CHAPTER II.

Swiftly the emigrant ship cut the blue waves, boldly her sails wooed the winds, and hearts that had been despondent at parting grew hopeful and buoyant as they neared the promised land.

Port at last; and, with a party of his countrymen, William Leyden sought the far West, and before many months had elapsed, the letters he dispatched to the loved ones at home contained not only assurance of his good fortune, but substantial tokens of the fact; and Mary wrote cheerfully and hopefully, ever looking forward to the time when they would be reunited.

For two years our brave Irishman struggled and toiled. Sometimes his heart would almost fail him when he thought of the ocean that intervened between him and his dearest treasures; but these sad thoughts were not familiar visitants, for unusual good fortune had attended his efforts. By the end of the second year he had cleared and planted several acres of rich, fruitful land, and the first flush of autumn saw the completion of as neat and compact a little dwelling as ever western pioneer could claim. Then went "home" the last letter, glowing with hope and promise, and sending wherewith to defray the expenses of wife and children, who were at length to rejoin him in the land where he had toiled for them so hard and so patiently.

"My heart is so light," Mary wrote to him; "my heart is so light that I can hardly feel myself walkin'; it seems to be flyin' I am all the time. And when I think of how soon I'll be near you, of how short the time till ye'll be foldin' yer arms about me, many and many's the time I'm cryin' for joy. Was there ever a happier woman? And Katie and Mamie haven't forgotten a line o' your face or a tone of your voice; ye'll not know them, Willy, they've grown so tall. My tears are all happy ones now, alanna; my prayers are all thankful ones, asthore machree."

How often Leyden read and reread this letter, its torn and ragged appearance might indicate, and as the intervening days sped by, each seemed longer than the last. Mary and the children were to come direct from New York with a party who also expected to meet friends in the West, and he felt quite easy as to their safety and companionship. But ever and anon, as the time drew near, he half reproached himself that he had not gone to meet them, a pleasure he had only foregone on account of his scanty resources.

At last they were in St. Louis--they would be with him in three days. How wearily those days dragged on. But the beautiful October morning dawned at last; a soft mist hung over the tree-tops, and the balmy breath of the Indian summer threw a subtle perfume over the thick forest and its wide stretch of meadow-land beyond.

It was fifteen miles to the nearest town, and fifteen more to the railway station. The earliest dawn saw William Leyden up and impatient to be away. In company with one of his old neighbors, he took his place in the rough wagon that was to figure so prominently in the "hauling home." About eight o'clock they reached their first stopping-place, where Leyden's friend had some little business to transact that would detain him a short time in the town.

Not caring to accompany him, too restless to sit still in the public room of the tavern, the impatient husband and father wandered into the spacious yard behind the house. A young girl stood washing and wringing out clothes near the kitchen door. Mechanically he took in every feature of the place; the long, low bench over which she leaned; her happy, careless face; her bare, red arms and wrinkled hands; the white flutter of garments from the loosened line; the green grass, where here and there others lay bleaching; the broken pump and disused trough; two or three calves munching the scattered herbage; in the distance a wide, illimitable stretch of prairie.

How well he remembered it all afterward!

As he stood watching her, the girl nodded smilingly and went on with her work. After a while she began to hum softly to herself. Leyden caught the sound, and listened. "What tune is that?" he asked eagerly. "Sing it loud."

"Shure I dunno," the girl answered. "I heard my grandmother sing it many's the time in the ould counthry, and I do be croonin' it over to mysel' sometimes here at my washin'."

"Have you the words of it a', colleen?" he inquired. "I'd give a dale to hear them again. 'Tis the song my own Mary likes best; and, thanks be to God! I'll hear her own sweet voice singin' it shortly. It's to meet her this mornin' I'm goin'--her and the childer, all the way from Ireland; but if ye have the words of it and will sing it for me, I'd like to hear it."

"Ayeh but you're the happy man, this day!" she replied. "I'm not much of a hand at singin', but I believe I have all the words, and I'm shure ye're welcome to hear them as well as I can give them."

With a preparatory cough and a modest little blush, the girl began in a timid voice the familiar melody. It was a sad, dirge-like air, as are so many of that sad, suffering land, "whose children weep in chains."

And yet it was not in itself a mournful song. Ever and anon the glad refrain broke forth exultingly and joyously from the monotone of the preceding notes.

Simple as were the words, they found a welcome in the heart of the listener; and unpretending as they seem written, they may find a like responsive echo in the heart of the Irish reader.

"My love he has a soft blue eye With silken lashes drooping; My love he has a soft blue eye With silken lashes drooping. Its glances are like gentle rays From heaven's gates down stooping, As bright as smiles of paradise, as truthful and serene. And when they shine upon me, I Am jewelled like a queen.

"My love he has the fondest heart That maiden e'er took pride in; My love he has the fondest heart That maiden e'er took pride in; 'Twas nurtured in that fair green land His fathers lived and died in; He holds us dear, his native land and me his dark Aileen; And just because he loves me, I am happy as a queen.

"My love he wraps me all around With his true heart's devotion; My love he wraps me all around With his true heart's devotion; With wealth more rare than India's gold, or all the gems of ocean. He clothes me with his tenderness, the deepest ever seen, And while I wear that costly robe, I'm richer than a queen.

"Oh! kindly does he soothe me when My trust is faint and low; Oh! kindly does he soothe me when My trust is faint and low; My joy is his delight and all My griefs are his, I know. In the spring-time he is coming, and I count the days between; For with such a royal king to rule, who would not be a queen?"

William Leyden wiped the tears from his eyes as the girl concluded the song.

"Thank you, dear. God bless you," he said, "for singin' me Mary's song!"

The next moment he saw his friend advancing toward him, and in another they had resumed their journey.

Not much was said on either side as they rode along. At intervals our hero's heart gave a great throb, almost painful in its joy, and once in a while he made some casual remark; but that was all.

As they neared their destination, they noticed an unusual stir and excitement in the vicinity; and as they approached the depot, they saw knots of men scattered at intervals, apparently engaged in discussing some event that had recently transpired.

"There must have been a fight hereabouts, Will," said his friend; "but as every minute will seem an hour to you now, we'll not stop to ask questions. The train has been in half an hour by this time. I wonder if Mary'll know ye with that great beard?"

Leyden had no time to answer him, for at that moment a man advanced from a crowd that blocked up the road in front of them, and, checking the horses, said quickly, "Can't drive any further. Way up yonder blocked with the wreck."

"What wreck?" exclaimed both men with a single voice. "Haven't heard about it?" he replied. "Down-train, this morning, met the up-train, behind time--collision--cars smashed--fifty or sixty killed--as many wounded--terrible accident--no fault anywhere, of course."

But he checked his volubility at sight of the white face that confronted him, and the strong, convulsive grasp that seized his hand. Then in a softened tone he said,

"Hope you an't expecting no one;" and moved back a pace.

There was no answer; for William Leyden had sprung from the wagon, dashing like a lunatic through the group of men on the road-side, and in an instant had cleared the hundred yards between him and the station.

The crowd that stood upon the platform made way for him as he advanced; for they felt instinctively that he had come upon a melancholy quest, and the man whom he had clutched violently as he asked, "Where are the dead?" pointed to the inner room, where lay the mangled corpses of the victims.

Alas! in a few minutes after he had stepped across the threshold his eye fell upon the corpse of a fair-haired little girl, beside whom, one arm half thrown across the child, a woman lay, with a calm, holy expression on her dead face. Just at her crushed feet, which some merciful hand had covered, the body of another child was lying; but the black, wavy hair had been singed, and the white forehead burned and scarred, and the little hands were quite disfigured.

And they had left the dear old land for this! They had borne poverty and separation, and the weariness of waiting; through lingering days of anticipation they had traversed miles upon miles of dangerous ocean to be dashed, on the threshold of a new life, at the portal of realization, into the pitiless, fathomless abyss of eternity! Ah! no; rather to be gathered into the arms of a merciful God--to be folded close to his heart, for ever and ever. Truly his ways are not our ways, and who can understand them?

In a moment more the husband and father had sunk upon his knees beside the lifeless group; but no words came from his lips save "Mauria, Mauria avourneen, acushla machree." Then he would pass his hands caressingly over the ghastly faces, pressing tenderly and often the little childish fingers in his own, and kissing the scarred and disfigured forehead.

He never knew who it was that bore him away from the dreadful spot; what hands prepared his loved ones for the grave, he never knew, and never asked to know. He only remembered waking momentarily from a stupor on that sad night, and seeing the benevolent face of the priest bending over him, and hearing something he was saying about Calvary and the cross, to which he replied half unconsciously, but with a feeling as though there were angels near him, "God's will be done."

TRANSLATED FROM THE HISTORISCH-POLITISCHE BLATTER.

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS.

The material for the biography of this remarkable man is not very abundant. More than a century after his death, Gassendi published a life of Copernicus in Latin; this life, however, was compiled from printed sources only. A German biography, by Westphal, appeared at Constance in 1822. In 1856, an anonymous author in Berlin wrote concerning Copernicus. Besides these we have essays by L. Prowe. Last of all, a life of Copernicus has appeared by Dr. Hipler; of which we purpose in this article to give a compendium.

There are nineteen folio volumes among the episcopal archives of Frauenburg, which contain the remnants of an uncommonly rich correspondence by Dantiscus, Bishop of Ermland, who was for a time the ambassador of Sigismond of Poland at the court of Charles V. Rich as this collection still remains, it is to be regretted that the greater part of it was carried off to Sweden by Gustavus Adolphus and his successors, to be there divided and scattered.

A portion of the fragments was collected and returned in 1833, upon a demand made by the Prussian government; another portion was subsequently discovered by Prowe in the library of the university of Upsal. Through the mediation of the Prussian minister of worship, this collection was put at the disposal of Dr. Hipler. In both collections, that of Frauenburg and that of Upsal, very interesting essays on Copernicus are contained. Of these Dr. Hipler has made good use, and thereby elucidated the history of the celebrated canon. According to Hipler's researches, the life of Copernicus may be summed up as follows:

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on the 19th of February, 1473, at Thorn. His father, "Niklas Copernigk," was a respectable merchant of extensive business relations. His mother Barbara was the daughter of Lucas Watzelrode, who left besides Barbara a son, also named Lucas, afterward Bishop of Ermland and the chief patron of his nephew Copernicus. It is probable, as Hipler shows, that after receiving primary instruction in the excellent schools of his native town, Copernicus completed his third and fourth years' course in the high-school of Kulm. In the autumn of 1491, we find him matriculated at the university of Cracow, which was then famous for the remarkable ability of its professor of mathematics, Adalbert Blar, commonly known as Brudjewski.

It was in this university that the foundations were laid of the subsequent success of Copernicus in astronomy. He commented already on the writings of the great astronomers, Peurbach and Regiomonban; and he afterward declared that he was indebted for the principal part of his learning to the university of Cracow; a fact to be attributed, without doubt, to the superior instructions of Brudjewski.

At the expiration of four years, being then twenty-two, he returned to Prussia, where he obtained from his uncle, the bishop a canonry at Frauenburg in 1495. A statute of the chapter required that every canon who had not received a degree in theology, jurisprudence, or medicine, should before taking rank enter one of the chartered universities, and there during three years apply himself without interruption to one of the three afore-mentioned branches. Copernicus not being a graduate, went to Bologna in 1497, and there gave his attention to law. His choice of this branch of learning was determined by the circumstance of his being a member of the cathedral chapter, which naturally constituted the senate or council of the bishop, who in those days was also a temporal sovereign. We can easily conceive that the youthful canon would make special endeavors to excel in his department, that he might by the eminence of his knowledge be able to cast a veil, as it were, over his great youth. We know nothing further concerning his legal studies, but the skill with which as ambassador of the chapter and administrator of the diocese he defended, both orally and by writing, the privileges of the seignory of Ermland against the aggressions of the German order clearly proves that he had passed his three years in the study of law with great success.

At Bologna, his legal studies did not hinder him from perfecting his mathematical and astronomical acquirements. An efficient aid to him for this purpose was his intercourse with the learned Dominican, Maria of Ferrara. It seems that he first led Copernicus to doubt the truth of the system of Ptolemy. It is possible, also, that through him he became acquainted with Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy, and its theory regarding the motion of the earth. In 1499, Copernicus was still sojourning at Bologna, where he experienced the common misfortune of students, financial embarrassment. The maintenance of his brother Andrew, who had followed him to that city, occasioned him considerable expense; but he was finally rescued from his troubles by his uncle, the bishop. In 1500, we find him at Rome lecturing on mathematics before a large assembly of hearers. He returned to Frauenburg with the resolution, however, to revisit Italy at any cost. It was a cause of annoyance to him, as he himself discloses, that the motion of the great mechanism of the world, devised for our sake by the greatest and most orderly of artificers, had not been more clearly and satisfactorily explained. That he might enter upon this investigation with a greater prospect of success, he determined to learn Greek also; for the acquisition of which, Italy alone at that period afforded good opportunities. He therefore, in 1501, applied to the chapter for another leave of absence for two years. At the same time his brother Andrew, who had become a canon, requested permission to enter upon the three years' course prescribed by a statute of the chapter.

Copernicus pledged himself, in case his brother's request was granted, to apply during his stay in Italy to the study of medicine also, that he might afterward act as physician to the chapter. The chapter had previously numbered among its members a practical physician, whose death had left in their midst a painful void. From this circumstance it is plain that Copernicus had not as yet received any of the higher orders; nor did he subsequently receive any; for the practice of medicine, including, as it necessarily did, dissecting and searing, constituted an irregularity which debarred from holy orders.

Moreover, Mauritius, Bishop of Ermland, wrote in 1531 that his chapter had but one priest among its members. Copernicus had probably received minor orders only; nor does he mention himself that he ever received any others.

In 1501, with the consent of the chapter, he went to Padua, began the study of medicine, made himself master of Greek, had frequent intercourse with Nicolaus Passara, and Nicolaus Vernia, of the Aristotelian school of philosophy, and, after graduating in medicine, returned to Frauenburg in 1505.

At the episcopal residence of Heilberg he served as private physician to his uncle, and took a lively interest in the extensive projects and undertakings of that prelate. One of these projects was the establishment of a high-school at Elbing. It failed, however, in consequence of the narrow prejudices of the people of that town, who were opposed to having many strangers in their midst The failure of this enterprise is much to be regretted; for without a doubt this institution would have afforded a fine field for the intellectual activity of the great astronomer. His life under these circumstances continued to be simply that of a physician and canonist. His monumental work on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies progressed in secret, according as the ailments of members of the chapter and the lawsuits of Ermland left him leisure for such occupation.

In his case, as in the case of so many others, modesty exhibits itself as the characteristic of genius and true greatness. After the death of his uncle, in 1512, Copernicus returned to Frauenburg, where the residence of the canons on the banks of the Haff, affording an unobstructed view, presented great facilities for astronomical observations. Here he continued to enjoy much popularity as a physician. It must, however, be admitted that a prescription and a _regimen sanitatis_ which we have from him show that he possessed but the limited science of those times. Still he enjoyed the confidence of the people. His brother Andrew, who was afflicted with a species of leprosy, engaged much of his attention.

From 1512 to 1523, Fabian Tettinger was Bishop of Ermland. At his decease, Copernicus was chosen by the chapter as administrator. When he had filled this office for nearly one year, Mauritius Ferber became bishop, and administered the diocese from 1523 to 1537. This prelate, who also was an invalid, placed great reliance on the medical skill of the learned canon.

After his death, Copernicus was associated with three others on the list of candidates for the bishopric. But Dantiscus, Bishop of Kulm, the same who has left the valuable manuscripts for the biography of Copernicus, was nominated. The canon lived on terms of the closest intimacy with this prelate.

At the very beginning of his administration, the new bishop was attacked by a dangerous illness; which, however, the skill of Copernicus succeeded so effectually in relieving, that the bishop was enabled to undertake a long journey as a special envoy. Copernicus rendered effective medical assistance to his friend also, and former classmate, Tiedemann Giese, who in 1538 had been appointed Bishop of Kulm. Tiedemann prevailed on him to dedicate his work on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies to Pope Paul III.; and in return, at the instance of Copernicus, composed a work, entitled _Antilogicon_, against the errors of Luther; a circumstance which is of decisive significance as regards the religious views of the great astronomer. They lived together thirty years on terms of the most intimate friendship. Duke Albrecht also summoned him to Königsberg to the sick-bed of one of his jurists, notwithstanding that Königsberg boasted several physicians of eminence.

In 1539, Joachim Rheticus, then twenty-six years of age, who had been for two years associated with Luther and Melancthon, came from Wittenberg to Frauenburg to place himself under the tuition of Copernicus. In a work which has not been preserved, he described the impression made on him by the astronomer. There is, however, another production from the same pen, _Rhetici Narratio Prima_, in which much is said about Copernicus, and which is, consequently, a valuable source of information for his biographer. Rheticus is full of admiration for his instructor. It was he who superintended the publication of the latter's famous work, which appeared at Nuremberg, in 1542. Rheticus repaired to that town expressly for this purpose.

But the last moments of the great scholar were drawing near. After an illness of six months, fortified with the rites of the church, he died on the 24th of May, 1543, yielding up his spirit to Him "in whom is all happiness and every good," as he expresses himself in the preface of his work, the first printed copy of which was placed in his hands on the day of his death.

Such is the miniature biography given by Dr. Hipler of the great reformer of astronomy. We would gladly have learned more about his political career, which Hipler only notices in passing. It is to be hoped that he will some day present us with a full-sized portrait of his great countryman.

Dr. Hipler has, however, succeeded in establishing, on documentary evidence, drawn from archives, the chronology of the life of Copernicus, which rested before on the unsustained authority of Gassendi. He has, likewise, exhibited in a clear light, and with that certainty which results only from the study of reliable sources, the education, teachers, friends, and offices of Copernicus, the origination of his system, and the attitude he assumed in regard to the Reformation.

We have seen that his attitude was decidedly unfriendly. Hence, it naturally occurred to his biographer to show how the reformers were affected toward Copernicus. Protestant writers generally indulge in the strange fancy that all the great minds of the period of the Reformation belong to their ranks; and it is almost a subject of surprise that Copernicus escaped an inscription on the monument raised to Luther, at Worms. No doubt, however, at Luther's feet would have been an uncomfortable place for the man of whom we read in Luther's _Table-Talk_: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens, or the firmament, the sun and moon.... But such is now the state of things. Whoever wishes to appear clever, must devise some new system which of all systems is, of course, the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy. But sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

Later on, Melancthon wrote in a work entitled, _De Initiis Doctrinæ Physicæ_: "The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty or to make a display of their ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves, and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves. Now, although these clever dreamers find many ingenious things wherewith to recreate their minds, it is, nevertheless, a want of honesty and decency to assert such absurd notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God, and to acquiesce in it."

Both reformers condemned the system of Copernicus, as opposed to the teaching of the sacred Scriptures.

How differently did Rome deal with the doctrine of Copernicus! From an entry made in the _Codex Græcus_, CLI., in the State Library of Munich, it appears that as early as 1533, Clement VII. had the learned Widmanstadt to explain the system to him in the gardens of the Vatican, and that he recompensed Widmanstadt for his services with the gift of the Greek work above mentioned. The entry in the book, setting forth these facts, was made by the hand of the recipient of the gift.

