CHAPTER XXII.

EXPLANATIONS.

Meantime, what had been going on in the Yorke family at Seaton? Mrs. Yorke had not feared that there was any serious trouble till she learned that Dick Rowan had gone away. She was in bed when her young people returned the night before, and knew only what Clara came to her door to say:

“We have had a delightful sail, mamma, and are all well. I hope that you have not been anxious. Mr. Rowan fell overboard, for a diversion, and, of course, got wet; but Captain Cary got him out, and he is all right now. Good-night, mamma, for me and the girls, and Carl. We are all here.”

However late her children might be out, Mrs. Yorke could not close her motherly eyes till she knew that they were safe under the home-roof again. Then she turned upon her pillow, and dropped asleep, giving thanks. She felt a slight uneasiness when Melicent, before breakfast the next morning, asked her to send Patrick down to enquire for Dick.

“Why, was he hurt? Is he not coming up, this morning?” she asked.

“I presume that he is very well, mamma,” the daughter replied. “But it would look pleasant to be attentive.”

This was said with an air of reserve, and the young woman evidently did not wish to say any more. In an equally diplomatic manner, she announced that Edith had a headache, and was not coming down to breakfast. Melicent was one of those persons who, when in possession of a secret, as James Russell Lowell has said, “will not let the cat out of the bag, but they give its tail a pull to let you know that it is there.”

Mrs. Yorke said no more. She found this manner annoying. But she observed at breakfast that Carl ate nothing, and that Clara kept up a constant stream of talk, that seemed designed to cover some embarrassment. She noticed, also, that no mention was made of Dick Rowan or their sail of the day before. When she arose from the table, and went toward the entry-door, her eldest daughter interposed, with 590 an air of being in the charge of affairs. “I would not disturb Edith now, mamma.”

“Melicent!” exclaimed her mother haughtily, and waved the young woman aside.

Edith was lying on her bed, dressed as on the day before, her face hidden in the pillow. She started when her aunt spoke to her, and turned a pale and tear-wet face. It did not need this to tell Mrs. Yorke that her niece’s headache came from the heart.

“My head does ache, Aunt Amy,” Edith said. “But I am distressed about Dick. He is displeased with me. I do not wish to speak of it to any one but him.”

“I have sent Patrick down, my dear,” her aunt said; “and you shall know as soon as he returns.”

Mrs. Yorke and her two daughters sat together, pretending to read and sew, but all watching the avenue gate for the return of their messenger. When he had delivered his news, and gone, the mother spoke with authority.

“Girls, I insist on knowing, at once, the meaning of this!”

“You had better ask Carl, mamma; he is the one to explain,” answered Melicent. “But I must say that Mr. Rowan has behaved ill. A young man whom one of our family has promised to marry should at least act like a gentleman.”

“Send Carl to me,” Mrs. Yorke said, rising. “And, Clara, say to Betsey that I shall see no one to-day, then go up and tell Edith.”

Carl was pacing one of the garden paths, and, for the first time that day, his manner showed agitation. He had already heard Patrick’s news, and his first thought was to echo Melicent’s opinion that one who had been connected with their family should at least act like a gentleman. This sudden withdrawal not only gave occasion for gossip, but it was rude to Edith. That it left him in the position of a culprit, Carl would not allow himself to care.

“I thought the fellow had more spirit!” he muttered. “But it isn’t in him to act like anything but a rustic.”

As he said this, an inner voice made answer; not the voice of conscience, for that acquitted him, but the voice which he expected to hear from without: “Neither is it in him to speak or sing love to another man’s promised wife, though silence should break his heart.”

“And what if it broke hers?” asked Carl, as though he had been spoken to.

He glanced up at the window of Edith’s chamber. The curtain was down, hanging in close, white folds, shutting her in.

Then came Melicent to call him.

Carl found his mother in a tiny room, where she always took her siesta in summer, and where she held all her private conferences. It was a cosy, shady nook, with only a sofa, and table, and chair in it, and seemed intended as a place for confidential communion. In that room, with nothing to save him from her steady eyes, Mr. Griffeth had stammered out his apologies to Mrs. Yorke for misleading her son; there, her daughters came for advice and admonition; and there she herself retired when she wished to be alone. It was a place where a rebel could be brought to submission, or a penitent comforted. It is almost impossible to be confidential in a large, well-lighted room.

“Have you had any quarrel with Mr. Rowan, Carl?” his mother asked, the moment he appeared.

“Not an unpleasant word has passed between us, mother,” he answered. 591

She had been standing, but sank back into the sofa as he spoke, and he closed the door, and came and stood before her, doubting, at first, what the tone of their interview would be. Her question had been imperative, and that he could not bear. There are times in the life of the most dutiful when they feel that there is for them then no legitimate human authority outside themselves. But he saw that her face was pale, though the red curtain lowered over the one window behind her warmed all the light that entered; and her voice was entreating when she spoke again:

“My son, have you nothing to tell me?”

He sat down on the hassock at her feet, and leaned on her lap; and she knew all before he had uttered a word.

“My child,” she whispered, leaning toward him, “your happiness is my dearest wish; but there is honor!”

He took her trembling hands, and met her look firmly. “Yes, mother, there is honor,” he said. “But listen to me, before you conclude that it should be mentioned here in the subjunctive sense. You know, mother, I could not speak of love to a child. I did not wish to. It was enough for me to see that Edith was surely, though unconsciously, drawing toward me. If you had a rare plant, with a single bud on it, would you thank the one who would pluck that bud open before its time for blooming? And what flower is so delicate and sacred as a young girl’s heart? Besides, such a thought comes to a man also, when it comes first, with a feeling of silence. To my mind, it would have been rude and indelicate to speak hastily. There was time, and, meanwhile, I guarded myself and her. Of course I saw what Rowan wanted and meant, and he also understood me; I am sure of that. I never dreamed, though, that he would succeed. I was not prepared for that passion of pity and gratitude which Edith has shown for him. When I knew, last year, that he had proposed, it was all I could do to control my anger. I knew that he must have seen in her some instinctive recoil at first, and yet have appealed to her pity. He did not leave her free to choose. I do not say that he realized that. He is an honest, noble-souled fellow, and he loves her deeply; but he lacks a certain fineness which should have told him when urging was proper, and when it was coarsely selfish. I am willing to admit that it may have been only a mistake on his part; but people who make mistakes have to suffer by them, and, if they are not to blame, no one else is. I, too, made a mistake then, mother, and I have suffered for it. I had a thought of saying to Edith, ‘Since you are to think of him as a suitor, think of me also, and choose between us.’ Two motives prevented me. One was pride. I would not enter into competition with him; and there I was selfish. But the other was better. I saw that she was incredibly childish, and looked upon his proposal rather as a request that she should go and live with him and his mother, as she had lived with them before, than as a proposal that she should be his wife. I waited till she should perceive the difference, and this summer I thought that she was beginning to. The night before he came, I wanted to speak to her. I could hardly help it. I would have spoken but for him. But no, I thought. Let her answer him fairly first. I supposed I knew what that 592 answer would be; and when she came down-stairs the next morning to meet him, I felt sure that it was to refuse him. I stood in the entry when she passed, and she knew that I was there, but would not look at me. She was very pale, I saw, and I thought it was for his sake. It seems it was for her own sake. No matter what I felt when I heard the words with which they met. I went away, you know; I did not choose to make a scene. When I came back, I had made up my mind to speak to him clearly, and as friendly as I could, and ask that he should give her back her promise, and leave her free to choose again. He would have done it, mother; I am sure he would. Had he been too loverlike, I should have made no delay; but, as it was, I thought best to wait till his visit was over. You could scarcely expect me to be perfectly cool and reasonable always. Under the circumstances, I think that I have shown as much fairness as any one has a right to require of me. I meant to see him last night, after the girls had come home--went to the sail with that intention. But he made me angry at starting. He stood there, and sang that ballad from _Le Misanthrope_,

‘_Si le roi m’avoit donné_’

--sang it before _me_, and with such an air of triumph and certainty as made me feel anything but pitiful toward him for a little while. Edith was offended, too. I saw her color with resentment. ‘_Ma mie!_’ It was too public a claiming. When we came back--you know what a night it was, mother.” Carl stopped, his face growing very red. “There are some things not easy to tell,” he said.

Mrs. Yorke put her arm around him, and drew his head to her bosom.

“Not even to your own mother, dear?” she whispered, with her cheek resting on his hair. “It was my heart that taught yours to beat, Carl.”

In that sweet confessional, he went on with his story. “It was such a scene as gives one that faint swaying of the brain that just shows the points in our prudent resolutions. The moonlight, the music, the air, the water, our very motion, were intoxicating. And Edith was there, and so beautiful!--an Undine, drooping over the boat-side, as though she might any moment slip into the water, and disappear, if I did not stay her. I sang what I would have said. I called her, and she turned to me!”

Carl lifted his head, caught his mother’s hands, and kissed them joyfully, then stood up before her with an air as triumphant as Dick Rowan’s own. “The time had come, and she was mine!” he exclaimed. “Edith belongs to me, mother!”

For the moment, everything else was forgotten; and the mother forgot, too, till she saw his face cloud over.

“Poor fellow!” said Carl, and knelt on the hassock again. “My heart aches for him. When he saw Edith look at me, he fainted. It seems cruel to be so happy at such a cost. I went up to Hester’s, last night, to see him, but he was not there, and it was too late to go to the ship. I would have borne any reproach from him. I would have been patient, and have explained everything to him. I think, mother, that I could even have made a friend of him. He is generous. But it is too late now.”

“You must go away at once, Carl,” Mrs. Yorke said presently. “It is the only proper thing to do. The family are pledged to Mr. Rowan, and, till all is settled between him and Edith, you must have no intercourse with her here. My position is one of great delicacy. I cannot even 593 advise Edith.”

While they talked, Edith had risen, and written two letters, one to Dick Rowan, the other to Father Rasle. Both were short, the former only a line.

“You have no right to treat me so,” she wrote. “If you go away without seeing me, never call yourself my friend again!”

It seemed hard; but she had said to herself: “If he leaves me here with Carl, I shall not be able to be true to him.”

She dressed herself to go out and post these letters, and had just come down-stairs, when she met Carl in the entry. She stopped abruptly at sight of him, and a deep crimson mantled her face as she waited for him to let her pass.

It was a new blush for Edith, for she knew why she blushed. But the Spartan spirit he had admired in the child was not dead, and she was herself the next moment. She bade him a quiet “Good-morning, Carl!” and was passing on, when he asked to see her in the parlor.

“Certainly!” she said, too proud to shrink.

Carl smiled as he held the door open for her to pass, and closed it after them. He was pleased with her dignity.

“I have been talking with my mother,” he said, “and she tells me that I must go away immediately. Do you agree with her?”

Possibly she had seen, and misunderstood his smile, for she chose to be very high with him. “I do not know why you should go,” she said coldly.

“Shall I tell you why it seemed to us that I should?” he asked.

Her look changed at the tone of his voice, which seemed reproachful. Why should she assume with him what was not true? When had he ever shown himself unworthy of her confidence?

“No, Carl,” she said, “you need not tell me, and you must say nothing to me that you would not say to a married woman. I trust you, Carl. You have always been honorable. You are very dear to me, and I trust you perfectly. It is best that you should go.”

The last words were spoken rather faintly, and she had turned from him, and opened the door.

“I shall go to Boston,” he said, “and stay there. In a few weeks you will all come up, and I shall see you.”

She stood in the door now, with her face half turned, and her forehead resting against the door-frame, so that he saw only her profile. And, so leaning, as though from faintness, she put her hand back, and held out her letters to him, and he took them.

“Read them both,” she said, “and mail them for me. And, Carl, I shall not see you again before you go. And”--she stopped, as though her voice had failed her.

“I will not ask you to,” he said.

“And, afterward,” she went on, “I shall not see you in Boston. If you are at home, I shall go to stay with Dick’s mother.”

She did not look round again, but went up-stairs quickly, and shut herself into her room. It is not for us to intrude in that privacy wherein a young heart fought its first battle.

No one saw her that day; but the next morning she came out, and went about her usual employments, much in her usual manner. Whether, like that Russian empress, she was “too proud to be unhappy,” or she had been soothed by that trust in God which makes every yoke easy and every 594 burden light, or the elasticity of youth made continued pain seem impossible, we do not pretend to say. Human motives are not always easy to be read by human eyes.

Everybody tried to act as though nothing were the matter, and there was enough for all to do. Many things had to be planned and arranged in preparation for their leaving Seaton, and Edith had her own business to attend to. There were the Pattens needing double care since they were so soon to lose her; and the Catholic school to visit, that being permitted now; and a great deal of shopping to be done for her little flock of pensioners.

Within a fortnight came a letter from Carl to his mother, taken up chiefly with business details. But he wrote: “I called yesterday on Mrs. Williams to ask for her son. He was not at home, and I have not seen him yet. He has given up his ship, for this voyage, to Captain Cary.”

Carl could have added, but did not, that the call had not been a pleasant one. Mrs. Williams had just seen Captain Cary, and gleaned from him all that he had thought best to tell, which was, merely, that there seemed to be a slight misunderstanding between Dick and Edith. Her suspicions pointed at once to Carl, and she had not scrupled to express them to him when he came to her house.

“I am sorry not to see Mr. Rowan,” he had said, when he got a chance, ignoring her accusations and reproaches; and, with that, had taken a ceremonious leave.

“A pretty mother-in-law for Edith!” was his conclusion.

A few days after came a letter from Mrs. Williams to Edith. It was what might have been expected from her. Dick had not been to see his mother; was stopping with a priest, and had refused to see her. What had Edith and those proud Yorkes done to her son, that he gave up everything and everybody, and went to hide himself in a Catholic priest’s house, instead of coming to his own home?

Poor Dick! could he have foreseen that such a letter would be written, he would have sacrificed himself a good deal in order to prevent it.

Edith dropped the letter at her feet after reading it, and said, not for the first time since Carl went away, “Oh! that Father Rasle would come!”

As she said it, and for a moment let slip the leash that held her hidden feelings, one could see that, however calm she might have been outwardly, there had been an inward gnawing all the time. A smile and bright words can mask a good deal. When she dropped them, there was visible a whiteness about the mouth, shadows under the eyes, and even a thinning of the cheeks--the work of that short time.

Hearing her aunt’s voice at the chamber-door asking admittance, Edith caught the letter up again, and her self-control with it.

Mrs. Yorke came in with an air of quiet decision, and took a seat by her niece. “I saw the outside of your letter, my dear girl, and know whom it was from,” she said; “and I have no intention of allowing you to be killed by others, or to kill yourself. I understand and respect a mother’s feelings, Edith, and I respect the obligation of a promise. But there are common sense and justice to be taken into account. Feelings, and, especially, the feelings of a young person who has scarcely learned to know herself, are not to be weighed and measured, 595 like iron and lumber, and stored away, and left unchanged, till called for. You know, my dear, that I have a great affection for Mr. Rowan, and would do him no unkindness nor injustice, do you not?”

“You were very kind to him, aunt,” Edith replied quietly. “I am not afraid of anything that you will say or do.”

“You need not be,” Mrs. Yorke said. “I will not ask you if you have learned to think that promise of yours a hasty one; but there are certain points which I wish to insist upon. They are of general application. Honor does not require that one should keep a bad promise. The fault, if fault there be, is in the making, not the breaking. Also, a woman cannot make a worse promise than one to marry a man whom she does not love. Many very good and pious people will tell you that esteem is enough, and that you will grow to love your husband after a time. That is false. You may learn to endure him, but it will be after all the bloom is wiped from your feelings, and love and delicacy both are dead in you. Let no one make you believe that your feelings are romantic folly. Believe, rather, that your adviser is coarse, though honest. One other dictum: there is no favor, nor obligation, nor affection which a man can confer on you, for which your hand is not too high a price to pay. Give gratitude, affection, even service, but not yourself. Do not sell your hand for any price: it should be a free gift. This is all that I can pronounce positively upon. For the rest, do not act hastily and without advice; for, aside from the question of your personal good, you might bitterly wrong some one else. If you have been hasty, it is a pity; but that cannot be helped now, and should not be too deeply mourned. There must have been some doubt in Mr. Rowan’s mind that you did not know what you were promising, for his first word to you was, ‘Are you willing, Edith?’ Your answer was, ‘I am more than willing.’ If you deceived him then, unconsciously, from a loving and generous feeling, it was pardonable. But do not deceive him nor yourself again. He deserves from you a perfect frankness, and he has too fine a nature to take your hand if it is reluctant.”

“But, Aunt Amy,” Edith said, after a moment’s thought, “if a woman, out of gratitude, and from an utter impossibility of allowing herself to give such pain to a friend, should promise never to marry any one else, would that be right?”

“A man worthy of inspiring such a resolution would not accept the promise,” was the reply; “and the woman has no right to make it. But if she should offer to wait till he is reconciled, that might be soothing to both. Is there anything else you wish to say?”

“Nothing now, thank you, aunt. You are very kind.”

This conversation soothed Edith; but, still, she returned to her wishing for Father Rasle; not entirely for his own sake, though that was much, but because her need of confession and communion had become a great longing.

Her wish was destined to be speedily gratified; for the very next day, when Mr. Yorke came home to dinner, he brought his niece a letter from the priest.

She read it immediately, in presence of the family, and her face brightened. “How delightful!” she exclaimed. “He will say Mass here next Sunday. He is to come Saturday, that is, the day after to-morrow He sends his regards to you all. Let no one know that he is coming, he 596 writes, but Miss Churchill, and Mr. and Mrs. Kent, at whose house he will stop. There will be time enough to notify the people when he has arrived. How glad they will be! That was a letter worth bringing, Uncle Charles!”

Looking up with her smile of thanks, she saw his face clouded. “Is there any trouble?” she asked anxiously.

“If he had come while Carl, and Rowan, and Captain Cary were here, I should have been better pleased,” Mr. Yorke replied evasively. “He has, however, the right to come whenever he chooses. Answer his letter to-day, Edith, and invite him to stop with us.”

“Dear Uncle Charles!” murmured Edith, and glanced enquiringly at her aunt.

“Tell him, for me, that we should all be very happy to have him as a guest,” said Mrs. Yorke.

A smiling nod from Melicent and from Clara confirmed this assertion.

“Dear me!” Edith sighed out, wiping her eyes, “I do think that you are the most beautiful people I ever knew.”

They all laughed at her way of saying it, and the little cloud disappeared. Mr. Yorke did not think it best to tell them that the Know-Nothings had called a public meeting for the next evening. There had been no such meeting for several months, and this might not be of any consequence.

The invitation was written, and sent, and on Saturday morning the answer came, only a few hours preceding Father Rasle.

He thanked them for their kindness, but found it necessary to decline their invitation. He must be where all the Catholics could come to him, bringing their infants to be baptized, and going to confession themselves. Besides the distance, he could not think of subjecting their house to such a visitation, which was likely to continue till late in the evening. His flock needed every moment of his time.

But, meanwhile, between the letter and its answer, the public meeting had taken place, and it had been of consequence.

TO BE CONTINUED.

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THE NEW “OUTSPOKEN STYLE.”

We looked for dewy flower, and sunny fruit:-- He serves us up the dirt that feeds the root. AUBREY DE VERE.

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POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO PAPAL INFALLIBILITY. 597

I have read carefully, my dear Philo, your very welcome letter, and cordially reciprocate the kind feelings it expresses. It has recalled our early friendship, which, with me, at least, has never been forgotten or diminished. I see, from your observations on the recent definition of the Papal Infallibility by the Council of the Vatican, that you still think as we both thought in our school-boy days, when we wondered what sort of people Catholics must be to believe that a man could be infallible, to take their faith from a man called the Pope, and to obey and even worship him, as we were told, as God. We were then in some measure excusable for supposing that they must be exceedingly stupid and destitute of reason and of every grain of common sense; for neither of us had then ever seen a Catholic, and knew nothing of their faith or worship except what our Protestant masters, who held them to be no better than the heathen, told us; but are you, my dear Philo, equally excusable for thinking now as you did then? Have you had no opportunity of correcting the error into which we were both led?

You say, “The Council, by its decree defining the Pope when teaching the universal church to be infallible or exempt from error in all matters pertaining to faith and morals, makes the Pope God, clothes him with the incommunicable attributes of the Divinity, and consequently requires us to reverence and worship him as God.” Are you not a little hasty in this conclusion? You tell me that you believe in the plenary inspiration and consequent infallible authority of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; you then, of course, believe in God and the supernatural order, or that Christian faith is supernaturally revealed to man, and recorded in a book called the Bible. But through what medium was the revelation made and recorded? Certainly through men who spoke or wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, or what they were taught by our Lord himself, and enabled by the Spirit to commit truthfully and without error to writing. All this, you tell me, you believe and hold.

Now, were these inspired penmen, prophets, apostles, and evangelists each God, or clothed with the incommunicable attributes of the Divinity? You do not believe it. Why, then, does the declaration of the Pope’s infallibility declare him to be God? The sacred penmen, you believe, were infallible in what they wrote, and yet without becoming God, or ceasing to be men; why may not the Pope, then, be infallible without being God, or ceasing to be a man like you and me? Do you say the sacred writers were infallible by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, not by nature? Well, do Catholics pretend that the Pope is infallible by nature, or otherwise than through the supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost protecting him from error in teaching the faith taught by the prophets and apostles? I am not aware that they do.

Catholics, I am told, make a distinction between divine inspiration and divine assistance. The prophets and apostles were divinely 598 inspired to reveal truth; the Pope, according to Catholics, is divinely assisted to teach infallibly the truth revealed through the prophets and apostles, or as taught to the apostles by our Lord himself while he was yet with them. Now, if the inspiration which rendered the prophets and apostles infallible in revealing the truth which was hitherto hidden did not clothe them with the incommunicable attributes of God, how can you pretend that the assistance of the Spirit to teach infallibly what God revealed through them, which is far less, makes the Pope God, or clothes his nature with the attributes of God? If more did not do it in their case, how can less do it in his?

You say, “All men are fallible, and no man can teach infallibly.” All men are fallible, it is true, in their own nature; but that no man by supernatural inspiration and assistance can teach infallibly, neither you nor I believe. We both hold, for instance, that St. Peter was a man, and yet that he was an infallible teacher of the word of God. We hold the same of St. Paul, of St. John, of St. Matthew, of St. Mark, and of St. Luke. Say you they were infallible not by their natural endowments, but only through the supernatural external assistance of the Holy Ghost? But Catholics, if I understand them, hold the Pope to be infallible not by nature or by his own natural powers, but only by the supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost. Grant the supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost, and there is no more difficulty in believing the Pope is infallible in his teachings than in believing, as you and I do, that St. Peter and St. Paul were infallible in teaching the revelation of God, whether by word or letter.

Do you not, my dear Philo, confound, in the case of the Popes, infallibility with omniscience, and assume that the Vatican Council, in declaring the Pope infallible in matters pertaining to faith and morals, has actually declared him to be omniscient, and therefore God? This is a mistake: first, because the infallibility declared is not universal; and, second, because the infallibility declared is supernatural and by divine assistance and protection. The Pope is declared to be infallible only when he is teaching the universal church faith and morals, and in condemning the errors repugnant thereto, and even then only by supernatural assistance and protection of the Holy Ghost. The Pope, as a man, is no more infallible than other men: he is infallible only in exercising his function of universal doctor, or teacher of the whole church, and, as this is by the Holy Ghost, the infallibility, like omniscience itself, pertains to God, not to him as a man, and is attached to his function, not to his person. If our Lord, who is perfect God as well as perfect man, has appointed him to the office of universal teacher, and promised him the assistance and protection of the Spirit, there is no difficulty in believing him infallible, even if his personal knowledge should turn out to be no greater than yours or mine. The Pope is simply guided by the Spirit to the truth already revealed and deposited with the church, and, for the most part, at least, contained in the Holy Scriptures, and is simply protected from error in declaring it.

Indeed, my dear Philo, Catholics claim no more for the Pope than our old Presbyterian parson claimed for himself and for each and every individual of the regenerate or true people of God. He taught us, as you well know, that the regenerate soul is guided by the Spirit into 599 all truth, and protected from all error, at least as to essentials. Some, perhaps most Protestants, go farther than this, and claim to have an infallible authority for their faith in the Bible interpreted by private judgment, and therefore claim for private judgment pretty much the same infallibility that the Council of the Vatican claims for the Pope. Either, then, all regenerate souls, nay, all men, if Protestants are right, are each God, or else the declaration of the Council does not, actually or virtually, declare the Pope to be God, or anything more or less than a man supernaturally assisted by the Holy Ghost to perform the duties of the office to which the Council holds he is supernaturally appointed by Him who has all power in heaven and earth, and is King of kings and Lord of lords.

You say, “The supposition of an infallible Pope is repugnant to the rights and activity of the mind.” I do not see it. The human mind can hardly be said to have any rights in presence of its Creator. If any right it has, it is the right to be governed by the word of God alone, and not to be held subject to any human authority or opinions of men. My mind is outraged when it is subjected to the fallible opinions of men, and obliged to hold them as truth, when I have no adequate authority for believing that they are not erroneous. How then its rights can be denied by its being furnished with an infallible guide to the truth, to the word of God, its supreme law, instead of the words of man, is what I do not exactly comprehend, and I do not believe you can comprehend any better than I. An infallible authority lessens the activity of the mind in groping after truth, if you will; but truth being the element of the mind, that for which it was created, and without which it can neither live nor operate at all, cannot very well destroy its activity by being possessed. Does the possession of truth leave no scope for mental activity? If so, what is to constitute the beatitude of the blest in heaven? Your objection strikes me as absurd; for the real activity of the mind is in knowing, appropriating, and using the truth to fulfil the purpose of our existence and to gain the end for which God has made us.

You say, again, that “an infallible authority destroys man’s free agency and takes away his moral responsibility.” The intellect, you are aware, my dear Philo, if prescinded from the will, is not free. I am not free in regard to pure intellections. I cannot, if I would, believe that two concretes are five, or only three; and I am obliged to admit that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. I may refuse to turn my attention to one or another class of subjects, but I see and judge as I must, not as I will or choose. Free agency and moral responsibility, therefore, attach to the will, not to the intellect, and are enhanced in proportion to my knowledge or understanding of the truth. The authority teaching me infallibly the truth, I am bound by the law of God to accept and obey. So far from destroying free agency, it manifestly confirms it, and, instead of taking away moral responsibility, raises it to the highest possible pitch; for it leaves the mind without the shadow of an excuse for not believing. You forget, my dear Philo, that infallible authority presenting infallible truth is not only a command to the will, but the highest possible reason to the understanding. But at any rate, the objection is as valid against the infallibility of the Bible, asserted 600 by Protestants, as against the infallibility of the Pope, asserted by Catholics.

You say, furthermore, “The claim of infallibility for the Pope is incompatible with civil and religious liberty. If the Pope is infallible in all questions touching faith and morals, his authority is supreme, overrides all other powers, and subjects to him our whole life, religious, moral, domestic, social, and political.” But if so, what, then, if he is infallible? You forget that this is no more than Protestants themselves claim for the Bible. Do you admit that any state, sovereign prince, head of a family, or individual has the right, in thought, word, or deed, to contradict or go counter to the law of God as contained in the infallible Bible? Do you not hold that every one is subject in all things whatsoever to the infallible authority of the Holy Scriptures? Well, how can the subjection of our whole life--religious, moral, domestic, social, and political--to the authority of an infallible book be less incompatible with civil and religious liberty than its subjection to an infallible Pope? If the Pope is really infallible, he can enjoin nothing in faith or morals not enjoined by the law of God. Do you pretend that subjection to the law of God is incompatible with civil and religious liberty? If so, you must say with Proudhon, “God is a tyrant, and you must either abolish God or give up the defence of liberty. Once admit God, and you must admit the Catholic Church, Pope, and all.” Now, I am not in the habit, any more than Catholics are, of regarding God and liberty as antagonistic, the one to the other. I have always been accustomed to regard liberty not as freedom from all restraint, but as simply freedom from all unjust restraint, or restraint not imposed by the law of God, which is the law of right and justice. His law is the basis, and obedience to it and it alone is the necessary condition, of all true liberty in any and every department of life. Why, then, should the assertion of the infallible authority of the Pope to declare the law of God, which you and I both hold binds all men and nations, be incompatible with liberty? The law of God is just, and the measure or standard of justice, and justice is the foundation and guarantee of liberty. Your objection is not well taken.

What you really object to, my dear Philo, is not, it strikes me, an infallible, but a fallible Pope claiming to be infallible. But suppose the Pope to be infallible in the sense defined by the Council, it is absurd to object to him as dangerous to liberty, civil or religious, because the Holy Ghost prevents him from declaring anything to be the law of God which is not so, and because, being assisted by the same Holy Ghost, he is always able to decide infallibly what that law does or does not require; and as long as the law as he declares it is observed, no one can be subjected to an unjust authority, oppressed, or deprived of any of his rights.

“You concede,” you say, “the supremacy of the law of God, and that all laws which contravene it, or are not transcripts of it, are violences, not laws, and are null and void from the beginning; but this is something very different from subjecting all individuals and the whole secular order to the authority of an infallible Pope upheld by the whole hierarchy, and backed by a huge corporation that extends over the whole world.” But where is the difference, if the Pope, by divine assistance and protection, is really infallible? The Pope, if infallible, can be so only from the supernatural appointment and 601 assistance of God as his vicar, and, if infallible, he can declare and apply only what is the law of God or authorized by the law of God. You are wrong, then, old friend, in objecting to the infallible authority; for that is what is needed to establish the divine order in human affairs, and to make the church really the kingdom of God on earth. Your objection and your reasoning are misdirected, and should be directed to prove that Catholics assert infallibility for a Pope who, in fact, is not infallible, but fallible.

You and all Protestants claim infallible authority for the Bible read and interpreted by each individual for himself, or, rather, by each sect for itself. Unless this interpretation is by an infallible authority, which it confessedly is not, you have in the Bible practically only a fallible authority, yet claim to have an infallible authority; and hence you claim and seek to enforce in the name of the Bible your own very fallible and contradictory opinions or theories. You are guilty, then, of precisely the offence you charge against Catholics, that of claiming infallibility for a fallible authority, and of which it is possible Catholics are not guilty, and, if the Pope be infallible, not only are not, but cannot be guilty. You have, as I have said--even conceding, as I do, the Bible in its true meaning to be infallible--practically no infallible authority. You have no infallible authority to determine and declare the law of God contained in the Bible. You have not the law itself, but only your view of it, which is only a human view, and therefore fallible. To subject men to a mere human view or to a mere human authority, I need not say, is intolerable despotism; and hence your Protestantism is incompatible either with civil or religious liberty, for all men are born equal, and no man or body of men has, except by divine appointment or delegation, any dominion over another.

Hence, as you and I both know, there is no solid basis or security for liberty under Protestantism. If Protestants grow indifferent and do not attempt to govern in the name of the Bible, there may be license, anarchy, a moral and political chaos; but if they are in earnest, and attempt to enforce the authority of the Bible as they understand it, they only enforce their own view of it, and, consequently, can establish only a spiritual despotism either in church or state. In Geneva, Scotland, in every state in Europe that became Protestant, in Virginia, in Massachusetts, in Connecticut, the dominant sect, you know, in early times established an odious tyranny, and would tolerate no opinion hostile to its own. Owing to certain reminiscences of principles inculcated in pre-Reformation times, and to the growing indifference of Protestants to their religion at the time our republic was instituted, and still more to the dissensions among Protestants themselves, civil and religious liberty were recognized here in the United States, but it had and has no basis and no guarantee, except in parchment constitutions, not worth the parchment on which they are engrossed, and which the people may alter at will; and even now the Evangelical sects are trying to unite their forces to abolish religious liberty, without which civil liberty is an empty name. The founder of Methodism was no friend to civil liberty, and he proved himself the bitter enemy of religious liberty by creating, or doing more than any other man to create, the shameful Gordon riots in England in 1780. Let the Methodists become, as they bid fair to become, the dominant sect in the country, and able to command a 602 majority of the votes of the American people, and both civil and spiritual despotism will be fastened on the country, for Methodism has only a human authority.

The sort of security Protestantism gives to religious liberty may be seen in the proceedings of the general government against the Mormons. It does not interfere with their religion: it pretends it only enforces against them the laws of the Union--laws, by the way, made expressly against them. All the government needs to suppress any religion or religious denomination it does not like is to pass laws prohibiting some of its practices on the plea that they are contrary to morality or the public good, and then take care to execute them. Queen Elizabeth held religious liberty sacred, and abhorred the very thought of persecuting Catholics. She only executed the laws against them. She enacted a law enjoining an oath of supremacy, and making it high treason to refuse to take it, and which she knew every Catholic was obliged in conscience to refuse to take; and then she could hang, draw, and quarter them, not as Catholics, but as traitors. Her judges only executed the laws of the realm against them. I have, as you well know, no sympathy with the Mormons, and I detest their peculiar doctrines and practices, but the principle on which the government proceeds against them would justify it, or any sect that could control it, in suppressing the church, and all Protestant sects even but itself.

Laws in favor of liberty amount to nothing, for all laws may be repealed. The Bible is no safeguard. Under it and by its supposed authority, Catholics have suffered the most cruel persecutions; even when not deprived of life, they have been deprived of the common rights of men by Protestant governments led on by Protestant ministers. Thus the Bible commands the extirpation of idolaters. But Protestants, by their private judgment, declared Catholics to be idolaters, and hence in the name of the Bible took from them their churches, their schools, colleges, and universities, confiscated their goods, and imprisoned them, exiled them, or cut their throats. The pretence of legislating only in regard to morality avails nothing for religious liberty; for morality depends on dogma, and is only the practical application of the great principles of religion to individual, domestic, social, and political life. You cannot touch a moral question without touching a religious question, for religion and morality are inseparable; your only possible security for liberty is in having a divinely instituted authority that is infallible in faith and morals, competent to tell the state as well as individuals how far it may go, and where it must stop.

You object, finally, my dear Philo, that the assertion of the infallibility of the Pope is incompatible with the assertion of the sovereignty of the people and the independence of secular government. The people and all secular governments, you have conceded, are subject to the law of God. Neither the people nor secular governments are independent of the divine law, and have only the authority it gives them, and the freedom and independence it allows them. How can they lose any right or authority they have or can have by having the divine law, under which they hold, infallibly declared and applied? It is singular, my old schoolfellow, that so acute, subtle, and so able a lawyer as I know you to be, should have the misfortune, as a theologian, to object to the very thing you really wish to maintain, 603 and which can alone save you from the evils you seek to avoid. Now, what it is necessary to know in order to determine the rights and powers of government, is to know precisely what in relation to government the law of God--including both the natural law and the revealed law, which are really only two parts of one and the same divine law--ordains, what it prescribes, and what it forbids. This knowledge can only in part be derived through natural reason, because the law is in part supernatural, and can be known only by faith: it cannot be derived with certainty from the Scriptures interpreted by our own fallible judgment or by any human authority: it can be obtained infallibly from the teaching and decisions of an infallible Pope, if really infallible. The infallible Pope will give to the people all the sovereignty they have under the law of God, and maintain for civil government all the rights and powers, all the freedom and independence of action, the law of God gives it. What more do you want? What more dare you assert for civil government or for popular sovereignty? Would you put the people in the place of God, and raise the secular order above the spiritual, man above God? Certainly not, at least not avowedly either to yourself or to others. Then, how can you pretend the Papal infallibility is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people and the independence of civil government? Do you want the line unsettled, and the law of God left undefined, and remitted, as you remit the Bible, to the private judgment of each people or each government, to be interpreted by each for itself, and as it sees proper? But that were to make the divine law practically of no effect, and to leave each people and each government without any law but what it chooses to be to itself. It practically emancipates the secular order from the law of God, and asserts complete civil absolutism.

The fact is, my dear Philo, you and many others in your own minds regard liberty and authority as mutually hostile powers. It is the error of the age, and hence we see the nations alternating between the mob and the despot, each hostile alike to liberty and authority. Both liberty and authority are founded in the divine order, and without recognizing and conforming to that order neither can be maintained. To restrain liberty by an authority that rests on a human basis alone is to destroy it; as to restrain authority by liberty not defined by the law of God, or by popular sovereignty to be defined by popular sovereignty, is to lose all authority, and to rush into anarchy and universal license. There is no true liberty and no legitimate government independent of the divine order; consequently, none without an infallible authority to present and maintain it. The question is, Has God, or has he not, established an infallible authority to declare his law? Yours affectionately, DAMIAN.

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THE FOXVILLES OF FOXVILLE. 604

A TALE OF THE PERIOD.

I.

At a huge country-house, not many years ago, some few days after the close of the Christmas and New Year’s festivities, the usual family circle, with one exception, met at the breakfast-table. A man on horseback had just pulled up at the house-door with the family letter-bag from the nearest town. The letters and papers were handed to the head of the family, who glanced over the addresses with the quick eye of a practised man of business, and placed one of the letters on an empty plate reserved for the absent member of the party.

“Oh! For Susy!” exclaimed a young lady, who seemed put to her wits’ end to make herself still younger, for she was the elder daughter of the house, past twenty-six, and disengaged. “I should like to know whom that’s from! A gentleman’s hand, I declare!” And she eyed the characters with a searching scrutiny, but they would tell no more tales.

“Don’t be so curious, Matilda. I shall recommend Susy to keep her letter a secret,” said an obnoxious brother, by name Augustus, one year the junior of the first speaker.

“Yes! you would encourage her in every kind of deception, you would! She is quite artful enough,” answered Matilda. “If I were papa, I would soon see who sends the letter. What can make Susy late, this morning? She is invariably so regular.”

“No, child!” said a white-headed old gentleman, Mr. Foxville, the happy father of Matilda, Augustus, and Susan, his stock of direct descendants, and all told, “I never meddle with other people’s business. Susy is a good girl, and she will let me have any news that may interest me.”

“You are quite right; but she has a duty to her mamma,” said Mrs. Foxville, with a grand matronly air. “Papa allows me to open all his letters, though he never opens mine: and that’s as it should be. If Susy does not come down soon, as I am privileged, I will open the letter. It is a genteel hand, I perceive.

“Well, well,” observed Mr. Foxville, “patience, patience! We can wait.”

“She is my child, Mr. Foxville,” replied the matron.

“Shall I fetch Susy down?” asked Matilda, with curiosity fermenting within her.

“Do, my dear,” said Mrs. Foxville, laboring under the same complaint, but affecting more indifference.

With much nimbleness the sprightly Matilda dashed out of the room, having first made an attempt to carry off the letter.

“Stop!” cried Augustus, putting his hand on it. “Suppose you bring 605 Susy to the letter, and not the letter to Susy! Fair is fair,” he added, with something like distrust in the fair letter-carrier.

In a few seconds Matilda and Susy entered the room, the arm of the elder affectionately wound round the waist of the younger sister.

“Are you not well, Susy?” asked Mr. Foxville kindly.

“Perfectly!” replied Susy, giving her papa his morning kiss.

“There is a letter for you,” said the enviable father.

“Thank you,” answered Susy, and she slipt the letter unopened into a little dress pocket, coloring and tremulous as she did so.

“I could not wait like you for the news, Susy,” said her mother frankly, as she watched her daughter closely.

“I would not be so rude as to read letters before others,” answered Susy.

“Not at all rude!” observed Mrs. Foxville, with one of her grand airs. “There is nobody here but the family: that makes all the difference. I would wish to make you sensible of that, my child. Etiquette should not be pushed too far when we are _en famille_.”

The last words were delivered with a deal of self-importance, as if she had just solved a new problem of politeness and was vain of her discovery.

“Of course!” cried Matilda. “Do not hesitate, Susy. I should not. I could not take matters so coolly. The letter may be from some dear, dear friend!”

“Take my advice, Susy,” said that horrible Augustus. “Breakfast first, and dessert afterwards.”

“Dessert indeed! It may be some dreadful intelligence. So none of your interference, Gussy!” rejoined Matilda.

“Then I would not spoil my appetite; and my recommendation holds good,” pursued that provoking brother.

“Ay! ay,” said Foxville senior; “your breakfast first, girl.” And this put an end to the dispute, for the old gentleman saw that Susy was pained at the discussion.

II.

It was true, as Miss Matilda Foxville had observed, that her sister Susy was the most regular in that exemplary household whenever there was a demand on her energies in domestic affairs, or on her good nature in diffusing happiness and cheerfulness around her. The fact that she had deviated from her usual course into the exceptional irregularity referred to, naturally called for comment such as any strange occurrence would provoke; and the uninitiated as naturally puzzled themselves with unsatisfactory conjectures. But the plain truth was this: Susy’s absence was caused by nothing less than a consciousness that a particular letter would arrive for her that morning. She imagined that she should betray less concern about the letter, and keep her nerves more under control, by an apparently accidental absence of a few minutes from the breakfast-table, than if she ran the risk of being present at the opening of the post-bag, and of manifesting her expectation and her too probable excitement at its realization.

Susy had, as we have seen, only partially succeeded; but, under shelter of the timely command of her father, she managed to conceal a great deal of her uneasiness at the expense of a charge of indifference toward her correspondents--a charge she was disposed to invite rather 606 than disprove.

This little ruse, however, she was unable to carry very much further; for Matilda, more and more perplexed, and proportionably more curious, than ever, became, after the morning meal, more endearing in both manner and speech towards her sister than was customary with one who generally adopted the language of admonition or complaint. It was very clear that these famous time-honored weapons for eliciting obedience and respect would fail in the present instance; and Matilda had not spent twenty-six years of her valuable existence without acquiring an amount of knowledge that led her to that certain conclusion. But wheedling and an implied solicitude for her sister’s welfare were more insidious and keener instruments to open the confidence-chest of the unsuspecting Susy.

“I hope you will have good news,” began Matilda when the sisters were alone. Then she added, as if some sudden idea struck her, “But I forgot! I will leave you and come again presently, Susy dear; you would like to read and answer your letter?”

What it was that Miss Matilda professed to have forgotten would puzzle most men; but it was a phrase habitual to her, and coming from a person of her experience, it probably conveyed all she intended to those of her own sex who enjoyed her familiarity. Susy, whether she understood the form of expression or not, was attracted by her sister’s winning ways and most unusual condescension, and was quite prepared to open her heart to her.

“Don’t go, Till,” she said, blushing. “I have something to say to you.”

“To me!” exclaimed the delighted Matilda with well-feigned surprise. “Pray tell me what it is!”

“It is the letter,” said Susy.

“Oh! that’s quite private,” pursued Matilda, “if I might judge by your putting it aside unopened.”

“But there is confidence between sisters?”

“Most undoubtedly. Would I not unbosom myself to you?”

“You shall, then, be the first to learn the news, but it must soon be family property,” said Susy, opening the letter, and reading it as Matilda looked over her shoulder. “I ought, perhaps, to show it to papa first,” she added, as a glow diffused itself over her face and neck.

“Yes; it is indeed matter for papa’s consideration: it is meant for him. But whom is it from?” said Matilda, in a fever to see the name on the last page, which Susy had not yet turned to.

“Nathaniel Wodehouse!” said Susy, in trembling accents, as she sank down on a chair to support herself in her novel situation.

“That trumpery fellow! faugh!” exclaimed Matilda boldly. “I would soon settle his business. Let me pen you a reply, will you?”

“Matilda! sister Till!” cried Susy in amazement, and recalled to herself. “How often have I heard you say what a charming, handsome man he is!”

“I! I!” said Matilda, ascending the gamut in her ejaculations. “I call him charming and handsome!” Then, with tremendous emphasis inspired by rage, she added, “Never!”

