at all, political, civil, or individual, and no social standing. The church members themselves covenanted to watch over each other, which meant, practically, that every member was to act as a spy upon every other member; and hence that cautiousness in speech, that fear of a _mouchard_ in every neighbor, and that obsequiousness to public opinion, which marks not a few of the descendants of the New England Puritans even to this day. The rights of man in relation to his brother man were undreamed of, and for individual liberty there was no respect whatever. The individual was subject to the congregation, ruled by the pastor and elders or deacons, themselves ruled by two or three venerable spinsters. Calvinism sought, in fact, to govern society, _minus_ celibacy, as a monastery, by converting the evangelical counsels into inflexible laws, and without the assistance of the grace of vocation. We shall never forget the odious tyranny to which Calvinism subjected our own boyhood. Life for us was stern, gloomy, hedged round with terror. We did not dare listen to the joyous song of a bird, nor to inhale the fragrance of an opening flower. Whatever gave pleasure was to be eschewed, and the most innocent pleasures were to be accounted deadly sins. We cannot even now, in our old age, think of our own Calvinistic childhood, which was by no means exceptional, without a shudder.

Thus far the author has spoken of individual liberty, which is the most essential of all, and without which civil and political liberty is a vain mockery. He asserts and proves, as we have seen, that Protestantism has not given to individual liberty a new development, but has arrested it. Well, was it more favorable to political liberty? We have answered this question already, but we cannot forbear citing the author's own reply:

"At the epoch of the outbreak of Protestantism, Christendom was advancing with rapid strides toward the practice of the largest liberty. For centuries the Italian republics had pushed liberty almost to license. They were, no doubt, often disorderly and turbulent; but they were full of sap, overflowing with life and activity, which availed for Italy a power and a glory which she seeks in vain from a factitious unity. Switzerland, by the energy of her patriotism and the wisdom of her government, won the admiration of the whole world. Flanders and the northern provinces of Spain watched with jealous susceptibility over their proud and noble independence; England had her _Magna Charta_, the basis of the strong constitution which has given her security in the midst of modern political and social convulsions; the cities and _communes_ of France and Germany administered freely their own affairs, as small republics under the guardianship, often more nominal than real, of some few suzerains. The guilds or corporations of the mechanics and tradesmen enjoyed rights the most extended. Power was nowhere despotic, and, though not restrained by scientific and uniform rules, it encountered everywhere a counterpoise to its authority and obstacles to its arbitrary will. Christian monarchy, that creation of the church, unknown in antiquity, approached maturity, and there was room to hope that it would found liberty without opening the door to license, and without having recourse to that enormous centralization which has only too often become a necessity. Catholic theology, always liberal, in the true sense of the word, inclined more to the rights of the people than to the rights of the sovereign. It knew not yet that right divine of kings as it was understood under Louis XIV., a diminutive pagan Cæsarism, which, as we shall show further on, held more strictly than is commonly believed from the principles which the Renaissance and Protestantism caused to prevail." (Pp. 330-332.)

We remark here that the _Christian monarchy_ of which the learned abbé speaks existed in the doctrines of the theologians and in the efforts of the church, rather than in the actual order. There were Christian monarchs or sovereigns, like St. Henry of Germany, St. Ferdinand of Spain, and St. Louis of France; but there was nowhere, that we have been able to discover, a _Christian_ monarchy. The feudal monarchy was of barbarian origin, and was a development of the chief of the tribe or clan. Side by side with this, constantly struggling with it for the mastership of society, was Græco-Roman imperialism, or briefly, Cæsarism, favored by the whole body of the legists, and always opposed by the church, though not always by churchmen become statesmen and courtiers. This pagan Cæsarism, which concentrates in the hands of the prince absolute authority in both temporals and spirituals, survived the fall of the Roman empire, and never for a moment ceased to struggle to recover the mastership; and it was it that was in question in the long struggle between the pope and the emperor. Defeated in the last of the Hohenstauffen, it revived in every petty prince in Christendom. It drove the popes from Rome into the exile of Avignon, and caused the great western schism. Still, the church was for a time able to prevent its complete success. But in 1453 came the taking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, the dispersion of the Greek scholars through the west; and the revival of pagan politics and literature served to reinforce Cæsarism, to weaken the influence of the church, and to give birth to the Protestant Reformation--at bottom nothing more nor less than a revival of the pagan order, against which the church from her birth had struggled.

The movement of which Protestantism was one of the results dates from a period before Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin, from the revival in the fifteenth century, and the successful struggle of Cæsarism against feudalism and the church. Protestantism may have prevented the development of a Christian monarchy; but it was itself a child of Cæsarism. The movement against feudalism, and for the concentration of power in the hands of the monarch, as well as for great centralized states, preceded the birth of Protestantism. Louis XI. in France, Maximilian I. in Germany, Henry VII. of England, the Cardinal Ximenes in Spain, and the de' Medici in Italy, all labored for the centralization of power, and paved the way for the revival and triumph in their respective countries of pagan Cæsarism. The Abbé Martin's statements are correct only in case we count Protestantism, under its social and political aspects, as the continuation and development of the movement in behalf of Cæsarism, or the centralization of power, and against the liberties secured by feudalism.

We are no admirers of feudalism; but we hold it better than the Græco-Roman imperialism it supplanted, or the absolute monarchy which succeeded it in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of which Bossuet was a conspicuous defender. The Reformation aided the movement in behalf of Cæsarism, by bringing to its support an open rebellion against the papal authority and the faith of the church, and secured it the victory. Cæsarism followed it immediately, not only in the nations that accepted the new religion, but also, to a great extent, in the nations that remained Catholic. On the first point the author asks:

"Who does not know that Lutheranism depended solely on the princes and nobles to overcome and despoil the church, and to triumph over the resistance of the people? Through gratitude, and through necessity, it surrendered itself and the people to the discretionary authority of the princes. In all countries where it became predominant, absolute power prevailed.

"As the result of the revolution in 1661, Frederic III. of Denmark and his successors were declared absolute monarchs. The royal law of 1665 attests that the king was required to take no oath, was under no obligation whatever; but had plenary authority to do whatever he pleased. In Sweden, the violent and surreptitious establishment of Protestantism was done in the interest of royalty and nobility, and, moreover, raised up an antagonism between these two powers which produced a series of revolutions in that country unrivalled in any other European state. But royalty finally triumphed. The estates, in 1680, declared that the king is bound to no form of government. In 1682, they declared it an absurdity to pretend that he was bound by statutes and ordinances to consult, before acting, the estates; whence it follows that the will of the king was the supreme law. 'After that,' says Geijer, the classic historian of Sweden, 'all was interpreted to the advantage of the omnipotence of one alone. The estates were no longer called the estates of the realm, but the estates of his majesty. In 1693, the unlimited absolutism of royalty became the law; the king was free to govern according to his good pleasure, without any responsibility.'

"It would be too long to follow the introduction of the same _régime_ as the consequence of the Reformation into the several states and principalities of Germany, in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, the duchies of Hanover and Brunswick, Brandenburg and Saxony. Everywhere the introduction of the new religion was followed by an augmentation of the power of the prince and nobles, and everywhere the prince finally succeeded in absorbing the power of the nobility. Prussia affords us a striking example of this result. Under the reign of the Elector Frederick William, from 1640 to 1688, the arbitrary and absolute power of the prince was developed according to a regular plan. The General Diet after 1665 ceased to be convoked. Crushing taxes were imposed without the consent and against the protests of the estates, and collected by the military; and so heavy were they, that multitudes of peasants, despoiled of their goods, were driven to brigandage for a living. A great number sought refuge in Poland, and nobles even deserted a country that devoured their children. Lands which were taxed beyond the value of their produce were abandoned, and suffered to run to waste. The country was oppressed by an unprecedented tyranny. Prussia, according to the expression of Stenzel, was in the way of becoming one of those Asiatic countries in which despotism stifles the growth of whatever is beautiful or noble." (Pp. 332-334.)

We have already spoken of the effects of the introduction of Protestantism into England and Scotland. Calvinism, the author considers, caused less grave and less durable damage to liberty; yet it was not less tyrannical by nature, only it was less monarchical. "At Geneva it confiscated all the ancient franchises to the profit of the oligarchy it established, and it was not owing to it that in Holland the stadtholder did not become absolute." Protestant historians are perfectly well aware of these facts, and from time to time they concede them; and yet the best of them continue to assert the impudent falsehood, that Protestantism has created and sustained modern liberty, individual, civil, and political--not, indeed, because it has done so, but because they think it would have been much in its favor if it had.

The other point, that Protestantism is in great measure responsible for the establishment or partial establishment of the pagan monarchy, or Cæsarism, in Catholic nations, we have shown in our previous articles on the work before us; yet we cite the following from the author:

"It is not simply in countries in which it triumphed that the Protestant Reformation has given to liberty a retrograde movement; it has reacted in a most fatal, though generally in an imperceptible, manner on Catholic governments themselves. It was, at its first appearance, a terrible temptation to the princes and sovereigns of Europe. It broke that firm independence of the Catholic clergy which had for so many ages repressed the tyrannical aspirations of secular governments; it gave up the rich spoils of the church to them, reversed their parts, and after having placed the priest, the representative of heaven, at the mercy of the powers of earth, it constituted the prince the master and director of consciences. What could be more seductive? An obstacle to overcome, almost a yoke to break, independence to conquer, vast riches to appropriate, the empire of souls to place by the side of the empire of bodies, the ideal of a power veritably sovereign; is it not the dream of every man who feels himself at the head of a nation? Princes and sovereigns yielded to the temptation. They were, besides, already prepared for it, by the received theories of legists or civil lawyers, inherited from the pagan state; by the ideas propagated by the Renaissance and by the Machiavelian lessons then taught in all the courts of Europe; and if all did not accept Protestantism, it was far less due to their personal repulsion than to the decided opposition of their people. But the new ideal of power germinated in their minds. On the other hand, the church, weakened and her very existence threatened, saw herself reduced to the necessity of relying on them for support against the armed violence of the Reformation. She must purchase their protection, and could do it only at the expense of her independence. In various places she abandoned to them the nomination of bishops and the collation of benefices, giving by this sacrifice, rigorously exacted by circumstances, and by this abandonment of her rights, which afterward proved so fatal, a sufficient satisfaction for the moment to the secret reason which inclined them to Protestantism. She loosened a prey to them, in order not to be devoured herself. Their hunger thus appeased, they consented to sustain her, but without having a common cause with her.

"Profiting adroitly by their position, the sovereigns passed rapidly from the part of defenders of the church to that of guardians and masters, and while respecting the essence of the spiritual power, they labored to subordinate the church and the exercise of her authority to the surveillance of the state. Not content with excluding all control of the church over their own acts, all interventions of the spiritual authority in civil and political affairs, they sought, after the example of the Protestant princes, to penetrate the interior of the church, and make themselves pontiffs; and if we cannot say that they completely succeeded, we cannot any more say that they wholly failed. What is certain is, that thenceforward they ceased to find any serious obstacle in the Catholic clergy or their chief to their designs, and that the legists, imbued with the maxims of the Roman law, and for a long time hostile to the church, coming to their aid, absolute royalty, without much difficulty, prevailed. The indirect influence of Protestantism was there.

"Even the Catholic clergy themselves contributed to this fatal evolution. Whether moved by gratitude, by a monarchical impulse, or, in fine, by necessity, they accepted, at least in the civil and political order, the new pretensions, and acknowledged the new rights of those sovereigns who, in espousing the Catholic religion, had saved it from the greatest danger it had as yet run. Influenced by the tendency of the times, Catholic theologians, especially in France, deserted the highways of the political theology of the middle ages, and proclaimed not only the divine origin of power, but the divine right of the king, his dependence on God alone, and the passive obedience of the people. The idea of the Christian monarchy was perverted, and in Catholic as in Protestant countries it inclined to Cæsarism. The church was the principal victim of this political transformation; she was all but smothered in the cruel embraces of Catholic monarchs, when God himself delivered her by the blow which was intended to extinguish her--the French Revolution. When that revolution broke out, the work of the Renaissance and of the Reform seemed accomplished. Except in England, Holland, and some microscopic Swiss republics, Catholic for the most part, absolutism reigned everywhere. Is it not, then, the strangest falsification of history to attribute to Protestantism the initiation of modern liberty?" (Pp. 339-341.)

Unhappily, Protestants will pay little heed to the fact that the loss of liberty in Catholic nations was due either to Protestantism or to the movement of which Protestantism was simply a development. There can be no reasonable doubt that but for Protestantism the church would have been able to check and roll back the powerful movement for the revival of Cæsarism, which had commenced in the fifteenth century, and have prevented the growth of absolute monarchy in a single Catholic state. The Protestant rebellion so weakened her external power, and detached from her so large a portion of the populations of Europe, that she was no longer able to restrain the absolutist tendencies of all European sovereigns. The sovereigns themselves, almost without exception, were inclined to the movement--were, in fact, its chief supporters; and if they did not all join it, it was because they were held back by their people, whose faith in the old religion was too strong to be given up at the pleasure of their princes, not because they had personally any devotion or attachment to her faith. The French court and most of the higher French nobility openly or secretly favored Protestantism till the conversion of Henry IV.; and even that monarch had formed a league with the Protestant princes, and was preparing for a war against the Catholic powers of Europe, at the very moment he was assassinated. His policy was adopted and carried out under his successors by Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, who repressed Protestantism in the interior, but supported it everywhere else. That France remained Catholic, was owing to the concessions made by the pope to her sovereigns, and to the firmness of the French people under the lead of the noble Guises, so calumniated by almost all modern French writers.

Yet the abbé expresses himself too strongly. The triumph of absolutism was never so complete in Catholic as in Protestant nations. In Protestant nations, the sovereigns united both the political and the spiritual powers, as under Greek and Roman gentilism, absorbed the church, and made religion a function of the state. In Catholic nations, although royalty interfered beyond measure in ecclesiastical affairs, the two powers remained distinct, and the church retained, at least in principle, her autonomy, however circumscribed and circumvented in its exercise. This is evident from the concordats she conceded to the sovereigns, and the diplomatic relations of Catholic powers with the holy see. Throughout all her humiliations, the church asserted and maintained, in principle, her independence. In all Protestant countries, the state legislated for the Protestant church; it nowhere treated with it as a separate power, and held, and could hold, no diplomatic relations with it. In all Protestant nations, the church became national and local; but in all Catholic nations she continued to be Catholic, and was always and everywhere some restraint on the absolute power of the sovereign, as both Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. learned by experience, and hence their discreditable quarrels with the holy see, and the imprisonment of the holy father by the latter. Lord Molesworth remarked in 1792, as cited by the author from Döllinger's _Church and Churches_, that, "in the Roman Catholic religion, with the supreme head of the church at Rome, there is a principle of opposition to unlimited political power. It is not the same with the Lutheran [he might have added the Anglican] clergy, who depend on the crown as their spiritual and temporal superior." This principle opposes the unlimited power of the people no less than of the monarch, and hence the sects all agree, now that the age tends to democratic absolutism, in opposing the church in the name of the people; for Protestantism has the same absolutist instincts always and everywhere.

The author, we think, exaggerates the adoption by the Catholic clergy, even in France, of absolutism in politics. Bossuet, who was a French courtier as well as a Catholic bishop, as tutor to the dauphin, went, no doubt, as far in asserting the divine right of kings, and passive obedience, as the Anglican divines under the Stuarts; and some of the clergy, yielding to court influence and the spirit of the age, followed him; but the noble Fénélon, in no respect his inferior as a theologian, differed from him, held, with the great body of Catholic theologians in all ages, that power is a trust for the public good, and that kings are responsible to the nation for their exercise of it. It was his anti-absolutist doctrine, not his few inaccurate expressions on the doctrine of pure love, in his _Maxims of the Saints_, that caused him to be stripped of his charges at court, and exiled to his diocese of Cambray. Nor is it true, as the abbé insinuates, that the pope sanctioned the absolutist doctrines which prevailed in France or elsewhere in the seventeenth century. The four articles, dictated by the government, slightly modified by Bossuet, and accepted by a small minority of the French bishops, which contain the very essence of absolutism, were no sooner published by order of the king, and commanded to be taught in all the theological seminaries, and to be conformed to by all the professors and clergy of the realm, than the pope condemned them, annulled the order of the king, and finally compelled him to withdraw it, or at least to pledge himself that he would do so. The pope never failed to assert, and, as far as he could, to cause to be respected, the rights of the church--that is to say, the rights of God, which are the only solid basis of the rights of man.

Every theologian knows that, prior to the rise of Protestantism, and even for a considerable time afterward, Catholic political theology bears no trace of the absolutism taught by Bossuet, and which he had borrowed from contemporary Protestantism. It is worthy of remark that nowhere were the first acts of the French Revolution hailed with more joy than at Rome with the pope and cardinals, and it found no warmer, firmer, or more disinterested supporters than the French clergy as a body, whose representatives were the first to join the _Tiers-Etats_. Afterward, when the revolution run into horrible excesses, put forth doctrines subversive of all religion, and even of society itself, assumed the right to legislate on spiritual matters, and showed that it only transferred absolutism from the king to the mob, there was undoubtedly a reaction against it in the minds of the pope and clergy, as there was in the minds of all men not incapable of profiting by experience, and who could not prefer license to orderly liberty. The salvation of religion and society made it the duty of the church to sustain with all her power the sovereigns in their efforts to repress the revolutionary spirit, and to restore and maintain social peace and order.

It is this fact, stripped of its reasons, and its real nature misunderstood or misrepresented, that has given rise to the pretence that the church opposes, while Protestantism, which is leagued, if not identical, with the revolution, favors liberty. Protestants never, that we are aware, put forth any pretence of the sort prior to 1792. Up to the moment of this reaction against the French revolution, the contrary charge had been made, and the church condemned for being hostile to the rights of sovereigns, and it was in reply to the speech of Cardinal Duperron, in the states-general in France in 1614, in favor of the rights of the nation and the church against the irresponsibility of the crown, that James I. of England wrote his _Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings_. History as written by Protestants is composed of disjointed facts, misplaced and misrepresented, whenever it is not pure invention.

The author is not quite exact in saying absolutism reigned everywhere at the breaking out of the French revolution, except in England, Holland, and the Swiss cantons. The United States had won their independence and adopted their federal constitution before that event, and certainly the American republic was not founded on the principle of the omnipotence of the state or of the people. It revived neither pagan imperialism nor pagan republicanism, and was in its fundamental principles more nearly a Christian republic than the world had hitherto seen.

It would seem, as the great mass of the American people were Protestants, and the more influential portion of them intensely Protestant, of the Calvinistic type, that the American republic should be held as an exception to the assertion that Protestantism resulted everywhere in the establishment of absolutism. But it is in reality no exception. It had no existence at the epoch of the Reformation, and Protestantism had no hand in founding it. It was founded by Providence, and the principles which form its basis were derived by the English colonists, not from Protestantism, but from the old constitution of England in Catholic times, and which, though suppressed by the ruling classes, never ceased to live in the traditions of the English people. The revolution in the seventeenth century in England was the struggle of the English people to recover their old rights, of which Protestant royalty and nobility had deprived them. Royalty and nobility did not emigrate; they remained at home, and there were in the Anglo-American colonies no materials from which either could be constructed. The great principle of the Puritans, that the church is independent of the state and superior to it, or that the state has no authority to legislate in religious matters, not even in non-essentials, was a Catholic principle, for which the popes, in their long struggles with the secular power, had uniformly contended. It is the vital principle of liberty; for it interposes the rights of God, represented by the church, as the limits of the rights of the state. The Puritans had asserted this principle in their own defence against the Protestant king and parliament of England, which assumed plenary authority in spirituals as well as in temporals. It was not Protestantism that developed this great principle of all just liberty, and opposed to all absolutism; it was the old Catholic principle, always and everywhere asserted by the Catholic Church.

But taking the Bible, especially the Old Testament, interpreted by a fallible authority, as their criterion of the rights of God, as represented by their Puritan church, the Puritans failed not in asserting, but in applying the principle, and established, in practice, as we have seen, a most odious tyranny. They misapplied the principle, which can be rightly applied only by the Catholic Church. Their Protestantism misled them, and perverted the truth they retained, as was universally the case with Calvinists. It is easy to see now why Protestantism deserves no credit for founding American liberty. It was not of Protestant origin, and we may add Protestantism is busy at work to destroy it, or at least shows itself impotent to sustain it.

The true basis of American liberty is in the assertion of the rights of God, represented by the church, or by religion, as bounding or limiting the power of the state, whether imperial or popular. But under Protestant influences, the rights of God are resolved into the rights of man, and the Christian republic becomes simply a humanitarian republic, which can offer no solid foundation for liberty of any sort. The rights of man are no more sacred and inviolable than the rights of the prince or the state. It is only when the rights of man are resolved into the rights of God in and over man, that they are sacred and inviolable, or inalienable. But the American people have ceased so to resolve them, if, indeed, they ever did it, and recognize no more ultimate basis for liberty than humanity itself. If, as many of them do, they insist on religion as necessary to the maintenance of liberty, it is only as an external prop or support, not as its logical basis, or root, out of which it grows, and from which it derives all its sap and vigor.

No humanitarian republic is or can be a free republic, because, though it recognizes the people as the state, and establishes universal suffrage and eligibility, it has nothing but humanity, nothing above the people, to limit or restrict their power as the state. The people are humanity in the concrete, and a humanitarian republic therefore simply transfers the absolutism from the monarch to the people, and substitutes democratic Cæsarism for monarchical Cæsarism, the pagan republic for the pagan empire. Absolutism is absolutism, whether predicated of the one or of the many. We in the United States are rapidly losing sight of the Catholic principle retained by the Puritans, and rushing into democratic absolutism; we assert the omnipotence of the will of the people, and treat constitutions as simply self-imposed restrictions, which bind no longer than the people will. Demagogues, politicians, and statesmen tell the people that their will is supreme; and vainly would he seek their suffrages who should deny it. The opposition to the extension of the church in this country grows precisely out of the well-known fact, that she does not emanate from the people, is not subject to the will of the people, and would restrict their omnipotence--an opposition that proves that she, not Protestantism, is the defender of liberty. Certainly, if she were to become predominant here, she would soon put an end to the absolutism of the state, sustained by all our leading journals, and reëstablish the Christian republic, in place of the humanitarian or pagan republic, to which we are pushed by the Protestant spirit of the age, the veritable _Welt-Geist_, or prince of this world, as all Protestant movements amply prove.

The abbé shows a strict alliance between contemporary Protestantism and the revolution, or revolutionary movements in all European nations. With these revolutionary movements we have the authority of the chief magistrate of the Union for saying the American people generally sympathize. We lend, at least, all our moral support to these movements wherever we see them. They owe their origin, in fact, to Protestantism; and, so far at least as they are confined to Catholic nations, are fomented and encouraged by Protestant emissaries and Protestant associations and contributions; yet these movements are, under the name of liberty, purely humanitarian, and their success would simply substitute the absolutism of the people for the absolutism of the monarch--democratic Cæsarism, or rather, demagogic Cæsarism, for imperial Cæsarism. In the sixteenth century, the sovereigns embraced or inclined to the Reformation, because it removed the restraints that the church imposed on their absolute power and arbitrary will; demagogues and revolutionists in the nineteenth century glorify it, because it removes all restrictions on the will of the people as the state. In each case the church is opposed to it, and for the same reason, because she asserts the rights of God as the basis of the rights of man; and, as their divinely constituted guardian and representative, interposes them as a limit to the absolute power of the state, whether monarchical or democratic, the only security possible for the reign of justice, of just laws, and therefore of real liberty, individual, civil, and political.

There is no doubt that Protestantism, since the culmination of monarchical absolutism in the seventeenth century, has agitated for the revival of what it calls liberty, but what we call the humanitarian or pagan republic. The people moved by it have, no doubt, supposed they were marching toward real liberty; but they have nowhere gained it, and have only removed the day of its acquisition. Under its influence we have smothered the principle of liberty, and lost most of the guarantees which Providence gave us in the outset. We have lost not only the principle of liberty, but also its correlative, the principle of authority; and have no basis for either freedom or government, for the basis of neither can be found in humanity. Great Britain, to a certain extent, has popularized her administration; but through all her changes of dynasties and constitutions, she has never ceased to assert the omnipotence of the state as the state, supreme in spirituals as in temporals. On the continent, the revolution, attempted in the name of humanity, has nowhere founded liberty. Its momentary success in France from 1792 to 1795, inclusive, is universally recognized as the Reign of Terror, when religion was suppressed and virtue was punished as a crime. France, after a century of revolutions, is not as free to-day as she was even under her old monarchical institutions. The French are just now trying anew the experiment of parliamentary government which the Anglo-maniacs consider only as another name for liberty; but whether the experiment succeeds or fails, liberty will gain nothing; for the parliamentary government is as absolute as the personal government of Napoleon III., and most likely will have even less regard for the rights of God. The one no more than the other will recognize the spiritual power as a restriction on the power of the temporal.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the spirit of the age was for the revival of pagan imperialism; the spirit of the age is now, and has been since the middle of the last century, the pagan republic; but there is just as little liberty under the one as under the other, or, if any difference, there is less under pagan republicanism than under pagan imperialism; for the Roman empire was really an improvement on the Roman republic. Under the one the monarch is the state; under the other the people or the ruling classes are the state; and under both the state is alike supreme, and acknowledges no limit to its power. The republican party is now, here and in all Europe, as hostile to the church as were the sovereigns in the sixteenth century, and for the same reason. The party knows perfectly well that it is impossible for her to approve any form of absolutism in the state. Having decided that the humanitarian republic it seeks to establish, and to which the spirit of the age tends, is liberty, it holds, and public opinion sustains it, that its success depends on sweeping her away, and destroying all religion that does not emanate from the people, or that claims to be a power independent of the state, and authorized to declare the law for the people instead of receiving it from them. Because she resists the madmen of this party, and seeks to save herself and society, they denounce her as opposed to liberty, as the upholder of despots and despotism, as at war with the spirit of the age, and the bitter enemy of modern civilization. "If," said the accusers of our Lord to the Roman procurator, "thou lettest this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend." "If," said the reformers in the sixteenth century, "thou sparest the pope or the church, thou art no friend, but a traitor to the king;" "if," say their children in this nineteenth century, "thou upholdest the church, thou art no friend, but a traitor to the sovereign people, and false to liberty;" and the nineteenth century believeth them. We disbelieve them, and believe the Lord, who hath bought us with his own precious blood and made us free.

These madmen are animated and carried away by the spirit of the age, and suppose all the time that they are battling for liberty against its most dangerous enemies. They carry the people with them, and induce them to crucify their God as a malefactor. What is to restrain them? The strong arm of power? That were only to establish the reign of force. Reason? What can reason do with madmen, or against the multitude blinded by false lights and moved onward by an unreasoning passion? The intelligence of the age? Are they not carried away by the age, and is it not from the very madness of the age that they need to be saved? When the very light in the age is darkness, how great must be its darkness! It is only a power that draws its light from a source of light above the light of the age, and acts with a wisdom and strength that is above the people, above the world, that can restrain them and convert them into freemen.

If there is any truth in history, or any reliance to be placed on the inductions of reason, the author has amply proved, in opposition to the pretensions of Protestants and revolutionists, that society under the direction and influences of the Catholic Church marches steadily toward a true and regular liberty--a liberty which is grounded in the rights of God, and therefore secures the rights of man. He has also proved conclusively, as experience itself proves, that just in proportion as the influence of the church in society is weakened, liberty disappears, and absolutism, either of king or people, advances. He has shown that the Reformation, instead of founding or aiding liberty, has interrupted it, and prevented the development of the germs of free institutions deposited in society during the much-maligned and little-understood middle ages. Protestantism, even when, as in our own time, professing to labor for liberty, only falsifies it, and interposes insurmountable obstacles to its realization. Protestantism--and we have studied it both as a Protestant and as a Catholic--is made up of false pretences; is, as Carlyle would say, an unveracity, and loses not only the eternal world, but also this present world. The Divine Thought after which the universe is created and governed is one and catholic, and the law by which we gain our final end is one and holy; and without obedience to it there is no good possible, here or hereafter, either for society or for the individual. The present can have its fulfilment only in the future, and the temporal has its origin, medium, and end only in the spiritual, and finds its true support as its true law only in the one eternal law of God, the universal Lawgiver, declared and applied by the one Holy Catholic Church, which he himself has instituted for that purpose, and which is his body, which he animates, and in which he dwells, teaches, and governs.

It remains for us to consider the respective relations of Protestantism and Catholicity to religious liberty, or the freedom of conscience.

FOOTNOTE:

[176] _De l'Avenir du Protestantisme et du Catholicisme._ Par M. l'Abbé F. Martin. Paris: Tobra et Haton. 1869. 8vo, pp. 608.

UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.

VI.

George Holston was wandering thoughtfully back and forward in his writing-room, in a listless way, unusual in a man of his active temperament. An ardent sight-seer, a student of the politics of all countries, a visitor of every kind of institution for the amelioration of every kind of difficulty he gave little time to lounging. Pausing at last before one of the windows looking out on the garden, his attention became fixed, and an expression at once of displeasure and of amusement came over his face.

Under the tree sat Lady Sackvil, half reclining on a garden chair; before her stood Vane, answering her indifferent words with eager interest, his expressive face full of enthusiasm. Whatever his arguments were, they took effect, to judge by the change which gradually mastered her; rousing her from the careless posture to one of attention, drawing her eyes from the flower she had been idly pulling to pieces, to meet his earnest gaze. Whatever the question might be, he had conquered, and was gazing at her beautiful upturned face with a look of enchantment.

"Confound it!" muttered George. "What would I give to banish her to the coast of Guinea this very moment! Enough to evangelize the natives, if money would do it." He resumed his desultory walk and his meditations. "That idiot is going to destruction for the lack of something to do. No more in love with her than I am; just idleness and a love of excitement."

Going to his desk, he took out a letter written in copying-ink, and bearing date of three weeks back.

"I've scotched the snake, at least, with this," he said aloud, and sat down to a re-perusal of the epistle. It was as follows:

"DEAR EVANS: I see by the newspapers that three officers of the U. S. A. have been appointed to visit the Crimea, and study the position and progress of affairs in the French and English armies. You will oblige me extremely by going to General Scott, on receipt of this, and asking him, in my name, to obtain a fourth appointment in the person of Captain Vane, of the --th Cavalry, U. S. A., subject to Vane's approval. For several reasons, too long to explain, I do not mention this plan to him before writing; but I have no doubt that he will jump at the proposal when it comes. The general and the secretary of war will need no explanations. They know that Vane has been on the sick-list for wounds received in frontier service, and they are much interested in him and his family; therefore no apologies are necessary for making the proposal.

"Vane is a constant and serious student of military matters, and no man is more likely than he to make a good use of such an opportunity.

"If objections are made on the grounds of extra pay, you may say that no such increase is necessary, as Captain Vane has a large private fortune.

"Hoping soon to have a chance to reciprocate the kindness I ask of you, my dear Evans, I am

"Yours always truly,

"GEORGE HOLSTON."

George put away the letter and went to the window.

"If I had asked his leave before doing this, he would have been too weak to grant it, hampered as he is by this renewal of old associations. By the time the appointment gets here, he will be thankful to find some way of escape from his own folly open to him. A fool he is--a traitor he is not."

Then, casting a glance out of the window, as he passed before it to take down a volume from a bookcase, he said softly, "Poor Mary! the truest, noblest woman that ever married an idiot!"

George Holston might well say "poor Mary!" He had not been the only witness of the interview in the garden. This was the day of Mrs. Vane's first visit to the _primo piano_ since her illness. She had come in a young mother's glory, bringing little Georgina in her christening dress to see her godmother. While Mrs. Holston was tending the baby, Mary stood at the window, playing with a curtain-tassel and watching her husband and Lady Sackvil. She saw him give Amelia the oleander she pulled to pieces, saw her grow eager and interested as he talked to her, stood transfixed to see the intensity with which he followed up his advantage; and then, suddenly recollecting herself, turned away, thinking bitterly, "I will not spy upon him."

"What is the matter, dear?" asked Mrs. Holston anxiously. "You were looking so well when you came in, and now you are as white as a handkerchief. Are you faint? Debby, ring the bell, and I will send for some wine."

"Oh! please not," said Mary, putting her hand to her head. "I'm well enough, only so very tired. This is my first visit, you know," she added, laughing faintly, "and the excitement is too much for me. I will leave the baby with you, and nurse can bring her to me when you are tired of her. No, don't come, Debby; I shall be better for resting a little while."

And lying quietly on the couch in her own room, the bitter conviction came to her, that what she had seen that day stung her so deeply only because it confirmed doubts crushed out of sight. Doubts? Certainty it was now, that she was no longer her husband's chosen companion. Startled by his anger when her first groundless jealousy betrayed itself on the day of Lady Sackvil's arrival, she had smothered every succeeding pang. Her uneasiness had come from no lack of kindness on her husband's part. He had been, if possible, more attentive during her illness than she had expected. But to her, who had been his exclusive confidant, the one chosen sympathizer in all hopes and projects, the charm had gone. It was evident that he needed more excitement than her companionship afforded, that he came to her from a sense of duty, not for pleasure. She had been too loyal to question or doubt until this afternoon, when an accident had given the proofs she would have refused to seek. Now she was too clear-sighted to withhold belief. Lady Sackvil stood between her and her husband.

She was too completely stunned, too grieved and wounded, to look beyond the present shock, to question the hopelessness of her situation. Above the couch hung an ivory crucifix yellow with age. Nicholas had found it in some curiosity-shop near the Rialto, and brought it to her. She took it down and looked at it, not only reverently but curiously, wondering whose agony it had soothed; if ever any one had pressed it to a heart so wronged and tortured as hers; if it were yellowed by the tears shed upon it, as well as by age. "You will be yellow as gold before my eyes have cried themselves out," she thought, and longed for the relief of tears. Her thoughts were so thick, so hopelessly thick and inextricable! Afraid of revealing her sufferings if she should go to dinner, she went to bed with a furious headache. The baby, sharing its mother's discomposure, wept and wailed, as babies always do when quiet is most desirable. Nicholas dined alone, spent an hour in his wife's room in the kindest manner, putting cold water on her head, and ice to her heart at the same moment. At last, believing her to be asleep, he went down to spend the evening with the Holstons; leaving her to be regaled with distant sounds of playing and singing, and to be racked by the conviction that a trial had fallen upon her with which she was utterly incapable of coping.

A night-light burned in the corner of the room, giving a faint suggestion of surrounding objects. Through the half-open nursery-door came the sound of Deborah lulling the baby to sleep with old songs and moral axioms. There was something soothing in the half-light and subdued tones which tended to restore the quivering nerves to their balance. Mary sat up in bed and tried to collect her ideas. What was the first thing to be done? The exact reverse of what she had done that evening, at all events. She had made the baby fretful, and driven Nicholas into the very temptation she most dreaded for him.

The first and immediate step to be taken was to conquer the nervous prostration which bound her. All was now quiet in the nursery. She rang her hand-bell softly, bringing Deborah to the nursery-door with the inseparable roll of violet-perfumed flannel in her arms.

"Put baby down by me, nurse, and give me some valerian; there's a good soul."

Then she lay down to contemplate the baby and let the sedative work. Her thoughts turned to a few words of fatherly advice from her old friend, Padre Giulio, when she had mentioned with bitter self-upbraiding in confession, two months before, her momentary paroxysm of jealousy. "In five cases out of ten," he had said, "an injured wife holds her fate in her own hands. She must prove to her husband that she is better worth loving than any other woman in the world. She should speak of her wrongs to no one if she can possibly bear them in silence. Each confidant of these delicate matters may become a new obstacle to reconciliation. Loyalty is most important between married persons. So much for jealous wives, my daughter; and God grant that you may never have occasion to remember what I have said!" And now the occasion had come!

"O God!" she prayed, "make me very lovely in his eyes. I don't ask it for vanity's sake, but for his honor and mine. I thank you, from the depths of my heart, that it is best for him and for me, and for your divine glory, that he should love me more than any other creature. But accomplish this, dear Lord, by making him love you best of all." Then she fell asleep, lulled by the soft breathing of the sleeping infant.

She was waked by hearing Nicholas come gently into the room.

"I am sorry I roused you," he said. "But I longed to know if you were relieved."

"I am much better," she answered cordially. "Thank you for coming to inquire. Have you had a pleasant evening?"

"Quite pleasant," he replied absently. "Did the piano disturb you?"

"Only just at first. I got through the evening very comfortably, and expect to be bright and well by to-morrow. Kiss me, darling."

"Good night, Mary. God bless you!"

When he had left her, she took the ancient crucifix again in her hands, and kissed the five wounds silently. There is no better prayer. It is the prayer of conquered self; the acceptance of our sufferings in union with those of Christ.

"I must get well and be his second guardian angel," she said.

Vane spent half the night in studying and reading. Once he said out loud, "God help me through it!" Then came the thought, "How dare I ask for help, when I myself have sought temptation? Oh! if Mary would only get well and be my better self once more. What did she say once about the inefficacy of vicarious goodness?"

VII.

"May I come in?" asked Mary at the door of Lady Sackvil's music-room.

"By all means. I am going to play something for George and Flossy that will fascinate your maternal fancy." And with the little boy and girl on either side, she played the _Scenes from Childhood_, with little paraphrases of explanation full of merriment or pathos, as the case might be. The children were bewitched. Mary looked at her lovely face, her tasteful dress, her graceful though rather large hands, moving on the piano as in a native element; she listened to her exquisitely sympathetic playing, to her charming talk with the children, and a sense of despair came over her.

"How can I win him back?" she thought. "O God! it is so hard to bear, just because I am not handsome or clever. Surely my love, my fidelity must be more beautiful than her beauty, if he could only see clearly. It is useless for me to compete with this exquisite creature on any natural grounds. And yet, how strange it all is! I don't suppose he is the most attractive man in existence; and yet, it would no more occur to me to measure him with other men than if he were an archangel."

Lady Sackvil was singing now--little songs for children, by Taubert, cradle songs, and _Volkslieder_. George and Flossy were twins, and this was their birthday. "Aunt Milly" was as much bent on fascinating her juvenile audience as any _prima donna_ in a royal theatre. She had not much voice; but her singing had the same sympathetic quality which made her playing delight every one, learned or unlearned. Those who were incapable of appreciating her sound musical training, her clever interpretation of the best compositions, her freedom from mannerism, whether pedantry or sentimentality, could derive pleasure from her delicious touch and the indefinable grace of her playing.

After a while Mrs. Holston and Captain Vane joined the audience. Mary glanced involuntarily at Lady Sackvil, and saw a rosy flush suffuse cheek and brow and neck. She passed on from song to song without leaving the piano; but she was singing for grown people now, and the children felt it. Mary made a sign to them to come to her, and gave them the presents she had prepared for the great day so long anticipated. Mere trifles they were--a suit of doll's furs for Flossy, a box of colored crayons for George--but it was quite enough to restore the birthday equanimity.

Vane had noticed the little scene, and Mary saw his eyes rest upon her with a tenderness she had missed for many weeks. When Lady Sackvil stopped singing, he rose rather abruptly and returned her greeting with a certain coldness. Then turning to his wife, he said, "I have been looking for you everywhere. Can you come up-stairs with me now?"

Mary was nearer happiness than she had thought to be again. At least he was trying to do right.

VIII.

LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

I wonder what sin is? Some people would say I ought to know; but I do not. We are born with inclinations, affections, passions which disappear or develop according to circumstances. We are not to be praised if they disappear; we are not to be blamed if they develop. Religionists make sins and virtues to suit themselves, and form thereon a moral code. If they really believe in a merciful, thoughtful Creator, a tender Redeemer, who has lived to exemplify these virtues and died to atone for these sins, of course they do right to bow to his will. I do not believe there is a God who interests himself in our virtues or vices, so-called. I know that I myself am the creature of necessity, and I mean to prove this for my own satisfaction by a review of my career.

I was educated by my poor Aunt Louisa, who taught me to call myself a Catholic and behave like a pagan. Was that my fault? She never, to my knowledge, acted from a disinterested motive. She never taught me to obey any thing but my own will--except hers, when our wills crossed. This was very seldom; for we, both of us, wanted simply the greatest amount of worldly enjoyment that was to be had, for asking, in my case, and scheming, in hers. Was that my fault? I loved Nicholas Vane, who was a tyrant. Just when his tyranny weighed too heavily to be borne, Lord Sackvil appeared. He suited me. His position corresponded to the dreams my aunt had nursed in me from childhood. Circumstances conquered me. Vane accused me of flirting, and broke off our private engagement. Aunt Louisa besought me to accept an offer which would realize her fondest hopes for me. I yielded, and married Sackvil, and never dreamed of regretting the step. He was the kindest and most indulgent of husbands, and sympathized with all my tastes. But here again any religious tendencies I might have had remained unnourished. Educated a Catholic, he never practised his religion. People think me obstinate; on the contrary, I am led completely by others--_when it suits me_. What of that? How could it be otherwise, with my training? I am the victim of circumstances. As I had no children, Sackvil House passed to a distant relation of my husband. I was left singularly alone in the world. My one near relative living in Venice, I naturally came to her, after leading a wandering life in Germany for two years. Who should be living in the same house and on terms of closest intimacy with my sister's family but Captain Vane? Was that my fault? I did not know the fact. Flora knows nothing of our engagement; indeed, no one knew of it except Aunt Louisa, and, probably, George Holston. I fully intended to cultivate Mrs. Vane intimately. In the first place, however, she is not inclined to intimacy. Though very young, she has a reserve and independence of character which would make friendship a matter of slow growth with her. In the second place, she has been ill or ailing ever since I came here. Is that my fault? Is it my fault that at thirty I am prettier than ever before in my life; that I have a trick of fascinating people; that I play and sing like--like--like a fallen angel? This is conceit, or pride, or vanity, I suppose. No, it is not. It is a recognition of facts. If I were ugly or unattractive, I should recognize the fact and poison myself. Is it my fault that Vane is morally weak, as the term goes? That is to say, that his personal wishes weigh more heavily upon him than the force of tradition? Is it my fault that, with the energy, the ambition, and the intellectual tastes of a man, I am bound by worldly maxims within limits which restrict all growth except spiritual growth?

I wonder what would make a Christian of me? This one experience--hypothetical, of course: the sight, the close, intimate perception of a purely disinterested soul; of one who, tested in the sorest manner, should act according to principles formed in a time of peace and security. I am a pagan from having seen people behave like pagans, no matter what they professed. The antidote must be adapted to the poison. Is a cure to be desired? I imagine not. A Christian life would entail great discomfort; for be it known that if ever I am a Christian I will be a genuine one. My difficulties are not metaphysical. I could just as easily believe one thing as another; indeed, the more the better, if there is any believing to be done. I am inclined to suppose that the Catholic Church will have the honor to reclaim me, if ever I am reclaimed. It is the oldest, widest, strongest, and it demands more of its adherents than any other church. Besides, if ever I find my disinterested Christian, it will probably be in the Catholic Church--a soul bred upon works of supererogation and a thirst after perfection.

IX.

Mary was reading in her morning room when Lady Sackvil was announced. "Ask her to come in here," she said with her lips; and in her heart prayed, "Help me to do and say the right thing."

Lady Sackvil came in very softly, seeing the little basket-cradle with drawn curtains beside the mother's chair, and said in a low tone, "Thank you very much for admitting me to your own room."

"We need not speak low," Mary said; "poor little Georgina has had to learn to sleep under all circumstances. I knew it was useless to try to make Captain Vane whisper, and I wanted him to come here freely when the child was with me; so I have made her a philosopher early in life, superior to outward influences."

"She will be the first person that ever was superior to circumstances, I fancy," remarked Lady Sackvil; and added after a moment's pause, "my belief is, that our characters are completely controlled by outward influences. They have regulated mine, I know."

Mary took up a stole she was embroidering in bullion, and arranged the sewing materials accurately before answering. Amelia's mere presence irritated her, and the off-hand manner in which her ladyship settled questions aroused in her a spirit of opposition. It was in an unruffled tone, however, that she answered, "Of course they have a great deal to do with the formation of character; but not every thing. I used to hear a good deal of talk on the subject in my father's library. An intimate friend of his was a necessitarian--that's the term, is it not?--and used to bring forward many clever arguments in support of his theory."

"And convinced you?" asked Amelia with interest.

"Not at all. He worried me a good deal at first. I remember that he generally chose Sunday evenings for the discussion, and Sunday evening has ever since been uncomfortably associated in my mind with necessity and free-will."

"I cannot fancy on what grounds his opinion could be combated," said Lady Sackvil.

"Neither did I at first. It is easier to argue in favor of necessity than of free-will. The theory rests upon tangible facts, evident even to superficial observers. The truth rests largely upon supernatural facts, too subtle to be fully appreciated except through personal experience."

"May I ask how you satisfied yourself?" asked Amelia with the faintest shade of contempt in her voice. She was feeling "out of sorts," and controversy suited the mood of the moment better than ordinary conversation.

Mary renewed the gold thread in her needle and the patience in her soul, and then answered, "By reading the lives of the saints, and especially of holy penitents. I became satisfied that even if ordinary souls are controlled by circumstances, (though even that point I did not concede,) the development of the saints has often been not only independent of circumstances, but inconsistent with them. Women, enslaved by vanity or passion, breaking through every bond and trampling on temptation to embrace a life of penance at which flesh trembles! Men, enthralled by false philosophy, becoming little children in faith and simplicity! I knew that this could not be the result of circumstances. Then carrying the investigation into my own moral experience, I found that even I could be noble under the same circumstances where I had been petty. I do not attempt to speak philosophically. I argue from practical facts."

"If I placed much faith in the lives of saints, perhaps we might think alike," answered Amelia; "but most of them are quite mythical, no doubt."

"The lives of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and many more are as well authenticated as the Norman conquest," Mary said; "and those whose careers are most mysterious experienced nothing which is incomprehensible to any one who studies interior life, and knows the capacities of his own soul for receiving supernatural graces."

"The capacities of _my_ soul are extremely limited, I think," replied Lady Sackvil. "Like you, I found my impressions on practical facts, not on metaphysics; so that our argument is at an end, I suppose."

"Apparently," said Mary good-humoredly. "I've not heard the piano lately. Why is that?"

"I am tired to death of playing," said Lady Sackvil; "at times it is an unutterable bore. For a composer it is, of course, different. The exercise of the creative faculty must be simply rapture; but mere interpretation palls frightfully at times."

"Is there no new music to interest you?"

"Very seldom. I am familiar with the whole range of musical literature. Don't look at me as if I were a wonder. It's no great thing for a well-trained musician to say. Musical literature, as compared with the world of books, is very limited. The present age is idle and unproductive; and so there come times when I shut the piano and feel that my 'occupation's gone.'"

She rose, and going gently to the cradle, knelt down beside it to watch the sleeping child. A tenderness came over her face, before so full of weariness and pain.

"I would have been a different woman if I had been a mother," she said, looking up at Mary with tears in her eyes. "Love of children and vanity are the only traits I have," she added, smiling sadly.

Mary made no answer, but looked at the tossed, selfish, whimsical being before her with an interest she had not felt hitherto.

"Isn't it heavenly sweet to have a child?" asked Amelia; "to hold that creature close to you, and feel that it is your own as your heart is your own?"

"Yes, it is heavenly sweet," answered Mary, bending over the baby, who just then opened her violet eyes. The mother took the little creature into her arms and kissed her softly. "It _is_ heavenly sweet," she repeated.

Lady Sackvil drew down her veil and rose to go. "Good-by," she said huskily. "Don't think that I usually make such eccentric morning calls." And was gone before Mary could ring for a servant to open the door.

TO BE CONTINUED.

CHURCH MUSIC.

III.

We have one question to ask of such of our readers who have taken the trouble to read our former articles on the subject of church music. Is it not a false tradition that the music in our churches exhibits the character of a musical concert performed during Mass, or replacing the office of Vespers? One thing is certain--it is a Protestant tradition, an Anglo-Saxon Protestant tradition. Although we owe the "classical masses" chiefly to German and Italian composers, the style of the performance, the _matériel_ of the choir, and the _choir-gallery_ are the offspring of the "chapel" and the "conventicle." It has doubtless been observed that we have been arguing for a twofold reform in this matter: firstly, in the music, and secondly, in its performance. We use the word reform in its proper sense, and desire by our remarks to call our brethren back to the old paths of the Holy Church, not to introduce some new fashion in doctrine or devotion. We would renovate, not innovate. We have been too long deprived of that spiritual food which is so abundantly supplied by the sacred offices of the Church. Protestantism has given us nothing but husks to eat, and we confess to being hungry. By the defection of England and the greater part of Germany, we were robbed of our holy sanctuaries, and in our poverty have been forced to content ourselves with buildings to which, indeed, we give the name of churches, but which are nothing better than convenient shelters for an altar crowded to its very steps by the people. The new-fangled doctrine drove out our monks, and perverted the devout clerics who once filled the stalls of real _choirs_, and whose duty and glory it was to sing the divine office. When the novel worship that replaced the Holy Sacrifice built new tabernacles for its meagre and unmeaning rites, it invented the _singing-gallery_ and the modern _choir_, all-sufficing, we acknowledge, for the Anglican "common prayer," and "worship" after the Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and other such modes, but wholly out of place in a Catholic church, and totally inadequate for the holy offices of our religion.

Surely there is no one who will not heartily agree with us that we need a thorough reform, in this respect, in our church architecture. We build chapels, but not churches. The place for the altar is in the Choir, an inclosure specially set apart for the sacred ministers and the singers, who at the public functions form one officiating body. We have followed the example of Protestants, and made use of the pencil of the Protestant architect; and the result is, that if the gates of hell ever incited another "glorious reformation," like that of the sixteenth century, the new reformers would have the advantage over the first in finding churches not only ready made, but admirably adapted to their requirements, the change of altar into pulpit, should the new doctrine need such an appurtenance in its meeting-houses, being a matter of small expense. They would not be put to their wits to know what to do with our choirs "of mysterious depth," as of yore, but would find an appropriate gallery for their hired singers, already fitted up, with its abominable rood-screen of green curtains over the doorways. We have heard our holy rites and ceremonies nicknamed as the "rags of popery." What has Protestantism done but to rend the "rags" into tatters?

Nor are we ready to admit the poverty of our resources as a full justification of our imitation of Protestant service in the style of our sacred music and its performance. Throughout the continent of Europe, where Protestant influences have not been at work, there are countless country churches of small size, but not one is without its sanctuary choir; and the people would as soon think of putting their robed priests into dress-coat and pantaloons as of banishing their surpliced chanters from the sanctuary, and erecting a choir-gallery behind their backs. We bring no railing accusation. We deprecate that style of argument which is successful only in provoking opposition; but are endeavoring, with no end in view save the glory of God and the honor of religion, to put in a plain light the causes of our departure from the common authorized usages of the church; usages to which the want of conformity will always be the measure of the loss of faith and devotion.

Our controversialists have been arguing against the false doctrines of Protestantism, and have done their work in a masterly and effective manner. If ever there was a dead doctrine awaiting burial, it is Protestantism. Now let us turn our attention to its false traditions, possessing more vitality because they have obtained a sort of parasitical subsistence through our partial admission of their encroachments. We mean that the "choir-gallery" is, both in its entity and object, a parasite of Protestant tradition clinging to our holy temples, disfiguring their fair proportions and spiritually cramping the growth of liturgical devotion, destroying its charm, and stifling its inspirations.

We propose to get rid of this piece of uncatholic tradition; to locate the singers in the place prescribed by the ritual, and abolish the musical concert. We desire to see the distinct decrees of the Church carried out to the letter, which require the divine office to be sung, as well as the Mass to be said, in the sanctuary, before the people, and not behind them. We have already alluded to the efforts made in England to bring this matter into perfect conformity with the ritual. His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster has forbidden any new church to be opened unless there is provision made for a _sanctuary choir_; and the cardinal vicar, in his instruction of November 18th, 1856, after administering a severe reprimand for the want of observance of regulations made in former instructions, prescribes, among other things, that galleries for singers shall not be placed over the doors of churches. Evidently the good cardinal has not only studied rubrics, but the science of acoustics as well. An elevated gallery near the ceiling is a wretched place for singers, and not much better for an organ. Ask any organ-builder whether he would not much prefer placing his instrument on the floor of the church, to hiding it away in some loft or second-story alcove in a tower. The impropriety is so glaring, and the arrangement is at once so incongruous and unartistic, that we deem further discussion on this point useless. The able writer in _The Dublin Review_, whom we have already quoted, very pertinently remarks:

"In this respect we have been equally out of harmony with ecclesiastical tradition and practice; and if we are to save ourselves from disappointment with our choristers, we must make up our minds to give them the advantage of all the sacred associations which that system provides. In other words, we must substitute a proper choral arrangement in connection with the sanctuary for that now prevailing, and with which so many abuses are unhappily connected. There need, we think, be no practical difficulty about this, and we would suggest it as a matter worthy of serious consideration by our clergy and Catholic architects who are about to build or restore churches. The time is surely gone by for the stereotyped plan of an east end with an altar under a large window, flanked by a smaller altar on either side, involving, besides other inconveniences, the impossibility of making any provision for the proper choral arrangements. Several instances might be adduced of churches recently erected in which the beautiful and convenient feature of side altars has been introduced, thus allowing the choir to occupy their proper place--the organ, of course, being placed at the side, and ample space being still left for the sanctuary proper. We should say that, even in cases where boys cannot be at once procured for the choir, it is very unadvisable to plan a building in such a way as to preclude a proper arrangement afterward."

Have we any objections to urge against coming into harmony with ecclesiastical tradition and practice in this matter? A friend at our side urges one, doubtless in the mind of many of our readers: Then you would banish all female voices from our choirs?

We will allow a much better authority than ourselves to answer for us. The following extract is from a decree of the Provincial Synod of Holland, held at Utrecht, and highly commended by the Holy Father:

"In the same way as the object of church music is quite frustrated when it is of such a character as only to gratify the ears with vain pleasures, so, too, the dignity of divine worship is not preserved unless the singers also are such as to beseem the church. Women's voices are not admitted by ecclesiastical usage into the choir of singers, since the rules of divine worship and the dignity of ecclesiastical music evidently require their exclusion. For in the same way as they are withheld from all share in the ministry of the holy liturgy, so also every thing effeminate ought to be quite excluded from church singing; and hence the presence of women in an ecclesiastical choir is opposed to the very sense of the faithful. Therefore, we decree and order that women be altogether excluded from the choir of singers, unless in the churches or chapels of nuns. And if hereafter, in violation of this injunction of this Provincial Synod, women be employed in any church as singers or organists, let the rectors of those churches be aware that they will have to render a most strict account to the ordinary for such an infraction of the law." (Syn. Prov. Ultrajectan., tit. 5, cap. 6.)

And again:

"The tradition of the church in excluding women from choirs is so universal and inflexible that it is not easy to understand how it should have been so widely forgotten in this country. I can only conceive that the confusion of all things under the penal laws, the shattered and informal state of the church in England after its emancipation, our poverty, not only of money, but of culture to do better; and, finally, the force of custom in rendering us insensible to many anomalies, have been the real causes of our ever admitting, and of our so long passively tolerating, so visible a deviation from the tradition and mind of the Church. It is strange that you should have to argue a case which the Church has decided." (Letter of Archbishop Manning to Canon Oakeley.)

The argument of the very reverend canon, to which his grace alludes, contains much that would interest our readers, but our space does not permit us to give it entire. We cannot refrain, however, from making a short quotation:

"That a choir of male voices is actually that provision for the solemn celebration of divine worship which the Church contemplates, to the exclusion of every other, is, I think, a fact which cannot reasonably be disputed. The Church no more recognizes female choristers than female sacristans, though she may tolerate either in case of necessity. The single exception to the rule is in convents, for obvious reasons. According to the ancient arrangement of churches, the choir is immediately connected with the sanctuary; and those who take part in it are most appropriately habited as clerics. The circumstances of modern times have led to some deviation from this practice, so far as it depends upon the architectural arrangements of our churches; but even where the choir is detached from the sanctuary, the ancient and universal rule of the Church which excludes females (probably in accordance with apostolical tradition) from taking, any active and ministerial part in divine worship, is still rigidly observed. Not only in Rome, but in countries which retain certain national peculiarities in the sacred administration of the Church, such as France and Belgium, the practice of employing females in the musical department of divine worship is, I believe, unknown. It is almost entirely confined to those countries, such as Great Britain, parts of Germany, and the United States of America, in which Protestantism prevails and produces a certain impression on the outward aspect even of the Church herself. In our own country the type of the ancient worship, which has been innovated on among ourselves, is preserved in the national cathedrals, in which the large endowments derived from Catholic munificence enable the present usurpers to represent the true ecclesiastical form of the choral service with a facility which is denied to those to whom it belongs by undisputed inheritance. Meanwhile, this type had till recently suffered considerable decay among ourselves. Dethroned from our rightful position, we had in this, as in other far more important respects, fallen in with the ways of the sects around us. But the revival of the ecclesiastical spirit which has come in with the events of the last few years, has brought home to us some of the anomalies which had grown up in the day of our depression, while increased communication with the continent has tended to bring our external worship into more and more of union with general practice. It is hardly necessary to observe that the admission of females into the church choir is absolutely fatal to the retention of the proper cathedral type of worship, while in parish churches it is sometimes productive of obvious evils, and even in the best regulated administrations is adverse to the spirit which should animate every part of divine worship, and especially one so intimately connected with its dignified celebration as that of the choir."

It will be observed that our judgment about the influences of Protestant tradition upon our church music has not been made unadvisedly.

In Germany, female singers were introduced into the churches for no better reason, that we can discover, than to exhibit the musical talent of its great masters. These compositions were not written to supply any want for such music felt in the churches, but at the instance and under the patronage of nobles and princes, who vied with each other in giving grand sacred musical feasts in their private chapels, as _gourmands_ pride themselves on giving costly and _recherché_ dinners to show off the science of their _chef de cuisine_. If we imagine that these musical masses were gotten up to excite greater devotion in the gay and worldly courtiers, we are much mistaken. It was, in fact, a nice little bit of cheap luxury, it being less expensive to keep a private chapel and entertain a private chaplain, than to support an opera-house with its company of artists, scene-shifters, and hangers-on.

Composers themselves have sought to obtain at least a general permission for the singing of their masses from the ecclesiastical authorities, but have invariably been met with a polite expression of regret that such application had been presented, as it was entirely out of the power, etc., etc. Rossini petitioned the present pope for permission to include females in church choirs, but of course without success. The report of his own funeral obsequies shows that more thought was given to enjoy a rare musical entertainment than to pray for his soul:

"The church bore the appearance of a concert-room or theatre. People came in with their hats on, talking and laughing. After each piece of music was sung, their _bravos_ were barely restrained, and more than once applauding cries seemed about to break forth. The majority of the congregation, forgetting both the altar and the corpse of the deceased, turned their faces toward the tribune of the singers, talking in a loud voice, and using their opera-glasses; and this at the very moment of the _elevation_, when the soldiers who served as a guard of honor, at the command of their officer, were falling on their knees. This scandal was deplored not only by religious persons, but even by the true friends of art, because it served once more to prove that such musical solemnities, in this age and in this country, are incompatible with the respect due to the sanctity of churches."

If we might venture to offer a word in justification of the wisdom of the Church in thus wholly excluding women from the ritual offices of religion, we would say that she "knows what is in man;" she perfectly well understands all the effects of exterior influences upon the human mind and heart; that the female voice, when highly cultivated or sweet-toned, is alluring and sensual, (we do not mean in a bad sense,) and when naturally poor or _passé_, is equally repelling and disagreeable. The first cannot be said of the voices of men; nor the second, unless it be in attempts to execute music beyond their compass, or when they distort its sense or expression by vanity or affectation.

Canon Oakeley shall sum up for us what we have to say on this head:

"Together with the name of 'chapels,' which it may be hoped we are in the way to renounce once for all, let us divest ourselves of all that smacks of the chapel and dissenting system--the pews, the pew-openers, the female sacristans, and the female choristers. One of the principal lessons taught us by our great cardinal was the duty of asserting in all judicious ways the dignity of our true position; and this we can do only by ridding ourselves of sectarian habits, down even to the very fringes of our garment, and associating ourselves in spirit, and in that which forms so especial a test of the ecclesiastical spirit, the external worship of the Church, with the most approved practice of Catholic countries."

Having made up our minds to tear down our Protestant singing-gallery, and to make use only of male voices in the singing of Mass and Vespers, we shall not fear for the decision of the question, What kind of music is to be selected? The Gregorian chant, that "grave, sweet, majestic, intellectual music of the Church," will defy all competition. When half the labor and expense has been bestowed upon the true music of the sanctuary as is now lavished on our florid concert music, then will be said to-day what Pope Benedict XIV. said so long ago, "The titillation of figured music is held very cheaply by men of religious mind, in comparison with the sweetness of the church chant."

But the other question, and a very practical one, yet remains: How shall we procure and hold proper singers for such music as is proposed, and for such a place as the sacred inclosure about the altar? We answer, in the first place, we have already some men singers with voices of good compass and power, who at present sing up-stairs beside the organ.

"What!" exclaims the friend at our elbow; "bring our present choir down into the sanctuary? How many priests, do you think, would do that?"

We reply to him, that, if the present choir-singers are fit and proper persons to be associated with the sacred ministers in the celebration of the divine mysteries, they are just as worthy at one end of the church as at the other; and if they are unworthy for any reason, they ought not to be allowed to take that part, or exercise that office of dignity in any nook or corner of our sacred temples. This capital point, the personal worthiness as well as the vocal capabilities of our choir-singers, has, it must be confessed, not been so rigidly insisted on in general as it might have been. Nothing appears to our minds more shockingly incongruous than a mixed chorus of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews singing the Credo. We remember hearing a fine Tantum Ergo sung as a solo at benediction by a Jewess. Think of it, a Jewess singing,

"Et antiquum documentum Novo cedat ritui"!

and, in the presence of what she believed to be only a piece of bread, adding,

"Præstet fides supplementum Sensuum defectui"!

We like the language of the Bishop of Langres. In a late pastoral on this subject, he says,

"The function of which we speak (singer) is one that deserves respect for its sanctity. For many centuries it was reserved to clerics; and when, afterward, laymen were admitted to assist, it was required that they should, from their good conduct, be worthy to represent the congregation of God's people, and take the lead in this part of their worship; and, above all, it was required that they should understand the dignity of the trust committed to them, and should neglect no preparation necessary to acquit themselves respectably. These laymen hold in the Lord's house the first place after its consecrated ministers; and they should not be allowed to continue in it unless they showed themselves the zealous auxiliaries of the priest who takes the lead in the name of the Church."

If we adhered to the character of the music desired by the Church, we should never be obliged to look elsewhere than to Catholics--to those who will sing from the heart as well as with the lips--for worthy auxiliaries of the priest in this devout and sacred office.

This leads us to consider the selection and the training of competent and worthy singers. We are aware that the destruction of the Protestant singing-gallery, the restoration of the choir, and adoption of the Gregorian music is not so simple a matter of choice with the pastors of churches that it can be effected at once by an order issued to the organist, and the provision of cassocks and surplices for as many men as can be paid to wear them and sing the music which befits such clerically-habited chanters. Such singers as we ought to have for our holy offices are not to be had to-morrow, even for money. Nor, even supposing such worthy persons, possessing proper vocal acquirements, were to be had by paying for them, would they be able to sing our sacred music in a style that would be even tolerable. Gregorian chant is not easy of execution, as some imagine. It needs not only good vocal culture to render its musical phrases with precision, but also no small amount of intellectual and moral training to give its true expression.

We say, good vocal culture. By which we must not be understood to mean that finished vocalization which distinguishes the professional opera-singer, or those few amateurs whose voices of natural sweetness and power have received first-class cultivation. All Gregorian music is included within an octave and a half, with rare exceptions. Great compass is therefore not required. The first requisite is the ability to modulate the different phrases with distinctness and facility. There are few men or boys who could not be taught in a short time to acquire this primary qualification of the choir-singer. On this head there is little or no difficulty. But as every one who can read English is not able to give a proper _reading_ of Shakespeare, so not every one who can sing the gamut or its intervals is able to sing the phrases of Gregorian chant. The reader of Shakespeare needs practice in tone, in inflection, in the art of speaking with sublimity, with pathos, with joy, etc. Then he must study the works of the great poet, must master his style, and with much painstaking and oft-repeated rehearsals learn to imitate the various characters, their mode of behavior, and peculiarity of utterance. The holy melodies of the Church possess an admirable variety of religious expression, and share with all her rites and ceremonies in that sacred dramatic form which clothes them with such remarkable spiritual power and beauty. It is plain, therefore, that the singer must not only understand what he is singing, but must make a study of the different phrases, in order to discover their true expression.

But besides all this intellectual attention to and appreciation of the chant, the slightest reflection will show one that a certain degree of moral training is equally requisite. The capital point always to be kept in mind is that the music of the Church is her divine prayer. The devout soul, though endowed with a voice of only medium capacity, will render these prayerful melodies with far greater effect than a first-class artist who sings only from the lips, while his heart remains unmoved by the words and the song. We are all conscious of the different effect produced upon us by the chanting of the _Preface_ and the _Pater_ by different priests. As a few simple words preached to us by a priest of an interior and devout life will go deeper into our souls, and bring forth greater spiritual fruit, than the most brilliant oratory from one of less religious mind, so a devout singer will give to his song a nameless charm, and edify those who listen to him far more than one who is his superior in musical attainments, but inferior to him in piety. It is Father Lallemant, we think, who said, "An interior man will make more impression on hearts by a single word animated by the Spirit of God, than another by a whole discourse which has cost him much labor, and in which he has exhausted all his powers of reasoning."

Our argument, therefore, for the restoration of the church music, and the banishment of concert music, implies the restoration, as well, of the church singer, and the close of our engagement with the concert artists, or the more wretched substitute of concert amateurs. We are sure that in every congregation in this country it would be possible to find a sufficient number of men and boys, possessing all the necessary qualifications, intellectual, moral, and vocal, for the decent and edifying singing of the church offices, who might be prepared after a few weeks' instruction for the duties of the chorister. We may be permitted to add, that our opinion is not mere theory, but based upon the observation and experience of many years in the practical duties of the ministry, during which the direction of the music has generally fallen to our care. If we are not able to refer our readers to a practical illustration of what we assert, it is simply because we also, as we said before, have been straitened and hampered by this incubus of Protestant tradition. Until we can get rid of this, we can do nothing. Until the people, at present profoundly ignorant on this head, learn what constitutes a Catholic choir and where it ought to be located in the church, we shall never be able to get any thing but concert music. They must learn that the present order of things prevalent among us is abnormal, unrecognized by the ritual, and quite as foreign to the Catholic standard as would be the preaching of a priest from the pulpit in a citizen's dress. We may be obedient to the strict law of the Church which forbids female singers in choir, and find a sufficient number of men and boys to take their places, who will scramble into the organ-gallery, and, under cover of the curtains, talk, laugh, chew tobacco, eat candy, draw caricatures on the walls and on the covers of the singing-books, and sit with crossed legs and chairs tilted backward even during the elevation and benediction--all this we will get as of old; but, until the _gallery_ comes down, until the singers are properly vested, and marched with proper ecclesiastical decorum into the sanctuary, or to such a place as near to it as the present inconvenient arrangement of our modern churches will permit, we shall never get a _church choir_.

This is our first point: let us have male singers who will understand from the dress and deportment they assume, for the time being, as well as from the position they occupy in the church, that their office as a church singer is a sacred one, of high character, and worthy of special respect as being associated officially with the priestly celebrations at the altar. No sooner shall we have succeeded in teaching the people this true Catholic tradition, than our youth will at once look upon the function of choir-singer as an enviable position, and the effort to make themselves worthy to be thus associated with the clergy in the divine offices will necessarily do much toward elevating their moral tone, and inspiring a devout Catholic spirit. We shall, very probably, not obtain all we desire at a first trial. Many of those whom we may select will likely disappoint us. This is in the nature of things. It is not every one who is selected as a student for the priesthood that proves to have a vocation. For ourselves, we apprehend little difficulty if our own purpose be well determined, and we give to the whole subject of church music a little serious study and reflection.

As to the source from which our churches are to obtain a regular supply of choristers, we frankly speak our mind, and say that the Catholic choir system would appear to involve necessarily the formation of what is known in France as the _maitrise_, or choir-school, in which are admitted boys of good moral character possessing sufficient vocal capability, and of a grade of intelligence to render it worth while to bestow upon them a more refined education than they might obtain in the ordinary school. This special education given in the choir-school tends not only to improve and elevate the character of the boys, but fits them as well to attain a better position in life than they could have hoped for without it. But this is a subject we can afford to defer to future consideration.

Supposing that we have come to the determination to conform our church music at once to the true standard, how shall we procure the necessary choristers? Let us see what we need. For large churches, or what are large churches to us, there should be at least four trained voices of men--two tenors and two baritones; and not less than twelve boys. These, equally divided on either side of the sanctuary, would make a better double chorus than might at first be supposed. The boys can be had for the asking; but the four men will not easily be obtained without a reasonable salary. The advertisement for them should, of course, conclude with the warning, "None but practical Catholics need apply." We do not propose to put the cassock and surplice upon persons whose very appearance in that garb would disedify the people.

For this choir we need a competent teacher. Advertise for him, and it is not unlikely we shall find such a one, or one who will quickly fit himself for that office, in one of the four hired singers. We do not hesitate to say that, even in this great city of New York, there are at present very few music teachers who are fully competent to teach the proper method of chanting the Vesper psalms alone, not to speak of those other important portions of the divine offices whose expression is more difficult to render. But there is no want that is not quickly met with the supply. If we want such a teacher, and are willing to pay him, then the subject of the church chant will at once engage the attention and study of professors of music whose business it is to teach. At this moment it is generally understood (and not without reason) by all organists and directors of choirs that our Catholic churches need performers and teachers who can come recommended as well versed in "the masses," as they are called.

As a consequence, these gentlemen devote all their energies to the study and practice of such compositions, and to the science of directing a mixed chorus. We do the musical profession the justice of believing its taste to be quite at variance with the taste of the public it serves; and, although we are prepared to see our choir-director shrug his shoulders and return us a wondering look when we propose our reformation to him, still, when we shall have given him to understand that we ourselves know what we want, and are prepared to count the cost, we feel assured that he will readily come into our views, and enter upon this new field of musical culture with more zest than he has hitherto shown in the conduct of music, for the most part, despicable even in his own eyes. We will engage him to produce church music in first-class church style. We will aid him by causing an organ of sufficient size to be erected near the choristers in the vicinity of the sanctuary. Should he crave for a larger chorus, we will seek out a number of young men, from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, whom we have in our eye, whose interest will not fail of being excited in this subject to which we give our pastoral solicitude, and whose social and moral character we feel assured will be benefited by being associated with our regular choir as volunteers. If we might be permitted the use of an expressive vulgarism, we would say that our young men, as a class, are "spoiling" for some church work. How many would not feel both honored and gratified by an invitation to labor with us in renovating and restoring the grand offices of the Church to their pristine order and sublime harmony! We manage to associate together a few of our young men in various confraternities and associations, and drive a few more into the ranks of the society of St. Vincent de Paul; but the greater number, upon whom depend the future _esprit_ of our church in this country, and upon whose attachment to all that concerns the dignity and devout character of our religious services hang the fortunes of our faith, are left unnoticed and unemployed. We propose this subject of the reformation of church music to them as a labor of love and true Catholic devotion, worthy of their hearty coöperation, and tending to their own intellectual refinement and moral elevation. We are not wholly unacquainted with the souls of this class of our brethren in the faith, and will answer for the response that will be made to our sentiments by any Catholic young man whose eye may chance to fall on these lines.

Now as to the matter of proper church music-books. Speaking as one who has been made wise through suffering, we rejoice at the prospect of seeing all our "Catholic choir-books," "Morning and Evening services," and such trash, bundled up and sent to the paper-makers. We are at liberty to state that, while the present Oecumenical Council may allude only incidentally to the subject of church music, by confirming the ancient canons made in regard to it, the Congregation of Rites is already preparing an authorized version of the Roman Gradual and Vesperal, and that his Holiness will issue a brief in which he will strongly exhort all the bishops to adopt it. As soon as this desire of the head of the Church shall have been brought home to us in the proper way, those whose hands are waiting direction will lose no time in preparing an edition of this work in musical notation, and harmonized for the use of organists, an imperative need for the great majority of our players and singers, to whom the learning of the plain chant scale and clefs would be a labor equal to that of acquiring the knowledge of a foreign language. Our choir-boys, and the generation of choristers who shall succeed them, can be taught the plain chant notation from the first, and will find it much simpler, and more expressive in typography, than the modern musical scale, with its varied keys in flats and sharps.

A word as to the comparative cost of the authorized church music and the concert music which now replaces it. It will be seen that we have advised the engagement of four professional singers, and the services of a special teacher both for them and the chorus of boys. This teacher, in most cases, would be one of the four salaried choristers or the organist. It will be seen at once, by those interested, that even in the beginning we shall not be put to any greater expense than we are already at for our music. In the matter of music-books there will be an immense saving for those churches which possess a large chorus. We ourselves own a musical library which has cost us several thousands of dollars; and to tell the honest truth, not one half of it is of the least practical use even with the present liberty we enjoy (?) of singing what we please. A set of Graduals and Vesperals, with a suitably harmonized version for the use of the organist, will suffice under our new and better _régime_.

We cannot close this portion of our remarks without calling attention to the great boon which this wholesome musical reform will prove to country churches. In our large cities, we have been able to perform in our churches music which is a tolerable imitation of the same style of harmony as given at the opera and on the boards of the concert-hall to paying audiences. As a rule, we have not charged any price of admission to our ecclesiastical concert offices, and our second-rate performances have therefore been justly treated with great leniency by the critics. But as you leave the city and enter churches in our small towns and country villages, you hear an imitation of the city fashion which is no longer tolerable. One must have advanced far into the spiritual ways of devout contemplation to endure the horrible cacophony without suffering indescribable tortures of soul. Then again, there are numberless village churches where never a sound of music, profane or religious, is heard. Yet, if these muse-abandoned people were disabused of their ignorant belief that our popular florid music is the only music possible or fit for the Catholic Church, and learned that, even if too poor to purchase an organ, they could have with a little study and practice all the music for the divine offices executed in a devout and decent style, it would not be long until the invariable low Mass on all Sundays and festivals, and the recitation of the Rosary in lieu of Vespers, would be a rare exception, instead of being, as it is now, not far from the rule. As an example, we confess extraordinary, of the gross ignorance of our country people concerning church music, we remember being told by a Catholic woman who had never been out of her own little village, that one reason why she was certain of the falsehood of the Protestant religion was because _they had music and singing in their churches_!

We do not expect to see our suggestions or opinions accepted without question or criticism. We are fully aware that we have been arguing in the face of inexperience and deep-seated prejudice. We console ourselves, however, with the thought that what we have decried as abnormal, irregular, and inadequate for the music of the Church, is in itself so inconsistent, incomplete, and disordered, that it does not deserve even the name of a system. Based upon a false principle, the amusement of an audience, it will ever fail of recognition or encouragement at the hands of the holy Church, whose sole object proposed in all her divine functions is _prayer_. The faithful come to church to pray. A church ought by its very form and interior dispositions surround the worshippers with an atmosphere of prayer. It ought to feel like a holy place; and nothing about it should smack of the theatre, or the halls of assembly for secular purposes. All that is presented to the gaze of the faithful in these sanctuaries of God, whether it be the ceremonies associated with the Holy Sacrifice and other offices, or the statues, pictures, and decorations which meet the eye, ought to be of such a character as to excite the spirit of prayer. All this we understand full well. Why, then, are we so dull of hearing that we cannot also distinguish the accents of prayer from the sounds which speak of war, of love, of the dance, of jocularity, and, for those who have ears to hear, of the grossest sensuality? Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that our people wish to hear what is popularly styled "fine music" in church. It is a very great mistake. They not only frequent the church services in the special intention to pass the time there in prayer, but also heartily desire to have their weary, world-tossed souls helped by decorously performed ceremonies, by good, earnest preaching, and by devout, prayerful music, in awakening in their hearts true religious emotion and thoughts of heavenly things.

This is our sole plea for reform in our music, it being, without doubt, also the "mind" of the Church. She is in no sense opposed to secular music, any more than she is to secular painting, sculpture, and architecture, unless they be debased and made to minister to base passions. She who sanctifies all that is true and noble in human nature is far from discouraging or condemning the legitimate expression of those arts which can exert so much power in the instruction, elevation, and refinement of the intellect and heart. But none so wise as she to detect their weakness, and warn society against the moral evils which result from their prostitution to the service of the devil. One of the destructive faults justly charged against modern art, and notably of music, is its misapplication. A want of harmony in the relation of an art to the nature and object of the thing to be expressed or illustrated by it, is the signal for its own enervation and the corruption of what it should purify and strengthen; which is the teaching alike of philosophy and experience.

"A tale out of time," says the wise man, "is like music in mourning;" and the converse of the proverb, is equally true--

"The sweetest strains of music Do but jar upon the soul, and set The very teeth on edge, if but the heart Hath not a mind to hear it."

Whence our conclusion. In the house of God, whose "house shall be called the house of prayer," no other song must be heard but the song of prayer, that melody consecrated to all that we have that is highest and holiest, which lifts the soul above the frivolities and sensualities of this world and of time, and transports it in spirit into the regions of the heavenly, and before the throne of the majesty of the Eternal.

THE IRON MASK.

This subject, so inexhaustible, so interesting on account of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds it, has again been brought to our notice by some recent discoveries. Whether they amount to any thing or not, remains to be seen; but they are at least singular, and may stimulate the curiosity of the erudite, and even that of simple amateurs.

A young writer, M. Maurice Topin, so says a contemporary French paper, who has obtained a prize of six hundred dollars from the French Academy for his beautiful book, entitled, _L'Europe et les Bourbons sous Louis XIV._, has been diving into old papers among the public archives, and says he has at last found out the true name of the unfortunate prisoner of the Iron Mask.

Following the advice of his uncle, M. Mignet, he has addressed a letter to the President of the Academy of Moral and Political Science, in which he incloses his secret--sealed, however--and says it must not be unsealed without his order.

So some day soon, perhaps, we shall solve the enigma that has perplexed the world for over two centuries.

A monk has lately died, too, somewhere in a French monastery, leaving papers testifying that he was the true Iron Mask. Some say he was deranged. Perhaps so; and perhaps we would rather such might have been the case. A real _bona fide_, two-hundred-year-old mystery must not succumb to this practical age of would-be common sense. We could never find such another, so we must content ourselves with reviving old facts and eliciting further researches.