Paul III. accepted the dedication of the work of Copernicus. The sentence pronounced on Galileo by the Congregation of the Index was never ratified by the pope, and was actually afterward revoked. The Catholic Church has always ignored that extravagant notion of inspiration, so justly censured by Lessing, according to which the Bible is to be received as a text-book even of astronomy, geography, and other natural sciences.

The importance of the system of Copernicus cannot be over-rated. It was a bold and successful attempt to explain the mechanism of the world. According to his theory, the world was no longer to be considered the centre of the universe, but merely a wandering planet of an inferior order. Its _rôle_ in the economy of the spheres seemed to be that of the lost sheep which the Good Shepherd came to find. The system of Copernicus contained also a caution against trusting over-much to those appearances which are made known to us by the senses, and against attending to the dead-letter of the Bible merely. Hence it was calculated to exert an influence in other departments of science, as well as in that of astronomy. At first it met with no sympathy. The inhabitants of Elbing, who had refused the university with which Lucas Watzelrode felt disposed to present them, were the first to exhibit a burlesque play directed against Copernicus. The people of Nuremberg had a medal struck, whereon were ironical inscriptions directed against him. Nevertheless, his discovery gradually won the recognition of the intelligent scientific world.

In searching the archives of Ermland, Dr. Hipler has met with two pictures, the one of Luther, the other of Copernicus--both from the pen of Dantiscus, the last spiritual superior of the latter--between which there exists so great a contrast that he has thought it worth while to give them to the public. As has been already observed, Dantiscus was at one time the ambassador of Sigismond of Poland at the court of Charles V. He had travelled over nearly one half of the globe, had been at all the European courts, and also in Asia and Africa. He was a great admirer and patron of literary and scientific accomplishments, and he corresponded with many statesmen and men of learning, among whom were Wicel, Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury, Melancthon, Cochlæus, and others. In 1523, happening to be in the neighborhood of Wittenberg, a desire to see Luther, rather inordinate, as he himself acknowledges, took possession of him. Luther consented to see him. The following is Dantiscus's account of the interview: "We sat down and entered upon a conversation which lasted four hours. I found the man witty, learned, and fluent; but I also noticed that he uttered scarce any thing but sarcasm and invectives against the pope, the emperor, and several other princes. Were I to attempt to write it all down, the day would pass before I would have done. Luther's countenance resembles his books. His eyes are sharp, and sparkle with the weird fire to be noticed in lunatics. His manner of speaking is violent, and full of irony and ridicule. He dresses so as not to be distinguished from a courtier. He seems like a first-rate boon companion. So far as holiness of life is concerned, which some have attributed to him, he differs not at all from the rest of us. Haughtiness and vanity are very apparent in him; in abusing, slandering, and ridiculing he observes no moderation whatever." The comparison between Luther and Copernicus which then follows is indeed very instructive:

"It would be difficult to imagine a more decided contrast than exists between these two men, the dates of whose birth and death differ but by a few short years. For indeed, to say nothing of the striking dissimilarity in talents, disposition, and other particulars, what could be more unlike than the character and destiny of the great revolutions in the sphere of intellect which were originated by the gigantic powers of these men? On the one hand, we behold reason, through an excessively mystic tendency, enslaved to a blind faith--in fact, stifled; and faith itself, as a consequence, deprived of its foundation, lifeless and powerless. On the other hand, we behold reason in a wisely adjusted harmony with faith and science, triumphing over the dead-letter of the Bible, the deceiving testimony of sense, and every other illegitimate influence, and thereby imparting firmness to faith in the suprasensible, and in all real authority.

"On the one hand, we perceive the joyous acclaim with which the Reformation was at first hailed, and the general desertion, at the present day, of the principle of salvation by faith alone, a principle destructive of all church organization. On the other hand, we behold the universal recognition, at the present time, of the system of Copernicus, which, at its first appearance, was assailed with mockery, and branded with the title of revolutionary."

Dr. Hipler has plainly shown that Copernicus belongs to the Catholic ranks. The question now arises, Does he belong also to Germany? Politically, the bishopric of Ermland was in his time under Polish dominion. Nevertheless, to say nothing of the quiet, modest, and genial industry which Copernicus seems to have possessed as a German inheritance, it is certain that not only he, but also his mother, wrote letters in German; and a Greek inscription in a book belonging to his library shows that his name was pronounced Kópernik, with the German accent. Justly, therefore, does his statue occupy a place in the Walhalla of Ludwig I.

THE CHURCH BEYOND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

The States and territories of the Pacific coast are, in many respects, "a land apart" from the rest of the Union. Separated from the other States by an immense tract of unsettled territory, no inconsiderable part of which must ever continue a desert, as well as by the great barrier of the Rocky Mountains, the western slope of that chain presents to the new-comer an aspect not less different from the shores of the Atlantic than the latter differ from the countries of Europe. The climate, with its semi-tropical division of wet and dry seasons, the evidently volcanic formation of its surface, the huge mountain chains, with all their accessories of valleys, precipices, torrents, and cataracts, which occupy most of its area, and the peculiar vegetation that covers its soil, all wear a foreign appearance to an Eastern visitor; and the people themselves, though forming an integral part of his own nation, are scarcely less strange to his eyes. Men of races hardly known on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains meet him at every step; and not only do the different European and Asiatic races retain their national customs and characters much more tenaciously than the immigrant population of the Eastern States, but they have very considerably modified the character of their American fellow-settlers. The way in which California, and, to a considerable degree, Oregon, were settled was altogether different from the usual system of colonization which has added so many States to the Union, from Ohio to Nebraska, and from Mississippi and Texas to Minnesota. The journey to the Pacific coast before the completion of the Pacific Railroad involved as complete a separation from home associations, and as great a change from early habits, to an American, as does the voyage across the Atlantic to the European immigrant; and at its end he found himself in a country entirely different, both physically and socially, from all that he had been previously accustomed to. The influence of the old Spanish settlements, in which for years was to be found the only established society of the country, the mixture of men of all the European races on a footing of perfect equality in the pursuit of wealth, and the peculiarly adventurous and uncertain nature of mining life, which long formed the chief employment of the whole population, all tended to rub off the new-comers' national peculiarities and prejudices; and the result has been the growth of a well-marked national character among the few hundred thousand inhabitants of the Pacific coast.

Amid this cosmopolitan population the Catholic Church has taken firm root, and in no other part of the country does she reckon as large a proportion of the people within her fold, or exercise more influence over the public mind. She had preceded the march of American enterprise and the rush of gold-seekers on the shores of the Pacific; and when the pioneers of the new population pushed their way across the continent and descended the slope of the Sierra Nevada, they found her missions already established in California. While the American Republic was yet a thing of the future, and the west of the Alleghanies was still an almost untrodden wilderness, Catholic priests had already begun to gather into the fold of Peter the tribes beyond the Rocky Mountains. In the early half of the eighteenth century, the Jesuit Reductions of Lower California were only less famous than those of Paraguay; and to the zeal of the Franciscans who succeeded the Jesuits in 1767, Upper California owes the introduction of Christianity and civilization. In 1769, or a few months more than one hundred years ago, Father Junipero Lerra, with a company of his Franciscan brethren and a few Mexican settlers, founded the mission of San Diego, the first settlement made by civilized men within what is now the State of California. Before that year, indeed, although the ports of Monterey and San Diego were well known to the Spanish navigators, no European had ever penetrated into the interior of California, and even the existence of the noble bay of San Francisco was unknown to the civilized world until it was discovered and named by the humble friars. The salvation of souls, the hope of making known to the Indians the doctrines of Catholicity, were the motives which inspired the Franciscans to undertake a task which had long been deemed impracticable by the Spanish court in spite of its anxiety to extend its dominions to the north of Mexico. To raise up the despised aborigines to the dignity of Christian men, to show them the road to eternal happiness in another life, and, as a means to that end, to promote their well-being in this world, such were the objects for whose attainment the devoted missionaries separated themselves from their native land and the society of civilized men, to spend their lives among savages, who often rewarded their devotion only by shedding their blood. The Indians of California are in every respect a much inferior race to the tribes on the east of the Rocky Mountains. Many of them went wholly naked, they had no towns or villages, and although the country abounded in game, they were indifferent hunters, and depended mainly for subsistence on wild berries, roots, and grasshoppers. In tribal organization they were little if at all superior to the Australian savages, and of religious worship or morality they had scarcely an idea. Many of the southern tribes, especially, were fierce and warlike, and belonged to a kindred race to the Apaches, who still set at defiance all the attempts of the United States government to dislodge them from Arizona. Such were the men from whom the Franciscans undertook to form a Christian community; and of their success in so doing, the history of California for over sixty years is an irrefragable witness.

In spite of occasional outbreaks of hostility on the part of the Indians, and the destruction by them of a mission, the whole of the region between the coast range and the ocean, as far north as the Bay of San Francisco, was studded with such establishments before the close of the century. Fifteen thousand converted Indians enjoyed under the mild sway of the Franciscans a degree of prosperity almost unparalleled in the history of their race. The missions, which were eighteen in number, differed in size and importance, but were all conducted on the same general plan. The church and the community buildings, including the residence of the fathers, the store-houses and workshops, formed the centre of a village of Indian huts, the inhabitants of which were daily summoned by the church bells to mass, as a prelude to their labors, and again in the evening called back to rest by the notes of the Angelus. Religious instruction was given to all on Sundays and holidays, and to the newly converted and the children also. At other times during the day, the men worked at agricultural labor, or looked after the cattle belonging to the mission, and the unmarried women were employed at spinning, or some other labor suited to their strength, in a building specially provided for the purpose. The fathers, two or more of whom resided in each Reduction, were the rulers, the judges, the instructors, and the directors of work of their neophytes, who held all property in common. The white population was few in number, consisting mainly of small garrisons at different posts, intended to hold the wild Indians in awe, and some families of settlers who were chiefly engaged in stock-raising. The military commandant, who resided at Monterey, might be regarded as the governor of the country; but the fathers and their converts were entirely exempt from his jurisdiction, and were independent of all authority subordinate to the Spanish crown. The mission farms usually sufficed for the support of their inhabitants, but the external expenses of the communities were defrayed by a subsidy from the Spanish government and the "pious fund" of Spain, an association very similar to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

Such was the condition of California down to the end of the Spanish rule; and during the whole of that period, and for several years afterward, the missions continued to grow in numbers and prosperity. The payments of the government subsidy and the remittances from the pious fund became indeed very uncertain and irregular during the struggle of Mexico for independence; but the industrial condition of the missions was then such that they stood no longer in need of external aid, and indeed they were able to contribute largely to the support of the administration of the territory. The establishment of the Mexican Republic made for some years little change in the condition of the missions of California, and the services rendered by the fathers to civilization were more than once acknowledged by the Mexican Congress. But the mission property was too tempting a bait to the needy revolutionists who disputed for supreme power in that ill-starred country. In 1833, a decree of Congress deprived the Franciscans of all authority over the missions, and placed their property in the hands of lay administrators. The Indians were to receive certain portions of land, and some stock individually, and the rest was to be applied to the use of the state. The results were such as might be expected from the history of similar confiscation in foreign lands. The fruits of sixty years' patient toil were wasted during a few years of riotous plundering, in the name of state administration; the cattle belonging to the missions were stolen or killed; the churches and public works allowed to fall into ruin; the cultivation of the soil neglected; and the unfortunate Indians, deprived of their protectors, and handed over to the tender mercies of "liberal" officials, wandered away in thousands from their abodes, and either perished or relapsed into barbarism. The population of the missions in nine years dwindled from upward of thirty to little over four thousand Indians; and when their property was sold at auction in 1845, its value had fallen from several millions to a mere nothing. The native Spanish Californians, who clearly saw the fatal results of the overthrow of the missions to the prosperity of the country, made several attempts to restore them to their former condition, but in vain. The constant revolutions of which Mexico was the theatre effectually prevented such a restoration, and the fate of the Indians was sealed by the political changes which shortly afterward threw the country into the hands of another race and another government. Under the American _régime_ they have dwindled to less than one tenth of their former numbers, and, with the exception of a certain number of the converts of the Franciscans, who have adopted partially the usages of civilized life, and become amalgamated with the Spanish population, the whole race seems doomed to disappear from the land.

Serious, however, as was the blow which the church received from the overthrow of the Franciscan missions, she did not abandon her hold upon California. From the date of Father Lerra's arrival in the country, a small stream of Spanish or Mexican immigration had been flowing into it, and building up its "pueblos" near, but altogether distinct from, the mission establishments. The separation of the races was one of the points jealously attended to by the Franciscans, as essential to the success of their civilizing efforts among the Indians; and the Indian churches and Indian cemeteries, which still remain in several of the missions, at a short distance from the Spanish churches and Spanish burying-grounds, show how far this policy was carried out. The experience of centuries of mission work had taught the Franciscans that free intercourse between a civilized and an uncivilized race invariably leads to the demoralization of both, and much of their success must be ascribed to the care with which they kept their neophytes apart from the white settlements. The latter, at the time of the secularization, contained a population of some five or six thousand, and, including the half-civilized Indians who still remained around the missions, the whole Catholic population probably amounted to fifteen thousand at the epoch of the American conquest. For the benefit of this population, after the overthrow of the missions, the holy see established in 1840 the diocese of California, including the peninsula of Lower California within its boundaries.

Had Upper California continued a portion of the Mexican republic, there would have probably been little difference between its ecclesiastical history and that of Sonora or Chihuahua; but the American conquest, and still more the subsequent discovery of gold in the Sacramento River, entirely changed the face of affairs. The crowd of immigrants that flocked into the country was so great as to reduce the original population to comparative insignificance in a few months. A single year sufficed to quadruple the number of inhabitants, and two to increase it tenfold. The new population was indeed a strange one. American it was in its dominant political elements, but fully one half of it was made up of natives of other countries than the United States. Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, English, Mexicans, South Americans, Indians, Kanakas, and Chinese all poured by thousands into the New Eldorado, which might with equal justice be styled the modern Babel. Seldom has so radical a change taken place in the population of a country in so short a time, and the church, if she did not wish to lose the territory she had conquered with so much toil, had to commence her mission work over again, and under entirely different circumstances from those under which the Franciscans had begun the work. A very large number of the new-comers were Catholics; but in the excitement of gold-seeking, the hold of religion on their minds had been seriously loosened, and a reckless disregard of all social and moral restraint pervaded the whole population. To restore the sway of religion over minds that had forgotten it, to provide priests, churches, schools, and all the various institutions of Catholic charity, for thousands of her own children, and to make known her doctrines to a still larger number of those who did not belong to her fold, such was the task before the church in California, and to its accomplishment she addressed herself almost as soon as the first immigrants landed in San Francisco.

A frame church, the first in California, was erected in that city for the use of the Catholic miners in 1849, and, as the different "camps" sprang up through the State, other churches were rapidly built up in the more important centres of population. The following year, a new diocese was formed of the territory lately acquired by the United States, and its government intrusted to the Right Reverend Bishop (now Archbishop) Allemany, who was called to that office from his Dominican convent in Kentucky. The new bishop lost no time in hastening to his post, and began his arduous task with rare wisdom and energy. The ranks of the secular clergy were largely recruited from various countries; the Jesuits, who had long been engaged in evangelizing the Indians of Oregon, were installed in the old mission of Santa Clara; a branch of the Sisters of Notre Dame was established in the neighboring town of San José; and the Sisters of Charity took charge of an orphan asylum and hospital in San Francisco.

All this had been done before the close of 1853, or in the height of the excitement of the early colonization, an excitement such as it is hard for the sober dwellers of more settled communities to form any idea of. The population of California resembled an ill-disciplined army rather than a well-ordered community; the immense majority of its members had neither families, fixed abodes, nor permanent occupations, and were ready to rush anywhere at the slightest rumor of rich "diggings." The mines were the great centre of attraction to all, and, as the old ones were worked out or new ones discovered, the entire population moved from one part of the country to another. Towns were built up only to be abandoned in a few months, and even San Francisco itself, in spite of its unrivalled commercial position, more than once was nearly deserted by its inhabitants. Fortunes were made or lost in a few hours, not merely by a few bold speculators, but by every class of the people; and the wild excitements which now and then cause such commotion in Wall street, were constantly paralleled in every mining camp of California. The sudden acquisition of fortune was the hope of every man; and while men were thus uncertain about what position they might occupy on the morrow, few cared to settle down to the routine of domestic life. Except among the Spanish Californians, scarcely any families were to be found in the country, and the standard of morality was such as might be expected under the circumstances. Laws there were, indeed, but the authorities were utterly unable to enforce them, and bullies and duellists settled their quarrels with arms, even on the streets of San Francisco, unchecked by police interference. Murderers and robbers promenaded the towns unmolested, and the idea of official honesty, or of seeking redress for wrongs at the hands of the law, was deemed too absurd to be entertained by a sensible man. Vigilance committees, the last refuge of society seeking to save itself from destruction, offered almost the only protection to persons and property that could be had in many districts. Bands of desperadoes, such as the "hounds" in San Francisco, and Joaquin's gang in the southern counties, openly set the law at defiance, and, in the fever of gold-seeking that pervaded the whole community, no force could be obtained to make it respected.

Such was the population of California when Bishop Allemany commenced his episcopal career; and the prospect of making religion flourish on such a soil was indeed such as might well dismay a fainter heart. Nevertheless he addressed himself to the task, and his toils were not unrewarded. Gradually but decidedly, the moral character of California began to improve, and the more glaring offences against public decency to grow rare. The rush of immigrants slackened in 1852, and something like settled society began to form among the older residents. Of the agents which helped to bring order out of the social chaos of "'49," none was more powerful than the influence of the Catholic Church. Most of the Protestant population had thrown off all allegiance to any sect, and this fact, while it contributed to make them to a great extent regardless of the rules of morality, had at least the good effect of banishing anti-Catholic prejudices from their minds. The church and her institutions were regarded with much respect by all classes in California, even at the time when the Know-Nothing movement was exciting such a storm of fanaticism in the Eastern States. Many Americans had married Catholic wives, or been long settled among the Spanish Californians; the history of the Franciscan missionaries was well known to all, and their devotedness appreciated by Catholics and Protestants alike. All these causes combined to give Catholicity considerable importance in the public opinion, and lent immense strength to her efforts in behalf of morality and religion. Catholic charities stood high in the public favor; the public hospital of San Francisco, after an experience of official management which swept away no small portion of the city property, was intrusted to the charge of the Sisters of Charity; Catholic schools for a long time shared in the public school funds; and Catholic asylums and orphanages were liberally aided by the public. Bishop Allemany was not slow in taking advantage of this favorable state of public feeling to provide his diocese with Catholic institutions. New churches were erected all over the State; schools established wherever it was practicable; and so great progress made generally that, in less than three years after his arrival in San Francisco, it became necessary to divide his diocese. The southern counties of the State, comprising most of the Spanish Californians among its inhabitants, were formed into the diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles in 1853. At the same time San Francisco was raised to the archiepiscopal rank. The membership of the Protestant churches of all denominations in the State was then almost nominal, scarcely amounting to two per cent of the population, while the Catholics formed at least thirty per cent. The public, as a general rule, regarded the Catholic Church as _the_ church, and this feeling to a great extent still prevails.