“Well, then,” followed up her merciless witness, roused by her sister’s vain denial, “he _is_ charming and handsome! And you know it.”

III. 607

Mr. Foxville was a retired butcher who had made a fortune, and still did a little business on ‘Change to keep his hand in, and preserve his mental faculties from rusting. Besides the newspaper, which many will contend was his “best public instructor,” he had not many intellectual resources; and as he allowed himself little recreation, he devoted a great deal of time to journal-reading and the study of stocks and the share-list. Here was a fair amount of work for a busy mind; and very busy was Mr. Foxville in keeping a sharp eye on his investments.

Being fond of a country life, he bought several acres of land when he gave up business; and he had built himself an unwieldy mansion, and was erecting smaller houses and cottages at a respectful distance from his own. This cluster of dwellings he proposed to call Foxville, while his own big, special habitation he called Foxville House. The name was not adopted without reflection, and more than one debate between himself and wife.

Foxville’s patronymic was simply Fox. That did very well for business, but it was deemed unsuited for higher exigencies. Foxtown was invented and discussed, but it gave no satisfaction. Was there anything distinguished in Foxtown? Nothing! Husband and wife were one on that point.

At length, Mrs. Fox bethought her of a French tutor to her girls, and that excellent gentleman bore the name of Portville. Monsieur Portville was a very agreeable man, to ladies especially; and that circumstance associated something pleasant with his name to the ear of Mrs. Fox. It was a habit with Mr. Fox, who could not remember names, to put the cart before the horse in endeavoring to call names to his recollection, and he always spoke of the Frenchman as Villeport. In facetious moments he would reduce this again to Vile Port, maintaining that this was the original name. Although it was by no means a complimentary cognomen, Mr. Fox had no intention of showing disrespect, for he had a rough kind of regard for the tutor, and only vented a poor joke at his expense, deriving his inspiration perhaps from the remembrance of a compound beverage familiar to Fox in his younger days in the country which had the honor of his birth. If Portville was euphonious, why not Foxville? Such was the argument of Mrs. Fox, and that settled the question.

Mrs. Foxville was the daughter of a grocer, who had so many daughters that all he could do for them was to make them a home and allow them a limited portion for their wardrobe--totally insufficient, according to their unanimous opinion, for their position! Mrs. Foxville was the oldest, and was the first to enter into wedlock. She would have scorned an alliance with a butcher, so superior did she think her father’s calling, though on what grounds she never clearly stated; but the prosperity of young Fox proved a compensation strong enough to convert a woman’s uprising negative into a positive affirmative.

The correctness of the lady’s judgment could not be questioned in the days that lengthened Fox into Foxville. She continued, however, to regard herself as more than the equal of her husband; and she always spoke of my house, my family, my children Matilda, Augustus, and Susy, as if poor Foxville had no concern or partnership in the property. 608 Sometimes he would slip in ‘our’ in place of ‘my,’ and he always spoke in this manner himself, but both the correction or amendment and the example had no effect on the ‘singular’ appropriation, which seemed, it may be supposed, to convey higher origin and standing than if lowered by a joint ownership.

Miss Matilda Foxville’s characteristics have sufficiently developed themselves, and Augustus, beyond being a plague to his elder sister, had no character at all. He was an existence, and little more; still, he was not without importance as the heir of a goodly estate.

Foxville House never failed to throw open its hospitable portals during Christmas week, and, not many days before the receipt of Susy’s letter, a large number of guests had found a warm welcome within them. Nathaniel Wodehouse was invariably the life of these social gatherings, and in the estimation of the Misses Foxville evidently he possessed qualifications for the prominent part he took. He stood high in favor with Miss Matilda, there is no denying the fact. For him more than for any other male thing, she chignoned, and painted, and got herself up in the best style of fashion. She nearly succeeded in reducing twenty-six to twenty by other than arithmetical rules. But what, after all, are twenty-six summers? No great span in the life of a really handsome woman; yet, in Miss Matilda, so unpliable was her disposition, and so set was her general deportment, that candor must admit that the six years beyond twenty had produced a perceptible difference. She made the best of them, however, for Nathaniel Wodehouse.

Can it be wondered at, therefore, that she thought he had some appreciative taste? He was charming and good-looking most certainly; and he was very gallant, as he ought to have been, to Miss Foxville. No one invited him with more _empressement_ than Matilda did to revisit Foxville House. Susy was shy and reserved; Matilda had outlived all that, and safely pronounced Nathaniel excellent company: so did Mrs. Foxville--so did Mr. Foxville. Augustus had no settled conviction on this head; and Susy was silent.

Even when Matilda spoke to her under sisterly secrecy, and used the epithets which she subsequently wished to revoke, Susy committed herself no further than by an exclamation of “Do you think so?” accompanied by a smile of doubtful acquiescence. When, however, Matilda, repenting of her admission, boldly denied it, Susy, as we have seen; held her to it unflinchingly.

It is sometimes good to come after others, and Scripture, politeness, and good sense forbid our presumptuously taking the best places. Susy enjoyed in this respect an advantage which nature had given her. She had all the benefit of being eight years younger than her sister, for she was at once the youngest, the prettiest, and the most amiable of the Foxvilles. Nathaniel would have been blind indeed if he had not made that discovery; and what that discovery led to, the intimated tenor of his letter has abundantly proved. One result, however, he had not foreseen, and that was the burning jealousy it excited in the bosom of Matilda Foxville, although he _was_ prepared to incur her displeasure.

IV.

Foxville House always was in commotion when Matilda had a hand in it. 609 When she was agitated, her agitation vibrated in every part of that spacious dwelling; and now she was stung to madness in such a way by Susy’s taunt that she rushed about like a maniac on fire. It was her worst policy, but she had lost the rudder of her discretion, and she cast herself adrift on the surging waves of her own fury.

From one apartment to another she flew in a whirlwind of passion in search of her mother, whom she would have found very near to Susy’s room if she had not darted downstairs with headlong precipitation. Up-stairs she flew again, and at length flounced into the room in which Mrs. Foxville was eagerly awaiting the issue of the consultation between her daughters.

“What has happened, Matilda?” asked Mrs. Foxville. “Your look startles me.”

“You will be startled!” gasped Matilda.

“Calm yourself, my child, and tell at your leisure what is amiss,” replied the mother, her words being at variance with her feverish anxiety for the news.

“What do you think, mamma? Nathaniel Wodehouse has had the audacity to propose to Susy!”

“Nathaniel Wodehouse! Without means! A beggar! I shall put a stop to that. No genteel poverty for me or either of my girls!”

“I was sure that you would save poor Susy! What is the use of his gentility with nothing to support it?”

“You always were sensible, Matilda; and no doubt Susy is wise enough to see the matter in the same light.”

“There you mistake, mamma; Susy is such a weak fool! The silly thing is over head and ears in love with him. She idolizes him! It is positively awful--wicked!”

“Oh! that’s it, is it? And without asking my opinion? Deliberate disobedience! Let me see her this moment. I must talk to her!”

Forthwith the mother and elder daughter sought out the unfortunate Susy, and joined in giving her one of those ‘talkings to,’ as they termed them, which only ladies can inflict on one another. Susy let fall a tear or two, made very short replies, for she could scarcely squeeze a word in, and bore her rebukes with exemplary patience, contenting herself with asserting that she would comply with the request of the letter and lay it before her father.

“Let me catch you showing the letter to your father this day!” exclaimed Mrs. Foxville indignantly.

“To-morrow will do,” replied Susy. “Papa must see it.”

It was then agreed that Susy should reserve the letter for her father’s perusal next day, on Mrs. Foxville consenting to take the blame for delay on her own shoulders; and it was finally stipulated that both the elder Foxville and Augustus should be kept in the dark for the next twenty-four hours.

Mrs. Foxville did not, however, consider herself bound by this contract, though not the least important of the high contracting parties. In fact, she intended to turn the interval to what she deemed the best account. Accordingly, she seized the opportunity which Mrs. Caudle, as depicted by Douglas Jerrold, devoted to curtain lectures, and plainly gave Mr. Foxville to understand that “she wouldn’t have it,” meaning the match in question, for she stated she knew that Wodehouse was as poor as a church mouse. “He was all outside show,” she said--“all flimsy, with no backbone.” She added that “that 610 wouldn’t do for her girls,” and, having warned her husband at great length and with great force, she concluded her lecture by observing, “And now you know your duty to my child, and I shall expect you to perform it.”

“Our child, my dear--our dear Susy is entitled to the best counsel I can give her.”

“I knew you would take her part!” cried Mrs. Foxville. “Dear Susy, indeed! She is a very bad Susy. I would have you, Mr. Foxville, respect a mother’s feelings!”

“Well, well; yes, yes, to be sure I will,” replied the husband, who was as valiant as an ox and nearly as strong in muscle, but was now in dread of a second lecture. “I will, you may depend upon it.”

With this promise on his lips he composed himself to sleep, after having first noticed its soothing effect--for which he took credit to himself--on his partner.

The next day, Mr. Foxville had some conversation alone with Susy. A little kindness soon reassured her, and, like a true-hearted daughter, she did not attempt to conceal her attachment to Nathaniel from her father. She opened her mind to him, and promised to abide by his advice; and on the question of questions--that of fortune--she professed her belief that Nathaniel Wodehouse would not be found in the forlorn condition in which her mamma and sister, in spite of her, had insisted. She acknowledged that she had no proof of this but her lover’s word, which, she said, Matilda had derided. Her lover’s word! that was all--sufficient for Susy! But she approved of her father’s fully satisfying himself on this point, as a duty to his family and to her.

There are several ways of giving advice. It is a favorite plan with some to administer it as they would physic, and the more nauseous it is, the more they seem to like administering it; and they would quarrel with their best friend for not taking it. Even among the more considerate, not every one has the modesty not to have his equanimity disturbed by having his advice asked and then disregarded. Mr. Foxville was not one of either of these classes. He might allowably be a little more positive in counselling his own daughter, but practically he followed in her regard his usual method, heedless of all the admonitions of his better half. That method was to pile up all the pros and cons which occurred to him on both sides of a question, and leave his client very much to his own decision. In effect, this was to offer no advice at all, but the course of proceedings looked grave and offended no one, while it enabled him to remain true to his maxim of never meddling in other people’s business. The only stumbling-block with Mr. Foxville, in the present instance, was a suitable position for his daughter, and that he would look into as a matter of imperative necessity. The rest he would leave to those most vitally interested, after his usual formal statement of all the disadvantages, which always came first, and then the advantages of the case under consideration. Susy was accordingly much comforted by her father’s good sense and feeling, instead of being cowed and heart-broken as Mrs. Foxville and Matilda had expected to see her.

“You are a perfect fool!” said Mrs. Foxville to her husband on observing Susy’s cheerful face after the _tête-à-tête_. “You have not the nerve to manage my child! I must take her in hand, poor noodle 611 that she is. Ha! she is just like you. There’s a nice pair for you!”

Mr. Foxville attached little importance to these disparaging remarks, with the like of which he was familiar; but he invariably did things his own way, and left consequences to take care of themselves. He responded, therefore, good-humoredly:

“Not too hasty, my dear! I shall see Nathaniel Wodehouse, whether you approve of it or not. That is all I have to say.”

And Foxville kept his word, for he resolutely refrained from opening his lips to renew the discussion. Not so Mrs. Foxville. She had a very great deal to say, but eventually wound up by the following menace:

“Beware how you ruin my child! You shall answer for it. I’ll let you know whether I am to be nobody in my own house!”

The tremendous ferment which shook the Foxvilles at length began to act upon Augustus. That young man had his own view of Susy’s conduct.

“I tell you what, Susy,” said he, “Wodehouse is no gentleman. He is a sneak. Didn’t he get the better of me in an examination before old Dr. Playfair, and when I challenged him to fight it out, and prove who was the better man, didn’t he decline? A pretty thing to marry a man like that. Marry him, Susy, and see what I will do!”

Poor Susy was now regarded by all her family, with the exception of her father, who remained silent, as a reprobate and outcast. When she sat down to her meals, she was treated as if she were supported by charity. At other times she was watched like a criminal. Her fortitude and good conscience, nevertheless, sustained her under her unmerited wrongs.

In the meantime, the two gentlemen, Foxville and Wodehouse, conferred together. Mrs. Foxville at first insisted on being present; but it was to no purpose. Mr. Foxville’s hardihood gave him the victory. He was declared to be the most obstinate of men; he bore the imputation and triumphed.

“What good have you done?” sneered Mrs. Foxville, when the meeting was over.

“Our Susy and Nathaniel will be man and wife!” replied the imperturbable Foxville.

“Oh!” was the sole response, in a tone that boded little harmony if the baffled Mrs. Foxville could have her way.

“Ay, ay,” continued Foxville. “Nat’s the richest man within a dozen miles of this place. I tell you, I have proof of it. Look, there’s a _little_ present, as he called it, for you!”

Foxville pulled out of his pocket a magnificent set of jewels in the neatest of morocco cases, and handed the gift to his wife.

What a transformation on the countenance and in the manner of Mrs. Foxville! Who could have suggested such a happy idea to Nathaniel as the magical present which turned out to be such a talisman of power? That secret was never known but to Susy and Nathaniel, and it cannot be divulged.

As Mrs. Foxville gazed with rapture on the jewels, her eyes vied in sparkling with the diamonds.

“Well, I cannot help forgiving him!” exclaimed the pacified lady. “Who would have thought this of Nathaniel Wodehouse? Twelve months ago I know he was scarcely worth a penny. But are you quite sure that you have not been taken in?”

“Trust old Foxville for that, eh? I have seen how he came by his 612 money. Old Simpson, his uncle, died last March, and left him sole heir.”

“Simpson his uncle! A good family! My father knew him well.”

Mrs. Foxville’s was not altogether a vain boast: the late Mr. Simpson had been the best customer at her father’s grocery.

Augustus now joined his parents unexpectedly.

“Gussy, my boy,” cried his father, “Nat is the happy man, after all! He could buy up all of Foxville if he chose. He wants you to dine with him at his club to-morrow. Do as you like. I meddle in no man’s business!”

“Of course I will! He is a better fellow than I took him to be,” said the sensible Augustus. “And here comes Susy,” he added, seeing his sister approaching.

“Susy, we congratulate you,” exclaimed the overjoyed father. “The course of true love runs smoothly a little too soon, eh?”

Susy blushed scarlet.

“Kiss me, my darling girl,” said Mrs. Foxville.

“Bravo!” sang out Augustus.

“But Till must hear the news! Let me fetch Matilda!” And he ran off with all speed, and soon returned with his sister.

“I told you I had something to show you,” said he, addressing Matilda. “Look at that picture! We only want Nat to make us thoroughly jolly. You will make a superb bridesmaid, Till, though I say it!”

“Not I indeed!” replied Matilda, with a grand toss of her head.

“You won’t for Susy?” the terrible Augustus went on. “That’s cruel of you; but I’ll give you a chance. So don’t despair; it’s often a first step to matrimony!”

Matilda bit her lip till it nearly bled, but she suffered not a word to escape her.

“For shame, Gussy!” cried Susy, as she flung herself, half-smiling, half-crying, on her sister’s neck.

* * * * *

With great adroitness Nathaniel eventually made his peace with Matilda, though it was rather a truce than a peace; but sufficient harmony was in a little time restored to Foxville House to make Susy’s wedding go off with _éclat_.

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THE MARTYRS OF ARCUEIL. 613

[The following narrative of the imprisonment and execution of certain Dominicans, by the Paris Commune, in May of last year, is translated from an account drawn up in French, under the eyes and, in a measure, at the dictation of witnesses who shared the captivity of the martyrs, and survived their fate only by a providential interposition which seems little less than miraculous. It was written merely to preserve, in the archives of the order, an authentic record of the circumstances which it, commemorates; but it glows with examples of Christian heroism and charity which ought not to be lost to the world at large. The branch of the Dominicans which gives this company of martyrs to the church was founded by Father Lacordaire shortly after the passing of the law of 1850, which, by abridging the exclusive privileges of the university of Paris, conferred upon the religious orders in France the right of opening schools and colleges, a right for which Lacordaire and Montalembert had battled for twenty years. Father Captier was one of the original company of four novices with whom Father Lacordaire founded, in 1852, the new order of Teaching Dominicans.]

In the spring of 1863, eighteen months after the death of Father Lacordaire, certain religious of the Third (Teaching) Order of Dominicans, having as their head the Rev. Father Captier, were sent to establish, in the house formerly belonging to Berthollet, a college under the name of the Blessed Albertus Magnus. It was a difficult task, and from the outset was met by the government with an opposition equally obstinate and hypocritical. In order to prevent the virtual abrogation of the law of 1850, to which France is now indebted for such a gallant multitude of faithful instructors, the contest opened by Father Lacordaire, in 1831, in the matter of the free schools, had to be commenced anew. Deprived of their religious habit, and harassed by incessant and discreditable vexations, Father Captier and his companions nevertheless stood bravely at their post of honor. At last, after two years of labor and experiment, they were permitted to enjoy in peace the protection of the law, and to speak freely to their pupils according to the inspiration of their hearts and their faith.

The establishment at Arcueil, founded in trouble, thenceforward prospered without interruption, and grew apace under the watchful and affectionate care of Father Captier. He seemed to know every member of the community to his inmost heart. He cared for every one with a religious and at the same time manly tenderness. There was not one to whom he failed to do good. With the performance of these duties he combined an active interest in all questions relating to the education of youth, and opposed with all his might the encroachment of the system of godless schools which has since been so audaciously imposed upon Parisian families. Appointed a member of the Commission d’Enseignement Supérieur, as the most thorough representative of the 614 free schools, he brought to the service of that board the experience of twenty years, the devout aspirations of his holy community, and the enthusiasm of a spirit earnest in the cause of enlightenment and holy liberty. When he returned to his cell, he resumed the cares of a soul which aimed to be wholly and profoundly immersed in the religious life. He concerned himself about the progress of all his brethren and pupils in observing the rules of the community, well knowing that the best means of doing good to souls is to draw from God the courage and the light which one needs in order to serve them.

Such was the state of affairs at Arcueil when the war broke out. The school then contained nearly three hundred pupils. In an establishment where religion and patriotism were both so warmly cherished, the first thought of every one was to do his utmost to aid France in her struggle against the foreigner. The pupils raised a large contribution for the relief of the victims of the coming campaigns. The religious gave their persons. Three of them joined the ambulances and passed the winter on the fields of battle, while the others devoted themselves in the college premises to taking care of the wounded victims of the siege of Paris. About fifteen hundred sick and wounded soldiers were thus treated in the college ambulance; and it was a devotion all the more meritorious because Arcueil, situated on the French outposts, was constantly under the fire of the German artillery.

After the siege, the school of Arcueil reopened its doors to pupils, and in March resumed its classes and its regular life. Then came the civil war. Placed between Fort Montrouge, Fort Bicêtre, and the redoubt of Hautes Bruyères, the school found itself within the lines of the Paris Commune. Instead of abandoning their house, the fathers resolved to continue their services to the wounded. They displayed on the front of the building the flag of the Geneva Convention, and, with the aid of the assistant masters whom the peace had collected around them, they began to traverse the battlefields on the south of Paris, gathering up the wounded and burying the dead. Within the college, the poor soldiers, whether regulars or federals, were tended by the charitable hands of the Sisters of St. Martha. At first the communists respected this self-sacrifice. The less violent of them were pleased to be so well cared for by the Dominicans of Arcueil. Many requisitions, nevertheless, were made upon the institution, and the house was ransacked from top to bottom, but nothing was found in it except the evidence of a charity which no rebuffs could discourage. The religious continued with unremitting zeal to relieve the wounded on the field of battle, and awaited patiently the triumph of justice and liberty. A number of battalions of the National Guard were thus brought into contact with the school. Several of them showed gratitude and even a sort of sympathy, but so far as that went everything depended upon the officers. Thus, the 101st Battalion, commanded by one Cerisier, a convict “who had been three times sentenced to death, and believed neither in God nor in man,” far from showing any good-will, seemed hardly willing to forgive the religious for their charitable labors in its behalf.

On the 17th of May, several events happened which greatly excited and alarmed the insurgents. A cartridge factory exploded in the Avenue Rapp, that is to say, within the _enceinte_ of Paris, and at least six kilometres from Arcueil. Several posts in the valley of the Bièvre 615 were surprised and overpowered at the point of the bayonet. Finally, a few paces from the school, the château of the Marquis de Laplace, occupied by the federals as a barrack, was burned. It was determined that the communists of Arcueil should be held to an accountability for these wholly unconnected occurrences, and the federals required nothing more to justify them in ordering an arrest.

On Friday, the 19th of May, between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, the school of Arcueil, which then contained twenty wounded brought in the night before from the field of battle, received a visit from Citizens Leo Meillet and Lucy Pyat, envoys from the Commune of Paris, and wearing the red scarf; Thaler, a Prussian, sub-governor of the Fort of Bicêtre; and Cerisier, commander of the 101st Battalion of the Paris National Guard. While these gentlemen were entering at the main door, the 101st and 120th Battalions surrounded the premises, broke down the enclosure, and forced their way in at every entrance, leaving sentinels here and there with orders to shoot anybody who attempted to go out. At the demand of Leo Meillet, Father Captier presented himself. An order from the Commune was shown him, setting forth no complaint or legal excuse, but commanding all the members of the community, from the prior down to the last of the kitchen servants, to submit themselves to the commands of the delegates. Half an hour was granted them for the necessary preparations. The bell was rung to call the household together, and Lucy Pyat, taking this for a suspicious signal, threatened to shoot the child who had committed such a crime. One by one, the religious, the assistant teachers, the sisters, the domestics, and the seven or eight pupils remaining in the house gathered around Father Captier. When the word was given to depart, they all fell down upon their knees, and with tears in their eyes asked his blessing. “My children,” he said to them, “you see what has happened. No doubt you are going to be questioned; be frank and sincere, as if you were speaking to your parents. Remember the counsel they gave you when they trusted you to our care; and whatever happens, bear in mind that you must be men who can live and can die like Frenchmen and like Christians. Adieu! May the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost descend upon you, and remain with you always, always!”

Then the fatal journey was arranged. The horses and wagons of the school were seized, and the vehicles were first filled with the sisters and female domestics. They were forbidden any communication with each other by word or gesture, or any signal of farewell, under penalty of being shot. They were taken first to the Conciergerie and afterwards to Saint Lazare (the prison for abandoned women), whence they were released on the Tuesday following by the arrival of the Versailles troops, before the miscreants of the Commune could execute the horrid threats of which they were the objects during these four days. The pupils were also to have been carried off, but, thanks to a misunderstanding on the part of the federal chiefs, their arrest was suspended. Later it was proposed to convey them to the Hôtel de Ville, and even to the barricades, but nothing was done, and they remained tolerably at ease in a remote part of the house, under the signally intelligent and devoted care of the young Jacques de La Perrière, whose conduct in these trying days was above all praise. 616

When all the others were gone, the fathers, the professors, and the male servants were brought down into the first court, and surrounded by the men of the 101st and 120th Battalions. The door opened, and the sad cortège began its march towards the Fort of Bicêtre, situated three kilometres from the school. They first passed through the streets of Arcueil. The inhabitants looked on in silence, though their sympathies were all with the prisoners. “When they passed our door,” said a poor woman, “and I saw Father Captier and all these messieurs, who had done us so much good, marching in the midst of the muskets, I imagined it was Jesus Christ with his disciples going to Jerusalem to be crucified.” At Gentilly, which they were next obliged to traverse, the popular feeling was very different, and the most outrageous language was used towards the prisoners.

It was seven o’clock in the evening when the column arrived at the fort. The captives were first locked up in a small room where, insulted in the grossest manner, they were forced to wait their turn to appear before the governor of the fort, and go through the formality of registering on the books of the prison. These formalities lasted a long time, the number was so large. Each man was submitted to the pretence of an examination, though there was no question of any crime or misdemeanor, nor any indictment whatever. Then they were searched, and stripped of everything they carried (even the breviaries were taken away), and conducted to Casemate No. 10, which faces the entrance to the fort.[120] It was nearly midnight when Father Captier and the other religious were placed here. Their companions followed in small parties, and about two o’clock the door closed upon the last of them. It was never to open for them again till they went out to their death.

This first night was very severe. The casemate contained only a few remnants of damp straw, already spoiled and broken up by some Bavarian soldiers, and each man had to grope for a clean spot on the bare floor. When morning came, they sought for some alleviation of their wretched condition. By dint of earnest representation, they got some bundles of fresh straw, and after a few days the breviaries were restored to the religious. Father Captier succeeded in obtaining paper and pencil, and addressed a communication to the governor of the fort. He thus secured the liberation of two lads, Emile Delaitre and Paul Lair, who had been imprisoned with the other servants of the school. He had more difficulty in obtaining the favor of a serious examination, for thus far the twenty-five prisoners were absolutely ignorant of the cause of their arrest. Something, at any rate, was granted: on Sunday afternoon, Fathers Captier and Cotrault were led before Citizen Lucy Pyat, who, after a long conversation, informed 617 them that they were to be considered neither as condemned nor accused, nor even prisoners, but they were merely held as witnesses. He was a prophet, though he did not know it; for God had chosen them to bear witness, with their blood, to the glory of his holy name.

It was hoped that the examinations would be resumed on the following day (Monday), but this was not done. On the contrary, the officers in command at the fort held no further communication with the prisoners. It is probable that in thus keeping away they yielded to the wishes of their men; for, while the officers preserved an appearance of civility in the presence of the fathers, their subordinates constantly redoubled their outrages, and took all pains to render them more and more gross. Drunken and infamous creatures showed themselves every few minutes before the windows of the casemate, jeering at the prisoners, loading them with unmentionable epithets, or reading aloud, with infinite gusto, the most shameless articles from the Communist newspapers. One day, they saw the sub-governor of the fort, cap in hand, ushering Father Captier into his prison after some sort of an examination. This mark of respect so exasperated the federal soldiers that they raised a great disturbance at the door of the casemate, and thenceforth the provisions for the prisoners were regularly plundered or intercepted on the way; for two days the captives were denied even a cup of water. On Wednesday, the 24th, an execution took place in the courtyard of the fort, directly under their eyes. It was made the occasion of redoubled menaces and heartless allusions. The same day, the Abbé Féron, chaplain of the Hospital of Bicêtre, went in search of the governor of the fort, and asked to be entrusted with the custody of the members of the Arcueil community, offering to answer for them with his life until they could be judged. This generous effort was unavailing. The Commune had already settled everything. The school was to be pillaged and burned.[121] As for the prisoners, they belonged to the 101st Battalion and its commander, who would dispose of them according to circumstances.

What were the thoughts of the victims during this long week of agony? Their companions in captivity tell us that a gentle cheerfulness never ceased to prevail in that wretched dungeon. With the exception of some of the servants, married men and fathers of families, whose attitude and manner were somewhat gloomy and dejected, every one pursued his ordinary way of life--not that they forgot or despised death, but because they had offered to God the sacrifice of their lives for France. The religious redoubled their usual devotion, encouraged each other and exhorted their companions. Every evening they said the rosary together, adding the usual mementos for their absent brethren. From time to time, Father Captier, though completely broken down by fatigue and privation, roused himself to give a pious reading, or to address the words of life and salvation to those who looked up to him as their chief. Outside, the federals gathered around to mock at their prayers. One morning, when the horizon was red with flames in the direction of Paris, Father Captier was pacing to and fro, saying his office, and some one cried to him through the window, “Oh, yes! you had better pray God not to let the torpedoes that the city is full of explode!” “I am doing it,” answered the good father sadly and quietly; and then, finishing his breviary, he asked his companions to pray with 618 him.

On Thursday, the 25th, at daybreak, an extraordinary activity was observed inside the fortress. Guns were removed and spiked, and the bugles blew the assembly. At one time, the prisoners believed that the fort had been wholly evacuated, and they had only to wait the arrival of the Versailles troops to secure’ their liberty.

But this hope was of short duration. A body of armed men appeared at the door of the casemate in considerable confusion. As they had not the keys, they forced an entrance with blows from the butt-ends of their muskets, and ordered the captives to start immediately with the column, which was retiring into Paris. “You are free,” said they, “only we must not leave you in the hands of the Versaillists. You must follow us to the _mairie_ of the Gobelins, and then you will go to Paris, or wherever you like.”

The march was long and painful. Every instant the prisoners were threatened with death. The women showed themselves especially furious, and eager to witness the death of these men who wore a sacred garb. They moved down towards the gate of Ivry, and on the road a few rifle-shots from Bicêtre caused a little disturbance, of which Father Rousselin took advantage to slip away and return to Arcueil. The others continued their journey towards Paris. Arriving at the _mairie_ of the Gobelins, in the midst of cries of “death!” from the crowd maddened at the approach of the regular army, it was in vain that they reminded their guard of the liberty promised them. They were told, “The streets are not safe; you will be killed by the people; remain here.” They were taken into the court of the _mairie_, and made to sit on the ground, exposed to the falling shells. Here the federals brought the corpses of their victims, to show “_ces canailles_” how the Commune served its enemies. At the end of half an hour an officer appeared, and took them to the _prison disciplinaire_ of the 9th _secteur_, No. 38 Avenue d’Italie. As soon as they entered, the captives of Arcueil recognized the 101st Battalion and its chief, Citizen Cerisier, that is, the same who had made their arrest. It was then ten o’clock in the morning. About half-past two, a man in a red shirt threw open the door of the hall, and cried out, “Get up, _soutanes_; they are going to take you to the barricade.” The fathers went out, and, with the Abbé Grancolas and the others, were conducted towards the barricade thrown up in front of the _mairie_ of the Gobelins. There they were offered muskets to fight with. “We are priests,” said they, “and, besides, we are non-combatants in virtue of our service in the ambulance. We shall not take arms. All that we can do is to relieve your wounded and bear away the dead.” “Is this your fixed purpose?” asked the officer of the Commune. “It is.” Then they were taken back to the prison, with an escort of federals and women armed with muskets. Once locked up, they thought of nothing but preparations for the last journey. They all knelt, made a final offering of the sacrifice of their lives, confessed, and received absolution. They were not to have the dying Christian’s last consolation, the divine viaticum. God did not judge this grace necessary for them; and, besides, from the prison to heaven the journey was to be so short!

About half-past four, a new order came from Citizen Cerisier. All the prisoners filed out into the lane which leads up to the prison, while the federals of the 101st Battalion loaded their muskets with 619 significant noise. Already every man was at his place. Platoons were stationed at the corners of all the neighboring streets. It is said that Citizen Cerisier sat in a carriage on the avenue, with a woman by his side. This is the manner in which he presided over executions under the Commune of Paris. Then the word of command was heard: “Go out into the street, one by one!” Father Captier turned half round towards his companions, and said, “Come, my friends; it is for the good God!”

The massacre began at once. Father Cotrault went out first, and fell mortally wounded. Father Captier was hit by a ball which broke his leg, and was struck down by another ball at a distance of more than a hundred metres, near the spot where the insurgents of June, 1848, massacred General Bréa. Father Bourard, also, after receiving one wound, was able to go a few steps in the same direction before he fell under a second discharge. Fathers Delhorme and Chatagneret were shot down instantly. M. Gauquelin fell with them. M. Voland and five of the servants (Aimé Gros, Marce, Cheminal, Dintroz, and Cathala) went out of the lane behind the fathers, and had time to cross the Avenue d’Italie, but were killed before they could find shelter.

The other prisoners managed to escape.[122] The Abbé Grancolas, barely touched by a bullet, got into a house, where a woman disguised him in her husband’s clothes. M. Rézillot was only slightly wounded. MM. Edouard Bertrand, Gauvin, Delaitre, Brouho, and Duché found shelter in some of the houses or neighboring caves, and afterwards in the ranks of the national army. How impenetrable are the designs of God! If he had permitted our soldiers to arrive only one hour sooner, all the martyrs of Arcueil would have been saved.

The fury of the assassins was not sated by the massacre. They fell upon the bodies of the dead, tore off their clothing, pierced them with bayonets, and with their axes broke their limbs and crushed their bleeding heads. The soldiers of the 113th Regiment, who passed this spot in triumph after surmounting the barricades, comprehended the glorious fate of the martyrs, and, bending over them, took the rosaries from their girdles, and divided them, bead by bead, as sacred relics. But after they had gone their way, the work of profanation was resumed, and for more than fifteen hours the bodies remained exposed to every imaginable outrage.

The next morning the Abbé Guillemette, a priest of that quarter, came across the corpses, and, noticing that they wore a religious habit, made inquiry into the circumstances of the assassination. He caused the sacred remains to be immediately collected, and taken to the house of the brethren in the Rue du Moulin-des-Prés. There a professor from Arcueil, M. d’Arsac, identified the bodies, indicated the name of each, and claimed for them the respect due to martyrs in a holy cause. At the same time, M. Durand, curé of Arcueil, and M. Eugène Lavenant, the Mayor, were informed of the death of the Dominicans, their friends and their companions in the hour of danger. They both came together to ask for the remains of the victims, and removed them to Arcueil. It was desired to bury them within the enclosure of the school, where Father Rousselin awaited them, with Jacques de La Perrière, and the 620 pupils who had remained faithful to the house. But it would have been necessary to submit to long formalities, and the bodies were so dreadfully bruised that there was no time even to make them coffins. The hearse, followed by a great crowd of people deeply agitated with grief and anger, was driven to the common cemetery. There the martyrs lie side by side in one grave, with no shroud but their blood-stained vestments.

This undistinguished tomb ought not to be the last resting-place of the martyrs of Arcueil. Father Captier and his companions will sleep in the shadow of the school which their labor founded and their blood renders henceforth illustrious. Not only the religious who were the brethren of the victims, and the pupils who were their children, but all who care for religion and country, will come to pray at their sepulchre, and meditate upon the lessons of their death.

[120] The following is a list of the prisoners: _In the Fort of Bicêtre_.--Father Captier, prior of the school of Arcueil; Bourard, chaplain; Delhorme, regent of studies; Cotrault, procurator; Rousselin, censor; Chatagneret, professor--all professed religious of the Third (Teaching) Order of St. Dominic, except F. Bourard, who belonged to the Order of Preaching Friars; MM. Voland, Gauquelin, L’Abbé Grancolas, Edouard Bertrand, Rézillot, Petit, and Gauvin, assistant masters; MM. Aimé Gros, Marce, Cathala, Joseph Cheminal, Dintroz, Simon Brouho, Duché, Bussi, Schepens, Delaitre (father and son), and Paul Lair, servants of the school. _In the Prison of Saint Lazare._--Mother Aloysia Ducos, superior of the Sisters of St. Martha; Sisters Elisabeth Poirier, Louise Marie Carriquiry, Louis de Gonzague Dorfin, and Mélanie Gatineaud; Mmes. Angèle Marce, Marguerite Cathala, Clara Delaitre, and the widow Guégon; Miles, Gertrude Faas, Catherine Morvan, and Louise Cathala (aged 8 years).

[121] In point of fact, the school was plundered on the 25th of May. There was no time to burn it.

[122] To this day the fate of M. Petit is not positively known. There is reason to believe that he escaped the first fusillade, but was recaptured by the federals and shot by them at one of the barricades. It is apparently of him that the Abbé Lesmayoux speaks in a letter to the _Univers_.

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VEILED.

“Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi.”[123]--CANT. ii. 16.

No bridegroom mine of change and death: My orange-flowers shall never fade: Immortal dews shall gem the wreath When crowns of earth have all decayed.

No bride am I that plights her troth With touch of doubt, or trust too fond; And risks the present, wisely loath To search too far the veiled beyond.

To me ‘tis but the past is veiled: The world that mocks with joys that fleet; The “Egypt” that so long has failed To make its “troubled waters”[124] sweet:

The world with all its sins and cares, Its sorrows gained and graces lost; The garden of a thousand snares, The barren field of blight and frost.

But shines the future clear as truth: A few swift years of prayer and peace, Where hearts may know perennial youth, And virtues evermore increase:

And then my Lord, my only love, Shall come, and lift the veil, and say: “Arise, all fair, my spouse, my dove! The rain is over--haste, away![125]

“The rain is o’er, the winter gone, That sun and summer seemed to thee. If sweet the toilsome journey done, How sweeter now thy rest shall be!”

[123] “My Beloved is mine, and I am his.”

[124] Jer. ii. 18.

[125] Cant. ii. 10, 11.

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A VISIT TO MAMMOTH CAVE. 621

A sleepy and forlorn bachelor, about to set forth on this expedition _solus_, some special providence sent to our relief a party of gay young friends, whom we found already assembled in the Louisville depot of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Upon this pleasant rencontre we did not cease to congratulate ourself, having been previously warned that the cave is seen to greater advantage by a large party; the number of lights carried, extra guides, etc., all tending to enhance picturesque effects, and promote the comfort of the sight-seers.

Leaving Louisville at the early hour of seven A.M., a very enjoyable ride lay before us; at first through the celebrated blue grass region of Kentucky, and afterward skirting the wilder, more picturesque country, famous, or infamous, as the scene of guerilla warfare during the war and after. Here these desperadoes, entrenched in some of nature’s impregnable fortresses, sallied forth at will, cutting the railroads, stopping trains at all hours of the day and night, and plundering farms for miles in every direction. But we have changed all that! The road boasts a tunnel of some extent. Here the young men of our party perpetrated the time-honored joke of kissing their hands with a resounding smack, bringing out the roses on the cheeks of our pretty girls; when we emerge from darkness, each one of them being fully conscious that she is suspected as the guilty recipient of that kiss.

At noon we reach a station bearing the imposing name of Cave City; a close corporation, consisting of one establishment, for the refreshment of man and beast destined for the Mammoth Cave. A poor dinner, after the manner of such wayside inns, awaits us, and at two P.M. we hear the welcome sound, “All aboard stage for the cave!” Two vehicles, filled inside with ladies, and outside with the adequate complement of gentlemen and baggage--a nice point, by the way, in these days of woman’s rights and Saratoga trunks! But, ladies, we warn you not to undertake the cave without at least one man whom you own or have a lien on--there are points in the explorations before you when one man, and perhaps several others, will be convenient to lean on.

With a mighty creaking, a few preliminary false starts, resulting in some new and jerky experiences to those unaccustomed to the old-fashioned stages, at last we are fairly off, beginning almost immediately a winding and gradual ascent. We are told by our sanguine driver that there had been an attempt to macadamize the road--then certainly it has been an attempt, and nothing more; on several occasions we rode over smooth stones so large that it was quite a relief from the deep ruts which seamed the road on every side.

High hills surround us, luxuriant in the foliage of June; at rare intervals a farm-house is seen in some distant valley, but there are few evidences of cultivating the soil, which is doubtless of too cavernous a nature to repay the farmer his toil.

After riding a distance of three or four miles, the wildness of the 622 scene is increased by huge formations of rocks; many streams murmur in the distance, and near the only house we approach on the route, a little maid, hurrying barefoot from the spring, presents a pail of water for the benefit of the thirsty stagers. There have been sundry flasks of _eau de vie_ on top, and the gentlemen evince no desire for the milder fluid, quaffed by the ladies with such avidity.

The half-way point is a platform for shade built across the road, and here those who wish to explore Osceola, or Indian Cave, take a short walk down the hill. Not caring to receive any subterra impressions before the great cavern dawned upon us, we joined the ladies in picking wild flowers, which are of great beauty and variety in this region. The exploring party on their return reported Osceola to be mainly a dugout cave, having some interest, but, like its illustrious namesake, very dirty! Nearly an hour having been devoted to resting the horses, we resume the stages, and, the road improving, proceed with accelerated speed, when a sudden halt causes us to look back--the second stage has broken down! What is to be done? Nothing but to squeeze two more ladies in our coach, while we gentlemen resign our places on top to the rest of the feminines, who really make the alarming ascent with grace; but after a short walk our gallantry oozes out at the very tips of our boots, and, one by one, we jump on the steps to talk, thence clamber to the roof to find seats as best we may.

After a nine miles’ drive, we approach a long, low frame-building. An air of quiet and rustic simplicity pervades the spot! This is the “Cave House.” The apartments to which we are conducted have lost none of the rusticity of the exterior surroundings, but everything is scrupulously neat, and there are excellent negro servants in attendance--desirable features in a hotel. Not less so is savory broiled chicken, to which we were speedily introduced.

Being all impressed with the idea that about nine extra hours of sleep were requisite to fit us for the labors of the morrow, we denied ourselves the pleasures of the large ball-room, whence issued the strains, evoked by some black musicians, wooing to the giddy mazes of the dance! Loose flannel suits are kept at the hotel for those who come unprepared for the cool climate and rough climbing of the cave; but we found our baseball toggery to be the very thing we wanted, and, arrayed therein, immediately after an early breakfast assembled on the wide veranda, which surrounds the house and makes a pleasant promenade.

The ladies look charming in their picturesque costumes of bright colors. Being a modest man, we merely mention that our stalwart frame does credit to the uniform of the “Yellow Garters,” of which glorious nine we boast ourself a member.

All in high spirits, we descend a thickly wooded ravine to the right of the house: beautiful ferns and mosses carpet the sides of the funnel-shaped opening surrounding the mouth of the cave, to the bottom of which our winding path is gradually leading us, a descent of forty or fifty feet. Around and above, tall trees stand sentinel on the only approach to this secret underworld.

Our guide remarks that the present is not the original mouth of the cave, which is distant a quarter of a mile on the south bank of Green River. Many, many years ago, the upper crust must have given way, 623 forming this opening into which we are now descending, and filling with earth and stones that first part of the cavern, now called “Dickson’s” and rarely visited. The present entrance was discovered, in 1809, by a hunter running a bear into it. So little was the extent or value of the cave known, that it was soon afterward sold, with two hundred acres of land, for forty dollars. A short, sharp turn in the path brings us facing an archway of rock, over which a silver thread of water is falling. A cold wind rushes from a dark opening, above which the condensed atmosphere floats like a veil. With a sort of awe we descend some rough stone steps, and enter the cave. Already darkness is becoming visible: our party, numbering twenty-five, are furnished with lamps, and all with our “pilgrim staves” set forth on the “short route.”

To give some general idea of the outlines of the cave, we cannot do better than quote the simile of a scientific gentleman who, in writing on this subject, asks the reader to “imagine the channel of a large and winndig river, with tributaries at intervals, some of them the size of the main stream, emptying into the chief river, as, for instance, the Missouri and Ohio joining the Mississippi; these tributaries also receiving their support from creeks and rivulets, some of them quite small and extending but a short distance, while others are much longer, larger, and more beautiful. Now, it is easy to imagine these rivers as being under ground, or having a surface covering of earth and rocks, and that their rugged channels and banks have long ceased from some cause to be bathed with the waters which in ages long past flowed so freely along them; in fact, that they are quite dry, except in a few of the avenues.”

From this illustration it will be seen that we cannot “cut across country” from one point to another, but must explore each avenue, and then retrace our steps to the point where we left the main cave. Necessarily there are many avenues well known to the guides rarely seen by visitors, because too much time would be consumed in visiting any but the most interesting. To see the cave at all satisfactorily, one day should be devoted to the “Short,” another to the “Long Route.” And from our own experience, we would suggest that these two tramps should not be made one immediately after the other, but let an intervening day be devoted to some other of the many minor expeditions of this region; then you are rested, and fresh for all the day in the cave of the “Long Route.”