* * * * *

He who was called, under the reign of Louis XIV., _The Man with the Iron Mask_, was not permitted to wear so pretty a covering as that which preserved the complexion of the Empress Poppée; and the painters who have represented him with a sort of lowered visor, a rampart of iron on his face, have made a great mistake.

The unknown prisoner, to whom nobody approached, and nobody spoke, wore a mask of velvet.

The question is not decided upon what he wore on his way from the Isle Ste. Marguerite to the Bastille. Some say his chin was inclosed in a network of steel, to permit him to eat, while the upper part of his face was concealed in the mask of iron.

But this is a mystery, and his early training no less so.

He had been incarcerated a long time at Pignerol, the château of which had served for a prison of state, and since 1632 had belonged to France. The inhabitants still show a large dismantled tower that overlooks the town, and give the tradition concerning the Iron Mask and Fouquet, who were here confined.

They showed the chamber in 1818 that these poor victims inhabited.

* * * * *

After the taking of the Bastille, indications of the Iron Mask were sought for among the registers of this place of detention; but the largest book of records was sadly torn, and the folio numbered one hundred and twenty, coinciding with the year 1698, the epoch of the incarceration of the prisoner, had been taken away.

Later, a leaf was discovered among the papers of a former governor, and here it is, as historians have given it to us:

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Names and qualities | Date of their | Book. Page. | Motive of their | | of prisoners. | entrance. | | detention. | |---------------------+---------------+-------------+-----------------| | Former prisoner of | 18th of | Du Junca, | Never known. | | Pignerol, obliged | September, | vol. 37. | | | to wear a velvet | 1698, at | | | | mask; his name or | 3 o'clock | | | | quality never | in the | | | | known. | afternoon. | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

The date of the entrance of the Iron Mask into the Bastille is preserved at present in the library of the arsenal; and we read:

"Thursday, the 18th of September, 1698, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Monsieur de St. Mars, governor of the Bastille, arrived for the first time from the Isles of Ste. Marguerite and Honorat, bringing with him, in his own litter, an old prisoner he had guarded at Pignerol. His name was not given; he wore a velvet mask; and was first placed in the tower of the Bayimère to await the night, when I was to conduct him myself, at nine P.M., into the tower of the Bertandière, to the third-story room which, by order of M. St. Mars, I had completely furnished for his reception. In conducting him to the said room, I was accompanied by M. Rosarges, who was to serve and guard the prisoner at the government expense."

Here let me state that Du Junca was not a surname given to the prisoner, but the name of the lieutenant of the king at the Bastille. The prisoner was called Marchiali.

* * * * *

The young historian who pretends to have discovered the true name of the Iron Mask has, without doubt, studied all the evidences up to the time of Voltaire, who also knew more than he was willing to impart.

He knew the story of the silver plate connected with the Isle Ste. Marguerite, whose governor was charged by Louis XIV. in person not to permit the prisoner to communicate with any one.

St. Mars waited on him himself, and took the dishes from the cooks at the door of the apartment, so that no one ever saw the face of the captive.

One day the Iron Mask threw a silver plate out of the window into the water-course beneath. A fisherman picked it up and brought it back to the governor.

"Have you read what is written on the bottom of this silver plate?" asked the governor.

"No, sir," replied the fisherman; "I cannot read."

This reply saved the poor man, who doubtless would have paid with his liberty, and even his life, for the possession of the terrible secret, if he had been sufficiently educated to have discovered it.

* * * * *

Another historian, the Abbé Papon, does not believe that the governor said to the fisherman, "Go; you are happy in not being able to read!" He states that, instead of a silver plate, the mysterious prisoner used a white shirt, covered from one end to the other with the written history of his life.

"I had," said he, "the curiosity to enter the chamber of the unfortunate man. It was lighted only by a window to the north, inclosed in a thick wall and cased by three gratings of iron placed at equal distances. This window overlooked the sea. I found in the citadel an officer of the French company, about sixty-nine years old. He told me that his father had often told him in secret that a watchman one day perceived under the window of the prisoner something white floating on the water.... It was a very fine shirt, plaited with negligence, and upon which the prisoner had written from one end to the other.

"The watchman took means to recover it, and carried it to M. de St. Mars, the governor of the Isle Ste. Marguerite.

"He protested that he had read nothing; but two days afterward he was found dead in his bed."

It is said that the Regent of Orleans left the secret of the name of the Iron Mask with his daughter. We give what he related to her, this authority being a pretended governor of the interesting captive. His account may be found in the archives of the English government:

"The unfortunate prince that I raised and guarded," said he, "until the end of my days, was born the 6th of September, 1638, at eight o'clock in the evening, during the supper of the king, Louis XIII. His brother, now reigning, Louis XIV., had been born in the morning at twelve o'clock, during the dinner hour of his father; but as the birth of the first child was splendid and brilliant, that of his brother was most sad and carefully concealed; for the king, advised by the midwife that the queen would bring forth a second child, caused to remain in her chamber the chancellor of France, the midwife, the first almoner, the confessor of the queen, and myself, to be witnesses of what might happen, and of what he would do, if this child should be born alive."

* * * * *

Actors have for many years studied carefully the costume of _The Man with the Iron Mask_ and he who played in the drama by this name, M. Lockroy, is still alive. He personated the prisoner, and was clothed in black velvet, with black stockings and buckled shoes. He wore the double mask of velvet with steel springs over his lips.

In this piece, that all Paris went to see, Chilly represented Louis XIII.; Delaistre, M. de St. Mars; and Ligier, who was afterward the Duke of Gloucester and the Louis XI. of Casimir Delavigne, took the part of the protector of the unfortunate recluse.

Again, under another name--_The Prisoner of the Bastille_--the same story has been dramatized, and fresh interest added by an imaginary conversation between the captive and Louis XIV.

* * * * *

It is easily seen that the most general opinion of the Iron Mask considered him the twin-brother of Louis XIV., kept out of the way for fear of future trouble and collision in the government of France.

Some authors affirm, too, that he must have been deformed, his face distorted, or with some physical infirmity that it was necessary to conceal.

Others have thought that the brother of Louis XIV., being born the last, was the elder by right, if the opinion of physicians and legislators is to be consulted; and that the tenderness inspired by the first born of the two brothers occasioned the act of ostracism, which history has sought in vain for a hundred years to elucidate.

* * * * *

In 1837, there appeared a remarkable dissertation on the Iron Mask, by M. Paul Lacroix. He says that he who bore the name of Marchiali during his lifetime was not the twin-brother of Louis XIV., and not even a son born clandestinely of the queen, but the superintendent, Fouquet himself.

But the Iron Mask has in turn been believed to be Fouquet, Marchiali, Arwediks, and other people who disappeared about that time.

He, however, who was called Marchiali, and who entered the Bastille the 18th of September, 1698, died there suddenly the 19th of November, 1703.

Very singular precautions were taken after his decease.

The body and face were mutilated, and every thing composing his furniture was burned; even the doors and windows of his bedroom. The silver he used was melted. The walls of his apartment were scraped and re-whitened.

He was buried the 20th of November, 1703, in the Church of St. Paul, under the name of Marchiali.

Time has not given the answer to this lugubrious enigma, and we fear M. Maurice Topin has failed to solve it.

But let us give him his meed of praise for having consecrated his nights to seeking for documents, comparing dates, and confronting the evidence of the most celebrated writers on the subject.

Honor to the brave historian whom the night of time does not intimidate, and who is willing to grope among the shades of the past for what is hidden, and above all a secret of the state!

Among all the victims of the old _régimes_, _The Man with the Iron Mask_ was the most interesting.

This popular story was in every mouth the day of the taking of the Bastille.

If he had lived until 1789, would it have been a pretender to the crown, or simply a suspected prisoner, that the people would have delivered?

We wait for M. Topin to answer.

ON A PICTURE OF NAZARETH.

In dreams no longer, but revealed to sight, Comes o'er us, like a vision after death, That shrine of tenderest worship--that delight Of loftiest contemplation--Nazareth.

Fair-throned as when creation's King and Queen Abode within its walls, it looks around As scorning time and change; though these have been The ruthless masters of its hallowed ground.

Still smiling as of old, it catches still As fresh a morning; basks in such a noon; Hears evening's voice as sweetly softly thrill; In glory sleeps beneath a gushing moon.

Still looms the Mountain of Precipitation In sadness o'er a vale serene and bright, As when the Saviour foiled his frenzied nation, Who fain had cast him headlong from the height.

And see upon the slope the very gate Where--spot to kiss!--a lowly footstep fell, As daily passed the Maid Immaculate To fill her pitcher yonder at the well.

That well! where mirrored shone the loveliest face That ever woman wore! 'Tis there--the same! Though hating Christ and Juda's banished race, The Moslems honor there the Virgin's name.

Give thanks, my soul! give thanks that thou hast seen. Make Nazareth all a well of grace; and pray To keep its taste within thee--which has been The strength of saints. Drink deep, and go thy way.

B. D. H.

THE GREEK SCHISM

The Eastern Church has for the Catholic an attraction which centuries of separation have not been able to overcome. We look on its glories as our own, and we deplore its misfortunes as of our own household. We have a common faith, the same sacraments, the same sacrifice, essentially the same devotional practices. Between us stands the barrier of a schism which has lasted for centuries. It is of this schism, its origin, its history, that we propose to treat in this article.

To understand clearly the causes that precipitated so large and flourishing a portion of the church into a deadly schism, it is necessary to consider the relations of the bishops of Constantinople to Rome and the other great patriarchal sees, from the time when Constantine the Great placed the capital of his empire on the shores of the Bosphorus. The Bishop of Byzantium was then a suffragan of the Metropolitan of Heraclea. But when, with the presence of the emperor, the splendor and the reality of the capital had been transferred to the new Rome, the bishops of Byzantium became very important personages. They were, in fact, the ordinary medium of communication between the emperor and the other prelates of the Eastern Church. Not content with the great influence naturally arising from their vicinity to the court, they desired a style and title suitable, as they thought, to the dignity of the city of their residence. The second general council (A.D. 381) gratified their wishes by a canon which decreed that the bishops of Constantinople, _because it was the new Rome_, should have precedence over all other prelates, after the Bishop of Rome. But this council has been held to be general only in its dogmatic definitions, since, as St. Gregory the Great[177] says, "The Roman Church neither has received nor accepted of its decrees or acts, with the exception of its definitions against Macedonius." In point of fact, it was a local synod, neither convoked nor presided over by the holy see, and has been called oecumenical only on account of the subsequent approbation of its dogmatic decrees by the same supreme authority. Its canon about the dignity of the Bishop of Constantinople thus fell to the ground. Pope Boniface I. (A.D. 418-422) insisted on the observance of the order of dignity between the great sees established by the Council of Nice, according to which Alexandria held the second, and Antioch the third place. The same rule was adopted by Xystus III. and other pontiffs. However, the powerful prelates of the imperial city did not relinquish their ambitious views. The general council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) passed two canons, by which it permitted any cleric who felt himself aggrieved to appeal to the see of "the imperial city, Constantinople;" and besides, enacted the celebrated twenty-eighth canon in which the unfortunate principle that afterward led to schism was more openly avowed. Having cited the canon of the first council of Constantinople, it reaffirms it. "Since the fathers have justly granted privileges to the see of ancient Rome, because it was the imperial city, for the same reason the fathers of the second general council granted equal privileges to the episcopal throne of new Rome, rightly judging that the city which is honored by the imperial presence and the senate, and enjoys equal privileges with old Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be equally distinguished, retaining, however, the second place;" and then confers ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the Bishop of Constantinople over the dioceses in Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, and those that might afterward be "erected among the barbarians." The fathers, however, petitioned St. Leo the Great for the approval of this regulation, alleging the good of religion as their motive. But that great pontiff promptly "annulled their action by the authority of St. Peter," as contrary to the canon of Nice, remarking at the same time that ecclesiastical questions were not regulated on the same plan as secular affairs, and that the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be satisfied with the imperial privileges of his city, without disturbing church discipline, and invading the long-acknowledged rights of others. The obnoxious canon is not to be found in the most ancient and best collections, though, in practice, the bishops of Constantinople always availed themselves of the privileges it attempted to grant them.

This uncanonical usurpation gave rise to a serious controversy toward the end of the century. Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, relying on the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, interfered in the election and consecration of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch. He was also accused and convicted of favoring the Eutychian heretics. For these causes he was condemned and deposed by Pope Felix III. (A.D. 484.) The oriental bishops continued, however, to retain his name in the commemoration at mass, (_sacris diptychis_,) and the popes, on this account, refused to communicate with them, until the pontificate of Hormisdas, when they submitted to the holy see, erased the obnoxious name from the sacred records, and subscribed a formula of faith, in which they professed their agreement with the synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon, condemned Acacius and others by name, acknowledged all the dogmatic epistles of St. Leo, and declared that in the apostolic see is to be found "the true and entire fulness of the Christian religion," and that those "who did not agree with the apostolic see were separated from the communion of the Catholic Church."

After this happy termination, with one exception, no serious difficulty on disciplinary questions occurred between the two sees until the time of Photius. Heresies, indeed, arose in the Eastern Church; but both parties appealed to Rome, and the Catholic prelates and people always accepted her judgment as final. The exception to which we allude occurred under the pontificate of Pelagius II. and St. Gregory the Great, and affords a striking instance of the different spirit that animated old and new Rome. In the year of our Lord 583, John, surnamed _The Faster_, was called to the see of Constantinople. Gregory, patriarch of Antioch, being accused of grave crimes, the Bishop of Constantinople convoked a synod of the whole east, and in his letters of convocation assumed the title of _oecumenical_, or universal, _patriarch_. Pope Pelagius II. promptly condemned both the usurpation of jurisdiction over the see of Antioch and the newly-assumed title, especially as John pretended to convoke a general council, thus trenching upon the rights of the apostolic see. The controversy continued under St. Gregory the Great, who exhorted the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch to resist this invasion of the rightful dignity of their sees. He refused for himself the high-sounding title, though it had been given to his predecessors by the great council of Chalcedon, choosing the humbler designation of _servant of the servants of God_, which has ever since been used by the Roman pontiffs in their official documents. Cyriacus, the immediate successor of The Faster, continued to claim the obnoxious title, until he was prohibited to do so by the Emperor Phocas. But, as all Phocas's decrees were annulled by Heraclius, the bishops of Constantinople resumed the offensive usage. It is to be remarked, however, that they always gave an explanation of the title, which showed that they did not intend to infringe on the primatial rights of the Roman see. They disclaimed any really universal jurisdiction, claiming, at most, authority over the whole east. Insufficient as such an explanation was justly held to be by the popes, it shows that even the ambitious prelates of Constantinople, greedy as they were of high titles and extended jurisdiction, never, in the early ages, dared to place themselves on an equality with the bishops of old Rome, the successors of St. Peter in the government of the universal church.

From these facts, it is also evident that the real cause of dissensions between Rome and Constantinople was not, as alleged by Protestant historians, following the lead of Mosheim, the ambition of the pontiffs of Rome, who were striving for mastery over the whole church, while the bishops of Constantinople were contending for the rightful independence of the eastern portion thereof. The supremacy of the Roman see was recognized by every general council before the election of Photius, and all of them were held in the east, composed of eastern bishops, and guided by eastern ideas and influence. The very canons which attempted to give high dignity to Constantinople, acknowledged the primacy of Rome, and asked only the second place for the capital of the eastern empire while that of Chalcedon was formally submitted to St. Leo, and his approbation asked for it. When the most illustrious prelate that ever governed New Rome, St. John Chrysostom, was unjustly treated, he appealed as a matter of right to Pope Innocent I., and his appeal was sustained. When heresy arose in the east, the orthodox bishops of Constantinople always submitted to the judgment of the holy see, and sat in councils over which its legates presided. The history of the Nestorian, Eutychian, Monothelite, and Iconoclast heresies affords the most indubitable proofs that the Eastern Church, including that of Constantinople, always admitted the supreme teaching and governing authority of the see of St. Peter.

At the same time, it is plain that a spirit was growing up which a bold, ambitious man might easily use to divide the unity of the church. The second general council affirmed a fatal principle when it wished to give Constantinople the second place among the great sees, _because it was the new Rome_. This principle was more fully and offensively developed in the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon. It appeared to imply that the secular dignity of Rome was the cause of its ecclesiastical primacy, which should, consequently, follow the imperial court. Not, indeed, that the fathers of either council would have admitted such a consequence. They recognized the divinely established primacy of the Roman see; but they wished to gratify the emperor of the day, and to second the desires of the powerful prelates of the imperial city, to whom many of them were doubtless indebted for substantial favors. But, unwittingly, they planted the germ of schism, which at the appointed time produced its terrible fruit. This is the reason why the pontiffs always opposed the uncanonical pretensions of the prelates of Constantinople; they defended not their own, for they were not attacked, but the rights of the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and jealously guarded against encroachments, which they saw too well were only the forerunners of greater and more fatal usurpations. The result, deplorable as it has been, only confirms the accuracy of their foresight, and justifies their honest, fearless, incorruptible resistance.

The responsibility of the fatal step to formal schism rests upon the celebrated Photius. In the year 857, St. Ignatius had been Patriarch of Constantinople for a little more than a decade. Of austere virtue and firm character, he detested vice, and feared not to denounce it even in high places. The then reigning emperor, Michael III., is compared by Gibbon to Nero and Heliogabalus. "Like Nero, he delighted in the amusements of the theatre, and sighed to be surpassed in the accomplishments in which he should have blushed to excel.... The most skilful charioteers obtained the first place in his confidence and esteem; their merit was profusely rewarded; the emperor feasted in their houses, and presented their children at the baptismal font; and, while he applauded his own popularity, he affected to blame the cold and stately reserve of his predecessors." After saying that he was intemperate, licentious, and sanguinary, the historian adds: "But the most extraordinary feature in the character of Michael is the profane mockery of the religion of his country.... A buffoon of the court was invested in the robes of the patriarch; his twelve metropolitans, among whom the emperor was ranked, assumed their ecclesiastical garments; they used or abused the sacred vessels of the altar; and, in their bacchanalian feasts, the holy communion was administered in a nauseous compound of vinegar and mustard. Nor were these impious spectacles concealed from the city. On the day of a solemn festival, the emperor, with his bishops or buffoons, rode on asses through the streets, encountered the true patriarch at the head of his clergy, and, by their licentious shouts and obscene gestures, disordered the gravity of the Christian procession." While this promising youth was thus enjoying himself with sumptuous banquets, fast horses, and degrading shows, his uncle, the Cæsar Bardas, was the real emperor. He, too, though a man of talents and application to business, was of depraved morals, and was at length excommunicated by St. Ignatius, because he had dismissed his wife, and attempted to marry his own daughter-in-law. From that moment the licentious Cæsar determined on the ruin of the patriarch. Toward the end of the year 857, the holy man was sent into exile and imprisoned in a monastery, where he positively refused to resign his episcopal dignity. A synod of bishops was held, who, through either fear or favor, deposed Ignatius, and elected Photius in his stead.[178]

If unhallowed ambition had not induced Photius to usurp high ecclesiastical dignity, his abilities, industry, learning, and hitherto blameless life might have obtained for him one of the most honorable places in the history of the Byzantine empire. But from the day when, disregarding all idea of right and of canonical restrictions, he forced himself into the sanctuary, his whole career was one of chicanery, fraud, injustice, and finally open schism. Even had the see of Constantinople been vacant, his election was null, because he was a layman, and it was strictly prohibited by the canons to elect laymen to the episcopal dignity. He himself reënacted these very canons, thereby practically condemning his own election. He held a high position in the imperial court, was captain of the guards, and principal secretary of the emperor, and his energy and acknowledged abilities might have obtained for him still higher honors. But he was dazzled by the splendor of the patriarchal throne, and ascended it by an irregular ordination. Within six days he received all the orders of the church, being consecrated bishop on Christmas day, A.D. 857. This hasty conferring of sacred orders was also against the canons. His consecrator was Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse, who had been tried by St. Ignatius, found guilty of various grave crimes, and regularly deposed in a legitimate synod. It would be difficult to find an episcopal election and ordination marred by greater or more numerous irregularities.

Almost the first act of Photius was to recognize the primacy of the holy see. He sent legates to Pope Nicholas I., who were charged to inform the pontiff that Ignatius, worn out by age and disease, had voluntarily renounced the episcopal dignity, and retired to a monastery; and that Photius had been elected by all the metropolitans and the entire clergy, and forced by the emperor to accept the dignity; he also sent an orthodox profession of faith, hoping thus to deceive the pontiff. The emperor, too, sent his representative with a letter requesting the pope to send legates to Constantinople to restore discipline, and finally root out the Iconoclasts. But St. Nicholas was too clear-sighted to be caught by the wiles of the crafty Greek. He did, indeed, send legates; but charged them merely to examine into the case of Ignatius, report fully thereon to the apostolic see, and meanwhile to admit Photius to only lay communion. His objections to the proceedings at Constantinople were, first, that the deposition of St. Ignatius was one of the greater causes, which could not be determined unless by the supreme judgment of the holy see; and, secondly, that, at all events, the election of Photius, he having been at the time a mere layman, was uncanonical, and his consecration irregular. On both points he was fully sustained by ancient canons admitted in the eastern as well as in the western church. But he did not give a final judgment; he merely ordered his legates to make thorough inquiry into the facts, and report thereon to himself.

They, however, proved unfaithful to their high trust. As soon as they arrived at their destination, they were kept in honorable imprisonment for the space of one hundred days, during which they were allowed to see no one but the friends of Photius. Influenced partly by threats, partly by gifts, they at last consented to favor the cause of the usurper. He then called together a synod, (A.D. 861,) at which the legates presided. Photius read what he called the letters of the pope, but which were really documents mutilated and interpolated by his crafty hand. St. Ignatius was then brought before the synod, clad in the garb of a monk. He refused to be judged by men all in the interest of Photius, declared that he appealed to the pope, and quoted in his favor the fourth canon of the Council of Sardica, which especially recognizes the right of such appeal, and the precedent of St. John Chrysostom. But appeals to justice and law are lost on a packed synod as well as on a packed jury. False witnesses were introduced, who swore that he had not been legitimately elected, but owed his elevation to intrusion by the secular power; and on this charge, true enough as against Photius, he was deposed. One prelate spoke in his behalf, Theodulus of Ancyra, who was immediately wounded by a ruffian, and thus enabled with his blood to give testimony to the right. The ceremony of degradation then ensued; the venerable patriarch was clothed with the insignia of his order and dignity, and one by one these were taken off him by a deposed subdeacon who, at each act, exclaimed aloud, _Indignus_, (unworthy,) a word reëchoed by all present, even the legates of the apostolic see. He was then thrown into the sepulchral vault of Constantine Copronymus, tormented there in a most terrible manner, nearly starved to death, till, after two weeks, when he was more dead than alive, a minion of Photius, seizing his hand, forced him to scratch a cross on a sheet of paper. Over this cross the usurper wrote a formal acknowledgment of the justice of the sentence of the synod, and sent it to the emperor as the voluntary act of his victim. One result of this fraud was the liberation of the holy man, leave having been accorded to him to retire to his mother's property; but as he had reason to fear more violence, he left Constantinople in disguise, and took refuge in the islands of the Propontis, where he succeeded in baffling the pursuit of his heartless and unscrupulous enemies.

Meanwhile, he sent a trustworthy messenger to Rome to inform the supreme pontiff of the terrible injustice and indignities to which he had been subjected in the presence and with the approval of the legates of the holy see. These worthies returned, and informed the pope that Ignatius had been canonically deposed and Photius canonically installed. Photius also wrote a letter remarkable both for craftiness and elegance. It contained neither an offence against good style nor a word of truth. He regretted his elevation, deplored the burden imposed on his weak shoulders, expressed his desire to conform to the Roman discipline, and to govern with ecclesiastical firmness, and blended not unskilfully the arts of flattery and sophistry. But Nicholas was not to be deceived. He examined the acts of the false synod, found the fraud that had been committed, and, calling a council at Rome, restored Ignatius, deposed Photius, and one of the traitor legates, who publicly acknowledged his crime. As the other was absent, his case was put off until he could be heard in his defence. The pontiff wrote also to the emperor and Photius, announcing his action in the premises, addressing the latter merely as a layman. In a later synod, (A.D. 863,) having heard from the representative of St. Ignatius a full and well-authenticated account of all the iniquity of Photius, the pope deposed him from every grade of the sacred ministry, and interdicted him, under anathema, from which he was not to be absolved unless at the moment of death, from ever exercising any act of the same, or from in any way disturbing the legitimate patriarch, Ignatius. He also deposed all those who had been promoted by the usurper, as well as the second legate, who, by not appearing when cited, had added to his other crimes that of contumacy.

On hearing this news, Photius proceeded to the dire act of formal schism. He called a council, and formally excommunicated Pope Nicholas. Only one-and-twenty bishops followed him in his impious course. The rest cried out, "It is not just to pronounce sentence against the supreme and first pontiff, especially when it is an inferior who pronounces it." To support his action, he published a circular letter to the patriarchs and bishops of the East, in which he accused the Roman see and the Western Church of the following crimes: 1. that they abstained from flesh on Saturday; 2. that, during the first week of Lent, they used milk and cheese; 3. that the clergy in sacred orders observed celibacy; 4. that they reserved the right of conferring confirmation to bishops; 5. that, by a change in the symbol, they pretended that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father. No sensible reader but will smile at the first four charges; in relation to the fifth, we shall only observe here that, as first made by Photius, it did not allege a mere breach of discipline, it involved the crime of heresy. As thus proffered it cannot be, as it is not, now sustained by any orthodox Christian.

But the vices of the Emperor Michael brought upon him that punishment which has so often visited licentious sovereigns. A conspiracy was formed against him, and he was assassinated in his own palace, (A.D. 867.) The chief of the conspirators, Basil the Macedonian, ascended the vacant throne. No one can defend the crime of assassination; but the character of the new emperor has been painted in bright colors by the historian. Of course, Photius fell with his patron, and St. Ignatius was restored to his see. Both the emperor and patriarch hastened to notify St. Nicholas of this happy event. But that great and courageous pontiff had already been called to his reward. The messengers from Constantinople found Adrian II. in the chair of Peter. He congratulated them on the turn events had taken, and, in order fully to heal the schism of Photius, thought well to have a general council held at Constantinople. The emperor consented and made the necessary dispositions. The council was opened in the church of St. Sophia, on Oct. 5th, 869, held ten sessions, and ended on the last day of February following. The legates of the pope, Donatus, Bishop of Ostia, Stephen, Bishop of Nepè, and Marinus, deacon of the Roman Church, presided. Their names and legatine authority are always mentioned first in the acts. A high place of honor was given to the emperor, as protector of the church. The action of the council was in entire conformity with the instruction of the pope to his legates. Ignatius was declared legitimate patriarch, and Photius for ever deposed from any clerical order. He was, however, offered lay communion, on condition that he should retract and condemn, in writing, all the iniquitous acts of his usurpation. Proper measures were taken to remedy the confusion created by his long intrusion, and a profession of faith was published, as well as twenty-seven disciplinary canons. Photius was invited to appear in person; but he refused, denying the competency of the synod to try him. To say the least, it was as competent to try him as the one he had called to try Ignatius. The acts of the synod were subsequently confirmed by Pope Adrian, and it has always been admitted as universal by the church.

Thus, for the seventh time in the history of the church had a general council been held in the East, composed of eastern bishops, presided over by the legates of the apostolic see. At the first audience given by the emperor to the legates of Adrian II., the former said, "In the name of God, we beg that the work be strenuously carried on, that the scandals caused by the wickedness of Photius be dispelled, so that the long-wished-for unity and tranquillity be restored according to the decree of the most holy Pope Nicholas." To which they made answer, "For this have we come hither; for this purpose have we been sent hither; but we cannot receive any one of your eastern bishops into our council unless we shall have received from them a writing, according to a formula which we have taken from the archives of the apostolic see." And in the first session their demands were complied with. So that at the very time when we are told by Protestant writers that Photius was fighting for the rightful independence of the see of Constantinople, the supremacy of the see of Rome was admitted in a general synod by every eastern bishop that was not a creature of Photius.

The attempted schism had thus been vigorously repressed, and Photius lived ten years in exile. But he succeeded in gaining the esteem and the favor of the monarch by an expedient which has often before and since met with the same reward. Basil was of ignoble descent; Photius made out a genealogy by which he showed the family of the emperor to be an offshoot of the Arsacides, "the rivals of Rome, who had possessed the sceptre of the east for four hundred years." The acknowledged erudition of the author lent probability to the forgery; the pride of the monarch was flattered, and his gratitude awakened. On the death of St. Ignatius, (A.D. 877,) Photius was recalled to the see of Constantinople, and the emperor immediately sent ambassadors to Rome, begging the pontiff to acquiesce in the election. He declared that Photius had seen the error of his ways, that his present elevation would restore peace to the church, and that all the bishops, even those who had adhered to Ignatius, petitioned for his confirmation. John VIII., who then occupied the Roman see, judged it expedient to gratify this universal desire. He required, however, that Photius should in a public synod acknowledge the decrees of Popes Nicholas and Adrian, and the general council, beg pardon for the faults he had committed and the scandals he had given, be absolved from censure, and then, and not till then, be acknowledged as Bishop of Constantinople. He sent legates to execute this decree of mercy. But the pride of Photius would not brook submission, and he resorted to his old arts. Again the apostolic legates were corrupted or intimidated; again Photius mutilated the pope's letters; received in a numerous synod, from the legates themselves, the insignia of the patriarchal dignity; and without any opposition from them, if not with their consent, the eighth council was abrogated, and the acts of Popes Nicholas and Adrian condemned.

On their return to Rome, the legates, of course, reported that the injunctions of the pontiff had been strictly observed; but the pride of Photius betrayed them. In his letter he said he had fulfilled all the conditions save that of begging pardon, because he had done nothing to require pardon. This led John to an investigation which revealed to him how shamefully he had been disobeyed. He accordingly sent to Constantinople the same Marinus, who had been one of the legates to the general council, ordering him to rescind every thing that had been done against his mandate. This brave and intelligent man fully and faithfully performed his duty, and was imprisoned for thirty days; but as his constancy could not be overcome, he was allowed to return to Rome. Whereupon Pope John, "ascending the pulpit, taking the Gospel in his hands, in the hearing of the whole congregation, thus spake, 'Whoever doth not hold Photius condemned by the sentence of God, as the holy Popes Nicholas and Adrian, my predecessors, left him, let him be anathema.'" Photius, however, remained in possession as long as Basil lived. His son and successor, Leo the Philosopher, albeit educated by Photius, caused the sentence of the pontiffs to be executed. As the newly-elected prelate, Stephan, had been ordained deacon by Photius, a circumstance which rendered him irregular, a dispensation was prayed for from Rome. This was granted by Pope Formosus, with a saving clause that it should not be interpreted against the condemnation of Photius. Thus the schism was healed for a time. Photius died in a monastery, A.D. 891.

We have entered into these details to show on what grounds the origin of the Greek schism rests. It was not, we repeat it, a contest for supremacy. New Rome had never even claimed equality with the see of Peter. Its bishops had never asked but the second place. Could Photius have obtained the confirmation of his election from the pope, it is probable he never would have rushed into schism. It has been said that St. Nicholas was too harsh with him. But had the pontiff neglected to do justice to St. Ignatius, the very writers who now criticise him for severity, would have blamed him with culpable weakness. Indeed, John VIII. has met with such censure. But how did Photius repay his kindness? By fraud, by the grossest insult to his predecessors, and to an oecumenical council. It is useless to speak of the erudition of the usurper, or of his services to literature. These, great though they be, cannot palliate his crimes. The popes defended oppressed virtue and the canons of the church; Photius, having failed to deceive, seduce, or intimidate them, was driven to the desperate resort of schism. A sceptic like Gibbon may indeed scoff at the whole dispute; but he who believes that Christ established a church and appointed a certain form of government, must shudder as he reads of the fatal action of one man, who, to gratify his unhallowed ambition, began a schism which has ended in the ruin of some of the fairest portions of Christendom. It is all very well in the nineteenth century to talk of independent national churches; the idea was unheard of in the ninth. Else why did Photius so persistently endeavor to obtain the confirmation of his election from the pope? His own action condemns him; the whole history of the Greek Church condemns him; and the modern Greeks, who are such sticklers for antiquity, stand equally condemned.

The question of jurisdiction over Bulgaria has been magnified by some writers into a cause of the schism. But the fact that Ignatius is revered as a saint by the church, though up to the time of his death he defended the supposed rights of his see in this regard, shows that, important though the controversy doubtless was, it could not have caused a separation. The popes would, at most, have contented themselves with protesting against the usurpation, as they had done in other cases. The ancient Illyricum, of which Bulgaria is a part, undoubtedly belonged to the Roman patriarchate. So did Achaia. Both were transferred to that of Constantinople by a decree of the Iconoclast emperor, Leo the Isaurian, in revenge for the condemnation of his heresy by the holy see. And these historical facts have been alleged by the schismatic bishops of modern Greece to justify their forming themselves into a national church, independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. Says one of their defenders, "An heretical emperor took away these dioceses from an orthodox pope to give them to a patriarch who was a heretic like himself."[179] The Bulgarian monarch sent, almost at the same time, ambassadors to the pope and to the Byzantine emperor, asking for missionaries to instruct himself and his people in the Christian faith. Those sent from Rome arrived first on the ground; but the secular influence of Constantinople was too great for them, and they were sent back. Of course, the popes protested against this outrage against--be it carefully observed--not their primatial, but their patriarchal rights; but there is no reason to suppose the controversy could have given rise to schism. The moderation of the pontiffs on such questions, recorded on every page of their history, is our warrant for this assertion. It was only when some primary law of the church was violated, some gross injustice against innocent persons committed, or their own supremacy defied, that they felt themselves obliged to resort to measures of the last severity.

Photius was finally deposed in the year 866. From that event for more than a century there was peace between old and new Rome. At length one of the family of the usurper, Sergius, was elevated to the see of Constantinople, (A.D. 988.) He held a council, excommunicated the popes, and erased their names from the sacred records. This outrage must never have reached the ears of the holy see. At least, we find no vestige of any action taken by the popes concerning it. Sergius was succeeded, in 1018, by Eustachius, who applied to Pope John XIX. for permission to adopt the title of _oecumenical patriarch_. The request being refused by the pontiff, his name was omitted from the _diptychs_ by the indignant prelate. He was succeeded by Alexius, about whose attitude to the holy see we can discover nothing in the records of the age. In the year 1034, Michael Cerularius was made bishop of New Rome. Profane as well as sacred historians represent him as a proud, ambitious, and turbulent person. He determined formally to revive the schism inaugurated by Photius. His principal accomplices were Leo of Acrida, Metropolitan of Bulgaria, and one Nicholas, a monk. They issued a letter directed to John, Bishop of Trani, in southern Italy, giving their reasons why they no longer wished to hold communion with the Western Church, and addressed a letter of similar import to the patriarchs of the east. Most of these reasons are so puerile that in reading them one would be tempted to smile, were it not for the thought that they were used to create a deadly schism. Such were the charges: that the Latins used unleavened bread in the holy sacrifice; that they did not abstain from "strangled things and blood;" that their monks ate swine flesh; that their priests shaved off their beards; that they did not sing _Alleluia_ during Lent; that they gave the _pax_ before the communion at mass; that their bishops wore a ring. In the long arraignment there is but one accusation that the most prejudiced enemy of the holy see can call serious, namely, that of the addition of the _filioque_ to the symbol. As to this, we shall content ourselves by relating afterward how it was met, and the controversy about it settled, in the Council of Florence.

St. Leo IX., who then occupied the holy see, having been made acquainted with the contents of the letter of Cerularius, wrote a long and able answer, in which he offered peace to all who were really lovers of peace, based, however, on the unity of the church and the primacy of the Roman see. Cerularius asked him to send legates to Constantinople to settle the pending difficulties. The pope acquiesced, and sent two cardinals, Humbert and Frederic, and the Archbishop of Amalfi. Cerularius not only refused to meet them, but endeavored to prevent them from celebrating the sacred mysteries in any of the churches of Constantinople. The legates having repeatedly warned him, were obliged to excommunicate him in the church of St. Sophia. He, in turn, excommunicated the Roman pontiff, and wrote letters to the patriarchs of the great eastern sees with the object of drawing them into the schism. The answer of the Patriarch of Antioch alone has been preserved. He defends the Latins from many of the charges raised by Cerularius, while he admits some to be true; but he refuses to join the wrong-headed bishop of New Rome in his schism.

Most historians date from this period the definitive separation of the Greek Church from that of Rome. It would be easy, however, to show that communication was occasionally kept up during the rest of the eleventh and a portion of the twelfth centuries. Practically, however, it may be said that Cerularius separated new and old Rome, especially as the Greeks ever after held to two points he had raised against the Western Church--the addition of _filioque_ to the symbol, and the use of unleavened bread in the holy sacrifice.

There were, doubtless, other causes than these which rendered this great schism so easy of accomplishment. The ambition of the bishops of Constantinople led them to be always on the lookout for a plausible pretext for a quarrel with Rome. Then the Greeks felt deeply two great changes in Europe--the loss of their dominion in Italy, and the reëstablishment, as it is called, of the empire of the west, for both of which they chiefly blamed the popes. This feeling made them support without any very close examination the cause of the bishops of the imperial city. Then the memory of Photius was revered as one of the great names of New Rome. We must add, in conclusion, the universal effeminacy and corruption which has left an indelible stain upon the unworthy successors of Constantine and Theodosius, and given to their government the opprobrious but emphatic name of the Low Empire.

But no honest man, much less no churchman, can find in these causes any excuse or palliation for schism. Nor can such cause be found in the personal relations of either Photius or Cerularius with the holy see, much less in the earlier history of the church of Constantinople, as the facts collected from authentic documents related in these pages, we think, sufficiently show.

The popular hatred of the Greeks against the Latins was doubtless aggravated by the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople. Yet it was the first sovereign of the restored Greek empire that opened negotiations for a reunion of the churches. It is not for us to decide whether Michael Palæologus was influenced by motives of interest or of religion; probably both had their weight with him. In answer to his application, Pope Clement IV. sent a profession of faith according to the ancient formula, promising to call a general council to cement the union, provided the Greeks would consent beforehand to accept and sign this profession. Gregory X. did call the council, (A.D. 1272) for the triple purpose of the union of the churches, aid to the Christians struggling in the Holy Land, and the reformation of discipline. He sent nuncios to the Greek emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, inviting them to the synod, and received a favorable answer from the former. The council was opened at Lyons on May 7th, 1274. There were five hundred bishops present; the pontiff presided in person. It lasted three months, and six sessions were held. At the third, the Greek representatives appeared. Solemn high mass was celebrated by the pope, at which the _Credo_ was sung in Latin and Greek, the Greeks repeating thrice the words, "Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son." At the next session were read the letters of the Greek emperor and prelates. Both contained most satisfactory statements of their faith in the primacy of the holy see by divine right over the whole church. The prelates, moreover, informed his holiness that, as the Patriarch Joseph had opposed the union, they had requested him to withdraw into a monastery, to await the result of the council, and that, if he should refuse to accept it, they would depose him and elect another patriarch. Then the representatives of the emperor, and those of the prelates, in the name of their principals, solemnly abjured the schism, acknowledged the supremacy of the Roman see, and took an oath never again to infringe on it. A synodical decree was passed defining the Catholic doctrine on the procession of the Holy Ghost, condemning those who deny that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, as well as those who assert that he proceeds from them as from _two principles_, not _one principle_. The Greeks were then dismissed with great honor, carrying with them congratulatory letters to the emperor and the prelates.