For some years after the erection of the diocese of Monterey, there was little increase in the population of California; indeed, owing to the falling off in the yield of the precious metals, and the discovery of new mines in the neighboring territories, there was at times a considerable decrease in its numbers; nevertheless, the number of Catholics continued to increase, owing partly to the large proportion of Irish among the later immigrants, and partly to the natural growth of the Catholic population, which was more settled than the rest of the community. A further division of the archdiocese of San Francisco was found necessary in 1861. The northern portion of the State, with the adjoining territories of Nevada and Utah, was formed into the Vicariate of Marysville, which was subsequently raised to the rank of a bishopric, with its see at Grass Valley.

Since that period no changes have been made in the episcopal divisions of California; but the second order of the clergy, the Catholic population, Catholic institutions, and Catholic churches have continued to grow in numbers. At present, the proportion of priests to the whole population is nearly three times greater in California than the average for the whole of the Union, being about one priest to every three thousand five hundred inhabitants; while throughout the United States the average does not exceed one to ten thousand. Nevertheless, owing to the extent of the country over which the population is scattered, and the very large proportion of Catholics in it, there is still a great want of more priests and churches, and it will doubtless be some years before it can be adequately supplied.

In no State of the Union have the religious orders taken deeper root or thriven better than in California. The Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Jesuits, the Vincentians, the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Charity, of Mercy, of Notre Dame, of the Presentation, of the Sacred Heart, and of the order of St. Dominic, all have establishments within its boundaries.

The Franciscans, as we have seen, were the pioneers of Christianity in California, and, in spite of the oppression of the Mexican government, they have never abandoned the land. A number of them continued to attend to the spiritual wants of the population, both Spanish and Indian, after the control of the latter had been taken from them, and the order has shared in the growth of the church since the American conquest. Two of their former mission establishments are still in their hands, in the diocese of Monterey, in which they have also two schools.

The Vincentians have the only establishment they possess in California in the same diocese, where they opened a college some two and a half years ago, and have since conducted it with considerable success. Los Angeles City also possesses an orphan asylum and a hospital, under the management of the Sisters of Charity, and there are several convents of nuns in different parts of the diocese.

The Jesuits were the first missionaries of California, though the tyrannical suppression of their order, and the barbarous exile of its members from the dominions of the king of Spain, prevented them from extending their spiritual conquests beyond the peninsula of Lower California. It was not until after the American conquest that they were permitted to enter Upper California; but as soon as that event opened the country to them, their entry was not long delayed. In 1851, several fathers of the society, who had been previously engaged in the Indian missions of Oregon, arrived in California, and were put in possession of the old Franciscan Mission at Santa Clara, about fifty miles south of San Francisco. There they founded a college, which at present ranks perhaps first among the institutions of learning on the Pacific coast, and is one of the largest houses of the order on the American continent. The crusade against the monastic orders, which had been inaugurated in Italy shortly before, proved highly profitable to California, as a large number of Italian Jesuits were thus obtained for Santa Clara. A second college was subsequently opened in San Francisco, which has attained an equal degree of prosperity with the older academy, and, in addition, the parishes of Santa Clara and San José are administered by the priests of the order. Altogether, the Jesuits number about thirty priests, and as many, or rather more, lay brothers in California. In the internal administration of the order, California is dependent on the provincial of Turin in Italy, whence most of its missionaries came, and has no connection with the provinces established in the Eastern States. It possesses a novitiate of its own at Santa Clara, and only requires a house of studies to have all the organization of a province complete in itself.

The Dominicans are also established in the archdiocese of San Francisco, where they have a convent at Benicia on the Sacramento River, besides furnishing pastors to several other parishes. The archbishop himself is a member of the order, which well maintains in California its reputation for learning and strictness of discipline. Several of the Californian Dominicans, including the archbishop, are natives of Spain, but the majority are Irish or Irish-Americans. The Dominican nuns also have a convent and academy at Benicia, which ranks deservedly high among the educational institutions of the State; and a free school in San Francisco, which affords instruction to several hundred children.

The Christian Brothers are, in point of time, the newest of the religious orders in California, having only come to the State some two years ago, at the invitation of Archbishop Allemany. Their system of education is eminently adapted to the requirements of her people, as is shown by the rapid success of their first college, which already numbers more than two hundred and twenty resident students. The marked success which has so far attended the efforts of the brothers gives every reason to believe that they (and it may be added, they alone) can solve the great problem of Catholic education in California, which is, how to provide Catholic common schools for the children of the working-classes. Those classes there, as everywhere else throughout the Union, form the bulk of the Catholic population, and desire to procure for their little ones the advantage of schooling. If possible, they wish to obtain it from Catholic sources; but if this cannot be, they will, there is ground to fear, avail themselves of the educational facilities offered by the State schools, even at the risk of their children's faith. As the number of these children must be reckoned by tens of thousands, the task of providing them with suitable education is no easy one; but the object and spirit of the order instituted by the venerable De La Salle, and the success which has attended its system of parochial schools in Missouri and other States, give good grounds to hope that it will prove equal to the work that lies before it in California, where the circumstances of the country are peculiarly favorable to the growth of Catholic institutions. Nowhere else has anti-Catholic bigotry less power in the government, or is public opinion more favorable to the church; and though the infidel common-school system finds strong support in a numerous class, yet we believe that in no part of the Union can the battle for religious education be fought out under more favorable auspices. The urgent need that exists for Catholic schools at present, may be judged of from the fact that while the different colleges and boarding-schools under the management of the Jesuits, Franciscans, Christian Brothers, and Vincentians, provide education for about a thousand boys, the Catholic common schools throughout the State contain a number scarcely greater, or less than a tenth of their due proportion. Female education is better provided for in this respect. The Presentation and Dominican Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity and Mercy, have about four thousand pupils in their free schools in San Francisco, and there are also several similar establishments in different parts of the State; but even these are inadequate to the wants of the Catholic population, and in California, as in the Eastern States, the problem of how to provide schooling for the children of the poor is the most serious and difficult one that the church has to solve.

California, in proportion to its population, is rich in institutions for the relief of suffering and distress. The male and female orphan asylums in the dioceses of San Francisco, Grass Valley, and Monterey maintain about six hundred of these bereaved little ones. The Sisters of Mercy and Charity have each a general hospital under their charge in San Francisco, where the latter have also a foundling hospital. They have also a hospital in Los Angeles, and the Sisters of Mercy have a Magdalen asylum in San Francisco. Altogether, the number of religious, of both sexes, engaged in works of instruction or charity in California, approaches three hundred, and this in a population of little over half a million.

Reference has already been made to the variety of races that forms so peculiar a feature in the Californian population. It may not be amiss to devote a few words to each separately, especially with regard to their relations with the church.

As the original settlers of the country, the Spanish element deserves to be mentioned first, although no longer occupying the chief place in political or numerical importance. The Spanish Californians are mostly descended from a few families, chiefly Europeans, who settled in the country in the palmy days of the missions, and whose posterity have increased in the course of a century to a population of several thousand. The prevalence of a few family names among them is quite as remarkable as in certain districts of Ireland and Scotland, where a single sept name is borne by almost all the inhabitants of a parish or barony; and nearly all the more wealthy families are connected with one another by the ties of blood or marriage. As a general rule, they have less intermixture of Indian blood than the southern Mexicans, though such of the mission Indians as have survived the overthrow of their protectors regard themselves as Spaniards, and are so styled by the rest of the population. Some of these Indians occupy respectable positions in society, and one at least, Señor Dominguez, was a member of the convention which drew up the State constitution of California. The Spanish Californians are generally hospitable and generous, and, though imperfectly acquainted with the refinements of civilization, they display much of the old Spanish politeness in their dealings with each other and with strangers. They retain the Spanish taste for music and dancing, and, we are sorry to say, for bull-fights and games of chance; in Los Angeles and the other southern counties, all the scenes of the life of Leon or Castile may still be witnessed. Cattle-raising forms their chief occupation, and in the management of stock they display a good deal of skill and energy; but their inexperience in the ways of modern life, and their ignorance of American law, have gradually deprived them of the ownership of most of the lands they held at the discovery of the gold "placers." Many of them sold their property at ridiculously low prices, others were deprived of them by the operation of the land tax, which was entirely new to their ideas; while the distaste for settled industry and the improvident habits engendered by their former mode of life unfitted them for competing in other pursuits with the enterprise of the new-comers. The generation which has grown up since the American conquest, however, displays a much greater spirit of enterprise than its fathers have shown, and promises to play a more important part in the country. Politically and socially, the Spanish Californians enjoy a good deal of consideration; some of them usually occupy seats in the State Legislature, and on the judicial bench; the Spanish language is used as well as the English in legal documents, and the acts of the Legislature; and one of the higher State offices is generally filled by a Spaniard.

There is also a considerable Spanish-American population, chiefly Mexicans and Chilenos, in the Pacific States. Most of them are engaged in mining or stock-raising; but a considerable number are engaged in business, in which several of them occupy prominent positions. The Chilenos are generally possessed of at least the rudiments of schooling, and are tolerably well organized for mutual aid; but the Mexicans, owing to the political condition of their country, are much behind them in both these respects. Altogether, the population of California of Spanish origin must number from forty to fifty thousand.

Closely connected with the Spanish population are the Portuguese, who, of late years, have begun to immigrate to California in considerable numbers, and now number several thousands there. The majority of them are engaged in farming or gardening. They are, as a class, sober, industrious, and peaceable. They are settled principally in the counties around the Bay of San Francisco, and very few of them are to be found in the city itself.

The American population, as it is customary in California to style the natives of the other States of the Union, has been drawn in not very unequal proportions from the North and South, and its character partakes of the peculiarities of both sections, with a general spirit of recklessness and profusion that is peculiarly its own. The public opinion of California is much more liberal and tolerant than that of the Eastern States, and it is rarely indeed that Catholics have to complain of any open display of offensive bigotry on the part of any influential portion of their fellow-citizens. On one occasion, about a year ago, a leading evening paper of San Francisco attempted to raise an anti-Catholic cry during the excitement of a political campaign; but the attempt met with such reprobation from all parties, that the proprietors found it expedient to apologize for it in the course of a day or two as best they could. The great foe of the church in California is not Protestantism, but unbelief; and although the latter is in its nature as full of bitterness against her as the former, yet its champions find it necessary to assume liberality, even if they do not feel it, in obedience to public sentiment. Some of the Protestant sects are indeed outspoken in their bigotry, but their power is very trifling, as the entire Protestant church membership does not amount to five per cent of the population, and not one sixth of the whole people comes under the influence of any Protestant denomination whatsoever. The number of converts in California and Oregon is considerable, including several individuals of high political and literary eminence, and there are also many American Catholics, chiefly from Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri, scattered through the State.

The Irish are the most numerous of the European nationalities represented in the Californian population, and enjoy a much greater degree of prosperity than their countrymen in any other State of the Union. A much larger proportion of their numbers are engaged in farming than is the case in the Eastern States, and the advantages arising from such an employment of their labor are evident to the dullest eye. Much of the cultivated land of the State is in their possession, and some of them are among its largest land-owners. The city population also enjoys a greater degree of comfort than the same class in New York or Boston. Three of the savings-banks of San Francisco, representing nearly half the capital of the entire number of such institutions in that city, are under Irish control, and Irishmen are also among the most successful merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of California. The late mayor of San Francisco, and an ex-governor of the State are Irishmen and Catholics, and three Irish-Americans in succession have filled the office of United States senator, one of whom still represents the State in Washington. We are not able to give the precise amount of the Irish population in California; but, including the children of Irish parents, it cannot be less than a fourth of the whole. It is needless to state that the immense majority of the Irish in California are Catholics, and that their zeal for every thing pertaining to religion forms a marked contrast to the indifference of their non-Catholic fellow-citizens.

The Germans come next to the Irish in importance, probably amounting to two thirds of their number. They are more blended with the rest of the population than in the Eastern States, and there is only one distinctively German settlement in California, namely, the town of Anaheim on the southern coast. About one fourth of them are Catholics, but they only possess one German church in the state, forming, in this respect, a strong contrast to their countrymen in the Mississippi Valley and on the Atlantic seaboard. Of the non-Catholic Germans, the Jews form a considerable and very wealthy portion, and preserve their distinctive national habits much more tenaciously than the rest of their countrymen. The synagogue Emmanuel in San Francisco is the most costly and elegant place of worship on the Pacific coast, while the German Protestants have scarcely a church in California, and indeed, few of them can be regarded as Christians in any sense.

The French population of California is very considerable, amounting to probably from ten to fifteen thousand, though, as comparatively few of its members become naturalized, it is not so easy to estimate its numbers. In itself it is more completely organized than any other class of the population, having its own benevolent societies, hospitals, military companies, savings-banks, press, and other institutions, all distinctively French in their management. The Italians, who are nearly as numerous as the French, resemble them in the number of their national organizations; but they are not as well managed as those of the former. The Italians are engaged chiefly in trade, fishing, and gardening, in which pursuits they are industrious and usually prosperous. The French are engaged in almost every avocation. The Italians have a national church in San Francisco, and the French have a special pastor attached to one of the parochial churches of the city for their benefit.

The Sclavonians from Austria are also a numerous body; they usually are classed with the Italians, though possessing several associations of their own nationality. Nearly one half of them are schismatics; and the Russian government has lately established a schismatic church in San Francisco for their use and that of the few Russians residing there. It is even in contemplation to make that city the residence of the Bishop of Sitka, who has recently been transferred along with his flock to the allegiance of the United States, but who, nevertheless, still receives his orders from the Russian synod. It is a curious example of the way religious affairs are managed among the subjects of the czar, that the president of the Sclavonian Church Society is a German Lutheran, who fills the office of Russian consul, and on that account alone is considered sufficiently qualified to direct the spiritual concerns of his fellow-subjects.

The Chinese form a very large, and, in many respects, the strangest element in the population of the Pacific coast. They are spread through all its States and territories, and, according to the most reliable accounts, number at least a hundred thousand. Few of them have families, or ever intend to settle permanently in the country, but after a few years' toil as servants or laborers they almost invariably return to China. The immense majority of them are pagans or atheists, and they have several temples or joss-houses in different cities of California. A few Catholics, however, are to be found among them, and a small chapel has lately been opened in San Francisco for their special use. The morals of the pagan Chinese are of the most licentious kind, and slavery in its worst form exists among them in spite of the laws, their ignorance of the language acting as an effectual bar to their availing themselves of its safeguards to personal freedom. As in all other Chinese settlements, so in California, they have practically a government of their own, under the name of companies, the chief men of which exercise almost absolute authority over their countrymen, extending, it is believed, occasionally to the infliction of capital punishment. The white laboring classes are bitterly opposed to the Chinese, on account of the low rate of wages for which they work, and the belief that they are slaves of the companies; but nevertheless their numbers are steadily on the increase, and it is not impossible but they may eventually become the majority of the population of the entire Pacific slope.

The greater part of the preceding remarks are applicable mainly to California and the adjoining mining territories of Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and Arizona, which have been chiefly settled from it, and whose inhabitants partake of the character of its people. The State of Oregon and the adjoining territory of Washington number a population of nearly two hundred thousand, of an entirely different character from that of California.

While Catholic missionaries were the first settlers in California, the colonization of Oregon was mainly effected under the direction of Methodist ministers and the auspices of the Methodist Church. Catholic priests, it is true, had preceded Methodism on its soil, and the present Archbishop of Portland and the Vicar-Apostolic of Vancouver had visited its Indian tribes in 1838; but the Methodist colonies, which arrived in the country a few years later, were deeply imbued with hatred to Catholicity, and a good deal of their intolerant spirit still remains among the people. The Jesuits have been, indeed, very successful in converting and civilizing the Indians; but the white population, with the exception of a few Canadian colonies and a not very large number of Catholics in the city of Portland and the mining districts of southern Oregon, is mainly under Methodist influence. Indeed, so high did anti-Catholic prejudice run among the first settlers of Oregon, that a Methodist conference seriously proposed to Mr. Lane, the first governor of the territory, to expel all Catholics from his jurisdiction by force, a proposition which it is scarcely needful to say he indignantly rejected. Of late years, however, the number of Catholics is on the increase, and with the greater facilities for settlement offered by the lines of railroads now in course of construction, their numbers will no doubt grow still faster in the future. Portland in Oregon is an archiepiscopal see, and Washington territory is a separate diocese, so that Catholic immigrants need not fear the want of religious aids in spite of the limited number of their fellow-worshippers in these northern districts of the Pacific coast.

Such, in brief, is the past history and the present state of the church beyond the Rocky Mountains; and a Catholic can hardly fail to find in them the brightest hopes for its future. Obstacles will have to be encountered, no doubt; fights be fought and sacrifices made; but the successes which Catholicity has already achieved, and the vantage-ground she now occupies in California, leave little reason to doubt of her final triumph. The soil, fertilized by the sweat and blood of the Franciscan missionaries, cannot prove a barren one; and no part of the Union gives promise of a richer harvest than that California which a few years ago was regarded throughout the world as the chosen abode of lawlessness and crime.

OUR LADY'S NATIVITY.

Star of the morning, how still was thy shining, When its young splendor arose on the sea! Only the angels, the secret divining, Hailed the long-promised, the chosen, in thee.

Sad were the fallen, and vainly dissembled Fears of "the woman" in Eden foretold; Darkly they guessed, as believing they trembled, Who was the gem for the casket of gold.[302]

Oft as thy parents bent musingly o'er thee, Watching thy slumbers and blessing their God, Little they dreamt of the glory before thee, Little they thought thee the mystical Rod.

Though the deep heart of the nations forsaken Beat with a sense of deliverance nigh; True to a hope through the ages unshaken, Looked for "the day-spring" to break "from on high;"

Thee they perceived not, the pledge of redemption-- Hidden like thought, though no longer afar; Not though the light of a peerless exemption Beamed in thy rising, immaculate star!

All in the twilight, so modestly shining, Dawned thy young beauty, sweet star of the sea! Only the angels, the secret divining, Hailed the elected, "the Virgin,"[303] in thee.

B. D. H.

FOOTNOTES:

[302] "Thou art the casket where the jewel lay."--_George Herbert._

[303] ἣ Παρθένος. LXX. _The_ Virgin, not _a_ Virgin; which is also more in accordance with the Hebrew and the Latin.

PLUTARCH.

The moral influence which Plutarch exerts over posterity is of a very peculiar kind. He has not, like Aristotle, laid down the law to an entire world for nearly two thousand years. He has not been deemed so perfect a master of style as Virgil or Cicero, who were the models, first of the Benedictines, and then of the prose writers and poets of the humanitarian school. His reputation pales by the side of the brilliant fame which the resurrected Plato enjoyed during the fifteenth century; and yet he has done what all these immortals, whose authority far surpasses in extent and duration that of his biographies, have failed to do. Among the revived ancient authors none has surpassed Plutarch in inspiring the moderns with the same keen appreciation of the classic characteristics, with the same love and enthusiasm for whatever is really or supposedly great in antiquity; and none has therefore contributed so much to the revelation of what we understand by the purely human in man's nature.