While indulging in these practical and retrospective reflections, we have left our party in the narrow archway, about seven feet high, which is just within the mouth, and called the Narrows. Here there was a slight detention caused by the lamps blowing out: Mat, our black guide, explains this by saying, “The cave’s breathin’ out.” To explain which still further means that, the atmosphere of the cave being at 59°, when the exterior air at the mouth is of a higher temperature, a strong current sets outward; in winter, of course, the current sets inward: thus the cave breathes once a year. This action is felt a short distance. Soon we leave behind everything reminding us of the upper world.

Before the eye has become accustomed to the darkness, a great sense of disappointment is felt in groping through scenes of such interest with insufficient light. This feeling, however, gradually wears off, and the guides burn oiled paper, blue-lights, etc., when we stop to inspect 624 some special marvel.

After leaving the Narrows, we soon enter the Rotunda, the ceiling of which is one hundred feet high, and its greatest diameter seventy-five feet. This chamber is said to be immediately under the dining-room of the hotel. The floor is strewn with the remains of vats, water-pipes, etc., used by the saltpetre miners in 1812. From the entrance to this point, wheel-tracks and the impressions made by the feet of oxen used to cart the saltpetre more than fifty years ago may still be seen. At the time these indentations were made by the cleft foot of the ox and the cartwheels, the earth was moist from the recent process of lixiviation in the saltpetre manufacture, and upon drying had attained the stony solidity of petrifaction; and the indentations aforesaid are yet distinct, though they have been walked over by thousands of visitors for many years. Leaving the Rotunda, we pass huge overhanging rocks, called Kentucky River Cliffs, and enter the Methodist Church, where services have been frequently held. The pulpit is formed by a ledge of rock twenty-five feet high: the logs used as benches were placed in the church fifty years ago, and are still in a good state of preservation. In this part of the cave, and in all the avenues near the entrance, millions of bats make their winter quarters. We saw only a few flitting about, but were told they returned in the autumn by hundreds. What wonderful instinct wakens these creatures from a winter’s sleep, with tidings that the glorious summer is at hand? Various objects of minor interest are noted, and we pass on to Giant’s Coffin, an immense rock, forty feet long, twenty wide, eight in depth--fit sarcophagus for one of the giants of old; but Kentucky has herself of late years produced an individual who will nearly fill it. In many parts of the cave, and more particularly in this region, some striking effects are produced by the efflorescence of black gypsum upon a surface of white limestone. On the ceiling and walls these black figures thus produced stand out in bold relief. Quite startling is a gigantic family group--man, wife, and infant. Another is a very perfect representation of an ant-eater.

Soon we notice several enclosures, formerly occupied by invalids, who vainly imagined that this pure and unchanging atmosphere would restore them to health.

Up to this point walking has been an easy matter, the way quite level, a path winding among loose stones of some size, and in many places a smooth, broad avenue offering no obstruction; but when, one by one, we climb a steep ladder placed against the wall to the right of Giant’s Coffin, there is a realizing sense of “rocks ahead.”

The Gothic Arcade, which we have now entered, has a flat ceiling, smooth and white as if it had received a coat of plaster, and leads to Gothic Chapel--a very beautiful room, yet not purely Gothic in its style of architecture, the roof being quite flat, supported by gigantic stalactites, extending so nearly to the floor that they present the effect of fluted columns and graceful arches. Here was once performed a marriage ceremony under romantic circumstances. A young lady, having promised her mother that she would never marry Snooks “on the face of the earth,” evaded the letter of her contract by marrying the same in the bowels thereof. Two of the stalactites in this chapel, called the Pillars of Hercules, are said to be thirty feet in circumference. These stalactites being peculiar to caves, it may interest the general reader to note their formation. If water, 625 holding bicarbonate of lime in solution, drop slowly from the ceiling, exposure to the air allows one part of carbonic acid gas to escape, the lime is then deposited in the form of proto-carbonate of lime, and the stalactite, similar to an icicle, is slowly formed; if the deposit accumulate from below upward, it is termed a stalagmite; sometimes, meeting in the centre, they become cemented and form a solid column. An instance of this is given in the illustration of the Devil’s Arm-Chair. These forms are made more interesting from their variety of color: if the limestone is pure, the stalactite will be white, or semi-transparent; if it contain oxide of iron, the result will be a red or yellow color; black stalactites containing a large proportion of oxide of iron. Many other things of interest, but too numerous to mention, are pointed out before we reach Lake Purity, a pool of shallow water, so perfectly transparent that stalactites are seen at the bottom. Gothic Arcade terminating a short distance beyond the lake, we retraced our steps to the ladder by which we had reached this upper and older portion of the cave, and found ourselves again in the main cave near the Giant’s Coffin, passing behind which we enter a narrow crevice, where, half crawling and stooping, a descent is made to Deserted Chamber. At this point, the water, after it had ceased to flow out of the mouth into Green River, left the main cave to descend to the lower regions and Echo River. Here we again leave the regular route to visit Gorin’s Dome, to us far the most beautiful of the many so-called domes.

Passing over a small bridge, and ascending a steep ladder, we are, one by one, assisted by the guide to a point where it is not easy to retain a foothold; but here is nothing to be seen--we seem to be against a black wall. “Why, Mat, what did you bring us here for?” But not so fast. Mat has been preparing blue-lights for an illumination, and now he directs us to grasp the rock, and, one at a time, peer through a small opening. What wondrous vision is this! A hundred feet above is the arched dome, from which depend stalactitic formations and shafts, of varying size and shape; facing us hangs a curtain-like mass, terminating abruptly in mid-air. In it you seem to trace the folds and involutions of drapery veiling this mysterious place from vision. Far below, more than two hundred feet, unfathomable depths are revealed by blue-lights thrown down, while shafts, curtain, and dome are frescoed in colors of pale blue, fawn, rose, and white. This dome is three hundred feet high, and sixty feet across its widest part; but, alas! the “lights departed, the vision fled,” and we are forced to descend from our eyrie. Leaving this sublime spectacle, we return to the main cave, and, following it around Great Bend, are soon in the famous Star Chamber. This is an apartment sixty feet in height, seventy in width, and about five hundred in length, the ceiling composed of black gypsum, studded with numberless white points, caused by the efflorescence of Glauber’s salts. This is what we learned of this remarkable spot after leaving the cave. We now will tell you what we saw. We were first seated on a narrow ledge of rock forming a bench on one side of the chamber, the guide taking away our lamps to a distant mass of rocks, behind which he leaves them, to shed a “dim, religious light” on the scene. As our eyes become accustomed to the change, we discover ourselves to be in a deep valley with gray, rugged sides, of course outside of the cave, else why is the sky above so 626 deeply, darkly blue? those countless stars shining?--shining, did we say? We vow they twinkled. The Milky Way is there; we will not vouch for the Dipper, but other constellations are visible, even a comet blazes across the heavens. The guide retires with his lamp to some mysterious lower region to produce shadows, and suddenly clouds sweep across the horizon, a storm is brewing, the stars are almost hidden, now they are out, utter darkness prevails, until we hear Mat stumbling about, a faint light is in the east, and a fine artificial sunrise, as he appears with his lamp. All this may read like child’s play, yet so complete is the optical delusion that, when the lamps were all returned to us, the mystery dispelled, we drew a long breath of relief that we were not really shut up in that lonely defile, looking up longingly to the stars, but actually several miles underground, and merely under the influence of Glauber’s salts! Beyond is Proctor’s Arcade, a natural tunnel, nearly a mile long, a hundred feet wide, forty in height; the ceilings and sides are smooth and shining, chiselled out of the solid rock. This tunnel leads past several points not specially interesting, to Wright’s Rotunda, which is four hundred feet in diameter. It is astonishing that the ceiling has strength to sustain itself, being only fifty feet below the surface of the earth; but no change need be anticipated, for at this point the cave is perfectly dry. A short distance beyond, several avenues branch off from the main cave, none worthy of note, except that which leads to Fairy Grotto, a marvellous collection of stalactites, resembling a grove of white coral. Here indeed might the fairies have held high revelry, with glow-worm lamps suspended from each pillar, and fire-flies flitting from branch to branch.

The Chief City or Temple, situated in the main cave beyond the Rocky Pass, is rarely visited by strangers now, yet, before the discovery of the rivers and the wilderness of beauty beyond, it was considered one of the great features. It is an immense chamber, excelling in size the cave of Staffa. The floor at different points is covered with piles of rocks, presenting the appearance of an ancient city in ruins.

Three miles beyond Chief City, the main cave is terminated abruptly by rocks fallen from above, which, if they could be removed, would no doubt open communication with a cavern similar to the one we have been exploring. So many wonders, viewed in a few hours, leave the mind in a chaotic state, and the weary explorer is now ready to return to the creature comforts of the hotel, there to ruminate, and, if he can, arrange in some sort of order, in his “memory’s mansion,” sights and sensations so new and strange. In returning to the upper world, the appearance of the mouth is very beautiful. To eyes so long accustomed to darkness, the light is a subdued radiance, a fairy land in the distance, until we emerge from the cave into the outer world, which seems, since we left it, to have been dyed in millions of rainbow hues; everything, the leaves, the trees, shone and sparkled in the blessed light! But--the air! the pure atmosphere we have been breathing all the morning, renders the senses painfully conscious of the decomposition of vegetable matter, causing such a feeling of oppression that fainting may be the consequence if issuing from the entrance is not made a matter of easy stages.

As a result of the wise maxim, “Early to bed and early to rise,” we 627 find ourselves on the following morning breakfasting in our cave dress, and prepared before nine o’clock for the “Long Route.”

We now feel quite at home in the under-world, and, should any stranger join our party, he would doubtless be much impressed by our manner of going over the familiar ground; evidently we know all about this; nothing can impress us now but “fresh fields and pastures new.” On this day we are to realize something of the geography of the cave, therefore a word on the subject of its formation.

Green River, only a few hundred yards from the entrance of the cave, has evidently cut out the channel through which it runs. On either side, its rugged banks tower above the water three hundred feet, and this the only valley of the plain, proving conclusively that the river has excavated its bed to the present level by the chemical and mechanical agency of water. The avenues of the cave, no doubt, were cut through in the same manner, the lowest and last formed being Echo and Roaring rivers, which are now on a level with Green River, and with which they have subterraneous communication.[126] As Green River deepens the valley through which it passes, the rivers in the cave will also continue to descend, until the avenues through which they now flow shall become as dry as Marion Avenue, which, in ages past, must have been the most beautiful of subterranean rivers.

Limestone, or carbonate of lime, which constitutes the strata of rocks through which the cave runs, is soluble in water when it combines with an additional proportion of carbonic acid, and is changed into the bicarbonate of lime.

In this way the process of excavation continued until communication with running water was established, and the mechanical agency made to assist the chemical. Another disintegrating power is the crystallization of sulphate of lime, known also under the names of gypsum, plaster-of-Paris, alabaster, etc. The force of gypsum in the act of crystallizing is equal to that of water in freezing, and, when it occurs between ledges of rock, they are fractured in every direction. Many instances of this may be seen.

As to the mechanical agencies in the excavation of the cave, they are instanced in the transportation of gravel, clay, and sand from one part to another. By observing the points at which they are deposited, and the order in which they come, it is possible to tell the direction in which the water formerly ran in many of the avenues, and the rapidity of its motion. But enough of technicalities--the entrance to the “Long Route” is before us in the crevice before mentioned, situated behind Giant’s Coffin.

The first new name which strikes upon the ear is that of Wooden Bowl--an apartment deriving its name from the fact of a bowl being found here, such a one as was used by the Indians. Various traditions of this race meet the explorer in other parts of the cave; among others, that of a mummified female and child found in Gothic Avenue, in 1815, said to have been sent to the Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts, and to be still there in a dilapidated condition; another still more remarkable mummy is said to have been 628 exhumed in one of the neighboring small caves, and sent to Cincinnati, where it was burnt in the museum many years ago.

If such discoveries were really made, it is a matter of profound regret that these relics of an unknown past should have been removed from their resting-places, where they were secure from the ravages of time, and would, at the present day, greatly enhance the interest of Mammoth Cave.

We descend the Steps of Time, which is an unpleasant reminder to those of us who already feel stiff in the joints, and enter Martha’s Palace, not so palatial as its name implies, but near by is a spring of clear water, which all hail with pleasure. Side-Saddle Pit and Minerva’s Dome are soon passed, and we reach Bottomless Pit. Do not shudder! there is no necessity of descending, and there is bottom at the distance of one hundred and seventy-five feet. It was not until the year 1838 that it was supposed possible to bridge this fearful chasm; it was then crossed by Stephen, the celebrated black guide, who is identified with most of the discoveries. We now cross on a substantial wooden structure, known as the Bridge of Sighs. This leads to the Revellers’ Hall, and, judging from the number of empty and broken bottles on the floor of this wild-looking room, all visitors have done their part to perpetuate the name. A low archway, the Valley of Humility, leads to Scotchman’s Trap, a circular opening, through which you descend a flight of stone steps. Directly over the opening hangs a huge flat rock, which would, should it fall, completely close the avenue to the river. The number of slight, slippery ladders we have descended gives a very realizing sense that we are getting down, down, deep into the bowels of the earth.

We now enter a narrow avenue serpentining through the solid rock for fifty yards, varying in width from eighteen inches to three feet, in height from four to eight feet. This passage has evidently been cut through by the mechanical agency of water. Any lady or gentleman weighing three hundred pounds had better not attempt Fat Man’s Misery, for he may sigh in vain for “this too solid flesh to melt,” and this remarkably solid rock will not yield a hair’s-breadth to anything less than water charged with carbonic acid. Such squeezing and groaning, broken backs, etc.! but these are forgotten when we emerge in Great Relief. The avenue which leads thence to River Styx is River Hall, but we leave this for the present, and on our right enter Bacon Chamber, where may be seen a fine collection of limestone _hams_ depending from the ceiling. After walking three-fourths of a mile in Sparks’ Avenue, we reach Mammoth Dome, the largest in the cave; it is two hundred and fifty feet in height. Climbing over immense shelving rocks, whose jagged sides and yawning crevices offer slight foothold and a very unpleasant prospect in case of a fall, we reach the top of a terrace forty feet from the base, where the view is taken. A grand, solemn spectacle it is! At the left extremity are five large pillars, called Corinthian Columns. A vast, solitary waste stretches out before the eye on every side; gloomy recesses and yawning abysses, illuminated by the weird blue-lights, form a sublime picture. One can only fancy it to be the primal state of chaos. The descent from the terrace of rocks is even more perilous than the ascent, but, once in the avenue, we return quickly to River Hall. Our attention is now drawn to a body of water forty feet below, called Dead Sea, a gloomy 629 spot, deserving its name. Passing on, the distant roar of invisible waterfalls strikes the ear, and at the foot of the slope we are descending lies the River Styx:

“Where the dark rock o’erhangs the infernal lake, And mingling streams eternal murmurs make.”

This river is one hundred and fifty yards long, from fifteen to forty in width, and in depth varies from thirty to forty feet. It has a subterranean communication with other rivers of the cave, and, when they rise to a great height, an open communication with all of them. The Natural Bridge spans River Styx about thirty feet above it.

The next body of water we approach is quite peaceful, and, the ceiling being ninety feet above the surface, one loses the cavernous sensation of the gloomy overhanging rocks. Lake Lethe is one hundred and fifty yards long, and, being crossed in boats not large enough to convey all of the party at once, some of our number embark, with Charon himself at the helm. All are hushed by the solemnity of the scene, the lamps shed a dim light upon the rippling water and phantom boat, which silently glides outward and on around a projecting angle of rock, when it is lost to vision. For those who wait upon the shore the return of the boat, this is a solemn moment; we felt ourself a ghost, doomed to wander a hundred years ere Charon would ferry us over Avernus! After a brief interval of this musing, a faint light appears from behind the rock which before intercepted our view. Charon with his solitary lamp in the prow of the boat is returning; soon we also embark, but not before we had drunk of the waters of Lethe, that all experience of the upper world might be forgotten, for now we enter into dream life. Our friends who had preceded us formed a picturesque group waiting as we neared the shore. The bright dresses, the lights throwing fitful gleam and shadow into the darkness beyond, and our own gliding motion, form a picture not soon forgotten. Upon disembarking we enter Great Walk, extending from the Lake to Echo River, the floor of which is covered with yellow sand. Reaching the river, we all embark in a large boat, and soon find ourselves in a very contracted space, the rocks overhead being only three feet above the surface of the water. Stooping under the narrow archway for fifteen or twenty feet, we finally emerge into the open river, with the ceiling about fifteen feet above. At some points the river is two hundred feet wide, in depth it varies from ten to thirty feet. The water is now transparently clear, rocks can be seen twenty feet below, and the boat seems passing through the air. The illusion is heightened by the fact of our guide using no oars here, propelling the boat by a staff applied at intervals to the ceiling or side walls. We avoided looking at him, that we might still fancy ourself wafted over these mysterious waters by some invisible agency. Here is no feeling of danger, only a dreamy, delicious content to float on thus for ever into the “Silent Land.”

An occasional song to wake the far-famed echoes is the only sound to disturb the stillness and the unutterable thoughts which fill the soul. Echo River is an idyl! Alas! that it should be so short--yet three-quarters of a mile of bliss should compensate poor human nature for many ills. Some of the gentlemen, in the adventurous spirit of youth, made their passage through a rugged avenue called Purgatory; from their description of which we prefer journeying to paradise by the river. Landing on the farther banks, we enter Silliman’s Avenue, 630 extending a mile and a half to the Pass of El Ghor, the walls and ceilings of which, being of recent formation, are rugged and water-worn. Here is Cascade Hall, a circular chamber with vaulted ceiling, from which falls a stream of sparkling water, disappearing through a pit in the floor. The avenue leading to Roaring River takes its rise in this hall.

The Infernal Region is an irregular down-hill passage, the floor covered with wet clay. Such essentially and persistently sticky mud was probably never known above ground. The scrambling, slipping, miring, ejaculating crowd made an amusing scene. Our black guide, Mat, is a character, rarely relaxing into a smile, but displays a grim humor by saying “Sot her up,” when some heavier slush than usual reveals the fact that somebody is down. Now, sotting her up is not nearly as easy as sotting her down. In some places the water is ankle-deep. Here the gentlemen pick up the ladies, and carry the fair creatures to dry ground. Several laughable incidents were the consequence of this manœuvre. One gentleman, feeling the mud slipping under his feet, fancied himself in a quicksand, and hurriedly set his wife down in the water to rescue himself. Another, a bashful young swain, felt a delicacy about the manner of picking up his young lady, so carried her under one arm, her heels on a line with her head. What a funny picture those little dangling boots presented! Alas! for the uncertainty of human events. When we started out fresh in the morning, we had observed the secret pride with which that young woman contemplated her jaunty tasselled boots, the neatest fit in the party, and amply displayed by her short dress.

We are now quite willing to climb the Hill of Fatigue, leading to dry ground. Among many names and objects of interest we shall only mention Ole Bull’s Concert-Room, where the great violinist performed, on his first tour through the United States. The Pass of El Ghor, two miles in length, is one of the most picturesque avenues in the cave, its narrow and lofty sides changing into every variety of uncouth, fantastic shapes; again, the hanging rocks overhead suggest the idea of imminent danger, but we are assured by the guide that no rocks have fallen during his time, a period of thirty years.[127]

This pass finally communicates with a large body of water, the “Mystic River,” which has not been explored by visitors. Ascending a very high, steep ladder, we enter Martha’s Vineyard, twenty feet above the Pass of El Ghor. Here a stalagmite, extending from the floor to the ceiling, forms the stem of a _grapevine_, from which all over the walls and ceiling depend bunches of black _grapes_--nodules of carbonate of lime, colored with the black oxide of iron--and here the vintage never fails, for is there not sulphur at hand?

An avenue directly over Martha’s Vineyard, which we did not explore, is said to contain a miniature chapel of stalactites, in a dark room adjoining which, without ornament of any kind, is a grave hewn out of the rock. This was considered so suggestive by a Catholic priest that he named it the Holy Sepulchre.

The next place of great and general interest is Washington Hall, where were unpacked the hampers carried by the extra guide, detailed for that purpose. Keen appetites were brought to bear upon the liberal luncheon 631 supplied by the proprietor of the hotel. Some of the party had added champagne, so we filled generous bumpers to the genii of the cave. After an hour spent in rest and refreshment, we leave Washington Hall, and, passing through Snow-Ball Room, covered with nodules of white gypsum, enter Cleveland Cabinet, an avenue two miles in length, and so beautiful that the sight of it alone would fully repay for the fatigue and time devoted to the cave.

It is a perfect arch of fifty feet span, averaging the height of ten feet in the centre. Thus every part may be viewed with ease. From summit to base is a dazzling expanse of alabaster bloom--a grand conservatory where the Snow Flora moulds her _flowers_ ere she transports them to the upper world and endows them with a soul. Here are clusters of pale white roses sprinkled with diamond dew, waiting only the enchantress’ wand to convert them into a coronal for some fair bride; again, a perfect cross of flowers, which may yet be the only companion of a rare soul entombed. Stately lilies, nodding tulips, graceful fern shapes, are showered in endless profusion on these fairy walls. Here and there are little niches lined with flowers, a feathery veil of rock bloom hanging over the entrance. We peep in curiously, but no Peri is there. This seems truly the “Enchanted Palace of Sleep,” but the princess is too deeply hidden for mortal eyes to discover.

Lingeringly we leave this wondrous scene. At the very end is pointed out the last rose of summer, resting against the ceiling; it is of snowy whiteness, about eight inches in diameter, and is really the last to be seen in the avenue. A short distance beyond is Rocky Mountain, one hundred feet high, composed of large rocks which have evidently fallen from above. On top of the mountain is a stalagmite called Cleopatra’s Needle--why a needle, and wherefore Cleopatra’s, I am unable to explain. We are now nearing the end of the cave, and to the weary of our band the mountain seems an insurmountable obstacle, therefore only the more adventurous scale the heights, and, passing Dismal Hollow, a gorge seventy feet deep and one hundred wide, enter Crogan Hall, which constitutes the end of the “Long Route.” It is covered with stalactites, very hard and white, fragments of which are worked into ornaments.

This part of the cave is evidently near the surface of the earth, and from the comparative abundance of animal life it is probable there is an open communication at some point not far distant. The rat found here differs from its Norway brother in that it is a size larger; the head and eyes, which are black and lustrous, resemble those of a rabbit, while its soft fur is of a bluish gray and white. Crickets and lizards are numerous; they are sluggish in their movements, and the cricket never chirps. Why should he, indeed, having neither hearth nor tea-kettle to inspire him? All these animals, although provided with large eyes, seem quite blind when first caught. The fish found in the various rivers are of the class known as viviparous; they have rudiments of eyes, but no optic nerve. There are also eyeless crawfish; both these and the eyeless fish are nearly white.

At certain seasons ordinary fish, crawfish, and frogs are washed into the rivers of the cave from Green River, the inference being that they also in due course of time lose the power of vision.

At the end of Crogan Hall we are said to be nine miles from the mouth of the cave, and somewhere under ground near Cave City. Here is the 632 Maelstrom, a frightful pit, one hundred and seventy-five feet deep, and twenty wide. It has been explored by two or three adventurous spirits, the first of whom was a son of the late George D. Prentice.

It is needless to describe our return, which was over the ground already explored; devoting less time, of course, to the examination of wonders, and not at all tired, for exercise in this exhilarating atmosphere is unlike that of the upper world. We finally reach the entrance, and emerge--into darkness again--for it is nine P.M., and only a few twinkling stars remind us that we are not still underground.

I shall not do more than mention Proctor and Diamond Caves, which we explored on the following day, but they excel in stalactitic formation and well repay a visit. They are on the direct route to Glasgow, a station three miles nearer than that of Cave City, and where there has been recently built a comfortable hotel on the site of the ancient “Bell’s Tavern,” well known to Kentuckians in former days. Those who have never visited Mammoth Cave will scarcely credit the assertion of the guides that two hundred and fifty miles of travel are necessary to see all of the known avenues of the cave. When we add to this the statement that new discoveries are constantly being made which reveal the fact that there is still a wilderness of cave untrodden by the foot of man, speculation passes all bounds.

None but a soul absolutely impervious to the impressions of the sublime and beautiful handiwork of the world’s great Architect, can fail to realize the highest expectations in an exploration of this greatest of caves now known.

[126] The cave should be visited in summer and early fall months; at other seasons, the waters of the cave being influenced by all the movements of Green River, a sudden rise in the latter will, in a few hours, cut off communication with the largest and by far the most interesting portion of the cave.

[127] “Old Mat” is now off duty, but may still be seen about the hotel. He thinks he knows more about the cave than any man living, and still better qualified than the younger guides to exhibit its wonders!

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OUR EPIPHANY.

What though we cannot, with the star-led kings, Adore the swaddled Babe of Bethlehem! Behold, as sweet a Benediction[128] brings A new Epiphany denied to them. The Mary Mystical ‘tis ours to see Still from his crib the little Jesus take, And show him to us on her altar-knee, And sing to him to bless us for her sake. Shall we the while be kneeling giftless there? In loving faith a richer gold shall please, A costlier incense in the humblest prayer, Nor less the myrrh of penitence than these: And there between us holy Priesthood stands, Our own Saint Joseph, with the chosen hands.

[128] Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

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THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY.[129] 633

Herbert Spencer has often been alluded to in our pages, and one of his works, that on _Biology_, has been specially noticed by us. He is usually classed with the positivists, and we have ourselves so classed him; but he protests against this classification, and, after studying carefully, or as carefully as our patience would permit, the volume before us, we confess the classification appears to be inexact, and even unjust to the positivists. There are considerable differences between his philosophy and the _Philosophie Positive_ as we find it set forth by M. E. Littré, its greatest living chief; for, as set forth by its founder, M. Auguste Comte, in his own works, we would rather not speak, for, to confess the truth, we have never had the patience to read them so as to master their doctrines. Yet, as far as we do know the system, it differs on several points, and much to its advantage, from the cosmic philosophy set forth in Mr. Spencer’s _First Principles_, especially as to the relativity of knowledge and the theory of evolution. It is the product of a higher order of mind than Mr. Spencer can boast, and of a mind originally trained in a better school.

Mr. Herbert Spencer is a man of considerable native ability, of respectable attainments in what is called modern science, and a fair representative of contemporary English thought and mental tendencies; but he has made a sad mistake in attempting to be a philosopher, for he lacks entirely the _ingegno filosofico_, and we have not discovered a single trace of a philosophic principle, thought, or conception in any or all of his several works. He is or might be a physicist, or what old Ralph Cudworth terms a _physiologer_, perhaps not much inferior to old Leucippus or Democritus, but he has not in him the makings of a philosopher, and his cosmic theories are not even plausible to a philosophic mind.

“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed is king.” The not inconsiderable reputation Mr. Herbert Spencer seems to have acquired is probably due not to his merits so much as to the low state into which philosophical studies have fallen in the Anglo-Saxon world, and the tendency to anti-Christian and anti-religious theories and speculations which Protestantism, when it begins to examine its own foundation and to account for itself, everywhere encourages. The party we meet here and in England, with “advanced views” as they are called, and which every day grows in numbers and strength, welcomes with enthusiasm any and every writer who helps or promises to help them to explain the problem of the universe on physical principles, without recurring to the supernatural or the fact of creation. The party, profoundly ignorant of Christian theology and philosophy, and devoted to the study of physical facts and phenomena alone, have persuaded themselves that Christianity is unscientific, and that it tends to degrade men, to enfeeble reason, and to prevent the free expansion of 634 thought; and they regard as their benefactor whoever is able to strengthen their cosmic or atheistic tendency. Such a man they esteem Mr. Herbert Spencer. He is apparently just the man to be accepted as the chief of the sect, or the philosopher of negation. Its adherents wish not for their leader an avowed atheist or pantheist, for the world is not just yet advanced enough for that, but they do wish one who is skilful in disguising his atheism or pantheism in the forms and terms of science; and who can do this more successfully than Herbert Spencer?

Mr. Spencer divides his book into two parts. In Part I. he treats of what he calls “The Unknowable”; in Part II. he treats of what he calls “The Knowable.” Under the head of “The Unknowable” he seeks the relation of science and religion, to ascertain the ultimate verity or ideas of each, and to show the ground on which they meet and are reconciled. He asserts that all knowledge is relative, is knowledge of phenomena alone, which are nothing outside of their relation to consciousness, itself phenomenal, and to a Something underlying them, and of which they are the appearances or which they manifest. We are compelled to admit, he says, this Something, because the phenomena cannot be thought without it; and as we can assign no limit to these manifestations, we are compelled to assert this Something, Power, Being, or Reality is infinite. But this Infinite Something which is the reality of the cosmos is absolutely unknowable and even unthinkable. How, then, can it be asserted?

Every religion seeks the solution of the problem of the universe, the explanation of the great cosmic mystery that surrounds us on all sides, and all religions agree that the solution is in this infinite Reality or Something, which is absolutely unknowable, absolutely inscrutable. The ultimate religious ideas or highest and most comprehensive generalizations of religious conceptions are, first, the assertion of this incognizable and incogitable Something; and, second, that the solution of the problem exceeds all human powers.

Science deals with the same cosmic problem, and, rising by generalization to generalization of the cosmic phenomena up to the higher and broadest possible, is compelled to admit the same Infinite Something, and to admit that it is not cognizable nor cogitable. Consequently, the ultimate scientific ideas are identical with the ultimate religious ideas. Both religion and science are fused together, and reconciled without any compromise, and the old feud between them extinguished, in the bosom of the Infinite Unknowable.

“He makes a solitude, and calls it peace.”

As we have no predisposition to accept the new system of philosophy, we cannot find this conclusion perfectly satisfactory. The cosmists object to the Comteans or positivists that they absorb the cosmos in man and society; the cosmists, on the other hand, seem to us to absorb man and society in the cosmos, and subject them to the same physical law Mr. Emerson does when he asserts the identity of gratitude and gravitation. By asserting that only phenomena are cognizable, and subjecting man to the common cosmic law, they include him in the cosmic phenomena, and make him simply an appearance or manifestation of the unknowable, without any real or substantive existence of his own. We thus lose in the infinite variety of the cosmic phenomena both the thinking subject and the object thought. The soul is a cosmic 635 appearance.

Furthermore, by declaring the phenomenal cannot be thought in and by itself without the Infinite Something that underlies it as its ground or reality, and then declaring that something to be unknowable, unthinkable even, the new system declares that there is no knowable, and consequently no science or knowledge at all. The new system of philosophy, then, reconciles science and religion only in a universal negation, that is, by really denying both. This can hardly satisfy either a scientist or a Christian.

In the second part, Mr. Spencer defines philosophy to us, as near as we can come at his sense, to be the unification of the several religions and several sciences in their respective or special generalizations in a generalization that comprehends them all. Generalization with him means the elimination of the _differentia_, or abstraction. He therefore, in making philosophy a generalization, makes it an abstraction, and, so to speak, the abstraction of all particular abstractions. But abstractions in themselves are nullities, and consequently philosophy is a nullity, and science and religion are nullities. Mr. Spencer maintains that we have “symbolic conceptions,” in which nothing is conceived--symbols which symbolize nothing. Is his “new system of philosophy” anything but a generalization and unification of these “symbolic conceptions”?

Mr. Spencer starts with the assumption that all religions, including atheism, have a verity in common as well as an error. The verity must be that in which they all agree; the error, in their differences, or in the matters in which they do not agree. Eliminate the differences and take what is common to them all, and you will have the universal verity which they all assert. But what verity is common to truth and falsehood, to theism and atheism? The verity common to religion and science, that the solution of the cosmic mystery is unknowable? But that is not a verity; it is a mere negation, and all truth is affirmative.

Atheism is not a religion, but the negation of all religion. Exclude that, take all religions from fetichism to Christianity inclusive; eliminate the _differentia_, and take what they all agree in asserting. Be it so. All religions, without a single exception, however rude or however polished, agree in asserting the supernatural, and that, if the cosmic mystery is inexplicable by human means, it is explicable by supernatural means. A true application of Mr. Spencer’s rule, the _consensus hominum_, would assert as the common verity the supernatural, that is, the supercosmic, which is precisely what the cosmic philosophy denies and is invented to deny. Mr. Spencer does not appear to be master of his own tools.

All religions concede that the cosmic mystery is inexplicable by our unassisted powers, by secondary causes, or by physical laws; but none of them admits that it is absolutely inexplicable, for each religion professes to be its explanation. Mr. Spencer is wrong in asserting that all are seeking to solve the cosmic mystery; for each proposes itself as its solution, and it is only as such that it claims to be or can be called a religion. The question for the philosopher is, Do any of these religions give us a solution which reason, in the freest and fullest exercise of its powers, can accept, and, if so, which one is it?

Mr. Spencer tells us, p. 32: “Respecting the origin of the universe, three verbally intelligible suppositions may be made. We may assert that it is self-existent, or that it is self-created, or that it is 636 created by an external agency.” The second supposition he rejects as the pantheistic hypothesis, which is a mistake, for no pantheist or anybody else asserts that the universe creates itself. The pantheist denies that it is created at all; and the philosopher denies that it creates itself; for, since to create is to act, self-creation would require the universe to act before it existed. The third supposition, which the author calls “the theistical hypothesis,” he denies, because it explains nothing, and is useless. He explains it to mean that the universe is produced by an artificer, after the manner of a human artificer in producing a piece of furniture from materials furnished to his hand. “But whence come the materials?” The question might be pertinent if asked of Plato or Aristotle, neither of whom was a theist; but not when asked of a Christian theologian, who holds that God creates or created all things from nothing, that is, without pre-existing materials, by “the sole word of his power.”

The first supposition, the self-existence of the universe, the author denies, not because the universe is manifestly contingent and must have had a beginning, and therefore a cause or creator; but because self-existence is absolutely inconceivable, an impossible idea. He says, p. 35: “The hypothesis of the creation of the universe by an external agency is quite useless; it commits us to an infinite series of such agencies, and then leaves us where it found us.” “Those who cannot conceive of the self-existence of the universe, and therefore assume a creator as the source of the universe, take it for granted that they can conceive a self-existent creator. The mystery of the great fact surrounding them on every side they transfer to an alleged source of this great fact, and then suppose they have solved the mystery. But they delude themselves, as was proved in the outset of the argument. _Self-existence_ is _rigorously inconceivable_, and this holds true whatever be the nature of the object [subject] of which it is predicated. Whoever argues that the atheistical hypothesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistical hypothesis is untenable if it contains the same impossible idea.” But who ever argued that the atheistical hypothesis is untenable because it involves the idea of self-existence? Atheism is denied because it asserts the self-existence of that which cannot be, and is known not to be, self-existent.

But it is evident that the author rejects alike self-existence and creation; that the cosmos is self-existent, or that it is created by an independent, self-existent, and supercosmic creator. How, then, can he assert the existence of the cosmos, real or phenomenal, at all? The cosmos either exists or it does not. If it does not, that ends the matter. If it does, it must be either created or self-existent; for the author rejects an infinite series as absurd, and self-creation as only an absurd form of expressing self-existence. But as the author denies self-existence, whatever the subject of which it is predicated, and also the fact of creation, it follows rigorously, if he is right, that the cosmos does not exist. The author cannot take refuge in his favorite _nescio_, or say we do not know the origin of the cosmos, for he has positively denied it every possible origin, and therefore has by implication denied it all existence. A moment ago, we showed that he denied by implication all science or knowledge, and now we see 637 that, if held rigorously to his system as he explains it, he denies all existence, and, by implication at least, asserts absolute nihilism. Surely there is no occasion to apply to his new system of philosophy the _reductio ad absurdum_.

The author is necessarily led to the assertion that at least nothing is knowable by his doctrine, that all knowledge is relative. The Comtists restrict, in theory, all knowledge to sensible things, their mutual relations, dependencies, and the conditions and laws of their development and progress; but they at least admit that these may be objects of science and positively known. But our cosmic philosopher denies this, and asserts the relativity of all knowledge. We know and can know only the relative that is, only what is relative to the absolute, and relative to our own consciousness. In this he follows Sir William Hamilton, J. Stuart Mill, and the late Dr. Mansel, Anglican Dean of St. Paul’s. But relative knowledge is simply no knowledge, because in it nothing is known. The relative is not cognizable nor cogitable in and by itself, because it in and by itself, or prescinded from that to which it is relative, does not exist, and is simply nothing. What neither is nor exists is not cognizable nor cogitable. The relativity of all knowledge, then, is simply the denial of all knowledge. It is idle, then, for Mr. Spencer to talk of science. His science is only a laborious ignorance.

Mr. Spencer labors hard to prove the relativity of all knowledge. He either proves it or he does not. If he does not, he has no right to assert it; if he does, he disproves it at the same time. If the proof is not absolute, it does not prove it; if it is absolute, then it is not true that all knowledge is relative; for the proof must be absolutely known, or it cannot be alleged. We either know that all knowledge is relative, or we do not. If we do not, no more need be said; if we do know it, then it is false, because the knowledge of the relativity of knowledge is itself not relative. The assertion of the relativity of all knowledge, therefore, contradicts and refutes itself. No man can doubt that he doubts, or that doubt is doubt, and therefore universal doubt or universal scepticism is impossible, and not even assertable. The same argument applies to the pretence that all knowledge is relative.

The relativists are misled by their dealing with the abstract and not the concrete. They regard all that is or exists either as relative or absolute. But both absolute and relative are abstract conceptions, and formed by abstraction from the concrete intuitively presented or apprehended. They exist, as St. Thomas tells us, only _in mente, cum fundamento in re_. There are no abstractions in nature or the cosmos, and there is and can be neither abstract science nor science of abstractions, for abstractions, prescinded from their concretes, are simply nullities. The absolute is, we grant, unknowable, and so also is the relative, for neither has any existence in nature, or _a parte rei_. They are both generalizations, and nature never generalizes. Whatever exists, exists _in concreto_, not _in genere_. Hence, the _ens in genere_ of Rosmini is no _ens reale_, but simply _ens possibile_, like the _reine Seyn_ of Hegel, which is the equivalent of _das Nichtseyn_; for the possible is only the ability of the real.

Now, because the abstract absolute is unknowable, unthinkable even, it by no means follows that the concrete, real and necessary being, cannot be both thought and known, or that things cannot be both thought 638 and known in their relations to it, without reducing it to the category of the relative. Sir William Hamilton says the absolute is the unconditioned, and is incogitable, because our thought necessarily conditions it. This would be true if the absolute is an abstraction or mental conception, but is false and absurd if applied to real, necessary, infinite, and self-existent being, which, as independent of us and all relation, is and must be the same whether we think it or not. The thought does not impose its own conditions and limitations on the object; certainly not when the object is real and necessary being, and in every respect independent of it. We cannot, of course, think infinite being infinitely or adequately, but it does not follow that we cannot think it, though finitely and inadequately. The human mind, being finite, cannot comprehend infinite being; but, nevertheless, it may and does apprehend it, or else Mr. Spencer could not assert the Infinite Something, which he says we are compelled to admit underlies the cosmic phenomena and is manifested in them. The human mind can apprehend more than it can comprehend, and nothing that is apprehensible, though incomprehensible, is unthinkable or unknowable, except in Mr. Spencer’s _New System of Philosophy_.

Sir William Hamilton says, in defending the relativity of all knowledge: “Only relations are cogitable. Relation is cogitable only in correlation, and the relation between correlatives is reciprocal, each is relative to the other. Thought is dual, and embraces at once subject and object in their mutual opposition and limitation.” This merely begs the question. Besides, it is not true. Relations are themselves cogitable only in the related; correlatives connote each other, so that the one cannot be thought without thinking the other; but not therefore are all relations reciprocal, as the relation between phenomenon and noumenon, cause and effect, creator and creation. Here are two terms and a relation between them, but no reciprocity. When we think cause and effect, we do not think them as mutually opposing and limiting each other. The effect cannot oppose or limit the cause, or the creature the creator, for the creature depends on the creator and is nothing without his creative act, and the effect is nothing without the cause which produces and sustains it. The creature depends on the creator, but not the creator on the creature; the effect depends on the cause, but not the cause on the effect. There may, then, be relation without reciprocity.

It is true, Mr. Spencer denies creation, and relegates all causative power to the dark region of the unknowable, and calls the origin of the universe in the creative act of being or God “an hypothesis,” and rejects it with ill-concealed scorn; yet creation is not “an hypothesis,” but a scientific fact, and a necessary principle of all science. Without it the cosmos would not be cognizable, for it would have no dialectic constitution. It could not even be thought, for every thought is a judgment, and no judgment is possible where there is no copula that joins the predicate to the subject. Rejecting creation, the author cannot assert the relation of cause and effect; rejecting cause and effect, he cannot assert even the cosmic phenomena. They are not able to stand on their own bottom, and therefore not at all, unless the Something of which they are, as he says, manifestations, is a cause producing and sustaining them. We submit, then, that Mr. Spencer’s doctrine of the unknowable, and the 639 relativity of all knowledge, estops him from asserting anything as knowable, for it really denies all the knowable and all the real--_omne scibile et omne reale_.

The second part of Mr. Spencer’s work on “The Knowable” we might well omit, but as it is that in which he claims to be original, and in which he supposes he has made most valuable contributions to the philosophy of the cosmos, an omission to examine it might seem ungracious. Besides, the inventors of new systems of philosophy must not be held too rigidly to the logical consequences of their own doctrines, _non omnia possumus_. It is impossible for the founder to foresee all that his doctrine involves, and it is but fair, if he really has said anything new that is true, that it should be recognized, and he receive due credit for it, even if it is an anomaly in his general system of philosophy. We proceed, therefore, to consider Part II.

In this second part, the author professes to treat the knowable, not indeed in its several details, but in its first principles, or ultimate generalizations. The generalization of a group of phenomena is science; the generalization of the several groups of phenomena observable in the cosmos constitutes the several special sciences; and the combination of these special sciences into one higher and more comprehensive generalization, which embraces them all, is philosophy. In constructing philosophy, the author, be it observed, like the coral insect, begins below and works upward, and bases the universal on the particular.

The great point, or novelty, in this second part, however, is unquestionably, as the author claims, the doctrine of Evolution. By evolution, the author does not understand evolving or unfolding, as do ordinary mortals; but the aggregation or contraction and diffusion, according to certain laws which he has determined, of matter, motion, and force. Evolution consists, therefore, of two processes, contraction and diffusion, and is either simple or compound. Simple evolution is where concentration and diffusion follow each other alternately; compound evolution is where the two processes go on simultaneously in the same subject, which may be said to be growing and decaying, or living and dying, at one and the same time.

Minerals, plants, and animals, including man, are all formed by the evolution of matter, motion, and force. The elimination or loss of motion, mechanical, chemical, or electrical, is followed by the concentration of matter and force, which may assume the form of a pebble, a diamond, a nettle, a rose, an oak, a jelly-fish, a tadpole, a monkey, a man. Life is simply the product of “the mechanical, chemical, and electrical arrangement of particles of matter.” The concentration of motion is followed by a diffusion or dispersion of matter and force, and the disappearance of the several groups of phenomena we have just named; but as matter is indestructible, and as there is always the same quantity of motion and force, they disappear only to reappear in new groups or transformations. The diffusion of the mineral may be the birth of the plant; of the plant, the birth of the animal; of the ape, may be a new concentration which gives birth to man. Nothing is lost. The cosmos is a ceaseless evolution; is, so to speak, in a state of perpetual flux and reflux, in which diffusion of one group of phenomena is followed by the birth of another, in endless rotation, or life from death, and death from life. Dissolution 640 follows concentration “in eternal alternation,” or both go on together. This is not a new doctrine, but substantially the doctrine of a school of Greek philosophers, warred against both by Plato and Aristotle, that all things are in a state of ceaseless motion, of growth and decay, in which corruption proceeds from generation, and generation from corruption, in which death is born of life, and life is born of death. Our cosmic philosophers only repeat the long since exploded errors of the old cosmists. But pass over this.