But this union did not last long. Palæologus did indeed cause Joseph to be deposed, and John Veccus to be elected to the see of Constantinople. He also endeavored to enforce the decree of union by severe penalties against the recusants, and a synod was celebrated by the patriarch, in which the union was accepted. But the clergy and the people obstinately opposed any communion with the Latins; the same feeling prevailed in the emperor's household; and at last he abandoned what he appears to have considered a hopeless task. He was excommunicated in 1281, by Pope Martin IV., for favoring heresy and schism. He, however, protested his sincerity, and on his death was refused Christian burial by his son and successor, Andronicus, for the part he had taken in the union of the churches. The schism was thus reopened, and the work of the Council of Lyons produced no further fruit.

But when the Turks had reduced the domain of the empire almost to the walls of Constantinople, the wily and faithless Greeks again turned their eyes westward, and offered reunion in the hope of obtaining succor. It were foreign to our purpose to trace the history of the controversy between Pope Eugenius IV. and the Council of Bâle. Suffice it to say, that, to facilitate the coming of the Greeks, who wished to meet in a city near the Adriatic, he transferred the council to Ferrara. On February 7th, 1438, the eastern fleet arrived at Venice, bearing the Emperor John Palæologus, Joseph, Patriarch of Constantinople, the proctors of the other eastern patriarchs, the Metropolitan of Russia, and a great number of metropolitans, bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries of the Greek Church. They were received with extraordinary pomp and splendor. Thence they went to Ferrara, where they arrived in the beginning of March. The council opened on April 9th. A delay of four months was agreed on, to enable the bishops of the Western Church to take part in the proceedings. Meanwhile, informal conferences were held on the questions of purgatory, and the beatitude of the saints before the final day of judgment. It was easily shown that the differences between the two churches were merely verbal, and did not affect the dogma. The first solemn session was held on October 8th, which was followed by fifteen others in regular order. In December, the council was transferred to Florence, on account of the appearance of the plague at Ferrara. Nine sessions were held at Florence, at the end of which the act of union was solemnly adopted and promulgated.

There is scarcely any thing more interesting in the history of general councils than the records of the discussions so long and so ably carried on in this synod. It is a common supposition that the Latins resorted to bribery and threats, the Greeks to chicanery and bad faith, and thus an understanding was arrived at. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the acts of the synod prove. Point after point was discussed with marked ability on both sides, and with peculiar skill and pertinacity on the part of the Greeks. At last, all, with the exception of Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, yielded either to unanswerable arguments or to clear explanations, and then, all difficulties being removed, the union was agreed to. It is, of course, impossible in the brief space of an article to relate these discussions in detail. We shall briefly refer to the principal point in dispute.

This was the addition of _filioque_ in the creed. The Latins insisted on separating from the beginning the two distinct points of dogma and discipline. They asked the Greeks, first, if they believed that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, as from one principle of _spiration_. They showed them that the fathers of the Greek, as well as those of the Latin church, had always taught this doctrine. There was a great deal of finessing on the part of the Greeks; they examined their own copies of the fathers, and found that they had been correctly quoted by the other side; and, at last, confessed that they had been wrong in accusing the Western Church of error. The disciplinary question was argued with a great deal of vigor. The Greeks, of course, alleged the celebrated canon of the Council of Ephesus, prohibiting any addition to the symbol. The Latin answer may be summed up thus: This canon prohibits any addition by private authority. But _filioque_ was added by the authority of the head of the church. Again, the canon prohibits any addition _contrary_ to the doctrine of the symbol; but this addition is an explanation and a complement of the doctrine of Nice, and the very words (_and from the Son_) have been taken from orthodox fathers. Lastly, the addition was not made lightly or without cause; but a real necessity existed for it. Finally, all the Greeks, but Mark of Ephesus, returned this answer: "We consent that you recite the addition to the symbol, and that it has been taken from the holy fathers; and we approve it, and are united with you; and we say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and cause."

This point being satisfactorily settled, the other mooted questions were soon adjusted, and on July 6th, 1439, the act of union was read in solemn session, in Latin by Cardinal Julian, and in Greek by Bessarion, Archbishop of Nice, who had been the leaders on either side in the discussion. It is in the name of "Eugenius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, with the consent of the most serene emperor, and of the other patriarchs." The pope, "with the approbation of the sacred universal Council of Florence," defines, first, the dogma of the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son, as from one principle, and by one spiration; secondly, "that the explanatory words, _and from the Son_, were lawfully and reasonably added to the symbol, for the sake of declaring the truth, and by reason of imminent necessity;" thirdly, that both leavened and unleavened bread is lawful matter for the eucharist, and that priests must follow the rite of their own church--those of the western, that of the western; those of the eastern, that of the eastern; fourthly, the question of the different states of souls after death was settled according to the received doctrine which is now professed in the Catholic Church. We give the fifth section entire: "That the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff doth hold primacy over the whole earth, and that he is the successor of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and true vicar of Christ, and head of the whole church, and is the father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person of the blessed Peter, hath been delivered, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal church, as is contained in the acts of oecumenical councils and in the sacred canons." Lastly, the decree reorganizing the canonical order of patriarchs assigns the second place, after the Roman pontiff, to the patriarch of Constantinople, the third to the patriarch of Alexandria, the fourth to the patriarch of Antioch. A few more questions of minor importance were then proposed to the Greeks, to most of which they gave satisfactory replies, and soon afterward the emperor and his prelates returned home by way of Venice.

The difficulty about _filioque_ has just been renewed by Mr. Ffoulkes, of England, in defence of some notion of his about a hybrid _united_, not _one_ church. We scarcely think he will succeed in making good an objection which Bessarion and Mark of Ephesus failed to sustain. Any how, his thesis appears to be, not that any one "branch" of the church is entirely in the right, but that they are all partly in the wrong. Perhaps he thinks that to him, not to F. Hyacinthe, has the Lord given these sticks, to warm in his bosom, purify, and finally reunite. We must leave them to settle the question between themselves. But they ought to remember, with St. Jerome, that he who gathereth not with the pope, scattereth.

Great hopes were entertained that the union perfected after such long and free discussions would be lasting. But these were all disappointed. Of all the obscure questions connected with the Greek schism, the most obscure is how and when the compact of Florence was first violated in the east. It is certain that Metrophanes, elected Patriarch of Constantinople on the return of the Greek prelates, (as the Patriarch Joseph had died at Florence,) solemnly published the act of union.[180] His successor, Gregory, was equally devoted to the council, and before his elevation, defended its action against the attacks of Mark of Ephesus. This proud and turbulent man did not remain quiet under his defeat, but addressed most inflammatory letters to the orientals, making the vilest and most unfounded accusations, not only against the pope and the Latin bishops, but against his own colleagues. Though these were refuted by Gregory before mentioned, and by Joseph, Bishop of Mothon, they no doubt made a great impression on the prejudiced, nay, jaundiced oriental mind. Mark, however, did not dare to publish his attacks until after the death of John Palæologus, (A.D. 1448.)[181] A most extraordinary and shameful political intrigue appears to have come to the aid of the schismatical party. The Turk at this period was making his arrangements for the final attack on Constantinople. The only hope for the doomed city was in aid from the west. To prevent the sending of this seasonable aid, it was the obvious policy of the Mussulman to render void the union of Florence. Hence, in 1443, just ten years before the fall of New Rome, a synod was held at Jerusalem, composed entirely of bishops of sees under Turkish domination, among whom are numbered the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, in which the act of union was declared impious. Metrophanes was adjudged to be an intruder into the see of Constantinople, and all ecclesiastics ordained by him were deposed, full power being given to the Metropolitan of Cæsarea to enforce this sentence in all dioceses under the jurisdiction of the council--that is, wherever the crescent had supplanted the cross.[182] Is it any wonder that, ten years after, the Turks were masters of the city of Constantine?

No one, not even a modern Greek, would attempt to maintain that the assemblage at Jerusalem was a legitimate council. The schismatics, however, allege a council said to have been held at Constantinople a year and a half after the Council of Florence, and after the death of John Palæologus, in which Metrophanes was deposed and the union rescinded. But there are two unfortunate anachronisms in this account. Metrophanes was certainly patriarch for three years after the council, and John Palæologus did not die until 1448, nine years after the act of union. One of the last acts of the expiring Greek empire was to send an ambassador to Pope Nicholas V. promising the exact and speedy fulfilment of the agreement entered into at Florence. We do not pretend to say that the greater portion of the clergy and people of Constantinople were not schismatics at heart; but this we can aver, that they were bound by the action of their bishops, in the free, open Council of Florence, and that this action has never been formally retracted by any legitimate council held in the East. And we commend this consideration to those Anglicans who sometimes, in their desire for a false union, seek to associate with Greek schismatics. These are condemned by the action of their fathers, an action never formally retracted, but merely opposed with a sullenness and hardness of heart not unlike that with which God visited Jerusalem before its destruction. While the Greeks were calling the Latins _Azymites_, and other opprobrious names, the minister of God's vengeance was approaching their gates; New Rome fell into infidel hands; and from the turret of St. Sophia, whose dome had so often resounded with excommunications of the vicar of Christ, the _muezzin_ now invites the Moslem to prayer in the name of the false prophet. Photius and Cerularius aimed at making New Rome the spiritual superior of the city of Peter; instead, it has become the chief city of the deadly enemy of the Christian name.

This is a sad, sad story, and it is not in exultation or triumph that we pen these lines. While Mohammed II. was advancing his last lines, Pope Nicholas V. was making most strenuous efforts to succor the "fair but false" Greeks, and his successors never gave up their efforts to regain the city of Constantine until it was evident that there was no possibility of success.

The policy of Mohammed II. led him to spare a remnant of the inhabitants of the conquered city, and to permit to them the free exercise of their religion. But even in religious matters, he claimed the prerogatives of the sovereigns whom he had displaced.

"In the election and investiture of a patriarch, the ceremonial of the Byzantine court was revived and imitated. With a mixture of satisfaction and horror, the Greeks beheld the sultan on his throne; who delivered into the hands of Gennadius (the patriarch elect) the crosier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his ecclesiastical office; who conducted the patriarch to the gate of the seraglio, presented him with a horse richly caparisoned, and directed the viziers and bashaws to lead him to the palace which had been allotted for his residence."[183]

And this degrading ceremony is continued to this day, each "oecumenical patriarch of New Rome" receiving solemn investiture at the hands of the Ottoman padisha.

The fall of Constantinople rendered certain the success of the schismatical party. The sultans detested the name, as they feared the influence, of the Roman pontiff; and it was plausibly argued that to avow union with him would be to insure their own destruction. The Catholic element, thus reduced to silence, gradually dwindled away; and the schism, though its abjuration at Florence remains in full force, again blighted the Greek Church.

As to hopes of reunion at the present day, "it is not for us to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in his own power." We can only hope and pray that light may at length dispel the darkness which has so long hung over the Eastern Church. Ottoman policy no longer requires the prolongation of the schism; its only real supporter is Russia. All the Greeks would have to do would be to sign the act of union of Florence. They can have no difficulty about the Council of Trent; for they have always condemned the errors it condemns. Protestantism has never found favor in their eyes. If the Council of the Vatican do not succeed in reuniting them, it will, it is confidently expected, at least renew the missionary spirit, and inaugurate a work which, respecting eastern susceptibilities, may bring the church of Athanasius, Basil, the Gregories, Chrysostom, and so many other great saints and doctors out of "darkness and the shadow of death," and put an end to a schism which commenced with the lawless ambition of Photius, was renewed by the satanic pride of Cerularius, and has had for chief support the perfidious policy, first of the degenerate Christian emperors, then of the victorious anti-Christian sultans of Constantinople.

FOOTNOTES:

[177] Epist. 34, lib. 7.

[178] Decline and Fall, ch. xlviii.

[179] See _L'Eglise Orientale_. Par Jacques Pitzipios. Rome: Propaganda Press. 1855. Part vi. p. 13. A work which gives most useful and interesting information on the state of the modern Greek Church.

[180] See Pitzipios, (Part ii. p. 47,) who gives a copy of one of the circular letters of the patriarch.

[181] Pitzipios, Part ii. pp. 55, 56, 57.

[182] _Ibid._, l. c. pp. 59, 60.

[183] Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lxviii.

THE CHRIST OF AUSFELDT.

We live in a sceptical age that laughs at what it calls the superstitions of the olden time; superstitions, if you will, but often most beautiful, particularly when viewed through the mists of time and change. It is a relief to come upon some living legend, so to speak, while travelling over the hard macadamized thoroughfare of our practical lives, and I shall never forget the pleasure I experienced in listening to the recital of a story of the olden time, told me by my gracious hostess at the village inn where I had been stopping for a few days while making a pedestrian tour through the southern part of Germany.

"_Ach, mein Herr!_ and hast never heard the legend of the Christ of Ausfeldt?"

It stood, weather-beaten and worn, just where the solid piers set their mighty feet into the river; an old stone crucifix that seemed to have battled the storms of hundreds of years.

While pausing in my morning walk to gaze on it with a traveller's curiosity, something in the general characteristics of the figure attracted my attention; and examining it more closely, I immediately saw that it displayed greater evidence of artistic skill and execution than is generally manifested in wayside images. Too often they are but caricatures of that semblance which is the most holy and sacred of Christianity; but in the face of the Christ that looked down upon me from the stained and battered cross, I read an expression of patient suffering and God-like endurance that would have borne noble testimony to any sculptor.

Returning to the inn, a desire to discover something of the history rather of the sculptor than of the image prompted me to make inquiry of my good-natured landlady, who sat in the twilight just outside of the house door, knitting as only a German woman can.

From that "_Ach, mein Herr!_" I knew a story was coming; and knowing, likewise, that Frau Gretchen was a very princess in story-telling, I lighted my pipe, and, stretching myself on the wooden bench before the door, prepared to be either saddened, amused, or delighted, as the case might be.

Frau Gretchen laid down her stocking for a moment, smoothed the whitest of white aprons, and having looked toward the river, and then at the ruined castle that surmounted the hill beyond, resumed her knitting, and, heaving a gentle sigh began:

"More than three hundred years ago, and for hundreds of years before that time, there dwelt in that old castle yonder the noble lords of Ausfeldt. They were great warriors; mighty in stature and strength, and for generations on generations had been feared and hated by their vassals; for they were wicked as they were violent, and cruel as they were brave. Now, the women were all fair and gentle; for such was the power of the lords of Ausfeldt that it was ever given them to wed the flowers of the land; and it seemed that the good God made for them angel wives, so pure, and meek, and pious, and charitable were the ladies of Ausfeldt through centuries and centuries of time.

"Now, it fell out that Berthold, the reigning count, had been rescued from drowning by Arnold, a wood-carver of the town, whose skill in his craft was well known and much sought even from Alspach and Brauen. It was on a Good-Friday, and the grateful lord registered a vow to Heaven that he would commemorate his preservation by erecting an image of the Saviour crucified nigh to the spot where the waters had so nearly closed over him for ever.

"For in those days, _mein Herr_, although the great and mighty were fierce and cruel, faith was not dead in their hearts, as it is in these evil times of ours.

"Old Arnold of Ausfeldt, at his own beseeching, was deputed to essay his skill upon the Christ, and so well did he execute the task that his fame travelled far and wide. A large sum of money was promised him; but Berthold the master went off to the wars, and forgot, as men often do, his deliverer. Soon afterward old Arnold died and left all alone in the world his beautiful daughter, so fair and spotless that she was called 'the Lily of Ausfeldt.'

"As I said before, _mein Herr_, the dames of this haughty house were gentle and good, and when poor Bertha was left desolate, the Countess Barbara sent for her to the castle, and placed her among her own daughters as a sort of companion and teacher; for she had inherited from her mother great dexterity in the use of the needle, and from her father not a little artistic skill.

"For a time all went well. But alas! to every day, however bright, there comes an ending; and thus the morning of Bertha's happiness faded and deepened into night.

"There arrived from a long journey in the East the eldest son of the house, the young Rupert; none handsomer, none wittier, none more courtly than he. Unlike his father and most of his progenitors, he possessed a winning tongue and beguiling air; he had loitered in ladies' bowers, and they had taught him well.

"Into the pure blue eyes of the Lily of Ausfeldt he looked as would the serpent into the eyes of a trembling dove. But the blue depths, though they quivered, grew no darker nor deeper; there was no guile in the heart, and it knew not the presence of sin. Close to the innocent cheek of the maiden the tempter breathed his poisonous breath; but the guardian angel of purity folded his wings about her, and wafted a fold of his misty veil between that hot breath and her unsoiled innocence, until, man of the world though he was, Count Rupert shrank into himself abashed, and loved for the first time in his reckless life with a pure, deep, passionate love.

"Day after day he sought her side, night after night they wandered together by the river; her soul all full of faith, and hope, and beauty; his racked by fears of his father's anger; for in his heart of hearts he knew that his father would sooner slay him with his own hand than bend the lofty pride of Ausfeldt to a union with a simple burgher maiden.

"_Ach, ach, Herr Karl!_ love is a pleasant thing, and a delicious thing, and a holy thing; for it is heaven-born: but woman's faith is still more beautiful and heavenly; and man's fickleness and perfidy the story of every day. It has been the same all the world over since time began, and so it will be to the end.

"They parted at last--war called him away; but he left her with a vow upon his lips that was broken ere the birds sang the advent of another summer. There came rumors of a marriage with a great heiress of the north; but Bertha knew no fears, for her own heart was pure and true, and she did not dream that his could be faithless. Alas! there are many like her in the world, _mein Herr_, even in our day, when most people are forgetting what love means.

"Soon the castle was astir with unusual bustle and preparation, and then there was no secret made of the fact that the young Lord Rupert would soon bring home a bride. Whether he was weak or wicked, who can tell? God has judged and meted him his portion long ere this; but in her heart poor Bertha never blamed him. Yet she grew pale and thin; but no one noticed it; and that she spent long nights of weary weeping none knew save her guardian angel.

"It was a still, starry midnight. All alone in her little chamber, Bertha leaned forth from the casement; but she did not weep. Suddenly, as by an irresistible impulse, she hurried from the room, down the winding stairs, through the long garden, down, down the steep hill, till she stood on the brink of the river.

"Beneath her its waters flowed dark and rippling, and they were cold, oh! so cold, and her head burned and throbbed so wildly.

"One plunge, and her woes would be over for ever--thus whispered the fiend beside her--one step, and the cool waves would receive her! 'What is life to thee now?' said a mocking voice in her ear. 'What eternity of woe canst thou suffer more terrible than this? There is no eternity, naught but oblivion. Nearer and nearer thy faithless lover hastens with his beautiful bride; how canst thou bear day after day to meet him, to dwell under the same roof with thy rival. Have courage, plunge boldly! the waves, more merciful than the world, will receive thee, and to-morrow thou wilt float on their broad bosom, far away to the sea.'

"As the maiden lifted her hands from her eyes, as though to take a last look on the world ere she left it, something white gleamed in the moonlight; it was the stone crucifix at whose feet she had so often knelt in days of happiness and innocence, the cross her father had fashioned with hands and heart consecrated to heaven.

"Trembling in every limb, she dragged her weary feet to the spot; and as she threw herself upon her knees before the image, bitter sobs burst from her bosom.

"The sad face of the _dead Christ_ looked down upon her with eyes of divine compassion, and brought to her memory and to her heart a vision of the dear departed who had wrought this labor of love, and of that father's affection, and of his pure and holy teachings, which she had so nearly forgotten for evermore.

"With a wild cry she clasped the nail-pierced feet, and her whole soul poured itself forth in one deep, wailing supplication.

"'My God, my God!' she moaned, 'why hast thou forsaken me? Take me out of this weary world, as I lie here penitent and fearful, lest the evil one come again to tempt me, and I yield in my weakness and brokenness of heart. The river is black and pitiless, my Saviour; but not so black and pitiless as the world. Save me, oh! save me from myself. How shall I know that thou hast not deserted me? How shall I hope that thou wilt pardon, that thou wilt hear my prayer?'

"The moon, which had shrunk behind a cloud, came softly forth and bathed the image and the shrinking figure at its feet in holy light; while, as the maiden knelt, there passed into her stricken heart a quiet, hopeful feeling, and, looking up half timidly, she pushed back her loosened hair to meet once more the sad, pitying glance above her.

"And then she clasped her trembling hands together, and bent her weary head low down to the very earth; for around the brow of the _dead Christ_ there shone a heavenly halo, blood trickled from the thorny crown and reddened the outstretched hands, and from the soft, compassionate eyes great tears were falling.

* * * * *

"Twenty years afterward, the holy Abbess of Ausfeldt lay upon her death-bed; and the good sisters gathered around her, and even the choristers and little serving-boys; for they all loved her well: and there came into her eyes a light, and to her voice a strength, neither had known for many a day; and just as I tell it to you, _mein Herr_, she told them the story of the _Christ of Ausfeldt_. For her name had been Bertha, and it was her own story.

"And she begged that no Christian might ever pass the sacred spot without breathing a prayer for her soul. Ah! _mein Herr_, many a time have I passed the holy image and almost fancied it smiled upon me as I went."

Silently Frau Gretchen folded up her knitting, and with a sigh toward the river, and another toward the ruined castle, stepped slowly down the garden path, humming dreamily as she walked Schiller's song of "The Mill":

"The mill-wheel ceaseless turneth, Beside the mill I know; But she who once did dwell there Hath vanished long ago."

Catching her thought, I murmured the plaintive words as I passed out of the gateway and down the old, shadowy street. They had "vanished long ago"--the great inheritors and the noble line, the faithless lover and the pure "Lily of Ausfeldt." But the bright, silvery moonlight made clear and distinct the sculptured image I had come to seek. The legend had invested it with an almost living interest, and as I paused before it, with as reverential a feeling as I have ever known in the contemplation of earth's grandest Raphaels or Murillos, I said half aloud, as I lingered for a moment near the quiet river, "O beautiful old German legends! may you live in your purity and holiness in the hearts of the German people as long as the Rhine flows through the pleasant courses and by the fruitful vineyards its wandering spirit loves."

MRS. SETON.[184]

Elizabeth Ann Bayley, the foundress of the Sisterhood of Charity in the United States, was born in the city of New York, on the 28th of August, 1774. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was a physician of good family and distinguished position, a member of the Church of England, and a man of many natural virtues; but he cared very little about religion, and wherever his daughter may have got the pious inclinations which distinguished her in girlhood, she certainly did not get them from him. Her mother, whose maiden name was Charlton, died while Elizabeth was a child. Under the care of her father, however, Miss Bayley was well educated and trained in domestic duties. At the age of nineteen she married Mr. William Magee Seton, eldest son of a prosperous New York merchant, and descendant of an ancient Scottish patrician family, whose head is the Earl of Winton. Their married life was eminently happy, and for six or seven years fortune smiled upon them. Commercial disasters at last swept away their property. Dr. Bayley died suddenly of a malignant fever contracted in the discharge of his duty as health officer of the port; Mr. Seton's health failed, and in 1803 the husband and wife determined to make a voyage to Italy. They suffered a long and painful quarantine at Leghorn, and a week after their release Mr. Seton died, leaving his wife in a strange land with her eldest child, a girl of nine years. Mrs. Seton was not, however, without comfort and protection. Two estimable Italian gentlemen, Philip and Anthony Filicchi, personal friends and business correspondents of the Setons, took her to their home and treated her with most brotherly kindness. Under the influence of the devout household of which they were the heads, the religious sentiments of the young widow were gradually developed into a strong attraction toward the Catholic Church. She went with the Filicchis to mass; she visited the chapels; she learned devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Early in February, 1804, about six weeks after Mr. Seton's death, she sailed for home. But it was not the purpose of Providence that she should be withdrawn so soon from associations which were to influence remarkably her future life. In a severe storm the vessel in which she had taken passage was so much injured as to be driven back to port. Before another was ready to sail, Mrs. Seton's child was taken sick. Close upon the recovery of the child, followed the sickness of the mother; and when, in April, they were ready again to embark, one of the Filicchi brothers, Anthony, offered to bear them company. During the long voyage of nearly two months, Mrs. Seton made frequent opportunities to talk with her friend upon religion, and before the vessel reached New York she was virtually a convert. The last step cost her much suffering and perplexity. It is a step which hardly ever is taken without pain. In her case there was not only the dread of estrangement from affectionate relatives, but she could not face with composure the inevitable rupture with a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church who had exercised a great deal of influence upon her character and her earlier life. This was the amiable John Henry Hobart, afterward Bishop of New York, a man who was deeply and deservedly beloved, and for whom Mrs. Seton in particular cherished a filial regard. By Mr. Filicchi's advice, she exposed her difficulties to Mr. Hobart. He made an elaborate reply to them. He talked with her frequently. He used all his talent, all his scholarship, all his personal influence to keep her in the denomination in which she had been born. Between Mr. Hobart and her family, on the one hand, and the letters of Philip Filicchi and personal interviews with Anthony, on the other, her perplexity became painful to the last degree. At last, on Ash-Wednesday, 1805, she was received into the church by Father O'Brien, at St. Peter's, in Barclay street. Her soul was now at peace, but her temporal troubles had only begun. Old friends and nearest relatives turned away horrified and angry, and when soon afterward her sister-in-law Cecilia was likewise baptized a Catholic, the indignation of the family knew no bounds. She was without fortune, and when she tried to earn a support by teaching, she found the good Protestants of New York afraid to intrust the education of their children to an emissary of the pope, perhaps a female Jesuit in disguise. The kindness of her excellent Italian friends again came to her relief. They charged themselves with the education of her children, placed the two sons at Georgetown College, gave her an allowance of $400 a year, and begged Mrs. Seton to draw upon them for whatever money she wanted. We believe she was not obliged, however, to avail herself of this generous offer.

Mrs. Seton seems to have formed, at an early period of her widowhood, the project of devoting herself to God in the service of a religious order, and her first plan was to go to Canada and join some sisterhood there. It was a part of this scheme, however, that her children should enter a house of education at Montreal, where she could still give them the maternal care which their tender years required. Providential obstacles defeated this design, and thus she was reserved for the establishment in her own country of the noble institute with which her name will always be connected. We shall quote from Dr. White's _Life_ the story of how she began the great work of her career:

"Her thoughts were more practically directed to it by the Rev. William Valentine Dubourg, president of St. Mary's College in Baltimore. He became acquainted with her in the following way: Having visited the city of New York in the autumn of 1806, he was one morning offering up the holy sacrifice of mass in St. Peter's Church, when a lady presented herself at the communion-rail, and, bathed in tears, received the Blessed Sacrament at his hands. He was struck with the uncommon deportment and piety of the communicant, and when afterward seated at the breakfast-table with the Rev. Mr. Sibourd, one of the pastors of the church, he inquired who she was, rightly judging in his mind that it was Mrs. Seton, of whose conversion and edifying life he had been informed. Before Mr. Sibourd had time to answer his question, a gentle tap at the door was heard, and the next moment Mrs. Seton was introduced, and knelt before the priest of God to receive his blessing. Entering into conversation with her respecting her sons and her intentions in their regard, he learned from her the views and wishes of Mr. Filicchi, as stated above, and the remote expectation she had of removing herself, with her daughters, to Canada. Mr. Dubourg, who was a man of enlarged views and remarkable enterprise, no sooner became acquainted with the design which she entertained of retiring at some future period into a religious community, for the welfare of herself and her children, than he suggested the practicability of the scheme within the limits of the United States. Mrs. Seton immediately wrote to Bishop Carroll, informing him of what had passed between her and Mr. Dubourg, and requesting his advice in the matter. 'I could not venture,' she says, 'to take a further step in so interesting a situation without your concurrence and direction, which also, I am assured, will the more readily obtain for me the blessing of Him whose will alone it is my earnest desire to accomplish.' After mentioning the particular trials she had to contend with in New York, and assuring Dr. Carroll that she had yielded in condescension to her opponents every point possible consistently with her peace for the hour of death, she continues, 'And for that hour, my dear sir, I now beg you to consider, while you direct me how to act for my dear little children, who in that hour, if they remain in their present situation, would be snatched from our dear faith as from an accumulation of error as well as misfortune to them. For myself, certainly the only fear I can have is that there is too much of self-seeking in pleading for the accomplishment of this object, which, however, I joyfully yield to the will of the Almighty, confident that, as he has disposed my heart to wish above all things to please him, it will not be disappointed in the desire, whatever may be his appointed means. The embracing a religious life has been, from the time I was in Leghorn, so much my hope and consolation, that I would at any moment have embraced all the difficulties of again crossing the ocean to attain it, little imagining it could be accomplished here. But now my children are so circumstanced that I could not die in peace (and you know, dear sir, we must make every preparation) except I felt the full conviction I had done all in my power to shield them from it; in that case, it would be easy to commit them to God.'

"While Mrs. Seton was consulting Bishop Carroll in regard to the important arrangement suggested by Mr. Dubourg, this gentleman was conferring with the Rev. Messrs. Matignon and Cheverus, of Boston, upon the same subject. After having weighed the matter attentively, they came to the conclusion that her Canada scheme should be abandoned, and that it would be preferable to exert her talents in the way proposed by Mr. Dubourg. Mr. Cheverus wrote to her, 'hoping that this project would do better for her family, and being sure it would be very conducive to the progress of religion in this country.' It was the opinion, however, of these distinguished clergymen that the execution of the design should not be precipitate; and they therefore advised her, through Mr. Dubourg, 'to wait the manifestation of the divine will--the will of a Father most tender, who will not let go the child afraid to step alone.' The wise forethought of Dr. Matignon led him to believe that Mrs. Seton was called, in the designs of God's providence, to be the instrument of some special mercies that he wished to dispense to the church in this country. 'I have only to pray to God,' he wrote to her, 'to bless your views and his, and to give you the grace to fulfil them for his greater glory. _You are destined, I think, for some great good in the United States_, and here you should remain in preference to any other location. For the rest, God has his moments, which we must not seek to anticipate, and a prudent delay only brings to maturity the good desires which he awakens within us.' Bishop Carroll, in answer to Mrs. Seton's inquiries, informed her that, although he was entirely ignorant of all particulars, yet, to approve the plan of Mr. Dubourg, it was enough for him to know that it had the concurrence of Dr. Matignon and Mr. Cheverus."

She did wait patiently nearly two years. At the end of that time her pecuniary affairs became so embarrassing, and the inconveniences of her situation in New York pressed upon her so severely, that she was again driven to turn her thoughts toward Canada, not so much as a refuge from her own troubles, but as an asylum where her children might be saved from the dangers which threatened their faith in the Protestant society of New York. But about this time she met Mr. Dubourg again, and, in answer to his inquiries, gave him an exact account of her situation. He contemplated the establishment of a Catholic school for girls in Baltimore, and invited her to come and take charge of it. Her two boys he offered to admit into St. Mary's College, free of expense. The school was to be started in a small way, in a two-story hired house; and afterward, if God prospered the undertaking, a proper building for the institution was to be erected on ground belonging to the college. Of course, Mrs. Seton accepted the proposition with joy. On the 9th of June, 1808, she embarked for Baltimore in a packet, accompanied by her three daughters. It was a voyage, in those times, of between six and seven days. She landed on the morning of the 16th, the feast of Corpus Christi, and drove at once from the wharf to St. Mary's chapel to hear mass.

It is almost impossible to describe the happiness which beams from her letters written in her new home to her friends in Italy, her favorite sisters-in-law, Cecilia and Harriet Seton, (the latter of whom was, at this time, strongly attracted toward the church, while the other, as we have already mentioned, was a fervent convert,) and her spiritual advisers. United with her children, in a comfortable little home close to the seminary and college, where she found in the chapel services an unfailing source of delight, she had all that her domestic affections and pious desires could wish. The relatives of Mr. Dubourg and other Catholics of the city treated her with great cordiality, and from many distinguished Protestant families she received marked social attentions. The school was opened in September. Mrs. Seton had not thought, so far, of adopting any thing like a conventual rule of life, except perhaps at some remote period; but her daily life was regulated with reference to the consecration of all her powers to God, and she mingled no further in society than a regard for good breeding and gratitude to her friends absolutely required. The development of her religious schemes was gradual, and the foundation of the new sisterhood appears, from a human point of view, the result of accident and curious coincidence, rather than the fruit of direct labor. The first step toward it was the arrival at Mrs. Seton's Baltimore establishment of a young lady from Philadelphia, named Cecilia O'Conway. The Rev. Mr. Babade, the spiritual director of the school, found this young lady on the point of going to Europe to enter a convent. He told her of Mrs. Seton's plans, and she determined to go to Baltimore instead. In December, 1808, Miss O'Conway accordingly became an assistant in the school.

Mr. Filicchi had made an offering of one thousand dollars toward the realization of Mrs. Seton's plans; but now came, in a most unexpected manner, a new benefactor, whose liberality gave the enterprise a different character and vastly enlarged scope. Among the students of theology at St. Mary's Seminary, was Mr. Samuel Cooper, a gentleman of fortune, a Virginian, and formerly well known in fashionable society. His conversion from Protestantism and determination to study for the priesthood had caused quite as great a sensation as the conversion of Mrs. Seton. He now purposed distributing his property among the poor, (before his death, we may here add, that he literally gave away all he possessed,) and one morning he spoke to Mr. Dubourg about doing something for the instruction of poor children. He had never spoken upon the subject with Mrs. Seton, but he suggested at this interview that possibly she might undertake the work, if he gave the money. It is a very remarkable fact that at this same moment Mrs. Seton was thinking of the same thing. That morning after communion she felt a strong desire arise within her to dedicate herself to the care and instruction of poor girls. She went at once to Mr. Dubourg. "This morning," she said, "in my communion, I thought, 'Dearest Saviour, if you would but give me the care of poor little children, no matter how poor!' and Mr. Cooper being directly before me at his thanksgiving, I thought, 'He has money: if he would but give it for the bringing up of poor little children to know and love you!'" The result of this extraordinary, or we ought rather to say, providential coincidence, was, that Mr. Cooper gave eight thousand dollars for the establishment of the proposed institution, and fixed upon Emmettsburg as the place; and there a farm with a very small stone house upon it was bought, in the names of the Rev. William V. Dubourg, Mr. Samuel Cooper, and the Rev. John Dubois, who was then pastor of several congregations in that part of Maryland, and director at the same time of the small school near Emmettsburg, out of which soon afterward grew Mount St. Mary's College. With the college and its illustrious founder the fortunes of Mrs. Seton's institute became intimately connected.

While these arrangements were in progress, the new community was gradually and quietly forming at the little house in Baltimore. A second associate, Miss Maria Murphy, of Philadelphia, joined Mrs. Seton in April, 1809. In May, two more presented themselves, Miss Mary Ann Butler, of Philadelphia, and Miss Susan Clossy, of New York. It was not without a painful sense of unfitness that, in obedience to the directions of her bishop and spiritual advisers, Mrs. Seton undertook the government of this religious household. On the evening of the day when the task was definitely laid upon her "she was seized," says Dr. White,

"with a transport of mingled love and humility in reflecting upon the subject. Being with two or three of her sisters, and the discourse turning upon the probable designs of providence in their regard, Mother Seton became so penetrated with the awful responsibility, and sense of her own incapacity, that she was almost inconsolable. For some moments she wept bitterly in silence; then, throwing herself upon her knees, she confessed aloud the most frail and humiliating actions of her life from her childhood upward; after which she exclaimed in the most affecting manner, her hands and eyes raised toward heaven and the tears gushing down her cheeks, 'My gracious God! You know my unfitness for this task. I who by my sins have so often crucified you, I blush with shame and confusion! How can I teach others who know so little myself, and am so miserable and imperfect?' The sisters who were present were overwhelmed by the scene before them, and, falling on their knees, gave vent to their tears and painful emotions."

On the 1st of June they assumed a religious habit, and the next day--Corpus Christi--appeared in it for the first time at church. It was not a regular nun's garb, but an imitation of the dress which Mrs. Seton had worn ever since the death of her husband. It consisted of a black gown with a short cape, similar to a costume she had seen in some Italian sisterhood, a white muslin cap with a crimped border, and a black band around the head, fastened under the chin. A regular order of daily life was established, and Mrs. Seton privately, in the presence of Bishop Carroll, took the ordinary vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience for the period of one year. Her associates, however, did not as yet make any vows, nor was any special religious institute adopted for their organization. They merely styled themselves "Sisters of St. Joseph." Mr. Dubourg was appointed their ecclesiastical superior.

About this time Miss Cecilia Seton fell dangerously ill, and was advised by her physicians to make a visit to Baltimore. Harriet accompanied her, and with these two beloved relatives, one of her daughters, and one member of the sisterhood, Mrs. Seton removed to Emmettsburg on the 21st of June, finding shelter at first in a little log hut on the mountain, as their own house on the farm was not yet ready for use. Her happy union with Cecilia and Harriet was for a few months only. Harriet became a Catholic; but in the first fervor of her devotion was seized with a fever, and died on the 22d of December. Cecilia grew better for a short time, and even joined the community; but she failed gradually, and died in Baltimore in April. During the first autumn and winter at Emmettsburg the institution was little better than a hospital. The farm-house, into which the whole community, then numbering ten, moved in the course of the summer, consisted of nothing but two rooms on the ground floor and two in the attic, and these had to afford accommodations not only for the ten sisters, but for Mrs. Seton's three daughters, her sister-in-law Harriet, and two pupils who followed her from Baltimore. Added to the discomfort of their narrow quarters was a state of poverty so extreme that they sometimes knew not where to look for their next meal. For coffee they substituted a beverage made of carrots and sweetened with molasses. Their bread was of rye and of the coarsest description. At Christmas they thought themselves fortunate in having for dinner smoked herrings and a spoonful of molasses apiece. In the course of the winter, however, a two-story log house of convenient size was put up for their use, and now they were able to open a day-school and take more boarding-pupils, and so provide at least for their daily expenses. The debt incurred in making these improvements was, nevertheless, a severe burden for them, and at one time it seemed inevitable that they should sell out and disperse; but charitable friends came to their relief at the last moment, and, little by little, with many fluctuations of fortune, they got out of their difficulties.

When they determined, about the time of coming to Emmettsburg, to adopt the rule of St. Vincent of Paul, they sent to France and begged some of the sisters of the society to come over and place themselves at the head of the new American community. The invitation was accepted; but the French government would not allow the sisters to sail, so the most that Mrs. Seton could get was a copy of the rules and a kind letter of encouragement. These rules, modified to meet the peculiar wants of the new institution, by permitting it to receive pay-scholars in connection with its labors of charity, and with special provisions to allow Mrs. Seton to devote the necessary care to her young children, were approved by Bishop Carroll as the rule for the "Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph," and so the community which has done such a noble work in the United States came into existence with Mrs. Seton for its first mother superior.

We have no intention of sketching in this brief paper the rise and development of that sisterhood. The log house in "St. Joseph's Valley," at the foot of Mount St. Mary, has a renown in the history of the American church upon which many able pens have enlarged, and branch communities have gone out from it, filling remote parts of the United States with good works and pious example. Our purpose has been merely to sketch the foundation of the illustrious community, and tell our readers something of the trials and sorrows under which Mrs. Seton achieved her great work. The rest of her life, though it was blessed with the consolation of success in her undertaking, was torn with afflictions not less severe than those she had suffered already. Her eldest and her youngest daughters were both taken from her as they were just entering upon a beautiful womanhood, the eldest, Anna, being already a member of the community. The deaths among her earliest associates were many, and she had also to mourn the loss of one of the excellent Italian friends who contributed so much to the success of her enterprise. But in all her sorrows she preserved the calmness of divine resignation, the charm of her personal presence, and the kind, unselfish interest in others which made her so generally beloved. She died on the 4th of January, 1821; and on the wall of the humble chamber where she expired, the following memento is now shown:

"Here, near this door, by this fireplace, on a poor, lowly couch, died our cherished and saintly Mother Seton, on the 4th of January, 1821. She died in poverty, but rich in faith and good works. May we, her children, walk in her footsteps and share one day in her happiness! Amen!"