From the days of Macchiavelli and Charles V. down to the present, we rarely fail to meet with the name of Plutarch among those writers who have made an abiding impression on the youthful minds of prominent statesmen and warriors. In turning over the leaves of the biographies of our modern great, we are constantly reminded of the words which Schiller puts into the mouth of Carl Moor: "When I read of the great men in my Plutarch, I loath our ink-staining age." This sentiment has found an echo in every civilized land, and especially in France.

The first French translation of Plutarch's Parallels was welcomed by Montaigne with expressions of the liveliest joy. "We would have been swallowed up in ignorance," exclaims he, (essay ii. 4,) "if this book had not extricated us from the slough; thanks to Plutarch, we now dare to speak and write." Rabelais refreshes his soul with the _Moralia_. "There is," writes the translator Amyot to King Charles IX., "no better work next to holy writ." The "perennially young" Plutarch is the "breviary," the "conscience" of the century, and he remains until the beginning of the most modern time--as Madame Roland calls him--"the pasture of great souls," and the "fellow-companion of warriors." Condé had him read out aloud in his tent, and in the historical part of the books for a camp library which Napoleon Bonaparte ordered from the citoyen J. B. Soy, "_homme de lettres_," March, 1798, Plutarch stands first, and Tacitus, Thucydides, and Frederick II. last.

The home of Plutarch's admirers is, as we have already observed, France. Like all Latin races, the French delight to revel in pictures of ancient greatness; their historical imagination is governed by fantastic ideals of antiquity, especially of ancient Rome, and the fountain from which they drew, mediately and immediately, their inspiration, is Plutarch's Lives. Hence the exaggerated estimate of Plutarch's historical merits, against which modern criticism begins to protest with much vigor, is greatest in that country. Indeed, the principle upon which Plutarch has selected his historical authorities, and the manner in which he has used them, are decidedly open to objection. They are not chosen according to their scientific or critical value, but according to their wealth of picturesque detail and psychologically remarkable characteristics. He follows a leading author, whose name he usually omits to state, and whose testimony he only compares with that of other writers when there is a conflict of authorities. The text is never cited. He reproduces the sense, but with that latitude which is natural to an imaginative mind endowed in an unusual degree with the gift of realizing the past. In the choice of his subject matter he follows the instincts of a historical portrait-painter. To describe campaigns, to analyze great political changes, is not his province. His acquaintance with the political and military systems of the ancient Greeks and Romans is very superficial, and he seems to care little for a more intimate knowledge of them. His main purpose is not the study of history, but that of the personal career of interesting individuals. "It is not histories we write," Plutarch tells us himself in his introduction to the life of Alexander the Great; "but life-pictures;" and for these, he maintains, some small trait, some apt expression, be it only a witticism, is often more available than the greatest military deeds, the most bloody victories, or the most splendid conquests.

In making this distinction, which Plutarch repeatedly acknowledges to be a rule with him, he forgets that he violates the natural connection, inasmuch as all historical personages are part and parcel of the time they live in; he forgets also that, thus treated, historical characters degenerate into ordinary mortals. But Plutarch does not aspire to the dignity of a historian; he simply claims to "paint souls;" and those readers who ignore this distinction have never comprehended him.

Some of the works which Plutarch was still able to consult are lost, and we depend, therefore, upon him for light on certain important periods of history. This has led many to regard him as a historical authority, to consider his biographical narratives as the main object of his writings, and to skip the moralizing comparisons of the parallel biographies which show that these portraits are to him nothing more than a means of illustrating his peculiar ethics by examples. This point is of great importance; for it proves the only view from which the literary character of Plutarch can be justly estimated.

Not only his narratives, but the judgments which he bases upon them, and the views of the world from which they spring, have left their mark on posterity, and this to an extent surprising even to the initiated. And here it behooves us to exercise still greater caution, a still greater distrust, than we entertain for his statements of fact. Plutarch stands as far removed from the times of the heroes upon whom he passes judgment, as we are from the characters of the Crusades. The full effects of this remoteness can only be estimated by those who have made Plutarch's age and the moral condition reflected in his non-historical writings their special study. "Plutarch's biographies," remarks a French scholar of this class, "are an explanatory appendix to his _Moralia_; both equally reflected a Greek provincialist's views of the world under the empire; the views of one who sought to console himself for the degradation and emptiness of the present by a romantic idealization of the real and imaginary grandeur of a former age." Plutarch is an out-and-out romancist, and to this must be mainly ascribed the influence he wields over a certain order of minds. The historical errors which we are so slowly correcting are due to this discovery. To show how little Plutarch was fit to play the part of interpreter to a period which had already become remote antiquity in his day, we need only cast a single glance at the times in which he lived.

From Plutarch's own writings we glean nothing that is authentic in regard to his life. Rich as they no doubt are in interesting contributions to the moral and intellectual history of his times, they are barren as regards every thing relating to the author's biography. In truth, the biographer of the ancients is himself without a biography. We know, in the main, that he was born in Chæronea, about the time of Nero's visit to the Delphic temple; that he studied at Athens under the philosopher Ammonius; that he visited Greece, Egypt, and Italy as a peripatetic scholar. After having taught many years at Rome, he finally returned to his native place and commenced that prolific literary activity which he displayed in nearly all departments of ancient knowledge. In these labors the indefatigable student was rather assisted than retarded by his various public duties, first on the urban police, then as archon, and lastly as the high-priest of the Delphic Apollo.

The story that Plutarch was once the teacher of Trajan, and that the latter appointed him governor of Hellas and Illyricum, first told by Symkellas and Suidas, then repeated by John of Salisbury and the scholars of the Renaissance, is a silly Byzantine fable. The latter portion of Plutarch's life, as we learn from his confessions, passed in a retirement entirely inconsistent with the Byzantine story. The world within whose bounds the archon of Chæronea and priest of Apollo lived was a contracted one, and only romance could gild such an existence with the halo of departed glory.

Plutarch may be said to have done wonders. At a time when the old love of country and state had long died out, he, the philosopher, determinedly opposed the petty, baneless cosmopolitanism of his day. In a world which had long lost its ancient faith, and in which the Gospel of Christ had not yet attained the ascendency, the priest of the Delphic oracle battled undismayed for the old gods and against the anarchy of the renegade schools of philosophy. In both cases he is, however, himself, and more than he seems aware or is willing to concede, tainted by the prevailing scepticism, and it is this, in consequence, which colors his own views of the world with what we call romanticism.

Let us follow Plutarch for a moment on those two battle-fields of his polemics, and observe the distinctive features of the _Moralia_.

The warm appreciation which he displays for every thing that is great in humanity or history is surprising when we remember the incredible hollowness of the surroundings amidst which his heroes were drawn, and the society in which he lived, not as a soured misanthrope, but as a stirring official. The petty Chæronea was hardly the place to prepare the mind for the reception of great thoughts. The population of the municipality, though active and bustling, lived far from the great world. It had its share of orators, sophists, lecturers; it had party divisions to quicken the heart to love and hate; it had games to excite the passions and to stimulate ambition. But what were the questions which the people quarrelled about with all the readiness and vehemence proverbial of the Hellenic race? They were mainly where the best baths might be found; which party was most likely to triumph at the next dog or cock-fight; what kind of man the new official from Rome, or the next travelling sophist, would turn out to be; how such a one had made his fortune, or how Ismenodora, the wealthy widow, could have espoused an obscure man? These were the principal topics which the Chæroneans of Plutarch's day discussed when they went to sleep at night, and resumed again on waking in the morning. And yet how dearly Plutarch loved this small, petty fatherland! How happy he appears to be that it should enjoy the golden peace which at last fell upon the world after the empire had put an end to the terrible civil wars! Under the iron rule of Rome all provinces once more breathed freely. Whatever imperialism meant at the capital, in the provinces it was still popular; and even under Domitian, as Suetonius assures us, the moderation and justice of the Cæsars was the theme of general praise. In contemporary Hellas, in the province of Achaia, the people appreciated these blessings, though they felt most painfully the loss of their former power and renown. Even the monuments of their ancient glory, which attracted annually crowds of strangers, became so many tombstones full of bitter memories, and the explanations of the garrulous guides must have sounded like reproaches in the ears of the degenerate race.

The policy which imperial Rome pursued toward the land from which she had received in the palmy days of her transition to a more refined culture the most admired models in science and art, and from which she obtained in the following centuries the best instructors, the most learned writers, and the most desirable nurses, was a strange compound of severe brutality and flattering caresses. When the great Germanicus, accompanied by a single lictor, reverentially entered the sacred precincts of Athens, and graciously listened to the vaunts of the rhetoricians on the splendor and glory of Greece, and when immediately afterward the brutal Piso descended on the city like a thunderbolt to remind the frightened provincials in a bullying manner that they were no longer Athenians, but the sweepings of nations, (_conluvies nationum_, Tac. Annal. iii. 54,) then this people learnt by abrupt changes how they stood in the regard of the Romans.

When the Greeks became the subjects of Rome, they were but too speedily taught what she meant by the "liberation of the oppressed." All the accustomed safeguards of the law were suspended at one sweep. No marriage contract, no negotiation, no purchase, no sale, between city and city, village and village, was binding unless ratified by special act of grace from Rome. All sources of prosperity, all public and private rights, passed into Roman hands. Nothing remained to the Greeks save the memory of their former prestige, and the old rivalry between the tribes and cities, which invariably burst out afresh whenever the emperor or one of his lieutenants favored one more than the other. So humiliating and painful were the results of this state of things, that even such a zealous local patriot as Plutarch advises the people, in his pocket oracle for embryo statesmen, to forget the unfortunate words Marathon, Platæa, and Eurymedon. And yet the same Plutarch is so thoroughly Bœotian, that he cannot prevail on himself to forgive the "father of history" the malicious candor with which he relates the bad conduct of the Thebans in the Persian war.

Chæronea, the home of Plutarch, ranked among the most favored cities of the empire, being a _municipium_, or free city, under the protectorate of Rome, but governed in accordance with its ancient laws by officers elected by the people. Plutarch gives us a very interesting picture of the local administration. His political precepts, and his treatise on the part which it behooves an old man to play in the state, thoroughly enlighten us on all these points. The municipal officers, though merely honorary and unsalaried, were as much an object of contention as in former days when they were lucrative. The candidates were often obliged to make extraordinary exertions for popular support; they erected public edifices; endowed schools and temples; built libraries, aqueducts, baths; distributed bread, money, and cakes; got up games and feasts, and many wealthy men were thus ruined by their ambition. The benefits secured by public office were exemption from local taxation, precedence at the theatres and games, the erection of busts, statues, inscriptions, and pictures; and, after the expiration of office, perhaps promotion in the imperial service.

In addition to the expenses incident to such a canvass, the candidates, if not of low extraction and mean spirit, had to give up many prejudices which must have greatly hurt the pride of every true Greek. Plutarch fully explains in his political precepts what a patriot might expect in those days on entering the public service.

"Whatever position," he tells his young countrymen, "you may attain, never forget that the time is past when a statesman can say to himself with Pericles on putting on the chlamys, Remember that thou presidest over a free people, over Hellenes, or Athenians. Rather remember that though thou hast subjects, thou thyself art a subject. Thou rulest over a conquered people, under imperial lieutenants. Thou must therefore wear thy chlamys modestly; thou must keep an eye on the judgment seat of the proconsul, and never lose sight of the sandals above thy crown. Thou must act like the player, who assumes the attitudes prescribed in his part, and, turning his ear toward the prompter, makes no mien, motion, or sound but such as he is ordered."

Even the officials of this free city were therefore only puppets, whose functions presented no temptation to the ambitious. All that was left to the local government were the inferior market and street police, the care of the local security and order, and a partial participation in the apportionment of the imperial taxes. But while there was nothing to stimulate the ambition of the Chæroneans, the system had a tendency to promote sycophancy. The subordinate officials entirely ceased to think and act independently, and applied to the emperor in person for directions on the veriest trifles, especially when the ruler seemed inclined to encourage this spirit of subserviency. Such an emperor was Trajan, admired by Pliny for his untiring activity, which led him to meddle with every thing. He took up his pen to defend the exchange of two soldiers, to decree the removal of a dead man's ashes, and to assign an athlete's reward. Pliny, his lieutenant, ruled Bithynia like an automaton. In Prusa, Nicodemia, Nicea, not a man, not a sesterce, not a stone, was suffered to change its place without the imperial sanction. The selection of a surveyor was made a question of state. The emperor seems finally to have found the work too much for him; for he writes on one occasion to his lieutenant: "Thou art on the spot, must know the situation, and shouldst determine accordingly." In the correspondence of these two men can be traced the corruption which gradually seized and overwhelmed rulers and ruled in the Roman empire on the inclined plane of a rapidly spreading super-civilization.

It is greatly to the honor of Plutarch that he condemns this mischievous tendency. He does not find fault with it for the political reasons which would lead us to oppose a paralyzing centralization, but for the sake of the manly dignity, the moral self-respect, which should never be forgotten. "Let it suffice," exclaims he, "that our limbs are fettered; it is unnecessary to place our necks also in the halter."

We perceive here in the honest archon of Chæronea still something of the sturdy spirit of ancient Hellas. Not in vain had he read the history of his ancestors; in spite of the unpropitious times, he still holds what survives of their virtues worthy of preservation; and it is gratifying to find a man of this stamp serving an ungrateful public, while the conceited philosophers of his day regarded politics a contamination. Nor was it without a good influence upon the literary labors of Plutarch that he did not boast, with Lucan, to know "no state or country," but was content to contribute his share to a better state of things. Yet it is nevertheless easy to see that in such an atmosphere no state like the one for which Themistocles, Pericles, and Demosthenes had worked and striven on the field and the tribune--no country like that for which heroes had fought and bled at Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa--could hope to thrive. In this cramped, commonplace sphere, amidst the provincial gossip and the petty interests of such surroundings, the fierce passions which had once inspired parties, which in Rome had fired the hearts of the Gracchi and the other martyrs of the declining commonwealth, were altogether impossible. Here were only the citizens of a small provincial town, the descendants of an ancient and highly renowned nobility but of beggarly presence, the wards of a subjugated land. The enthusiasm with which the higher minds of such an era revelled in the reminiscences of departed greatness was perfectly natural; no less natural was the dim twilight in which its heroes appeared to eyes so little accustomed to discriminate. We can understand why such a profound impression should have been made by all that was foreign in the olden times, especially when the means to analyze, probe, and comprehend it were wholly wanting.

Plutarch's keen appreciation of all the qualities in which the ancients had the advantage over his own contemporaries reflects much credit upon him. Yet he is incapable of comprehending them individually, for there was nothing to correspond with them in the world he lived in. His ideas of state and freedom, of country and virtue among the ancients, are distorted, because in his time their meaning had partly been changed, and partly been lost. To Plutarch's susceptible mind, the heroes of Roman and Grecian history appeared like the effigies preserved in some ancestral hall. He experienced, however, something of the thrill of exultation which electrified Sallust, when he, a warm-hearted youth, first tasted the same sensation; but when he endeavors to communicate this feeling to the reader, he succeeds only in demonstrating his unfitness for the task. An historian, in our sense of the word, Plutarch, we know, does not aspire to be; he claims merely to "paint souls" and "to teach virtue," but even herein he fails. His men are no real personages, no flesh and blood beings, whom he makes step out from the frame of tradition, but puppets gaudily and incongruously arrayed in all kinds of odds and ends. He has never produced a single _genre_ portrait, but merely supplied the raw materials; and these may be even more valuable than any artistically finished but misdrawn historical likeness would have been. This is, however, all that can be said in the behalf of Plutarch's creations, and when we have followed him to his home and visited his mental laboratory, we perceive that it could not well have been otherwise. It is in this light that we have to depict to ourselves Plutarch in the character of the romancist of the ancient ideal of state and country. And when, in conclusion, we regard him further as the romancist of the ancient faith, he may be taken for the predecessor of the apostate Emperor Julian, whom David Strauss so admirably sketched twenty years ago as the romancist on the throne of the Cæsars.

And here also the priest of the Pythian Apollo was once more compelled to accommodate himself to the sad changes of his time. The priestess still sat on the tripod; the sacred fumes still rose out of the earth; the seeress was still beset by curious questioners, and the fountains of the oracle still continued to flow. But how different was the nature of the questions which the contemporaries of Plutarch addressed to the deity! Not war or peace between nation and nation, not rupture or alliance between state and state, as in former days, now demanded its solution. It was what should be eaten, drunk, sown, or harvested; what the deity thought of a nuptial, of the portion set apart for a son or daughter! Such were the things that tempted the curiosity of the oracle-seekers; and to answer them no longer in poetry, but in homely prose, had become the trivial duty of the sanctuary. And yet the magnificence of the gifts and endowments had of late rather increased than fallen off.

"Like the trees," exultingly exclaims Plutarch, "whose vigorous sap shoots forth continually new sprouts, so grows the Pylum of Delphi, and extends day by day in the number of its chapels, consecrated water-fonts, and assembly halls, which rise in a splendor unknown for years. Apollo has saved us from neglect and misery to overwhelm us with wealth, honors, and splendors; it is impossible that such a revolution should have been caused by human agencies without divine intervention; it is he who has come to bestow his blessing on the oracle."

But not even Plutarch could disguise to himself the sad fact that the worship of the oracle had by no means kept pace with the progress of superstitious faith. Still, while the heathen deities had multiplied to an extent which led Pliny to declare that the gods in Olympus outnumbered the men on earth; while the number of secret and public sects steadily increased in the east and west; while all the abominations of a misdirected religious instinct in both worlds united as in one common sewer at Rome, when Tacitus said that among the rising sects the one prospered most which proclaimed not only a new god, but a new license for all who were oppressed and poor; while all this was going on, the higher classes of society, the flower of the intellect of the heathen world, had repudiated the superstitions of the masses, partly to deny the existence of the gods, and partly to adopt strange and exclusive mysteries.

"This estrangement from the gods," exclaims Plutarch, "may be divided into two streams: the one seeks a bed in those hearts which resemble a rocky soil, where every thing of a divine nature is rejected; the other waters gentle souls like a porous soil with exactly opposite effects, producing there an exaggerated and superstitious fear of the gods."

Against both these illusions Plutarch protests in a whole series of works, and the manner in which he does it exhibits the best side of his character. "It is so sweet," he assures us, "to believe;" and we also readily believe him when he describes the feelings with which he witnesses the solemnities of divine worship.

"The unbeliever," he says, "sees in prayer only an unmeaning formula, in sacrifices only the slaughter of helpless animals; but the devout feels his soul elevated, the heart relieved of sorrow and pain."

He implores a pious and child-like reverence for the faith of his forefathers; it was these gods who have made Greece great, protected it in good and evil seasons; and those who will not pray to them from their inmost hearts, should at least suffer others to enjoy their peace of mind and happy simplicity. They should imitate the Egyptian priest, who, when too closely questioned by Herodotus, placed his finger upon his lips in mysterious silence. He thinks it shows little delicacy in the Stoics and Epicureans to attempt to represent the gods as merely another name for the elementary forces. Those who mistake fire, water, air, etc., for the gods, accept the sails, ropes, and anchor of a vessel for the pilot, the wholesome drug for the physician, and the threads of the web for the weaver.