The author is treating of the knowable. We ask him, then, how he contrives to know that there is any such evolution as he asserts? He assumes that matter, motion, and force are the constituent elements of the cosmos; but he can neither know it nor prove it, since he maintains that what matter is, or what motion is, or what force is, is unknown and unknowable. He denies the relation of cause and effect, or at least that it is cognizable; how, then, can he assert the cosmic phenomena are only concentrations and diffusions of matter, motion, and force? A certain elimination of motion and a corresponding concentration of matter and force produces the rose, another produces an ape, another produces a man, says the author of this new system of philosophy. Does he know that he is only a certain concentration of matter and force, resulting from a certain diffusion or loss of motion? Can he not only think, but prove it? But all proof, all demonstration, as all reasoning, nay, sensible intuition itself, depends on the principle of cause and effect; for, unless we can assert that the sensation within is _caused_ by some object without that affects the sensible organism, we can assert nothing outside of us, not even a phenomenon or external appearance. How does the author know, or can he know, that he differs from the ape only in the different combination of matter, motion, and force?

Mr. Spencer, in his work on _Biology_, asserts that life results from the mechanical, chemical, and electrical arrangement of the particles of matter. If this were so, it would, on the author’s own principles, explain nothing. It would be only saying that a certain group of phenomena is accompanied by another group, which we call life, but not that there is any causal relation between them. That the supposed arrangement of the particles of matter originates the life Mr. Spencer cannot assert without the intuition of cause and causes he either denies or banishes to the unknowable. Analytical chemistry resolves, we are told, the diamond into certain gases; but is synthetic chemistry able to recombine the gases so as to produce a diamond? Professor Huxley finds, he thinks, the physical basis of life in protoplasm. Protoplasm is not itself life, according to him, but its basis. How does he know, since he denies causality, that life is or can be developed from protoplasm? Protoplasm, chemically analyzed, is resolved into certain well-known gases; but it is admitted that synthetic chemistry is unable to recombine them and reproduce protoplasm. Evidently, as in the case of the diamond, there is in the production of protoplasm some element which even analytic chemistry fails to detect. No synthetic chemistry can obtain the protoplasm from protein, and there is no instance in which life, feeling, thought and reason, are known, or can be proved, to result from dead matter, or from any possible combinations of matter, motion, and force. If it could so result, the fact could not be proved, and would remain for 641 ever in the unknowable.

The new philosophy resolves all the cosmic phenomena into the concentration and diffusion of the unknowable elements called matter, motion, and force. The quantities of these elements remain always the same, but they are in a state of constant evolution, and all the cosmic phenomena result from this evolution, and are simply changes or transformations of the same force. Now, the evolution either has had a beginning or it has not. If it has not, we must assume an infinite series of evolutions, or concentrations and diffusions; but an infinite series is absurd, and the author himself denies it. Then it must have had a beginning; but no phenomenon can begin to exist without a cause independent of the phenomenon, or the _causatum_. But the author denies the cause in denying the origin of the cosmos in creation, or its production by a supercosmic creator. We are sadly at loss, then, to conceive how he contrives, consistently with his new system, to assert either the law of evolution, or even evolution itself. Will he tell us how he does it?

We need not follow the author through the alleged facts and illustrations by which he seeks to explain and sustain his system of evolution; because evolution is not assertable on his own principles, nor is it provable _aliunde_ by any possible deductions or inductions of science. So far from being science, it is not even an admissible hypothesis; because it contradicts and refutes itself. Mr. Spencer has attempted to construct a system of philosophy or explication of the cosmic phenomena, and the law of their production or transformation, without recurrence to any metaphysical principles, and from physical principles alone, or by the generalization of the physical phenomena as they appear to the human consciousness in space and time, and has necessarily failed; because the physical principles themselves, and consequently the physical phenomena, are inexplicable and inconceivable even, without the principles discarded as metaphysical. The author’s whole theory of evolution depends on the assumed fact of the indestructibility of matter, the continuity of motion, and the persistence of force, not one of which can be asserted without the ideal intuition of being, substance, and cause, all three metaphysical principles, and as such relegated by the author to the region of the unknowable. The indestructibility of matter can be deduced or induced from no possible observation of sensible phenomena. The continuity of motion or the persistence of force is no fact of consciousness. Mr. Spencer himself says, to science or the explication of phenomena, the present must be linked with the past and with the future, and hence he argues the indestructibility of matter, the continuity of motion, and the persistence of force; but not one of them is a fact of consciousness. Consciousness is the recognition of one’s self as subject in the present act of thought, and looks neither before nor after, takes cognizance neither of the past nor of the future, and consequently of no link connecting them with the present. Indestructibility, continuity, persistence, all of which imply cognitions of the past and future, are not and cannot be facts of consciousness, which is cognition only of the present. Matter and motion, the author says, are derivative, derived from force, which alone is primitive. The indestructibility of matter and the continuity of motion depend, then, solely on the persistence of force, and are apprehensible, therefore, only in apprehending that persistence; but 642 that persistence is not a fact of consciousness. How, then, can it be asserted, unless force is, and is apprehended as, a persistent substance? But substance is unknowable.

The author adopts the method of the physicists, the so-called inductive method, and proceeds from particular phenomena to induce by generalization their law; but no induction is valid that is not made by virtue of a general principle, which is not itself inferable from the phenomenal, and must be given and held by the mind before any induction is possible. This is the condemnation of the method of the physicists, for, from phenomena alone, only phenomena can be obtained. A method without principles is null, and leads only to nullity. The author does not understand that the reason why the cosmic phenomena are not cogitable without the assumption of the cosmic reality underlying them, is because the mind intuitively apprehends them as dependent on something which they are not, and at the same time, and in the same intellectual act, intuitively apprehends a reality beyond them, which by its causative act produces and sustains them. He is wrong in declaring that the something real is unknowable; it may be incomprehensible, but, as we have seen, it must be cognizable, or nothing is cognizable.

That the men who follow in the physical sciences the physical or, as they say, the inductive method, inducing general conclusions from particular facts or phenomena, have really advanced those sciences, and by their untiring labors and exhaustless patience achieved all but miracles in the application of science to the mechanical and productive arts from which trade and industry have so largely profited, we by no means deny; but they have done so because the mind, in their investigations and inductions, has all along had the intuition of the ideal principle which legitimates their generalizations, that of being or substance, and its creative or causative act, but of which they take no heed, or to which they do not advert; as St. Augustine says, the mind really has cognition of God in the idea of the perfect, but does not ordinarily advert to the fact. They suppose they obtain the law they assert by logical inference from the phenomena, because they do not observe that the mind has intuition of the causative or creative act, which is the ideal principle of the induction. The mind is superior to their philosophy, and they reason far better than they explain their reasoning. We may apply to them the advice Lord Mansfield gave to a man of good sense and sound judgment, but of little legal knowledge, who had been recently appointed a judge in one of the British colonies: “Give your decisions,” said his lordship, “without fear or hesitation; but don’t attempt to give your reasons.” So long as they confine themselves to the proper field of scientific investigation, they are safe enough; but let them come out of that field and attempt to explain the philosophy or the principles of their physical science, and they are pretty sure to make sad work of it. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._

Mr. Spencer protests against being regarded as an atheist, for he denies the self-existence of the universe, and neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. But _atheist_ means simply _no-theist_, and, if he does not assert that God is, he certainly is an atheist. It is not necessary, in order to be an atheist, to make a positive denial of God. His disciple, Professor John Fiske, who has been lecturing on the cosmic philosophy before Harvard College, contends that the cosmic 643 philosophy is not atheistical, because it asserts in the unknowable an infinite power, being, or reality, that underlies the cosmic phenomena, of which they are the sensible manifestations; yet this does not relieve it, because what is asserted is not God, and is not pretended to be the God of theism, but the reality or substance of the cosmos and indistinguishable from it. It is the real, as the phenomena are the apparent, cosmos.

The author denies that he is a pantheist, for he denies the hypothesis of self-creation; but, if he is not a pantheist, it is only because he does not call the unknowable infinite power or being he asserts as the reality of the cosmos, that is, the real cosmos, by the name of God, Deus, or Theos. But asserting that power as the reality or substance of the cosmic phenomena is precisely what is meant by pantheism. Pantheism, in its modern form, is the assertion of one only substance, which is the reality of the cosmic phenomena, and the denial of the creation of finite substances, which are the real subject of the cosmic manifestations. Pantheism denies the creation of substances or second causes, and asserts that all phenomena are simply the appearances of the one infinite and only substance; and this is precisely what Mr. Spencer undeniably does. The only difference between atheism and pantheism is purely verbal. The atheist calls the reality asserted cosmos or nature, and the pantheist calls it God, but both assert one and the same thing. The power Mr. Spencer asserts is simply the _natura naturans_ of Spinoza, and that is nothing the atheist himself does not accept, and, indeed, assert. Neither asserts, nor does Mr. Spencer assert, any supercosmic being, or power on which the cosmos depends, and the power they do assert is as much cosmic as the phenomena themselves. Mr. Spencer’s protest betrays rare theological and philosophical ignorance, or is a mere verbal quibble, unworthy a man who even pretends to be a philosopher.

Mr. Spencer hardly once refers to Christian theology, and, without ever having studied it, evidently would have us think that he considers it beneath his attention. Yet he, as evidently, has constructed his system for the purpose of undermining and disposing of it once for all. This may be seen in the fact that, when he refers to religion at all, it is always to some heathen superstition, which he assumes to be the type or germ of all religion, carefully ignoring the patriarchal, Hebrew, or Christian religion. He tells us “the earliest traditions represent rulers as gods or demigods.” This is not true even of heathenism, which is in fact an apostasy from the patriarchal or primitive religion, or its corruption. The apotheosis of Romulus, according to tradition, took place only after his death, and it is only at a later period that the pagan emperors were held to be gods during their lifetime. Mr. Spencer’s real or affected ignorance of the whole order of religious thought is marvellous, and we cannot forbear saying:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

There is no philosophy or science, if God and his creative act are excluded or ignored, because there is no cosmos left, and neither a subject to know nor an object to be known.

Mr. Spencer misapprehends the relations of religion and science, and consequently the conditions of their reconciliation. He says they are the two opposite poles of one and the same globe. This is a mistake. 644 Religion and science are indeed parts of one whole; but religion, while it includes science, supplements it by the analogical knowledge called faith. The truths of faith and of science are always in dialectic harmony, and between the Christian faith and real science there is no quarrel, and can be none; for religion only supplies the defect of science, and puts the mind in possession of the solution of the problem of man and the universe, not attainable by science.

There is a quarrel only when the scientists, in the name of science, deny or impugn the supplementary truths of revelation, and which are at least as certain as any scientific truths or facts are or can be; or when they reject the great principles of reason itself, which are the basis of all science. Let the scientists confine themselves, as we have said, to the study and classification of facts, or the development and application to them of the undoubted principles of the intuitive reason, and not attempt to go beyond their province or the proper field of scientific investigation, and there will be no quarrel between them and the theologians. The quarrel arises when men like Spencer, Darwin, Huxley, and others, profoundly ignorant both of philosophy and of theology, or the teachings of revelation, ignoring them, despising them, or regarding them with sovereign contempt, put forth baseless theories and hypotheses incompatible with the truths alike of reason and faith; and it will continue till they learn that an unproved and unprovable theory or hypothesis is not science, nor a scientific explanation of the facts either of the soul or of the cosmos, and is quite insufficient to warrant a denial of the belief of the great bulk of mankind from the first man down to our own day. Then there may be peace between the theologians and the scientists, but not till then.

We said, or intended to say, that a philosopher is known by his principles. We add that he is also known by his method. The physical method is unscientific and illogical; for it seeks through phenomena to arrive at being, and from particulars to obtain general or universal conclusions. Induction that is not based on a universal principle can never attain to anything but the particular. Generalizations of particulars are only abstractions, and abstractions, prescinded from their concretes, are nullities, as the possible, without the real to actualize it, is nothing. There is no rising from particulars to the universal unless we start with a universal principle intuitively given. It is impossible to conclude, by logical inference, substance or being from phenomena. The reality which Mr. Spencer says we are compelled to assert, though itself unknowable, as underlying the cosmic phenomena, is no deduction nor induction from these, but is given intuitively as the ideal or intelligible in the very act in which the phenomena themselves are apprehended. Mr. Spencer is wrong in asserting it, as we have said, to be unknowable, and still more so in asserting it as the subject of the cosmic phenomena, which is simply pantheism. These phenomena are not the appearances or manifestations of the Infinite Power or Being which Mr. Spencer asserts as unknowable, but of the finite and dependent substances which God, the Infinite Being, creates and upholds as second causes.

The universal is not contained in the particular, the infinite in the finite, the identical in the diverse, the immutable in the mutable, the persistent in the transitory, unity in plurality, or the actual in the possible, and therefore cannot be concluded from it. The two 645 categories are not obtainable, either from the other, by any possible logical inference, and therefore must be given intuitively or neither is cognizable; for, though not reciprocal, they connote, as all correlatives, each the other, since neither is knowable without the other. This is the condemnation of the physical or inductive method, when followed as a method of obtaining the first principles either of the real or of the knowable. We say only what Bacon himself said. He said and proved that the inductive method is inapplicable in philosophy, or out of the sphere of the physical sciences. The great error has been in attempting to follow it in philosophy, or the science of the sciences, where it is inapplicable, for no science can start without first principles.

We feel that some apology is due our readers for soliciting their attention to anything so absurd as Herbert Spencer’s _New System of Philosophy_; but they must bear in mind that Mr. Spencer is a representative man, and has only attempted to bring together and combine into a systematic whole the anti-Christian, anti-theistical, and anti-rational theories, hypotheses, and unscientific speculations which, under the name and forms of science, govern the thought of the modern non-Catholic world. Mr. Spencer’s book, which is a laborious effort to give the philosophy or science of nothing, and ends only in a system of “symbolic conceptions,” in which nothing, according to the author, is conceived, has, after all, a certain value, as showing that there is no medium or middle ground between Catholicity and atheism, as there is none between atheism and nihilism. Mr. Spencer, we should think, is a man who has read comparatively little, and knows less of Christian theology or philosophy; he seems to us to be profoundly ignorant of his own ignorance, as well as of the knowledge other men have. He is only carrying out the system of Sir William Hamilton, Dr. Mansel, and providing a philosophy for the Darwins, the Huxleys, the Galtons, the Lubbocks, the Tyndalls, _et id omne genus_, and has succeeded in proving that no advance has been made by the non-Catholic world on the system of old Epicurus, which is rapidly becoming the philosophy of the whole world outside of the church, and against which the Bascoms, the Hodges, and the McCoshes, with honorable intentions and a few fragments of Catholic theology and philosophy, protest in vain. This is our apology for devoting so much space to Herbert Spencer’s inanities.

[129] _First Principles of a New System of Philosophy._ By Herbert Spencer. Second Edition. New York: Appleton & Co. 1871. 12mo, pp. 559.

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ST. CECILIA’s DAY IN ROME. 646

St. Cecilia is one of the few figures among the representative throng of virgin-martyrs that strike us at once as the most familiar, the most lovable, and the most to be exalted. Every one knows the legend of her life, and the conversion of her husband and his brother, brought about by her prayers, as also by the miracles she obtained for their further confirmation in the faith. Her death, in itself a miracle, needs no retelling, neither does the history of her wondrously preserved remains, that are now laid in the shrine beneath the altar of _Santa Cecilia in Trastevere_, a church erected, by her own wish and behest, on the spot where her palace stood. This church is a basilica, and has its altar raised many steps above the level of the mosaic floor of the nave, and the front of the altar turned away from the people so that the celebrant at Mass stands facing the congregation, as in many other ancient Roman churches. Under the altar, on the lower level of the nave, is the shrine of the saint, and there lies her marble image, small and frail, though it is said to be life-sized, and reverently and truly copied from the sleeping body, whose form remained entire and uncorrupted, at least until the last time it was solemnly uncovered. To the right of the church is a dark side-chapel, floored with rare mosaic, once the bath-room of the young and wealthy patrician, and the consecrated spot where heathen cruelty twice endeavored to put an end to the sweet singer’s life. The actual bath is said to be within the railings that divide a narrow portion of the chapel from the rest. There was the first miracle performed, of her preservation from the boiling water; there also the second, of the prolongation of her life after the three deadly yet ineffectual strokes of the unskilful executioner’s sword. One can fancy the young matron, so childlike in years, so experienced in holiness, lying in meek and chaste expectation of the embraces of her heavenly Bridegroom, and of the purified reunion with her earthly and virgin spouse--while, all the time the wondrous, angel-sustained life lasted, the Christians, her brethren in the faith, her children through charity, would be coming and going, silently as to an altar, rejoicingly as to a saint, and learning, from lips on whom the kiss of peace of the glorified Jesus was already laid, lessons of fortitude and love most precious to their faithful souls. We are told, also, that Urban, the pope, visited her on her glorious death-bed, and, no doubt, he learnt from her entranced soul more than he could teach it in its passing hour; learnt, perhaps, things whose sweetness became strength to him in the hour of his own not far distant martyrdom.

Cecilia, in her short and heavenly life, seems a fitting model for all women, and especially for young maidens and wives. She was of those who know well how to put religion before men in its most beautiful garb and most enthralling form; purity with her was no ice-cold stream and repellent rocky fastness: it was beauty, it was reward, it was glory. Crowns of lilies and roses, heavenly perfume, and angelic companionship were to be its lovely guerdon; and not otherwise should 647 it ever be preached, nor otherwise surrounded, when its precepts are presented to man. Had we more Cecilias among our Christian women of to-day, there would be more Valeriani and Tiburtii among our men, and virtue would be more readily deemed an honor than a yoke; home would be more of a temple, rather than a mere resting-place; home-life more of a prayer, rather than a simple idyl. For blamelessness is not Christian purity; righteousness is not Christian faith. We want the visible blessings of the church on our daily lives, even as Cecilia brought into the circle of home the visible, angelic gifts of flowers; and we know that to those who seek them where Valerian and his brother sought the heavenly apparition--that is, through faith and prayer--these blessings, these gifts, these blossoms, these safeguards, are never denied.

And to pass from these aspirations after a more Christian ideal of home to the impressions made on an eye-witness by the feast of St. Cecilia in Rome, we will merely say that this feast had been eagerly looked forward to, and had always held a special charm over the mind of the writer of these pages.

On this day, the 22d of November, Mass is said from dawn till noon in the catacomb chapel, where the martyr was first buried. This chapel is one of the largest and most interesting in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus. The distance from the Eternal City to this shrine is not long, but the old Appian Way that leads from the one to the other is crowded with memories and monuments, each a history in itself.

The most noticeable of these is very near the catacomb, and is none other than the mausoleum of Cecilia Metella, the mysterious and oft-sung pile that Byron has made strangely familiar to us. One cannot help being struck by the familiarity of the two names, and the proximity of the two shrines, of the Cecilias of Rome. The proud mausoleum, stately as a palace, strong as a fortress, built by some ostentatious patrician, or by some sorrowing husband, for the merely worldly end of perpetuating the memory of an illustrious house, or of the domestic virtues of a spouse a little above the common run of licentious Roman matrons, stands now deserted and unvisited, its real history lost and forgotten, and a fictitious one attached to it through the imaginative efforts of a foreign poet. The lonely sepulchre in an earthen wall, the hidden recess in an underground chapel--dug out by silent, persecuted men for the proscribed body of a so-called criminal--remains to this day the pilgrimage of thousands, the well-remembered and well-loved spot where devout followers of the faith Cecilia followed come to beg her intercession as they kneel before the same sacrament, and assist at the same sacrifice, whose blessings were Cecilia’s only strength. Cecilia Metella, the rich Roman lady, is unknown save to antiquaries; Cecilia, the virgin-martyr, is honored all over the world, by all races and all nations. The wealth of the first has rusted away and is heard of no more, because its last emblem was a palatial tomb; the riches of the second have increased a hundred-fold, and have been sown broadcast over the earth, because their abiding symbol lies in a church built over her former dwelling; and the harvest her prayers have reaped is gathered year after year in the riches untold, of virgins crowned with miraculous flowers, of wives laden with the conversions of those dear to them, of women of all ages, all ranks, all nations, bearing in 648 their hands the charity born of Cecilia’s death-bed generosity, and in their hearts the faith of her death-bed professions.

And so, past the stately tomb worthy of Egypt’s solemn magnificence, the road leads to a small door in a wall, which opens on to a field. A path fringed with red and purple flowers, the last-born children of a southern autumn, winds through the field, to the head of a steep but wide flight of stairs, at the foot of which is the entrance to St. Callixtus’ Catacomb. The pure air, just mist-veiled in the morning coolness, shows the landscape around to its utmost advantage; the omnipresent dome of St. Peter’s basilica clears the line of the blue horizon; the wide purple plain is crossed here and there by dust-whitened roads and arched aqueducts, as by the gigantic bones of a decayed and now powerless monster; the distant hills, darkened at their base by chestnut woods, and dotted with white villas, as with the loosened beads of a string of pearls, throw bluer shadows on the dusky, olive-spotted expanse: and we pause, and wonder whether, after all, things looked so very unlike this on the dawning day when the Christians bore the happy Cecilia to her first resting-place. Their hearts surely must have felt as ours do now, full of joy and thanksgiving, and, above all, full of peace. There would have been a silent throng, a quiet gradual gathering of the future martyrs around the narrow grave of their blessed-forerunner; for in those days no one knew how soon he or she might be called from the altar to the stake, and summoned to carry the unconsumed sacrament within his bosom to the tribunal of an unjust and ignorant judge.

The avenues of the perplexing labyrinth of the catacomb are all guarded by the government on this day of St. Cecilia’s, so that no one may stray from the one chapel where service is going on. Close to the entrance is the small recess where the saint was laid in her first sleep. It is low and reaches far back into the damp earth-wall; myrtle and bay-leaves are strewn over its floor, and flowers and little oil-lamps are spread about like stars. As each person leaves the chapel, he takes away a leaf or flower as a holy remembrance. Two altars are erected, one close to the martyr’s grave, just beneath a Byzantine fresco head of our divine Lord, the other on the opposite side of the chapel. The space, small enough for a modern congregation, though large for a catacomb chapel, is so crowded that it is difficult for the priests to pass in and out from the altars to the temporary sacristy, and the worshippers almost lean upon them when they stand to say the “Judica me, Deus.” No noise is heard, save the murmured words of the Mass and the tinkling of the elevation-bell. Foreigners are there with fair-haired boys serving the Mass of some favorite friend and accompanying chaplain; Romans are there with their intense, if not deep, southern devotion; rich and poor, prince and beggar, student and peasant, are alike crowding the virgin-martyr’s shrine. A few hundred years ago, this was the church’s cradle, and patrician and slave came to be baptized together and wear for one day the white robes that to-morrow twilight would see red with blood on the deserted sand of the gladiator’s amphitheatre. The priest who said Mass in those days hardly knew, when he came to the consecration, whether the hand of the pagan soldiery might not be upon him before the communion; the mother 649 who knelt in tears, half of natural sorrow, half of heavenly joy, and thought of the fair young boy she had but yesterday given back to God on the scaffold, did not know whether tomorrow’s dawn might not find her herself prostrate and headless on the same place of execution. Partings then were seldom for long, and, even when the Christians parted with our Lord on the hidden altars, they knew they would meet him soon again at the right hand of his Father. Not unfrequently, the Blessed Sacrament was kept in a silver vessel made in the shape of a dove, and one cannot help thinking how sweet a union must have existed between this custom and the idea of the protection and the teaching the Holy Spirit was to afford to his spouse, the church. “When the Spirit of truth cometh,” Jesus had said, “he shall teach you all things.” And so the Dove of heaven taught the church the hidden beauties of the ineffable sacrament, and protected this greatest treasure of the Bride in its integrity of doctrine and its continuity of love. May we not so interpret, lovingly and reverentially, the olden custom of the dove-shaped tabernacle?

Beautiful as the day was, it was a sore trial to leave the darksome, silent chapel, where generations of older and braver Christians than ourselves had spent their triumphant vigils and been brought back to sleep their peaceful hero-slumbers--it was a trial, I say, to return to the carelessly beautiful earth, the unheeding theatre of such wondrous mysteries. To leave the catacombs in Cecilia’s times was to go forth to almost certain death; to leave prayer and solitude, the catacombs of the heart in our day, is to encounter certain sorrow and possible sin. It is hard to leave God’s temple and mingle with the chattering throng; it is hard to lift the curtain of silence and mix with the wrangling world. Yet it is our duty. Few are privileged to be hermits, and those few not until the privilege is turned into a trial, and the apparent retreat is no other than a hard-won stronghold. In the battle, we must fight, and fight manfully, in the foremost rank; it is only the generals and the chiefs among us that watch from afar, and feel, like wearied Moses, the weight of victory or defeat hanging on the issue of their prayers. Our part seems the harder, but it is only because our nature is so little that dissatisfaction with our present lot is the very air we breathe. After all, if we could look around us, we should see many beautiful things; if we are bound in fetters of duty, they are golden fetters, with the word of God carved all over their sunlike sheen; if we are led in one way and forced to wear the harness of unalterable circumstances, the reins are broidered with fair work that tells the story of how the angel led the ass of Balaam, and how palms were strewn on the path of Jesus; the way is emblazoned with rarest flowers and sweetest fruits, the heraldry of grace; if we bear a yoke and a burden, they are but spices and ointments, wine and oil, and milk and honey, all fair and gracious merchandise from the great mart of heaven, to be borne over the world, as the clouds bear the rain, in fertilizing charity and fruit-bearing meekness. So let us leave the dear catacomb, where even Music hushed her sighs, and come forth across the Roman Campagna, with the mist-veils rolled off it, and the noonday sun, with its reminiscences of summer, gilding its fringe of distant mountains, and its strange rifts of sudden, unsuspected valleys. Here and there, an aqueduct or a proud stone pyre, a mound of stones, each of which bears an imperial 650 inscription, a rude shepherd’s fence, or irregular stone wall, that is all you see. Not far from here, in a cornfield whose waves of brown and gold a few months ago kissed the foot of an ilex-crowned hillock, is the fountain of Egeria, a grotto, fern-clothed, with a broken goddess of mouldering stone. The water and the “maiden-hair” fern are there still, as beautiful as when the king of Rome is said to have wandered here in search of wisdom; the sage himself and the problematic nymph of tradition are dead and gone, forgotten by the owner of the corn-field, ignored by the peasant who drinks at the fountain, unknown to the brown, barefooted child who gathers the feathery fern.

Of what use is it to say any more? Facts are more cruel commentaries on the past than any words.

Yet we have just seen children and peasants, women from northern lands, men from eastern climes, bearing away as a relic a leaf of bay or a starry flower from the once filled recess where Cecilia lay in peace-sealed slumber.

Where is the difference, and why?

A little child can tell, but the philosopher will not listen.

The feast of St. Cecilia, though to the writer of these pages it ended on the threshold of the catacomb, is not completed here.

At her church in the _Trastevere_, the church already mentioned, takes place the ceremony of solemn vespers, in which the artists of Rome assist and take part gratuitously, out of homage to the queen of music. The antiphon “Cantantibus Organis” is magnificent in art, but unresponsive in devotion. The phantom of the unhappy _Renaissance_ breathes in these strains, religious only in so far as they are a fabric built on sacred words. The simple solemnity of the church’s service dwells not in them, and the touching silence of the catacomb recalls the saint to our mind far more sweetly than these outbursts of paganized minstrelsy within the halls she once called her own. Still, if honor to God be meant by this concourse of the artist fraternity, let us be simple of intention, and see in it, as God does, the first-fruits of what they have offered to the God of all.

Reader, if you ever pray before the early shrine of the virgin-martyr in St. Callixtus’ chapel, remember the writer of these few words, and let our prayers go up to God together, “as a morning sacrifice” and “as incense in his sight.”

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FLEURANGE. 651

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MRS. CRAVEN, AUTHOR OF “A SISTER’s STORY.”

PART FIRST.

THE OLD MANSION.

I.

“Young, beautiful, poor, and alone in Paris, what will become of her?”

It was the third time Dr. Leblanc had repeated these words in the presence of his sister, Mademoiselle Josephine, who remained so mute that she might have been thought deaf, had not the irregular click of her knitting-needles, and two or three indistinct exclamations as she paused in her work, testified to a preoccupation quite equal to that of her brother. The latter at first manifested his by swiftly striding up and down the apartment in which they were, but now he resumed his usual place in the chimney-corner opposite his sister, opened and shut his snuff-box noisily, taking a useless profusion of pinches, which he forgot to convey to their destination, and tapping the floor with his foot in a manner that expressed great agitation or extreme perplexity.

Mademoiselle Josephine continued to knit without replying, and seemed no less absorbed than her brother. At length she said:

“At least, if she were not, as you say, so young and so beautiful!”

“And so poor and alone in the world, you should add. A sensible remark, indeed! It is evident if she were old, ugly, rich, and surrounded by friends, her situation would be very different. I am indebted to you, Josephine, for the discovery.”

“Do not be impatient, brother. I am only repeating what you have just said. To continue the subject: if she only had a different air--”

“Well, go on!”

“And another name--”

“Another name! Why so? What has her name to do with the matter?”

“A name which was not ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous! The name of her father? Poor Gerard d’Yves’ name was very respectable, and even noble, I believe. He committed a thousand extravagances and ruined himself. He then became an artist, and displayed talent enough to have repaired his fortunes had he been wise. Besides, he was of a good family, and his name--”

“I am not alluding to his name, but to his daughter’s.”

“Well?”

“Well, brother, do you think this young girl’s name bears any resemblance to a Christian name?”

“Fleurange? I acknowledge it is perhaps an odd name. Her father had a taste for odd things, and hearing the name of Fior Angela in Italy, he translated it.”

“Her mother should have had more sense.”

“Her poor mother died when she was born, so she had nothing to do with 652 it.”

“Did you not say her mother had a brother who was a professor in some city in Germany?”

“Yes, at Leipsic; but who knows where to find him now? Her whole family disapproved of her marriage, which was finally effected without her father’s consent. Poor Margaret lived only a year, and Gerard, who remained a widower, declined all intercourse with his wife’s relatives. He remained many years in Italy, and placed his daughter, as soon as she was five years old, in some convent near Perugia. He took her away only two months before he came here, already ill, to linger and die three days ago in this poor child’s arms, leaving her entirely alone in the world.”

“But was it not very injurious to his daughter’s interests to withhold her thus from all intercourse with her maternal relatives?”

“He began to realize it himself, but only when it was too late. During his illness, finding his case daily growing more serious, he made some efforts to ascertain what had become of Ludwig Dornthal, of whom we have just spoken, who was Margaret’s favorite brother, and never faltered in his affection for her. But he could ascertain nothing respecting him. Ludwig had married, and, long before, left Leipsic to settle in some other part of Germany, he could not find out what, and this fruitless effort was a source of pain, which was not the least he suffered during his last hours. He reproached himself, and not without reason, for the frightful loneliness in which he was about to leave his daughter. The poor, unhappy man bitterly expiated the imprudent and thoughtless act of alienating himself from those whose pardon he should rather have implored, or at least accepted. But it was the consequence of his disposition, which was affectionate, enthusiastic, and fascinating, I imagine, when he was young, but weak, violent, and thoughtless. He was born neither to be happy himself, nor to make others happy, and his daughter would have been almost as great an object of pity, had he lived, as she is now.”

“Poor child!” said Mademoiselle Josephine, raising her small black eyes, with an expression almost celestial lighting up her pale and wrinkled face. After a moment’s silence, she added: “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb! You will see, brother, that some good luck will befall her, or we shall have some fortunate inspiration.”

“Well, the sooner the better, for I have none. Your confidence truly excites my admiration.”

“I trust in God,” simply replied Mademoiselle Josephine.

“Parbleu! and I too,” said the doctor. “I truly believe in his goodness; I hope in his mercy; but in this case--”

“You would prefer to have the affair in your own hands?”

“Come, come, Josephine, let us stick to the point this time. It is eight o’clock, and we must positively go for that poor child. She is more lonely than ever to-day, for the sister who nursed her father, and remained with her after his death, left this morning. She must not, after so sad a day, pass this first night all alone up there.”

“Certainly not,” said the other.

The doctor continued: “She has not left that little room in the fourth story for a fortnight, with the exception of this morning, when she followed her father to the grave, and since her return how do you imagine she has been occupied? Here, look at this.”

Mademoiselle Josephine took the paper her brother held out, and 653 glanced over it. It was a list of the poor artist’s debts.

“The whole amounts to five hundred francs, which are here. She asked me to settle the bills and procure the receipts.”

“I see that, according to her calculation, one-fourth of this sum is intended for the physician who attended her father,” said Mademoiselle Josephine slowly.

“Who, in such a case, will not accept it, of course.”

“Of course not,” said his sister. “Out of this sum one hundred and twenty-five francs will be returned to her, then?”

“Yes, sister, and that will be the amount of her fortune.”

“While we are talking, then, she has absolutely nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

Their conversation at this point was interrupted by a low knock at the door, and almost immediately the girl of whom they had been talking appeared before them. She stopped and leaned against the wall. The doctor sprang toward her.

“Poor child!” he exclaimed. “While we were idly talking, she was faint from exhaustion and fatigue.”

She had, in truth, fallen into a chair against the wall, and seemed losing consciousness. Mademoiselle Josephine hastened to support her head, and bathe her pale brow and colorless cheeks with cold water. Every movement of the doctor’s elderly sister had become prompt and decided. At a sign from her brother, she disappeared an instant, but returned almost immediately with a vial and a glass of water in her hand.

“That is it,” said the doctor. He let fall a few drops into the glass, which he then held to the young girl’s lips. Two or three swallows seemed to revive her.

“Excuse me,” she said, raising her head, and forcing herself to rise. “Excuse me, both of you. I did not think myself so weak, and did not intend to give you so much trouble when I came to see you.”

“Do not talk now, but drink the remainder of this.”

Fleurange put the glass to her lips, but returned it to the doctor without tasting it. “I cannot,” she said, “I feel dizzy. I do not know what ails me--perhaps it is the surprise I have just had. Here, monsieur, read this. It was to show you this letter I came down.”

The doctor took the letter, but, before reading it, led Fleurange to the fire, while the active Josephine, divining her brother’s wishes, placed on the table a bowl of soup and some bread and wine.

Fleurange took Mademoiselle Josephine’s hand between her own: “Thank you,” she said in a low tone. “Yes, I think it was that: I am generally strong, but--but--”

“I dare say you have not eaten anything since yesterday?”

“No; and I am hungry.”

The doctor briskly rubbed his spectacles, and abruptly opened his snuffbox, while the young girl hastily took the slight repast, which brought a lively and unusual color to her cheeks. Her face was generally very pale. Her large eyes, calm and mild, gray rather than blue, shaded by lashes black as her hair, gave her a peculiar and striking appearance. But notwithstanding this peculiarity, notwithstanding her paleness, the delicacy of her features, and the pliancy of her form, which swayed like a reed at every movement, if obliged to characterize in two words the general impression produced by the appearance of Fleurange d’Yves, those words would be: simplicity and energy. Doctor Leblanc was doubtless right in thinking 654 that one so young, beautiful, and destitute needed protection, and yet it required only a glance to see that she, better than any else, could protect herself.

The doctor still held in his hand the letter she had given him. It was dated at Frankfort.

“MY DEAR NIECE: It was only yesterday, and by the most unforeseen chance, we at last learned the state of your father’s health and where he lives. None of us have seen him since his marriage with my poor sister Margaret twenty years ago. You know there was at that time a profound hatred against France throughout our country, and my father would never consent to receive a Frenchman as his son-in-law. Then my poor sister (God forgive her!) left the paternal roof to marry the man of her choice. My father was exceedingly grieved, very angry, and at first implacable, but before his death he forgave her. She was past knowing it. From that time we lost all trace of your father. We only learned he had left Pisa with his child, and, for a long time, had given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or knowing my poor sister’s daughter, when yesterday a stranger, passing through this city, accidentally showed me a picture he had just purchased at Paris--the work, he said, of a dying artist. This painting represented Cordelia kneeling beside her father, and the canvas bore the name of Gerard d’Yves. The painter’s address was given us by the owner of the picture, and I hasten to profit by it to tell you, my dear child, that your mother’s relatives have not forgotten the tie that binds them to you. If you ever need a shelter, you can find one beneath our roof. My wife and children already regard poor Margaret’s daughter with affection. The latter have thought of her from infancy as an absent sister whose return they awaited. If God restores your father’s health, bring him among us. If otherwise ordered, come yourself, my dear child. The stranger who put us on your track told us the artist’s daughter was the original of his Cordelia. If the resemblance is correct, it does not diminish our desire to see you. Come soon, then, my dear niece. At all events, answer this letter promptly, and be assured of the affectionate regard of your uncle, “LUDWIG DORNTHAL.”

“Josephine! Josephine!” exclaimed the doctor. “Here, read this: but, first, embrace me. Yes, you were right. Your trust was better than my wisdom! Yes, yes, God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. Poor child, embrace me also.”

Fleurange rose: “Oh! very willingly,” said she as she threw herself sobbing into the doctor’s arms. Fatigue, grief, and the emotion caused by the unforeseen and unhoped-for offer of a refuge at the very moment of extreme need, all combined to agitate her mind, excite her nerves, and exhaust her strength. Her heart swelled with the emotion she could not repress, and tears unrestrained came to her eyes, rolled down her cheeks, and fell like rain on her clasped and icy hands, while a convulsive movement agitated her breast, and her trembling lips gave utterance to a feeble cry.

The doctor allowed her to weep a long time in silence, not uttering a word to increase her agitation, and yet saying nothing to repress it. At length the paroxysm subsided, and Fleurange rose quite confused.

“Excuse me once more,” said she; “I am distressing you, instead of showing my gratitude as I ought. I could not restrain myself, but I think I can safely promise it will not happen again. I seldom give way 655 to tears.”

She uttered these words in a firm tone, drying her tears, and throwing back her hair with her two hands as if to cool her brow, then she rose.

“Where are you going, pray?” asked Mademoiselle Josephine in an abrupt tone of authority.

“Why,” stammered Fleurange, “I am going up-stairs. I--”

“Perhaps you are thinking to spend the night all alone in the cabinet next the chamber--the chamber--” She stopped. Fleurange turned pale, and her lips trembled as she replied:

“What can I do? It is sad, it is painful, I know well; but it must be done. Besides, I am not afraid: I feel I am under your roof.”

“Well, for the present you shall also be under the protection of our lock and key,” said the kind Josephine: and, taking Fleurange by the arm, she led her into a little chamber next her own, where a small bed surrounded by white curtains was in readiness for the young girl. This little chamber, with its walls covered with blue paper, and lit up with a good fire, had a most cheering aspect.

“Here, child, is your chamber and your bed,” said she. “Come, come, no thanks, and, above all, no tears! Go to bed at once without giving yourself the time to think, still less to say a word. You think you are not going to sleep, but you are mistaken. On your knees? Well, I consent to that, but let it be a short prayer. That is right. Now stop till I gather up your thick hair. Is your head easy on that pillow? Well, I am glad. May God, and all good angels, watch over you! Allow me to kiss your forehead. Good-night!”

Mademoiselle Josephine lowered the curtains of the bed, and softly left the chamber, while the poor orphan, in fact, lost all remembrance of the sorrows and joys of the day in a profound and beneficent sleep.

The chamber to which Mademoiselle Josephine had taken Fleurange rightfully belonged to the doctor’s niece, now at school in one of the convents at Paris, but which she occupied during her vacation. However, it was far from being vacant the remainder of the year. Mademoiselle Leblanc was one of those persons who are devoted to the searching out of the unfortunate, and the alleviation of their woes. In such cases, he who seeks finds, and that without difficulty, consequently a week seldom passed without offering a good reason for opening the blue chamber for a few days’ shelter to some poor girl out of work and destitute of a home, or to a poor abandoned child, or some one recovering from illness but too feeble to resume work. The doctor heartily approved of this. He would gladly have added to his dwelling a veritable _succursale_ for the accommodation of his poor patients, and if he was not yet rich enough for that, though he reaped the benefit of his skill and celebrity, it was partly because he gave away with one hand what he received in the other, and that with a generosity not always in conformity with prudence. When there was a question of benevolence between the brother and sister, one was not more disposed than the other to count the cost. They had invented a proverb, worthy of the Gospel, which they made use of in reply to the remonstrances of their friends: “He who gives alms, grows rich,” they said; and they continued to enrich themselves in this way by giving themselves up, both of them, to a noble excess of charity. Fortune, in fact, had not been unfavorable to them, and thus far had remained 656 unfulfilled the sinister prophecies of those who take as a _devise_ quite a different proverb, respecting charity, too well known and too often acted upon in the world. Doctor Leblanc and his sister knew nothing, it is true, of the luxury of elegant quarters and fine equipages. They still lived in a street of the Latin quarter where they were born; an old servant was the sole assistant of the cook; and Mademoiselle Josephine continued to preserve order and neatness around her with her own hands. But at all times they were magnificent in their own way; and the artists they encouraged, the scholars befriended, and the sick gratuitously attended and generously aided, added to the renown of the distinguished physician and gave to his name a reputation he did not seek. Simple and learned, healing the body and respecting the soul, he loved his profession as a mission from heaven, and practised it as a sacred ministry with respect and with love.

II.

When Fleurange opened her eyes on the following morning, it was late, for it was broad daylight and in the month of December. She must have slept very profoundly, for she had not heard any one kindle the fire already blazing in the chimney. Her slumbers must have been such as in youth succeed great fatigue or prolonged efforts to endure anxiety and grief in silence. The fit of weeping the evening before and the long repose of the night had brought double refreshment to the exhausted strength of the young girl, and her first sensation was one of delicious comfort.

But her remembrances soon became more distinct, and the anguish of the first awakening after a great misfortune made her heart sink within her. She had, it is true, known her father but little. The convent where she had been reared was not even in the town where he dwelt, and she saw him but seldom during her childhood. But the days when he appeared at the convent were to both great festivals. It was difficult to understand how a father so glad to see his child could voluntarily have allowed her to grow up away from him. But the time of reunion came at last, and for several weeks they rambled around Italy together. In unveiling all its wonders to a mind naturally capable of appreciating them, the artist felt all the enthusiasm of his youth revive. But it was a flame only rekindled to be extinguished. Soon came symptoms of illness, the sad return to Paris, the fluctuations of disease, which enfeeble the mind as well as the body, and separated the child from her father while he was yet alive, and she night and day at his bedside. His look that gave back no answering glance, the words she murmured in his ear without making him understand, convinced her of her loss before the separation by death which soon followed.

“O father! father scarcely known and so soon lost!” Such was Fleurange’s cry, and perhaps an involuntary reproach mingled with her accents of grief. She did not suspect it was a sublime and paternal instinct that had influenced the poor artist in separating from his child. He wished her to be self-reliant; he wished her to be pious and pure; he wished her rare mental gifts only to be developed when order, an immutable and divine order, was established in her soul; finally, 657 he desired her to be all that he himself lacked, and God blessed this desire.