The two works whose titles we have placed at the head of this article are very much alike in the general character of their contents, having both been prepared from the same materials. Dr. White's _Life_ has been many years before the public, and has been much commended for its devotional spirit and appreciative judgment of Mrs. Seton's labors. The larger work, just issued in two handsome volumes, and printed and bound with considerable elegance, has been prepared by Mrs. Seton's grandson. It has apparently been for the editor a labor of love. He has drawn freely from the family records which Dr. White used before him, and has quoted much more of Mrs. Seton's letters than his predecessor did, so that the work is almost equivalent to an autobiography of the foundress of St. Joseph's, illustrated with abundant explanatory notes, and with only so much narrative as seemed necessary to bind the whole together. It is not only an interesting memorial of a very interesting woman, but an important contribution to the materials which we hope the coming historian will some day reduce into a comprehensive history of the American church.

FOOTNOTE:

[184] _Memoir, Letters, and Journal of Elizabeth Seton._ Edited by Right Rev. Robert Seton, D.D., Prothonotary Apostolic. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 322, 311. P. O'Shea. 1869.

_Life of Mrs. Eliza A. Seton._ By Charles I. White, D.D. 12mo, pp. 462. John Murphy & Co. 1853.

VIEWS OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT.

If we consider the existing industrial nations with the eye of political economy or of political philosophy, we cannot help giving attention to the deep and wide-spread disagreements which have broken open between the laboring man and his employers. In France, Switzerland, Germany, England, and the United States, the question of the relative rights of labor and capital are presented in many ways, so as to compel investigation and action. Trades-unions, coöperative societies, industrial congresses, and lastly, that herculean infant, the Labor Reform Party, are extending themselves all over the countries we have just named, and particularly over the United States. They are daily gaining strength and influence. Politicians are thinking how to obtain the favor of this party, at the least cost to their popularity among other partisans. The larger parties already offer to compromise with it, and to give it a plank in their great platforms. It is evident that, if the working-men were to move with unanimity to form a labor party, it would be a most formidable rival to the others.

The mere fact of the advent of a new party is not at all startling to an American; for since the independence of this country, several parties have come into existence, and have been swept away by the advent or success of others; but the working-men's party proposes to carry into our legislation and into the administration of the government tendencies and principles so diametrically opposite to and destructive of any precedent course or system of politics, that the prospect of these tendencies being powerfully reënforced excites vehement emotions of anxiety or satisfaction, according to the previous bias of the observer. Just think of it: the question is no longer to be only what ought to be the policy of the nation, regarded as an unit, toward other nations or toward itself, nor what are the interests and rights of _territorial_ integers; but what ought to be the action of one great _component element_ upon the other essential elements of the body politic. The people are called upon to consider not only the questions relative to tariffs, taxation, banks, currency, national debt, bonds, State rights, or the like; but to answer the complaint of the bone and sinew of the country against its veins and blood. The brain claims the right to decide; and it appears there is a possibility of there being a preponderance of brain on the side of the complainants. The spread of education produces astonishing consequences; and among the rest this: science is becoming so common that the great cannot monopolize it all, and much of it is going to take service among the poor. Hence, able and eloquent speakers and writers are now contending that labor does not receive its full and merited reward, and that the laborer is oppressed by his employers and the laws. Hence, too, a great number and variety of novel measures and institutions are ingeniously contrived and plausibly advocated for the avowed purpose of overthrowing some of the most venerated doctrines of orthodox political economy.

As in other cases, this movement develops every grade of opinion and feeling. A rich philanthropist thinks more education and better lodging-houses, at less cost, will be a good and sufficient remedy; while among the poor the most violent measures are sometimes preferred. Even agrarianism is proposed, and incendiarism attempted, in order to redress whatever wrongs the toiler really suffers, or imagines he suffers, unjustly. Between the two, we have mild and harmless contrivances, such as mutual aid societies, and coöperative shops and stores, intended to diminish the causes of pauperism or alleviate its bad effects.

All the plans, of course, differ, according to the idea the proposers have formed of the nature of the causes of the social malady. Some regard the miseries of the laboring classes as the accumulated effects of many mere accidents, principally personal imprudence and vice; and, since they think there is no radical cause, refuse to hear of a radical remedy. Others admit radical causes, such as (1) a bad form of government, or (2) the selfish, the uncharitable, the unchristian spirit of the world, or (3) the too rapid increase and local crowding of population, or (4) the progressive individualization of capital, or (5) popular ignorance, or (6) the onerous obligations of marriage and parentage, or (7) what they call the slavery of woman, or (8) the present land-ownership system, or some other prevalent mode of acquiring property, such as (9) usury, (10) monopoly, (11) rents, (12) heirships, (13) tariffs, (14) banking, (15) speculation, and the like. Above all these looms the fact, whatever may be the cause, that capital is becoming less and less in the hands of those who produce it, and is growing larger and larger in the hands of cunning or lucky exploiters.

The variety of opinions with regard to what the remedy should be has produced correspondingly various institutions, parties, and laws. So we have (1) poor laws, vagrant laws, work-houses and reformatory prisons, for juvenile delinquents and others; (2) charity hospitals, asylums for the widows, the orphans, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the crippled, the aged, the infirm, or the insane; warming-houses, lying-in hospitals, poor mothers' cradle-houses, gratuitous sleeping-halls, soup-houses, asylums for unruly or destitute children of both sexes, gratuitous dispensaries of medicines, Magdalen reformatory houses, Sisters of Charity, Brothers of Mercy, Little Sisters of the Poor, Christian Brothers' schools, public schools, etc.; (3) visiting confraternities to bring succor home to the poor, such as fuel-giving, furnishing provisions or nursing, and prison-visiting societies; (4) organizations to support charitable institutions by means of fairs, lotteries, concerts, spectacles, picnics, tournaments, and other amusements; (5) labor-protective unions, workmen's guilds and fellowships, trades-unions and labor combinations, savings banks, coöperative factories, coöperative stores, mutual aid societies, burial societies, labor reform party; (6) Shaker, Rappist, Moravian, and Ballouite communities; (7) Owenite _Harmonias_, Cabetite _Familisteries_, Fourierite _Phalansterias_, women's rights societies, Mormon harems, and artistic brothels of complex association.

Every one who reads this list will find in it the mention of some institution he believes to be either useless or pernicious. The objections would be curiously heterogeneous. An infidel would suppress all those having their root or support in religion. A political economist will protest against working-men's combinations to raise the price of labor. A Christian deplores the attempts of socialists to establish institutions from which God is excluded. A sectarian sees with pain the success of charities founded by other congregations. The Roman Catholic (as such) must also have his opinions of the relative merits of the corporations that appear to him to rise sometimes out of the sea of sin, and sometimes out of the waters of life. We, for ourselves, have some peculiar ideas, gathered from this point of view.

It would be vain obduracy on the part of a Catholic to close his eyes to the deep and wide-spread clamor of the voices, great and small, that are now discussing "social science," and proposing solutions of the "labor question." These matters, in every imaginable manner, are obtruding themselves upon the attention of the manufacturer, politician, and legislator; and must soon command that of the farmer and merchant; and by and by, even the solicitude of the church. Indeed, we should not say "by and by;" for already, while the world is agitated by the strikes and the labor congresses, while the parliament of Great Britain, through its committees, is carrying on the minutest investigations of the eight-hour and higher wages movements, our holy father at Rome has pronounced public allocutions against _socialism_.

Very certainly society, the state, and the church will soon deeply feel the effects of the agitation of mind and feeling going on among the working people. The allocution of his holiness shows that this consequence has not escaped his penetrating intellect. He sees clearly that the agitation will be injurious or produce beneficial results according to the principles, Christian or anti-christian, that shall prevail within it. To avoid or prevent the fermentation and its products is impossible. It must take place; and the question is, how to make it yield clear and palatable wine. To think that the church can ignore it, and go on as if nothing were shaking the body politic, and disturbing the souls of the people, would be to stultify ourselves. The issue raised is too important, and the tendency to revolution too powerfully pressed to be disregarded and treated with contempt. See the great number of societies the workmen have formed in every Northern State. These societies have already drawn a majority of the skilled operatives, and there is a prospect of their finally absorbing all the working-people. The agricultural laborers already give signs of sympathy with the movement.

Of course, we understand that it matters not to the church what economic or political party governs the state. The controversies between Democrat and Republican, free-trade and protection, labor and capital, are mere worldly matters, and do not concern the church; but the coming issue has a deeper cause than a mere question of temporal expediency. In the midst of the unanimous demand for a change the men of labor are making, we can also perceive, not only that the wished-for changes are fundamental and revolutionary, but also that the leaders are actuated by very different principles, and aim at different ultimates, and that these relate to the very origin, basis, and end of private and public morality and religion. Some move by the light of Christianity, some by that of natural reason as exhibited by the modern infidel schools of philosophy--naturalism, rationalism, individualism, positivism, and evolutionism. Very different motives and very different hopes move the principal agitators, though they now act with great unanimity. The working multitude, who complain of wrong, and seek a practical remedy, have not yet looked beyond the surface of the speeches, or into the details of the plans of their principal men. It suffices that these say they have found the proper remedy. They have gained the confidence of followers merely from evincing a knowledge of the grounds of complaint, and giving eloquent expression to their sympathy. The working-men hardly discuss the merits of the particular _methods_ of reform proposed; and they will follow one or the other class of leaders as it happens that either succeeds in captivating them by the arts of ambition. The difference in the possible consequences is immense; but first the leaders, each with his followers, will act together to break up the customs, laws, and institutions by which the interests of the laboring men are injuriously affected; and not till they accomplish this against the common enemy shall we know (unless we prepare the way) whether the counsels of infidelity or of Christianity will be followed in the reconstruction.

The work of determining the tendency one way or the other is going on even now. If we scrutinize societies, institutions, and parties formed for the purpose of relieving the evils that poverty causes among the people, we shall find it easy to class them under discordant heads. (1) Those founded by Christian charity, wholly innocent of any political purpose--works of disinterested mercy and brotherly love. (2) Those invented by political economists and lawyers, merely as a means of favoring capitalists and the personal accumulation of property, or to suppress pauperism and vagrancy, such as monopolies, poor-houses, and the like. (3) Those contrived from motives of private prudence and economy only, such as mutual aid societies, coöperative stores, etc. (4) Those proceeding on the ground that the laboring classes will never get their just portion of worldly goods and enjoyments otherwise than through political action, as, for instance, the national labor reform party. (5) The Utopias and secret societies imagined by infidels.

It is this last-mentioned class whose theories, acts, and progress compel us to consider them from a religious point of view. They are the offspring of Campanella, of Nicolas of Munster, and of Giordano Bruno. From these sprang Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Holbach, and a host of mere sceptics and speculators like them. Then came the chiefs of the French revolution, Marat and Robespierre. Next, in 1797, Baboeuf opposed even Robespierre as being too backward and aristocratic, and formed a conspiracy to massacre the rich, and proclaim sumptuary laws from a mountain of the slain. After him appeared Owen, trying to realize the insane idea of conciliating atheism with charity. He was followed by St. Simon, who sought to create another contradiction, that of an aristocracy of philanthropists; governors and princes of equality, who, however, never found any subjects. Contemporaneously, Fourier invented a wonderful scheme for procuring in labor association the most luxurious pleasures and licentious indulgences. Close at his heels came Cabet, continuing Owen's method on less offensive conditions. Last of all, Noyes is trying to conceal the wolf of beastly promiscuousness under the robe of the pure lamb of Christian love. These are the most notorious of those who may be denounced as the anti-Christian agitators of the labor question. Socialism is the name they have inscribed on their banner; and hence, since all these inventors and champions have also been unanimous in waging war, directly or indirectly, against Christianity, their socialism itself should be opposed by all good Christians.

But, unfortunately, socialism, while opposing or seeking to undermine Christianity, succeeds in seducing many by the promises of sensual enjoyments she makes. Indeed, the rationale of every sect or party concerned in the labor movement begins with the main proposition which makes them and even infidel socialism acceptable to multitudes, namely, that society or the state is under obligation to relieve the miseries of the poor, and if possible to eradicate pauperism itself. If any deny that society or the law has done any injustice to labor--if, for instance, the legislator who framed the poor laws thought the pauper had nobody but himself to blame--he nevertheless admits that pauperism is not merely a personal misfortune, but a public one; that pauperism must be regarded as a social malady or sore, which, though it may not be radically cured, must and ought to be treated at least with palliatives, so as to prevent it from becoming fatal to the body politic. Thus, while attempting to exonerate the state, even the orthodox politician admits that the body politic is deeply afflicted by the virus of pauperism, and therefore himself posits the very question he would fain ignore. The poor join issue with him, and argue that from the day England and North Germany wrested the care of the poor from the monasteries, the state assumed the responsibility of their distress, and is bound to make such laws as will radically cure all misery. The contest is now raging in every direction, not only on the question of _Who_ shall take care of the poor, but _How_ shall they be cared for, and _What_ are the rights and remedies they are entitled to?

The origin and object of the controversy is agreed on by every one. The dissent is upon what shall be the principle and the method according to which the desired relief shall be gained. Infidelity, under the name of socialism, would have it done without God, on grounds of naked natural equity or rational justice. It would act independently of religion, Christian faith and Christian charity. It would push the church aside, and presume to finish in another name the work our Lord Jesus Christ commenced more than eighteen centuries ago.

Hence, unless one prefers to hide his head in the sand, with the vain notion that the immense flood roaring and rising round us does not exist, because he does not see or hear it, it is time for him, if he is a Catholic, to consider from the point of view of his faith what stand he should take, and what is his duty toward the poor and toward society in the crisis the struggles of laborers for power in the state will soon bring on in this country of universal suffrage. It is not merely a question of giving and distributing alms and assistance that is to be solved, but great problems of social organization and rights are put before us. We must decide, (1) what there is in the labor movement that religion approves and encourages; (2) what there is in it religion condemns; and (3) what it contains that is merely temporal or indifferent to the church.

It certainly has something of each of these three elements.

In any way the matter is approached it presents a religious as well as a political question to be solved, a religious as well as a political duty to be performed; for it involves the rights of the poor on us, and our duty to them _as Christians_. What if the demands of the laborers were just, and that, notwithstanding this, we should oppose them? While socialism, as a whole, should be opposed, it is admitted that the present poor-laws and charitable institutions are insufficient, and some more thorough system of relief must be adopted. The working-men insist that this shall be done, and for this purpose claim to elect those who are to govern the state, and make the laws. Religion cannot neglect to interfere without leaving multitudes of souls of the poor to be seduced into the naturalism, sensualism, and infidelity the socialists purpose as the consummation of the movement. Nor does the question of our religious duty toward the poor in this crisis cease to demand an answer upon a mere refutation of socialistic theories. It does not suffice to show that the Utopias of Baboeuf, Owen, Cabet, St. Simon, Fourier, and Noyes are abominable, but the just principle of economic distribution must be found and applied under penalty of eternal anarchy. The negation of one medicine as unfit does not dispense from finding another that will cure, when, indeed, a disease exists; and we take it for granted that no Christian who has heard or read of the successive burdens and hardships of the poor operatives and peasants of Europe will say that there is no disease to be cured, or who is heartless enough to abandon the case on the ground that it is incurable. Certain it is that the hard-working poor will not concede that they suffer no injustice--will not cease to demand permanent relief; and if religion ignores, denies, or abandons the sick, they will resort to philosophical quacks, who will lead them to their moral and religious ruin. Worse; as foreseen by his holiness Pius IX., they will repeat the apostasy of the French revolution, and with the same sacrilegious and despotic spirit, but with more cunning and method, prohibit religion itself.

Their main lever in accomplishing this will be the labor movement, if they succeed in controlling it. Hence, what _we_ shall do with it, is a question of vital importance.

At the outset the Catholic must give a negative answer to all propositions and plans for disturbing _vested rights_ or violently resisting the laws, or lawful authority, under pretence of establishing justice. This proposition needs no argument to show its wisdom and conformity with divine law.

Next, the Catholic will oppose agrarianism, which is the _forcible_ taking of all property to distribute it in _equal_ portions among the people. This is forced equality; a very different thing from associated labor.

Finally, the Catholic will also even oppose association when she would organize corruption and irreligion under the guise of philanthropy and fraternity.

No doubt these are the features of the labor movement his holiness Pius IX. designated under the general title of socialism when, on the 17th of June last, in his allocution to the cardinals, he said:

"Thus, to-day we see on one side revolution, bringing in her train THAT _socialism_ which repudiates morals and religion and denies God himself; while on the other side we behold the faithful and true, who calmly and firmly expect that good principles will resume their salutary empire, and that the merciful designs of Deity will be realized."

The plain duty of lopping off socialism, and of casting it aside, being performed, there remains, (1) reform through just legislation; (2) legal contracts for mutual relief; (3) coöperation or association of work-fellows; and (4) the realization of perfect Christian charity.

We think we could prove that all the purely secular remedies--such as coöoperation, mutuality, and the like--are delusive, and in themselves inadequate; but it is not our present purpose to examine this branch of the subject. A volume would not suffice. It is only necessary to remark, _en passant_, that there is nothing in the organizations included under the general name of coöperation contrary to religion; but at the same time there is nothing in coöperation that springs from religion; it is a mere economic contrivance. It is not a _religious_ solution of the problem of social distress; and since we have argued that religion must be able to give a temporal as well as a spiritual answer to the complaints of the poor, we will pass by all minor and transitional questions, and consider only what the earthly Utopia of faith and charity would be; and inquire what method might now be adopted to inaugurate the practical reign of Christian fellowship, in which the laborer would necessarily reap the reward he is justly entitled to.

Yes, religion has also its earthly new Eden, that will give full satisfaction to the over-burdened and under-paid workman. Let us try to picture it in our imagination, in order to judge from a study of the ideal whether it would be possible to make it a reality. To do this, we should begin by stating the principles on which this ideal should be founded; and we should also mention such historical facts as may serve to enlighten us on the practical application of those principles.

The Scriptures and the church teach that there are degrees of merit, beginning with that minimum of righteousness sufficient to save us from damnation. From that point the degrees rise one above the other till they ascend beyond the regions of _prohibition_ and _precept_ to the realms of _counsel_ and _perfection_. There is the man who is willing to obey God so far only as to refrain from violating the ten commandments. Then there are those who, besides this, give alms and do other works of mercy for Christ's sake; and finally, there are those who, seeking for the Holy Spirit, labor for and do works necessary to attain _perfection_.

Excuse this positing of doctrines familiar to us all. They are stated as parts of our argument.

Among the immediate disciples of Christ there were not only shepherds, mechanics, fishermen, physicians, and farmers; but also tradesmen, and even lawyers and soldiers. Some were rich, and nevertheless were regarded as having merited heaven. Zaccheus is an instance of this class; to please God, he gave as much as half of his goods to the poor. He went only half-way in perfection. It is clear that if people generally refrained from committing any of the offences mentioned in the ten commandments, justice would reign, and therefore many social grievances of the worst kind would disappear. True, this would not suffice to give affirmative happiness, but it would be the negation of positive moral woe. Works of mercy are necessary to dry all tears; and charity has the genial warmth that makes the smile bloom again on the countenances of those who have wept. Now, charity is first pity and sympathy; and then it is sacrifice. It has beautiful demonstrations of love in words and demeanor, but it fully realizes itself in sacrifices; and these sacrifices are of every extent. Some are small but cheerfully offered, as the widow's mite. Some are proportionately large, as the apportionment Zaccheus made; but some are unlimited, as the triple vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience of the regular clergy.

Jesus said to him, _If_ thou wilt be PERFECT, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor; and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, and follow me. (Matt. xix. 21.) Blessed are ye (willingly) poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke vi. 20; Matt. v. 3.) Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. (Matt. vi. 21.) You cannot serve God and Mammon. (Matt. vi. 24.) He who hath left house, etc., ... for my sake and for the gospel, ... shall ... receive a hundred times as much, _now in this time_; ... and in the world to come life everlasting. (Mark x. 29, 30.)

From these and numerous similar speeches of our Lord, and from a spirit of gratitude, his disciples were inspired with the desire of attaining perfection. Those who remained steadfast notwithstanding the crucifixion, or rather because of the crucifixion, gathered around the apostles and pronounced the vow of poverty. "All they that believed were together, and had all things in common." (Acts ii. 44.)

This is the first instance of _real_ communism that ever occurred in the world, and it was the logical product of the teachings of our Lord and his apostles. That it was the logical product, could be easily shown by argument on the language of Scripture; but it suffices that it was approved by Peter and the other apostles. They knew best; and, indeed, gave example by becoming members of the community. That it was the first instance of real communism, we assert without forgetting the Essenes, the Lacedemonians, and the like, from whose systems it is easy to distinguish the apostolic community of goods.

And here we ask particular attention to the grand and glorious trait which distinguishes Christian _reductionism_[185] from socialism, agrarianism, coöperation, and all other worldly plans of association.

The object of worldly association is merely to benefit its own members in secular welfare. It has no outflowing. It is a partnership for distribution of products, profits, pleasure, or knowledge among the members, contributors, or coöperators only. Thus it was with the Essenes. The principle and purpose of their community of goods was _not_ the extension of its benefits to the neighbor. They had and enjoyed their wealth among themselves exclusively. Their associations were just as selfish as any individual; the only difference being that in one case it is a single person and in the other a company that is selfish, and clannishly withholds its own from the rest of the world. They did not practise true charity, that charity which goes beyond home. The communication of the Essenes began and _ended_ at home. It did not, therefore, resemble the Christian charity described by St. Paul; they had no idea of it. Modern society has many examples of participation like that of the Essenes. The free-masons and other mutual aid societies are of this kind.

Of course, reciprocity or coöperation existed in the apostolic community; but this was only incidental and secondary. One of the main elements of charity is its universality, and therefore it extends far beyond mere mutuality. It gives--it is not a contract of exchange or insurance. Associations of the Christian kind do not limit themselves to themselves. Besides mutual help, they give help to any and all men. Indeed, most frequently Christian charitable institutions entirely lose sight of any mutuality. The members, as it were, forget themselves individually, think of no restitution, and have their whole attention and sentiments, with those of the company, fixed beyond their own wants and upon the alleviation of the burdens and pains of the poor in general. Every reader knows of many illustrations of this difference. We need not mention particular cases.

Indeed, the very nature of Christian charity precludes the limiting of benefits to the members of a society. Therefore, the moment any company resolves to contribute or work for the purpose of a division among its own members exclusively, it can have no claim to be acting on the principle of charity. Charity ignores any such distinction; she tends toward all men indiscriminately; she feels for them all alike, as brethren and neighbors; she sympathizes with all; she is spontaneous, she is expansive, she radiates. She loves; and her love overflows: then runs in diverging rills to every door.

Association recommends itself to the Christian from other considerations than those of economy, security against want, multiplication of productions, and increase of wealth. He enters into association to increase his power with God, to attract grace, to set up a common defence against sin, to have the strength of union against Satan, to have more time and opportunity to do good, and to do it more efficiently. The fundamental motive of the Christian throughout is love of God and man, piety and mercy. It is the spirit of sacrifice; it is actuated by no prospect of self-advantage; or, at worst, it expects personal advantage only through and under the universal good. This was the absolute self-abnegation and exuberance of love out of which the apostolic community spontaneously sprang.

It is an error to suppose that the primitive Christians abandoned their community of things upon their first dispersion or flight from persecution. (Acts viii. 1.) It continued long afterward, as we learn from the fathers of the church. Justin Martyr, (_Apol._ c. 2,) describing Christian society as it was in his time, (A.D. 150,) says,

"We who formerly delighted in adultery, now observe the strictest chastity; we who used the charms of magic, have devoted ourselves to the true God; and we who valued money and gain above all things, now _cast what we have in common, and distribute to every man according to his necessities_."

The writings of other primitive fathers contain similar passages.

It needs no argument to make a Catholic see how the _solemn_ vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience must be a development or consequence of the manners and customs of the primitive Christians. Even in Justin's time, community of goods was the prevailing practice among Christians; but as the faith spread itself widely, and as whole nations were converted, the great majority were incapable of that intense zeal and of those aspiring sentiments that may achieve perfection. Those who aimed so high were in a small minority when counted apart from the total population; and they found it necessary to seek freedom and escape persecution by resorting to solitude, or to fortify themselves against the general lukewarmness by solemn vows, or to resist the influence of the world by separate association. Hence, at first, those who sought to attain perfection fled to the desert, imitating the ancient prophets. They were the Theban hermits or anchorites. Then appeared companionship in mortification in the unital homes of the cenobites and monks. Then, long afterward, came the companies of militant charity: the Jesuits, Sisters of Charity, Lazarists, and many others.

Persons who wish to rise above the ordinary degree of piety, above the common level of Catholic practice, generally attempt full perfection. Animated by the spirit of self-sacrifice and an ardent desire to imitate our Lord, they not only devote themselves to poverty and obedience, but also to chastity. They are not content with less than the three vows, the fulness of perfection.

Just here, we wish the reader's attention to an important point, through which we expect to arrive at a solution of the questions propounded in the beginning of this article. It is that, though generally we see the "three vows" practised together, we would be in error if we supposed that they are inseparable, and that Catholicity admits only of the two extremes--the common level or triple perfection. On the contrary, among the wonders and beauties of Catholicity there is the wonder and the beauty of her myri-multiform adaptability to the holy wants of all dispositions, tastes, and nationalities. The plasticity with which Catholicity suits herself (without deterioration and with always an upward tendency) to every degree and variety, of practical virtue, is marvellous. She is, indeed, all things to all men without ceasing to be the spouse of Christ. Hence, within her fold there are, besides the common law of faith and discipline, multitudes of approved forms of devotion, giving egress and exteriority to every peculiarity of good impulse the soul may experience. There are saints of every trade, occupation, habitude, and condition to be imitated. There are many kinds of confraternities, sodalities, societies, and orders--both lay and clerical--formed to accomplish every good work. The number of these ways, rules, methods, forms, and associations is so great, a description of them all fills volumes.

Sometimes a number of laymen combine to do a charitable work without forming any vow. Often they make only _simple_ vows; but many engage themselves by _solemn_ vows. In some cases the counsel of chastity is followed without that of poverty; the secular priesthood is an example of this kind. Sometimes the vow of poverty has been made without that of celibacy, as in the case of Ananias and Saphira.

St. Barnabas, in the first century; Saints Justin, Julian, and Lucian, in the second century; Saint Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and St. Cyprien, in the third century; and Arnobius and Lactantius, in the fourth century, say (Bergier, vol. i. p. 380) that between Christians all things were in common; but we easily gather from other statements and allusions in their works that they did not mean a community by _virtue of any positive_ RIGHT or precept. They meant the generous liberality, the voluntary self-sacrifice, that characterized the manners and customs of the Christians. None asserted conjoint ownership or other _title_ to their neighbor's property, nor did any pretend to demand authoritatively, as the obligation of a contract, a participation or use exigible by virtue of the membership of Christ; but all, actuated by Christian fellow-feeling, gave spontaneously and freely, so that none were allowed to suffer from want of subsistence. The effect was the same, or better, than if all things were in common by virtue of a legal obligation or contract. It was the same as if all Christians had made a solemn vow to deprive themselves, in order to be able to relieve all cases of suffering poverty they knew of. The vow of poverty has no other temporal object. Its theory is the doctrine of charity, not that of any natural social right.

Gradually this unmeasured charity appeared to diminish; for the whole empire being theoretically though not practically converted to Christianity, the Christians at heart were lost in the immense crowd of merely nominal believers, and were but partially able to know each other and communicate. At the same time, so widely and deeply corrupt were the people, even the poor, that _charity herself was forced to be cautious_. In fact, the number of sincere Christians, and therefore of charitable persons, had not diminished; but was so small _in proportion_ to the number of the distressed, that even by bestowing their all they could produce no sensible diminution of the general misery.

The situation was almost identical with that of the present time; and the plainest remedy would have been then, _as it would be now_, a great augmentation of the number of Christians imbued with the spirit of charity and disposed to self-sacrifice.

The Catholic Church made many glorious efforts to effect this cure by increasing the number of the faithful and true, and by organizing her charitable agencies. She gave birth to those missions and institutions by which the spiritual nature and intention of Christianity was preserved, perpetuated, and disseminated, even through barbarian conquest and feudal oppression. To be able to devote themselves to promoting their own and their neighbor's salvation, and to help the sick, the oppressed, and the poor, the members of the monastic and chivalric orders generally bound themselves by "three vows;" and if they ever omitted any one of the three, it was the vow of poverty. The holy knights, for instance, frequently vowed themselves to chastity and obedience; but not always to poverty. Chastity and obedience are not considerably thwarted by the possession of worldly riches; and they may without very serious detriment dispense with the restraints of poverty: but poverty is very difficult without chastity; for the hardships of poverty are grievously multiplied by the necessity of providing for a family. Hence, even in the remotest times, the orders have added the vow of chastity to that of poverty.

Doubtless there have been, since apostolic times, many isolated instances of the vow of poverty being made by _an entire_ FAMILY. Among the tertiary or lay brethren of the regular orders, cases of such a combination might easily have happened. We take it for granted that if a husband _and_ wife make the vow of poverty, they would (if otherwise correct) be accepted as a tertiary or lay brother and sister of any regular order bound by the three vows, such as the Franciscans, Jesuits, etc. We know, however, of only one recorded instance of there having existed, since apostolic times, a distinctly and duly organized congregation, sodality, company, or community of _married_ Catholics living under the obligations of a solemn or even simple vow of poverty. The schismatics or heretics cannot even adduce a single instance; for, as already noted, their societies are not willingly poor, but the object of their association is comfort and wealth.

The one instance I refer to is that of the Jesuit REDUCTIONS in Paraguay.

Yet, long before the beautiful results obtained by the Jesuit fathers in Paraguay, the good such establishments might do had been clearly foreseen by excellent and learned Catholics. That confessor of the faith, Sir Thomas More, who was beheaded by Henry VIII. for refusing the oath of supremacy, wrote the first _Utopia_, founded on the idea of a community of goods among a whole people. Since that day the idea has fermented, and will not allow the world to rest until it is practically fulfilled by a _Christian_ people; for it is a Christian idea, based only on Christian motives, and wholly impracticable outside of the Christian religion. It was to emulate the example set by the Jesuits that several Christian, though schismatic or heretical, societies have been partially successful in realizing this idea. These are the Moravians, Rappists, Shakers, and Ballouists; but we are satisfied the work of realization must be resumed by Catholic hands, and with Catholic motives, and on Catholic grounds, before it can be permanently and beautifully successful.

Here several questions present themselves together:

1. What are the distinctive motives and grounds of an apostolic reduction to the rule of community?

2. What essential Catholic conditions should the organic rule of such an establishment embody?

3. Would such establishments tend to disseminate the faith and strengthen the church?

4. Are the times propitious, and do surrounding circumstances demand missionary attention to this matter?

5. Is there place in the economy of the church militant for the operation of communities of families having property in common?

We fear that the editor would not allow the space necessary for an elaborate answer to these questions. We will therefore endeavor to be very brief.

1. A socialist would say that the only motive for association is a desire to better our worldly condition; that, therefore, association is recommendable only so far as it facilitates increased production, thorough economy, equitable distribution, and greater security; and that it is only by convincing men of these tangible advantages that they will be induced to give up individualism for combinism. So their phalansteries and familisteries are nothing but contrivances to save and gain time, labor, and money for the benefit of the company, and in rivalry with, and exclusive of, every other company and the remainder of mankind. It is only the old principle of self-interest, covetousness, greed of gain, love of money, exercised by partnerships or corporations instead of single persons. Thus, some of these companies will get very rich, while others, though burning with covetousness and discontent, will fall into great poverty. But besides selfish motives moving men, there are others more powerful and certainly more Christian. For instance, a _catholic_ community of goods would rest on directly the opposite of self-interest, and be induced by charity counteracting the excess of egoism. True, as in the other case, association would be only a means, and also a guarantee of safety, economy, and increase; but how different the ulterior object! The final causes of a catholic "reduction" to community of goods would be: (1) to live apart from the evil example of the world; (2) to sustain and encourage one another in the faith and its practices; (3) to secure the rearing of children in the practice of religion; (4) to be able to hear mass oftener, and indulge more frequently and expansively in prayer and other sweet and consoling devotions; (5) to save and increase wealth indeed, though _not for self_, not for the company and its members beyond the absolute necessities of life, but _for external charity_--distribution among the poor neighbors, or the establishment of similar companies; (6) the "reductionists" (We venture to generalize the name they had in Paraguay) would work in a spirit of self-sacrifice to please God; (7) they would offer up their voluntary privations as acts of love, penance, and prayer; (8) they would be actuated by aspirations to merit grace and attain perfection; (9) be moved by a desire to display faith before the world, and to concentrate its light so that it might radiate far and wide; and finally, (10,) they would cherish the thought that their zeal might be efficient in strengthening the influence, facilitating the operations, and increasing the glory of the church. What an immense difference between reductionism and socialism!

2. The essential conditions of such an association would be the vows of poverty and obedience, under such sanctions and guarantees and inspired by such hopes as only the Catholic Church can give; and, since the society would admit persons living in marriage, and since the church teaches the indissolubility of the marriage-tie, the _unity of the consent_ of husband _and_ wife to the acceptance of these vows previous to admission. The vow of poverty would be a _sine qua non_, since without it the society would be liable to the precariousness of all secular enterprises; and since, also, without this vow the society would not have the mark, the trait, the essential quality that distinguishes disinterested reductionism from riches-and-comfort-seeking socialism. The vow of obedience to a superior authority, such as a clerical director or a bishop, is also indispensable. Those who have had opportunity of observing the interior operation of a socialist or Protestant association must be fully sensible of the importance of this condition. They are distracted by divided counsels, inconsistencies of purpose, obstinacy and pride of opinions, rival ambitions, and the like. The end is generally ruin. They only succeed in proportion to such _modicum_ of humility and obedience as they have contrived to incorporate in their rules and intention. Sometimes it is only the acknowledged superiority and energy of character of a founder or leader that preserves the organization. As soon as this personage dies, his creature goes also into dissolution. Hence, we say the vital conditions of a "reduction" are, (1) Christian fervor; (2) Christian humility; (3) Christian marriage; (4) Christian poverty, and (5) Catholic obedience.

3. We have before us an account of the Paraguay missions, from which we copy the following passage, (p. 52),

"It sometimes happened that the number thus collected was far too great to admit of their being received as permanent dwellers in the 'reduction;' and in this case their instructors would furnish all that was needed for _the founding of a new one_, not only supplying corn, cattle, and clothing from their own stores, but giving what, to an Indian, was most difficult to bestow, their active and personal coöperation in _building a new 'reduction.'_"

This extract answers the question whether such a company would tend to disseminate the faith and strengthen the church. The process of increase would be in geometrical proportion. Each reduction would have several offspring, and these, in turn, would also each evolve several others. This was the case in Paraguay. There, in a few years, the reductions became so numerous that they lined the banks of the Parana and Uruguay, extended far into the interior, and, in the words of an historian, formed "a Christian republic, where, far from the dwellings and evil designs of the colonists, the spirit of the primitive church revived." Alas! that this caused the envy and jealousy of the world of avarice and ambition. In one more generation, if the Jesuit fathers had not been banished, the Christian republic would have been permanently established. The glorious example they set should not remain fruitless. There is a possibility of similar work and similar results in the midst of the moral desert of civilization. It is time that the shepherds should gather their lambs into visible and safer folds. The lambs should not be left to straggle among the wolves of this moral wilderness. Surely the fact of these straggling members of the flock being married should be no objection to their being provided with a refuge when the couple seek it with unity of will, and would fain find in it the opportunity of serving God. Surely, the fructification of such a work would be wonderful; for its beneficence and Christian spirit would be so apparent that thousands of poor Catholics would eagerly join it, and tens of thousands of lost sheep would be reconverted so as to follow the religious and beautiful life thus made practically possible. This power of multiplying themselves, this productiveness by thirty, seventy, and a hundred fold, is a peculiarity of this kind of association; for, while socialistic and coöperative societies are concentric, a Christian association or reduction, by virtue of its voluntary self-privation and consequent making of a disposable surplus, and by virtue of its desire to bestow in charity this surplus, is evolutive and prolific.

4. Surrounding circumstances in these times not only demand the attention of the church to the subject of association, but the world now offers facilities which, though very different from those that existed in Paraguay, are far more favorable and congenial. In Paraguay, the reverend fathers found people capable of discipline, but barbarous, ignorant, and suspicious. In civilization to-day, instead of savage ignorance, we see foolish infidelity and moral corruption; but, at the same time, a belief in the benefits of association is spreading itself continually. This belief evinces itself in every direction. It resolves and attempts a great many forms of combination. The conviction that good will flow from the industrial association of those who labor is becoming more and more intense. Several secular efforts, based on mere worldly advantage or mutuality, have proved seriously successful. The tendency of work and business is toward the organization of corporations. The capitalists have set the example by their monster companies and monopolies. The plain deduction is, that this tendency affords a favorable opportunity for forming reductions. To neglect it would be to neglect making all things work together unto good to such as, according to God's purpose, are called to be saints. (Rom. viii. 28.)

5. To say that there is no place for communities of families in the economy of the church, would be to deny her beautiful adaptability to all grades and varieties of virtue and good works. That she should reject and oppose socialism, with its _cortége_ of free love, heresy, blasphemy, covetousness, naturalism, and woman's dispersion, let us loudly declare; but to say that there should be in the system of the church a place only for such apostolic communities as are composed of celibates, would be to condemn her history, which tells us of the community at Jerusalem, and of the reductions of Paraguay. We cannot suppose there is a grade or kind of real perfection that the church would reject, if, indeed, that grade or kind be in conformity with evangelical counsel. It is said that keeping the vow of poverty would be too hard for married people, who are naturally impelled to seek riches for the sake of their children. It is said that parental bias, solicitude, and duty would create great obstacles, hard to be overcome. Supposing this, still we say, all things are possible _with God_. The merit of those who, with God, could conciliate these two obligations, and accomplish both, would only be greater in the eyes of the church. Certainly, no Catholic will say that the counsels in regard to voluntary poverty are meant only for celibates, and that only celibates are entitled to gain the consequent blessings. "Blessed are the" willingly "poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Certainly, a man and wife are entitled to earn the benefits of this willing poverty as well as any monk or nun. The married poor are entitled to make the same sacrifice and take part in the same work to enhance the glory of the church, and to merit the same reward. Association makes the sacrifice and the work possible to the celibate. It creates a similar possibility for married people. The wondrous powers of combined labor and economy are well known. The fields in that direction are wide and free, and ready for _good_ seed. Instead of thinking that associations of married people are in any wise incompatible with Catholic doctrine and discipline, a little reflection will convince us that it is, on the contrary, the long-neglected link that completes the circle of good works. Infidels would fain seize the position, and try to adapt it to naturalism and cupidity; but their attempts have been simply ridiculous. The reason is obvious: the vow of poverty and all its consequences is possible only in and through the motives inspired by the Christian religion. They cannot exist and cannot be imitated outside. True association, that which is productive of moral good and social happiness, that which springs from charity, _belongs_ to Christianity, and it is impossible to separate it from her. It was practised by the primitive disciples, it was praised and taught by the fathers of the church, it was and still is fulfilled by the celibates in the monasteries, it was successfully applied in the reductions to a whole people; and we conclude that the place once occupied by saintly tribes and families under the wing of the church is still vacant and open to their return and reëstablishment.