"You destroy," says he to the Epicureans, "the foundations of society; you murder the holiest instincts of the human soul." To the Stoics he says,

"Why attack what is universally accepted? why destroy the religious idea which each people has inherited in the nature of its gods? You ask, above all things, proofs, reasons, and explanations? Beware! If you bring the spirit of doubt to every altar, nothing will be sacred. Every people has its own faith. That faith, transmitted for centuries, must suffice; its very age proves its divine origin; our duty is to hand it down to posterity, without stain or change, pure and unalloyed."

But what of Plutarch's own orthodoxy? It is just what we might have expected from one who was too intelligent to believe the ancient myths and too much of an enthusiast calmly to test his religious heritage. Socrates was not remiss in offering up prayers and sacrifices; no Athenian goddess could rationally complain of him; he believed not only in a Daimonion, or Deity, but (if the Apology be genuine) also in a Son of God; yet he was an atheist. Plutarch's piety is no doubt more enthusiastic in a ratio to his lack of the Socratian keenness of intellect, but strictly considered he has no greater claims to the odor of orthodoxy. With him also the different gods resolve themselves into demons, and it is only in his heart that he knows the one true God--a tenet which has nothing in common with the cheerful anthropomorphism of the Hellenic national creed.

In brief, we discover in Plutarch's character the same inconsistencies which are peculiar to all men of his kind. He stands between two eras. He flies from an aged civilization, which holds him in the iron bonds of custom, to new views of a world which, even imperfect as they are, involuntarily master his reason, though they fail to satisfy his imagination and feelings. From the prose of every-day life he turns to the memory of the glories of his nation, and becomes their chronicler. Repulsed by the unbelief and degeneracy of his contemporaries, he seeks consolation in the poetical fables of the ancient faith, and becomes thus the panegyrist of antiquity. He is, however, unable to reproduce this antiquity in a pure state. He cannot entirely divest himself of all sympathy with those among whom he lives, and remains more than he will admit the child of his own day. Hence what he transmits to us is veiled in that solemn but indistinct semi-obscurity which we meet not only in the ancient temples, but in the heads of the romancists themselves.

THE MIRACLE OF ST. FRANCIS.

FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.

We are not telling a romance, but relating an occurrence exactly as its details proceeded from the mouth of the responsible narrator, who is an ox-driver. He who takes offence at the source, the stream, and the receptacle, that is to say, at the ox-driver, his story, and the recipient who is going to set it down in black and white, had better pass this by; for the thought that we were going to be read with prejudice would change the nimble pen we hold in our hand into an immovable petrifaction.

In a town of Andalusia that lifts its white walls under the sky that God created solely to canopy Spain, from the heights of Despeñaperros to the city that Guzman el Bueno defended, upon an elevation at the end of a long, solitary street, stands a convent, abandoned, as they all are, thanks to the _progress_ of ruin. This convent is now, more properly than ever before, the last house of the place. Its massive portal faces the town, and its grounds reach back into the country. In these grounds there were formerly many palm-trees--the old people remember them--but only two remain, united like brothers. In this convent there were formerly many religious; now but one remains. The palms lean upon each other; the religious is supported by the charity of the faithful. He comes every Tuesday to say mass in the magnificent deserted church, which no longer possesses a bell to call worshippers.

No words can express the sentiments that are awakened by the sight of the venerable man, in this vast temple, offering the august sacrifice in silence and solitude. One cannot help fancying that the sacred precinct is filled with celestial spirits, in the midst of whom the celebrant only is visible. The church is of an immense height, and so peacefully cheerful that it would seem to have been built solely to resound to the sublime hymn of the _Te Deum_, and the no less sublime canticle of the _Gloria_.

The high altar, exquisitely carved in the most elaborate and lavish style of adornment, astonishes the sight with the multitude of flowers, fruits, garlands, and gilded heads of angels it displays with a profusion and lustre which prove that in its execution neither time nor labor were taken into account. What use is made of gold in our day? Or of time? Are they better employed? He who can show us that they are, will console us for the suppression of the convents. Until it is proved, we shall continue to mourn that noble choir, those sumptuous chapels, that splendid tabernacle, cold and empty as the incredulous heart.

Incredulity! Grand triumph of the material over the spiritual, of earth over heaven; of the apostate angel over the angel of light!

The small square that separates the convent from the street which leads to it is overgrown with grass, and in it, in their hours of rest, the drivers let their oxen loose.

Within the inclosure, in place of stairs, a slight terraced ascent, sustained at the sides by benches of stone mason-work, leads to the door of the church. On the right is the chapel of the third order; the path to the left conducts to the principal entrance to the convent.

Reader, if you love the things of our ancient Spain, come hither. Here the church still stands; here still flourish, without care, the two palms; here is still a Franciscan friar who says mass in the unoccupied temple. Here are still found ox-drivers who tell tales, in which things humorous and pious are mingled with the good faith and wholesomeness of heart of the child that plays with the venerated gray hairs of its parent without a thought that in doing so it is wanting in filial respect. But hasten! for all these things will soon disappear, and we shall have to mourn over ruins--ruins to which the past, in reparation, will lend all its magic.

The third day of the week shone pure and gay, ignorant, doubtless, of the unlucky quality which men attribute to it, and very far from suspecting that its enemy--a foolish saying--would fain deprive it of the happiness of witnessing weddings and embarkations.[304]

On a Tuesday, then, that was as innocent of any hostile disposition as if it had been a Sunday, the lady who told us that which we are going to repeat, walked up the long street of San Francisco to the vacant convent to hear the weekly mass in which God himself would fill the abandoned temple with his most worthy presence. She arrived before the priest, and finding the church closed, sat down to wait upon one of the benches that sustain the terrace. The morning was cool enough to make the sunshine agreeable. In sight rose the two palms, like a pair of noble brothers, bearing together persecution and slight, without yielding or humiliating themselves. The oxen lying down within the inclosure ruminated measuredly, but with so little motion that the small birds passing poised themselves upon their horns. The efts, gazing at all with their intelligent eyes, glided along the walls in a garden of gilly-flowers and rose-colored caper-blooms. Light clouds, like smoke from a spotless sacrifice in honor of the Most High, floated across the enamel of the sky--if it is permitted to compare that with enamel with which no enamel that was ever made can compare. It was a morning to sweeten life, so entirely did it make one forget the narrow circles in which we fret our lives away, and in which living is a weariness.

Two drivers seated themselves upon the same bench with the lady.

Your Andalusian is never bashful. The sun may be eclipsed; but, in the lifetime of God, not the serenity of an Andalusian. Sultan Haroun Al-raschid might have spared himself the trouble of the disguises he employed when he mingled among his people without causing them the least diffidence, if he had ruled in Andalusia. Not that the people despise or cannot appreciate superiority; but they know how to lift the hat without dropping the head.

Therefore it happened that, although the lady was one of the principal persons of the place, and although there were other benches to sit on, that one appearing to them the pleasantest, on that one they sat down, without thought or care as to whether their talk would be overheard. In the northern provinces, where the people are entirely good, and as stupid as they are good, they think little and speak less; but in Andalusia thought flies, and words follow in chase. These people can go two days without eating or sleeping, and be little the worse for it; but remain two minutes silent, they cannot. If they have no one to talk with, they sing.

"Man," said one to the other, "I can never see that chapel without thinking of my father, who was a brother of the third order, and used to bring me here with him to say the rosary, which the brothers recited every night at the Angelus."

"Christian! and what sort of man must your father have been? There are no stones out of that quarry nowadays."

"And how should there be? My father--heaven rest him!--used to say that the guillotine war of the French upset the cart. Men nowadays are a pack of idlers, with no more devotion than that of San Korro, the patron of drunkards. But to come back to what I was telling you--a thing his worship once told me, that happened in this very convent.

"All the people of the barrier used to send to the friars for assistance to enable them to die in a Christian fashion. In these times the majority go to the other world like dogs or Jews. Every night, therefore, one of the fathers remained up, so as to be ready in case his services should be wanted. Each kept watch in his turn. One night, when it was the turn of a priest named Father Mateo, who was well known and liked in the town, three men knocked and asked for a religious to succor a person who was at the point of death. The porter informed Father Mateo, who came down immediately. Hardly was the door of the convent closed after him, when they told him that, whether it pleased him or not, they were going to bandage his eyes. It pleased him as much as it would have pleased him to have his teeth pulled. There was nothing for it, however, but to drop his ears; for although he was young, and as tall as a foremast, with a good pair of fists to defend himself with, the others were men of brass, all armed. Besides, neither could his reverence neglect his ministry; and only God knew the intentions of those who had come for him.

"So he said to himself, 'Rome will have this matter to look after;' and let them blindfold him.

"No one can know what streets they made him walk; into this and out of that, till they came to a miserable den, and led him up a flight of stairs, pushed him into a room, and locked the door.

"He took off the bandage; it was as dark as a wolfs mouth, but in the direction of one corner of the room he heard a moan.

"'Who is in distress?' asked Father Mateo.

"'I am, sir,' answered the doleful voice of a woman; 'these wicked men are going to kill me as soon as my peace is made with God.'

"'This is an iniquity!'

"'Father, by the love of the Blessed Mother, by the dear blood of Christ, by the breasts that fed you, save me!'

"'How can I save thee, daughter? What can I do against three men that are armed?'

"'Untie me, in the first place,' said the unhappy woman.

"Father Mateo begun to feel about, and, as God vouchsafed him deftness, to undo the knots of the cords that bound the poor creature's hands and feet; but they were hard, he could not see, and time flew as if a bull had been after it.

"The men were knocking at the door. 'Haven't you got through, father?' asked one of them.

"'Ea! don't be in a hurry!' said the father, who, though his will was good enough, could hit upon no means of saving the woman, who was trembling like a drop of quicksilver, and weeping like a fountain.

"'What are we to do?' said the poor, perplexed man.

"A woman will think of an artifice if she has one foot in the grave, and it entered into this one's head to hide herself under Father Mateo's cloak. I have told you that the father was a man who couldn't stand in that door. 'I would prefer another means,' said his reverence; 'but, as there is no other, we must take this, and let the sun rise in Antequera.'[305]

"He stationed himself at the door with the woman under his cloak.

"'Have you ended, father?' asked the villains.

"'I have ended,' answered Father Mateo, with as calm a voice as he could command.

"'Do not forsake me, sir,' moaned the poor woman, more dead than alive.

"'Hush! Commend yourself to our Lord of the forsaken ones, and his will be done.'

"'Come,' said the men, 'be quick; we must blindfold you again.' And they tied on the bandage, locked the door, and all three descended into the street with the father in custody, for fear that he might take off the blind and know the place.

"They turned and turned again, as before, till they came to the street of San Francisco; then the rascals took to their heels, and disappeared so quickly that you would have thought they had been spirited away.

"The minute they were out of sight, Father Mateo said to the woman, 'Now, daughter, scatter dust, and find a hiding-place. No; don't thank me, but God, who has saved you; and don't stop; for when those brigands find the bird flown, they will come back and perhaps overtake me.'

"The woman ran, and the father in three strides planted himself inside of his convent.

"He went right away to the cell of the father guardian and told him all that had happened, adding that the men would surely come to the convent in search of him.

"The words were hardly out of his mouth when they heard a knocking at the door. The guardian went down and presented himself. 'Can I serve you in any thing, gentlemen?' he asked.

"'We have come,' answered one, 'for Father Mateo, who was out just now confessing a woman.'

"'That cannot be, for Father Mateo has confessed no woman this night.'

"'How! he has not, when we have proof that he brought her here?'

"'What do you mean, you blackguards? brought a woman into the convent! So this is the way you take to injure Father Mateo's reputation, and cast scandal upon our order!'

"'No, sir, we did not say it with that intention; but--'

"'But what?' asked the guardian, very indignant. 'What honorable motive could he have had in bringing a woman here at night?'

"The men looked at each other.

"'Didn't I tell you,' grumbled one, 'that the thing wasn't natural, but miraculous?'

"'Yes, yes,' said another; 'this is the doing of God or the devil--and not of the devil, for he wouldn't interfere to hinder his own work.'

"'In God's name go, evil tongues!' thundered the guardian; 'and take heed how you approach convents with bad designs, and lay snares, and invent calumnies against their peaceful dwellers, who, like Father Mateo, sleep tranquilly in their cells; for our holy patron watches over us.'

"'You can't doubt now,' said the most timid of the three, 'that it was the very St. Francis himself who went with us to save that woman by a miracle.'

"'Father Mateo,' said the guardian when they had gone, 'they are terribly frightened, and have taken you for St. Francis. It is better so; for they are wicked men, and they are furious.'

"'They honor me too much,' answered the good man; 'but give me leave, your fathership, to depart at daybreak for a seaport, and from thence to America, before they have time to think better of it, and hang upon me this miracle of St. Francis.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[304] _Martes ni te cases, ni te embarques._ "Tuesday, neither marry nor embark."--Spanish saying.

[305] _Y salga el sol por Antequera._ A common saying, equivalent to, And let the sky fall; let the consequences be what they may.

THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NUMBER EIGHT.

The proceedings of the Vatican Council have reached a stage that allows us to witness again its external splendor and imposing presence. Grand and most august as it certainly is, still every thing that strikes the eye fades away as one thinks of its sublime office, of its important, unlimited influence and effect. The nature of the subject it has just treated will necessarily make that influence overshadow all ages to come, and that effect cease to be felt only with the last shock of a world passing away.

The question that for more than a year has agitated all circles of society, that for the past three months has been a subject of exciting debate among the fathers of the council, could not have been of greater weight. It is one of those truths essential to the existence of the church, and had it not been practically acknowledged among the faithful throughout the world, Christianity, unless otherwise sustained by its Author, would have been an impossibility. The vital point examined was the essence of the union of the church, of the union of faith, to determine dogmatically in what it consists, who or what is the person or body that can so hold and teach the faith as to leave no doubt of any kind whatsoever regarding its absolute divine certainty.

Up to the present day the infallibility of an œcumenical council, or of the whole church dispersed throughout the world, has been recognized as the ultimate rule by all who lay claim to orthodoxy; but with that council, or with that church dispersed throughout the world, as a requisite--_sine qua non_--was the communion and consent of the sovereign pontiff. Where he was with the bishops, there was the faith; no matter how many bishops might meet together and decree, if Peter was not with them, there was no certainty of belief, no infallible guidance. Nay, their decrees were received only in so far as approved by him. _Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia_, was the formula recognized by tradition. In a word, where Peter was, there was to be found infallible teaching; where Peter was not, there neither was the teaching infallible. None in the church ever thought of gainsaying this. But there came a time when the element all agreed hitherto to look on as essential began to be a subject of doubt and of discussion. Writers went so far as to say that the pope could be judged by the other body of teachers, the bishops; and this followed naturally from a mistrust in the unfailing orthodoxy of the sovereign pontiff. The greater phases of this movement are well known. The Council of Constance had hardly closed when the Council of Basle put in practice the principles broached by its predecessor, and deposed the reigning head of the church, putting in his stead Amadeus of Savoy with the title of Felix V. In the midst of this confusion, Eugenius IV. held the Council of Florence, in which the remarkable decree was published that declared the pope the vicar of Christ, the ruler of the flock, and the doctor of the universal church. Those of the French clergy who clung with tenacity to the principles of Basle, refused to receive this decree, under pretence of the unœcumenical character of the Council of Florence. The Jansenists availed themselves of the advantage this pretext gave them. Although eighty-five French bishops wrote in the year 1652 to Innocent X., according, they say, to the custom of the church, in order to obtain the condemnation of these heretics, the latter still held their ground, and were able to accuse the French assembly of 1682 of inconsistency, in attempting to force on them a decision of the pope, whom the assembly itself declared fallible. The celebrated Arnould taught that the refusal of its approbation to a papal decision on the part of one individual church was enough to make the truth of such a decision doubtful.

We shall try to give some idea of the importance of the question of papal infallibility by a parallel development of two opposite teachings, in a rapid sketch.

The cardinal principle of Gallicanism is the denial of the inerrancy of the sovereign pontiff in his solemn ruling in matters of faith and morals when teaching the whole church. Any one who attentively looks at the question must see the close connection of the primacy with the claim to unerring certainty in teaching. The domain of the church is in faith, in spirituals; temporals being secondary, and the subject of legislation only in so far as necessarily bound up with the former. The only reason why a teacher can lay claim to obedience is because he teaches the truth, and this is especially the case where faith and conscience are concerned. If the sovereign pontiff have not this faculty of teaching the truth without danger of error, then he cannot demand implicit submission. The church dispersed throughout the world, being infallible, cannot be taught by one who is capable of falling into error. The ordinances therefore and decrees of the pontiff, being intimately connected with faith, and issued on account of it, must follow the nature of the submission to his teaching. But as this latter, in the Gallican view, is not obligatory unless recognized as just by the whole church, so neither are the ordinances and decrees to be looked on as binding except under a like reservation. It follows from this, clearly and logically, that the supremacy of the pope can be called supreme only by an abuse of terms; consequently, 1st, the texts of canon law and of the fathers that teach a perfect supremacy are erroneous or false, and have no foundation in tradition, which is the truth always, everywhere, and by every one held in the same way; 2d, the texts of Scripture that refer to Peter are to be restricted to him personally, or, when seeming to regard his successors, are to be interpreted in a sense not favorable to the idea of a perfect supremacy. The pope thus becomes amenable to the church; he is a divinely constituted centre, nothing more; the official representative of the bishops of the whole church dispersed throughout the world, which alone is the ultimate criterion of truth. He can, therefore, be judged by the bishops, be corrected by them, deposed by them, and his asserted right to reserve powers to himself to the prejudice of ordinaries, or to legislate for dioceses other than his own, is to be set aside. A species of radicalism is thus introduced into the church. The bishops themselves are not to be looked on as infallible judges of the faith of their flocks even, and the faithful themselves, or the people, become the ultimate judges of what is to be held as of faith. Instead of being taught, they teach; instead of being a _locus theologicus_, they become the _ecclesia docens_; and the teachers and rulers become the ruled and taught. As the people themselves are liable to be swayed by the influence and teaching of artful men, we have in consequence a weak and uncertain rule to go by; weak, because of the moral impossibility of knowing the sense of the whole church, for even the members of an œcumenical council might not exactly represent the faith of their individual churches; uncertain, because of the facility with which in past time the people of many individual churches have been led astray.