In a beautiful spot near Perugia, he found at the head of a charity school one of those women whom the world itself would honor and venerate if it comprehended them. By the _world_, I mean the mass of light and scoffing people who are hostile to every sentiment in which they have no share, and, above all others, to religious sentiments. Yet this world is, on the whole, suspicious rather than unjust, and incredulous than false: if it sees the semblance of evil, it immediately supposes it real; if it sees the appearance of goodness, it at once imagines this appearance deceitful; but when virtue is unquestionably manifest, irrecusable in its simplicity and truth, and succeeds in being regarded in a true light, the world--even the world of which we have been speaking--generally bows down before it. The thing is rare, it is true, more so than it should be, because the most perfect natures aim not at displaying themselves, but at concealment; and the world to which I refer seeks not to discover, but to deny, their existence.

Madre Maddalena was one of these great hidden souls. No one ever spoke of her, or of her little monastery, intended for the education of poor children, but where a limited number of girls of a more elevated class were also admitted. Like so many other monasteries in Italy, this one was in a poetic and charming situation, but not one of those visible afar off on the lofty summits that command views which ravish the eye and transport the soul--views that kindle a desire in the most indifferent heart to keel before them, and that have inspired Christians to perpetuate prayer amid them in permanent sanctuaries.

The Convent of Santa Maria al Prato was, on the contrary, in a deep valley, and surrounded by a landscape like those in which Perugino and Raphael placed their divine creations or their sacred representations. Afar off were mountains whose outlines were clearly defined on the horizon in soft and harmonious colors; a stream wound through olive groves, now and then encircling rustic dwellings--the evident handiwork of a people with an instinctive taste for the arts; the sombre verdure of a knot of pines or cypresses contrasted here and there with the azure of the morning sky or the purple tints of evening: such were the principal features of the landscape. The beauty of such a scene subdues and reposes, as that of sublime summits transports and exalts, and seems designed for meditation and labor, as the other for contemplation and ecstasy.

It was to this retreat Fleurange’s father was providentially led--perhaps guided by the protective inspiration we love to attribute to mothers who are fond of their children. It was in the hands of Madre Maddalena that he left his daughter as soon as she was five years old, and, until the day she was eighteen, he only saw her twice a year. But from year to year he felt more sure of having realized the aim he had proposed respecting her. Fleurange had, nevertheless, no proof to give him of her progress under the form of prizes obtained or crowns conferred. The solemn occasions when such trophies are distributed were unknown at Santa Maria al Prato, as well as the examinations for which the memory is burdened for a day with facts that are often remembered no longer. In fact, they did not aim at giving her varied instruction, but they taught her how to learn, and 658 gave her a taste for study, work, and silence.

She was naturally sincere and courageous; she also became skilful and active. Madre Maddalena seemed to have foreseen that this young person, so sheltered in her early years, would one day be unusually exposed to the rough combat of life. She probably did not foresee that Fleurange would soon be left alone; but what she had read of her father’s nature, what she knew of his history, made her comprehend that prudence and a certain premature experience would serve as a safeguard to his daughter. What would have been true had her father lived, was no less so now his death left her entirely to herself.

Fleurange resisted the temptation of remaining in bed absorbed in sad thoughts. She hastily rose, and was quite ready when Mademoiselle Josephine entered her chamber for the third time. A smile enlivened the features of the elderly maiden when she saw the effect of a good night’s rest on the countenance of her _protégée_. The latter, affected and grateful, and retaining the Italian habits of her childhood, bent to kiss the hand of her benefactress.

“Do not kiss my old hand,” said Mademoiselle Josephine, “but my cheek, if you like; now, let us not keep my brother waiting. It is nine o’clock, our breakfast-hour which never varies.”

Fleurange followed her hostess to the breakfast-room, which was next the parlor. The furniture of these two rooms had not been renewed for more than fifty years, but nothing seemed dilapidated, thanks to the exquisite neatness that everywhere reigned.

The doctor was already seated at the table. His sister took her place opposite, giving Fleurange a seat between them.

“You have quite recovered,” said the doctor, extending his hand to the young girl. “I am very glad to see it; but, for fear of relapse, you must remain under my eye for some days to come. Everything has been arranged, and from this time till your departure you will return no more to the fourth story.”

“What can I say, monsieur? You are both so kind, and I love you so much that I accept alms from your hands without shame and almost without pain.”

“I forbid you making use of so shocking a word,” said Mademoiselle Josephine.

“Yet it is really alms,” said Fleurange in a sad but firm tone, “for I have nothing of my own, and if in want of a piece of bread to-day, I should have to extend the hand of a beggar.”

“Come, come! you are not reduced to that yet, thank God! But let us drop this, and speak of something more important. You must answer your uncle’s letter without delay.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Fleurange. And after a short silence, she added: “I am going to ask him to be kind enough to receive me for a month.”

“But from his letter, he seems disposed to offer you a much more extended hospitality than that.”

“Perhaps so, but I am only willing to accept it till I have found the means of living without being a burden on him.”

“What is your intention, then?”

“I do not know,” said Fleurange; “but there are many means of gaining a, livelihood, are there not? Well, I shall endeavor to find one not beyond my strength.”

The doctor looked at her, and then said: “There are certainly many things not beyond your strength, but yet unsuitable for you.” 659

“Why?” asked Fleurange.

“They would be unsuitable for one of your age and condition.”

“Why so?” repeated she.

“I will explain myself after you tell me what you think of doing.”

“Come!” said Mademoiselle Josephine impatiently. “There is no need of so much circumlocution in telling her that, when one is young and pretty, caution is needful. If the child does not know that, the sooner she is warned, the better it will be for her.”

“Young and pretty,” repeated Fleurange quietly without the slightest embarrassment. “Yes, I know that will be a great obstacle to me in my position. It would be much better to be homely and ten years older. I had already thought of that. It is very unfortunate; but what can be done?”

The doctor smiled. He had never heard any woman admit her own beauty with so little vanity. Fleurange’s simplicity, the childlike candor of her large eyes, the expression of which was yet grave and thoughtful, struck him, and he felt an increase of the interest which up to this moment had been excited by the young girl’s destitute condition, rather than herself. He resumed, still smiling:

“As to this misfortune, you must resign yourself to it, at least for twenty years to come.” But seeing that Fleurange did not smile in return, but, on the contrary, became more and more thoughtful, he continued: “Besides, if you ever come to that, we will find a means for surmounting the difficulty.”

Fleurange’s face expanded. “Oh! thank you, monsieur; if you could realize how much courage I have. And then,” she added, “I assure you there are a great many things I know how to do.”

“For instance?” said the doctor.

“First, the instruction of children, to which I think myself adapted. I love them, and they are generally fond of me also, and readily obey me.”

“What else?”

“I know Italian and German (for I have made it a special point to understand my mother’s native language thoroughly). My father thought me also a good reader, and preferred my voice and accent to those of any of the numerous readers and speakers he had heard. His fondness perhaps blinded him to my defects; yet he might have been right, and I could try.”

“Hem!” said the doctor. “There is much to be said for and against that talent.”

“Finally, monsieur, I can do all kinds of work. I know how to sew well--to wash, iron, and sweep. I could even cook a little.”

The doctor again regarded the noble countenance of the young girl while she thus complacently enumerated the humble and laborious employments she thought herself capable of. She was evidently sincere. Her ability and willingness to do all she said could not be doubted. He was affected, and remained silent.

But Mademoiselle Josephine exclaimed with enthusiasm: “That is what I call an education! And who, my dear child, taught you so many reasonable and useful things?”

Tears of emotion filled Fleurange’s eyes. “It was my dear Madre Maddalena,” she replied.

This answer elicited fresh inquiries, to which Fleurange replied by minutely relating the way in which her childhood had passed. The doctor’s satisfaction increased with every word of her account, which, nevertheless, made a breach in two of his prejudices. 660

Without any antipathy to pretty faces, they inspired him with a kind of mistrust, or at least of solicitude, which his long experience had doubtless very often warranted. But in regarding this young girl, so self-reliant and so modest, so courageous and so delicate, and who seemed ready to struggle so bravely against the difficulties of life, how could he be angry with her for being beautiful, and how help overlooking it in one sense?

The doctor had also a singular and, considering his belief as a whole, an inconsistent prejudice against convents. He seemed to have retained this point of agreement with those whom he habitually opposed on every other subject. And here was an education which accorded not only with all his ideas, but with all his whims--a conventual education. He would be obliged to somewhat modify his opinions on this subject, as well as on some others, and he resigned himself to it with a good grace.

They finally resumed the subject of the letter to Frankfort. The doctor and his sister already began to look forward with sorrow to the departure of their young _protégée_, but they felt it was for her interest not to delay joining the relatives who had invited her at so opportune a moment. By their advice, Fleurange immediately began her letter. Short and to the point, it was soon completed, and she gave it to Mademoiselle Josephine. The latter began to read it with an air of satisfaction, but when she came to the signature, a cloud suddenly appeared on her face.

“What is it?” said Fleurange. “I have made some mistake or blunder?”

“No, you have not: the letter is very well, it could not be better, but, but--”

“What, then? Tell me frankly, I beg of you.”

“Well, it is--indeed, I dare not tell you.”

“Pray tell me,” said Fleurange, “what has displeased you? There is nothing in the letter I am not willing to correct according to your advice.”

“It is--but you cannot change that.”

But what is it, then, dear mademoiselle? You really frighten me,” insisted Fleurange with a disturbed air.

“You cannot change your baptismal name,” said the other, at length.

“My baptismal name?” exclaimed Fleurange with surprise. “Does my name displease you to such a degree? I am sorry, for Madre Maddalena liked it so much! She said it signified _the flower of the angels_--the fairest of all the angels--the angel Gabriel, whom she considered my patron. And she called me Gabrielle as often as Fleurange.”

“Gabrielle!” cried Mademoiselle Josephine eagerly. “Gabrielle! Ah! that is a name everybody can understand. So that is the meaning of Fleurange, according to your Madre Maddalena? Then I beseech, I conjure you, to assume that name and give up the other!”

The doctor had for some minutes been occupied in reperusing Professor Dornthal’s letter, which he kept the evening before; he now raised his eyes, and attended to the conversation. While Fleurange was still hesitating what reply to make to Mademoiselle Josephine’s singular request, he said:

“I do not understand my sister’s persistency on this point. As to my own opinion, it is opposed to hers. But it may be that the simpler of the two names will be more in conformity with the tastes of the good 661 German family that awaits you, and perhaps Gabrielle would have a better reception than Fleurange. Besides,” he continued, smiling, “your young cousins beyond the Rhine would doubtless pronounce the name in a way to diminish its charm and deprive it of all meaning according to the pious and poetical interpretation you have just given it.”

“That might be,” said Fleurange, smiling in return. “Anyhow, I will do as you advise respecting it.”

“We will take it into consideration,” said the doctor. Then, glancing once more over the professor’s letter, he continued: “Do you know the name of the stranger who, by buying the last picture your father painted, has unwittingly rendered you so great a service?”

“I do not. That picture was sold with the remainder when, at the beginning of his fatal relapse, my father saw his finances diminishing, and lost the hope of ever repairing them. My poor father!” she continued with a trembling voice, “he was very ill the day he made me sit in order to finish that picture--” Fleurange suddenly stopped and blushed. The doctor’s look seemed to demand an explanation, and she continued artlessly, but not without confusion: “The owner of the picture is perhaps the stranger who visited the studio that day. At least, I acknowledge the idea has repeatedly occurred to me.”

“For what reason?”

“Because he was so delighted with Cordelia, and begged permission to see it after its completion. But my father, from that day, was obliged to give up the use of the brush, and the picture was sold as he left it, with the others.”

“Was this amateur a German?”

“I do not know. He spoke French very well, but with a slight accent, I know not what.”

“Was he some great lord?”

“I do not know--I have never seen a great lord.”

“But what kind of an air had this visitor--God bless him!” interrupted Mademoiselle Josephine.

“A lofty and noble air, a remarkable physiognomy, and a grave and sonorous voice,” replied Fleurange. “But, in spite of the gratitude I perhaps owe him, the remembrance of his visit always troubles and depresses me.”

“Why so?” said Josephine.

“Because it was the cause of the last and fatal crisis of my father’s malady, who at that time even could not bear the slightest agitation. I do not know the words the stranger murmured as he glanced at me, but they greatly excited my father, who requested me in a tremulous voice to leave the studio. As a general thing, he never allowed me to enter it at the hour for visitors. The evening of that day he spoke to me in an agitated manner of the lone condition in which I should soon be left, and gave me some incoherent counsels, which were his last words. He never recovered his full mind after that.”

“Poor man!” said the doctor; but he did not pursue the subject that led to this account. Fleurange’s fleeting blush disappeared, and she was again pale and calm as before, her pen in hand ready to correct her letter according to the doctor’s advice. After a final deliberation between the young girl and her elderly friends, it was decided that the letter should be sent after it was signed _Gabrielle d’Yves_.

III. 662

The day Margaret married Gerard d’Yves, the aged Sigismund Dornthal blotted out his daughter’s name from his will, and gave orders that it should never be uttered in his presence. Notwithstanding this, softened by illness, and urged by his second son Ludwig, Margaret’s favorite brother, he soon consented to send her his forgiveness and blessing, but when they reached Pisa poor Margaret had just expired! In the fury of his despair, which increased the impetuosity and thoughtlessness of his character, Gerard tore up the letter containing the long-delayed pardon, and only replied in these two words: “Too late!”

It was thus the aged Dornthal was informed of his daughter’s death. He himself died shortly after, ignorant of the existence of the child to whom she had given birth. His property was divided between his two sons, but Ludwig, devoted to study, and already in possession of a professor’s chair at Leipsic, entirely abandoned to his elder brother the administration of their common fortune, and Heinrich Dornthal became the sole head of the commercial and banking houses founded by Sigismund. He thenceforth made use of his brother’s capital as well as his own, paying him regularly his income, without any interference in his business on Ludwig’s part. The latter was at the same time pursuing so brilliant a career as to attract the attention of all the learned men of Germany to his labors. One of these, a resident of Frankfort, invited him to pass at his house the annual vacations of the numerous students who attended his lectures. The result of these visits was that this professor’s daughter became Ludwig Dornthal’s wife, and, in the course of time, the mother of his five children. The professor, when he married, resigned his position at Leipsic to settle in his wife’s native place. There, free from a professor’s duties, he had leisure to write books that constantly added to his reputation and increased his income, which the flourishing business of the commercial house alone made sufficient.

Such was, in a few words, the condition of the new home that awaited Fleurange. A second letter came promptly in reply to hers. Her uncle expressed the liveliest joy at having found her, and invited her very particularly to arrive at Frankfort in time for Christmas, so dear to the Germans as the time of family reunions. To do this she would have to leave Paris, at the very latest, on the twenty-first of December, for at that time it took three days and nights for the journey to Frankfort. The doctor and his sister, though sorry to part with their young _protégée_, hastened the preparations for her departure. They were touched by the cordial tone of this unknown uncle’s letters, and predicted a happy life for her in his family, which they did not wish to defer. But every day added to their attachment to Fleurange and to her tender gratitude to them.

“If this continued a week longer,” said the doctor, “I could not part with that child.”

“Then she must start soon,” replied Mademoiselle Josephine; “it is for her good, and we should do wrong to keep her with us.”

Fleurange said nothing, but her eyes turned sadly from one of her old friends to the other. At length came the last day she was to pass with them. She made an effort to repress her tears, that she might not distress them, and quietly put up her modest packages, actively aided 663 by the doctor and his sister.

“An English proverb which I think very reasonable,” said the doctor, “places the hospitality which speeds the parting guest on a level with that which welcomes his coming: it is that which I am now showing you, my dear Fleurange.”

Fleurange had just hastily finished the repast always so sad before a journey. The doctor perceived her courage failing. He was himself greatly affected by her pale and youthful countenance, and in thinking of the long and lonely journey she was about to undertake, at the end of which she would be received by people, perhaps kind, but wholly unknown. Nevertheless, he resumed with an encouraging voice:

“Come, come, child, everything looks favorable yonder; show your courage, and do not allow yourself to be cast down.”

“You are right,” said Fleurange, rising. “I feel I have reason to bless God, and I only desire to be grateful. Be sure, at all events, that I shall be courageous.”

It was eight o’clock in the evening: the fiacre was waiting at the door to take her to the diligence. She went out, accompanied by the doctor and his sister, who entered the carriage with her. The night was dark, and the snow falling in great flakes, which the young girl, reared beneath the sky of Italy, now saw for the first time in her life. The spectacle excited curiosity mingled with fear. The new and the unknown seemed to surround her on every side, and these two things, generally so attractive to those of her age, bore now an aspect more calculated to depress her young heart than to expand it. She involuntarily shivered, and drew around her slender form the thick cloak that felt too thin to protect her from the severity of the weather, to which she was so unaccustomed. They all remained silent for some moments. Fleurange pressed Mademoiselle Josephine’s hand, and carried it from time to time to her lips, in spite of the efforts of the latter to prevent it.

Mademoiselle Josephine, on her side, with a faltering voice renewed a multitude of counsels, which had already been repeated a thousand times--among others, to write to them often and regularly. Then she slipped on her arm a small basket which her provident kindness had filled with everything that could be useful to her on the way, as well as more than one souvenir which, when far distant, would recall her old friends.

They arrived too quickly at their destination. “I have bespoken a place for you in the coupé,” said the doctor, getting out of the carriage. “You will be in company with one of my patients, still very feeble, but who will absolutely go to Germany to rejoin her husband. She has two children with her, and they will be your only travelling companions.”

“Thank you,” said Fleurange. “The prayers of the orphan are said to draw down blessings: may you both experience the effect of mine!” She could not utter another word. She threw her arms for the last time around Mademoiselle Josephine’s neck, and the next instant, leaning on the doctor’s arm, she was crossing with some difficulty the littered court at the end of which they found the diligence. The snow had delayed them on the way, and now rendered every step difficult. The other passengers had taken their places, and they were only waiting for Fleurange. The horses were harnessed, and to the noise of their stamping the driver added his impatient exclamations. “Come, come! We 664 are off!” he repeated in a rough voice. Fleurange, hurried, pushed about, stunned, and frightened, had only time to press the doctor’s hand once more and spring into the coupé. The door was instantly shut. A fearful clashing of irons, mingled with cries, blows of the whip, and vociferations, above which could be heard: “Adieu! à revoir! à bientôt!” with other exclamations much less harmonious, and the heavy diligence was in motion. Fleurange, now free from the necessity of any restraint, allowed herself the solace of giving vent to her feelings and letting her tears flow freely and abundantly.

She continued to weep for a long time without the least attempt at repressing her emotion. Why should she? She was alone, entirely alone now. She had never been so to such a degree before. All the events of the past faded away in the distance, and the future offered nothing to replace them. She was separated from all whom she had loved from her infancy, either by death or indefinite absence. Would it be so always? Was that to be her lot on earth? Would she never be permitted to love with assurance, trust, and a sense of repose? Was she to be always thus torn from places and persons at the very moment her heart began to cling to them?--her heart, so tender and ardent, which she had so often felt beating with tenderness and joy, with admiration and enthusiasm? And while her eyes peered out through the darkness of night at objects that seemed in the obscurity like pale phantoms, her imagination set before her, as in a magic mirror, all the different scenes of her past life: the beautiful cloister of Santa Maria al Prato, with the terrace at the top, where the eye could wander so far, and the sweet and noble features of Madre Maddalena; then came the varied remembrances connected with her father; first, the rapid vision of Italy in all its splendor, then the terrible and dismal days at Paris, and finally, at the darkest hour of all; the beneficent forms of her old friends, whom she never wished to leave, but whom she had just bidden farewell--perhaps farewell for ever!

It was impossible for Fleurange, at this moment, to control her sad thoughts. But, now and then, her reason recalled those who awaited her, the welcome she had a right to expect, and the goodness of Divine Providence in opening such a refuge; but in vain--consolation seemed unable to find an entrance into her soul, and, in spite of her nature, despondency obtained the mastery.

“If they are kind, and I love them,” she said to herself bitterly, “I shall soon have to leave them. If, on the contrary, they --” Here her imagination had free course and depicted the future in the darkest colors. But this new reverie had not the clearness of the first, and before long her anticipations began to mingle in vague confusion with her remembrances. Little by little, fatigue, the motion of the vehicle, and the influence of night lulled the young girl asleep, and transformed into uneasy and indistinct dreams all the thoughts that had successively assailed her.

Fifteen minutes after, she was suddenly awakened. Something quite heavy had fallen against her shoulder and thence into her lap. She sat up, and, groping in the obscurity, her hand came in contact with the long silky hair of a child. From the first, she had rather supposed than seen a pale, sick young woman in the opposite corner of the coupé, with her arm thrown around a child beside her, against whom slept another still smaller. It was the latter who had just suddenly 665 changed his position. Fleurange began to comprehend the case, and bent down to raise him softly to a more comfortable seat in her lap. Then she drew his little sleepy head against her, and kissed the sweet face now near her own. This trifling incident had the sudden and unforeseen effect of putting to flight all the phantoms her imagination had been conjuring up to increase her sorrows. She recalled her interior murmuring with remorse.

“O my God!” she cried, pressing the child in her arms, “if I love this poor little one, whose features I have not yet seen, if I am ready to watch the night long over his slumbers, what wilt not thou, who art _my Father_, do for thy child?” She raised her eyes a moment in prayer, not with her lips, but in her heart. The snow had ceased falling. The clouds passing away, the heavens appeared brilliant with stars. The cloud had also passed away from Fleurange’s soul, and a mysterious light from on high was infused therein. She gazed at the starry sky with delight, then closed her eyes, and again slept sweetly, the child in her arms sleeping as profoundly as herself.

TO BE CONTINUED.

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SEVERAL CALUMNIES REFUTED; OR, EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT No. 37.[130]

In addition to the secular press, which seldom misses an opportunity of saying something ungracious of the Catholic Church, we have published in the United States over a hundred so-called religious newspapers, the principal stock-in-trade of which seems to be unlimited abuse of everything Catholic, and unqualified misrepresentation of all who profess or teach the doctrines of our faith. No dogma or point of discipline of Catholicity ever finds favor in the eyes of the individuals who fill the columns of those publications, and no man or woman who may see fit to devote his or her life to the dissemination of the Gospel is safe from the malice or scurrility of their pens.

For the honor of the American character we are sorry to say that we have daily evidence of this blind prejudice and reckless disregard of truth on the part of this class of editors, many of whom arrogate to themselves the title of “reverend”; but we have some consolation in knowing that the more intelligent members of the sects are fast growing tired and ashamed of such senseless appeals to their passions and ill-founded traditions and that the time is not far distant when such efforts to sustain a sinking and indefensible cause will be encouraged only by the ignorant and wilfully blind.

These repeated and continuous attacks on the church are not the work of any one sect or confined to any particular locality, but are general with all Protestants, and extended over the whole country. As long as 666 they are confined to newspapers, and afford employment and remuneration to a number of persons who probably could not gain a livelihood in any other manner, we scarcely consider them worthy of serious attention; but we have had recently placed before us an official document, printed at the public expense for the edification of the United States Senate--and no doubt widely circulated throughout the Union under the convenient frank of many pious members of Congress--in which are reproduced calumnies so gross, and falsehoods so glaring, that we consider it our duty not only to call public attention to it, but to demand from our rulers in Washington by what right and authority they print and circulate under official form a tissue of fabrications, misrepresentations, and even forgeries, against the religion, and the ministers of that religion, which is professed by five or six millions of free American citizens.

This document, known as _Executive Document No. 37_, XLI_st Congress_, III_d Session_, was furnished by Mr. Delano, Secretary of the Interior, in compliance with a resolution of the Senate, passed February 2, 1871, and is composed exclusively of information supplied by Rev. H. H. Spaulding to A. B. Meacham, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, who in his letter of transmittal says:

“I am respectfully requested by the Rev. H. H. Spaulding, the oldest living Protestant missionary in Oregon, to place on file in your department the accompanying documents, giving a history of the early missionary work and labors of Dr. Marcus Whitman, himself, and others; the progress and civilization of the Indians under their charge, without aid from the government; also, a history of the massacre of Dr. Whitman and others; also, resolutions of Christian associations in answer to _Executive Document No. 38, House of Representatives_, and a variety of historical information, which it would seem proper to have on file, or placed in some more permanent form for future history.”

It may be remarked that the letter from which the above is an extract is dated on the 28th of January, just five days before the passage of the Senate resolution, and evidently in anticipation of such action on the part of that body. “No one,” says a distinguished senator, “except the few in the secret, knew anything of the matter until the document was printed. All the previous proceedings were as of course.” The documents that were thus to be “placed in a more permanent form for future history,” apart from their uniformly infamous character, are perhaps the strangest in origin and composition that have ever been presented for the information of any deliberative body, much less one of the gravity and importance of the Senate of the republic. They consist mainly of extracts from the religious press, so-called; inflammatory letters from jealous and disappointed preachers, including the Rev. H. H. Spaulding himself; depositions written out by that indefatigable hater with his own hand, and changed in many essential points after having been sworn to and removed from the control of the deponents; false quotations from _The Account of the Murder of Dr. Whitman_, by the Very Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, V.G., and others’ statements of the massacre; an address from the professors of that advanced educational institution called Oberlin College, Ohio; answers to leading queries addressed to Oregon officials, based on a false and supposititious statement of facts; and, lastly, a report adopted and endorsed by eight associations, including the Old School, New School, Cumberland, and United Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, 667 Congregationalists, and the “Christian Church of Oregon,” and claiming to represent thirty thousand brother members, all of whom, though differing radically in other respects, are suspiciously unanimous in denouncing the “Jesuits,” and equally positive in affirming a previous condition of affairs, their knowledge of which must of necessity have depended solely on the statements of the veracious Rev. H. H. Spaulding. In style, the documents are unique, and have a very strong family resemblance. It is a judicious mixture of sanctimonious cant seldom heard outside of a camp-meeting, with a dash here and there of Shakespeare and the modern poets, to give it variety, we suppose.

Now, whence this solemn assembly of presbyteries and conferences, this pile of affidavits and newspaper extracts, and the desire of the Senate to be enlightened as “to the early labors of the missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Oregon, commencing in 1836”? Simply this. On the week commencing on the 29th of November, 1847, more than twenty-four years ago, a certain missionary to the Cayuse Indians, named Dr. Whitman, who had resided among them for several years, was, with his wife and twelve other Americans, brutally murdered by the savages; and it is now attempted by Spaulding, who was his friend, and missionary to the Nez Perces, a neighboring tribe, to fix the guilt of this foul outrage on the missionary priests who in that year accompanied the Rt. Rev. A. M. A. Blanchet, Bishop of Nesqualy, to Oregon, and who, it is alleged, instigated the Indians to commit the deed in order to get rid of the Protestant missions. At the time of the slaughter, there was with others under Dr. Whitman’s roof a young woman named Bewley, whom one of the chiefs desired to have for his wife; and it is also asserted that not only did the priests encourage her to yield to the Indian’s wishes, but forced her from the shelter of their home and refused her any protection whatever. Other charges growing out of this sad calamity, such as baptizing children with the innocent blood of their victims on their hands, inhumanity to the prisoners left unharmed, attempting the precious life of Spaulding, supplying the Cayuses with guns and ammunition, etc., are likewise alleged, but the first two are the principal counts in this clerical indictment.

The slaughter of so many persons naturally created a great sensation in Oregon at the time, but for months after no one thought of attributing it to the interference of the Catholic missioners. However, Spaulding, whose mind had become disturbed by the contemplation of the dangers he had escaped, and having to abandon his mission among the Nez Perces, and finding himself unemployed, gradually began to give a new version of the affair, and in conversation, preaching, and writing at first hinted, and next broadly asserted, that the “Jesuits” were at the bottom of the whole matter. Considering that the shock to his nervous system was so great that he never entirely recovered from it, and that the repetition of the falsehoods was so persistent, it is charitable to suppose that he eventually came to believe them as truths; for no man in his right senses would persist in forcing on the world such a compilation of improbable statements and downright falsehoods as are contained in _Pub. Doc. No. 37_.

As there are always many persons, made credulous by ignorance or prejudice, willing to credit any anti-Catholic slander, the Rev. 668 Father Brouillet, the only priest near the scene of the crime, wrote and published, in 1853, a full and authentic account of the whole transaction, which was so clear and circumstantial that even the greatest opponents of the Catholic priesthood were silenced. In 1857, a special agent of the Treasury Department, J. Ross Browne, made a tour in the far West, and in reporting on the condition of the aborigines, and the potent causes of war between them and the white settlers, embodied in his statement Father Brouillet’s pamphlet, which together formed _Pub. Doc. No. 38_, against which all the powers of the presbyteries and conferences of Oregon, under the fitting leadership of a crazy preacher, are now directed, after a silence of more than ten years. Is it any wonder that it is so often remarked that the only bond of union, the sole vitalizing principles, of the sects are their hatred to Catholicity?

A glance at the history of the early Indian mission in Oregon is necessary to a clear understanding of the subject. It is well known that for many years that portion of our common country was debatable ground, and, while our government claimed the sovereignty and appointed officials to administer its affairs, the Hudson Bay Company held possession and virtually controlled the inhabitants, nearly all of whom were Indians or half-breeds. Under the direction of the company, the natives were honest, peaceable, and well disposed. Captain Bonneville, who visited the Nez Perces in 1832, says of them:

“Simply to call these people religious would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades their whole conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, and their purity of purpose, and the observance of the rites of their religion, are most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages.”

“This was a very enthusiastic view to take of the Nez Perces’ character,” says a Protestant authority, Mrs. Victor, “which appeared all the brighter to the captain by contrast with the savage life which he had witnessed in other places, and even by contrast with the conduct of the white trappers. But the Nez Perces were intellectually and morally an exception to all the Indian tribes west of the Missouri River. Lewis and Clarke found them different from any others; the fur-traders and the missionaries found them the same. To account for this superiority is indeed difficult. The only clue to the cause is the following statement of Bonneville. ‘It would appear,’ he says, ‘that they had imbibed some notions of the Christian faith from Catholic missionaries and traders who have been among them. They even had a rude calendar of the fasts and festivals of the Romish Church, and some traces of its ceremonial. These have become blended with their own wild rites, and present a strange medley, civilized and barbarous.’”[131] It was in this happy and quiet condition that the first Protestant missionaries from the United States found the Indians. They were Methodist, and arrived in 1834, remaining for ten years. “No missionary undertaking,” says Rev. Stephen Olin, himself one of the laborers, “has been prosecuted by the Methodist Episcopal Church with higher hopes and more ardent zeal.... This particular mission, involved an expenditure of forty-two thousand dollars in a single year. At the end of six years, there were sixty-eight persons 669 connected with this mission, men, women, and children, all supported by this society.”[132] And the same writer adds: “How such a number of missionaries found employment in such a field it is not easy to conjecture, especially as the great body of the Indians never came under the influence of their labors.” Dr. E. White, Sub-Indian Agent, writes, in 1843: “The Rev. Mr. Lee and associates are doing but little for the Indians.... With all that has been expended, without doubting the correctness of the intention, it is most manifest to every observer that the Indians of this lower country, as a whole, have been very little benefited.”[133]

The two Methodist stations established, at Clatsop’s Plains and Nesqualy were speedily abandoned, and that at the Dalles is described, in _Traits of American Indian Life_, as being in a most fearful condition. “The occurrence,” the author says, alluding to a murder by a converted Indian which he had witnessed, “is but the type of a thousand atrocities daily occurring among these supposed converts.” And we have the authority of Mr. Gray for saying that “the giving of a few presents of any description to them induces them to make professions corresponding to the wish of the donor.” The success of the missionaries at Willamette was, if possible, still more disheartening. Mr. Olin says that of those who held relations with them none remained in 1842; and Alexander Simpson, who visited the valley about the same time, found the mission to consist of but four families, those of a clergyman, surgeon, a schoolmaster, and an agricultural overseer. It is not strange, then, that two years afterwards the missions were entirely abandoned, and have never been attempted to be re-established. “Had they met vice with a spotless life,” says Gray, “and an earnest determination to maintain their integrity as representatives of religion and a Christian people, the fruits of their labor would have been greater.” We are forced, therefore, to conclude that the author of _The River of the West_ is justified in saying on this and other indisputable authority, “so far from benefiting the Indians, the Methodist mission became an actual injury to them”--the Indians.

Thus ended the first chapter in the history of the progress and civilization of the Indians in Oregon, to which we desire to call the respectful attention of the United States Senate. We have the testimony of Captain Bonneville, endorsed by Mrs. Victor, regarding the honesty and piety of the natives in 1832, before the arrival of the Methodists. After nine years of missionary labor, we have the following grave statement from no less an authority than one of their own clergymen:

“The Indians want pay for being whipped into compliance with Dr. White’s laws, the same as they did for praying to please the missionaries during the great Indian revival of 1839” (p. 157).

“As a matter of course, lying has much to do in their system of trade, and he is the best fellow who can tell the biggest lie--make men believe and practise the greatest deception” (p. 158).[134]

The Methodists having selected Lower Oregon as the field of their labors, the Presbyterians chose the upper or eastern portion of the territory. They arrived in 1836, three in number, afterwards increased to twelve, and backed up by the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Dr. Marius Whitman settled at Wailatpu among the Cayuses 670 and Walla Wallas, and Messrs. H. H. Spaulding and W. H. Gray at Lapwai, with the Nez Perces. In 1838, the Spokane mission was established by Messrs. Walker and Ellis. Their prospects of success were at first most brilliant. The savages received them kindly and listened to them attentively. “There was no want of ardor in the Presbyterian missionaries,” says _The River of the West_. “They applied themselves in earnest to the work they had undertaken. They were diligent in their efforts to civilize and christianize their Indians.” But they made a fatal mistake at the very beginning, which not only reflects on their personal honesty, but shows that they knew nothing of the character of the people they came to instruct. Mr. John Toupin, who was for many years interpreter at Fort Walla Walla, gave, in 1848, the following account of the establishment of those missions:

“I was there when Mr. Parker, in 1835, came to select places for Presbyterian missions among the Cayuses and Nez Perces, and to ask lands for these missions. He employed me as interpreter in his negotiations with the Indians on that occasion. Mr. Pombrun, the gentleman then in charge of the fort, accompanied him to the Cayuses and the Nez Perces. Mr. Parker, in company with Mr. Pombrun, an American, and myself, went first to the Cayuses upon the lands called Wailatpu, that belonged to the three chiefs--Splitted Lip, or Yomtipi; Red Cloak, or Waptachtakamal; and Tilankaikt. Having met them at that place, he told them that he was coming to select a place to build a preaching-house, to teach them how to live, and to teach school to their children; that he would not come himself to establish the mission, but a doctor or a medicine-man would come in his place; that the doctor would be the chief of the mission, and would come in the following spring. ‘I come to select a place for a mission,’ said he, ‘but I do not intend to take your lands for nothing. After the doctor is come, there will come every year a big ship loaded with goods to be divided among the Indians. These goods will not be sold, but given to you. The missionaries will bring you ploughs and hoes to teach you how to cultivate the land, and they will not sell, but give them to you.’

“From the Cayuses Mr. Parker went to the Nez Perces, about one hundred and twenty-five miles distant, on the lands of Old Button, on a small creek which empties into the Clearwater, seven or eight miles from the actual mission, and there he made the same promises to the Indians as at Wailatpu. ‘Next spring there will come a missionary to establish himself here and take a piece of land; but he will not take it for nothing; you shall be paid for it every year: this is the American fashion.’ In the following year, 1836, Dr. Whitman arrived among the Cayuses and began to build. The Indians did not stop him, as they expected to be paid as they said.

“In the summer of the year 1837, Splitted Lip asked him where the goods which he had promised him were; whether he would pay him, or whether he wanted to steal his lands. He told him that, if he did not want to pay him, he had better go off immediately, for he did not want to give his lands for nothing.”[135]

But the doctor and his co-laborers did not pay for the lands, nor indeed fulfil any of the promises of Mr. Parker, and thus the expected neophytes received their first lesson in duplicity, which eventually destroyed all confidence in the honesty and truthfulness of their teachers, and led directly to the massacre of Whitman and some of his companions, and to the total destruction of the Presbyterian missions. This latter event occurred late in 1847. Let us see what had been done in the eleven previous years by the agents of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1842, they had but three stations. “At each of these,” says _The River of the West_, “there was a small body of land under cultivation, a few cattle and 671 hogs, a flouring and saw mill, and a blacksmith’s shop.” In 1843, Mr. Spaulding writes to Dr. White, the Sub-Indian Agent: “But _two_ natives have as yet been admitted into the church. Some ten or twelve others give pleasing evidence of having been born again.”[136] It seems, then, that it took twelve missionaries seven years to convert two savages, at an expense of over forty thousand dollars for one year at least! Can the English Protestant mission for converting the Hebrews in Jerusalem show any return more preposterous than this?

But the years intervening between this time and their entire discontinuance show no converts at all. Business was entirely suspended, as far as spiritual affairs were concerned. Mr. Thomas McKay, an intimate friend of Whitman, under date September 11, 1848, says, “The doctor often told me that for a couple of years he had ceased to teach the Indians, because they would not listen to him”; and John Baptist Gervais about the same time assures us that “Mr. Spaulding told me himself, last fall, that for three or four years back he had ceased entirely to teach the Indians because they refused to hear him”--a fact which that unscrupulous apostle corroborated in a conversation with Dr. Ponjade, in the preceding August. “The Indians,” he said, “are getting worse every day for two or three years back; they are threatening to turn us out of the missions. A few days ago, they tore down my fences, and I do not know what the Missionary Board of New York means to do. It is a fact that we are doing no good: when the emigration passes, the Indians run off to trade, and return worse than when we came among them.”[137] Even as early as 1839, a missionary of the Spokanes, writing to Dr. Whitman, said that the failure of that mission was so strongly impressed on his mind, he felt it necessary “to have cane in hand, and as much as one shoe on, ready for a move.” “I see,” he adds, “nothing but the power of God that can save us.” When we consider this condition of affairs in connection with the brutal massacre at Wailatpu by Dr. Whitman’s immediate neighbors and even some members of his household and congregation, at a time of profound peace, we can form some adequate idea of the benefits of the “progress and civilization of the Indians under their [Presbyterian] charge.” Will the United States Senate, in its laudable search after information, consult some of the authorities, who are with one exception Protestant, which we have quoted?

The Catholic missions may be said to have commenced in 1838. In that year, two Catholic priests passed Walla Walla on their way from Canada to Fort Vancouver. In 1839 and 1840, one of them, Father Demers, occasionally visited Walla Walla, for a short time, to give instruction to the Indians, many of whom were in the habit of visiting him, particularly the Cayuses and Nez Perces at the fort. This presence excited the wrath of Dr. Whitman, and he presumed so far as to reprimand in severe language the gentleman in charge of the post. “From the time the Jesuits arrived,” says Gray, “his own [H. H. Spaulding’s] pet Indians had turned Catholics, and commenced a quarrel with him. These facts seemed to annoy him, and led him to adopt a course opposed by Smith, Gray, and Rodgers.” The visits of the Catholic missionaries were, however, few and far between, till the 5th of September, 1847, when the Rt. Rev. Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet arrived 672 at Fort Walla Walla, accompanied by the Superior of the Oblates and two other clergymen, to establish permanent missions in Eastern Oregon. It was the design of the bishop to locate a mission on the lands of Towatowe (Young Chief), a Catholic Indian, who had offered him his own house for that purpose. The Young Chief, however, being absent hunting, Dr. Blanchet was delayed at the fort, longer than he anticipated, and while there was visited by Protestant missionaries and Indian chiefs alike. The former treated him with great incivility and disrespect. Dr. Whitman, we are told by an eye-witness, “made a furious charge against the Catholics, accusing them of having persecuted Protestants, and even of having shed their blood wherever they had prevailed. He said he did not like Catholics; ... that he should oppose the missionaries to the extent of his power.... He spoke against the _Catholic Ladder_ (a picture explaining the principal points of Catholic faith), and said that he would cover it with blood to show the persecution of Protestants by Catholics. He refused to sell provisions to the bishop, and protested that he would not assist the missionaries unless he saw them in starvation.”[138] The temper of the savages was milder than their would-be evangelizers. On the 26th of October, Young Chief came to the fort, and asked for a priest to be sent to teach his young people. He repeated the offer of his house, but suggested as a substitute the lands of his relative Tilokaikt, upon which Dr. Whitman was settled. On November 4, the four chiefs of the Cayuses assembled at Walla Walla, and after a long “talk” agreed to let the bishop have a site for a mission and as much ground to cultivate as was necessary to support the priests. The bishop “told them,” says Father Brouillet, “that he would not make presents to the Indians; that he would give them nothing for the land he asked; that in case they worked for him he would pay them for their work and no more.” The author just quoted was sent among the Cayuses to select a proper site, but, not finding one suitable, accepted Young Chief’s offer, a camp fully twenty-five miles from Dr. Whitman’s residence, in the midst of another tribe altogether. As one of the many traits of Christian charity which distinguishes the Catholic missionaries in every part of the world, it may be mentioned that, during the conference at the fort, one of the chiefs spoke of Dr. Whitman in very harsh terms, accusing him of dishonesty and mercenary motives. Bishop Blanchet reproved him instantly, sternly telling him that the doctor was a good man, and that he, the chief, had a bad heart to say so; and when Father Brouillet was offered, by Tilokaikt, Whitman’s own mission for Catholic purposes for nothing, he positively and peremptorily declined it. And yet _Pub. Doc. No. 37_ would have us believe that the Catholics coveted Whitman’s Station, and were resolved to have it at any cost. On November 27, the bishop, with his secretary and Father Brouillet, proceeded to the new station at Umatilla. On the day following, Sunday, they were visited by Whitman, and on Monday by Spaulding, who remained for supper, both these gentleman, it seems, having modified their views during the previous two months’ intercourse with the missionaries. It was on this latter day, between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, that Whitman and his companions were murdered. The account of that horrible event, as 673 related by Father Brouillet, who was on the ground two days after, is still highly interesting. In a letter to Colonel Gilliam, three months later, when the facts were fresh in his memory, and every resident of the neighborhood was in a position to disprove anything he might say that was false, he writes:

“Before leaving Fort Walla Walla, it had been decided that, after visiting the sick people of my mission on the Umatilla, I should go and visit those of Tilokaikt’s camp, for the purpose of baptizing the infants, and such dying adults as might desire this favor; and the doctor and Mr. Spaulding having informed me that there were many sick persons at their missions, I was confirmed in the resolution, and made preparations to go as soon as possible.

“After having finished in baptizing the infants and dying adults of my mission, I left on Tuesday, the 30th of November, late in the afternoon, for Tilokaikt’s camp, where I arrived between seven and eight o’clock in the evening. It is impossible to conceive my surprise and consternation when, upon my arrival, I learned that the Indians the day before had massacred the doctor and his wife, with the greater part of the Americans at the mission. I passed the night without scarcely closing my eyes. Early next morning I baptized three sick children, two of whom died soon after, and then hastened to the scene of death to offer to the widows and orphans all the assistance in my power. I found five or six women and over thirty children in a condition deplorable beyond description. Some had lost their husbands, and others their fathers, whom they had seen massacred before their eyes, and were expecting every moment to share the same fate. The sight of those persons caused me to shed tears, which, however, I was obliged to conceal, for I was, the greater part of the day, in the presence of the murderers, and closely watched by them, and, if I had shown too marked an interest in behalf of the sufferers, it would only have endangered their lives and mine; these, therefore, entreated me to be on my guard. After the first few words that could be exchanged under the circumstances, I inquired after the victims, and was told that they were yet unburied. Joseph Stainfield, a Frenchman, who was in the service of Dr. Whitman, and had been spared by the Indians, was engaged in washing the corpses, but, being alone, he was unable to bury them. I resolved to go and assist him, so as to render to those unfortunate victims the last service in my power to offer them.”