FOOTNOTE:

[185] We make the word from the name the Jesuit fathers gave to their establishments in Paraguay. They called them _Reductions_.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF POLAND.

America owes a debt of gratitude to the Polish nation. In the darkest days of our struggle for independence many brave Poles came to our assistance. The name of Pulaski stands among the most honored names of the Revolution. To-day we are on a most friendly footing and possess much influence with Russia. She is crushing Poland to the earth in a manner which is a disgrace to the nineteenth century. Shall we be silent when our voice might bring aid to a noble but unfortunate people, who generously assisted us in the hour of need? Justice and gratitude both forbid.

The unprecedented and truly pitiful condition to which the former Polish provinces have been reduced by Muscovite tyranny makes it a duty, which we owe likewise to our common humanity, to direct attention to that ill-used country, and to illustrate somewhat in detail the intolerable religious, political, and social chaos into which it has been precipitated. The idea of restoring the ancient Sarmatian monarchy to its territorial integrity might justly be deemed Utopian; but we have still the right to insist, in the name of every recognized principle of moral and public law, that the inconsequence and barbarity with which Russian Poland, and especially Congress Poland, is now being treated, should cease. No one capable of appreciating the extent of the evil can fail to perceive that such an anomalous state of things as there obtains is absolutely insufferable, and that even Muscovite brutality cannot much longer expect to avert another revolution. The eventualities of the Polish question demand, therefore, for this reason alone, the serious and early interference of the great powers.

To enable the reader to arrive at a thorough understanding of the question, it is necessary that we should commence by casting a brief glance at the present religious condition of the country. It is well known that the Roman Catholic Church, which is professed by six sevenths of the Christian and five sevenths of the total population of the kingdom--the church which has the deepest and strongest hold upon the social and historical life, the customs and character of the nation--has, during the last six years, been systematically degraded, both _de facto_ and officially, to the rank of a mere schism. The Archbishop of Poland, expressly selected for the primacy by the Emperor Alexander on account of his probity and virtues, was deposed after a twelve months' incumbency without charges, trial, or sentence. The sole excuse for this harsh treatment was that he presumed to remonstrate against the extreme severity with which the most trivial political offences of his countrymen were punished. The venerable prelate is now a close prisoner of state in the interior of Russia. His place in the archiepiscopal palace is filled by a Russian, Tschinownik, of the Greek orthodox stamp, who wields absolute sway over the "sectarian" churches--as the Roman Catholic and the evangelic are called--and entertains a select circle of friends with Russo-French amateur theatricals in the apartments in which Tijalewski and Felinski once meditated and prayed.

The treatment meted out to the other patriotic bishops has been marked by a similarly brutal and vindictive spirit. Some of them are prisoners in Siberia; some, like Bishop Lubinski, have died on the way out; some languish in foreign exile. Their dioceses have been conferred on ecclesiastics who are in the interest of Russia, and therefore execrated and despised as traitors by their own countrymen. All intercourse and dealings between the Catholic hierarchy in Poland and the see of Rome have been interdicted and rendered almost impossible. With a view of preserving appearances, a Catholic synod has, by force and threats, been convened under the auspices of the imperial government at St. Petersburg. The members of this body have been clothed with jurisdiction in all ecclesiastical affairs. The lower clergy, stripped of their revenues and endowments, have been made dependent on a state subsidy, which may be withdrawn at discretion by the temporal authorities. Laymen, without properly defined duties and powers, completely ignorant of the wants and aims of the church, preside over the priesthood and prescribe the ritual and the ecclesiastical discipline. The majority of the convents and religious houses, as well as the schools connected with them, have been closed, and the superintendence which the religious formerly exercised over the education and training of youth has been entirely taken away. A number of the finest Roman Catholic church edifices has been appropriated for the use of the Greek Orthodox Church, which has in addition been endowed out of the property and funds of the former. The concordat with Rome has been abrogated, and though the St. Petersburg cabinet denies that M. de Meyendorff, its ambassador to the holy see, told the supreme pontiff to his face that "Catholicism is synonymous with revolution," yet the treatment of the Catholic Church of Poland has been exactly in accordance with such a theory. The United Greek Church, previously on the most cordial terms with her Roman relative and the Polish nationality, has been entirely estranged from Rome, and placed under the influence of anti-Polish, Russo-maniac Ruthenians, expressly imported with this view from Galizia. With such spiritual guides to direct them, it was expected that many would be gradually brought over to the Greek Church, as had indeed been attempted once before, but with rather indifferent success, in Lithuania, during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas. But we need not enlarge on this theme. Whole volumes might be filled with accounts of the persecutions to which the national church and her servants have been subjected by the Russian government. Who does not still remember the heart-rending scenes enacted at Warsaw during the revolutionary years, when the Cossacks forced their way into the sanctuaries and dragged thousands of worshippers from the steps of the altar to the dungeons of the citadel, or the still more recent attempt to compel the Catholic clergy to perform divine service in the Russian language? These specimens of Muscovite tyranny in times of peace have sent a thrill of horror and loathing throughout the entire Christian world, and are still too fresh in the memory of the living to be forgotten.

Passing from the spiritual administration of the kingdom to the temporal, we find it intrusted to a class of men who are as hostile and foreign to the nation as to every established theory of good government. This is especially the case in the provinces, where all the authority rests in the hands of Stock-Russians, natives of a country whose political and economical systems, whose physical and historical life, whose character, customs, laws, views, ideas, etc., are in every respect the very opposite to those of Poland. Selected almost exclusively from among the subalterns of the army, their profession has taught them to laugh at civil and constitutional guarantees, to disregard the delicately adjusted and carefully balanced interests of the community, and it is therefore not surprising that their misgovernment should exceed all belief. Of the wisdom, moderation, and forbearance which the peculiar state of affairs in Poland demands, there is no trace. It matters very little that Field-Marshal Count Berg, the viceroy of the kingdom, and some of the generals who preside over certain branches of the administration, should personally be honest, conscientious, well-meaning, and just men. The training, antecedents, principles, and habits of their subordinates are such as unfit them for civil positions. Yet this deplorable want of all administrative talent and experience in the colonels, captains, and lieutenants who are appointed to govern the provinces, does not constitute the greatest and most serious objection to them. Besides the very small amount of intelligence possessed by the average Russian subaltern, he is noted for some far more offensive traits. This class is proverbial for its rapacity, dishonesty, venality, intemperance, and immorality; and as every Russian looks upon himself in the light of a conqueror among a treacherous, rebellious people, he naturally regards all Poles, and especially the refined and educated among them, as his personal enemies, whom he only refrains from plundering and oppressing so long as he is bribed.

Before the insurrection of 1863, the administration of the kingdom was in all essential features autonomic and distinct from that of the Russian empire, a privilege which Finland still enjoys at this day. A minister for Polish affairs had a place in the St. Petersburg cabinet, and through his hands passed all the public business which the conquered country transacted with the imperial government and the sovereign himself. At Warsaw sat an administrative council, a kind of Polish ministry, over whose deliberations the viceroy presided in person. The members of the Warsaw administration were also the chiefs of the several public departments, such as that of the interior, of justice, of education, of religion, etc. Within the last four years the management of these departments has, however, been transferred to St. Petersburg, while the viceroy, in spite of his title as the representative of majesty, now only retains a mere nominal authority. Instead of the administrative council, an administrative and even legislative inquisition, which interferes arbitrarily with the different branches of the public service, and completely neutralizes the viceregal influence, has been established. This overshadowing power, the so-called Committee of Organization--named thus because it was originally created to arrange the differences between the landlords and serfs which arose out of the emancipation ukase of 1864--has usurped supreme legislative, judicial, and executive functions, so that without its coöperation the viceroy is absolutely powerless. Under the unassuming title of a corresponding member of the committee, the celebrated Panslavist, Solowjeff, is the real leader of the Russian government at Warsaw, while Count Berg, the viceroy, has become the bearer of an empty dignity, and is only saved from the unpleasant position of a puppet by his rank as a marshal of the empire, and commander-in-chief of the forces in the Warsaw district.

It may well be doubted whether the civilized world has ever seen such military-bureaucratic anarchy as modern Poland now presents. Those who witness this state of things from a distance must find it impossible to form an adequate conception of the semi-barbaric, semi-refined confusion which is its chief characteristic. And yet, all the wrong, all the injustice, all the inconsistency of this administrative chaos, with its long train of social, political, and religious embarrassments and entanglements, is outdone by the interference with a most holy and inalienable right of not only every citizen, but of every human being. That right is the sacred right of education and instruction, with which the Russian government has meddled in a most unwarranted and despotic manner. The moral violence to which it has resorted in this matter outrages every thing that the human race considers peculiarly sacred and dear. All the atrocities committed by heathen tyrants, which history records, appear insignificant by the side of the infamous system, deliberately devised and enforced under a monarch who advocates progress at home, while in the affairs of Poland he is ruled by a terroristic faction that labors with fanatic zeal for the moral dismemberment, emasculation, and degradation of the rising generation of a vigorous, living, Christian people, who have shared for more than ten centuries in the blessings of western culture.

This language may appear too strong, but it is more than justified by the provocation and offence. No other government but the Russian has, within historical times, been known to prohibit, under severe penalties, private instruction in the elementary branches and religion in the national tongue. There is no instance on record of a civilized state whose rulers have devoted all their energies to the suppression and reduction of the number of existing educational establishments, or to the discouragement of attendance at school by raising the cost of tuition, the price of school-books, and by generally resorting to other equally disreputable expedients for the purpose of rendering the means of education inaccessible to an oppressed and impoverished population.[186] It is only in Poland that entire faculties--which contained many foreign professors invited to the country with assurances of permanent positions--have been suddenly ordered to adopt a strange language insufficiently developed for scientific purposes; and no government but the czar's would have dared to make non-compliance with such a preposterous demand a cause for summary dismissal without compensation. In no other land would the public schools have been placed under the control of individuals notoriously incompetent in a scientific, educational, social, and moral point of view for this grave responsibility; men so little superior in intellect and manners to the semi-civilized, non-commissioned officers under them, that they have frequently been known to assail the professors in the presence of their scholars with the foulest abuse, and even with blows. Where else, save in Russia, would public functionaries have overlooked gross breaches of discipline in the students, for the sake of tempting them to disgrace themselves by demonstrations against the land of their birth? Where else, save there, could have originated the monstrous idea of perverting the compositions of school children so that they appeared to reflect the darker sides of the national character; or where else would these juvenile emanations have been published to the world as evidences of the degradation of a whole people? What other Christian and civilized government would have stooped to the incredible infamy of turning the seminaries for the education of the future wives and daughters of the land into schools for coquetry and places for promiscuous intercourse between the sexes, in the hope of thus debauching and demoralizing both the present and the next generation?

Yet all this, and all that a fiendish ingenuity could possibly invent or suggest in the same direction, has actually been done, openly and in the broad light of day, by the Russian government in Poland, more especially since the middle of the present decade. To make this tyranny still more oppressive and hideous, the Polish child is not allowed to be educated in its native tongue, but in one instinctively repulsive to it, difficult to acquire by reason of its peculiar characters, and far less adapted to intellectual uses than the Polish. Not even religious consolation and instruction--though they address themselves to the holiest feelings of our nature--are permitted to reach the oppressed people in any language but the abhorred Russian. A terrorism like this acts with the effects of poisonous dew upon excitable temperaments, and explains how the most exemplary piety and the fiercest thirst for vengeance may dwell side by side in the national heart. To crown, as it were, these wrongs and insults, the Russian authorities have lately forbidden the pupils of the public schools to speak their own language even during the hours allotted for play. The design, of course, is to completely Russianize the young Polish generation. It is for the same reason that the pupils of the public schools are compelled to wear a Russian uniform, and to salute, after the fashion of private soldiers, every military officer whom they may happen to encounter in-doors or out. That no Polish father or mother may easily evade the pernicious effects which such an education as the public schools afford must exert upon their offspring, the refined absolutism of Russia has taken care to discourage by all means in its power the employment of private tutors and attendance at foreign institutions of learning. First, no government appointment, not even the most petty and least remunerative post, can be obtained unless the candidate understands Russian; and, as there is a great dearth of private tutors, who are either natives of Russia or who have mastered its language, a large majority of the Polish children are indirectly compelled to go to the public schools, where the only branch of study thoroughly cultivated is the Russian literature and language. Then every conceivable obstacle has been placed in the way of the employment of private instructors, either natives or foreigners, even by those families who could otherwise afford the expense. Under the reign of Nicholas, foreign professors and teachers were almost banished from the country, and those who had not the official influence necessary to evade the law, were obliged to bring them across the frontier in the disguise of servants after having bribed the police and the custom-house officials. This rule has been made still more stringent of late. No private instructor is allowed to follow his calling until he has first submitted to an examination in the Russian language--the sole test of proficiency and qualification--before a government board expressly instituted for this purpose; and the result is, that hundreds of foreigners have resigned their places and left the country. The surveillance of the police is carried to an extent which can hardly be credited abroad, and their espionage makes any evasion of the interdict difficult, if not impossible. To keep the children of all save the wealthiest parents from being sent abroad for an education, the price of passports has been raised to a figure which virtually amounts to a total prohibition of foreign residence and travel.

These few unvarnished facts may suffice to give the reader a faint conception of the present state of domestic and social life in Poland. The child, bred from infancy in accordance with certain specific national customs and habits, in disposition, speech, thought, sentiment, and expression, moulded in a decidedly Polish, Roman Catholic, West-European form, is, upon its admission to school, forced not merely to reject all it has imbibed with its mother's milk, but to accept the very opposite of what nature and duty have taught it to hold sacred at home. With the Russian school uniform--the badge of degradation and slavery--the Polish boy is expected to put on a manner and speech hostile to his nationality and religion; for upon his doing so depends both his own success in life and the safety of his parents. Must not all piety and loyalty, under such an accursed system, all manhood and morality, be destroyed, and the character of the entire people deteriorate? After ten years or more of this training and preparation, the boy becomes a man. Two roads through life now open before him: he either enters the service of the state, in which case he becomes so thoroughly Russianized that he continues in all essential features to live up to the system of the school, and hardens gradually into a genuine Tschinownik; or he returns home to ripen into a conspirator and plotter. Is it then surprising that such a course of education should have made the number of shipwrecked Catilinian existences so much larger in Poland than in any other land? Is it strange that under such a government the national prosperity, which might otherwise be susceptible of great development, should steadily decline, and be replaced by an augmenting wretchedness?

Did we not know that at any time violent political catastrophes may occur and impart to the current of things a direction different to that which a majority of professional and non-professional politicians anticipate, we might easily predict to what such a state of society must inevitably lead. But irrespective of the possibility, even the probability, of great political complications, which would prevent the coöperation of the three-partite powers hereafter, there lies, despite its weaknesses and faults, a vitality and capacity of resistance in the Polish nationality that spurns unconditionally the supposition of such an extermination as the one attempted by Russia; and this it will be well to consider in every attempt for the reconstruction of the country. When a nation is to disappear and be absorbed by another, this task can only be accomplished when it is fused with a nation physically and mentally its superior. Such is, however, far from being the case in the present instance. The Russian nationality, as its colonization experiments in Lithuania have sufficiently demonstrated, can send only smaller, never larger masses into Poland, and the assimilative capacities of the Polish nationality are, in spite of its political subjection, so preponderating, by reason of a superior culture, that the Russians will much sooner become Poles, than the Poles will become Russians. All the ukases, all the religious and educational tyranny and injustice, all the bayonet rule and oppression of the latter can never bridge the gulf between the two peoples. The Russification of Poland is, and must always remain, a physical and moral impossibility which no Murawieffs, Katkoffs, or Solowieffs, can hope to bring about. An imperfect, hastily-prepared insurrection, commanded by inexperienced leaders, nearly destitute of arms and resources, defied the Russian colossus nearly a year and a half. And even for this tardy victory over a country of five millions of inhabitants, who had been for more than a decade governed by martial law, Russia was chiefly indebted to the passive attitude of the neighboring states; for, had either Austria or Prussia abandoned their neutrality, the insurrection would yet be alive. The alleged right and mission of the czars to govern the Poles are actually and morally as unfounded as they are politically and legally an insult to the age and to the law of civilized nations.

FOOTNOTE:

[186] This barbarous conduct of the Russian government has been once equalled and even surpassed. We allude to the laws by which England, after she had been enlightened by the Reformation, prohibited all education among the Irish people. We wish to call most particular attention to the fact that in both cases distinctively Catholic nations have struggled earnestly for the right of instruction which bitterly anti-Catholic ones have withheld. Yet we are daily told that Catholicity is the great foe, and anti-Catholicity the great fosterer of popular education!--ED. CATH. WORLD.

FRIEDEMANN BACH.

PART FIRST.

On New Year's eve of the year 1736, a brilliant company was assembled in the _salons_ of the Count von Bruhl, lord premier to the Elector of Saxony. The mansion, opposite the castle in Dresden, was illuminated so brightly that the whole street in front was light as day. In a shadow of the castle wall stood a man wrapped in a cloak, gazing up at the windows, behind which could be seen the gay confusion of guests. Presently one--a lady splendidly dressed--came close to one of the windows, opened it, and stepped out upon the balcony. The light gleamed on the jewels in her coronet. She stood but an instant in the air, being called back; the window was closed, and she was lost in the throng.

The solitary watcher outside, with a deeply-drawn sigh, turned to depart. His hand was seized as he did so by a passer-by--a man in the dress of the court pages.

"Good evening!" cried a cheery voice. "How glad I am to find you at last! What were you doing here?"

The other laughed, evading an answer, and, drawing his cloak about him, complained of the cold.

"Come to Seconda's!" cried the page. "You will find plenty of hot punch there."

The two walked on to the celebrated Italian restaurant near the old market. The scene there was as brilliant as at the premier's. A gay company was assembled in the largest room, where the new-comers took seats at the table. As they threw off their hats and cloaks, the page was seen to be a man of about forty years of age, with a face deeply lined with the marks of free living. His eyes were bright and merry, and his mouth was liberal in smiles. His companion was a strikingly handsome man of twenty-five, with a pale and haughty countenance, and a form well proportioned and majestic. His expression was grave, and a satirical curl was in his lip when he spoke; his large, dark eyes were now fiercely flashing, now dreamy and melancholy, and they were often downcast and shaded by long, heavy lashes.

"You are dull to-night, _mon ami_!" cried the jovial page, whose name was Von Scherbitz. "Banish your gloom; it is no time for it."

"Have patience with me," said the young man in a low tone, and with an attempt at a laugh. "I cannot always keep even with you. I have served but a two years' brotherhood, you know."

"In our club, yes; yet _one_ year has spread your fame in music over all Europe! Friedemann Bach has but one rival in renown--the admirable Sebastian!"

A flush mounted to the young man's brow.

"Call him not a rival!" he exclaimed. "I have to thank my father for all I have ever done; and I feel my own insignificance beside his greatness. I feel, too, how unworthy I am of his love."

"Nonsense!" cried Scherbitz. "Your good father is strict, perhaps; _pourquoi_? he is old; you are young and impetuous; you have your liberal ideas and your adventures, and keep them from his knowledge, to spare him chagrin. Where is the harm in this?"

Friedemann was leaning his head on his hand, which he passed slowly across his forehead, as if waving away the trouble of discussing the point. The punch was placed before them, and the tankards were filled. The guests at the round table drank, as they did; and others came in; among them military officers, painters, and musicians. As a party of distinguished-looking persons entered, the page rose to greet one of them, calling him "Signor Hasse." The gentleman glanced around the company, but declined a seat at the table, retreating to a distant corner. Here he bade the waiter remove the light from a small table in front of him, and bring him supper by himself.

The page called Friedemann's attention to the solitude and gloom chosen by the famous musician. Yet he was well known to be fond of good company, and was universally respected.

"Is it on account of his wife?" asked young Bach.

"Exactly; the brilliant Faustina Hasse, the admired singer, the idolized of all Dresden. They do not live happily."

"You cannot help seeing," observed Friedemann, "that strength is wanting in his character--it is wanting in his compositions. They have softness and melody; but how little of manly power!"

"Yet he is the favorite composer in the world of fashion."

More guests came in, and the general merriment waxed loud. The glasses were rapidly filled and emptied. The conversation among the younger part of the company was that of jovial revellers, intent on as much amusement as they could obtain out of a gayly-dressed officer of the elector's guard, and a chamberlain he had brought in to serve as a butt for their jokes. Friedemann observed them with haughty gravity, stealing a glance now and then at Signor Hasse in his corner.

The chamberlain was flippant with tales of court scandal, at which there were uproarious bursts of laughter. Presently, half-drunk, he was reciting some verses; and at the close he filled his glass and toasted Signora Hasse.

All were silent as Hasse rose and approached the table.

"Gentlemen," he said with dignity, "I have the honor to wish you all a good evening, and farewell. To-morrow morning I leave Dresden."

"To go whither?" asked Scherbitz.

"To Italy."

The company knew by his tone that he meant not to return. There was a moment's deep silence, and then an officer asked:

"Does the signora go with you?"

"No; she remains in Dresden," replied the composer.

Hasse then turned to Friedemann, and grasped his hand.

"Commend me to your father, Monsieur Bach," he said warmly. "Tell him he shall yet hear something good of Scarlatti's disciple."

There was a faltering in his tone as he spoke these last words, and turning away, he left the room. Friedemann sighed deeply as he looked after him, and pushed away his glass, which Scherbitz had just filled.

The merry company was again convulsed with the sallies of the intoxicated chamberlain; and loud applause, cries of "bravo!" and toast after toast urged him on. When he fell back, helplessly drunk, the young men pulled off his court dress, put on a dark one, carried him out, and gave him to the watch as a drunken vagabond to be taken to the guard-house. Then they laughed to think of his consternation at finding himself in the cold cell, on New Year's morning.

Midnight struck in the midst of this boisterous revelry; the last hour of the dying year. There was a wild storm without, and clamorous shouting and singing within. The revellers reeled homeward; young Bach, the only one whose gait was steady, though he had drunk as deeply and as madly as the rest.

When he rose on the following morning, he saw a letter on his table, in a well-known hand, which he quietly opened and read with deep emotion. Then he began to pace up and down the room, till the door was abruptly opened and Scherbitz came in, wishing him the compliments of the season. He read the letter Friedemann handed him in silence.

"A charming old gentleman is that good papa of yours," he said as he gave it back. "His heart is full of kindness. May his life be long and happy! But look not so woe-begone, _mon ami_! How is it possible for you to satisfy the claims of such exalted, old-fashioned virtue? The time will come when we, madcaps as we are, shall be pointed out as models of propriety for our juniors. Let the wheel of time roll on."

"To crush us in the dust!" moaned Friedemann.

"Look at me--a page forty years old! I have no fear of reverse as long as I serve my lord faithfully. I might have stood up heroically against the all-powerful minister, and I should have been hailed as one of her deliverers by my country; but I kept my place and pension, and remain a page in comfortable quarters."

"You are not the first whose life is a failure."

"Nor shall I be the last. Why should I despair? Come, be reasonable, _mon ami_! you are too self-condemnatory. Have you forgotten Handel, whom you welcomed here three years since?"

"How could I forget him?"

"Yet Handel is unlike your father. His fantasy is more powerful, his force more developed; he soars like an eagle, while Sebastian Bach sails over the calm waters like a majestic swan. Bach's activity is calm, silent--the offspring of concentrated thought. Handel reaches his aim amid storm and tumult--through strife to victory. Can you blame him for the difference? His path is your own. _En avant, mon ami!_"

"Handel has had, indeed, a restless and stormy life," replied Friedemann; "but he has never lost himself."

"Had he been born in the present century, instead of the last, his views might have been more liberal. Before he was of your age, he did as others do. Faustina Hasse could tell you some wild tales--"

"He never played the hypocrite to his father!" said Friedemann bitterly.

"It was not worth while. Now, my good fellow, do not flatter yourself you can deceive a page forty years old. Your so-called profligacy and keen self-reproach have another cause than that you choose to assign. You dread the unmasking of what you term your hypocrisy less than the discovery of another secret!"

Friedemann started to his feet, and his face glowed like fire. The page laughed.

"You must govern your eyes better, _mon ami_, if you want to keep your secret when you hear the name of 'Natalie.' I did not need to witness your behavior last night opposite the minister's palace, to show me the truth!"

Friedemann was now pale as death. With a violent effort he mastered his feelings, and said,

"You will be silent, will you not?"

"As the grave--assuredly! Only be cautious before others. No more! I am going to the guard-house to release the victim chamberlain. Now go to church, and afterward come to Seconda's to breakfast. _Au revoir!_" And Scherbitz went out.

Friedemann Bach had been organist of the church of St. Sophia since the elector, at the solicitation of his father that he would befriend his boy, had given him the appointment. He hurried to his post, and splendidly performed his part in the imposing service. As the last tones of the organ died along the vast arches, he arose, closed the instrument, and descended from the choir. At the door a pair of vigorous arms were flung around him, and, with a joyful cry, he embraced his father.

The old man pronounced a solemn blessing as he pressed his son to his heart, and warmly praised his morning's work. He had entered the church alone, to enjoy the music of his dearest pupil, whom he now declared his best.

"To your lodgings now, Master Court-organist!" he cried. "Philip is there, and unpacking. We shall stay a week with you." He took his son's arm, and walked on, talking pleasantly all the time.

Philip Emmanuel Bach had grown a stately youth and a ripe scholar in his art since Friedemann had left the paternal home at Leipzig, three years before. They chatted of the old times, when their mother in her snowy cap and apron smiled on their boyish sport; when they roasted apples on the stove of Dutch tiles, and their young sisters chid them, and the little Christopher laughed at them from his mother's lap. Philip had been lonely at school, and was delighted at these reminiscences. The two sons sympathized with the triumph of the good Sebastian when he told them again of his first summons to Dresden, of the note that had come to him from the Minister von Bruhl, on the part of the Elector Augustus of Saxony and Poland: an invitation to play at the church in Dresden. The rector in Leipzig had opposed the departure of the organist of St. Thomas's school; but the elector's own carriage stood at Bach's door to fetch him, and he saw future good for both his sons. He felt that through them the lovers of Hasse should hear music more sublime than the voluptuous melodies of Italy. Then the reception at Dresden; the entrance of the elector into the choir to greet Bach; his words, "O master! if I might hear you play thus at the hour of my death"--all the scene was lived over by the grateful old man. Philip, then a stripling, remembered how a beautiful lady--the famous Faustina Hasse--had rushed in, and, weeping, had kissed his father's hand; Hasse's greeting too, he remembered; and the elector's bidding to ask any favor at his hands.

These recollections and the conversation were interrupted by the entrance of a servant in a rich livery, who presented a note to Friedemann. The young man blushed as he took the note, which he opened and read hastily.

"I will come," he said to the servant, "at the hour named."

The man withdrew.

Sebastian smiled.

"Our court-organist," he said, "appears to have distinguished acquaintances."

"The livery was the lord premier's," remarked Philip.

"Indeed!" asked Sebastian. "You know his excellency, my son?"

"The note came from his niece, the Countess Natalie," answered Friedemann, in a confusion which he could not conceal.

"And you visit the young countess?"

"She is my pupil in music. She has sent for me to arrange a concert, which she is to give on her aunt's birthday."

"I thought M. Hasse managed all those matters."

"I can't well avoid the commission; and such things help one's reputation," faltered the young man. "As to M. Hasse, he has left Dresden."

"Hasse gone--the excellent Hasse!" exclaimed Sebastian.

The good, pious composer was grieved to hear of his unhappiness. Then, changing the subject, he began innocently to advise his son as to the polished manners necessary in the house of the premier. Friedemann pressed his hand and thanked his unsuspecting monitor.

When the elder Bach asked what he had done lately in music, Friedemann replied that what he had done did not satisfy him. His father put aside his plea that the highest and best could alone avail in art.

"We have not reached that," he said; "yet we can rejoice in the success granted us. There is much that I like in your _Fughetten_."

From music he passed to other questions; and asked, smiling, how long the court-organist meant to remain unmarried.

"Dear father, I need not be in haste."

"'Early wooed has naught rued.'"

"It is a serious step, father."

"Surely, and not to be taken precipitately; but, dear son, let it not be long. If my first grandchild is a boy, I will teach him music. Ay, marriage is a serious matter! I have toiled hard to give bread to my boys and girls, and brought you all up--have I not?--to be good men and skilful artists. From my great-grandfather, all the Bachs have had musical talent. I was once ambitious, my boy, to write something that might win enduring fame. Now, I have but one wish. It is--that all the Bachs may meet in the kingdom of heaven, and join in singing to the glory of God, among the hallelujahs of the angels! Friedemann, child of my heart, let me not miss you there!"

With a sob of anguish, Friedemann sank at his father's feet. Sebastian laid both hands on his head, saying devoutly,

"God's peace be with you, my son, now and for ever!"

Unable to control his agitation--which his pious father thought a burst of filial emotion--Friedemann left the room. Closing the door softly, he rushed through the hall, out of the house, and through the streets to the open country, where he flung himself on the frozen earth and wept aloud.

At dinner the father conversed with his two sons, and much was said of the splendors of the Polish-Saxon court under the administration of the luxurious and prodigal Count von Bruhl. It was then time for Friedemann to go to the minister's palace. He changed his dress and hastened there.

As he passed into the hall, the door of one of the side-rooms opened, and the premier came out. He was a small man, with marked and expressive features, and keen, clear blue eyes. He was sumptuously dressed, and wore a star on his breast. Friedemann stopped and bowed to him.

"Good day, M. Bach, and a happy new year!" said the minister in bland, soft tones. "My niece has sent for you. I am pleased with your promptness. I am grateful for your readiness to meet our wishes at all times, and shall remember it. The countess expects you!"

He nodded, smiled graciously, and walked lightly out of the front door, entering his carriage, which presently drove away.

Friedemann looked after him apprehensively.

"What does this mean?" he murmured. "The smile of that man ever bodes disaster. Let it be so! What can make me more miserable than I am?"

Crossing the hall, he passed on through one of the galleries.

A female servant stood at the door of the ante-room of the countess's cabinet. She opened the door of the inner room, and Bach entered.

A young girl of about twenty, in a costume coquettishly pretty, reclined on a sofa. Her form and her face were both beautiful; a nose slightly aquiline, and well-defined eye-brows, gave her features a character of pride and decision, contradicted by the soft tenderness of the full, rosy lips, and the languishing, violet eyes, shaded by their long lashes. Her hair floated in golden curls over her neck. A faint rose-tint came to her pale cheeks as she rose to receive Friedemann.

The young man stood still, and did not raise his eyes. The countess came nearer, laid her little white hand on his shoulder, and said, almost tenderly,

"What were you doing, Bach, opposite our house last night?"

One glance Friedemann darted from his flashing eyes into her own, but made no other answer.

"I saw you plainly," said Natalie, "as I stepped out on the balcony. You were leaning against the castle wall. Were you waiting for any one? Tell me."

The young man shivered with the violent emotion that shook his whole frame. After a pause, he said with forced calmness,

"You sent for me, most gracious countess, to honor me with your commands respecting the arrangement of a concert."

The countess turned angrily away.

"These are my thanks, proud man, for my trust, for my love. Out upon ingratitude!" she cried.

The young man flushed crimson at these reproachful words.

"What can I say?" he answered in a deep, hoarse voice, full of the wild agony he was vainly striving to repress. "Look at me, and enjoy your triumph! You have made me wretched. Leave me the only consolation that remains--the conviction that I suffer alone!"

"Friedemann," said the countess, shocked to see him thus, "compose yourself, I entreat you! Spare me!"

"I will _not_ spare you!" burst forth Friedemann, unable longer to master his agitation. "You have torn open my bleeding heart-wounds in cruel sport! I will not spare you! I have bought the right to speak with my happiness here and hereafter. I gave you all, Natalie--truth for falsehood, pure, faithful love for frivolous, heartless mockery!"

"I did not mock you!" cried Natalie.

"Did you love me, then?"

"I can not answer that."

"Tell me, Natalie--did you love me?"

"What good can it do? Are we not parted for ever?"

"No; by my soul, _no_! Nothing shall part us if you love me! But, I must be convinced of that. If you have not--if you do not--I ask you, why did you tempt the free-hearted youth, who lived but for his art, with encouraging looks and flattering words?"

"Be silent!" cried the girl.

Friedemann's burst of grief was convulsive, and he covered his face with his hands.

At length Natalie said,

"I honored your genius--your heart--"

"You loved me not then, and you do not love me now. If you love me, how can you bear to think of becoming the wife of another?"

"Alas! you know; my station, the will of my uncle--"

"_My_ happiness, _my_ peace is nothing to you?"

"My affection is still yours. I shall never love another. Will not that content you?"

Friedemann's pale face crimsoned; he stamped his foot fiercely.

"Hypocrite! liar! coward that I am," he cried; "and all for a coquette!"

Natalie protested against his injustice. She reminded him of her history: her noble birth and orphaned condition; the state and splendor with which her uncle had surrounded her; her scorn of mere pomp and luxury; her isolation in the midst of flatterers and smiling fools; her discernment of the manhood in him--her lover.

"Then be my wife, Natalie!"

She shook her head.

"You will not? You will marry the creature of your uncle, whom you regard with aversion?"

"You know, Friedemann, I do not take this step from interest, but a sense of duty."

"Duty! Toward whom?"

"Yourself! I could never be happy, nor make you happy, as your wife. You are a great artist; but you can never rise to my sphere. And should I sacrifice all for you, would not my incensed uncle pursue us with his vengeance? If we found shelter in solitude, how long would you or I bear this concealment?"

Friedemann grew pale, and looked down.

"We could not be happy," resumed the countess. "All I can do is to keep my heart for you. You can live for your art and me."

"And love you in secret?" asked the young man bitterly.

"I would bear condemnation for your sake."

"You shall _not_! The woman for whose sake I am miserable, for whom I have deceived father, brother, friends, shall never know the world's scorn. Farewell, Natalie! We never meet again. Be unlike your future husband--be noble and true. Crushed as I am, you shall yet esteem me, knowing that all virtuous resolution has not left my heart!"

"O Friedemann! how I honor and admire you," exclaimed the weeping girl, as she flung her arms around his neck.

The maid entered quickly, announcing the minister.

Natalie retreated to the sofa.

"Ha! M. Bach," said the count, as he came in. "I am delighted to see you again."

"Is it all arranged about the concert, my dear niece?"

"I hope so, uncle," answered Natalie.

"Charming, charming! Madame von Bruhl will be enchanted, M. Bach. You will certainly arrange all for the best. Come very often to visit us; very often. I assure you, my highest esteem is yours."

Friedemann, somewhat bewildered, bowed his thanks, and took leave. The minister looked after him, while he took a pinch from his jewelled snuff-box.

"He has great, very great talent," he said musingly; and added other praises. Then he chatted a little on other subjects, and, looking at his watch, touched the white forehead of his niece with his lips, suffered her to kiss his hand, and retired from the room.

Friedemann left the house with confused thoughts. Suddenly M. Scherbitz ran round the corner, and seized his hand.

"I am going home," said young Bach.

"You are not! Come instantly with me to Faustina Hasse's."

"Are you mad?"

"Not so near it as yourself, _mon ami_! The blind bird will not see the trap."

"What do you mean?"

"_Sacré bleu!_ Come to Faustina's with me, or you are to-night on the road to Königstein. The lord minister knows all!"

* * * * *

All that afternoon Sebastian had spent in reading the latest exercises and compositions of his son Friedemann, handing sheet after sheet, when he had read it, to Philip. They called for lights as dusk came on. At length Sebastian asked his younger son what he thought of his brother.

Philip knew not what to answer.

"I admire Friedemann," he said. "His works move me. I seem at times to be reading your music, father; then comes something strange and different. I feel disturbed--I can not tell why. I like these compositions; but they give me not untroubled pleasure."

"You are right, Philip," said Sebastian, with a grave and thoughtful smile. "His works have something in them strange and paradoxical. I find this in his sketches more than in his elaborate compositions. But I am not disturbed thereby: I rejoice."

Philip looked surprised.

"Your own light, glad spirit, Philip, accords not with the earnest, oft gloomy character of Friedemann's works. He is not yet settled. There is something great in him, hardly yet developed; the form of expression is not defined. Friedemann seeks a new path to the goal. Every strong spirit has done so. Art ever advances, and her temple is not yet finished. The perfect dwells not on earth."

Philip suggested that his brother's imagination, supplying nobler images than his industry had produced, still soared beyond the reach of practical achievement, and thus left him unsatisfied.

There was a loud knock at the door; two men entered, asked for the court-organist, and, hearing that he was expected every moment, sat down to wait for him. Sebastian tried to enter into conversation with them; but their gruff monosyllables repelled him, and an awkward silence ensued. In about fifteen minutes the door was opened unceremoniously, and M. von Scherbitz entered. He saluted the elder Bach and looked keenly at the two strangers. He then announced his name to the astonished Sebastian, and said he was Friedemann's friend.

"He will soon return," said the father; "these gentlemen, also his friends, are waiting for him."

"Friends!" echoed the page; and placing himself in front of the two men, he gazed at them searchingly. After a while he said,

"Messieurs, his excellency has lost no time in sending you, I perceive; but you are too late. Give the lord minister the compliments of the page, M. von Scherbitz, and tell him he will find the court-organist, M. Bach, at the house of Signora Hasse. I have just had the honor of leaving him there. He will see the elector."

The two men started up without speaking, and hastily left the room. The page threw himself into a chair and laughed long and loudly. The father and son stood in blank surprise, not knowing what to make of the scene.

At last Scherbitz recovered his composure. He addressed Sebastian, and said he had something to communicate to him in private.

"But where is Friedemann?" asked both father and son.

"As I said, at the house of Signora Hasse."

"What does he there?" asked the father.

"That is what I came to tell you."

Philip was sent out of the room. Sebastian seated himself, and with dignity inquired what the gentleman who called himself Friedemann's friend had to communicate.

"I am his friend," replied the page, "and have proved it not for the first time to-day."

"And those two strangers--"

"Were officers sent to arrest him."

The page went on to tell his story, the bold levity of his manner somewhat subdued before the dignity of the excellent old man, who sat with his clear, searching eyes fastened upon him. He began with a preamble about the strict manner in which Sebastian had brought up his sons, and the difference between Friedemann and his brothers. "You are too innocent of knowing the world," he continued, "to be able to shield him against all the dangers that beset the path of youth. Till he came to Dresden, your son knew nothing of life beyond the paternal dwelling and the church of St. Thomas. He has been received here as the son of an illustrious artist; he has won a proud distinction for himself. Can you wonder that applause and flattery have turned his head a little? He might have got over that; but, as ill-luck would have it, the Countess Von Bruhl employed him as her music-master. He fell in love with her."

"Is the boy mad?" exclaimed Bach, rising from his chair.

"Friedemann's first thought afterward was of his father. His union with the girl he loved was impossible; equally so his voluntary separation from her society. Her uncle bade her receive a rich and noble suitor. Compelled to give up hope, the victim of the wildest remorse and anguish, Friedemann fled to dissipation for relief. I strove in vain to help him; but his grief was too new, too fierce and consuming; I looked to time only for the cure. In wild company only could he find diversion from maddening thoughts, and I feared the worst if that resource were denied him. Now he has taken a prudent step. He has broken off his acquaintance with the countess."