As we write, it seems as if we heard some indignant protest against what we have just said. We reply that we do not refer to individual opinions; many Gallicans refused to go the length of their principles; a sense of danger alarmed their piety and put them on their guard. For our part, we treat of the principles themselves, and deem perfectly consequent what we have asserted. It would be an easy matter to illustrate it with facts of the present as of the past; but it would be beyond our scope just now. Any student of history will have no difficulty in recalling the manner in which defections from the church have been brought about, and the errors of those who once seemed columns of the temple. The inadequacy of the Gallican rule is still further shown by its practical inconvenience. It is fortunate that in the early church it had no place whatsoever. Peter being then recognized as the head and teacher of the church, all controversies were referred to him, and by him they were settled. _Petrus per os Leonis, per os Agathonis locutus est_; so spoke the fathers of Chalcedon and of the Sixth Council. Suppose for a moment it had been otherwise; suppose, when the Pelagian heresy arose, it had been necessary to hear the voice of the whole church scattered over the earth--this being the rule--the whole church, not any one part, was to give the doctrine from which it was not lawful to depart. Zosimus was but one bishop; so, too, was Innocent I.; Augustin was only one learned man, and Prosper of Aquitaine, a Christian poet and polished scholar, but only one other father after all. Those who wrote with them bore witness each for his own particular church. What had become of the churches of Scythia, of Lybia, of Ethiopia, of Arabia? Who had penetrated into the Indies, or set sail for the islands of the sea, or reached the far-off coasts of the Sinenses? Who was to explain with accuracy to those distant Christians the cunning dealing of Celestius and Pelagius, that had deceived the vigilance of the eastern fathers, and lay bare the hypocritical professions that had misled even Zosimus? Who was to bring back the opinion or belief of these isolated churches without danger of misunderstanding or misinterpretation? Those were not days when communication was easy. Weeks and months amid all kinds of dangers and uncertainty were required to reach even those places that lay near the shores of the Mediterranean. It was physically impossible to ascertain with unerring sureness the belief or condemnation of those far-off Christians; and as long as their assent was not given there was no adequate rule of faith. Consequently, there was no prompt or efficacious means of correcting error; the means at hand were of probable worth, therefore not sufficient to use against heresy, that could always appeal to the universal church dispersed throughout the world, and when condemned by those near, fly to the probable protection of those at a distance, without the least possibility of ever knowing the belief of those to whom they appealed. In the meanwhile, heresy crept into the flock, established itself there; for there was none to cast it forth; and the fold became tainted. Thus from age to age Christianity would have been a mass of error, the truth being obscured or suffocated by the weight of falsity from the want of a prompt practical means by which heresy could be detected and crushed at its birth. Happily no such state of things existed; the chair of Peter was the abode of truth; it was set up against error, and the quick ear and intuitive eye of Christ's vicar heard and saw the evil, and met it at the outset.

The doctrine which teaches the opposite of what we have been describing, and which is now of faith, clears up all difficulties, and comes to us in all the beauty and consistency that adorns truth. Jesus Christ has made Peter and his successors the foundation of the church. He has given to him, and to each of those who succeed him, of his own firmness, and strengthened his faith that it fail not, that he may confirm his brethren. In this office of confirming his brethren, Peter holds the place of Christ, and acts in his name. The gift he possesses, however, is not one of inspiration; but he is assisted and kept from erring in his judgment of what is contained in the revelation made by Christ to man. To arrive at a knowledge of what that revelation is, he seeks in his own church, and, according to the need, in the churches every where that he may know their traditions. The judgment he makes is infallible, and in promulgating it he lays down the tenets of faith for the whole church. Hence he becomes the immovable rock upon which the faithful are builded, he is the centre around which they revolve, the orb from which they receive the light of faith. Hence he has subject to him the minds of all, and the character of his primacy becomes more clear and fully evident. It is no longer a mere point of visible communion, but an active power placed by God to rule, with unfailing guidance in faith, and with a consequent spiritual intuitiveness, that makes him discern what is for the good of the church at large throughout the world. Hence all are bound to obey him in what regards the faith and teachings of Christ; who is with him, is with Christ; whosoever is against him, is against his Master. Hence, too, by a direct consequence, there can be no power set up against his; all the bishops of the church depend on him, receive their jurisdiction from him, and can exercise it only at his word. What a sublime picture of unity, of order, and of strength! As an army in array the church advances to do battle against the foes of Christ, never more successful, never more glorious, than when her children, recognizing their dependence, and harkening to her voice, with one mind and with one heart follow the leadership of Peter. No wonder this spectacle struck the unbelieving mind with astonishment, or made the gifted writer of England burst forth into the glowing description so familiar to all!

The difference of opinion that existed among the bishops on the subject of the infallibility is known throughout the four quarters of the globe. What was the cause of it? If any one imagines that all who joined in opposing a definition from the outset were actuated by the same motives, he would certainly be wide of the mark. While the main point of the controversy was held by the _ultramontanes_ without exception, and there was but the one question as to the formula to be used, the opposition, as they were generally called, taken all together, had no fixed principle of accord, save an agreement to disagree with the defining the doctrine as of faith. To analyze the constituent parts of this body we shall class them according to ideas.

First in conviction, in determination, and in influence were the Gallicans, properly so called, who held and taught the very opposite of the proposed dogma. They were mostly men who had been bred in this teaching, and who deeply reverenced the memories of those who held and taught it in past times. This class was not very numerous, though it grew larger in the course of the council by the accession of those whose examination of the question convinced them of the claim of Gallicanism to their adherence.

The second class comprised those who, believing the doctrine themselves, or at least, favoring it speculatively, did not think it capable of definition, not deeming the tradition of the church clear enough on this point.

A third class, the most numerous, regarded the definition as possible, but practically fraught with peril to the church, as impeding conversions, as exasperating to governments. For the sake of peace, and for the good of souls, they would not see it proclaimed as of faith.

All of these dissident prelates, we are bound to say, acted with conscientious conviction of the justice of the cause they defended. They were bound in conscience to declare their opinions, and to make them prevail by all lawful influence. If on one side or the other of this most important and vital question any went beyond the limits of moderation, or used means not dictated by prudence or charity, it is nothing more than might have been expected in so large a number of persons, of such varied character and education. Instead of being shocked at the little occurrences of this nature, we should rather be struck with admiration at the self-restraint and affability which were shown, despite the intensity of feeling and strength of conviction. In a word, that the Council of the Vatican did not break up months ago in disorder and irreconcilable enmity, is because it was God's work, and not man's; it was because charity ruled in it, in spite of defects, and not the passions that govern the political debates of men. The earnest desire all had of a mutual good understanding was evinced on occasion of the speech of a well-known cardinal, which, though not approved of by all, gave evidence of a sincere desire for conciliation and agreement. The effect was remarkable; a thrill of pleasure went through the assembly, for the moment each one seemed to breathe freely, and to hail his words as harbingers of peace in the midst of excitement and anxiety.

It was shortly after this incident that the closure of the general discussion on the four chapters of the present constitution took place. The regulations provide for this contingency, making it lawful for ten prelates to petition for the closing of a discussion, the proposal being then put to the vote of all the fathers, and the majority deciding. In this case, a desire not to interfere with remarks which bishops, for conscientious reasons, proposed to make, kept this regulation in abeyance, and it was only after fifty-five speeches had been listened to, that one hundred and fifty bishops sent in a petition for closing, believing there would be ample time and opportunity for every one to speak and present amendments when the _schema_ would be examined in detail. An overwhelming majority voted the closure. It seems difficult to understand how this could be found fault with. Had there been no further chance to speak, there would have been reason undoubtedly to claim hearing, or complain of not being heard. But, as has been seen since, there have been discussions on each part of the _schema_; and on the last chapter, regarding the doctrine of infallibility, one hundred and nine names were inscribed for speaking, of which number sixty-five spoke, the remainder by mutual consent abstaining from speaking; thus of their own accord putting a stop to a discussion in which it was morally impossible to say any thing new. It seems surely to be a strange assertion to say there has been any real infringement of the liberty of speech in the council, when there appears to have been so much of it that the members themselves grew weary of it.

While we are on this subject, we wish to speak a little more fully, as the freedom of the council has been publicly impugned in two works, published in Paris, against which the presidents and the fathers have thought proper formally to protest.

The grounds of the accusation are chiefly three:

1st. The appointment of the congregation, the members of which were named by the sovereign pontiff, and who received or rejected the postulata, or propositions, to be presented to the council for discussion.

2d. The dogmatic deputation having been composed of those in favor of the definition, and the members having been put on it by management; moreover, this deputation exercised a controlling influence in the council.

3d. The interruption of those who were giving expression to their opinions, in the exercise of their right to speak.

We preface our brief reply to these objections by two quotations. One is from the letter of an apostate priest, A. Pichler, at present director of the imperial library at St. Petersburg, which was written by him in Rome last winter, and was published in the _Presse_ of Vienna. In it he says, "It seems to us no council has ever been freer or more independent." The second quotation is from one of the two works referred to above--_Ce qui se passe au Concile_. At page 131 we read:

"In truth, if the pope alone is infallible, it is not only his right, but a duty, and a strict duty, to guide the bishops, united in council, or dispersed throughout the world, to encourage them if they be in the right way, to reprove them if they go out of it, to take an active part in the work of the assembly, to inspire its deliberations, and dictate its decrees."

Apart from the spirit that animates the writer of the above, there is much in what he says, and we take him at his word. The Œcumenical Council of the Vatican has pronounced its irrevocable and infallible decree, declaring infallibility to be and to have been a prerogative of the sovereign pontiff, and that his decisions _ex cathedra_ are irreformable of themselves, and not by virtue of the consent of the episcopacy. We therefore draw our deduction, and justify the sovereign pontiff, by these very words, in nominating the members of the congregation, and in conferring on it the ample powers it has. Secondly, we give him the praise of moderation, because he did not make a full use of the rights accorded him by the author of the citation we have given. Were we to follow this writer, we should have to accuse the pope of having in part neglected a grave duty toward the council, for he did not _dictate_ its decrees. In the very beginning, he told the bishops he gave them the _schemata_, unapproved by him, to be studied, altered, or amended as they saw fit; and, in fact, when the decrees prepared previously by theologians were proposed by the congregation, they were recast and amended time and again, and were finally decided by a vote of the fathers, and approved by the pontiff without alteration. This is surely not dictation; dictation does not admit of reply or refusal, it takes away all liberty whatsoever. The sovereign pontiff then did not _dictate_ the decrees.

Let us return to our triple objection. First, with regard to the congregation. In the early numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD for the current year, an account of the composition of this body is given, as well as the reasons for its appointment. We refer our readers to the March number, in which it may be seen that, although possessed of sovereign powers over the church, defined as belonging to him, by the Council of Florence among others, there was no disposition to exercise coercion on the part of the pope, who, in controlling the action of the council in this way, was only making use of a right the whole church acknowledged. Moreover, the composition of this body was itself a guarantee of justice and zeal for the general welfare. That there were not named for it those who were known to be hostile to what has just been declared of faith, was nothing more than natural. Moreover, when these high ecclesiastics had admitted postulata, their work was over; the propositions passed into the control of the fathers, and were decided by vote.

The answer to the second objection is easier even. This deputation was elected by the fathers themselves; and as the large majority favored the teachings of Rome, they elected none who was opposed to them. As for the accusation of management, we must say that persons who understood well the tendencies of the prominent men of all parties, naturally, as happens in all such large bodies, directed the choice of candidates, and the final vote of the fathers settled the matter. It is hard to see how the rights of any were violated. This deputation, from the merit of those that composed it, could not be without great weight in the council; and when we consider that it was the choice of the large majority, and was in harmony with the views of the majority, it is not wonderful that it controlled to a great extent the votes of those composing the council.

The third objection is one that must be treated with great delicacy, for two reasons--because of the impossibility of knowing all the circumstances, and because those who are accused are in a position that prevents them from justifying themselves. The presidents were named to act for the sovereign pontiff, to preserve due order, to see that the discussion was limited to the matter in hand, and to prevent any thing that might tend to disturb good order, or diminish respect for the authority and person of him they represented. If, in the discharge of their duty, they displeased those they addressed, this was to have been expected; if also they in any way did not observe the due mean, so hard to reach in every thing human, one should excuse, if needful, the defect, when especially the great merits, the distinguished services, the known virtue, and high position of these cardinals are taken into consideration.

And while we are on this subject of objections made against the council we may notice two others that especially regard the decree of the infallibility; they are, 1st. This decision destroys the constitution of the church, doing away with the apostolic college of bishops, and changing the order established by Christ; 2d. this decree is a theological conclusion; but theological conclusions are not of faith, and cannot be so declared.

These objections are formidable only in appearance. No one contends that each bishop when consecrated succeeds to all the privileges and powers of one of the apostles. The bishops, then, not having them in the beginning when consecrated by the apostles, were distinct from the apostles, the apostolic college remaining. When one apostle died, his death did not affect the powers of the church, which remained the same, the other apostles sufficing; so when two, three, or more died, still one remained. He had the same full powers given to each, with subordination to Peter as head of the church. Thus with one apostle and the episcopate the essence of ecclesiastical rule is preserved. When St. Peter died, he left a successor, being the only one of the twelve who did; for he was the only one who had a see. His successor received all his rights, the power of binding and loosing, of teaching and legislating. He was thus the one apostle living still in the world, and each successive pontiff has the same character--the _sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum_ is his--as it was Paul's, John's, and Peter's. The essence of the hierarchy is in this way preserved; the apostolic and episcopal elements are there, and the phraseology of Christianity keeps ever before us this idea; for the see of Peter is always known as the _Sedes Apostolica_. St. Peter Chrysologus speaks of St. Peter living and ruling in his successor--Beatus Petrus qui in successore suo et vivet et præsidet et præstat inquirentibus eam fidem. So far, then, from this definition destroying the character of the hierarchy, it asserts and vindicates it by declaring that the one apostle in the church has never lost his apostolic privilege of inerrancy, and that he is truly possessed of the full powers without diminution that belonged to the prince of the apostles.

To the second objection, regarding the nature of the definition, as being a theological conclusion, we reply, firstly, that what the Scripture, according to the received and now authentic interpretation of the church, taught, and what the practical acknowledgment of the faithful in all ages implied, cannot be called a theological conclusion; but must be regarded as being what it is--a directly revealed truth; secondly, a theological conclusion, though not of faith in itself, as being the deduction of reason, by the _superadded authoritative decision of the church_ can become of faith, as often as the denial of such conclusion affects the truth of that dogma from which it has been deduced. Such questions are fairly within the range of the church's arbitration; and when there is a doubt concerning the character of a conclusion, it is her province to decide whether it be or be not hurtful or beneficial to the truth of which she alone is the divinely constituted guardian. Examples in the past history of the councils of the church are not wanting; for our purpose, take the Sixth Council. The question of the two wills was a theological conclusion; no one ever spoke of the two wills before that epoch; the phrase does not occur in all previous theology or ecclesiastical history. We first hear of it in the east, where metaphysical studies flourished, and where intellectual pride had already brought about the Arian, Nestorian, and Eutychian heresies.

We have mentioned the fact of the closure of the discussion on the fourth chapter, by mutual consent of those whose names were inscribed to speak. This was immediately followed by voting. The first three chapters were soon gotten over; the fourth is the one that contains the doctrine on the infallibility, and it met with more opposition.

On Saturday, July 11th, was held the general congregation in which the details of this portion of the _schema_ were up for approval or rejection. On this occasion the voting was by rising simply, and against the definition there were forty-seven votes.

On the 13th, another general congregation was called to vote, according to the regulations, on the whole _schema_, by name, with _placet_, or _placet juxta modum_, or _non placet_. The register, it appears, stands as follows: 451 _placets_, 62 _placets juxta modum_, and 88 _non placets_.

Some of these _placets juxta modum_ recommended the insertion of words that would make the decree clearer and stronger. The _schema_ was accordingly altered, and the amendments were retained in the general congregation held Saturday, July 16th.

On Sunday morning was distributed a _monitum_, by which the fathers were notified that the fourth public session would be held on Monday, July 18th, at nine o'clock.

The 18th of July will henceforth be a memorable day in the history of the church. It did not dawn, however, with the brilliancy usual at this season, or almost habitual with the grand _fêtes_ of Pius IX. It rained much during the preceding night, and up to the time of the meeting of the session wayfarers were liable any time to be caught by fitful showers. The thought that, although a great and most beneficial act was to be done, still there were not a few of the fathers who thought otherwise than the majority in a matter about to be made binding on the conscience of all, was not calculated to heighten the external manifestation of cheerfulness, whatever feelings of thankfulness to Providence for the event was in the heart. As the interest was intense, there were not many, who deemed they could come, who were not present. At nine o'clock precisely, his eminence Cardinal Barili began a low mass, without chant. At the end of it, the small throne for the gospels was placed on the altar, and upon it the copy of the sacred Scriptures. In a few moments the sovereign pontiff entered, preceded by the senate and by the officers of his court, and, after kneeling a few moments at the prie-dieu, went to his throne in the apsis of the aula. The customary prayers were recited by him; the litany of the saints was chanted, and the "Veni Creator Spiritus" intoned, the people present taking part; after which the Bishop of Fabriano ascended the pulpit and read the _schema_ to be voted on, and finished with asking the fathers whether it pleased them. Monsignor Jacobini next, from the pulpit, called the name of each prelate assisting at the council. Five hundred and thirty-four answered _placet_, two replied _non placet_, and one hundred and six were absent, some because sick, the far greater number not wishing to vote favorably. As soon as the result was made known officially to Pius IX., who awaited it in silence, but with calmness, he arose and in a clear, distinct, and firm voice announced the fact of all, with the exception of two, having given a favorable vote, wherefore, he continued, by virtue of our apostolic authority, with the approval of the sacred council, we define, confirm, and approve the decrees and canons just read. Immediately there arose murmurs of approbation inside and outside the hall, the doors of which were surrounded by a large crowd, and, increasing from the impossibility those present experienced of repressing their feeling, it swelled into a burst of congratulation, and a _Viva Pio Nono Papa infallibile_. We shall not say any thing regarding the propriety of such proceedings in a church; but there are times when feeling is so powerful as to break through all ideas of conventionality. As soon as all were quiet, with unfaltering voice and excellent intonation the pope began the Te Deum. It was taken up alternately by the Sistine choir and those present. By an accident, at the Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, the people got out, and took up the part of the Sistine choir, and kept it to the end, alternately with the bishops, and with a volume of sound that completely drowned the delicate notes of the papal singers, and which, if not as musical as their chant, was far more impressive. The session ended with the apostolic benediction from the holy father, accompanied by an indulgence for all assisting, in accordance with the custom of the church. Thus passed one of the most momentous and remarkable occasions the world has ever witnessed, a day henceforth memorable in the annals of the church and of mankind, the results of which the human mind is scarce capable of grasping.

FIRST DOGMATIC DECREE ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, PUBLISHED IN THE FOURTH SESSION OF THE HOLY ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

PASSED JULY 18, 1870.

PIVS EPISCOPVS SERVVS SERVORVM PIUS, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE DEI SACRO APPROBANTE CONCILIO AD SERVANTS OF GOD, WITH THE PERPETVAM REI MEMORIAM. APPROBATION OF THE HOLY COUNCIL, FOR A PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE HEREOF.