The reverend father then goes on to relate how, after comforting the women and children as well as he could, and having been told by the chief “to say to them that they need fear nothing, they shall be taken care of and well treated,” he set out toward his mission, in order to intercept Spaulding and warn him of his danger. He was accompanied by his interpreter, and closely followed by a son of the chief, who, it afterward appeared, was going to his uncle Camastilo to acquaint him of the slaughter. His meeting with Spaulding is graphic, and, if not for the hideous surroundings, would be amusing. He says:

“In a few minutes after, while they were thus engaged in smoking, I saw Mr. Spaulding coming toward me. In a moment he was at my side, taking me by the hand and asking for news. ‘Have you been to the doctor’s?’ he inquired. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘What news?’ ‘Sad news.’ ‘Is any person dead?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Who is dead--is it one of the doctor’s children?’ (He had left two of them very sick.) ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Who, then, is dead?’ I hesitated to tell. ‘Wait a moment,’ I said, ‘I cannot tell you now.’ While Mr. Spaulding was asking me those questions, I had spoken to my interpreter, telling him to entreat the Indian in my name not to kill Mr. Spaulding, which I begged of him as a special favor, and hoped that he would not refuse it to me. I was waiting for his answer, and did not wish to relate the disaster to Mr. Spaulding before getting it, for fear he might by his manner discover to the Indian what I had told him, for the least motion like flight 674 would have cost him his life, and probably exposed mine also. The son of Tilokaikt, after hesitating some moments, replied that he could not take it upon himself to save Mr. Spaulding, but that he would go back and consult the other Indians, and so he started back immediately to his camp. I then availed myself of this absence to satisfy the anxiety of Mr. Spaulding. I related to him what had passed. ‘The doctor is dead,’ said I; ‘the Indians have killed him, together with his wife and eight other Americans, on Monday last, the 29th, and I have buried them before leaving to-day.’ ‘The Indians have killed the doctor--they will kill me also if I go to the camp!’ ‘I fear it very much,’ said I. ‘What, then, shall I do?’ ‘I know not. I have told you what has happened. Decide now for yourself what you had best do. I have no advice to give you in regard to that.’ ‘Why has that Indian started back?’ he inquired. ‘I begged him to spare your life,’ said I, ‘and he answered me that he could not take it upon himself to do so, but that he would go and take the advice of the other Indians about it; that is the reason why he started back.’ Mr. Spaulding seemed frightened and discouraged. ‘Is it possible! is it possible!’ he exclaimed several times. ‘They will certainly kill me.’ And he was unable to come to any decision. ‘But what could have prompted the Indians to this?’ he inquired. ‘I know not,’ said I; ‘but be quick and decide, you have no time to lose. If the Indians should resolve not to spare your life, they will be here very soon, as we are only about three miles from their camp. ‘But where shall I go?’ ‘I know not; you know the country better than I. All I know is that the Indians say the order to kill all Americans has been sent in all directions.’ Mr. Spaulding then resolved to fly. His asked me if I were willing to take charge of some loose horses he was driving before him. I told him I could not, for fear of becoming suspicious to the Indians. I told him, however, that if the interpreter was willing to take them under his charge at his own risk, he was perfectly at liberty to do so. To this the interpreter agreed. I gave Mr. Spaulding what provisions I had left, and hastened to take leave of him, wishing him with all my heart a happy escape, and promising to pray for him.... The interpreter had not left Mr. Spaulding (after pointing out a byroad) more than twenty minutes, when he saw three armed Cayuses riding hastily toward him in pursuit of Mr. Spaulding. Upon coming up to the interpreter, they seemed much displeased that I had warned Mr. Spaulding of their intentions, and thereby furnished him an opportunity to escape.’ The priest ought to have minded his own business, and not to have interfered with ours,’ they said in an angry tone, and started immediately in pursuit of him.”[139]

This Spaulding escaped to tell the tale, and to traduce the character of the priest that saved his life at the risk of his own. At first, he was inclined to acknowledge the obligation, for in a letter to his “reverend and dear friend,” as he styles Bishop Blanchet, eight days after, he writes: “The hand of the merciful God brought me to my family after six days and nights from the time _my dear friend_ furnished me with provisions and I escaped from the Indians.” This effort of gratitude was, however, too much for him to sustain, and, accordingly, we find published in _The Oregon American_ (p. 13) the following choice specimen of bigotry and base ingratitude, “worse than the sin of witchcraft.” He says:

“It has been said by some of my friends in this country that they felt greatly mortified to see me in the dust at the bishop’s feet begging for my life.... This is not the first time that Protestants (that is, heretics) have lain prostrate at the feet of the Pope of Rome. I saw my life, under God, in the hands of the bishop and the priests. I had a right to ask it again. I seemed to see the hands of these priests wet with the blood of our associates.... I stopped not to ask whose hands placed the bishop’s foot upon my neck, the lives of so many human beings were worth the struggle.”

Can the force of prejudice and deception go further than this? Here is a man, who, if not an open enemy of the missionaries, was certainly a 675 violent opponent, whose life was saved by one of them at a most critical moment at imminent danger to his own, who was shown the pathway by which he might escape the fury of the savages whose hatred he had awakened by long years of injustice, and who was even supplied with food from the poor priest’s scrip, turning round on his benefactors when he attained a place of safety, and vilifying the church and religion to whose lesson of charity he owed his miserable existence. This is the man, too, upon whose authority the “Christian Associations of Oregon” have undertaken to brand the heroic priests of that section as instigators of murder; and who has undertaken to inform the Senate, and provide Mr. Delano with matters for history “in a more permanent form.”

And here it may be well to dispose of some of the minor charges. _Pub. Doc. No. 37_, at page 30, says of the scenes of the Whitman massacre:

“They [the Indian children] leaped and screamed for joy, throwing handfuls of blood around, drinking down the dying agonies of their victims as a precious draught. These blood-stained little savages were to receive the sacred ordinance of baptism a few hours after, at the hands of the priest of God--the mangled bodies yet lying unburied around, the food of dogs and wolves by night, and of hogs and vultures by day, seeming to pay down to the Indians for what they had done.”

We are not aware that in the whole course of Protestant history there is to be found a more deliberate, cool, and atrocious tissue of falsehoods than the above. Two days, not a few hours, after the murder, _three_ sick children were baptized, of whom two were so ill that they died the same day. Are those some of the children who leaped and screamed for joy? The baptism took place two miles from Whitman’s Station, so that the bodies of the slain could not well have been lying around. The dogs and wolves, hogs and vultures, are purely the creation of the Rev. H. H. Spaulding’s imagination, and would, in vulgar parlance, be styled “piling on the agony.” Before the arrival of Father Brouillet, Joseph Stainfield had already washed the corpses, and, with the assistance of the good priest, they were buried. The insinuation in the last line is worthy of Spaulding, and shows to what extremes a man will go whose sense of truth and even decency has become completely blunted.

Another charge against the missionaries is that they acted inhumanly with the captives, and that Father Brouillet, who promised to return to them, neglected to do so. It is true he did not do so, and the prisoners may thank Mr. Spaulding for his not returning. Had he not been as solicitous about saving that individual’s life, and thereby enable him to go down to the grave at an old age with a load of falsehood and forgeries on his soul, he would never have incurred the ill-feeling of the Indians of Wailatpu, or be himself kept a prisoner in Young Chief’s tent for two or three weeks. But his thoughts and those of his fellow-missionaries were with the unfortunates, and his every effort was used, and successfully too, for their liberation. While Spaulding, from his mission with the Nez Perces, was writing lying letters to his “reverend and dear friend,” Bishop Blanchet, soliciting his good offices with the Indians with regard to the captives, amongst whom was his own daughter, that ecclesiastic was calling around him the chiefs of the Cayuses, admonishing them to treat their captives kindly, promising to write to the American governor for terms of peace, and attending a council at Fort Walla 676 Walla, at which the Indians consented and actually did liberate the prisoners, the ransom being paid by the agents of the much abused Hudson Bay Company. Spaulding himself was then virtually a prisoner among the Nez Perces, with whom he lived eleven years, and “was very much beloved,” if we may believe his own statement.

We now come to what we may be permitted to call the first grand falsehood, as set forth in _Pub. Doc. No. 37_, for the information of the Senate and the benefit of history, namely, that the Whitman murderers were instigated by the “Jesuits.” This calumny is repeated in several places and in many forms in this extraordinary public document, and may be supposed to be crystallized in the two following paragraphs:

“When the Jesuits and English had, by means of Indian runners, excited the surrounding tribes to butcher the Protestant missionaries and American emigrants at Wailatpu, and to exterminate the American settlements on the Pacific, the Nez Perces refused to join them, and rushed at once to the defence of their beloved teacher, Mrs. Spaulding, and rescued her and her infants from a band of forty of the murderers; then, second, fled to the scene of the eight days’ carnage, and by their influence stopped the bloody work of the Jesuits.” (_Resolutions adopted by the Pleasant Butte Baptist Church of Linn Co., Oregon, Oct. 22, 1869._)

“This Brouilette [Brouillet], it is proved in part by his own testimony, was present at the massacre, doing nothing to save the victims, but baptizing the children of the murdering Indians, and otherwise stimulating them to their work of death.” (_Report of the Committee of the Presbytery of Steuben, adopted by the Christian Associations of Oregon, 1869._)

Surely this is history run mad. In fact, so gross are the misstatements that we are inclined to think that Spaulding either forged the signatures or interpolated the resolutions of the associations--a proceeding which, it will appear further on, he was perfectly capable of doing. Now, it is well known, and stated even by Spaulding (_Pub. Doc. No. 37_), that the so-called “Jesuits,” namely, Bishop Blanchet and his priests, had only been in that part of the country a short time--Father Brouillet says two months, but Spaulding reduces it to six weeks; that no Catholic mission had been established within hundreds of miles of Whitman’s Station till two days previous to the mission, when one was commenced at Umatilla, twenty-five miles distant, among a tribe of the Cayuses, who had no act or part in the crime; that there never was a Catholic missionary, Jesuit or otherwise, in the camps of Tilokaikt, where Whitman resided till two days after the massacre, but once, and that for a short time when Father Brouillet was invited by the chief to go and procure a site for a mission, in which he failed; and, finally, that the Indians who did the bloody deed were near neighbors of the doctor, the worst being a member of his household; and that _every one of them were Protestants_, as Spaulding himself partly admits[140] (_Ex. Doc. No. 37_). Even the Rev. Gustavus Hines, who is named as one of the assistants in the 677 compilation of this document, says in his _History of Oregon_, in describing a council of chiefs in 1843: “Tilokaikt, a Cayuse chief, rose and said, ‘What do you read the laws for before we take them? We do not take the laws because Tanitan says so. He is a Catholic, and as a people we do not follow his worship!” The story of Father Brouillet having been on the scene of massacre stimulating the Indians in their work of death is a poor fabrication, for the doctor visited the bishop and his two priests at Umatilla, twenty-five miles distant, late on Sunday, the 28th, and on the 29th, the day of the slaughter, Spaulding himself supped with them at the same place. The ridiculous reference to the Nez Perces, under the supposition that they were Protestants, is simply absurd. The fact is that Spaulding says, in his letter to his “reverend and dear friend” the bishop, the Nez Perces only promised to protect him and the American settlers if troops were not sent against the Cayuses, and that they demanded and received from Mr. Ogden, of Walla Walla, clothing, ammunition, and tobacco before they would release their “beloved teacher,” her husband and infants. The only Nez Perces who fled to the scene to stop “the bloody work of the Jesuits” were two messengers of that tribe who bore his treacherous letter to the bishop, begging him to assure the Cayuses that he would use every effort to prevent the troops from being sent against them, and which he afterwards declared was meant to deceive both the bishop and the Indians.[141] No sooner, however, was he out of danger than he used his best efforts to bring on a war. “I recollect distinctly,” says Major Magone, “that he was not in favor of killing _all_ the Cayuses, for he gave me the names of four or five that he knew to be friendly, and another whom I marked as questionable: the balance, if I am not very much mistaken, _he would have to share one fate_.” Truly, this was strange advice from a minister of the Gospel of peace, and from one who wished the bishop to assure the Indians “that we do not wish Americans to come from below to avenge our wrongs,” etc.

But apart from the credibility of the witness Spaulding, and the impossibility of the Catholic missionaries stirring up the Protestant Indians to the work of death, even if they so desired, not to speak of their early, continuous, and indignant denials of every statement and assertion put forth by the Oregon fanatics, we have the evidence of several persons, all Protestants we are inclined to believe, who were either in the neighborhood at the time, or arrived soon after. R. T. Lockwood, an old resident of Oregon and a prominent contributor to the press, relates the following conversation which he had in 1851 with one of the Indians who was a spectator of the murder:

“Q. Do the Indians generally want the Catholic priests among them, and, if so, why do they prefer them to such men as Dr. Whitman?

“A. No, not generally; yet a considerable number do, and prefer them because they do not try to get our land away from us.

“Q. Did the priests that came among you, a little before the massacre, encourage the killing of Dr. Whitman and the others?

“A. No. The killing of Dr. Whitman was resolved on before the priests came.

“Q. Are you a Catholic Indian?

“A. No, sir.”

Some time after, Mr. Lockwood met a Mrs. Foster, one of the survivors. “I asked her,” he says, “if she thought the priest had anything to do 678 with the massacre, and she said she did not think he did, as he appeared very much pained, and was very kind and tender towards the survivors. I asked her, also, if she thought that the priest did all he safely could, and she answered, ‘I do.’” This impartial and well-informed gentleman winds up his letter thus: “Suffice it to say that, in all I ever heard said in regard to this lamentable massacre (and it has been much) _prior to the last two years_, there was not the slightest intimation of you or any other Catholic priest being implicated, or in any way responsible therefor.”[142]

“Why is the Catholic exempt from danger? Why can the Hudson Bay Company employee remain amid these scenes of blood and Indian vengeance against the white race, at peace, undisturbed, and, what is more loathsome, neutral in such a conflict?” asks the Hon. Elwood Evans of Spaulding, in 1868. The answer is simple. Because the Catholic priests treat the Indians with uniform kindness and justice; because they neither deceive them with false promises nor appropriate their lands and labor without payment, and because, being ministers of peace, they are opposed to strife; all of which Whitman, Spaulding, and his missionary companions did not and were not. And this brings us to the real cause of the massacre. For the sake of the Senate which desires information, and for Mr. Delano’s future history, we will give a few extracts from authorities which, if at all prejudiced, would be on the side of the Protestant view:

“‘I came to select a place for a mission,’ said he, ‘but I do not intend to take your lands for nothing. After the doctor is come, there will come every year a big ship, loaded with goods to be divided among the Indians. These goods will not be sold, but given to you. The missionaries will bring you ploughs and hoes, to teach you to cultivate the land, and they will not sell but give them to you.’... And there [among the Nez Perces] he made the same promises to the Indians as at Wailatpu.” (_Mr. John Toupin’s Statement, in 1848, of the Foundation of the Presbyterian Missions by Mr. Parker, in 1835._)

“Two years ago. 1846, a Cayuse came to my house in the Willamette settlement, and stopped with me over two weeks. During that time he often spoke of Dr. Whitman, complaining that he possessed the lands of the Indians, on which he was raising a great deal of wheat, which he was selling to the Americans, without giving them anything; that he had a mill upon their lands, and that they had to pay him for grinding their wheat, a big horse for twenty sacks. He said they told him to leave, but that he would not listen to them.” (_Ib._)

“A man of easy, don’t-care habits, that could become all things to all men, and yet a sincere and earnest man, speaking his mind before he thought the second time, giving his views on all subjects without much consideration, correcting them when good reasons were presented, yet, when fixed in the pursuit of an object, adhering to it with unflinching tenacity. A stranger would consider him _fickle_ and _stubborn_.” (_Character of Dr. Whitman by a brother missionary, Rev. W. H. Gray._)

“The Americans had done them much harm. Years before, had not one of their missionaries suffered several of their people, and the son of their chiefs, to be slain in his company, yet himself escaped? Had not the son of another chief (Elijah), who had gone to California to buy cattle, been killed by Americans for no fault of his own?... So far as regarded the missionaries, Dr. Whitman and his associates, they were divided, yet so many looked on the doctor as an agent in promoting the settlement of the country with whites, it was thought best to drive him from the country, together with all the missionaries, _several years_ before. Dr. Whitman had known that the Indians were displeased with his settlement among them. They had told him of it; they had 679 treated him with violence, they had attempted to outrage his wife, had burned his property, and had several times warned him to leave their country, or they should kill him.” (_River of the West_, p. 400.)

“The fulfilment of the laws which the agent recommended for their adoption, ... occasioned suspicions in the minds of the Indians generally that the whites designed the ultimate subjugation of their tribes. They saw in the laws they had adopted a deep-laid scheme of the whites to destroy them and take possession of their country. The arrival of a large party of emigrants about this time, and the sudden departure of Dr. Whitman to the United States, with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as many as he could enlist for Oregon, served to hasten them to the above conclusions.... The great complaint of the Indians was that the Boston people [Americans] designed to take away their lands, and reduce them to slavery.” (_Rev. Gustavus Hines, D.D., assistant of Spaulding, in Pub. Doc. No. 37, on the Nez Perces in 1843, History of Oregon_, p. 143.)

“They [the Indians] were demanding unreasonable pay for their lands upon which the stations were erected, and paying but little or no attention to their American teachers.” (_Gray’s History of Oregon_, p. 365.)

“The fact is also shown that, as far back as 1835, the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains protested against the taking away of their lands by the white races, and this was one of the alleged causes of the murder of Dr. Whitman.” (_J. Ross Browne, Special Agent of the Treasury, Report to the Com. of Indian Affairs_, Dec. 4, 1857.)

Thus we find that, whatever credit may be claimed for Dr. Whitman as a colonist, his course toward the people whom he was sent to evangelize was anything but just or Christian; for he not only did not pay for his own land, but helped others to steal also, and he admits himself that for some years he had utterly neglected the spiritual and mental duties of his mission. But there were other and not less potent causes at work. Of his “esteemed friend Dr. Whitman,” Sir James Douglass, chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, writes on December 9, ten days after the massacre:

“He hoped that time and instruction would produce a change of mind--a better state of feeling toward the mission, and he might have lived to have seen his hopes realized, had not the measles and dysentery, following in the train of immigrants from the United States, made frightful ravages this year in the upper country. Many Indians have been carried off through the violence of the disease, and others through their own imprudence. The Cayuse Indians of Wailatpu, being sufferers in this general calamity, were incensed against Dr. Whitman for not exerting his supposed supernatural power in saving their lives. They carried this absurdity beyond the point of folly. Their superstitious minds became possessed of the horrible suspicion that he was giving poison to the sick instead of wholesome medicine, with the view of working the destruction of the tribe, his former cruelty probably adding strength to their suspicions. Still, some of the reflecting had confidence in Dr. Whitman’s integrity, and it was agreed to test the effects of the medicine he had furnished on three of their people, one of whom was said to be in perfect health. They unfortunately died, and from that moment it was resolved to destroy the mission. It was immediately after burying the remains of these three persons that they repaired to the mission and murdered every man found there.”

Several other contemporary writers confirm this calm statement of events, which in themselves were enough to drive ignorant and desperate savages (for it must be borne in mind that Dr. Whitman had given up instructing them for some years to attend to his wheat and horses) to commit any act of murder or rapine. To show that the “horrible suspicion” of having been poisoned was not a mere groundless suspicion on the part of the Indians, we present the following testimony:

“I spent the winter of 1846 in Dr. Whitman’s employment. I 680 generally worked at the saw-mill. During the time I was there, I observed that Dr. Whitman was in the habit of poisoning wolves. I did not see him put the poison in the baits for the wolves; but two of his young men of the house, by his order, were poisoning pieces of meat, and distributing them in the places where the wolves were in the habit of coming, at a short distance around the establishment of the doctor. The doctor once gave me some arsenic to poison the wolves that were around the saw-mill.... Some Indians who happened to pass there took the meat and ate it; three of them were very sick, and were near dying.... Mr. Gray, who was then [1840] living with the doctor, offered us as many melons to eat as we liked, but he warned us at the same time not to eat them indiscriminately, as some of them were poisoned. ‘The Indians,’ said he, ‘are continually stealing our melons. To stop them, we have put a little poison on the bigger ones, _in order that the Indians who will eat them might be a little sick_.’” (_Statement of John Young, corroborated by Augustine Raymond._)

In addition to these acts of imprudence, the doctor, it seems, had earned for himself an unenviable unpopularity. He was constantly extorting overpay in horses from them, and threatening them with soldiers and emigrants if they refused it. After having a quarrel with them on one occasion, “during which they insulted him, covered him with mud,” and even attempted his life, “he started for the United States, telling the Indians that he was going to see the great chief of the Americans, and that when he would return he would bring with him many people to chastise them; the Indians had been looking to his return with great fear and anxiety.”[143] At another time, in the fall of 1847, he said to the Indians at Walla Walla in the presence of several white men, “Since you are so wicked, such robbers, we shall send for troops to chastise you, and next fall we will see here five hundred dragoons, who will take care of you.” But even Doctor Whitman, “fickle and obstinate” as he was, could not entirely overlook the dangers that beset him for so many years, and at the solicitation of his friend had been preparing to leave his station long before the arrival of the Catholic missionaries. Mr. Thomas McKay, whom the doctor had invited to stop the winter of 1847-8 with him for protection, says, “He told me repeatedly, during the last two years especially, that he wished to leave, as he knew the Indians were ill-disposed toward him, and that it was dangerous for him to stay there; but that he wished all the chiefs to tell him to go away, in order to _excuse himself to the Board of Foreign Missions_.” Dangerous and fatal mistake, which cost the lives of thirteen innocent people, and closed the unfortunate man’s earthly career!

Now for the affair of the young woman Miss Bewley, who is described in _Pub. Doc. No. 37_, p. 35, indifferently as an “amiable young saint,” a “dear girl,” and “an angel.” It is charged that, when Five Crows demanded her for his wife, and she refusing to go with him, the bishops and priests urged her to go, and even thrust her out-of-doors when she refused. So little credence was given this specific calumny, for many years after the alleged occurrence, that the only mention we find made of it in _The Murder of Dr. Whitman_ is the following paragraph:

“Before taking leave of the chiefs, the bishop said to them all publicly, as he had also done several times privately, that those who had taken American girls should give them up immediately. And then all entreated Five Crows to give up the one he had taken, but to no purpose.”

Now let us hear Father Brouillet’s account of the affair in 681 contradiction to Miss Bewley’s deposition:

“We did,” says the reverend gentleman, “all that charity could claim, and even more than prudence seemed to permit. We kept her for seventeen days in our house, provided for all her wants, and treated her well, and if she had minded us, and heeded our advice and entreaties, she would never have been subjected to that Indian. When she came first to our house, and told us that Five Crows had sent for her to be his wife, we asked her what she wanted to do. Did she want to go with him, or not? She said she did not want to go with him. ‘Stay with us, then, if you like; we will do for you what we can,’ was our offer. When the evening came, the Indian chief called for her. The writer then requested his interpreter to tell him that she did not want to be his wife, and that, therefore, he did not want her to go with him. The interpreter, who was an Indian, allied by marriage to the Cayuses, and knew the chiefs disposition well, would not provoke his anger, and refused to interpret. The writer, then making use of a few Indian words he had picked up during the few days he had been there, and with the aid of signs, spoke to the Indian himself, and succeeded in making him understand what he meant. The Indian rose furiously and without uttering a word went away. The young woman then got frightened, and wanted to go for fear he might come back and do us all an injury. The writer tried to quiet her, and insisted that she should remain at our house, but to no avail; she must go, and off she went. The Indian, still in his fit of anger, refused to receive her, and sent her back. She remained with us three or four days undisturbed; until one evening, without any violence on the part of the Indian, or without advising with us, she went with him to his lodge. She came back the next morning, went off again in the evening, and continued so, without being forced by the Indian, and part of the time going by herself, until at last she was told to select between the Indian’s lodge and our house, as such a loose way of acting could not be suffered any longer. That was the first and only time that she offered any resistance to the will of the Indian; but, indeed, her resistance was very slight, if we can believe her own statement.”

This is a very different account from that sworn to by Miss Bewley, but written by Spaulding, as he says himself, _Ex. Doc. No. 37_, p. 27: “I would go to an individual, and take down in writing what he or she knew, and then go before a magistrate, and the individual would make an oath to the statement, the officer certifying.” There is no mention that the parties were permitted to read what their amanuensis took down, and all who are acquainted with such _ex-parte_ depositions know how easily it would be to alter their sense and meaning by an unscrupulous person--which we are about to show Spaulding to be. In this very statement there are two interpolations, one of eight lines on page 35 of _Ex. Doc. No. 37_, beginning with the words “I arose,” and one of six on the following page, at “The next day,” which materially alter the whole meaning of the document. This alteration of a sworn statement by any but the affiant is at common law _forgery_, and ought to entitle the person who makes it to the delicate attention of the prosecuting attorney of his county. Whether the saint and angel, Miss Bewley, is now aware of the forgery connected with her name we know not, but we trust that the Senate will make a note of it for the benefit of future historians. But Spaulding, who is described by his co-missionary Gray as “quite impulsive and bitter in his denunciations of a real or supposed enemy,” in endeavoring to make out a case, is not content with altering one affidavit. That of Mr. Osborne (_Ex. Doc. No. 37_, p. 32) is also materially changed in several places from the original, and the official reports of Mr. McLane (_Ex. Doc._ p. 33) and of Dr. White are doctored in a manner 682 that we venture to say would render it difficult for the writers themselves to recognize them. Even the plain statements of _The Murder of Dr. Whitman_ are garbled in a most palpable and scandalous manner.

As to the other auxiliary charges against the Catholic missionaries, and the answers of Abernethy and a few others to questions propounded by Spaulding, we do not consider them worthy of serious attention. They are all directly or indirectly the creatures of Spaulding’s fertile imagination, who, if not crazy as Colonel Gilliam said, has allowed his hatred of Catholicity to carry him down to fearful depths of crime, to calumny, falsehood, and forgery. His motives are apparent, the gratification of his lust for revenge, and his hatred of our faith; that of the associations who have signed his outrageous statements is the present flourishing existence of the Catholic missions in every part of Oregon; and the end proposed is to compass their destruction by appealing to the religious prejudices of the authorities at Washington. We have too much confidence in the wisdom and good sense of the Executive and Congress to suppose that they will be influenced by such inflammatory appeals--bearing on their face the palpable impress of dishonesty and prejudice--and attempts to disturb the good fathers in their labor of love, as well as of hardships and suffering; and we expect soon to hear of those fanatics receiving a fitting rebuke in our Senate for attempting to make that august body the vehicle of perpetuating the vilest sort of falsehoods and slanders against the Catholics of this country.

[130] _Ex. Doc. No._ 37, U. S. Senate, XLIst Cong., IIId Session. 1870-1.

[131] Victor’s _The River of the West_, p. 400.

[132] _Works of Stephen Olin_, vol. ii. pp. 427, 428.

[133] Gray’s _Hist. of Oregon_, pp. 231, 246.

[134] _History of Oregon._ By G. Hines.

[135] _Murder of Dr. Whitman_, pp. 23, 24.

[136] Gray’s _History of Oregon_, p. 235.

[137] _Murder of Dr. Whitman_, p. 89.

[138] _Murder of Dr. Whitman_, p. 46.

[139] _Murder of Dr. Whitman_, pp. 53-55.

[140] The five Cayuses who were hung in Oregon City, June 3, 1850, as accomplices in the massacre, were all Protestants, and remained so till they received their death sentence. All the others who are known as murderers, among whom were Lumsuky, Tamahas, and the two sons of Tilokaikt, were also Protestants. Joseph Stainfield, Jo Davis, and the other half-breed, who, it is said, plundered the dead, if anything, were certainly not Catholics. Three of the condemned on the morning of the execution solemnly declared that the Catholic missionaries had nothing whatever to do with the murder. The following letter to the Bishop of Walla Walla, from the Archbishop of Oregon City, will be found interesting:

OREGON CITY, June 2, 1850. The supposed Cayuse murderers will be executed to-morrow. They have abandoned Dr. Whitman’s religion and have become Catholics. I am preparing them for baptism and for death. F. N. BLANCHET, Archbishop of Oregon City.

[141] _Oregon American._

[142] Letter of R. T. Lockwood to Very Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, V.G., Sept. 29, 1871.

[143] Toupin’s statement.

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AFFIRMATIONS.

“Why does man go about organizing systems, when he himself must be reorganized?”

“The thing to be done will not unite the doers.”

“When man forgets what he is, he soon is put into a state of uneasiness, and made to suffer in pain what was designed for him to be pleasure.”

“We are always learning the way that heaven acts, but are very shy to invite it to act upon us, and are very unwilling to submit to the preparatory process.”

“Self-improvement by the selfish spirit is the most deceitful of all deceits.”

“While you persevere in washing a man’s face with dirty water, it will never be clean; you must get pure water to wash with.”

“A child is a religious being prior to its being an intellectual being; and must not be turned away from the divine order.”

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AN AFTERNOON AT ST. LAZARE. 683

We paid a visit yesterday (Sunday) to St. Lazare, and all that we saw and heard there struck us as so interesting, and so entirely different from our preconceived notions concerning that ill-famed centre of crime and punishment, that we cannot but think our readers will likewise be interested in hearing a detailed and accurate account of it.

We had been told that the famous _pétroleuse_, charged with the murder of Monseigneur Surat, was still there, and we could not resist the opportunity offered us by a friend of going to see this extraordinary type of female ferocity--the woman who put a pistol to the prelate’s head, and, when he mildly asked her what he had done to her that she should hate him so, replied: “You are a priest!” and shot him on the spot. On arriving, however, we found that she had left for Versailles the night before. There were still fourteen of her terrible compeers remaining out of the four hundred and thirty that had been taken on the barricades and in the general saturnalia of the Commune and locked up in St. Lazare.

We visited the prison from beginning to end. Nothing surprised us so much as the gentleness of the _régime_, and the absence of all mystery or personal restraint in the management of the prisoners. The jail had nothing of the repulsive paraphernalia of a prison about it, and but for its massive walls, its vast proportions, and a certain indescribable gloom in the atmosphere, inseparable, we suppose, from the mere presence of such a population, one might very well have mistaken it for an orphanage or any ordinary asylum conducted by a religious community.

The _salles_ are magnificently spacious and lofty, with broad, high windows opening on courts; there are four courts--_préaux_ they are called--one after another, within the precincts of the prison; the beds are like hospital beds; and there was nothing in the dress of the women, or the manner of the nuns toward them, to tell an uninitiated visitor that they were not patients rather than prisoners and malefactors of the worst kind. There was the same silence brooding over the place, the same quiet regularity in all the arrangements, the same supernatural sort of cleanliness that one never sees anywhere but in convents. The population of the prison varies from 1,200 to 1,800, and the government of these dangerous and desperate subjects is committed to the sole charge of a community of religious called _Sœurs de Marie-Joseph_. They are fifty in all. Their dress is black serge, with a black veil lined with a light-blue one. They were founded at the close of the last century by a Lyonnese lady, whose name the superioress told us, but we forgot it.

It was just two o’clock when we arrived, and the superioress and another nun gave up assisting at vespers in order to show us over the house, which from its immense size takes two hours to visit in detail. The prisoners are divided into several categories, and are kept distinctly separate from each other. There are first the _Prévenues_, who are put in on an accusation which has not been 684 investigated; then the _Détenues_, against whom proof is forthcoming, and who are awaiting their trial; then there are the _Jugées_, of whom the categories are various, as will be seen. These classes are never allowed to come in contact, even accidentally, with each other; they do not even meet at meals. Those who are condemned to one year’s imprisonment remain at St. Lazare, but if the sentence extends to a year and a day, they are sent off to one of the _Succursales_. When their term is expired (those who are sentenced to a year only), they may continue at St. Lazare if they choose. Many of them, touched with grace, and sincerely converted from their evil courses, dread going back to old scenes and temptations that have proved so fatal to them, and beg to be kept as _filles de service_ for the work of the house, or in the workshops, etc., and they are never refused. The superioress said they made very active official servants, and it is very seldom they fall away from their good resolves, and have to be expelled or punished. We were passing through one of the passages when a sudden noise of voices from the court made us go to the window and look out. We saw a troop of prisoners pouring out into the yard; they were running about, laughing and chatting, and apparently enjoying their momentary liberty with the zest of school-boys.

“Who are these, _ma mère_?” we inquired.

“_Hélas!_” The exclamation was accompanied by a sufficiently expressive gesture.

“They are generally a very numerous class here,” she explained; “but just now there are but some two hundred of them; the _pétroleuses_ were largely recruited from their ranks, and great numbers of them have been sent on to Versailles.”

Some one asked if these unfortunates were more refractory than the other prisoners, thieves, etc.

“As a rule, they are less so,” replied the nun; “we hardly ever are obliged to have recourse to the _gardiens_ with them, and we have more frequent conversions amongst them than any other class of prisoners. There comes a time to many of them, especially if they have had any seeds of religious belief sowed in their minds in childhood, when the future both of this world and the next comes on them with a sense of horror, and then grace has an easy task with them. I could tell you of miracles wrought in the souls of these poor sinners that would sound like tales out of the lives of the saints, and we have had deathbeds among them little short of saintly. But, again, we too often see all our efforts fail, and they reject grace with a sort of demoniacal obduracy, and go back to their old lives without a moment’s passing compunction: nothing seems to touch them or frighten them.”

We asked if the nuns were not afraid of them, if they never threatened or insulted them.

“Oh! never!” replied the superioress emphatically; “the command we have over them, and the way they yield obedience and respect to us, is almost miraculous. You see these poor outcasts down there; I suppose there is nothing in the world more lost or degraded than they are; they are the lowest specimens of the lowest stratum of vice and every species of depravity. Well, the youngest nun in the community is as safe in the middle of them as if they were all honest _mères de famille_. I have been a religious twenty-two years, and out of that ten years at St. Lazare, and I have never known them use an expression to any of 685 us that called for reprimand.”

We may add that she said the great majority of these offenders were girls from the provinces, young and inexperienced for the most part, and who come to Paris expecting to make their fortune, and unprepared for the temptations awaiting them in this great trap for souls.

We saw the words _Oratoire Israelite, Oratoire Protestant_, painted over two doors, and the latter suggested the inquiry whether there were occasionally any English women amongst the inmates of St. Lazare.

“Oh! yes, I am sorry to say we have a good many English,” said the mother; and then, shaking her head and smiling, she added: “And I am sorry to tell you that they are the most unmanageable of all, for they are generally given to drink, and when this is the case they are like mad-women and we can do nothing with them. A little while ago we had one who got into such a fearful fit of fury that it was necessary to put her in the lock-up; her shrieks were so loud that they were heard half over the place, and terrified the young _détenues_; toward evening she grew so outrageous that the _gardiens_ were sent to put her into the strait-waistcoat--they are powerful men with strong hands and iron nerves, and trained to the work--but she baffled four of them for two hours; they were not able to seize or hold her; at last they gave it up in despair, and said: It is no use, we must go for _les sœurs_! One of them came to fetch me, and beg me to come or send some one to help them. He was trembling in every limb, and the perspiration was pouring from his face as if he had been wrestling with a wild animal. I took one of the nuns with me, and we went down to the prison, where we were obliged to spend the whole night with the prisoner, coaxing and caressing her, before we got her to calm down and cease shrieking.”

We asked to what class in life the English culprits generally belonged--if they were exclusively of the lowest? The superioress said, on the contrary, they were often persons very _comme il faut_ in their manners, and evidently had had an education far above the class of domestic servants--some of them were in fact quite like ladies; she believed they were mostly governesses, or teachers who come over to Paris in search of situations or lessons, and, not finding either, are driven by hunger and despair to steal, or do worse; but theft is generally the offence of the English prisoners.

“Sometimes, indeed,” said the superioress, “it makes us laugh to hear the account of the thefts they commit, there is often something so comical in the way they do it, and the cunning and dexterity they display are beyond belief; the most accomplished French _filou_ cannot hold a candle to them.”

Sad as this testimony was, it could not be quite a surprise to any one living in Paris who had seen much of the class of English alluded to, but it will come probably as a new and terrible revelation to many in England; and if this paper should fall into the hands of any lone, friendless English girl hesitating about coming to Paris to earn her bread, the writer prays God she may ponder on the foregoing statement, and think twice before embarking on so perilous a venture.

Several _salles_ are filled with a class of prisoners called _jeunes insoumises_; they are all very young, some merely children of the day; they are not always actual criminals, sometimes they are only subjects with dangerous propensities beyond the control of parents, and they are sent here to be trained to better ways; especial pains are directed 686 to these juvenile offenders, and the result is often very consoling. The superioress said they had lately had a baby of six years old brought in for stealing. “It was only a cake that tempted the poor little mite,” said the mother deprecatingly, “but she was very naughty and unmanageable otherwise, and the parents were glad of a pretext to get rid of her for a time.”

It was not only of such innocent culprits as this that the superioress spoke with indulgence, her large-hearted charity took in all the lost inhabitants of the dismal abode in which she dwelt and toiled; and there was something unspeakably touching in the way she every now and then seemed to try as it were to excuse the worst among them, to plead for them indirectly by showing up any remnant of good in them. We met the women we mentioned our seeing out at recreation on their way along a corridor; they walked singly, with their arms crossed; we were quite close to them as they passed us; and anything more ignoble than their features it would be difficult to conceive--the expression of the faces was scarcely human; they resembled vicious animals in human shape rather than women. This struck us all so forcibly that we could not help making the remark to the superioress. She seemed positively hurt, as if we had said something personally unkind to her, and, on my expressing some pagan surprise at it, she broke out into such a tender pleading for “those dear souls whom our Lord longs for and that cost him so dear” that, though I felt thoroughly rebuked, I could not be sorry for having called out her protest. It was like having laid one’s hand roughly and unawares on a vibrating instrument that sent out a strain of heavenly music.

“Oh!” she continued, with such a look as I shall never forget, “if we only knew what the value of a soul is, how precious it is in the eyes of God, we would never look with disgust at the poor wretched body that holds it; but I assure you when one comes near to those poor sinners the disgust soon wears off, and we think of nothing but their souls, their precious, immortal souls, that were bought at such a price!”

The more we listened to her and observed her, the less surprised we were at the universal respect, worship I might almost call it, that greeted her presence everywhere--it was so spontaneous and so free from anything like fear or servility. As soon as she appeared at the door of a work-room, or a class, or a dormitory, the prisoners rose immediately to salute her; and several times I noticed some of them make signs to others who were not looking, or touch them on the shoulder, to stand up and welcome the mother. She generally said a word to them _en passant_: “Good-morning, my children! Are you behaving well?” etc., and then there was a ripple of curtsies and a perfect clamor of “Yes, mother, thank you!” and the hard, bad faces would brighten for one moment with a smile.

The influence of the nuns with the prisoners is indeed little less than a permanent miracle, Among other instances of it, the superioress told us the following: “A desperate woman, charged with misdemeanors of the worst kind, was brought to the prison. She was the daughter of a butcher, and,” added the superioress, laughing, “I beg you to believe that her manners were just what might have been expected.” A few days after her arrival she broke out into a fit of mad fury, and the _gardiens_ had to be sent for to take her to the _cachot_; but as soon as she saw them enter the _salle_, she drew a huge pair of scissors 687 from her pocket--how she came by it we never discovered--and, holding it open and pointed at them with one hand, she beckoned them with the other to come on, yelling all the while like a raging lioness. The men tried to terrify her, to dodge her, but it was all useless, she baffled every attempt to seize her. They gave it up as hopeless, and came for me. She no sooner saw me than she cried out: ‘Send them away, and I will go with you; but I will never move a foot with these men!’ I sent them away, and told her to give me the scissors; she gave it at once, and then I took her by the hand and led her off without a word.

“On another occasion, one section of prisoners got up a scheme for killing the _gardiens_. They were to tie their wooden _sabots_ into clusters of eight together, and when the _gardiens_ came to convey some refractory subject to the _cachot_, the others were to fling several batches of these formidable missiles at their heads. The effect must have been fatal, but fortunately there was some delay in the appearance of the _gardiens_, and the prisoners, having all ready, grew impatient, and at last, losing all control, they began to yell and call out for them and brandish their _sabots_ furiously. The nun who was in waiting ran down to warn the _gardiens_ not to come up, and then came to tell me what had happened, and to consult about sending for the soldiers, who are always ready at the _poste_ outside the prison; the _gardiens_ were frightened, and advised this being done. I thought, however, the storm would subside without having recourse to such an extreme measure. I was not the least afraid of the women personally; I knew they would never lay a finger on one of _us_, whatever their fury might be, so I walked into the midst of them.

“‘What is this row about?’ I said. ‘I am ashamed of you; let me hear no more of it.’ Then taking the ringleader--we always know the one to pitch upon--I told her I must put her in prison; she made no resistance, only stipulating that the _gardiens_ were not to touch her.”

“Are the _gardiens_ cruel to them that they hate them so much?” I asked.

“No, never,” she answered; “they have no opportunity for it if they felt so inclined; but they represent strength and justice, whereas the nuns represent only weakness and pity; the prisoners resent the one, but not the other.”

Some one asked the superioress if she had ever known a conspiracy attempted to kill or hurt any of the sisters. She replied never, on which we related to her an episode of the Roman prisons, told us recently by the Papal Nuncio. The female prisons in Rome are, like St. Lazare, conducted entirely by nuns, without even the moral support of a _poste_ at the gates to enforce their authority. One day a plot was organized for doing away with the nuns and making their own escape from the prison. The prisoners were sixty in number and the nuns twelve, so the scheme offered little serious difficulty. It was agreed that on a certain day when all the community were assembled with the prisoners in the workroom, the latter were to seize the nuns and fling them out of the windows into the yard. The signal agreed upon was the close of the work-hour, when the superioress clapped her hands for them to put aside their work. The secret was so well kept that not a hint transpired, but the superioress felt instinctively there was something abnormal brewing. She had no apprehension at the moment, 688 however, and gave the signal as usual when the clock struck the hour. No one moved. She repeated it. Still no one stirred. She gave it a third time more emphatically, and then the leader of the band walked straight up to her and struck her a blow on the face. The meek disciple of Jesus quietly knelt down, turned the other cheek, and said:

“If I have done you any harm, tell me so, but if not, why do you strike me?”

The woman fell upon her knees, burst into tears, and confessed everything. When the superioress had heard her to the end, she said:

“Now, my daughter, I must take you to the dungeon; you know this is my duty.”

“Yes, mother, I know it is,” and she gave her hand, and let herself be led away as meekly as a lamb.

How omnipotent is the power of love, and how lovely this world would be if love were allowed to rule over it everywhere!