"Heaven be praised!" cried the father clasping his hands.

"But her uncle, the minister, had discovered their intimacy. He has sworn the destruction of your son. I have been fortunate enough to baffle him. But Friedemann must instantly leave Dresden."

"He shall!" cried Sebastian. "My poor son needs comfort; he can find it only at home."

"Then he may come to you?"

"Could a father repel his unhappy child? I know, alas! his fiery soul, his need of sympathy. Bring him to his loving father's arms."

Scherbitz caught the old man's hand and warmly pressed it.

"Friedemann is saved!" he exclaimed.

He left the room and the house, promising soon to return. Sebastian sat long in a mournful reverie. Then seating himself at the piano, he played a soft prelude, and sang a beautiful melody by Paul Gerhard. The music swelled into majestic harmony, and many a passer-by in the street stopped to listen, drinking in peace and consolation from the heavenly sounds.

* * * * *

Faustina Hasse, the most beautiful woman in Dresden, and the greatest dramatic singer not only of her own, but perhaps of all times, was reclining on a sofa in a luxuriously-furnished room in her palace. Flowers stood on a table beside her, and several costly trifles were thrown about; but she was simply dressed in white muslin, with a necklace and bracelets of pearls. Her little foot in its satin slipper beat impatiently the footstool on which it rested; there was a tint of painful excitement on her cheek; and a touch of melancholy about her mouth softened the pride that usually masked her lovely features.

A waiting-maid had just presented the card of a visitor on a silver plate.

"I will see him," was the careless answer.

The maid retired and ushered in the Count von Bruhl, who made a low and courtly obeisance. The signora bent her head slightly, and motioned the count to a seat.

"You are surprised at a visit so late in the evening, signora?" the minister asked gently, after an embarrassed silence.

"I do not know its object," was her calm reply.

"Easily explained," with a bland smile. "I am known for a fond husband; in a fortnight I shall give a _fête_ for my wife's birthday. It will surpass all other _fêtes_ in splendor, if the Signora Hasse will favor it with her presence. May I hope that she will do so?"

"I do not sing, my lord minister."

"The signora has misunderstood my humble petition. Even the elector, whose admiration of the signora's genius is well known, would not venture to solicit such a favor."

"Will his highness be there?"

"He promised to honor me."

"I will come."

"Signora, my gratitude is unbounded!" He raised her hand to his lips, and retired with a low bow.

Faustina sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing fire.

"Stop, monsieur!" she cried.

The minister stood still.

"Where is Friedemann Bach?" demanded the lady.

The minister started visibly, but suppressed all sign of emotion. With a courtly smile he endeavored to evade reply.

"Where is Friedemann Bach?" still more angrily asked Faustina.

Something in her face warned the count not to trifle with her.

"He is probably on his way to Königstein," answered the premier.

"For what offence?" asked the lady with a smile of scorn.

"Oh! he needs discipline. The whole parish is disgusted at the scandalous life led by their court-organist. He edifies the devotional with his organ-playing on Sunday morning; but joins his fellow-rioters in the wildest orgies at Seconda's, on Sunday night."

"What have you done with his fellow-rioters?"

"They belong to high families," answered the count with a significant shrug.

"And pass uncensured. Very fair, my lord minister! But you are mistaken. Bach is not on the road to Königstein. He has just had an interview with his highness, here, in my house. I am known to have some influence with the elector; and have used it."

"What have you done, signora?" exclaimed the minister, shocked into a real expression of his feelings.

"Silence!" said Faustina haughtily. "His highness knows all; knows why you have persecuted the unhappy youth, why you would bring misery on the whole family--such a family! Heartless courtier! What can you know of the worth of such a man? Friedemann leaves Dresden; but you must provide him with another place, and one worthy of his genius. The elector wills it so."

She passed out of the room. The count walked to the window, looked out into the dark night, and drummed on the pane in some embarrassment. There was a storm in his breast, but it was necessary to suppress all agitation. Presently he turned around, and saw Friedemann Bach and the page, Von Scherbitz, standing in the room. The minister walked toward them, and said in a gentle tone,

"Monsieur Bach, I am concerned that you must leave us; but it is necessary. You will go as soon as possible to Merseburg. The place of organist in that cathedral is vacant, and I have appointed you to it. I wish you a pleasant journey."

And with a bow he retired.

"_Bravissimo, mon comte!_" cried the page, laughing heartily. "Roscius was a bungling actor to him. Come now, _mon ami_," turning to Friedemann--"to your father. He knows all."

Friedemann followed him out with a look of despair. It was a clear, starry winter night. As they came to Bach's house, they heard the hymn Sebastian was singing. As they entered the room, he rose and bade his son welcome.

"Can you forgive me, father?" murmured Friedemann gloomily.

"I have forgiven you; for I trust in your ability to amend."

"No word of reproach?"

"Your conscience does that; my part is to comfort you. Come home to Leipzig."

"No," said Friedemann resolutely; "I will not go home till I am again worthy to be received there."

"Are you so resolved?"

"My life henceforward shall show that I am true to you, father. I will strive to overcome the anguish and remorse that have wrecked me. If I succeed, all will be well. If I fail in the struggle--"

"Then come to my heart, Friedemann!"

"I will."

The son threw himself into his father's arms.

The next morning Sebastian and Philip returned to Leipzig, while Friedemann set out on his journey to Merseburg.

PART SECOND.

Madam Anna Bach, the wife of Sebastian, was at home in Leipzig with her daughters and her youngest son, Christian, waiting for the father to join them after he had dismissed his pupils for the day. Thirteen years had elapsed since the occurrences related.

Johann Sebastian Bach came in presently. He was still a stately and handsome man, bright-eyed, and steady in his carriage; but the once smooth forehead was furrowed with care; his cheeks had fallen in, and their livid hue betrayed internal disease.

He held out his hand to his wife, as he placed himself in his arm-chair.

"You seem exhausted to-day," Madame Bach remarked. "I am glad the lessons are over."

Sebastian smiled.

"I have strength left," he said, "to make good scholars; and so long as I can work, none shall find me remiss. You look so pleased; what have you there?"

"A letter for you, from Philip."

"Ho! ho!" cried Sebastian joyfully; "has the scapegrace at last found time to write to his old father? I have sometimes thought he has forgotten how to write since he has been concert-master in the service of his Majesty of Prussia! Well, what says he?" And he opened and read the letter.

It was a dutiful but rather stiff epistle from a young man unused to literary composition. He described life in Berlin, and the concerts given at court two or three times a week, with the private musical entertainments the king had in his cabinet, where Philip Emmanuel accompanied on the piano his majesty's performance on the flute. The king, he wrote, played the flute surprisingly; but was capricious as to time, following the notes less than his own will and pleasure.

"He always," the letter concluded, "inquires after my esteemed father; and often says, 'Will not your papa come once more to Berlin?' I can promise that if my dear and esteemed father will visit us, he will be received with joy and honors by all. Be pleased to pardon my hasty writing; convey my best love and duty to my most honored mother, my beloved brothers and sisters, and make me happy with a speedy answer.

"Your dutiful son,

"PHILIP EMMANUEL BACH."

As Sebastian refolded the letter, his wife asked what he thought of another visit to Berlin.

"It would do me good," said Sebastian. "I would gladly see the king once more. Twice in my life have I believed there was something good in me: the first time was in the year 1717, when my contest was appointed with M. Marchand, and he took himself quietly off the evening before it; the second time was three years ago, when the great King of Prussia came into the antechamber to welcome me, and when some rude chamberlains laughed at my expressions of duty and homage, his majesty chid them with, '_Messieurs, voyez vous, c'est le vieux Bach_.' That pleased Friedemann so much!"

"Then you will go to Berlin?"

"If I can get leave of absence, and if I find a small overplus of money in the purse. Strange, that in my old days I should be seized with a roving propensity! I had nothing of it in youth. Well, let us go in to dinner."

It was near the close of day, and Sebastian sat outside the door of his dwelling, surrounded by his family, under the stately lindens that shaded the avenue leading to the old Thomas's school. The mother and her daughters were occupied in needlework and knitting; the younger sons were listening to their father's anecdotes of the old organist, Reinecken, his instructor in Hamburg. The setting sun shone on a lovely picture.

Caroline, who had her eyes turned toward the corner of Cloister street and Thomas's churchyard, suddenly uttered a cry of joy, and sprang to her feet.

The others rose and asked what was the matter; the venerable father alone kept his seat. A tall figure was seen crossing the churchyard; and now Sebastian rose, for he recognized his son Friedemann.

"Father," cried Friedemann, "I have come to stay with you!"

The father stretched out his arms and warmly embraced his son. The others crowded round him, bidding him a joyous welcome. Nearly an hour passed in the delightful confusion of such a reunion.

Later in the evening, Sebastian was alone with his son, and asked what had brought him home so suddenly.

Friedemann had overmastered the sorrow that had crushed his spirit thirteen years before. But a thousand difficulties were in his way, and the struggle preyed on his mind. He began to despair of ever doing any thing truly great in art. He had wished to strike out a new path; the motive of his efforts was pure, and he did not design to neglect the excellent old school.

"But I have been slandered, insulted!" he exclaimed bitterly. "My aim has been ridiculed, my endeavors have been maliciously criticised, my merits decried."

"By whom, Friedemann?"

Friedemann colored as he answered, "I know I am wrong to be disturbed by the malignity of a shallow fool; but I cannot help it. There is a critic in Halle, one schoolmaster Kniffe, who passes for a luminary in the musical horizon, and writes reviews."

"I have seen them; they are absurd," said Sebastian. "He must cause some sport in Halle."

"On the contrary, he is dreaded on account of his malice; and his base libels please the ill-natured and envious."

"And know you not," asked his father, "that only the base and evil array themselves against the good? Is there a more certain proof of elevated worth than the impotent rage and opposition of the vicious? I never taught you to look with pride or arrogance on your equals or inferiors; but to be calm and self-possessed, and to maintain your ground in reliance on Him to whom alone you are accountable. Do that, Friedemann, and no stupid or malicious critic can make you dissatisfied with yourself."

Here Caroline came in, announcing that a stranger wished to speak with her father.

"He would not," she said, "give his name."

Sebastian bade her bring him in. Presently a sharp voice called out,

"_Bon soir, mon cher_ papa!" and the stranger entered and took the old man's hand. "Do you not know me?"

Friedemann recognized him, and saluted Monsieur von Scherbitz.

"Ha! our ex-court-organist. The same ill-boding frown between the brows as in 1737! You are little changed in thirteen years. And I, at fifty-three, am grown to be a first lieutenant."

"You proved a friend to my son in his danger," said Sebastian, "and are therefore welcome to me and mine. To what lucky chance am I indebted for this visit to my quiet home?"

"To the most unlucky, my dear sir! I was so careless, at the prime minister's last court, as to tread on the left fore paw of his lady consort's lapdog. The beast cried out; the countess demanded satisfaction; and in punishment for my misdeed I am marched as first lieutenant to Poland in the body-guard of his excellency."

Sebastian felt a horror creep over him at the sarcastic, misanthropic wit of his visitor, and sought to change the conversation. But Scherbitz went on jesting in his bitter way about his tragical destiny, concluding with the information that he had come over to Leipzig simply to see Papa Bach once more in his life; for, on the word of a first lieutenant, he had loved and honored him since the first time he had seen him thirteen years ago.

The next morning Scherbitz walked in the little garden behind Thomas's school, bounded by its high wall. He saw Caroline fastening a vine to an _espalier_, and came to assist her. In a conversation with her, he learned that none of the daughters of Bach had any talent for music. The charming singing he had heard early in the morning was by Madam Bach. But Caroline had a poetic taste, and was Friedemann's favorite sister.

In talking with Friedemann, his friend could not fail to discover the morbid state of his mind. Scherbitz thought it came from thinking too deeply.

"Not the will," he said, "but action removes mountains. We are but philosophers, and the slaves of circumstances. Had not the minister played the spy on you and his pretty niece, had not I stepped on the lapdog's foot, we might both have been at this moment sitting quietly in Dresden; you beside Natalie, witching the world with music; I as a merry page of fifty-three, jesting and enduring."

"Do you know," said Friedemann, and as he spoke his countenance altered strangely, "I have often prayed that I might be mad, for a time--not for ever!" In a quick, vehement tone, "Oh! no--no--not for ever; but mad enough to forget. And yet, the memory of what I have suffered would even then cling to me!"

He pressed his hands with a wild gesture over his eyes.

"You must not talk so wildly," said the lieutenant soothingly. "You are yet young, and can accomplish much."

"What can I do?" cried Friedemann with harrowing laughter. "Nothing, nothing! At eight and thirty all is dead with me; I am older than you! Ha! mark you not where _madness_ lurks yonder behind the door, making ready to spring upon my neck as I go out? He dares not seize on me when my father is near; he shrinks up till he is little, and hides himself in a spider's web over the window. But he shall not get hold of me! Ha, ha, ha! I am cunning. I will not leave the chamber without my father. Look you, old page, I understand a feint as well as you!"

"_Mon ami! mon ami!_ what is the matter?" cried the lieutenant, and, seizing his friend by the shoulders, he shook him violently. "Friedemann Bach! do you not hear me?"

Friedemann stared at him vacantly. At length his face lost its unnatural expression; his eyes became like living eyes, and he asked softly what M. von Scherbitz wanted.

"What makes you such an idiot, man? Recollect yourself!" cried Scherbitz.

Friedemann gave a forced laugh.

"You take a jest deeply," he said. "And you really believe that I am sometimes mad? Not yet, friend! I am more rational than ever."

"Well, _mon ami_, it was your jest; but one should not paint the devil on the wall. Sit down, and play me something till I get over my fright. You acted your part so naturally!"

Friedemann sat down to the instrument and began to play.

"I did not dream of this," muttered the lieutenant; while Friedemann, after playing half an hour, suddenly let his hands drop, sank back, and fell fast asleep.

* * * * *

On the morning of the 21st of July, 1750, the church-bells were ringing a solemn yet cheerful peal, inviting the pious to the house of God. The sun shone brightly; the old man's heart was renewed in love and devotion, and even Friedemann's gloomy breast was penetrated with the beam of comfort, joy, and love. He had spent a part of the night in studying a masterpiece of his father's, the great Passion music. Full of the grandeur of the work, his face animated, he was walking to and fro in his father's chamber, pondering a similar work which he thought of undertaking.

Sebastian sat in his arm-chair, with folded arms, dressed ready for church. He followed with his eyes, smiling affectionately, the movements of his son. After a while, he said,

"I am glad the Passion music pleases you so well. I have a work of quite another kind, finished, the first idea of which I got from your _Fughetten_. And you are the first, after me, that shall see it."

He went to his desk, opened it, took out a sealed packet, and gave it to his son. It was inscribed, "To my son Friedemann."

"I meant it for you, in case of my death before I saw you," said the old man. "You may break the seal."

Friedemann opened the packet. It contained that nobly conceived, admirably executed work which from the day of its appearance has commanded the reverent admiration of all the initiated--_The Art of Fugues_, by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Friedemann looked over the manuscript with sparkling eyes.

"And _my_ poor attempt," he cried, "has suggested a work destined to immortalize its author! I have not lived in vain. O my father! thanks. You have made me a noble present."

"You have rewarded me, Friedemann."

Sebastian went on to pour into his son's heart the kindly words of wisdom.

"While you labor to deserve the appreciation of your equals," he said, "strive to instruct those who cannot thus repay you. It is for man only to show to the best that he belongs to the best. Let your light shine--else you lower yourself, and rebel against your Master."

The chime of the bells, that had ceased, now recommenced; and Madam Bach came in with her daughters, young Christian, and the lieutenant. All were ready for church. Madam Bach gave her husband his prayer-book and a bunch of flowers; Caroline brought his hat.

Sebastian rose, gave his arm to his wife, and walked to the door. Turning back an instant, he glanced at the window shaded with vine-leaves glistening in the sunlight, and said,

"What a lovely morning!"

As he went out of the room, he stopped suddenly, and let fall the flowers and the prayer-book. The women screamed with fright. The old man struggled for a few moments, then sank back lifeless into the arms of his son.

Thus died Johann Sebastian Bach, by a stroke of apoplexy.

* * * * *

Three years had passed. The wealthy Baron von Globig celebrated the feast of the vintage at his magnificent villa not far from Dresden. Gilded gondolas, with long and many-colored pennants, were gliding to and fro over the bosom of the Elbe, landing the distinguished guests. The profuse splendor that marked all the preparations was worthy of the favorite of the Count von Bruhl. Nothing the most fastidious taste could suggest was wanting.

Few in the aristocratic company seemed to notice the host; but his lovely wife was the observed of all. She was dignified and courteous, but appeared to take little interest in any thing.

As twilight came on, colored lamps were lighted in the gardens, and gorgeous illuminations were displayed. Bands of musicians played alternately; stately men and beautiful women moved in the merry dance, and general hilarity prevailed.

When the company returned to the great drawing-room, the Prussian ambassador presented to the lady of the house a distinguished-looking man as Philip Emmanuel, the second son of the great Sebastian Bach.

The baroness colored, and gave a furtive glance around her. After a few words of conversation, she asked Bach, in a careless tone, where was his elder brother.

"We do not know," answered Philip sadly. "None of us has seen Friedemann since the day of our father's death, when he suddenly quitted Leipzig."

"Have you heard nothing of him?"

"Nothing--except that he had been at times before subject to fits of melancholy, which threatened his reason. We fear the worst."

The baroness turned away in silence. The baron came up, and presented a petition for a little piece of music from the celebrated Monsieur Bach.

"We are to have some variety," he added; "a bit of fun, by way of enhancing the effect of your divine playing. A poor, half-crazy musician from the Prague choir, who plays dances in the villages, will be permitted to give us a tune in the antechamber. The doors may be opened; but he must not come into the light, for his dress is shabby and disordered."

The music sounded from the ante-room. A servant threw open the doors, and in the imperfect light the guests saw a meanly-dressed man sitting at the piano, his back toward them. They had expected a joke; the baron having told many of them what a surprise he had in store. But when they heard the playing--the wonderful, entrancing melody, now towering into passion, now sinking to a harmonious plaint, which the poor, unknown musician drew from the instrument--all were deeply touched. The baroness and Philip stood, pale as death, looking inquiringly yet doubtingly upon each other. At a bold turn in the music, the baroness leaned toward him, whispering,

"'Tis he!" and Philip exclaimed aloud,

"It is my brother--Friedemann!"

The musician turned, sprang up, and rushed into Philip's arms. At sight of the baroness, he started back with the exclamation--"Natalie!"

The baroness sank back in a swoon. Friedemann tore himself from Philip's arms, forced his way through the crowd, and rushed from the house. The shock had brought on another attack of his awful malady.

* * * * *

An old man, past three score and ten, sat in a room in the upper story of a house in one of the suburbs of Berlin. He was reading a pile of music that lay on the table, making notes on the margin with a pencil. The room was poorly furnished, and lighted by a single lamp that flared in the currents of air, flinging fitful shadows on the wall. The storm raging without shook the loose panes in the window, and twisted the weather-cocks on the roof till they creaked as they swung. The cold had penetrated the chamber, and the fire in the grate was scanty. It was the last night of the year.

But all absorbed sat the old man, and heeded not cold or tempest as he read the music. His form was tall and emaciated; his pale face showed the ravages of age and disease. His thin, white locks fell back from his temples; but his large eyes had the brightness of youthful enthusiasm.

The bell struck midnight. The sounds of festal music, singing, and shouting came from the streets; and faintly on the wind came the swell of the _Te Deum_ chanted in a neighboring church.

The old man looked up from his reading, and listened attentively. There was a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes.

The door opened, and a young man, with a pale and melancholy face, and a form more meagre than the other's, came into the room.

"What hour struck?" asked the old man.

"Midnight. You had better go to bed."

"I do not need sleep. Look, I have been reading this legacy of my father. Ah! if you, poor Theodore, could have had such a father. What year has just begun?"

"Eighty-four."

"Eighty-four! Forty-seven years ago.... We will not speak of that."

"Poor old friend! Will you never tell me who you are?"

"You did not ask me the day I first saw you; when I found a madman just about to take his own life. I pulled away the weapon; I bade you live!"

"You saved my life; but what is it worth? You see me old even in youth."

"You will live many years yet."

"No. I suffer a great deal; I feel that my hours are numbered. But why not tell me your name?"

"He who composed that noble work," said the old man, pointing to the music, "was my father."

"The name was on the first leaf, with the title of the music, and you have torn it out! I do not understand music, you know. Tell me, old friend, what to call you?"

"'The Old Musician.'"

"So the few who know you in this great city always call you. But your other name?"

"I have promised to reveal it only to an artist in music."

Then, noticing the pallid and sunken cheek of his young companion, he said,

"Has the new year brought you nothing, Theodore?"

Theodore took a roll of money from his vest pocket, and threw it on the table.

"Gold!" exclaimed the old man.

"Yes--when we need it no longer!"

He drew out a flask from the pocket of his cloak.

"Wine, too; the best of Johannisberger! You have tasted no wine lately; drink to the new year."

The old man turned away; for bitter recollections came up, associated with the season.

Theodore took two glasses from the buffet, drew up a chair, sat down, and uncorked the flask. He filled the old man's glass and his own with the wine, which diffused a rich fragrance.

The old man asked, at length, how he came by such luck.

"I sold my paintings to a lord travelling through the city."

"What a pity you could not exhibit them!"

"Those sketches cost me seven years of more than labor: all I have thought, lived, suffered; the early dreams of youth; the stern repose after the struggle with fate! I sacrificed all. I spared not even the glimmering spark of life; and thought when the work was finished the laurel would deck my brow in death. All fancies! Wherever I offered my work, I was repulsed. The publishers thought the undertaking too expensive. Some advised me to paint scenes from the Seven Years' War; others called my sketches wild and fantastic."

"Ay, ay!" murmured the old man. "Lessing, who died three years ago, said to me rightly, 'All the artist accomplishes beyond the appreciation of the multitude, brings him neither profit nor honor! The highest must grovel with the worm.'"

"As long as I can remember, old friend, I have had but one passion--for my art. Yet must I degrade art to the rabble; must paint apish faces, while visions of divine loveliness float before me; must feel the genius within me comprehended by none; must be driven to despair of myself! With all my gifts, I must ask myself, at five and twenty, Wherefore have I lived?"

"Live on; the answer will come."

"Has it come to you? Had I gained the prize, I might have been like Raphael; you, like some great master of your art. Success was not for us; and we are doomed to insignificance."

"Silence!" cried the old man; "that leads to madness. I know the horror of madness. They tell me I was a long time so."

"No fear of that, old friend. We are both too near a sure harbor. Come, fill up your glass! Hark to the music and shouting in the streets. Here we sit, like the gods on the summit of Olympus, sipping nectar, and laughing at the fools below us. Drink as I do. No more? Well, yonder is your bed, and here is mine. Good-night to you."

They retired to rest. The storm ceased to beat on the window-panes; but the bell-ringing and music continued throughout the night.

The bright sunshine of morning flooded the chamber. The old man arose and went to the window. It was a clear, cold morning; the air was keen, the sky cloudless; the frost had wrought delicate tracery on the panes.

The old man threw his cloak over his shoulders, and stood some time at the window. Then he went to awaken his young friend.

He touched the hand that lay outside the bed-covering; it was cold and stiff! Poor Theodore had fainted in the struggle with destiny. Long the prey of heart-disease, he had died in the night.

The old man stood as if paralyzed, gazing on the face of his dead friend. His last stay was broken!

Sitting down by the body, he remained motionless the whole day. Late in the afternoon, the woman who kept the house came in with a message to Theodore, and found the old man exhausted and shivering with the cold. She led him into a warm room, and gave him nourishment.

When Theodore was buried, the gold he left was given to the old man, with whom he had lived two years, supplying the wants of both by his scanty earnings as a portrait-painter and the sale of a drawing now and then. Now that he had no resource for the future, the people of the house advised the old man to go to the overseer of the poor-house. He shook his head, saying, "No; I will go to Hamburg."

"To Hamburg!" echoed the housekeeper. "Hamburg is a long way from Berlin; you could not bear such a journey."

But the old man soon forgot his purpose. He resumed his wanderings through the streets of Berlin--his practice before he met with Theodore--stopping to listen whenever he heard music. He would sometimes go into the houses where concerts were given; and all who remembered him were glad to see "the Old Musician" once more.

One evening as he walked about the streets, he stopped to listen to music sounding from the windows of an illuminated palace. He went up the steps and was going in; but the porter, a Swiss, pushed him rudely back. So he stood without in the cold and cutting night wind, and listened, his whole soul absorbed in the music.

A servant in livery came out, and ran against him. "Ha!" he exclaimed in surprise; "is that you, Old Musician? How long it is since I have seen you. Why do you stand there shaking in the cold?"

"Monsieur Swiss would not let me pass," answered the old man.

"Monsieur Swiss is an idiot! Come in with me, old friend; you shall thaw your old limbs, and have some refreshment. My lord gives a grand concert." To the porter he said, "You must always let in the Old Musician; my lord has given orders that it shall be so. He comes to enjoy the music."

He led the old man to a seat near the fire in one of the ante-rooms, and drew a folding screen before him. "You are out of view here," he said; "but you can hear every thing. I will bring you a glass of wine."

All that evening the old man listened to music that thrilled his inmost heart. It was late when the concert ended. Then the man who had brought him in, came and told him it was time to go, offering to send a boy home with him.

"That was admirable music," said the old man drawing a deep breath.

"It was," replied the servant. "All you heard was composed by the same master, who is staying with my lord at present."

"What is his name?"

"It is Master Naumann, chapel-master to the Elector of Saxony."

"Let me speak with him, if he is in the house."

"Certainly, if you want to ask any thing."

"I want to thank him."

"Well, come to-morrow morning."

The next morning the strange visitor was announced to the composer Naumann.

"Who is the Old Musician?" he asked. The man could not tell. He had been known by that name for years in Berlin, and was thought to be partially insane at times. But he was said to have a thorough knowledge of music.

"Bring him in," said Naumann. The old man entered the room. He had a dignity of mien that inspired respect, in spite of his poor apparel; and Naumann rose and advanced to meet him.

"You are welcome, my good friend, though I know not your name--welcome as a lover of our noble art. Take this chair."

The old man, still standing, answered, "I come to thank you, sir, for the pleasure of hearing your concert last evening. I was a listener, privately, and understood that your latest compositions were performed. I will not conceal my name from you. I am Friedemann Bach."

Naumann stood petrified with astonishment. "Friedemann Bach!" at length he repeated; "the great son of the great Sebastian. How strange, indeed! I saw your brother Philip at Hamburg, only last year. The excellent old man mourns you as dead."

"I would be dead to all who knew me in better days," was the melancholy reply. "It would grieve them to know how sad a failure my life has been. Even in Berlin none know that Friedemann Bach yet lives; not even Mendelssohn, the friend of Lessing. While he lived, I had no fear of starving."

Naumann was deeply affected. Philip had told him his brother's history; his sorrows, his disappointments, his terrible suffering for years. "What can I do for you?" he asked mournfully.

"Nothing," answered Bach. "You have done every thing in showing me what I could and should have done. You know how I failed; how my life was wasted; how I fell short in all my bold and burning schemes. I fainted, and did not reap. But you need not the warning of my history. You walk securely and cheerfully in the right path. I can only thank you for your magnificent works. The blessing of God be with you! I feel now that I have nothing more to do in this world."

He turned away, and was gone before Naumann could recover from the emotion his words called forth. He called the servant to ask where he could be found; but no one could tell him. The boy who had escorted the old man home had not been suffered to go to his door. At length he met with Moses Mendelssohn, and told him what had happened.

Mendelssohn was astonished to learn that Friedemann Bach yet lived, and in Berlin. The only clue he had was his knowledge of Lessing's old dwelling, where the old musician lived some time before.

The next morning the two went to the Friedrichstadt, and found Lessing's house. The housekeeper opened the door.

"Does M. Friedemann Bach live here yet?" asked Mendelssohn.

The woman shook her head, lifting the corner of her apron at the same time to wipe her eyes.

"Pardon me," she cried; "but I cannot help it! Just at this time yesterday they carried away my poor friend, the Old Musician. He died three weeks after his young friend, the painter."

Her voice was choked with tears.

There was no need of further inquiry. Poor Bach was a wanderer no more.

ON ST. PETER DELIVERED FROM PRISON.

This is no mystery Or juggler's play Which here is told. What lock can stay Him who the key Of heaven doth hold?

"IT'S WRONG!"

"It's wrong! It's wrong!" the whole day long My hidden censor has piped the song, Till my ears are tingling like a gong With--"It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Out by my chamber window there, In the mulberry-tops, in the August air, The mock-bird sings his devil-may-care-- "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Rash birdy! have you no monishing fear-- Chiding a monarch as you do here? I'm regal in all this little sphere! "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

You laying down law for the village queen, Who from her envied height serene Gives a code to its best, I ween! "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Ha! see, I am decking my "throat of snow" With his costly gems, (he called it so.) What if little Barefoot beg below? "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Look, little sage, in my bright blue eyes! Their color was caught from the summer skies. He says it; and ah! he is very wise. "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Ha! self-wise bird, I am fooling you. My lover is not more gallant than true, And we'll go tripping it through the dew-- "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

What! wrong to go by the shiny birch That shades the lane to the village church? Wrong, may be, to leave you in the lurch? "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

O birdy! I'll be a love-in-the-mist, In my loom-fog veil, when the bride is kissed, Blushing through filmy folds--ah! hist! "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

Well, welladay for the wedding-bells! Arch-misanthrope, what is this he tells As whistle and chime go down the dells? "It's wrong! It's wrong!"

BRITISH PREMIERS IN RELATION TO BRITISH CATHOLICS.

CONCLUDED.

Every step toward emancipation, however halting and feeble, was of great consequence, since it established a precedent--and precedents in England have often the force of law. Thus, the act fifth, George IV., chapter seventy-nine, permitted persons to hold office in the receipt of customs, without taking any oath but that of allegiance. This was a gain, trivial in itself, yet, under the circumstances, not to be despised. The same thing was true of Mr. George Bankes's bill, relieving English Catholics from penalty of double assessment of land-tax. It was introduced and passed in 1828. While recording Canning's services to the cause which Catholics had at heart, we must not forget to show how ready he was, on the other hand, to combine with his colleagues when Ireland had to be oppressed and persecuted. In 1825, they agreed, with one mind, to put down the Irish Catholic Association, because they saw how powerful an instrument it would become, in O'Connell's hands, for the attainment of freedom. The bill by which they suppressed it was called, by the Liberator, "the Algerine Bill." But in the same year an attempt was made, with very doubtful sincerity, to modify the maddening effect of this suppression by conferences with O'Connell, Sheil, and other lay Catholics of influence, by inducing them to assent to a proposal, made by way of compensation, for the pensioning of the Catholic clergy, and the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders.[187] These were to be "the two wings" of a Catholic relief bill, and to this offer O'Connell was induced to adhere. The measure was introduced by Sir Francis Burdett, in April, 1825. It passed the Commons by a considerable majority; and was then, as might have been expected, thrown out by the Lords, who were fortified in their opposition by the Duke of York. Thus the great work of emancipation was again postponed. Though there had been points in Canning's conduct which were displeasing to Catholics; though, with strange inconsistency, he resisted the repeal of the test and corporation acts, which by relieving dissenters would have relieved Catholics also; though he was sharply attacked by Brougham, and charged with pleading their cause without the smallest idea of success, and with betraying those whom he appeared to befriend, yet they listened with delight to his speech in behalf of their claims a few months before his death. They placed their confidence in him, and looked forward to his premiership as the season of their deliverance. But as Pitt had resigned office in consequence of his attachment to the Catholic cause, so it was Canning's fate also to taste the bitter fruits of befriending an oppressed and hated communion. The frowns of royalty, the fury of Tories, and the perfidy of Whigs, combined with the insidious growth of disease to bring him down to the grave harassed and worn.

A _recess government_ followed. Lord Goderich had been a supporter of the Catholic claims; but mediocrity such as his could not be expected to hold its place long at the head of affairs, and still less to conduct a momentous and vital question to a happy issue. That question, like all others of equal magnitude, had to be settled out of parliament before it could be carried within its walls. The monster meetings assembled in Ireland at the call of O'Connell brought the matter to a crisis, and convinced all reasonable men that concession could not long be delayed. Yet the Duke of Wellington, who succeeded Lord Goderich in 1828, and Sir Robert Peel still ranged themselves on the side of the opponents of emancipation. The Lords, in the month of June, rejected a motion pledging them to a favorable consideration of the measure. Vesey Fitzgerald, however, an Irish liberal, was made president of the Board of Trade, and required, according to English law, to be reelected as member of parliament before he could hold his office in the government. It was a glorious opportunity for the Irish, and they embraced it manfully. At the suggestion of Sir David Roos, an Orangeman,[188] and of an intimate friend named Fitzpatrick, O'Connell proposed himself as a candidate for Clare, in opposition to the _protégé_ of the government, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. In such a conflict the odds were all but desperate; yet O'Connell was victorious, although _legally_ ineligible. He was declared duly returned; and he was the first Catholic elected by an Irish constituency since the reign of James II.

That election was, in effect, the triumph of emancipation. It sunk deep into the minds of the chiefs of the opposition. The greatest statesmen had long been wavering in secret. Lord Liverpool had been convinced some time before his death that the time for yielding the point was drawing nigh, and that he would soon have to support the Catholic claims, if not as a premier, at least as a peer. Sir Robert Peel had, in 1825, requested Lord Liverpool to relieve him of office on the ground that emancipation could no longer be deferred. Three years later, he announced to the Duke of Wellington his resolution to support the claims he had so long resisted, and declared that, in pursuit of that "great object," he was ready to sacrifice "consistency and friendship." Little did the majority, either of his friends or foes, imagine how deep a change his mind had really undergone.

It would hardly be too much to say the same of the duke. He was the only man in England who could carry emancipation, and the only man who did do it. He was that power in the state which the circumstance required. He accomplished in England, though with far different aims and feelings, what the lyre of Thomas Moore effected in Irish homes, and the eloquence of O'Connell on the fields of Tara and Clontarf. The test and corporation act being repealed, his way was cleared. Persons holding office under the crown were no longer obliged to qualify themselves by receiving the Lord's Supper in the Established Church. He began, therefore, by speaking on the Catholic claims with studied ambiguity. Though he declared that his opinions on this subject were as decided as those of any one in the house, he added that he should oppose emancipation until he should see a great change in the question. That change was fast coming over it. He knew that the Commons would then pass no very arbitrary laws; that they would not require candidates for a seat in parliament to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy on the hustings; that without emancipation it would be impossible to disfranchise the forty-shilling freeholders; that others would be elected besides O'Connell; and that they could not be prevented from taking their seats and representing their constituents without a civil war. The duke, though a great general, was not a man of blood. He was not an impracticable man, though a Tory. He knew how to "take occasion by the hand," and to do that of which St. Philip Neri says there is not a finer thing on earth--make a virtue of necessity. He was influenced in the matter by no abstract principle of justice, no enthusiasm in favor of the oppressed, no sympathy with a proscribed faith; but he sincerely loved his country, and he came by degrees to feel convinced that her interests were consulted best by altering the basis of her constitution in church and state. He sought, indeed, securities from those whom he proposed to relieve, and he purchased at their hands the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland; but, on the other hand, he was willing to endow the Catholic Church in the sister isle, and to apply three hundred thousand pounds per annum toward the payment of the priests. To this part of his plan Peel could not be induced to consent, and it was subsequently abandoned. Great as Wellington was in war, he was greater in peace--greater in his victory over Protestant prejudices, and as the champion of the rights of an injured people and a persecuted creed.

On the 5th of March, 1829, Sir Robert Peel (then Mr. Peel) brought forward a bill for the relief of Catholics. It was _the_ bill long desired, clamored for, dreaded; which was to alter fundamentally the character of English law, and change the destinies both of England and Ireland. It was preceded by a bill finally suppressing the Catholic Association, at the very time when that association was being dissolved of its own accord. The mind of Peel had been long and anxiously engaged in the study of the question as regarded Ireland. Night and day he had been examining evidence, pondering the difficulties to be overcome, and the chances of success. It was the nature of his mind to work in secret, and to manifest the result only when it became absolutely necessary. During the period of transition he voted against Catholic emancipation, but did so with manifest repugnance. Whatever decision the house might come to, he said, he should give it his best acquiescence; and if the measure should be carried, he should use his earnest endeavors to reconcile Protestants to it. When it was proposed to admit Catholic lords into the upper house, he offered but slight opposition to the bill, nor did he object to granting English Catholics the same electoral rights as were enjoyed by their brethren in Ireland. His Tory friends were offended by his moderation; for they loved "the falsehood of extremes," and they could not comprehend his anxiety to promote education among the Catholic as well as among the Protestant part of the population. They would not recollect how many indications he had given of a possible change in his future conduct in reference to emancipation. They knew not, or they affected to forget, that two years before Canning died, he had expressed to Lord Liverpool his conviction that emancipation must pass, and had offered to resign. So long ago as 1821, he had declared, in reply to Plunket, that even if his own views prevailed, "their prevalence must be mingled with regret at the disappointment which he knew the success of such opinions must entail upon a great portion of his fellow-subjects." He should, he said, "cordially rejoice if his predictions proved unfounded, and his arguments groundless."

There were those who perceived the current his thoughts were taking, and among them was the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV. One of the duke's sons told Cardinal Acton that, when he returned home one night from a very late division in the House of Commons, of which he was a member, he went to his father's dressing-room, and was asked by the duke how the division on emancipation had gone; and when he was told that the bill had been lost, the duke said,

"That rascal, Peel, will adopt emancipation, will carry it, and take the glory from us who have fought for it all our lives."[189]

No less remarkable were the words used by the Duke of Clarence when, at last, Wellington and Peel introduced, with all the weight of government recommendation, the great bill for Catholic relief. He wished, he said, that the ministers had been as united in 1825 as they proved in 1829. "It will be forty-six years next month," he added, "since I first sat in this house; and I have never given a vote of which, thank God! I have been ashamed; and never one with so much pleasure as the vote I shall give in favor of Catholic emancipation."

It would be foreign to our purpose in this place to relate the circumstances attending the passing of the bill, and the admission of O'Connell into the House of Commons. We are concerned, not so much with these events, as with the premiers who brought them about. Peel did not acquire the confidence of the Irish whom he had emancipated. O'Connell regarded him with implacable aversion, and nothing could exceed the hatred and distrust with which he was treated by the Tories who had once been his friends. It was nothing to them that the change of his politics had been the result of long and arduous study; that he had taken nothing for granted, but required proof of every statement made by those who sought to convert him to their side. They had not seen what we possess--the posthumous volumes edited by Peel's trustees, Lord Stanhope and Mr. Cardwell--and they could not, therefore, judge of the laborious and conscientious search by which he arrived at his conclusions; and even if they had seen them, it is probable that they would have reproached him for investigating the subject in a hesitating frame of mind, and for beating out for himself and many of his followers a path of apostasy.