Pastor aeternus et episcopus The eternal Shepherd and Bishop animarum nostrarum, ut of our souls, in order to render salutiferum redemptionis opus perpetual the saving work of his perenne redderet, sanctam redemption, resolved to build aedificare Ecclesiam decrevit, the holy church, in which, as in in qua veluti in domo Dei the house of the living God, all viventis fideles omnes unius the faithful should be united fidei et charitatis vinculo by the bond of the same faith continerentur. Quapropter, and charity. For which reason, priusquam clarificaretur, before he was glorified, he rogavit Patrem non pro Apostolis prayed the Father, not for the tantum, sed et pro eis, qui apostles alone, but also for credituri erant per verbum those who, through their word, eorum in ipsum, ut omnes unum would believe in him, that they essent, sicut ipse Filius et all might be one, as the Son Pater unum sunt. Quemadmodum himself and the Father are one. igitur Apostolos, quos sibi (John xvii. 1-20.) Wherefore, de mundo elegerat, misit, even as he sent the apostles, sicut ipse missus erat a whom he had chosen to himself Patre; ita in Ecclesia sua from the world as he had been Pastores et Doctores usque ad sent by the father, so he willed consummationem saeculi esse that there should be pastors and voluit. Ut vero episcopatus teachers in his church even to ipse unus et indivisus esset, the consummation of the world. et per cohaerentes sibi Moreover, to the end that the invicem sacerdotes credentium episcopal body itself might be multitudo universa in fidei one and undivided, and that the et communionis unitate entire multitude of believers conservaretur, beatum Petrum might be preserved in oneness caeteris Apostolis praeponens of faith and of communion, in ipso instituit perpetuum through priests cleaving utriusque unitatis principium mutually together, he placed the ac visibile fundamentum, super blessed Peter before the other cuius fortitudinem aeternum apostles and established in him exstrueretur templum, et a perpetual principle of this Ecclesiae coelo inferenda two-fold unity, and a visible sublimitas in huius fidei foundation on whose strength firmitate consurgeret.[306] "the eternal temple might be Et quoniam portae inferi built, and in whose firm faith ad evertendam, si fieri the church might rise upward posset, Ecclesiam contra eius until her summit reach the fundamentum divinitus positum heavens," (St. Leo the Great, maiori in dies odio Sermon iv. (or iii.) chapter undique insurgunt; Nos ad 2, on Christmas.) Now, seeing catholici gregis custodiam, that in order to overthrow, if incolumitatem, augmentum, possible, the church, the powers necessarium esse iudicamus, of hell on every side, and sacro approbante Concilio, with a hatred which increases doctrinam de institutione, day by day, are assailing her perpetuitate, ac natura sacri foundation which was placed Apostolici primatus, in quo by God, we therefore, for the totius Ecclesiae vis ac preservation, the safety, and soliditas consistit, cunctis the increase of the Catholic fidelibus credendam et tenendam, flock, and with the approbation secundum antiquam atque of the sacred council, have constantem universalis Ecclesiae judged it necessary to set forth fidem, proponere, atque the doctrine which, according to contrarios, dominico gregi adeo the ancient and constant faith perniciosos errores proscribere of the universal church, all the et condemnare. faithful must believe and hold, touching the institution, the perpetuity, and the nature of the sacred apostolic primacy, in which stands the power and strength of the entire church; and to proscribe and condemn the contrary errors so hurtful to the flock of the Lord.

CAPUT I. CHAPTER I.

DE APOSTOLICI PRIMATUS IN BEATO OF THE INSTITUTION OF THE PETRO INSTITUTIONE. APOSTOLIC PRIMACY IN THE BLESSED PETER.

Docemus itaque et declaramus, We teach, therefore, and iuxta Evangelii testimonia declare that, according to the primatum iurisdictionis in testimonies of the Gospel, the universam Dei Ecclesiam primacy of jurisdiction over immediate et directe beato the whole church of God was Petro Apostolo promissum atque promised and given immediately collatum a Christo Domino and directly to blessed Peter, fuisse. Unum enim Simonem, cui the apostle, by Christ our Lord. iam pridem dixerat: Tu vocaberis For it was to Simon alone, to Cephas,[307] postquam ille suam whom he had already said, "Thou edidit confessionem inquiens: shalt be called Cephas,"[309] Tu es Christus, Filius Dei that, after he had professed vivi, solemnibus hic verbis his faith, "Thou art Christ, locutus est Dominus: Beatus es the Son of the living God," our Simon Bar-Iona, quia caro et Lord said, "Blessed art thou, sanguis non revelavit tibi, Simon Bar-Jona; because flesh sed Pater meus, qui in coelis and blood hath not revealed it est: et ego dico tibi, quia to thee, but my Father who is in tu es Petrus, et super hanc heaven; and I say to thee, that petram aedificabo Ecclesiam thou art Peter, and upon this meam, et portae inferi non rock I will build my church, praevalebunt adversus eam: et and the gates of hell shall tibi dabo claves regni coelorum: not prevail against it; and et quodcumque ligaveris super I will give to thee the keys terram, erit ligatum et in of the kingdom of heaven; and coelis: et quodcumque solveris whatsoever thou shalt bind upon super terram, erit solutum et in earth, it shall be bound also coelis.[308] Atque uni Simoni in heaven; and whatsoever Petro contulit Iesus post suam thou shalt loose upon earth, resurrectionem summi pastoris it shall be loosed also in et rectoris iurisdictionem heaven."[311] And it was to in totum suum ovile, dicens: Simon Peter alone that Jesus, Pasce agnos meos: Pasce oves after his resurrection, gave the meas.[310] Huic tam manifestae jurisdiction of supreme shepherd sacrarum Scripturarum doctrinae, and ruler over the whole of his ut ab Ecclesia catholica fold, saying, "Feed my lambs;" semper intellecta est, aperte "Feed my sheep."[312] To this opponuntur pravae eorum doctrine so clearly set forth sententiae, qui constitutam a in the sacred Scriptures, as Christo Domino in sua Ecclesia the Catholic Church has always regiminis formam pervertentes understood it, are plainly negant, solum Petrum prae opposed the perverse opinions of caeteris Apostolis, sive seorsum those who, distorting the form singulis sive omnibus simul, of government established in vero proprioque iurisdictionis his church by Christ our Lord, primatu fuisse a Christo deny that Peter alone above the instructum: aut qui affirmant other apostles, whether taken eumdem primatum non immediate, separately one by one or all directeque ipsi beato Petro, sed together, was endowed by Christ Ecclesiae, et per hanc illi, with a true and real primacy ut ipsius Ecclesiae ministro, of jurisdiction; or who assert delatum fuisse. that this primacy was not given immediately and directly Si quis igitur dixerit, beatum to blessed Peter, but to the Petrum Apostolum non esse a church, and through her to him, Christo Domino constitutum as to the agent of the church. Apostolorum omnium principem et totius Ecclesiae militantis If, therefore, any one shall visibile caput; vel eumdem say, that blessed Peter the honoris tantum, non autem verae Apostle was not appointed by propriaeque iurisdictionis Christ our Lord, the prince primatum ab eodem Domino of all the apostles, and the nostro Iesu Christo directe et visible head of the whole church immediate accepisse; anathema militant; or, that he received sit. directly and immediately from our Lord Jesus Christ only the primacy of honor, and not that of true and real jurisdiction; let him be anathema.

CAPUT II. CHAPTER II.

DE PERPETUITATE PRIMATUS BEATI OF THE PERPETUITY OF THE PRIMACY PETRI IN ROMANIS PONTIFICIBUS. OF PETER IN THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

Quod autem in beato Apostolo What the prince of pastors Petro princeps pastorum et and the great shepherd of the pastor magnus ovium Dominus sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, Christus Iesus in perpetuam established in the person of the salutem ac perenne bonum blessed apostle Peter for the Ecclesiae instituit, id eodem perpetual welfare and lasting auctore in Ecclesia, quae good of the church, the same fundata super petram ad finem through his power must needs saeculorum usque firma stabit, last for ever in that church, iugiter durare necesse est. which is founded upon the rock, Nulli sane dubium, imo saeculis and will stand firm till the omnibus notum est, quod end of time. And indeed it is sanctus beatissimusque Petrus, well known, as it has been in Apostolorum princeps et caput, all ages, that the holy and fideique columna et Ecclesiae most blessed Peter, prince and catholicae fundamentum, a Domino head of the apostles, pillar of nostro Iesu Christo, Salvatore the faith and foundation of the humani generis ac Redemptore, Catholic Church, who received claves regni accepit: qui ad from our Lord Jesus Christ, the hoc usque tempus et semper in Saviour and Redeemer of mankind, suis successoribus, episcopis the keys of the kingdom of sanctae Romanae Sedis, ab ipso heaven, to this present time and fundatae, eiusque consecratae at all times lives and presides sanguine, vivit et praesidet and pronounces judgment in the et iudicium exercet.[313] Unde person of his successors, the quicumque in hac Cathedra Petro bishops of the holy Roman see, succedit, is secundum Christi which was founded by him, and ipsius institutionem primatum consecrated by his blood.[316] Petri in universam Ecclesiam So that whoever succeeds Peter obtinet. Manet ergo dispositio in this chair, holds, according veritatis, et beatus Petrus to Christ's own institution, the in accepta fortitudine petrae primacy of Peter over the whole perseverans suscepta Ecclesiae church. What, therefore, was gubernacula non reliquit.[314] once established by him who is Hac de causa ad Romanam the truth, still remains, and Ecclesiam propter potentiorem blessed Peter, retaining the principalitatem necesse semper strength of the rock, which has fuit omnem convenire Ecclesiam, been given to him, has never hoc est, eos, qui sunt undique left the helm of the church fideles, ut in ea Sede, e qua originally intrusted to him.[317] venerandae communionis iura in omnes dimanant, tamquam For this reason it was always membra in capite consociata, necessary for every other in unam corporis compagem church, that is, the faithful of coalescerent.[315] all countries, to have recourse to the Roman Church on account Si quis ergo dixerit, non of its superior headship, in esse ex ipsius Christi Domini order that being joined, as institutione seu iure divino, members to their head, with this ut beatus Petrus in primatu see, from which the rights of super universam Ecclesiam religious communion flow unto habeat perpetuos successores; all, they might be knitted into aut Romanum Pontificem non esse the unity of one body.[318] beati Petri in eodem primatu successorem; anathema sit. If, therefore, any one shall say, that it is not by the institution of Christ our Lord himself, or by divine right, that blessed Peter has perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole church; or, that the Roman pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy; let him be anathema.

CAPUT III. CHAPTER III.

DE VI ET RATIONE PRIMATUS ROMANI OF THE POWER AND NATURE OF THE PONTIFICIS. PRIMACY OF THE ROMAN PONTIFF.

Quapropter apertis innixi Wherefore, resting upon the sacrarum litterarum clear testimonies of holy testimoniis et inhaerentes writ, and following the full tum Praedecessorum Nostrorum and explicit decrees of our Romanorum Pontificum, tum predecessors the Roman pontiffs, Conciliorum generalium disertis, and of general councils, we perspicuisque decretis, renew the definition of the innovamus oecumenici Concilii œcumenical council of Florentini definitionem, qua Florence, according to which credendum ab omnibus Christi all the faithful of Christ fidelibus est, sanctam must believe that the holy Apostolicam Sedem, et Romanum apostolic see and the Roman Pontificem in universum orbem pontiff hold the primacy over tenere primatum, et ipsum the whole world, and that the Pontificem Romanum successorem Roman pontiff is the successor esse beati Petri principis of blessed Peter the prince of Apostolorum, et verum Christi the apostles, and the true vicar Vicarium, totiusque Ecclesiae of Christ, and is the head of caput, et omnium Christianorum the whole church, and the father patrem ac doctorem existere; and teacher of all Christians; et ipsi in beato Petro and that to him, in the blessed pascendi, regendi et gubernandi Peter, was given by our Lord universalem Ecclesiam a Domino Jesus Christ full power of nostro Iesu Christo plenam feeding, ruling, and governing potestatem traditam esse; the universal church; as is also quemadmodum etiam in gestis set forth in the acts of the oecumenicorum Conciliorum et œcumenical councils, and in sacris canonibus continetur. the sacred canons.

Docemus proinde et declaramus, Wherefore, we teach and declare Ecclesiam Romanam disponente that the Roman Church, under Domino super omnes alias divine providence, possesses ordinariae potestatis obtinere a headship of ordinary power principatum, et hanc Romani over all other churches, and Pontificis iurisdictionis that this power of jurisdiction potestatem, quae vere of the Roman pontiff, which is episcopalis est, immediatam truly episcopal, is immediate, esse: erga quam cuiuscumque toward which the pastors and ritus et dignitatis, faithful of whatever rite and pastores atque fideles, tam dignity, whether singly or all seorsum singuli quam simul together, are bound by the duty omnes, officio hierarchicae of hierarchical subordination subordinationis, veraeque and of true obedience, not only obedientiae obstringuntur, non in things which appertain to solum in rebus, quae ad fidem faith and morals, but likewise et mores, sed etiam in iis, in those things which concern quae ad disciplinam et regimen the discipline and government Ecclesiae, per totum orbem of the church spread throughout diffusae pertinent; ita, ut the world, so that being united custodita cum Romano Pontifice with the Roman pontiff, both in tam communionis, quam eiusdem communion and in profession of fidei professionis unitate, the same faith, the church of Ecclesia Christi sit unus grex Christ may be one fold under sub uno summo pastore. Haec est one chief shepherd. This is the catholicae veritatis doctrina, doctrine of Catholic truth, from a qua deviare salva fide atque which no one can depart without salute nemo potest. loss of faith and salvation.

Tantum autem abest, ut haec So far, nevertheless, is this Summi Pontificis potestas power of the supreme pontiff officiat ordinariae ac from trenching on that ordinary immediatae illi episcopali power of episcopal jurisdiction iurisdictionis potestati, qua by which the bishops, who have Episcopi, qui positi a Spiritu been instituted by the Holy Sancto in Apostolorum locum Ghost and have succeeded in the successerunt, tamquam veri place of the apostles, like Pastores assignatos sibi greges, true shepherds, feed and rule singuli singulos, pascunt et the flocks assigned to them, regunt, ut eadem a supremo et each one his own; that, on the universali Pastore asseratur, contrary, this their power is roboretur ac vindicetur, asserted, strengthened, and secundum illud sancti Gregorii vindicated by the supreme and Magni: Meus honor est honor universal pastor; as St. Gregory universalis Ecclesiae. Meus the Great saith: My honor is the honor est fratrum meorum solidus honor of the universal church; vigor. Tum ego vere honoratus my honor is the solid strength sum, cum singulis quibusque of my brethren; then am I truly honor debitus non negatur.[319] honored when to each one of them the honor due is not denied. (St. Gregory Great ad Eulogius, Epist. 30.)

Porro ex suprema ilia Romani Moreover, from that supreme Pontificis potestate gubernandi authority of the Roman pontiff universam Ecclesiam ius eidem to govern the universal church, esse consequitur, in huius there follows to him the right, sui muneris exercitio libere in the exercise of this his communicandi cum pastoribus et office, of freely communicating gregibus totius Ecclesiae, ut with the pastors and flocks of iidem ab ipso in via salutis the whole church, that they may doceri ac regi possint. Quare be taught and guided by him in damnamus ac reprobamus illorum the way of salvation. sententias, qui hanc supremi capitis cum pastoribus et Wherefore, we condemn and gregibus communicationem reprobate the opinions of those, licite impediri posse dicunt, who say that this communication aut eamdem reddunt saeculari of the supreme head with the potestati obnoxiam, ita ut pastors and flocks can be contendant, quae ab Apostolica lawfully hindered, or who make Sede vel eius auctoritate ad it subject to the secular regimen Ecclesiae constituuntur, power, maintaining that the vim ac valorem non habere, nisi things which are decreed by potestatis saecularis placito the apostolic see or under its confirmentur. authority for the government of the church, have no force or Et quoniam divino Apostolici value unless they are confirmed primatus iure Romanus Pontifex by the approval of the secular universae Ecclesiae praeest, power. And since, by the divine docemus etiam et declaramus, right of apostolic primacy, eum esse iudicem supremum the Roman pontiff presides fidelium,[320] et in omnibus over the universal churches, causis ad examen ecclesiasticum we also teach and declare spectantibus ad ipsius posse that he is the supreme judge iudicium recurri;[321] of the faithful, (Pius VI. Sedis vero Apostolicae, Brief Super Soliditate,) and cuius auctoritate maior non that in all causes calling for est, iudicium a nemine fore ecclesiastical trial, recourse retractandum, neque cuiquam may be had to his judgment, de eius licere iudicare (Second Council of Lyons;) but iudicio.[322] Quare a recto the decision of the apostolic veritatis tramite aberrant, see, above which there is no qui affirmant, licere ab higher authority, cannot be iudiciis Romanorum Pontificum ad reconsidered by any one, nor oecumenicum Concilium tamquam ad is it lawful to any one to sit auctoritatem Romano Pontifice in judgment on his judgment. superiorem appellare. (Nicholas I. epist. ad Michaelem Imperatorem.)

Wherefore, they wander away from the right path of truth who assert that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an œcumenical council, as if to an authority superior to the Roman pontiff.

Si quis itaque dixerit, Romanum Therefore, if any one shall say Pontificem habere tantummodo that the Roman pontiff holds officium inspectionis vel only the charge of inspection directionis, non autem plenam or direction, and not full and et supremam potestatem supreme power of jurisdiction iurisdictionis in universam over the entire church, not only Ecclesiam, non solum in rebus, in things which pertain to faith quae ad fidem et mores, and morals, but also in those sed etiam in iis, quae ad which pertain to the discipline disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiae and government of the church per totum orbem diffusae spread throughout the whole pertinent; aut eum habere tantum world; or, that he possesses potiores partes, non vero totam only the chief part and not the plenitudinem huius supremae entire plenitude of this supreme potestatis; aut hanc eius power; or, that this his power potestatem non esse ordinariam is not ordinary and immediate, et immediatam sive in omnes ac both as regards all and each of singulas ecclesias sive in omnes the churches, and all and each et singulos pastores et fideles; of the pastors and faithful; let anathema sit. him be anathema.

CAPUT IV. CHAPTER IV.

DE ROMANI PONTIFICIS INFALLIBILI OF THE INFALLIBLE AUTHORITY OF MAGISTERIO. THE ROMAN PONTIFF IN TEACHING.