Before we had finished our inspection of the house, we went to benediction in the prison chapel. There was a short sermon first on the gospel of the day. About eight hundred of the prisoners were present. Some were yawning, and evidently only there because they could not help themselves, others assisted with edifying devotion, but all were respectful in their attitude and demeanor. The organ was played by one of the nuns, and the choir, was formed of prisoners from the class already alluded to. The singing was not very scientific, but it struck us all as peculiarly touching, the more so, no doubt, from the associations connected unconsciously with the choristers. The superioress said it was looked upon as a great privilege to sing in the choir, and it is held out as a reward for sustained efforts and good conduct. As we saw the little altar lighted up, and the golden rays of the monstrance shining down upon the singular congregation, one could not but think what a grand and beautiful manifestation of redeeming love it was, this presence of the God of holiness, a willing prisoner in such a temple. There were the Sisters of Marie-Joseph, women of the purest, most unblemished lives, self-devoted victims to the God who died on Calvary for outcasts and sinners, kneeling side by side in unloathing sisterhood with the vilest offscourings of this great Babylon. A sight wonderful beyond all human understanding if the mystery were not explained to us by the voice from out the little crystal prison-house: “I came to seek sinners, and to dwell with them.... And whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do likewise to me.... And there is more joy in heaven for the return of one sinner than for ninety-nine of the just.”

And many are the joys given to him and his saints by the inmates of this great emporium of sinners. Last All Saints’ day five hundred of the prisoners approached the sacraments, some in the most admirably penitent spirit, but all of their own free will, and for the moment at least with hearts touched by grace and turned away from evil. They were prepared for the feast by a retreat of eight days, preached by a Marist father.

After benediction we resumed our inspection, and came finally to the _pétroleuses_. There was nothing in the room where they were, or their surroundings, to distinguish them from the other prisoners, and if the superioress had not whispered to us as we were entering the dormitory that these were the women, we should never have suspected the bright, orderly room to be the den of wild beasts it was. An American lady who 689 was of our party amused the nuns by asking repeatedly: “But where are the wicked ones?” She could not persuade herself--and indeed it was difficult--that the hundreds of women we saw so gently ruled, and held as it were with silken cords, were the most dangerous and abandoned characters of the metropolis. The fourteen _pétroleuses_ were not dressed in the prison livery, but wore their own clothes: some of them were very spruce and comfortable, but all were tidy and clean--none of them had a poverty-stricken look. They were nearly all of them standing in sullen silence beside their beds; one woman was dandling a baby, a white-faced, shrivelled little object, tricked out in a fine blue frock with little flounces. We think we said there had been four hundred and thirty of these _pétroleuses_ in the prison. The superioress said they had behaved very well there, and never once obliged the soldiers to interfere. They were cold-blooded, defiant creatures, but this was not their sphere of action; they bore no ill-will to the sisters; quite the contrary, many shed tears on going away. They fell into the discipline of the prison with great docility as to hours and rules, and seldom broke silence. On one point only they were intractable--they would not work.

“It’s bad enough to be conquered and butchered by Versailles,” they would answer, “but we are not going to work for them.” And neither threats nor entreaties could induce them to take a needle in their hand, or to sit down to a sewing-machine. It was no use explaining to them that they would not be working for Versailles, that they would work for themselves, and might buy extra food at the _cantine_ with their day’s earnings; no, they got it into their heads that Versailles would in some way or other be the better for their working, and nothing could get it out of them. The very name of Versailles used to rouse them to fury; it was like a red rag to a bull. They boasted of their exploits during the Commune as things to glory in. One swore she had set fire to five buildings, and her only regret was that she had been too late to set fire to St. Lazare. Many of her companions expressed the same regret with quiet effrontery, that would have been amusing if it had not been so appalling. Every one of them declared that if it were to begin over again, they would do just the same, only better, _because now they had more experience_.

“And what is your opinion, _ma mère_?” we said; “do you think it will begin again, and that the _pétroleuses_ are still in existence, or was it a type born with the Commune, and passed away with it?”

She replied unhesitatingly that she believed it would begin again, and that the _pétroleuses_ would come out in greater force than ever; that they were neither daunted nor disarmed by the failure of the Commune, but rather infuriated by defeat, and more resolute and reckless than before--reckless to a degree that only bad women can be, and ready to stake body and soul on their revenge. She said that the conduct of Versailles was weak and ill-judged beyond her comprehension; that they had far better have left these women free at once on the plea that they were women, if they did not mean to deal out their deserts to them; but now these desperate creatures were exasperated by incarceration, and by a mockery of a trial that either liberated them or sentenced them to a punishment they knew perfectly well the 690 government did not mean to carry out. It was like letting loose so many bloodhounds on France to set these women at large again.

“We have seen them _de près_,” continued the superioress, “and we are one and all convinced that the next attempt will be worse than the first; we have terrible days in store--the _pétroleuses_ have not said their last word.”

Speaking of the Commune led to our asking about her own experiences under it. It appears that the employees at St. Lazare, the director, inspector-general, and their assistants, were among the first turned out, and agents of the Hôtel de Ville installed in their places. The first thing these guardians of public justice did was to set free one-half of the population, such as were available for the public services; and able servants they proved themselves on the barricades and as incendiaries. To account for and in some measure palliate the superhuman ferocity displayed by the women of the Commune, we may as well mention here a fact not generally known, and which was told to us by a distinguished medical man, who was here all through that terrible saturnalia, and by a Sister of Charity, who could also speak from personal knowledge. It would seem that the snuff dealt out to the people from the government manufactories was mixed in large proportions with gunpowder. The effect of this ingredient, taken in very small quantities, is to excite the brain abnormally, but taken in large ones it brings on a kind of savage delirium tremens. The wine distributed to the _pétroleuses_ on the barricades and elsewhere was also heavily charged with some such element of madness. It seems to us that it is rather a consolation to hear this, for though it reveals a diabolical instinct of soul-hatred in the few, it explains, on the other hand, how it was that occasionally we saw young and hitherto mild, inoffensive women suddenly transformed into demons.

The superioress said that for the first three weeks that the nuns did duty for the Commune, nothing could exceed the respect and consideration they received from them.

“They were as docile as little girls to us,” she said, “and never did anything without coming to consult us. The _inspecteur-general_ named by the Commune happened to have formerly been a clerk at the prison. My surprise when I saw him in his new character, and with such credentials, was great; but he seemed himself very much ashamed, and when I asked him what had induced him to join the Commune, he replied that it was really devotion to the nuns; he had accepted the office because he knew we would want a protector, and he preferred being on the spot to watch over us. It was not laughing matter, or I could have laughed at his audacity. And he actually pleaded this argument on his trial at Versailles, and was acquitted on it! He had always been a well-conducted, honest man, and I am not sure but in the bottom of his heart this good intention toward us may not have been mixed up with a great many other less worthy ones. During all the time he was in constant communication with me, he never had the courage once to raise his eyes to my face. He told us a good deal about what was going on outside, and especially what the women were doing. He spoke in enthusiastic praise of their spirit and courage. He said the fort of Montrouge was lost one day but for a girl of seventeen, who, seeing the soldiers demoralized, and the gunners abandoning their guns and turning to fly, rushed up to one of them, and seized a light and put 691 it to the cannon, and so mocked the cowards, and taunted them all with cowardice and want of mettle, that she rallied every man of them and saved the place. But for this Versailles would have taken it. Ten minutes later, and the defence was abandoned. ‘Had it not been for this plucky little _diablesse_, we were lost!’ he exclaimed. Such traits as this prepared us for the _pétroleuses_ of a few weeks later, but he only saw patriotism and valor in them.”

Things went on very amicably between the gentlemen of the Commune and the sisters for three weeks. Then a change came over them. They were not openly rude, but there was what the superioress described as restrained fury in their manner toward the nuns, and the latter felt that the blood-fever was rising in them, and that they would soon break out into open mutiny. The superioress felt this more strongly than the rest, and she was sorely perplexed how to get her flock out of the way of the wolves while it was yet time. It was no easy matter, for, as she quaintly said, “One cannot send off fifty religious like fifty pins, in a box by mail,” and in the present state of mind of the Communists, to awake suspicion was to have the whole community seized and locked up forthwith. The first thing to be done was to procure permission from the Hôtel de Ville. She had been obliged to go of late several times to the prefecture on one business or another connected with her functions in the prison, so the authorities there knew her, and had always treated her with marked civility. She said that the first time she went there the faces of the so-called officials struck her as demoniacal, they were all of them half-drunk--men taken from the gutters of Belleville and Villette to fill offices of whose commonest outward forms they had no idea, yet they were as deferential to herself and the nun who accompanied her as so many priests might have been. This did not prevent her saying to her companion as soon as they were alone: “Well, if we did not believe in hell, the faces we have seen to-day would have revealed it to us.”

She applied for a permission to leave, and got it without any difficulty. She kept it in her pocket all that day, and the next morning she seemed to hear a voice saying to her interiorly: _Now is the moment_; send them off! The exodus was planned well, and carried out so discreetly, the nuns going in threes and fours at a time, that not a shadow of suspicion dawned on the employees--their jailers as they now considered them. All that day the superioress kept constantly with them, never letting them lose sight of her for a quarter of an hour at a time, coming and going perpetually, and making future arrangements for one thing or another, so as to put them more completely off the scent. It was only when evening came and there were but eight nuns in the house besides herself, that the flight was discovered. The rage of the director was undisguised. But if he could not catch the fugitives, he could revenge himself on the devoted ones who had shielded their flight at the peril of their own lives. The superioress was at work in the midst of the little remnant of her flock, when he rushed into the room, pistol in hand. A few words passed between them, angry on his part, calm and resolute on hers, then with an oath he left the room abruptly.

“I knew as well as if he had told me,” she said, “that he was gone to see if there was a vacant cell to put me in. I did not feel terrified--God gives such strong graces in moments like that!--but I 692 felt the same kind of internal voice saying to me: Now is your time; take the others and fly!

“We hurried down the stairs just as we were and went out. We turned to the left, and walked on as fast as we could, without running, toward the _Gare du Nord_. We could hardly have turned the corner of the street when the director was in pursuit of us. _Les Détenues_, who saw us leave the house and take to the left, called out to him: To the right, citoyen! They are not forty yards ahead! He followed the direction, and this saved us. We reached the station just as the train was about to move. The guards saw us coming, and cried out to us to make haste and jump in. ‘But our tickets! We have not taken them!’ I said.

“‘Never mind, jump in! You will pay at the other end,’ and they hustled us into the nearest carriage. We had not seated ourselves when the director appeared on the platform pistol in hand, and crying out frantically to the train to stop. But it moved on, and landed us safely at Argenteuil.”

A few days after the _Sœurs Marie-Joseph_ had cleared out from St. Lazare, the nuns of Picpus were taken there. This the superioress thought was one reason why the officials were anxious to get them out of their way; they meant to put the others there, and they did not want any inconvenient witnesses of their own proceedings.

When we had seen all that was to be seen in the vast building, the superioress took us to the private chapel of the community. It was formerly the cell of St. Vincent of Paul, that is to say, the space occupied by the sanctuary; the altar stands where his little bed used to be, and the window step is worn away by the pressure of his feet, when his increasing infirmities obliged him to have recourse to the solace of a footstool. The prison itself was formerly a Lazarist monastery; the refectory is exactly as it was in the time of St. Vincent, unchanged in all except its occupants; and the great, sombre corridors echoed for twenty years to the footsteps of the sweet apostle of charity. His memory is held in great veneration throughout the prison, and the population speak of him with a sort of rough, filial affectionateness that, the nuns told us, is often very touching; they seem to look on him as a friend who ought to stand by them.

I had nearly forgotten one incident in our visit that had a peculiar beauty of its own. We were passing by the open door of what seemed an infirmary; all the beds were occupied, and there were several nuns sitting in the room, when one of them ran out and said:

“Oh! _ma mère_, you will not pass without coming to say _bonjour_ to our old women. Ever since they heard you were showing the house, they have been watching for you.”

The superioress said it was late, and she really had not time just now, but the nuns begged harder, and said that the old women knew she was going into retreat that evening, so they would not see her for eight days, and the old women, seeing they were in danger of being refused, began to cry out so piteously that the mother, asking us if we would not mind walking down the ward, yielded, and we went in. These old women are all infirm and incurable, and have been sent as such from one hospital or another to St. Lazare. Their delight when the superioress came in and spoke a word to each was almost rapturous. I stood to speak to one old soul, but instead of detailing her own aches and pains after the usual manner of those dear, blessed, garrulous poor people, she burst out confidentially into ecstatic 693 praises of _notre mère_--how sweet and kind she was, and how she loved them all, and what she did for them, and what an angel she was altogether, “as indeed all the good sisters were,” the good soul made haste to assure us. We found, on comparing notes with our friends, that those to whom they spoke had improved the opportunity in the same way. It seemed quite a treat to them to find an audience for their grateful praises of the _Sœurs_. Indeed, as far as our view of them went, the Sisters of Marie-Joseph fully justify the love they receive so plentifully. The superioress is what the French would call _une maîtresse femme_, a combination of energy and gentleness, with a certain frank brightness of manner that is very winning to a stranger, and must be a great help, independent of stronger agencies, in enabling her to win the confidence and disarm the rebellious spirit of the women she has to deal with. It was wonderful to watch her as she passed on from _salle_ to _salle_, saying just the right little word to all of them, and bringing a smile on all the faces, old and young, good and bad. Her manner, while it was perfectly simple and familiar, never lost its dignity; but there was not the faintest shadow of that spirit which too often hinders the salutary influence of virtue over vice--keep off; for I am holier than you! With these infirm old women she was affectionate and caressing as a mother, petting them like children, and encouraging their fearless familiarity toward herself. They had been here all through the Commune, they told us, and witnessed from their windows--the infirmary is on the ground floor--all the scenes enacted in the court by _ces dames_, as they mockingly styled them, who had come to replace the _Sœurs_. But the worst of that terrible interval to them was the terror they were in of being burnt to death. They saw the flames rising on all sides from the conflagrations in the neighborhood of St. Lazare, and they were in momentary expectation of seeing the prison itself fired. The doors were opened for them to fly, but “_à quoi bon, puisque nous n’avions pas de jambes pour fuir?_” they observed jocosely. This was the last _salle_ we saw. Before the superioress took leave of the incurables, she asked them to pray for the nuns during their retreat, which was to begin that evening. They promised in chorus that they would, and one said: “We will offer up all our suffering this week for the good sisters,” and all the others pledged themselves to do the same.

So ended our visit to St. Lazare. It was a sad and yet an unutterably consoling one. We hear a great deal about the atheism and immorality and wickedness of Paris--and God knows there is plenty of them--but there is much also that is bright and pure and beautiful mixed up with the bad, if only we looked for it and proclaimed it. We would find the pearls of purity, and the rubies of charity, and the emeralds of hope, and the salt of the Holy Spirit, scattered everywhere amidst the general corruption, healing and redeeming it.

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THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION [144] 694

The Labor Question has become one of the most formidable questions--perhaps the most formidable question--of the day; and the worst feature of the question is that, though it has been looming up in the distance for nearly a century, and constantly coming nearer and nearer, and more and more pressing for a solution, the statesmen, reformers, and philanthropists of no country seem to know what answer to give it, or how to treat it. There is no lack of nostrums, and every petty politician is ready with his “Morrison pill”; but no one gives a satisfactory diagnosis of the case, and the remedies offered or applied have served thus far only to aggravate the symptoms of the disease.

There is a very general conviction among the workingmen themselves that, in the distribution of the joint products of capital and labor, capital gets the lion’s share. Capitalists, or they who can command capital or its substitute, credit, grow rich, become millionaires, from the profits of the labor they employ, while the laborer himself, with the most rigid economy and frugality, can barely keep soul and body together, and not always even that. Yet, if we look at the millions deposited by the laboring classes in our savings-banks, and the large sums collected from them for eleemosynary and other purposes not necessarily included in the expenses of living, this statement seems exaggerated. Then, too, the majority of the millionaires with us, and, perhaps, in England and France, began life as workmen, or, at least, without capital and with very little credit.

It is not easy to say precisely what the special grievances of the workingmen are, at least in our country, since comparatively few of the wealthy or easy classes of to-day inherited their wealth, or had to start with any appreciable advantages, pecuniary, educational, or social, over their compeers who have remained in the proletarian class. The International Association of Workingmen do not tell us very distinctly what their special grievances are, nor can we gather them from the eloquent lecture of their mouthpiece, Mr. Wendell Phillips, the candidate of the labor unions of Massachusetts for governor of that state. The evils he complains of, if evils, grow out of what is called “modern civilization,” and seem to us to be inseparable from it. This is also clearly his opinion, and _The Dublin Review_ shows that it is the view taken by the Internationals in England and France. Mr. Phillips says:

“Modern civilization is grand in seeming large and generous in some of its results, but, at the same time, hidden within are ulcers that confront social science and leave it aghast. The students of social science, in every meeting that gathers itself, in every debate and discussion, confess themselves at their wits’ end in dealing with the great social evils of the day. Nobody that looks into the subject but recognizes the fact that the disease is very grave and deep; the superficial observer does not know the leak in the very body of the ship, but the captain and 695 crew are suffering the anticipation of approaching ruin. Gentlemen, I am not here with the vain dream that we shall ever abolish poverty. My creed of human nature is too bitter for that. There will always be men that drink, and as long as there are such, there will always be poor men--shiftless men. There are always half-made men--nobody knows why they were born.

“Is civilization a failure? Stretch out your gaze over all the civilized world. There are, perhaps, in Christendom two or three hundred millions of people, and one-half of them never have enough to eat. And even in this country one-half of the people have never had enough of mental food. All over the world one-half of Christendom starves either bodily or mentally. That is no exaggeration. You may go to France or England, and find a million of men that never saw meat once a year. Take your city, and go down into the very slums of existence, where human beings by the thousands live year in and year out in dwellings which no man in Fifth Avenue would trust his horses in for twelve hours. I will take the great social spectre that confronts social science the world over--prostitution, the social ulcer that eats into the nineteenth century. And everybody who studies the subject will confess that the great root from which it grows is that the poverty of one class makes it the victim of the wealth of another. Give woman her fair chance in her own fields of enterprise, and ninety-nine out of a hundred will disdain to buy diamonds and velvets with the wages of shame. Give man his fair chance in the world of labor and enterprise, and ninety-nine out of a hundred men will disdain to steal. The grog-shops of the great cities have always appointed the municipalities as their own standing, committees. And this is at once the cause and effect of the poverty of the masses. I have known men who were intemperate in Boston cured by being sent to Paris. Why? Because in the brighter life, the more generous stimulant, the great variety of interest in the European capital, he found something that called out his nobler nature, starved out his appetites. So it is with the intemperance of a nation; and to cure it, you must supplement their life with the stimulus of the soul. Why is it that three-fourths of the criminals are of the poorer classes? Why do the students of crime tell you that when you have taken out about fifteen per cent. of the criminals, consisting of the enterprising, energetic, and intelligent, the rest are below par bodily and mentally? Because they are the children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of persons who were bodily and mentally weak. Out of these weak ones the devil selects his best tools. Feed that class better, and you will empty your prisons.”

This plainly enough attributes the evils the workingmen seek to remedy to modern civilization, which enables the few to become rich and leaves the many poor, destitute, festering in ignorance and vice. M. Desmoulins, in his _Apology for the Internationals_, as quoted by _The Dublin Review_, says: “The Parisian Red, far from being out of the pale of human nature, is only a spontaneous product of what is pompously styled modern civilization--a civilization that, resting to this hour on war between nation and nation, town and town, farm and farm, men and men, is still in many respects sheer barbarism.” As far as we are able to collect the views of the Association, it attributes the undefined grievances of the proletarian class to no one specific cause, but to modern civilization in general. In this, if the workingmen confine their objection to material civilization--the only civilization the age boasts or recognizes--we are not disposed to quarrel with them. Yet we all remember the outcry raised in all classes of society and from all quarters against the Holy Father, because he refused to form an alliance of the church with modern civilization, and for his supposed condemnation of it in the Syllabus. The International Association of Workingmen, whose members are spread over nearly the whole world, and are numbered by millions, is a vast 696 organized revolt against this boasted civilization of this nineteenth century. And so far it is not wholly without excuse, and even much may be said in its defence, though their proposed substitute for it may be utterly indefensible.

Modern material civilization, dating from the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, and more especially from the accession of the House of Hanover to the English throne, and the accession to power in England of what in the time of Swift and Addison was called the Urban party--money-changers, bankers, traders, merchants, and manufacturers--has been based on capital employed in trade and industry, in opposition to capital invested in land and agriculture. It is a shopkeeping and manufacturing and maritime civilization, essentially and eminently a burgher civilization, and resulting especially in the burgher class, or, as the French say, the _bourgeoisie_. A civilization based on material interests, and proposing the multiplication and amassing of material goods, necessarily produces the state of things which excites the opposition of Mr. Phillips and the Internationals. It creates necessarily an antagonism between the interests of capital and labor, and therefore between the employers, as representatives of capital, and the employed, or workmen. The interest of capital is to get labor at as low a rate of wages as possible; the interest of labor is to get as high a rate of wages as possible. This antagonism is inevitable.

Employers in vain pretend that the interests of capital and labor are the same. They are not so under a civilization based on Mammon, or under a civilization that seeks only the advancement of material interests, and invests capital only for the sake of material profit. In the struggle, the stronger party, under a material system, is always sure to succeed. And this is always the party of capital; for labor seeks employment to live--capital, for profit or gain; and the capitalist can forego profit more easily than labor can forego employment, since to live is more urgent than to gain. This secures the advantage always to the capitalist. The inequality which necessarily results cannot be overcome by equality of suffrage, or the extension of suffrage to the proletarian class, as politicians pretend; for, though numbers may triumph at the polls, the stronger interest, as our American experience proves, is sure to carry the victory in the halls of legislation. “The stronger interest in a country,” said Mr. Calhoun to the writer, “always in the long run wields the power of the country.”

Universal suffrage, which was defended on the ground that it would tend to protect labor against capital, has in fact a contrary tendency, and in practice almost invariably favors capital. The whole of our legislation--which so favors capital or its substitute, credit, or which mortgages the future for the present, and makes debt supply the place of capital, covers the towns with money or business corporations, and builds up huge monopolies--has grown up under a system of universal suffrage. In an age and country where material interests predominate, what the people, capitalists or proletarians, ask of government is, laws that facilitate the acquisition of wealth; but when such laws are enacted, not more than one man in a hundred can avail himself of the facilities they afford.

The great scientific discoveries of which we boast, and which have wrought such marvellous changes in our modern industrial world, were, as to their principles, made in a less material age than the present, 697 before the modern burgher civilization was fairly inaugurated; but their application to the mechanic arts, to production and transportation, whether by sea or land, has been made since, and chiefly within the last one hundred years. The introduction of labor-saving machinery has, to an extent not easily estimated, superseded human labor, broken up the small domestic industries, as carding, spinning, and weaving, carried on in the bosom of the family, and securing it a modest independence, and small farming, carried on chiefly by the father and his sons, and built up in their place large industries and large farming, beyond the reach of people of no means or small means but their labor, and in which human labor is employed only in the form of labor at wages. The introduction of machinery, or the working of mills or farms by machinery driven by steam or by horse-power, requires capital, or an outlay possible only to large capital or combinations of small capital. Take, for instance, the steam carder, spinner, and weaver; the mule, jenny, and power-loom; the patent mower, reaper, and horse-rake; threshing and winnowing machines--hardly any of them heard of or only beginning to be heard of in our own boyhood, at least in this country; take the railway and the locomotive--and you can easily see that modern industry, and in a measure even agriculture, fall necessarily into the hands of large capitalists, individual or corporate, and cannot be prosecuted on a small scale, at least profitably. We have corporations for condensing milk and making butter and cheese, regardless of our youthful friend the dairymaid, and for supplying us with ice. Perhaps nothing has tended so much to enlarge the inequality between capital and labor as the introduction of labor-saving machinery in nearly all branches of industry.

We do not make war on labor-saving machinery, which, we have heard it said, increases the power of capital six hundred million fold, though that seems to us hardly credible. We could not now do well without it. We could not well dispense with our cotton and woollen factories, and go back to the hand-cards, and spinning-wheel, and hand-loom which, in our own boyhood, were in every farmer’s house; but we cannot forget that the independence of the laborer--now a laborer at wages, and obliged to make cash payments for what he consumes--has gone with them to the advantage of the capitalist. We could not well dispense with railways, and yet there is no denying that they are monopolies, that labor cannot compete with them, and that they impose a heavy tax on labor. They also tend to convert the independent laborer into a workman at wages, and the freeman into the slave of machinery, to enrich a few railway presidents and directors, and stock-jobbers. Then, those great corporations, without souls, are not only stronger than the laborer, but stronger than the government. No great feudal lords in France or England were ever more formidable to the crown than such corporations as the Pennsylvania Central, the New York Central, the Union Pacific, with our National Bank system, are to the government, state or general. Neither state legislatures nor Congress can control them, and they have already made both simply their factor or agent.

There is a truth which cannot be denied expressed in the following paragraph from Mr. Phillips’ lecture:

“Now, look at it. You say, why do you find fault with 698 civilization? Tonight is a cold night, and you will go home to parlors and chambers warmed with the coal of Pennsylvania. Why don’t you have it here for $3 and $4 a ton? Why don’t you have it here at an advance of $1 or $2 over what it is sold for at the mouth of the pit? Because of the gigantic corporations and vast organizations of wealth. The capitalists gather three or four millions of tons in your city--sell it when they please, at such rates as they please, and the poor man struggling for his bread is the sufferer. A rich man is careful; he won’t put his foot in any further than allows of its being pulled back. If he heard a groan coming from the people at something he did, he would withdraw his investment, for nothing is more timid than wealth. But let that man take $100,000 or so and put it in with nine others, and make a capital of $1,000,000; then he is as bold as Julius Cæsar. He will starve out 13,000 coal miners. The London _Spectator_ says that the colossal strength of Britain has reason to dread the jointure of $456,000,000 of railroad capital. How much more should America have reason to dread such combinations, when Britain has more than ten times our wealth!”

Yet is there not some compensation to the proletarian class in the very system which tends so fearfully to increase their numbers and dependence? Grant that coal might be delivered from the mines in Pennsylvania in this city at $3 a ton; but suppose there were no railroads and no railway monopolies, could or would coal from the same mines be delivered in this city as cheap as it now is? Suppose there were no railways between this city and the great West, would wheat, flour, beef, pork, and the other necessaries of life be cheaper for the laboring class in this city than they now are? Railway companies may charge exorbitant rates of freight, and yet the laboring classes get the chief necessaries of life cheaper than they would, other things being equal or unchanged, without them. Those things might be cheaper in the localities where they are produced, but not elsewhere. The evil of these monopolies and corporations is not so much in the enhanced cost of living chargeable to them, as their multiplication of the class dependent on capital for employment; and in their power to shape the action of the government to their special interests. It is far better for the workman to depend on a single wealthy individual who is likely to have a soul than on a soulless corporation. The combination of capital in corporations for industrial or trading purposes founds an aristocracy, or ruling class, far more humiliating and crushing to the class below them than aristocracies founded on land and birth, education and manners.

This is the view taken by the Internationals. They war specially against the rule of the burgher class, which is now supreme in society, as formerly were the church, kings, and nobilities. In this opposition to the rule of the burgher class, supposing the means and methods of their warfare just and honorable, we confess we might sympathize with the Internationals, as we have always sympathized with the working-classes. We never have been able to get up much liking for an aristocracy based on Mammon, who, Milton tells us, was the meanest of all the angels that fell, and who, even in heaven, went about head down, and his eyes fixed on the gold of heaven’s pavement. It is well for no country when its ruling class are the moneyed or business class. Yet it would be difficult to say, as to our country at least, what class can be better trusted with the government, or what class has more virtue, more nobility of sentiment, chivalric feeling, nobler aims, or higher purpose. Nothing better from the proletarian class 699 could be expected, and, judging from the Paris Commune, nothing so good. The workingmen have all the love of money, all the sordid passions, low views, and degrading vices that can be charged to the burgher class, and, perhaps, fewer redeeming qualities. Civilization has descended to the burgher. What would it gain by descending to the proletary? But let us listen once more to Mr. Phillips:

“I think our civilization is better than anywhere in the world. Now, gentlemen, you say to me, What do you intend to do? Every man has a different theory, and I have no panacea. My theory is only this: I know that a wrong system exists, and that the only method in these states of turning the brains of the country on one side is to bring it into conflict, and organize a party. If I should ask one of your editors to-night to let me indite an article on labor and capital, very likely he would refuse me, or if he granted it, it might be because a fanatic like me would sell a copy or two. But if you will give me 50,000 votes on one side, and the balance impartially divided between your Fentons and Conklings and Seymours, I will show you every journal in the city of New York discussing the question with me. Labor is too poor to edit a column in a New York journal, but when it comes in the shape of votes, then those same journals cannot afford to disregard it. Now, let us organize it. The ultimate view which we aim at is co-operation, where there is no labor as such, and no capital as such--where every man is interested proportionately in the results. How will you reach it? Only by grappling with the present organizations of power in the nation. It is money that rivets the chains of labor. If I could, I would abolish every moneyed corporation in the thirty states. Yet I am not certain that that would be a wise measure, because it seems probable that the business of the nineteenth century can hardly be carried on without corporations; but if it be true that facility and cheapness of production are solely to be reached by the machinery of corporations, then I say, gentlemen, that the statesmanship of this generation is called upon to devise some method by which wealth may be incorporated and liberty saved. Pennsylvania has got to find out some method by which Harrisburg may exist without being the tail to the kite of the Pennsylvania Central.

“I think, in the first place, we ought to graduate taxes. If a man has a thousand dollars a year and pays a hundred, the man that has five thousand a year ought to pay five hundred. I would have a millionaire with forty millions of dollars taxed so highly that he would only have enough to live comfortably upon.”

That our civilization is the best in the world, it is patriotic to believe, and under several aspects it no doubt is so, or at least was so, a few years ago; but the burgher influence, which decides the action of government, is fast preventing this from continuing to be so. We were intended by nature to be a great agricultural people, and we have labored with all the force of the government and artificial contrivances to become, spite of nature, a great manufacturing and commercial people, like the people of Great Britain, as if our territory were as limited as that of the British Isles. Whatever advantages we possessed over the nations of the Old World in the beginning, we owed to the extent, cheapness, and fertility of our vast tracts of unoccupied lands, which enabled the working-man, after a few years of labor at wages, to become a land-owner, and to become the cultivator of his own Sabine farm. But the influence of the ruling classes, with its chief seats in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, has been steadily exerted since 1824 to deprive the country of these advantages, and to create as large a proletarian class as possible, so that no doubt, if, aside from the vast public works, or rather, the so-called internal improvements undertaken by private corporations, 700 and which give for the time employment to large numbers of workmen, skilled and unskilled, we now offer any advantages to the laborer over those he has abroad--at any rate, if we do, those advantages are fast disappearing.

We are no more favorable to the system of corporations than is Mr. Phillips; and the writer of this for years opposed with whatever abilities he had their creation and multiplication. He did so till he saw opposition could avail nothing to check their growth. No opposition can avail anything now, since the abolition of slavery has, in a great measure, identified the great planting interests of the South with the burgher interests of the North, as it was intended to do. For this Mr. Phillips is himself in no small degree responsible, and as an International, or a leader in the labor movement, he is only trying to undo what he hoped to do as an abolitionist. Philanthropy is an excellent sentiment when directed by practical wisdom and knowledge; but, when blindly followed, it creates a hundredfold more evil than it can cure, even if successful in its special aims. Even Mr. Phillips doubts if the corporation system can be safely abolished. We tell him there is no power in the country that can abolish it, because it governs the general government and nearly all the state governments. Give Mr. Phillips the fifty thousand votes he asks for, and the party he wishes to organize, he would, no doubt, become a power in elections, and could command an important place in the government for himself, and places also for his friends; but, however important the place to which he might be elected or appointed, he would find himself impotent to effect anything against the system he opposes, or in favor of the system he approves.

Mr. Phillips tells us that his main reliance is on the “education of the masses.” So do we, only we protest against calling the people who have rational souls “the masses,” as if they were piles or heaps of brute matter. But education given by the burgher civilization as educator, or suffered to be freely given by it, will tend to perpetuate that civilization, or the very system, social and industrial, which Mr. Phillips and the Internationals war against, not to displace or reform it. Let the education of all the children of the land be entrusted to a society whose principles were so admirably summed up and approved by a former governor of Massachusetts, namely, “Let the government take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor,” how much would the education given do to elevate or meliorate that society? No order of civilization or society ever does or ever can educate in reference to a higher ideal than its own. Hence the reason why the state or secular society cannot be a fit educator of children and youth, and why all education can be safely entrusted only to the spiritual society whose ideal is the God-man, perfect, and the highest conceivable.

Purely secular education proceeds on the assumption that men and nations always act as well as they know, or that all individuals and nations will act uniformly in reference to their own interests so far as they know them--an assumption disproved by every one’s daily experience, as well as by the universal experience of mankind. Mr. Phillips ought to know that men who ought to know better are often carried away by their lusts, their passions, the force of events, and social and other influences, to act in direct opposition to their 701 better judgment. There are comparatively few of us who cannot say with the heathen poet:

“Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora sequor.”

Men do wrong or fail to follow the right less from ignorance than from passion and infirmity of will. Society could not subsist if founded on what the philosophers in the last century called enlightened self-interest, or what Jeremy Bentham called “utility,” or “the greatest happiness” principle. What is wanted is something stronger than interest, something stronger than passion, which, while it enlightens the intellect, gives invincible firmness to the will.

The only power that can control this system, the evils of which Mr. Phillips points out, while its social and industrial tendencies he deplores, and adjust the various conflicting interests of society on the principles of justice and equity, is and must be supernatural. The English system of checks and balances, of restraining or balancing one interest by another, is a delusion, as the failure of the experiment fully proves. It restrains the weaker interests, but strengthens the stronger, makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and hence in no country do you find larger accumulations of wealth, and side by side with them a deeper or more widespread poverty or more squalid wretchedness. There are no resources in the order of nature for a people that adopts the burgher system, and makes material interests the great aim of life, from which power can be drawn adequate to overcome the evils of the system against which the Internationals wage their relentless war. We can find no deliverance in the natural order, and must seek it, if anywhere, in the supernatural, that is, in religion--and in a religion that speak with a supernatural authority, infuses into the soul a supernatural energy, and lifts it above the world and its systems or civilizations, above all earthly goods, and fixes its affections on the Unseen and the Eternal--a religion that gives light to the intellect and firmness to the will. It is only education in and by this religion that can avail anything.

But religion is precisely what the Internationals reject, hate, or despise--what the great body of the workmen in our towns, cities, and manufacturing villages have ceased to believe, and even with those of the so-called proletarian class generally who do not formally reject religion, it has ceased to be a power, to have any hold on the conscience, and has become a vague tradition or a lifeless form. It is pretty much the same with the burgher class, and was so with them before it was so with the proletarian class. Modern civilization itself is based on atheism, or the purely material order. Hence the evils the Internationals seek to remedy are the natural and inevitable result of the new order of civilization, not yet two centuries old. The Internationals see it, and make war on the existing civilization for that very reason. But on what principles, and in what interest? On the principles and in the interests of that very civilization itself. Their success would simply oust the burgher and put the proletary in his place. They introduce or propose not a higher and a nobler civilization, but, so far as there is any difference, a still lower and more degrading civilization.

The revolution that has been going on in society since the close of the fourteenth century has had several phases. The first phase was the union of the burghers and the sovereigns against the Pope and the feudal nobility, and resulted in the triumph of absolute monarchy 702 in the sixteenth century and the seventeenth. The second phase was the union of the burghers, or the _tiers état_, and the people or a portion of them against monarchy and the church, which issued in establishing the supremacy of the burghers. The third phase is that in the midst of which we now are, and is--monarchy and the church gone or assumed to be gone--that of the proletaries against burghers. Neither of the preceding phases of the revolution effected the good hoped for, or satisfied the revolutionary appetite, but really aggravated the social evils it was sought to remedy. The friends of the revolution said it did not go far enough, and stopped short of the mark. It has now descended to the bottom, to the lowest stratum, or to the lowest deep, and proposes to wrest the power from the burgher class and rest it in the proletarian class. It is some consolation to know that we at length have reached the last phase of the revolution, and that after its failure, as fail it will, nothing worse is to be feared. “When things are at worst, they sometimes mend.”

The principal objection to the Internationals is not that they oppose what is called modern civilization, or that they seek to remedy undeniable social evils; but that they seek to do it on false principles, by inadequate means, and unlawful and even horrible methods, and can only lose even by success.

The International has absorbed all the other labor unions, and may be said to represent the whole proletarian class in Europe and America, and its leaders are avowed atheists; they reject the entire supernatural order, disdain or contemn all forms of religion, and seek to redress the material by the material. This alone is sufficient in itself to condemn them. They reject not only religion, but also government, or the entire political and civil order. They will have no God, no king, no aristocracy, no democracy, no law, no court, no judges, but simply--we can hardly say what. Practically, they will fall under the authority of irresponsible and despotic leaders, governing in the name of nobody, and by their own passions or interests alone. They may aim at positive results, but at present their means are only adequate to the work of destruction. Thus an organized and secret, and, when practicable, open war on all religion, on God, on all authority, all law, and especially on capital or individual property. What positive result is to follow, Mr. Phillips confesses his inability to tell.

From Mr. Phillips we learn that they aim at the destruction of the whole modern industrial system, and propose that the workmen shall take possession of the establishments created by capitalists, incorporated or not, and run them on their own account, and share the profits among themselves, without any indemnification to the owners. As to land, no individual is to own it or any portion of it--it is to be made common, and open, as to the usufruct, to any one who chooses to occupy it. Mr. Phillips says:

“I have another proposition. I think when a man has passed five years in the service of a corporation, though he may not have bought a dollar of its stock, he is in a certain sense a stockholder. He has put his labor and persistency there, and I think every man who has been employed in a corporation for a year or two should have a voice in its financial management. In Japan, when a man dies, his land is left to the state. Do you not think that is a wiser plan than ours? The land becomes more valuable through the labor of the whole country, and not by that of the man who eats off of it. Our great hope in the future is in the 703 education of the masses, for they will yet be our rulers. New York stood aghast at the defalcation of millions of dollars, but will you submit to be robbed of hundreds of millions by monopolists? Fifth Avenue cannot afford to let the Five Points exist. You cannot get wealth enough to fortify you against discontented ignorance within your reach. The lesson taught by Chicago is that wealth cannot afford to neglect poverty.”

How the matter would be adjusted if two or more men should happen to insist on occupying the same house and lot we do not know. They would all have an equal right, or one would have as good a right to it as another, and, there being no authority, no law, and none of them having any moral or religious principle, they would most likely, all having the pride and obstinacy natural to the human heart, be obliged to settle the question by fighting it out, and leaving the house and lot as the prize to the victor. Might or craft would then settle the right. Society and mankind would fall back into a state of war, in which might is the only rule of right, and which Hobbes contends was their natural state, out of which they were happy to get by the surrender of all their natural rights or natural liberty to any one who would consent to be their king, and in return would maintain them in a state of peace.

The Paris Commune, endorsed by Mr. Phillips, and which was led on and approved by the Internationals, tells us not only the principles of the Association, but its method of carrying them out and reducing them to practice. We cite here a passage from _The Dublin Review_ on the principles and spirit of the Commune:

“M. Auguste Desmoulins is one of those fanatical believers in the infallibility of the unknown, to whom the past is all superstition, the present all corruption, and the future the one reality of life. He is inaccessible to conviction either in the way of holy water or the way of petroleum; and with him, as with all those of his school, the mind has become so far softened that the terminology which has hitherto served not merely among Christians and Jews, but among such heathens as the Greeks and Romans, the Turks, the Indians, the Red Indians, to distinguish between right and wrong, has ceased to convey a meaning. The world is not a mere Babel of tongues nowadays: it is, outside the church, a far worse Babel of thought. In the following passage, which really sums up the argument of his paper in a sufficiently trenchant and complete form, M. Desmoulins does not hesitate to convey his opinion that the coveting of one’s neighbor’s goods is suggested by, or at least connected with, a sentiment of justice; that the daily bread earned by labor is much more keenly enjoyed by a man who does not believe in God, or heaven, or hell; and that as neither the French workman nor his master believes in a future state, it is only natural and quite right that the workman should heal the difference between them here by robbery:

“‘The Parisian workman is often obliged to visit the handsome quarters of the town, while new buildings are ever thrusting him further away beyond the old barriers into vile habitations. In this condition, which is made for him. anything helps to irritate him. How can he find content in a home that is narrow, ill-lighted, foul, nearly without air, when he compares this wretched hole, for which he pays so dear, with the sumptuous chambers that he has either built or decorated in the rich quarters? It is easy to denounce in eloquent homilies the spirit of envy that devours the lower classes. We should recognize that a true notion of justice mixes with the feeling.

“‘The desire to enjoy the fruits of his labor is especially likely to spring up in the mind of the French workman, who does not believe, any more than his master, in the reparations of a future life; who does not perceive for the right of the master any other sanction than the material fact of possession; and whom, besides, universal suffrage invests with a share of sovereignty equal to that of the capitalist. Whatever may be said by those who have been justly called mammonite writers, we can easily understand that the proletary who has just given his vote finds it hard to resign himself to social serfage at the very moment when he feels himself politically sovereign. This striking contrast between his rights as citizen and his condition of pariah in society, accompanies him everywhere, reproduces itself in every act of his life, and adds a perpetual gloom to exhausting labor and never-abating privations.’

“This passage contains the essence of M. Desmoulins’ apology for 704 the Commune; and it supplies, we submit, matter for reflection in its every line. The statesmen and the classes in society who delight in seeing the influence of religion weakened or destroyed, never seem to realize until it is too late that they are sure to be the especial victims of their own success. The great truths of life hang together and sustain each other:

‘All is contained in each: Dodona’s forest in an acorn’s cup.’

The man who scorns to love God, how shall he continue to love his neighbor? The man who has said, ‘There is no God,’ is he not on the point of also saying, ‘Lust is lawful,’ ‘Property is robbery’?”

We copy also from the same _Review_ a letter from General Cluseret from this city to a member of the Society:

“NEW YORK, 17th February.

“MY DEAR VARLIN: I have just received your welcome letter of the 2d. It explains the delay in replying to my application. Need I say that I accept, and will set to work at once in endeavoring to be useful to my brethren in poverty and toil? The newspaper which I told you of is not yet established. I think it better not to renew my attempts in that direction, considering the late events in France, and the numerous letters I have received from my friends, who are unanimous in recalling me to Europe.

“In all probability, I shall be there next summer, but, in the interval, I shall have arranged international relations between the different French and American groups, and selected one person or several persons (at the discretion of the French committee) of proved zeal and capability, to replace me. As you say, we shall surely, infallibly triumph if we persist in demanding success from our organization. But we must remember that the aim of our Association is to associate (_solidariser_) the greatest number for action. Let us, then, be liberal; let us round off our angles; let us be really brethren, not in words, but in deeds; let not such mere terms as doctrine and individuality separate those whom common suffering, which means a common interest, has united: we are all and all, we must acknowledge that; if we are beaten, it is our own fault. I have not been able to picture our people to myself during the late troubles. What has been the attitude of the workmen’s societies, and what are their present dispositions? Certainly, we must not sacrifice our ideas to politics, but we must not detach ourselves from them, even momentarily. In my mind, the meaning of all that is going on is simply this, that the Orleans are slipping little by little close to power, and paring his nails for L. N., so that one fine morning they will merely have to substitute themselves for him.

“Now, we ought to be ready, physically and morally, for that day. _On that day, we, or nothing_. Until then I shall probably remain quiet, _but on that day, I affirm_--and you know my ‘Nay’ never means ‘Yea’--_Paris shall be ours, or Paris shall exist no longer_. This will be the decisive moment for the accession of the people.--Yours ever, CLUSERET.