Eighteen years passed by before any other measure of importance affecting Catholic interests was laid before the houses of parliament. The influence of emancipation in a liberal direction was felt deeply in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, which but for that previous act of justice would have been impossible. The Duke of Wellington prepared the way for Lord Grey, just as Grey and his colleagues, by shaking the power of the aristocracy and destroying the rotten boroughs, led in the issue to the more extended reform bill carried by the late Lord Derby, to the extension of the suffrage to all householders and a large proportion of lodgers, and to the passage of the Irish Church bill. During the premierships of Lord Melbourne and of Sir Robert Peel the questions of free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws absorbed public attention, and the Catholic topic was all but set aside. The paltry grant to Maynooth was made a yearly subject of hot debate, and a few thousands per annum were grudgingly bestowed on an Irish college for the education of priests, while the Protestant establishment in that island continued to be the most richly endowed in the world in proportion to the number of its members. The public mind, however, was attracted and agitated by a spectacle in which parliament was not concerned, and which in all the course of legislation in favor of Catholics had never been contemplated. This was the extraordinary progress of Catholic ideas, doctrines, and practices in the University of Oxford, and among the clergy of the establishment. The excitement which this produced had reached its height when, in February, 1847, a bill intended to supplement the emancipation of 1829 was introduced by Mr. Watson, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Escott. At that time Lord John Russell was premier, with Grey, Palmerston, Macaulay, and Granville among his colleagues. They were little inclined to favor Catholicity, though in matters of politics they usually adopted a liberal line; and, considering that in 1829 there had been 2521 petitions presented to the Lords against emancipation, and only 1014 in support of it--2013 to the Commons against it, and only 955 in its favor--considering that of 238 newspapers in the United Kingdom in 1829, though 107 had been in its favor, 87 had been against it and 4 neutral--it was not surprising that the relief bill of Lord John Manners did not find as many strong supporters as it deserved. The country was alarmed at the spread of "popery," and the bill in question seemed designed to quicken its pace and widen its conquests. It would, if it had been carried, have removed some remaining disabilities; but the loss of the bill did not in reality affect in any very great degree the freedom of Catholics or the progress of their religion. The premier, Lord John Russell, in the same year--1847--when discussing the question of national education, stated that, if a desire were entertained to have schools for Catholics, and for such only, he would be in favor of it; but he reminded his hearers that "of all the half-million which had been already spent under the direction of the treasury, and in accordance with the minutes of the council on education, not one shilling was given in aid of the Roman Catholic schools;" and in the issue Catholic children were excluded from all participation in the grant of £100,000 a year which formed part of the government scheme of education brought forward by the prime minister. This is enough to prove how lukewarm Lord John Russell was in his wish to promote education among Catholics; and it is enough, also, to lessen our surprise at that monstrous display of intolerance and bad statesmanship with which he signalized his ministry in 1851.

It was two months after the close of the session in 1850, that a papal rescript establishing a regular hierarchy in England, and parcelling out the country into dioceses, was published by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and produced a commotion altogether disproportioned to the cause. The document was simple and ordinary in its character, and if issued in reference to any other country but England, would probably have attracted no attention, and certainly have excited no surprise, terror, indignation, and wrath. Among the English it was received like the news of a French invasion. It was denounced as a "papal aggression," and the prime minister, instead of allaying the storm, which he might easily have done, lashed the waves to fury by his letter to the Bishop of Durham. He affected to be taken by surprise, whereas the holy father had himself shown the brief to Lord Minto, Lord John Russell's father-in-law, who had been residing in Rome in a diplomatic capacity. Lord Minto had raised no objection to the publication of the document, nor offered any suggestion as to the mode of procedure. It was Cardinal Wiseman, therefore, and the Catholics of England and Ireland, who were taken by surprise when the premier, who had spent his life in promoting "civil and religious liberty," suddenly effaced the inscription from his banner, and stood forward as the most prominent assailant of Catholics in the kingdom. It was the more inconsistent and absurd in him to act thus, because the right of the Catholic bishops to designate themselves by the titles of their sees was recognized by common usage, by the servants of the government, and in one act, at least, of parliament. Lord John's inflammatory letter to the Bishop of Durham was followed by a speech from the throne, couched in very high-flown and pompous language about the necessity of maintaining unimpaired the "religious liberty" which no one had sought to invade except the premier and his friends.

The queen's speech was followed in due time by a bill for preventing the "assumption of any title, not only from any diocese now existing, but from any territory or place in any part of the United Kingdom, and to restrain parties from obtaining by virtue of such titles any control over trust property." Never was a more foolish measure carried through parliament; firstly, because it made not the smallest change in the existing state of things--it did not prevent a single bishop from using on proper occasion the title of his see, as conferred on him by papal authority; secondly, it was not even intended to be carried into effect. Lord John Russell and his colleagues never dreamed of summoning bishop after bishop into court, and compelling them to pay the fine of £100 each, or go to prison. Such a proceeding would have enlisted popular feeling immediately on their side. All the wisest heads in parliament--men like Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Gladstone--warned the premier of the folly he was committing in pandering to the wishes of an illiberal and panic-stricken multitude.

The opposition offered to the measure by Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone is all the more to our purpose because both these statesmen became at a late period prime ministers. Lord Aberdeen was one of those whose minds had undergone a great change on many important subjects, and there can be no doubt that he had yielded his to the plastic influence of Sir Robert Peel. Having taken part in the ministry of the Duke of Wellington, he had, in 1829, contributed to the success of the emancipation bill; and when Peel was driven from office, after abolishing the corn-laws, by the resentment of the protectionists, he had followed his master into retirement, and declined a place in the cabinet which was offered to him by Lord John Russell. It was not likely, therefore, that he would in 1851 betray the principles which he held sacred, and aid in swelling an insensate cry. He saw clearly that the ecclesiastical titles bill had the double defect of being persecutive if carried into operation, and contemptible if passed only to lie dormant. He accordingly resisted it with all the more dignity because he knew that resistance was, for the time being, fruitless.

Mr. Gladstone has not been consistent in his politico-religious career. In 1838, he appeared in print as the resolute champion of "church and state," recommending the exclusion of all persons not of the Established Church from participation in the advantage of subsidies granted for religious purposes. In 1839 and 1840, he opposed the admission of Jews into parliament, and the assistance afforded by the state to dissenters for the education of their children. He upheld that unjust establishment in Ireland which he has since overthrown; and in 1845 he resigned his place in the cabinet in order that he might be perfectly free to vote as he pleased on the grants to Maynooth and the endowment of Peel's colleges in Ireland. When out of office, he supported both these measures, and rendered himself very obnoxious to many of his supporters at Oxford by the growing affection he manifested for liberal measures. The year 1847 saw him pleading for diplomatic relations with Rome, and complaining that the government had not communicated with the holy see before establishing the queen's colleges in Ireland. In accordance with these generous and enlightened views, Mr. Gladstone saw with disgust the intemperate conduct of the premier and the parliament in the case of the ecclesiastical titles bill. He contended that the influence of the Protestant church in England could never be maintained and extended by temporal enactments; that the papal rescript for assigning sees and titles to Roman Catholic bishops did not interfere in any way with the political rights of Englishmen; and ought not to be made the occasion of a hostile, oppressive, and impotent act of parliament.

"We, the opponents of the bill," he said, "are a minority, insignificant in point of numbers. We are more insignificant, because we have no ordinary bond of union. What is it that binds us together against you but the conviction that we have on our side the principle of justice--the conviction that we shall soon have on our side the course of public opinion?"

Events have proved how completely his words were true. The ecclesiastical titles bill is now regarded with scorn, and treated with ridicule. Earl Russell has confessed his mistake, and Catholics, whom it was intended to humiliate, are quite indifferent to a prohibitory measure which was never meant to be enforced. The reform bill carried through both houses by Disraeli and Lord Derby made the disestablishment of the Irish Church possible; the nation, freely represented, pronounced in its favor; and the measure was passed. A sense of justice, if not a feeling of repentance, has come over the public mind; and a brief space of time has sufficed to dispel prejudices that were the growth of ages. Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the liberal party, has been chiefly instrumental in producing this change; but it would be unfair not to specify Mr. Bright as another most powerful agent in bringing about the result. So long ago as 1852, the former gentleman declared his opinion that if Mr. Spooner's annual motion against the Maynooth grant should ever succeed, and "the endowment were withdrawn, the parliament which withdrew it must be prepared to enter upon the whole subject of the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical arrangements in Ireland." These words were considered remarkable at the time, and appear even more so when viewed by the light of recent events. They plainly foreshadowed that sweeping measure which we have recently seen him triumphantly carry. They pointed to a radical alteration in the existing unfair and anomalous relations between the church of the many and the church of the few in the sister isle. They left it, indeed, undecided whether "levelling up" or "levelling down" should be tried; whether the several churches, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian, should be all reduced to the voluntary systems, as in the United States, or whether the Roman Catholic clergy should be raised by the state to equal privileges and emoluments with those enjoyed by the Protestant pastors.

In the year 1868, it became manifest that the conservative and the liberal parties alike were agreed as to the necessity of doing something with the Irish Church. It also became apparent that the leading men in each party favored respectively the two plans just alluded to--the "levelling up" and the "levelling down" process. Lord Derby, with his son Lord Stanley, Mr. Disraeli, and other conservatives, were inclined to make the Catholic clergy in Ireland stipendiaries of the state; but they did not boldly and honestly propose any such measure for the consideration of parliament. The difficulties which faced them were greater than they could hope to overcome. The Catholic bishops of Ireland had distinctly refused to close with any offer of stipend for the priests. They asked for impartial legislation, but not for pay. This difficulty amounted almost to an impossibility; for of what avail was it to vote emoluments to those who would not accept them? But there was another obstacle of almost equal magnitude, which consisted in the unwillingness of the English people to endow "popery" in any shape. One half of the electors under the new reform bill were persons not in communion with the Church of England; and these, together with many Anglicans, approved the voluntary system in preference to national state churches of any kind. Lord Mayo, therefore, the Secretary of State for Ireland, was studiedly ambiguous in setting forth the intentions of the government in regard to Irish ecclesiastical matters. They were willing to establish and endow a Catholic university in Dublin, and to do something (no one could discover exactly what) in the way of "levelling up." Mr. Gladstone instantly exposed the absurdity of these crude and vague intimations. He declared in the most emphatic manner that the Irish Church must cease to exist as an establishment, and it soon became apparent that the liberal party were determined to aid him to the utmost in accomplishing his design. It was an extraordinary climax. The most popular man in the kingdom--a Protestant representing a Protestant constituency, and the premier-to-be of a Protestant queen and a Protestant cabinet--was willing and eager, in the name of the people, to disestablish and disendow that church in Ireland which had for three centuries been the pledge of Protestant ascendency and the main support of English and Protestant landlordism in that island.

His foremost opponents were the late Lord Derby and Disraeli, each of them prime ministers at different periods. Their opposition was the less formidable because they were both men of mixed politics. Lord Derby had been by turns the friend and the foe of Catholic liberty and equality. He defended the Irish establishment against Joseph Hume in 1824; but he supported, under the _régime_ of Earl Grey, the cause of emancipation in 1832. He aided in relieving the Irish Catholics from the payment of tithes, and he helped to strike off the chains of the negro by presenting a bill for their liberation; but, on the other hand, he resisted with all his might the appropriation clause in an Irish Church bill of 1834, and even quitted office because he would not give it his countenance. To sequestrate any part of the property of the Irish establishment and apply it to secular purposes was, in his eyes, to commit a sacrilege and to violate a common right. To this feeling he continued to adhere, and to the last opposed the Irish Church bill intended to disestablish and disendow the Protestant Church in Ireland. He intimated, however, to the peers who were of his party, that he did not think it their absolute duty to oppose the bill as he had done. For the sake of consistency he voted against it, while not a few of them did otherwise, seeing how many evils might arise from their resistance to the will of the Commons and the majority of the electors. Yet it was he and Mr. Disraeli who made the passing of this bill possible and inevitable. It was the reform bill which they introduced, and which extended the suffrage to all householders and many lodgers, that made the liberal party stronger, and the abolition of the Irish establishment necessary. It is strange, indeed, that Lord Derby, who offered so dogged a resistance to free-trade and the abolition of the corn-laws, who, with Lord George Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, headed the forces of the protectionists, should have been the means of developing the democratic element in the British constitution to a degree previously unknown and unsought, even by the liberals. It is strange, passing strange, that he should thus have brought about indirectly the measures he most wished to avert; and the fact of his having so acted is sufficient to stamp him as a second-rate statesman, and hardly worthy of a philosopher's name.

It would, we believe, be scarcely unjust to apply the same remark to Disraeli, notwithstanding his literary fame. He is too crotchety ever to be the great leader of a great party. What Willis said of him was true: "In a great crisis, with the nation in a tempest, Disraeli would flash across the darkness very finely; but he will never do for the calm right hand of a premier." His literary reputation preceded his political celebrity, and will outlast it. His mixed politics--his dubious radical-toryism or tory-radicalism--like the _plus_ and _minus_ in an equation, cancelled each other, neutralized his influence, and confounded his arguments by mutual disagreement. He discarded triennial parliaments and vote by ballot, defected to the Tories after coquetting with the radicals, and thus laid himself open to O'Connell's keenest abuse. "His life," the Liberator said, "was a living lie. There were miscreants among the chosen people of God, and it must certainly have been from one of these that Disraeli descended. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief who died upon the cross, whose name, I verily believe, must have been Disraeli." Certain it is, that even the friends and admirers of Mr. Disraeli repose in him little confidence. They never feel sure as to what he really is, or what he may become. He is an enigma and a sphinx. He has often embraced principles to make himself a name, and he has often sustained them in spite of unpopularity. "It is quite a mistake," he said on one occasion, "to suppose I ever hated Peel. On the contrary, he is the only man under whom I should like to have served. But I saw very clearly he was the only man it would 'make' me to attack, and I attacked him." Here is a key to Disraeli's character. The only premier he would like to have served under was one whose ruling principle was expediency; yet even this premier he was willing to oppose in order to rise in the political and social scale. So he, at the head of "Young England," denounced free trade in corn, and applied the system of protection to the state religion. He was, like Lord Derby, intensely opposed to the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland; but he was willing to endow Catholicity in Ireland to a certain extent, and thus make the state to be, like himself, an assemblage of contradictions--a builder up at the same moment of Babylon and of Zion.

All roads, it is said, lead to Rome; and in like manner it may be affirmed that all English prime ministers since the revolution have led Rome-ward more or less. All have been employed in raising the valleys and levelling the hills, that a straight path might be made for the majestic march of the restored and ancient faith. Every thing has told in favor of the _gens lucifuga_, the despised and persecuted Catholics, who shunned the light of day. If one and the other premier sought to oppress them anew, as Walpole did in his day, and Lord John Russell in our own, the unrighteous attempt recoiled sooner or later on its promoters, and ample reparation was made in the long run by a sense of justice being awakened in the popular mind.

The prime ministers of England, be it remembered, have been in some sense its kings--nay, more than kings. The real king has often been a cipher; the queen--as for example, Queen Caroline--has been above her lord; and the premier--as, for instance, Sir Robert Walpole--has controlled them both. And if this was the case in the last century, much more is it so now. England is in fact a republic, though nominally a monarchy. It is an aristocratic republic; and the prime minister being responsible to parliament, and representing for the time being the voice of parliament and the popular will in the council chamber of the sovereign, is himself the chief executive in the government, and holds in his hands more real power than any one besides in the kingdom. The monarch before whom he bows, and to whom he seems to defer, is in reality a puppet of which he works the wires. King George IV. was as nothing compared to King Wellington, and King William IV. was but a _middy_ under the command of Earl Grey. Queen Victoria at the present moment (and we say it with sincere respect for that excellent and sovereign lady) is but a shadow to the substance Gladstone, and will be but a shadow to any prime minister who may succeed him. It was not so entirely with her grandfather. He was really a king. He ruled himself, and often very unwisely; but times have changed. Political and religious emancipation has conferred on Catholics an importance in the state which is altogether new, and conversions on a large scale during a quarter of a century have been a concurrent cause of their occupying a high and honorable position in society. No prime minister, therefore, can now ignore them, much less can he molest them. In every session of parliament some obloquy cast on them in former ages is removed. The lord chancellor of Ireland is now a Catholic, and very soon the lord lieutenant of Ireland may be so too. Every office of state, even the highest, will in all probability be in a short time opened to the Catholics, and the unjust law which excludes them from the crown, and prohibits members of the royal family from marrying them, will be swept away. If a Catholic were to be made premier now, it would not be more surprising than it was that Wellington should emancipate Catholics in 1829 or that Gladstone should demolish the Irish establishment in 1869. Providence has wrought wonderfully in behalf of the church already in England, and what has been done should be taken by us as a pledge of what is yet to be. Meanwhile, it will be well to remember gratefully, where gratitude is due, the labors of Protestant prime ministers for the removal of Catholic disabilities; and in order to do so adequately, we must make every allowance for the prejudices in which they were brought up, and the obstacles which lay so thickly in their path. We must not deny them all merit because they have yielded to the force of circumstances, but believe that they probably would not thus have yielded if there had not been in them some noble and virtuous impulse, some personal attachment to truth and justice. The stronger their original repugnance to concession, the more deeply they felt convinced in earlier years of the importance of maintaining intact the Protestant constitution in church and state, the more credit assuredly is due to them for having broken the spell of their youth, admitted that their ideas were erroneous, and faced a thousand reproaches and unmeasured obloquy in their determination to place the liberties of their fellow-subjects on a broader and better basis. The day has arrived in England when the Protestant premier and the Catholic primate shake hands, not merely as private friends, but also as representative men; and when they were seen not long ago in familiar intercourse at the foot of the steps of the throne in the House of Lords, they were for the moment living signs and symbols of that vast and happy change which has come over the relations between the English government and its Catholic subjects.

FOOTNOTES:

[187] W. B. MacCabe, _Memoir of O'Connell_. Madden's _Penal Laws_, p. 255.

[188] MacCabe, _Memoir of O'Connell_. _Tablet_, 29th May, 1847.

[189] This anecdote was related to the writer by the Bishop of Southwark.

FROM THE SPANISH.

LUCIFER'S EAR.

FERNAN. Come, Uncle Romance, tell me one of your stories.

UNCLE R. But, Señor Don Fernan, if they are not worth the telling?

FERNAN. Never mind; you must know that many people are pleased with Andalusian stories, and I am told that they write them.

UNCLE R. Then what I tell your honor is going to be printed! It makes me laugh; for you see I thought that those high-flying folks who go to college liked nothing but Latinity. However, with the help of God, I shall do as your worship commands, since those that give us good-will aid us to live, and gratitude is a duty that none but the base-born refuse to pay. I will go on telling; your worship will go on writing it down, and leaving out mistakes, and shaving off the roughness of my way of saying things, till it sounds like print; and your worship can write to those _you-sirs_, "My journeyman and I made this between us. If it is good, I did it; and my journeyman, if it is bad." Shall it be a story of enchantment?

FERNAN. The first that occurs to you; if you invent it, all the better.

UNCLE R. O señor! I can't invent. Those inventions are flashes of the mind; mine is too dull, Don Fernan; but I'll tell you a story that I've known ever since I cut my teeth. I've lost them all now; so your worship can judge what date it must bear.

FERNAN. The older the better. Stories are like wine, age improves their flavor.

UNCLE R. Well then, señor, there was once a rich tradesman who was father to a very fine son. He brought him up like a king's child, and, besides the accomplishments of a gentleman, in which the boy came to excel, had him taught in all branches as if he had meant to make him doctor of every thing. The son grew to be a young man with a will of his own; bearded and dashing; and for gallantry there was not another like him.

One day he told his father that the place had become too narrow for him; he could not content himself in it, and he wanted to go away.

"And where do you want to go?" asked the father.

"To see the world," answered the young man.

"You are like the grasshopper that jumps he don't know where," said the tradesman. "How are you to get along in those strange countries without experience?"

"Father, 'He that has knowledge may go where he will,'" the son replied; and as the old cock had allowed the young one to run so much to wings that he couldn't hold him, the youth took his arms, his horse of noble stirp, and set out to see the world.

When he had travelled three days through wilds and thickets, he came up with a man who was carrying a double cart-load--that is to say, a hundred and fifty arrobas of taramee upon his shoulders.

"Friend," said the young gentleman, "you carry more than a church mule. What is your name?"

"I am called Carry-much Carry-more, son of The Stout Carrier," answered the man.

"Would you like to come with me?"

"If your worship is as much for taking me as I am for going, yes."

So they went on together.

At the end of an hour they found a man who was blowing hard enough to burst his cheeks; sending forth more wind than the bellows of the forge of that _Bulcan_[190] who, they say, was a giant blacksmith, of those you hear tell about.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gentleman.

"Don't speak, your worship," said the man, "for I mustn't leave off blowing. I have to keep forty-five mills a-going with my wind."

"And what is your name?"

"Blow-hard Blow-harder, son of The Hard Blower," answered the man.

"Will you come with me?"

"Indeed will I!" said the man; "for I'm ready to collapse with blowing, day in and day out, as many days as God has put into the world."

A little further on, they stumbled upon a man who was lying in wait, listening.

"What are you doing here?" asked the gentleman.

"I am waiting to hear a swarm of mosquitoes rise out of the sea."

"Why, man! if the sea is a hundred leagues off?"

"And what of that, if I hear them?"

"What is your name?"

"Hear-all Hear-every-thing, son of The Good Hearer."

"Will you come with me?"

"With all my heart, since your worship is so kind; the mosquitoes will announce their approach presently."

The four went along in love and fellowship till they came in sight of a castle so musty, lonesome, and cloaked with gloom that it appeared more like sepulchre of the dead than habitation of the living. While they were drawing nearer, the sky was growing each moment more threatening, and, as they reached the castle, it burst into a torrent of rain; for size and sound, every drop might have been a cascabel.

"My master's worship needn't mind it," said Blow-hard; "we'll soon see what'll become of the storm." And he began to blow. The clouds, thunders, and lightnings scampered across those skies in such hurry and confusion that the sun stood squinting after them, and the moon staring open-mouthed with astonishment.

But this was not the worst; for when they got to the castle, they found that it had neither gate, nor door, nor postern, nor sign of an entrance.

"I told your worship well," said Hear-all, who had more fear than shame, "that this ugly-faced castle was only for a nest of magpies, and refuge of owls."

"But I am tired, and I must rest," said the gentleman.

"Give yourself no uneasiness, your worship," said Carry-much; and he immediately brought a big boulder, which he placed against the wall of the castle. They climbed up by this, and went in through the window. In the hall they found tables spread with the most famous dishes; all kinds of liquors, jugs of pure water, and bread of the finest quality. When they had eaten till they could stuff no longer, the gentleman wanted to explore the castle.

"Señor," said Hear-all, "if you meet somebody that asks, 'Where is this ball rolling to?' One should not make free in another's house unless he is well posted."

"Who's afraid?" said Carry-much. "We are not going to do any thing wrong; and if one draws a straight furrow, nobody will follow him with a plough."

"Let us get away from here, my master!" cried Hear-all, whose flesh was creeping with fear. "This castle is not in the grace of God; for I tell your worship that I hear noises under ground that sound like lamentations."

But the gentleman paid Hear-all no attention. His servants followed him, and they went on exploring those corridors and passages that were more intricate than if a lawyer had built them, until they came into a yard that was like an arena for bulls.

They had hardly set foot in it, when a serpent with seven heads, each one more fierce than the others, seven tongues like lances, and fourteen eyes like coals of fire, glided out to attack them.

Carry-much, Blow-hard, and Hear-all, more scared than rats found out of the hole, ran as if they would run out of their trowsers; but the gentleman, who was as valiant as the Cid and as strong as a Bernardo, drew his sword, and with four strokes, and four back-strokes, cut off the creature's seven heads in less time than you could say _tilen_! The biggest of the seven glared at the gentleman for an instant with its savage eyes that darted fire and blood, and then gave a bound into the middle of the yard and disappeared through a hole which opened in the ground to receive it.

At the gentleman's call, the three who had fled came back, and were well astonished at their master's bravery.

"Be it known to you," said the cavalier, who was looking, without seeing bottom, down the hole the serpent's head had gone into, "that we are going now to the fields to get hemp and palm-leaves to make a line that will reach to the floor of this well." They did so; and the four spent four years making rope. At the end of that time they felt it touch bottom. The master then told Hear-all to slide down it and see what was below there, and come back and let him know. But Hear-all stuck to his supports, as upright as a palm-tree in a gully that no wind moves, and said that he'd be smashed first and go down in pieces.

Then the master told Blow-hard to go. Blow-hard took fast hold of the rope, and descended night and day till he got to the bottom, where he found himself in a palace like the famous ones you read of, and in the presence of the Princess of Naples, who was lying on a bed with her face downward, weeping tears as big as chick-peas. She told him that Lucifer had fallen in love with her, and would keep her enchanted there until one willing and able to fight and vanquish him should present himself. 'Here is one already who is going to undertake the enterprise,' said Blow-hard, and he drew in a long breath, which was scarcely drawn when Lucifer appeared in person. The sight of him frightened Blow-hard so that he ran and climbed to the top of a door. Lucifer unhinged the door with one thwack of his big tail, and it fell to the ground with Blow-hard, and broke one of his legs.

We will leave him with his bitter cud, and go back to the gentleman, who, tired of waiting for Blow-hard to come up, asked Hear-all what was going on down there in the bowels of the earth. Hear-all told him what had passed, and that now he could hear Blow-hard complaining of a broken leg. Then the gentleman sent Carry-much, who assured him that he would shoulder Lucifer and bring him up, if he weighed more than all the lead of the Sierra Almagrera. But, step by step, it happened to Carry-much just as it had to Blow-hard, except that he got an arm broken instead of a leg.

"I will go down myself," said the gentleman, when Hear-all related to him what had taken place.

When he reached the palace and saw the Princess of Naples, he fell into such love with her wonderful beauty that he prepared himself for the encounter with a double ration of valor.

Christians! such a fight as there was then between the good cavalier and the cursed dog of a Lucifer the world has never seen; as, naturally, it would not see, since Lucifer never comes to fight above here in his own form. But the gentleman crossed himself, and, as every man must who commends his cause to God, vanquished the devil. He did more; for he cut off one of his ears.

The state Lucifer would be in at seeing his ear in the hands of a Christian, I leave to your consideration. His yells had such an effect upon Hear-all that he repeated every jerk and spring. You would have said that he was being repeatedly stung by a tarantula.

"Give me my ear!" shouted Lucifer in the voice of a trumpet.

"You will give me a good ransom if you get it," answered the cavalier; "for I have taken it like a true knight in fair combat; therefore, I shall make three conditions with which you must comply."

"Insolent braggart!" said Lucifer.

"Oh! you may spit out the gall; but I warn you that I am going to pickle your ear and show it for money," replied the cavalier.

Lucifer danced with rage.

"What are your conditions, low-born, ill-bred, and worse-thriven?" he demanded.

"The first is, that you instantly return this princess to her own kingdom and palace," said the cavalier.

There was nothing for it but to comply; so Lucifer placed the princess in her royal palace, and then said to the cavalier, "Give me my ear."

"No," replied the cavalier; "you must first transport me, with my three servants and such a kingly suite as becomes your vanquisher, to the court of Naples, and into a suitable lodging, which you will have prepared for me."

"It does not suit me, little bully, to have you diverting yourself, and triumphing at my expense."

"Very well. I will publish, with the sound of a clarion, that you have lost an ear. We shall see then if you can disguise yourself as a notary, lawyer, agent, money-lender, or lover, without being found out in less than no time."

"Now," whimpered Lucifer, after he had placed the cavalier in Naples, with great riches and an immense retinue, "give me my ear."

"I have it here," said the cavalier, "and I don't want it, for it smells of sulphur; but you have yet to fulfil the third condition."

"What is it, impudent upstart?"

"I am not quite ready to tell it. In the mean time, have patience, which, if it will not serve you to gain heaven, will be of use to you in getting back your ear."

Lucifer changed from poison to the essence of venom. "You are seven times worse than I," said he to his vanquisher. "By the soul of Napoleon! there is more knavery on earth than in hell. But you shall remember me! By my horns and tail, I swear it!" And off he went, pulling at his remaining ear for vexation at finding himself outwitted by a Christian.

Well, when the princess saw the cavalier so finely gotten up, and with such a splendid following, she recognized him, and told her father that he was her saviour! and that she wished to marry him. They were married; _and I was there, and saw, and came away, and nothing was said to me; for I slipped in and out without being seen_;[191] mindful of the saying, "Neither to wedding nor christening go unbidden."

But, señor, you must know that, after the wedding-bread was eaten, the princess and the cavalier led a cat-and-dog's life together; for the woman's temper and manners had become so bad and intolerable while she remained under the power of Lucifer that no one else could abide them. So, when the devil appeared to beg for his ear, the cavalier said to him,

"I am going to give it to you; but you must comply with the last condition I impose for its ransom."

"Knave! Mountebank! You would damn me if I were not damned already! And what is this last condition?"

"That you take my wife again," responded the cavalier; "for you are like for like, Peter for John."

FOOTNOTES:

[190] Vulcan.

[191] Manner of ending a tale.

THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

NUMBER TWO.

We intimated in our last number our intention of presenting each month to the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD an article on the progress, and, so far as we could, on the proceedings of the Vatican Council, now in session. We shall endeavor, in so doing, to state facts, the accuracy of which we can guarantee. Misstatements, silly, absurd, and not unfrequently mischievous, are sent by "our own correspondents," to fill the columns of hostile newspapers; and they may sometimes disturb the minds and sadden the hearts of the unwary. We wish to give such an account as shall correct such errors and misstatements, by an accurate and impartial statement of the truth. Our form of a monthly publication may subject us to some delay, and to the disadvantage of saying much which our readers will have already seen in the daily and weekly press. But on the other hand, it will secure for us fuller and more accurate knowledge of our subject than could be obtained at an earlier period, and may enable us, perhaps, to form a more mature judgment on many points. Our aim is to give a series of articles, which our readers may preserve and refer to hereafter. In writing them, we are guided by information derived from the best sources.

The amount and the variety of misstatements and of mistakes about the council and its doings, that have fallen even under our own eyes, would seem incredible. The talent of fiction seems to have attained a truly marvellous development. We tried to classify them. There were fictions to blame, and fictions to praise, fictions droll, fictions malicious, fictions stupid, fictions about persons, fictions about things, fictions about words, fictions about the past, fictions about the present, fictions in the shape of conjectures of the future, fictions gay and witty, fictions solemn and dull, fictions pious, and fictions blasphemous.

But then even this stream of incorrect statements, the result of imagination striving to eke out a scanty knowledge of facts, or of prejudice looking at every thing through a distorted medium, is poured forth to satisfy, if it can, the cravings of the public, and is an additional evidence of the intense and universal interest the Council of the Vatican has excited. Men may misrepresent it, they may hate it, or fear it. They cannot despise it. It seems they cannot be silent about it.

The time has not yet come to speak of the results of the deliberations of this venerable body. Perhaps it is well that it is so. As yet, our minds are still dazzled and preoccupied by the outward splendor and the striking external aspects of the council. Everywhere in Rome, you hear men commenting on these points, and comparing the present oecumenical council with those which the church has celebrated in the past centuries of her existence.

But once before in her history were so many bishops gathered together. In the second Lateran Council, assembled by Pope Innocent III., in 1139, about one thousand bishops united. The next largest number was at Chalcedon in 451, where six hundred and thirty bishops assembled; and next to that came the second Council of Lyons in 1274, under Gregory X., at which five hundred were present. Of the other councils, one had over four hundred bishops, five over three hundred, and the others all fell below that number.

Since the day of the opening not a few additional bishops have arrived, and the total number now taking part in the present council cannot fall below seven hundred and fifty. The Vatican Council stands, therefore, by a mere count of numbers second on the list. But, as a representation of the entire world, it far exceeds all that have preceded it.

The remarkable punctuality with which the council was opened is a subject of surprise and gratification, and may well be looked on as a signal evidence of the protection of divine providence. It has not always happened that councils could meet at the time and the place first indicated in the bull for their convocation. Sometimes only a comparatively small number of bishops could assemble; and weeks and months, and perhaps a year would pass by, before such a number could gather together as to render the opening of the council advisable. The difficulties of journeying were great. Oftentimes political jealousies, and the wars of nations, interfered to delay and embarrass, if they could not altogether thwart, the meeting, as well as the action of the council. Something of this kind was anticipated by many in the present instance. When, in 1867, Pius IX., in his address to the assembled bishops, stated his purpose of holding a sacred oecumenical council of the bishops of the whole world, in order that, with their united counsels and labors, necessary and salutary remedies might, by God's help, be applied to the many evils under which the church suffers, the heart of the Catholic world thrilled with delight. But among infidels and non-Catholics, and even lukewarm Catholics, or those of little faith, there was many a jest and many a sneer. Many a paper assured its readers that the council would not, could not assemble; and some, who thought themselves well informed, declared that before the day for opening it would arrive, Garibaldi would be in Rome, and Pius IX. a wanderer and a fugitive, far from the Vatican. Plans were even then being laid to bring this about; and, ere many months rolled by, a well-prepared and vigorous attempt was made to carry them into effect. The attempt signally failed. The battle of Mentana forbade its renewal in that shape for some time to come; and the storm, at one moment so threatening, passed by. The council was called, and the place and the day of its meeting appointed. What Garibaldi and his party had failed to effect by arms, diplomacy now attempted in another guise. The chief minister of a so-called Catholic power professed to entertain great apprehensions of the possible results of the council, and sent a secret circular to the courts of the other Catholic nations of Europe, urging the expediency of united action in such shape as might control the decisions of the council. Had the plan been adopted, and the spirit in which it was conceived been carried out in the details, the result would probably have been what the originators intended, and what indeed some of their papers announced to the world as already determined on. The council would have been postponed, perhaps would not have met at all. But this plan failed too. The circular was received coldly, and the proposal fell to the ground. Under the guiding hand of Providence, all was peaceful. The bishops (save those under the Czar of Russia) were free to travel in peace; and they came at the voice of the chief pastor. From the volcanic and coral islands of the Pacific, from Hudson's Bay and Labrador and Canada, from Brazil, La Plata, and Chili, from the golden shores of California, from rugged New England and the fertile valley of the Mississippi, from mysterious Egypt, and the classic isles of Greece, from the sacred hills and cities of Palestine and Syria, from the stricken remnants of Assyria and Media, from Persia, India, Burmah, Siam, and China, bishops were journeying toward the central city of the Catholic world. The antipodal Australia and New Zealand sent still others. From every country of Europe, Hungary, Bohemia, Illyria, Austria. Prussia, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, France, Spain, and Portugal, England, Holland, Belgium, Scotland, and Ireland, the Island of Saints, they came, not merely a few delegates, but it seemed the entire episcopal body _en masse_. Distance and difficulties of the journey were no obstacles; even old age and infirmities seemed to have lost the power of retaining these prelates at home. Among the arrivals in Rome over a score had passed eighty years of age, and one, not the least vigorous among them, had reached the mature age of ninety-five. And so it came to pass, under the blessing of Heaven, that in this nineteenth century, in which even that profound statesman and excellent Catholic, Count De Maistre, once said it would be simply impossible to convene a general council of the church, all difficulties have vanished, and without one hour's delay or postponement, the Vatican Council, exceeding all others save one in its number of prelates, and far surpassing that one in its intrinsic grandeur, was opened in the majestic Basilica of St. Peter, on the day and the hour originally appointed. We may trust that the blessing of Heaven will continue with it, and that its results will be commensurate with the prayers and hopes of the Catholic world, in promoting the glory of God, in establishing the kingdom of Christ our Lord on earth, and in leading men to Christian holiness and eternal life.

In our former article we gave an account of the grand spectacle presented at the opening session. In the present one, we will speak of the general congregations, or committees of the whole, as we would term them, in which most of the work is to be done. The curious observer will find here many of those old rules and forms from which the modern and civilized world has derived our existing codes of parliamentary rules. It is interesting to observe the points of agreement and of disagreement. For of later years, in our mundane parliaments, the strife of party spirit, and sometimes the necessity of settling a question by a given time, have brought in various devices unknown in those older and quieter assemblies for the purpose of shutting off debate, or overcoming the reluctance of a minority for a speedy vote.

An oecumenical council is, under one point of view, a deliberative assembly of the entire Catholic Church. The sovereign pontiff, who, as successor of St. Peter, the head of the apostolic college in the see of Rome, is head of the Catholic Church and the centre of unity, presides _ex-officio_. As his right and his power were not bestowed on him by the church, but were instituted by her Divine Founder as an essential part of her organization, it follows that they do not cease, or suffer suspension, on occasion of, or during the holding of a council.

His office in reference to councils has been recognized from the beginning. A Council of Alexandria, in their letter to Pope Felix II., in the year 362, wrote: "We know that in the great Council of Nice all the bishops unanimously declared that councils should not be held save with the judgment of the Roman pontiff," and Julius I., in his first letter to the eastern churches, appealed to the ancient laws of the church, which forbade "the holding of councils without the knowledge and assent of the Roman pontiff, because the Holy Roman Church held the primacy over all the churches." In the first place, then, an oecumenical council must be _summoned_ by the authority of the pope. In the second place, he _presides_ in the council _ex-officio_, either personally or by such legates as he may send. The First Council of Nice in Bithynia was held in 325. Three hundred and eighteen bishops were present, all of them (save half a dozen) patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops from the east. Osius, a bishop of Spain, and two priests from Rome, presided in the name of Pope Sylvester. Meletius of Antioch, and afterward St. Gregory of Nazianzum, presided in the name of Pope Damasus in the First Council of Constantinople, in 381. St. Cyril of Alexandria presided at the Council of Ephesus in 431, in the name of Pope St. Celestine I. St. Leo the Great sent two bishops, Pascasinus and Lucentius, and two priests, Boniface and Basil, who conjointly represented him, and presided over the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon, in the year 451. The same right has been exercised in every succeeding oecumenical council. Nor could it be otherwise. The body cannot be separated from the head without destroying the life of the church. The gates of hell would then have assuredly prevailed over her.

A third right and office of the sovereign pontiff in relation to oecumenical councils is that of _confirming_ and giving force to their decrees. His is the supreme duty and charge of confirming his brethren in the faith. Pope St. Damasus expressed the Catholic doctrine and practice on this head fifteen hundred years ago, when he wrote to the bishops of an African council, "You well know, that to hold councils without the authority and approval of the Roman see is not according to the Catholic spirit; nor do we meet any councils that are held as legitimate which were not supported by its apostolic confirmation." The words of Pope Damasus were then specially significant and emphatic. Not a quarter of a century before, in 363, six hundred bishops had assembled at Rimini, and, under pressure from the Emperor Constantius, had passed decrees which Pope Liberius reprobated. At once, and ever since, that Council of Rimini has been held as utterly destitute of authority.

An oecumenical council, therefore, to be truly such, must be convoked by the sovereign pontiff, or by his authority, must be presided over by him, either in person or by his legates, and its acts must be confirmed and sanctioned by him.

To say he has the duty of judging when the necessities or dangers of the church render it proper to summon a general council, in order to meet or to remedy them, implies obviously that he will propose to the council the matters on which he calls for their judgment and their coöperation with him. As president _ex-officio_, it is his duty to make such arrangements in accordance with the spirit of religion, and the usages of former councils, as will facilitate and expedite the action of the council, and allow the bishops to return as quickly as possible to their flocks.

In the present instance, the sovereign pontiff has done this chiefly by the brief, _Multiplices inter_, and by the labors of the five preparatory commissions, which have for nearly a year and a half been studying up the subjects which are to form a portion of the matter to be discussed and decided on by the council.

We have already spoken of this apostolic letter, _Multiplices inter_. It was dated November 27th, and having been printed in pamphlet form, was delivered to the bishops on December 2d, nearly a week before the opening of the council. There are ten chapters in it, several of which set forth the mode of procedure which will be followed in the council in the transaction of business.