Ipso autem Apostolico primatu, This holy see has ever quem Romanus Pontifex tamquam held--the unbroken custom of Petri principis Apostolorum the church doth prove--and the successor in universam œcumenical councils, those Ecclesiam obtinet, supremam especially in which the east quoque magisterii potestatem joined with the west, in union comprehendi, haec Sancta Sedes of faith and of charity, have semper tenuit, perpetuus declared that in this apostolic Ecclesiae usus comprobat, primacy, which the Roman pontiff ipsaque oecumenica Concilia, ea holds over the universal church, imprimis, in quibus Oriens cum as successor of Peter the prince Occidente in fidei charitatisque of the apostles, there is also unionem conveniebat, contained the supreme power of declaraverunt. Patres enim authoritative teaching. Thus the Concilii Constantinopolitani fathers of the fourth council of quarti, maiorum vestigiis Constantinople, following in the inhaerentes, hanc solemnem footsteps of their predecessors, ediderunt professionem: Prima put forth this solemn profession: salus est, rectae fidei regulam custodire. Et quia non potest "The first law of salvation is Domini nostri Iesu Christi to keep the rule of true faith. praetermitti sententia dicentis: And whereas the words of our Tu es Petrus, et super hanc Lord Jesus Christ cannot be petram aedificabo Ecclesiam passed by, who said: Thou art meam, haec, quae dicta sunt, Peter, and upon this rock I rerum probantur effectibus, quia will build my church, (Matt. in Sede Apostolica immaculata xvi. 18,) these words, which est semper catholica reservata he spake, are proved true by religio, et sancta celebrata facts; for in the apostolic doctrina. Ab huius ergo fide see, the Catholic religion has et doctrina separari minime ever been preserved unspotted, cupientes, speramus, ut in and the holy doctrine has been una communione, quam Sedes announced. Therefore wishing Apostolica praedicat, esse never to be separated from the mereamur, in qua est integra faith and teaching of this see, et vera Christianae religionis we hope to be worthy to abide soliditas.[323] Approbante vero in that one communion which the Lugdunenis Concilio secundo, apostolic see preaches, in which Graeci professi sunt: Sanctam is the full and true firmness Romanam Ecclesiam summum et of the Christian religion." plenum primatum et principatum [Formula of St. Hormisdas Pope, super universam Ecclesiam as proposed by Hadrian II. catholicam obtinere, quem se to the fathers of the eighth ab ipso Domino in beato Petro general Council, (Constantinop. Apostolorum principe sive IV.,) and subscribed by them.] vertice, cuius Romanus Pontifex est successor, cum potestatis So too, the Greeks, with the plenitudine recepisse veraciter approval of the second council et humiliter recognoscit; et of Lyons, professed, that the sicut prae caeteris tenetur holy Roman Church holds over fidei veritatem defendere, sic the universal Catholic Church, et, si quae de fide subortae a supreme and full primacy and fuerint quaestiones, suo debent headship, which she truthfully iudicio definiri. Florentinum and humbly acknowledges that denique Concilium definivit: she received, with fulness of Pontificem Romanum, verum power, from the Lord himself Christi Vicarium, totiusque in blessed Peter, the prince Ecclesiae caput et omnium or head of the apostles, of Christianorum patrem ac doctorem whom the Roman pontiff is the existere; et ipsi in beato Petro successor; and as she, beyond pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi the others, is bound to defend universalem Ecclesiam a Domino the truth of the faith, so, if nostro Iesu Christo plenam any questions arise concerning potestatem traditam esse. faith, they should be decided by her judgment. And finally, the council of Florence defined that the Roman pontiff is true vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole church, and the father and teacher of all Christians, and that to him, in the blessed Peter, was given by our Lord Jesus Christ full power of feeding and ruling and governing the universal church. (John xxi. 15-17.)

Huic pastorali muneri ut In order to fulfil this pastoral satisfacerent, Praedecessores charge, our predecessors have Nostri indefessam semper operam ever labored unweariedly to dederunt, ut salutaris Christi spread the saving doctrine of doctrina apud omnes terrae Christ among all the nations populos propagaretur, parique of the earth, and with equal cura vigilarunt, ut, ubi care have watched to preserve recepta esset, sincera et pura it pure and unchanged where it conservaretur. Quocirca totius had been received. Wherefore orbis Antistites, nunc singuli, the bishops of the whole world, nunc in Synodis congregati, sometimes singly, sometimes longam ecclesiarum consuetudinem assembled in synods, following et antiquae regulae formam the long established custom sequentes, ea praesertim of the churches, (S. Cyril, pericula, quae in negotiis Alex. ad S. Cœlest. Pap.,) fidei emergebant, ad hanc Sedem and the form of ancient rule, Apostolicam retulerunt, ut ibi (St. Innocent I. to councils of potissimum resarcirentur damna Carthage and Milevi,) referred fidei, ubi fides non potest to this apostolic see those sentire defectum.[324] Romani dangers especially which arose autem Pontifices, prout temporum in matters of faith, in order et rerum conditio suadebat, nunc that injuries to faith might convocatis oecumenicis Conciliis best be healed there where the aut explorata Ecclesiae per faith could never fail. (St. orbem dispersae sententia, nunc Bernard ep. 190.) And the Roman per Synodos particulares, nunc pontiffs, weighing the condition aliis, quae divina suppeditabat of times and circumstances, providentia, adhibitis auxiliis, sometimes calling together ea tenenda definiverunt, quae general councils, or asking sacris Scripturis et apostolicis the judgment of the church Traditionibus consentanea, scattered through the world, Deo adiutore, cognoverant. sometimes consulting particular Neque enim Petri successoribus synods, sometimes using such Spiritus Sanctus promissus other aids as divine providence est, ut eo revelante novam supplied, defined that those doctrinam patefacerent, sed doctrines should be held, which, ut eo assistente traditam per by the aid of God, they knew Apostolos revelationem seu fidei to be conformable to the holy depositum sancte custodirent et Scriptures, and the apostolic fideliter exponerent. Quorum traditions. For the Holy quidem apostolicam doctrinam Ghost is not promised to the omnes venerabiles Patres amplexi successors of Peter, that they et sancti Doctores orthodoxi may make known a new doctrine venerati atque secuti sunt; revealed by him, but that, plenissime scientes, hanc sancti through his assistance, they may Petri Sedem ab omni semper sacredly guard, and faithfully errore illibatam permanere, set forth the revelation secundum Domini Salvatoris delivered by the apostles, that nostri divinam pollicitationem is, the deposit of faith. And discipulorum suorum principi this their apostolic teaching, factam: Ego rogavi pro te, ut all the venerable fathers have non deficiat fides tua, et tu embraced, and the holy orthodox aliquando conversus confirma doctors have revered and fratres tuos. followed, knowing most certainly that this see of St. Peter ever remains free from all error, according to the divine promise of our Lord and Saviour made to the prince of the apostles: I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren. (Conf. St. Agatho, Ep. ad Imp. a Conc. Œcum. VI. approbat.)

Hoc igitur veritatis et fidei Therefore, this gift of truth, numquam deficientis charisma and of faith which fails not, Petro eiusque in hac Cathedra was divinely bestowed on Peter successoribus divinitus collatum and his successors in this est, ut excelso suo munere in chair, that they should exercise omnium salutem fungerentur, their high office for the ut universus Christi grex per salvation of all, that through eos ab erroris venenosa esca them the universal flock of aversus, coelestis doctrinae Christ should be turned away pabulo nutriretur, ut sublata from the poisonous food of schismatis occasione Ecclesia error, and should be nourished tota una conservaretur atque suo with the food of heavenly fundamento innixa firma adversus doctrine, and that, the occasion inferi portas consisteret. of schism being removed, the entire church should be preserved one, and, planted on her foundation, should stand firm against the gates of hell.

At vero cum hac ipsa aetate, qua Nevertheless, since in this salutifera Apostolici muneris present age, when the saving efficacia vel maxime requiritur, efficacy of the apostolic non pauci inveniantur, qui office is exceedingly needed, illius auctoritati obtrectant; there are not a few who carp necessarium omnino esse at its authority; we judge it censemus, praerogativam, quam altogether necessary to solemnly unigenitus Dei Filius cum summo declare the prerogative, which pastorali officio coniungere the only begotten Son of God has dignatus est, solemniter deigned to unite to the supreme asserere. pastoral office.

Itaque Nos traditioni a fidei Wherefore, faithfully adhering Christianae exordio perceptae to the tradition handed down fideliter inhaerendo, ad Dei from the commencement of the Salvatoris nostri gloriam Christian faith, for the religionis Catholicae glory of God our Saviour, the exaltationem et Christianorum exaltation of the Catholic populorum salutem, sacro religion, and the salvation approbante Concilio, docemus et of Christian peoples, with divinitus revelatum dogma esse the approbation of the sacred definimus: Romanum Pontificem, council, we teach and define cum ex Cathedra loquitur, id it to be a doctrine divinely est, cum omnium Christianorum revealed: that when the Roman Pastoris et Doctoris munere pontiff speaks _ex cathedra_, fungens, pro suprema sua that is, when in the exercise of Apostolica auctoritate doctrinam his office of pastor and teacher de fide vel moribus ab universa of all Christians, and in virtue Ecclesia tenendam definit, per of his supreme apostolical assistentiam divinam, ipsi authority, he defines that a in beato Petro promissam, ea doctrine of faith or morals is infallibilitate pollere, qua to be held by the universal divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam church, he possesses, through in definienda doctrina de fide the divine assistance promised vel moribus instructam esse to him in the blessed Peter, voluit; ideoque eiusmodi Romani that infallibility with which Pontificis definitiones ex sese, the divine Redeemer willed non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae, his church to be endowed, in irreformabiles esse. defining a doctrine of faith or morals; and therefore that such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not by force of the consent of the church thereto.

Si quis autem huic Nostrae And if any one shall presume, definitioni contradicere, quod which God forbid, to contradict Deus avertat, praesumpserit; this our definition; let him be anathema sit. anathema.

Datum Romae, in publica Sessione Given in Rome, in the Public in Vaticana Basilica solemniter Session, solemnly celebrated in celebrata, anno Incarnationis the Vatican Basilica, in the Dominicae millesimo year of the Incarnation of our octingentesimo septuagesimo, die Lord one thousand eight hundred decima octava Iulii. and seventy, on the eighteenth day of July; in the twenty-fifth Pontificatus Nostri anno year of our Pontificate. vigesimo quinto

Ita est Ita est.

IOSEPHUS JOSEPH, BISHOP OF ST. POLTEN, _Episcopus S. Hippolyti_ _Secretary of the Council of _Secretarius Concilii Vaticani_. the Vatican_.

FOOTNOTES:

[306] S. Leo M. serm. iv. (al. iii.) cap. 2. in diem Natalis sui.

[307] Joan. i. 42.

[308] Matth. xvi. 16-19.

[309] John i. 42.

[310] Joan. xxi. 15-17.

[311] Matthew xvi. 16-19.

[312] John xxi. 15-17.

[313] Cf. Ephesini Concilii Act. iii.

[314] S. Leo M. Serm. iii. (al. ii.) cap. 3.

[315] S. Iren. Adv. Hær. I. iii. c. 3. Ep. Conc. Aquilei 2. 381, inter epp. S. Ambros. ep. xi.

[316] Council of Eph. sess. iii. St. Peter Chrys. Ep. ad Eutych.

[317] S. Leo, Serm. iii. chap. iii.

[318] St. Irenæus against Heresies, book iii. chap. 3. Epist. of Council of Aquileia, 381, to Gratian, chap. 4. of Pius VI. Brief Super Soliditate.

[319] Ep. ad Eulog. Alexandrin. I. viii. ep. xxx.

[320] Pii P. VI. Breve Super Soliditate, d. 28. Nov. 1786.

[321] Concil. Œcum. Lugdun. II.

[322] Ep. Nicolai I. ad Michaelem Imperatorem.

[323] Ex formula S. Hormisdae Papae, prout ab Hadriano II. Patribus Concilii Oecumenici VIII., Constantinopolitani IV., proposita et ab iisdem subscripta est.

[324] Cf. S. Bern. Epist. 190.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LIFE OF T. THÉOPHANE VÉNARD, MARTYR IN TONQUIN. Translated from the French by Lady Herbert. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1870. Pp. 215. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street, New York.

China is the land of modern martyrdom. She continues the work of Nero and Diocletian. Within a few days the newspapers have contained a brief account of the latest massacre. These persecutions have been constant since her soil first drank the blood of a Catholic missionary. Incited by their pagan priests, secretly encouraged by government officials, and sustained by the approbation of the mandarins, the ignorant and barbarous mobs of China are only too ready for the murder of those whom they term "Foreign Devils." Throughout the world there is at least partial toleration for the teacher of the Christian religion; in China there is only certain death. Father Vénard, then, went to China with the hope and expectation of martyrdom. This was tempered, indeed, by the thought that he was unworthy of this singular grace, but still it was the constant thought of his life. In early childhood it was his delight to read the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith" with his dear sister Mélanie; and once, when he had scarcely reached his ninth year, he was heard to exclaim, "And I too will go to Tonquin; and I too will be a martyr!" Those childish lips were speaking a prophecy. Let twenty-two years pass away, and the little French lad will be found in a wooden cage, the prisoner of barbarians, and awaiting sentence of death. Sweet bird of paradise that he was, it is not strange that even a pagan mob should be touched by his misfortunes. He hears the crowd about his prison saying, "What a pretty boy that European is!" "He is gay and bright, as if he were going to a feast!" "He is come to our country to do us good." "Certainly he can't have done any thing wrong." But in China, as in more civilized nations, popular sympathy has little influence over the authorities who administer the government. Doubtless there was some law to be vindicated, and so, on February 3d, 1860, at the age of thirty-one, Father Vénard was beheaded. His execution was not remarkable for any great tortures, though it was cruel enough. But this was due to an unskilful headsman and a dull sword; and as these accidents are frequent in the execution of our criminals, it would be unjust to make it a reproach to those who caused the death of the young martyr. But his life does not require the heroic endurance of tortures to make it interesting. He wins our love simply because he was so full of love himself. He was a tender and affectionate son, a warm and devoted brother, an unfailing friend. Perhaps the greatest of his sacrifices was made when he left the sister to whom he was so warmly attached that he might labor among the heathen. It may have been a more glorious triumph for the martyr to renounce his idolized relatives than to meet death bravely. We cannot, therefore, see the appropriateness of Lady Herbert's remark, that Vénard "was no ascetic saint, trembling at every manifestation of human or natural feeling." If he did not tremble at human affections, at least he knew how to renounce them; indeed, he saw that perfection could only be gained by their renunciation. But as Lady Herbert's sentence reads, it conveys a reproach to the ascetics. We might imagine that "an ascetic saint trembling at every manifestation of human or natural feeling" was something greatly to be deplored. But when we remember that St. Aloysius was so careful in this matter that he would not raise his eyes to look upon his own mother, we may very fairly question the wisdom of Lady Herbert's insinuation. She has evidently used the word ascetic in a Protestant sense; deriving it from the word similar in sound, but totally different in meaning--_acetic_. It would be very difficult to assign exactly the part which human affections play in Christian perfection. Perhaps there is no rule which will apply to all. The lives of the saints show that they have looked upon it in very different lights. Some have completely broken all family ties; others have cherished and sanctified the love borne to their relations. It is only fair, then, to conclude that God has directed these souls in different ways. If F. Vénard yields up his life for Christ and the Catholic faith, we will not quarrel with him when he calls his sister "part of his very life," or tells her that she is his "second self." Yet such language could not come from St. Aloysius, or St. Francis Borgia, or St. Ignatius. Their piety was cast in a more austere mould. But coming from this dear martyr of Tonquin, these words do not seem inappropriate. No one would wish them changed. They are the expression of his innocent and childish disposition. They prove our hero, though a priest and a man of thirty, to be the worthy companion of gentle St. Agnes. Of all the martyrs none have resembled her more closely than this heroic priest; all that imagination has painted her will be found in the reality of Father Vénard's life.

* * * * *

NOTES ON THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. With reference to Clinical Medicine. By Meredith Clymer, M.D., University Pennsylvania; Fellow of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia. D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 53.

This brochure fulfils the promise of its learned author in the introduction, in which he "proposes to summarize the recent investigations into the physiology and pathology of the nervous system which have a bearing on clinical medicine."

The labor has been faithfully and skilfully performed, and the history of the scleroses of the brain and spinal cord is carefully collected from the English, German, and French--collated, compared, and analyzed. The summary is one of the utmost importance to physicians, and is interesting to men of general knowledge capable of appreciating this class of subjects.

It is difficult to over-estimate the value to science and society of the investigations and studies into the physiology and pathology of the nervous centres which are being conducted all over the world. Among the students of these interesting subjects Dr. Clymer ranks high as an observer, and chief in this country as annalist and critic. He holds a position in the world of medicine analogous to that held by Brownson in the domain of philosophy and theology, and his services are of inestimable value in correcting the hasty, crude, and ill-advised speculations of men who have neither acquired knowledge nor powers of original observation and reflection.

It is obviously out of place to pursue the subject in its medical aspects in this place, but we commend the pamphlet to physicians, scientists, and jurists, and also to theologians.

From this class of works they can learn the basis on which medicine rests as a science, and the essential immorality of all forms of quackery.

* * * * *

OUT OF THE PAST. (Critical and Literary Papers.) By Parke Godwin. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1870.

This is a collection of nineteen articles written for different magazines--principally for the _Democratic Review_ and _Putnam's Monthly_--at various periods from 1839 to 1856. The experiment of publishing in book form an author's fugitive essays is seldom successful. True, it was so in the cases of Carlyle and Macaulay. How far Mr. Godwin may resemble them in this respect remains to be seen. Should any reviewer come to the treatment of this book strong in the Vicar of Wakefield's celebrated canon of criticism--that the picture would have been better if the painter had taken more pains--he will find himself disarmed by Mr. Godwin's prefatory apology, that these essays "are more imperfect than they would have been with a larger leisure at my command." The subjects are generally interesting, and their treatment instructive. The style of these essays is excellent, and their author's opinions and criticisms on literature and art generally of a healthy tone. We cannot precisely agree with Mr. Godwin when he credits a certain work of Dutch art (p. 375) with the inspiration of patriotism, but are glad to see with his eyes that Thackeray

"Took no satyr's delight in offensive scenes and graceless characters; that he was even sadder than the reader could be at the horrible prospect before him; that his task was one conscientiously undertaken, with some deep, great, generous purpose; and that, beneath his seeming scoff and mockeries, was to be discovered a more searching wisdom and a sweeter, tenderer pathos than we found in any other living writer. We saw that he chastised in no ill-natured or malicious vein, but in love; that he cauterized only to cure; and that, if he wandered through the dreary circles of Inferno, it was because the spirit of Beatrice, the spirit of immortal beauty, beckoned him to the more glorious paradise."

* * * * *

A COMPENDIUM OF THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Rev. Theodore Noethen. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1870. Pp. 587.

A hasty glance through the contents of this work seems to justify these conclusions: The chief merit of the book is its numerous anecdotes. These illustrate the particular customs and dangers of Christians in different nations and centuries. Compendiums usually fatigue the mind with dates and uninteresting details. Father Noethen has carefully avoided this fault. He leads us into the homes and by the hearth-side of the Catholics of former times. Nothing can be more useful than this. History cannot be learned until we imagine ourselves living at that very time and taking our part in the scenes which are described. So the words of a martyr, or a sentence from a letter, or a pious custom will often throw more light upon history than whole pages of detailed facts and speculations. In regard to those more delicate questions which every writer of a church history must solve in some way, Father Noethen appears to have acted with great discretion. We were particularly pleased with the remarks concerning Origen. In this work that illustrious hero of the early church is given the praise which he has so long deserved, but which has been so long denied him. By an oversight, however, there is one unfortunate sentence in this book. It speaks of Constantine as "convening a general council." Without doubt this expression is incorrect; the Christian emperors aided the meeting of œcumenical councils; they never convened them. That power was always reserved to the sovereign pontiff alone. But apart from this clerical error the book is very praiseworthy, and will do good both to Catholics and to Protestants.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been repaired.

In the two dogmatic decrees, the original Latin consistently displayed ae ligatures as separate letters, this has been retained.

P. 49: Stabat Mater. Original centered each Latin stanza, followed by English and Greek stanza translations side by side below it. For ease of display in multiple formats, the English and Greek stanzas have been changed to increasing indents below the Latin. "English Translation" and "Greek Translation" headings, originally under the poem title, were moved to the first stanza of each translation.

P. 71: multiple words beginning "sciol-", though unable to verify, were retained since that spelling occurred consistently.

P. 299: "informs us triumphantly, three separate times"--original reads "three several times."