“You are mistaken in believing, for a moment, that I am neglecting the socialist in favor of the political movement. No; it is only from a purely socialistic point of view I am pursuing the revolutionary work; but you must thoroughly know we can do nothing in the direction of social reform if the old political system be not annihilated. Let us not forget that at this moment the Empire exists merely in name, and that government consists in party abuse. If, under these grave circumstances, the socialist party permits itself to be lulled to sleep by the abstract theory of sociological science, _we may wake up one fine morning to find ourselves under new masters, more dangerous for us than those we have at present, because they would be younger, and consequently more vigorous and more powerful_.”

We have personally known General (?) Cluseret, and we know him to be a man who acts from deliberation, not impulse, who means what he says, and who can be restrained from going straight to his end by no religious principle, moral scruple, or sentiment of mercy, pity, or compassion. His disposition is as stern and inexorable as a physical 705 law of nature. When he threatened to burn Paris rather than surrender it, he meant it, and he was the man to do it or to see that it was done if within the limits of the possible. Mr. Phillips seems also to appear, at least, to threaten incendiarism as a means of accomplishing his purpose. What means this, the closing sentence of his lecture: “The lesson taught by Chicago is that wealth cannot afford to neglect poverty”? Does this mean that the Internationals burnt Chicago? or does it simply mean that other cities may be burnt as well as Chicago, and will be, if wealth continues to neglect poverty or refuses to yield to the demands of the International Association of Workingmen? This gives the question a startling aspect. Certain it is that the Association holds itself free to introduce its socialism or communism by murder, assassination, robbery, plunder, and conflagration at the pleasure or dictation of its chiefs. Take the following letter, read and endorsed by Mr. Phillips before a New York audience:

“Before proceeding to speak of it, you will allow me to read a notice which has been placed in my hand, and in the object of which I sympathize cordially, because the great foreign movement can be commemorated by it. The French Commune has always seemed to me to deserve the cordial respect of every lover of the progress of the masses throughout the world. I have no doubt that in due time its good name will be vindicated, and its leaders lifted to the unqualified respect of the civilized world. The notice I hold in my hand is as follows:

“‘_To the Workingmen of New York, friends of humanity, enemies of bloodshed, and lovers of justice_: Citizens! The recent barbarous executions in France, in cold blood, six months after all struggles are over, and the ferocity with which the conquerors pursue their victims, are a disgrace and shame to humanity. We must not allow the human race to be stained by the shedding of its own blood without a protest. You, workingmen, would you let your friends the workingmen be murdered because they have defended our rights in any part of the world? No! certainly not without raising your voice and making it heard across the ocean. To give effect to these purposes, a grand funeral procession will take place in New York on Sunday, the 10th of December, at 1 o’clock, forming opposite the Cooper Institute. All men, without distinction of party, of race, of nationality, friends of justice and freedom, are invited to join. By order of the Committee of Arrangements of the Federal Council.’

“I hope every man who loves his fellow will show himself there. There was never nobler blood shed, never more high-minded and disinterested effort made in the long history of Freedom’s struggle, than in Paris, when, in defiance of all the oligarchies of Europe, that city stood up for the individual and for liberty in the nineteenth century.”

The impudence of the writers of this letter is sublime, and only surpassed by that of the lecturer in endorsing it. Why, these fellows would persuade us that they are “enemies of bloodshed and lovers of justice,” meek as lambs, timid as sheep, and harmless as doves--they who, without a shadow of justice or excuse, made the streets of Paris run with the blood of the innocent, the noble, and the saintly. “Enemies of bloodshed”!--they whose hands are reeking with blood! Yes, to having their own blood shed, but not to the shedding of the blood of others. “Enemies of bloodshed and lovers of justice”! Good God! can hypocrisy or self-delusion go so far? Let the assassination of Generals Le Comte and Clement Thomas, the horrible murders, when it was known that the cause of the Commune was lost, of the holy and unoffending Archbishop of Paris, of Jesuit fathers, and a dozen Dominican friars and lay brothers, to say nothing of other murders hardly less horrible, reply to that false pretence. It would seem that these miscreants count for nothing the blood they shed without authority, in violation of law, religion, morality, and every principle of justice, and every sentiment of humanity; it is only when 706 justice overtakes them, and, after trial and conviction by legitimate authority, orders them and their fellow-criminals to be shot or sends them to the guillotine in punishment for their crimes, that they have a horror of bloodshed! Then, and only then, they ring out their dastard cry against injustice and for the sympathy of that humanity they have so greatly outraged! The men who have been executed by the government at Versailles deserved their fate--men without a single virtue or noble quality except personal bravery in face of death. Deluded were they? Yes, as every great criminal, murderer, or assassin is deluded.

What most excites our indignation is to find an educated and refined American gentleman, of no mean ability and rare eloquence, and past middle age, coming forward before an American audience to express in a written lecture deep and unreserved sympathy with, and approval of, these horrors and abominations, equal to those of ‘93, and applauded by his auditors for such an outrage on common morality and decency. Yet it is no more than we might have been prepared for, since Mr. Phillips only gave a logical expression to the principles he had always defended as an abolitionist; and while there are fools enough among us who imagine that the issues of the war have endorsed them and they have been sanctioned by the God of battles. We love our country, and have been proud of our countrymen; but, if they have fallen so low as to applaud the Paris Commune and its horrid butcheries and profanations, we can only say, Alas for them!

It may have become unsafe to oppose the Internationals, since the police has taken them under its protection, and granted them their impudent demands. We are surrounded by Internationals--our city is at the mercy of men who are restrained by no law, by no religion, by no morality, by no sentiment of humanity, from using any means or methods they judge likely to serve their ends, and New York is hardly less wealthy and more combustible than Paris. Herein is there a grave danger. At its head are men who are in dead earnest, desperate men, who shrink from nothing likely to further their ends. We are not surprised that Prussia and Austria have taken the alarm--consulted together as to the means of protecting themselves and society against their machinations. France keeps them in check only by her army, and knows not how soon even the army may fraternize with them--and fraternize with them it certainly will if it loses all hope of restoring the Empire or the monarchy. Great Britain is now using them, but will soon find herself obliged to suppress them, as she did or as she attempted to suppress the Thugs in India, if she means to preserve her institutions. Here they will make trouble, for each party will bid for their votes, and fear to offend them for fear of losing an election; but they can acquire less power out of our cities here than elsewhere, unless they enroll in their ranks the recently emancipated negroes, and rouse their savage instincts to dispossess the planters and to take possession of their plantations; for the passion for individual property is too strong in our agricultural laborers, and the facilities for individuals to rise from proletaries to capitalists, or to the ownership of land, are too great to afford them, when it comes to the test, any appropriate support. Yet they will confuse our politics, corrupt still more the morals of our community, and defeat any wise and salutary action of the government. They will strengthen the burgher class and corporations in towns by 707 compelling many who are not favorable to these classes and interests to support them, as the only means left of saving society from lapsing into complete barbarism.

We shall probably return at an early day to this subject, for it is really the great question of the hour.

[144] 1. _The Dublin Review._ Article IX.: The International Society. London. October, 1871.

2. _The Labor Movement._ Lecture of Wendell Phillips. Steinway Hall. _New York Tribune_, Dec. 7, 1871.

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ON CATHOLIC LIBRARIES.

It must be confessed that the Catholics of this country, in proportion to their numerical strength and untiring zeal for the interests of religion, do not present that proportionately large class of readers which we find among the Protestant sects. Their exertions in building churches, schools, and charitable institutions have been beyond all praise, and have constantly elicited the admiration and astonishment of their opponents; but as yet very little organized effort has been made by the influential portion of the laity to place within easy reach of their humbler co-religionists the means of cheap and instructive reading. The more intelligent and wealthy are too often content to purchase a few standard Catholic works, and after perusing them with more or less attention place them with their other books on the shelves of their libraries, there to remain secluded from public view, and of comparatively little value to any person but their owners. The less favored class, who for obvious reasons are unable to indulge in this luxury, are still practically cut off from one of the chief sources of knowledge and amusement--good books--and are necessarily compelled from uncontrollable circumstances to go through life with their minds and tastes undeveloped, and their time dissipated in idleness, or wasted over the trashy and deleterious contents of the many cheap story newspapers and novels which the American press is constantly scattering broadcast over the land.

This melancholy fact is most observable in the ranks of our adult immigrant population, who, coming from countries where education was almost unattainable, money scarce, and books dear, have not generally acquired either ability or taste for reading, though it has been remarked that even among them, when an opportunity is at all presented, the desire for information is excited in a remarkable degree, and only requires a reasonable impetus to develop it still more. Still, from the fact of their usually limited means and comparatively unsettled modes of life, they are as yet unable to purchase or retain any appreciable collection of desirable publications.

The remedy for this defect in our growing Catholic society lies, in our opinion, in the formation of local libraries, suitable in variety and extent to the wants and capacity of particular localities. There are at least twenty-five hundred centres of Catholic population in America where very respectable collections of books could be purchased and placed in some safe and accessible place, say in the school-rooms or church basements, and half as many more, particularly in our Western settlements, where at least a few good books would be of great 708 advantage to the hardy tillers of the soil, and where, even if there be no public place to deposit them, there is always some prominent settler who would willingly assume the honorary office of librarian. Experiments of both plans have been tried in many of our large city parishes, and in a few isolated instances in the country, with marked success.

The advantages of libraries conducted on this system are numerous, and ought to be apparent to every one, not the least of which would be _cheapness_. Let us suppose, for instance, that, in any given locality, fifty persons would each subscribe two dollars. This would create a capital of one hundred dollars, or sufficient to purchase, on an average, one hundred and fifty volumes, great and small, of readable books, from any of our large publishing-houses in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore. Thus, for two dollars, a subscriber would have, for reading or reference, the practical ownership of works at least fifty times the value of his contribution, and, by charging new members a small fee for the use of each volume, a fund might be created to purchase new books as they appeared from time to time. In this manner, and with proper attention, a library of dimension commensurate with the growing wants of the neighborhood would be brought into existence without much expense to any particular class of the community.

But the moral effect of the establishment of such small centres of intelligence would be incomparably greater. For the adults, it would at once be an attraction and a source of occupation, tending powerfully to withdraw them from those pursuits, not always edifying, in which unoccupied minds too often indulge, to the detriment of their health and morals. It would be the means of generating a taste for mental improvement, and of making them more confident among their companions, and more proficient and reflective in their various pursuits; for it is a well-recognized truth, that as a man, be he artisan, trader, or farmer, acquires those habits of thought which can only be derived from study, he becomes more skilful and methodical in his peculiar calling. The youth of both sexes, however, would reap the greatest advantages. There are hundreds of thousands of children of Catholic parents among us who can read, and, what is more, _will_ read. The young American mind, no matter of what parentage, is a hungry and an investigating mind, and must have some sort of food, do or say what we will. If it cannot have good literary food, it will have what is poisonous, and in this lies the secret of the success of the sensational story papers, and the no less deleterious tales that, in a few years, have made fortunes for their publishers. It is well known that one of the former class, published in this city, boasts of a weekly circulation of three hundred thousand copies, and another of nearly as great a number. If we go into the large workshops of the principal cities, or the factories of New England, where so many young persons are engaged, at the hour allotted for dinner we will see every second boy and girl devouring with more eagerness than their food the contents of some flashy journal or specimen of what is generally known as “yellow-covered literature,” in which vice is hidden under a thin veil of romance only to make it the more seductive. Now, the way to check this insidious and widespread evil is not by complaining of or railing at it, but by placing within easy reach, and in accessible 709 places sound and attractive Catholic works. The impetuous mind of youth may be compared to a rapid stream, which, dammed up or checked in its career, is sure sooner or later to overflow its boundaries to the destruction of its surroundings, but which, if its course is directed by skilful and experienced hands, not only ceases to be dangerous, but becomes a source of usefulness and power. To give this direction to the expanding intellect of the rising generation, and to turn to good use what might by neglect or repression become an evil and a curse, is one of the first and plainest duties of parents, for the proper performance of which they will be held to a strict accountability. It is not enough for them to see that their offspring attend church on Sundays and holy-days, that they go to Sunday-school regularly, and say their prayers night and morning, if they allow them afterwards to ponder from hour to hour over sickly romances; nor will it serve to send their children to school to learn to spell and read, if the knowledge thus gained be turned to the enervation of their minds and the corruption of their morals. Education is not in itself an end, it is only the means to an end, and that end is the knowledge of God’s law, and the best way of conforming one’s conduct to its requirements so as to secure our eternal salvation. There is no excuse for a Catholic parent for not putting into the hands of his children entertaining and moral books, nor is there any palliation for any one professing our holy faith, and who has arrived at the years of discretion, for encouraging or reading the thousand-and-one works of fiction which we see every day exposed on news-stands and in cheap book-stores, and which are not only immoral in tone and spirit, but in effect positively anti-Christian. Besides books of a serious and practical character, we have numerous works of fiction, published in this country and easily obtained, of the highest order of talent united to rare dramatic force and interest, which are detrimental neither to morals nor religion. The writings of Griffin, Banim, Huntington, Julia Kavanagh, Mrs. Sadlier, Mrs. Anna Dorsey, Lady Fullerton, Lady Herbert, and many others that we could name, are of this character, and are worthy to be read by the highest as well as the lowest in society. Of works treating on history, science in its various departments, biography, travels, etc., Catholic in tone, and elaborate or elementary in arrangement, we have a large and varied supply; and new productions under these heads are constantly appearing, more fascinating to the cultivated taste than even the productions of our best novelists. But it has been objected that these publications are too dear; that poor people cannot afford to spend ten or fifteen dollars on a few books. Granted; but, if they can have the use of four or five score for a couple of dollars by subscribing to a parochial library, is not the objection removed? This is what local libraries, and they alone, can do.

Now, what would be the effect of this system of libraries on the general tone of public opinion? Decidedly most salutary. In addition to driving from circulation many of the demoralizing newspapers, periodicals, and books which even non-Catholics denounce as immoral, and for the suppression of some of which the aid of legislative action has been invoked, it would create and foster a pure literary taste among no inconsiderable portion of our diverse population, and, apart from its direct moral effect, would render it more valuable and more 710 reproductive in a material point of view. Many of the most important political, social, and commercial problems of the day, on the true solution of which depends the future welfare of our republic, can only be properly comprehended by reference to the history of the past, and to the biographies of the great statesmen who succeeded or failed in founding or destroying nations and empires. And even in the discussion of minor questions affecting our interests or liberties, some acquaintance with the antecedents of our country is absolutely necessary to enable us to form proper opinions of their merits. In individual cases, one of the compensations for declining years and one of the highest claims to respect is experience; but to the reader of history, no matter what his age, the accumulated experience of at least thirty centuries is accessible, and not only controls his judgment and enlarges his knowledge, but vastly enhances his social and political status. But this experience, to be of any value, must be based on truth and undoubted facts. It must arise from the just appreciation of unbiassed statements and philosophical deductions, stripped of all that false assertion and unlimited prejudice which have characterized so many European and American writers for the last three centuries. Hence the need of Catholic books and Catholic readers--for, in this as in commercial matters, the demand regulates the supply--and the creation of new facilities for the spread of reliable information.

Take the case of the _History of England_ by Lingard. Before the appearance of that excellent work, we venture to say that seven-eighths of the reading population in every part of the world believed more or less in the falsehoods and forgeries with which the pages of the English historians of the post-Reformation period were crowded. Many more such instances of recent successful vindication of the truth of history might be cited, not the least valuable and complete being the production of our own countrymen, such as that very able and learned refutation of D’Aubigné’s _History of the Reformation_[145] and the _Life of Mary, Queen of Scots_,[146] which has lately appeared, and in which the slanders and aspersions so repeatedly heaped on the memory and character of that beautiful but ill-starred sovereign are condemned, exposed, and, it is to be hoped, finally disposed of. The first of these works is the most elaborate and reliable book we have on that important epoch, when every throne in Europe was shaken to its base, and when men’s passions, let loose by the preaching of the heresiarchs of England and the Continent, threatened to destroy every vestige of temporal and spiritual authority. There is no period in the history of Christendom about which so many falsehoods and such mendacious calumnies have been invented and circulated by prejudiced writers; and it was only on the appearance of the book in question that we have had, at least in English, any comprehensive and truthful account of the origin and progress of that rebellion against God’s church and laws. This country, from its settlement to the present, the origin and growth of its institutions from their inception in the early part of the seventeenth century till their fruition in our present constitution, though full of incident and fraught with lessons of the highest political wisdom, is yet imperfectly known and but little understood. 711 Is it not, then, worth a little sacrifice on the part of parents to place before their children, who ere long are to become the rulers of the state, a correct and impartial account of the birth of religious liberty on this continent, of the dangers, trials, and struggles our forefathers endured in order to build up and transmit to posterity the blessings of a free government? Yet such knowledge can only be obtained through books, and books, so far as the majority of Catholics are concerned, are almost unattainable, except through co-operation. Then, again, we are often taunted by such hackneyed phrases as the darkness of the middle ages, the ignorance of the monks, the corruption of the Papacy, the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, and such other fabrications of Protestant authors. Are we to allow our children to go forth in the midst of a reading and, in a religious sense at least, a hostile people, unprepared to intelligently refute such calumnies, and unable to account for the various agencies by which the Catholic Church at all times sought to eliminate civilization from barbarism, light from darkness, and Christianity from paganism at first, and from heresy and infidelity subsequently? They must have great--too great, perhaps--confidence in the faith of their children thus to submit them to so severe a test; and yet how few reliable books dealing with those subjects do we find provided for young Catholics by those whose duty it is to direct their conduct and shield them from the temptations and snares of the world! How many parents, intent on rewarding their children by presents, ever think of presenting them with good books, which would not only gratify their tastes and improve their minds, but would be, at least to them, a perpetual source of consolation?

Far different are the tactics of our opponents, who are never tired of devising measures to instil into the minds of the youth of their own faith all the errors of Protestantism under the most attractive guise possible, and at the same time to weaken the faith and pervert the judgment of our children. It is perhaps not generally known that every school district in this state, outside the large cities, is supplied with a library of select works, under the charge of the school trustees, and every child in the district is allowed free access to it, with the privilege of borrowing one volume at a time. These libraries were originally supplied at the expense of the public, and are annually increased by new purchases, the funds being derived from the state library fund. When we state that those libraries were furnished by a publishing-house in this city the first success of which in business was due to the production of Maria Monk, the works of Eugene Sue, and others of a kindred character, and that the compilers and abridgers, who claim the authorship of them, have been remarkable for bigotry even in this age of Protestant intolerance, it is scarcely necessary to point out the danger to our young Catholics of the free circulation of such books among them. In country places, the absence of the noise, excitement, and attractions of city life naturally leads to a desire for reading and a remarkable tendency to discussion, and it is there that good Catholic books are most required. Our children must mix with those of the sects, and will be compelled to listen to a repetition of the fabrications and falsehoods against their religion which are weekly dealt out in the Protestant churches, daily commented on in the household, and which fill the pages of the books of the district libraries and local newspapers. This is the poison that is carrying off so many of our juvenile 712 co-religionists, more dangerous to their souls than the deadly upas would be to their bodies, and against which we must provide some antidote. If one of our boys is confronted with quotations from Hume or Macaulay, he must be prepared to answer them on the undoubted authority of Lingard; if he be taunted with the poverty or ignorance of the Catholics of Ireland, he can show whence came this penury and destitution by reference to McGee’s, Cusack’s, or any of the numerous histories of that country; he ought to be prepared to oppose Archbishop Spalding to D’Aubigné, Meline to Froude, the history of the Maryland settlers (the founders of religious liberty on this continent) to the eulogiums on the intolerant Puritans, the “Irish Settlers” to the Know-Nothing organs--in fact, truth and light wherever falsehood and darkness are to be found. The truth has nothing to lose, but everything to gain, by full and free discussion. It is only error that shrinks from thorough investigation. But we must take care that our sons and daughters are well supplied with plain and useful facts regarding their faith and religion before they are subjected to the ordeal through which all young Catholics must pass who mingle freely in Protestant society, lest through their ignorance the cause they espouse should be weakened by their imperfect advocacy.

Neither ought we to hesitate in learning lessons from our adversaries when it is possible to do so. If the children of darkness are wiser than the children of light in their generation, it is no reason why we should be guilty of folly. Apart from the falsity of their teachings, we have often had occasion to admire the systematic perseverance with which the Protestant sects have endeavored to disseminate their peculiar views throught the medium of cheap and attractive publications. All that art and skill can do has been done to render them pleasing to the eye and agreeable to the mind. The highest literary talent is employed and well rewarded, because the result of their labors is extensively circulated, and, even when persons are unable or unwilling to purchase, the purse of the wealthy is always open to enable them to obtain books free of cost, while our children are too often allowed to begin life but half-instructed, and to continue in it illiterate and untaught. Were our schools as efficient and as numerous as we wish and as we hope one day to see them, we might assure ourselves that all this might be taught in them; but they are not, nor can they be for some years, and we cannot ignore the fact or wait for the slow operation of time to perfect and extend their influence. We must endeavor by some means or other to supply the deficiency, so far, at least, as this generation is concerned. Besides, there will always be a large number of children of the working-classes who cannot remain long at any school, but must go into the world to earn their bread. With these the most critical period of their lives is from the time they pass from the control of the teacher till they reach manhood or womanhood, for then their characters for good or evil are formed. For this class of toilers, good books are not only a recreation and a solace, but an absolute necessity; but, being limited in means, we hold that it is only through the means of local libraries that they can gratify their wishes and find opportunities for mental improvement.

Literature itself would also gain much by the establishment of these libraries. How often has it been remarked that, out of the large number 713 of Catholic young men of brains and education which our colleges and academies turn out annually, there are so few writers. The explanation is that for them authorship is neither a remunerative nor an appreciated employment. The professions of law and medicine and the attractions of commerce and trade are constantly drawing into their vortices the best energies and talent of our young graduates, many of whom with proper encouragement and patronage might, as authors, render incalculable service to the cause of truth and morality. What is required to utilize this large amount of natural gifts and acquired knowledge is simply the more extensive circulation of works already published; the increase in the number of new books on subjects of general interest, in style and treatment more in accordance with modern forms than those published years ago; but, above all, the cultivation of a correct standard of literary excellence among the people, and the creation of a widespread class of readers and thinkers.

The objection to the dearness of Catholic publications would also be removed by this means. It is well known to those conversant with the publishing business that, in proportion to the increase of the circulation of a given book, the expense of its production per copy is diminished in an inverse ratio. A book of which three thousand copies are sold at two dollars each would be more remunerative to both publisher and author at even one dollar if twenty thousand copies were disposed of. The publisher, also, in his contract with the author and in view of the uncertainty of his sales, naturally adds to the cost of production and to his fair percentage of profit a certain amount for probable losses by having a portion of his edition left on his shelves unsold. The establishment of local libraries would obviate the necessity of this additional cost. With, say, twenty-five hundred of these institutions, each ready and willing to subscribe for one or more copies of any really meritorious book that might appear, its success would be assured beyond doubt, the outlay of the publisher would be nearly reimbursed, and his risk, for which all book-buyers have now to pay, would be sensibly and materially diminished if not altogether done away with. Thus even individual purchasers as well as subscribers to libraries would be benefited in the reduction of price; and, while the bookseller would not suffer in the profits of his sales, the general public as well as the author would be sensibly the gainers.

As to what ought to constitute the necleus of a small library, some difficulty may be experienced in diverse tastes and opinions. In view of the multiplicity of good books constantly being imported or published in this country, it is nearly impossible to make a list of such as would be most desirable and useful without leaving out others perhaps as equally deserving of attention. Of works of fiction we have enough and more than enough in the productions of the authors above named and others of a less pretentious order, but, as this sort of reading is simply a matter of choice, each one must judge for himself in the selection.

Devotional and controversial works are numerous, and a few at least, such as the writings of St. Liguori, Father Faber, Dr. Manning, and Cardinal Wiseman, the _Guide for Catholic Young Women_, _Following of Christ_, _Catholic Christian Instructed_, _Lenten Monitor_, as well as several others, should be always found in Catholic libraries. In history, as far as the English language is concerned, we are not so 714 rich. We have, it is true, four or five histories of Ireland, possessing peculiar merits, and exhibiting more or less defects, but all full of useful information. Lingard’s _England_, entire or abridged, is decidedly the best of that country. Shea’s _History of the Catholic Missions in the United States_, McSherry’s _Maryland_, Bishop Bayley’s _Church in New York_, McGee’s _Irish Letters_ and _Catholic History_, De Courcey’s and Shea’s _Catholic Church in America_, go far to supply the defect, at least in part. Then there are the _Works of Archbishop Hughes_, one of the great prelates of the church in America, and the writings of Dr. O. A. Brownson, particularly his _Essays_ and _American Republic_, than whom no man of our day, it is safe to say, writes with more vigor or with a clearer understanding of his subject. The works of Bishop England are, we regret to say, too little known, and, being for some time out of print, are now almost unattainable. Darras’s _Church History_, the only complete history of the church yet published in our language, should, if possible, be read by every Catholic, and find a conspicuous place in all our libraries. _The Lives of Deceased Prelates of the United States_, by Clarke, which has just been published, is a very valuable book, containing a great deal of remote and contemporary history; and if Mr. Shea could be induced by proper encouragement to further develop the subjects he has selected for his books, as we feel certain of his ability to do so, a great deal of additional matter connected with the struggles and sufferings of the early pioneers of religion, now almost forgotten or unknown, would be placed before the public. In biography, which maybe called history in detail, our resources are abundant. We have, besides numerous lives of Christ, a complete _Lives of the Popes_, Butler’s _Lives of the Saints_, several of St. Patrick, _St. Vincent de Paul, Curé of Ars_, and some two hundred separate lives of the holy men and women who in every age of the church were conspicuous for their sanctity, wisdom, and devotion to the faith, a list of which may be chosen from the catalogue of any of our principal publishers; and last, though not least, is Montalembert’s great work, _The Monks of the West_, an American edition of which is just published.

So far as materials are concerned, we have a plenitude of them of every variety and in all departments of literature, and we have endeavored to show that very little money is required to purchase them. What is wanted is organization and action. For these we must depend to a great extent on the local pastors, and on the half a dozen leading laymen who are most generally to be found in every congregation. There is a homely proverb, but nevertheless true, that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.” Let one or two influential men in each parish think seriously over the matter, call their associates together, and explain to them the advantages to be derived by themselves and their children from cheap and good reading, collect the subscriptions, put themselves in communication with any of our Catholic booksellers, and the work is done. The first and most important step thus taken, the future welfare of the library is assured. It is unnecessary to say that such a movement ought to and would receive the warmest encouragement from their spiritual superiors. Apart from the benefits arising from the reading of moral books to the cause of religion, the spirit of mutual intercourse, interchange of thought, and friendly co-operation engendered by reading 715 the same book, and meeting at stated times for a common object, would lead insensibly to the formation of a compact and efficient organization, exceedingly useful when the interests of charity, education, or the church are to be subserved. Not only this, but, knowing how overtaxed are the attention and time of so many of our missionary priests in providing the means of building churches and schools, as well as attending to the spiritual wants of their scattered flocks, we consider that an intelligent body of young people, such as we would naturally expect to see connected with a library society, would form a valuable lay staff of workers whose pleasure it would be to aid their pastor in all his material transactions. The more intelligent Catholics become, the less trouble, in two ways, they entail on their spiritual guide. They become aware easily of his wants, or rather the wants of the church of which he is to them the representative, and need little inducement to contribute their means freely for the benefit of charity or religion, while, at the same time, they make the most efficient agents in influencing the actions of others with whom they are daily brought in contact.

Firmly believing that the spread of these societies throughout this country would have a most marked and beneficent effect, morally and mentally, on our rapidly growing Catholic population, we submit these remarks to the serious consideration of the reverend clergy, and of those laymen who have been favored with more wealth and a better education than the majority of their fellow-Catholics. We must not forget that we live in an age of great mental activity and progress, so-called. Let us keep pace with our neighbors in everything that leads to the acquisition of true knowledge, but let our progress be in the right direction, and worthy of the name we bear, and of the religion we profess.

[145] _History of the Protestant Reformation._ By the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D. Baltimore.

[146] _Mary, Queen of Scots._ By James F. Meline. New York. 1871.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIFE OF PHILIP THOMAS HOWARD, O.P., CARDINAL OF NORFOLK, ETC. By Father C. F. Raymond Palmer, O.P. London: Thomas Richardson & Son. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

It affords us sincere pleasure to be able to speak of this book in terms of unqualified praise, without in the least being subjected to the charge of flattery. The subject chosen by Father Palmer is the career of an ecclesiastic who not only filled a prominent part in the history of his times in his native country, England, but of the church throughout Europe; and whose private virtues were even more edifying than his mental capacity was remarkable. The scion of one of the noblest houses in Great Britain, and living at a time when every lure was held out to genius and rank to join the so-called Reformers, he not only remained true to the Catholic traditions of his family, but, forsaking the world altogether, he became, in spite of all opposition, an humble friar and a follower of the illustrious St. Dominic. His labors for the good of his order on the Continent as well as in England were incessant, and so successful that in a few years he was 716 raised to the dignity of a prince of the church. Several times he was entrusted with important diplomatic missions by his sovereign, Charles II., and for many years occupied the position of grand almoner to Catharine of Braganza, the queen-consort. In addition to the biography of Cardinal Howard, we have a very full and interesting sketch of the history of the Dominican order, that glorious corporation of friar-preachers, whose labors extended to every part of the known world, and whose blood may be said to have been shed in the cause of Christ wherever the foot of man has trod. Father Palmer’s treatment of the subject is in every way worthy of so great a theme. He does not, as too many biographers are apt to do, fall in love with his hero, and lose himself in senseless rhapsody and panegyric, but lets deeds and their results speak for themselves. Neither does he assume for the order, of which he himself is a worthy member, too much credit for its long-continued and extensive propagandism of the faith; but, keeping his praise within just bounds, makes the amplest acknowledgment to other missionaries when an opportunity offers. The author’s style, also, is admirable. It is plain, bold, and exceedingly clear, and reminds us a good deal of the old days of classic English, which, we are sometimes tempted to fear, have departed for ever.

SERMONS BY THE FATHERS OF THE CONGREGATION OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 12mo, pp. 331.

This, the sixth volume of sermons, twenty-two in number, delivered by the Paulist Fathers of this city, has just been published, and in point of variety, ability, and adaptability to the everyday wants of Catholic congregations, may fairly be said to be equal, at least, to any of the preceding volumes from the same source. On first reading this valuable collection of sermons, the impression most likely to be produced on a layman is surprise at the remarkable simplicity of style, earnestness of argument, and, above all, the practical application to the present condition of society, of the inspired texts upon which the sermons are based. Men of the most ordinary comprehension can understand them, and we can imagine few minds so contracted or hearts so callous as to be proof against their unadorned logic and impressive appeals. It has sometimes been our good fortune to have heard, as we have often read, exhortations of more brilliancy, pathos, and even intellectual power, but we are not aware that, compressed within the limits of an ordinary-sized book, there is to be found in the English language a greater amount of wholesome truths, well and clearly stated, or better calculated to go directly to the heart and conscience of the reader. Of this character pre-eminently are the sermons on “How to Pass a Good Lent,” “Humility in Prayer,” and “The Sins and Miseries of the Dram-Seller.” In some respects the latter differs from all others in the collection--in its forcibleness of rhetoric, and vividness, almost painful, of description. Reading it in the silence of our library, we almost shudder at the, alas! too truthful picture drawn therein of the drunkard’s fate in this world, and the not less certain retribution which awaits his mercenary tempter, here or hereafter. It is one of the most powerful arguments against the use and sale of intoxicating liquors we have read since the days of Father Mathew, and ought to be in the hands of every advocate of temperance, clerical and lay, in the land. The three sermons treating of the temporal and spiritual authority of the Sovereign Pontiff are clear, distinct, and well-timed, and, besides being historically accurate, are replete with logical deductions, one following and hinging on the other so harmoniously that conviction, 717 even to a biassed mind, seems to follow as a matter of course.

But on a second and more critical perusal of this book, we are certain to discover new and equally commendable features. We feel as if we were in the presence of Catholic priests speaking to their spiritual children. There is an absence of all harshness or terrorism, and of that bitterness which too often accompanies the discussion of controversial subjects. While our errors are reproved and our sins denounced, hope and mercy are not denied us; the path of duty is plainly pointed out, but we are encouraged to tread its thorny ways, and we rise from the study of the _Sermons_ conscious of our faults and weaknesses, without despairing, and with a renewed purpose of amendment. No one can read attentively the first and last of this series, on “Remembrance of Mercies” and “Fraternal Charity,” without feeling softened and chastened in spirit. It is not, however, the mere contents of the sermons that we most admire. It is their suggestiveness. To a reflective mind there is matter enough in them to form the groundwork of a hundred discourses, and still the subjects would not be exhausted. This feature alone will extend their good influence far beyond the limits of one book or one pulpit. As we have come to a grand truth boldly stated, or a deduction logically and lucidly drawn, we have frequently found ourselves closing the book, and, following the drift of the reverend preacher’s argument, preaching sermons to ourselves. If such be its effects on ordinary minds, how much more valuable will be the uses of this book to the younger members of the priesthood in the performance of the duties of their holy calling? And it is for them especially, we presume, it is intended.

Besides, as we are all aware, there are many persons with the best dispositions who, from family or other reasons, are frequently unable to hear a sermon on every Sunday and holyday of obligation, not only in country parishes, but even in our crowded cities. To this class the present volume ought to be of great value, affording them, as it does, an opportunity of reading in the seclusion of their homes, what they are debarred from hearing delivered orally. It is one of the rules of the faithful to consecrate a portion of each Sunday to hearing sermons, but, when this cannot be done, the reading of pious books is substituted, and we know of none recently published better calculated to edify and instruct a devout Catholic, or one so practical in its application to the wants and necessities of the present generation, as this collection of sermons; and it is for this reason that we heartily commend it to the laity of the United States.

MACARONIC POETRY. Collected, with an Introduction, by James Appleton Morgan, A.M. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1872.

Of the many excellent specimens of the typography of the Riverside Press, the above-named work is one of the handsomest; and this merit is enhanced by the fact that the great variety of languages and characters, ancient and modern, used in its pages called for the best efforts of typographical skill and resources.

The title of the work gives but a modest idea of the wealth and diversity of its contents, which are creditable to the taste and industry of the author. We find in it not only all the most celebrated macaronic masterpieces, from the “Pugna Porcorum,” of about three hundred lines, every word of which begins with the letter P, thus:

“Plaudite, Porcelli, Porcorum pigra propago Progreditur, plures Porci pinguedine pleni. Pugnantes pergunt, pecudum pars prodigiosa,” etc., etc.,

down to Dr. Maginn’s “Second Ode to Horace,” commencing,

“Blest man, who far from busy hum, 718 Ut prisca gens mortalium.”

Then there are the literary trifles of the dipogrammatists and the pangrammatists, and curiosities in acrostics, telestics, anagrams, palindromes, sidonians, rhymed bagatelles, cento verses, chain verses, alliterative verses, and epitaphs. There are also some specimens of queer prescriptions, the whole family of which are but imitations of the celebrated recipe pasted on the door of the pharmacy in the Convent of the Capuchin Friars at Messina:

“Pro presenti corporis et æterna animæ salute.

RECIPE.

“Radicum fidei Florum spei Rosarum charitatis Liliorum puritatis Absynthé contritionis Violarum humilitatis Agarici satisfactionis Ano quantum potes: Misceatur omnia cum syrupe confessionis; Terentur in mortario conscientiæ; Solvantur in aqua lacrymarum; Coquantur in igne tribulationis, et fiat potus. Recipe de hoc mane et sera.”

Any one may find much literary amusement in the volume, and to the Latin scholar in particular it affords material for many an hour of pleasant relaxation.

THE TAKING OF ROME BY THE ITALIAN ARMY, considered in its Causes and Effects. By C. M. Curci, S.J. Translated from the Italian by the Duke Della Torre. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1871.

It is a matter of congratulation that we have among us at least one Italian gentleman of high rank, character, and education, who is a thoroughly loyal and devoted adherent of the Holy See. We are greatly indebted to the Duke Della Torre for translating F. Curci’s _brochure_, prefixing to it a most sensible and excellent preface, and getting it published by our most eminent New York firm. The pamphlet itself is an able production of an able and celebrated writer. The only great fault in it is the discouraging tone it takes regarding the prospects of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope in the future--a point which has been strongly animadverted upon already in Europe. In so far as past facts are concerned, it is a thorough and unanswerable exposure of the fraud, violence, and perfidy of the Sub-Alpine government, and of the treachery and timidity of the policy of other European cabinets in their relations with the Pontifical States.

FLORENCE O’NEIL; or, The Siege of Limerick. By Agnes M. Stewart. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

The eventful life and troublous times of James II. of England must always be a period of history mournfully interesting to every Catholic heart--those days of persecution, when throughout England a price was set upon the head of any priest who dared labor for the salvation of souls, all the penal laws against Catholics (some of them but lately repealed) being in full force.

The touching story of Florence O’Neil, who is represented as living in very constant intimacy with the royal exiles, carries us through those dark days, and gives us pictures of the court of the reprobate, hard-hearted daughter of James, where Florence was kept an unwilling captive for many months. Her journal during that time is written with charming simplicity, and the whole story has sufficient mingling of truth with the narrative to fill us with pity even for those crowned heads who lived harassed with anxious fears lest the sceptre so hastily and unjustly assumed should be as hastily snatched from their grasp; trusting nobody, never at rest from plottings and replottings even in their own household. In contrast with this, we have the devoted domestic life at the Château St. Germaine, sketched with a delicate and refined touch, giving us a lovely picture of wedded bliss in the union of James with his beautiful and tenderly attached wife--more perfect than usually falls to the lot of common mortals, 719 not to speak of royalty. It is cheering to know that these good hearts, to whom life brought so much disappointment and trouble, found rest and peace and hope in the bosom of the church, which offers to her faithful children the kingdom of heaven and an imperishable crown. _Florence O’Neil_ appears in a beautiful dress, and is well worthy of careful perusal.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE IRISH FRANCISCAN MONASTERIES, AND MEMOIRS OF THE IRISH HIERARCHY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. By the Rev. C. P. Meehan, M.R.I.A.

A MEMOIR OF IRELAND, NATIVE AND SAXON. By Daniel O’Connell, M.P. Dublin: James Duffy. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

The second edition of these two small works, which have attained a well-deserved popularity in Ireland and England, will doubtless be equally appreciated in this country, particularly by our adopted citizens, who, claiming the former nation as their birthplace, love to look back on her past glories and her continuous struggles for civil and religious freedom. Father Meehan’s book, though ostensibly confined to the history of the Franciscan establishments and the Irish hierarchy, contains also a brief but lucid and well-arranged account of the principal events of the seventeenth century in Ireland, embracing the wars of the Parliamentarians and Cromwell against the Nationalists, and the inception of the contest between the partisans of William and James. On such subjects Mr. Meehan is a reliable and judicious authority, for he has made them the study of a life-time. We remember him fully a quarter of a century ago, when curate of SS. Michael and John’s Church, Dublin, and when every moment that he could spare legitimately from the duties of his calling was devoted to his loved studies--the history and archæology of his native land; and we are happy to find that time has neither quenched the fire of his patriotism nor weakened that mental activity which characterized his earlier works.

O’Connell’s memoir, like everything that fell from the pen or lips of that great agitator, is full of vigor and sound logic. A portion of the book is devoted to a general summary of the wrongs and struggles of the Irish race from the invasion in 1172 down to our day, but the greater part is occupied by historical quotations and running commentaries, illustrating that long, dreary period of war, desolation, and persecution. Though in fact contained in a comparatively small compass, it is a masterly indictment against England, prepared with all the system and acumen of an able jurist, and is invaluable as a historical document from the number of references it contains. It was only issued towards the close of the great author’s career, and may be supposed to be an epitome of his varied readings and long personal experience.

THE PEARL OF ANTIOCH: A Picture of the East at the End of the Fourth Century. By the Abbé Bayle. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1871.

In the preface to this interesting story of the early times, we have a bright and truthful comment on the different claims of works of fiction that have been written to make religion attractive: giving to Cardinal Wiseman (what rightfully belongs to him) the glory of having been the author of the truly Christian romance in the fascinating narrative of _Fabiola_. The writer of _The Pearl of Antioch_ professes to follow at a modest distance that illustrious dignitary of the church. He gives us in the story of Pelagia a graphic description of life in Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople at the close of the fourth century, when the church, resting from the fierce persecutions that had marked her earlier years, was surrounded with master-minds who committed themselves to no religion, condemning none formally, 720 endeavoring to possess at the same time the esteem of both Christians and pagans. The delineation of the vacillating spirit of many of the finest intellects among the Greeks, their proud, patronizing ways towards God’s church, cannot but remind the careful reader of the position of many of the so-called _intellectual giants_ of to-day.

The multiplicity of characters introduced, and the demand for mythological research which is necessary to make the story clear in all its parts, are rather detrimental to the unity of the tale; nevertheless, the story of Pelagia herself, and Nicephorus her lover, with their remarkable conversion and subsequent abandonment of the world, is very touching, and wrought out with simplicity and earnestness--the wonderful faith of Pelagia contrasting with the criticisms and doubts, and the ingenious hypotheses of Hypatia, whose strange life and fearful death have been the comment of historian and novelist.

The book contains many pages full of interest concerning Simon Stylites and the wonders of his life, besides several chapters devoted to charming descriptions of the monks who flocked in those times to monasteries in the deserts of Nitria and Tabenna, along the borders of the Nile, and even to Mount Sinai. One of the most attractive features of the volume will be found in the delightful conversations of these monks, enlivened with legends of those olden times, and pervaded throughout with a lovely, Christ-like spirit, which makes their religion an object of admiration even to the wise pagans around them.

JAPAN IN OUR DAY. Compiled and arranged by Bayard Taylor. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1872. 1 vol. 12mo.

This is the first volume of the _Illustrated Library of Travel, Exploration, and Adventure_, now in course of publication by Messrs. Scribner, & Co. and edited by Bayard Taylor. To those who take an interest in Japanese affairs the volume will prove interesting, as containing the latest information with regard to that country so long almost unknown.

SADLIERS’ CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1872. With full Report of the various Dioceses in the United States and British North America, and a List of the Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests in Ireland. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co., 31 Barclay Street.

The _Almanac_ for this year has appeared. The sewing, type, and paper are much better than in former years. There are not so many mistakes in this as we noticed in the previous volume. We are aware there are many difficulties connected with the publication of a statistical work which nothing but the utmost patience and perseverance will overcome, and are therefore pleased to notice even slight improvements.

THE AMERICAN HOME BOOK OF IN-DOOR GAMES, AMUSEMENTS, AND OCCUPATIONS. By Mrs. Caroline L. Smith (Aunt Carrie). Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1872.

This book is one of the best of its kind. The selection of games, amusements, etc., is very good, and the directions given in regard to them are short, simple, and clear. It cannot fail to add to the happiness of any home it may enter.

THE WONDERS OF WATER. From the French of Gaston Tissandier. Edited, with numerous Additions, by Schele De Vere, D.D., LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1872. 1 vol. 12mo.

A most interesting and useful little volume, containing valuable information in regard to the uses of water, the history of artesian wells, ancient and modern water-works, etc., etc. The book is elegantly got up and well illustrated.

----------

THE 721

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XIV., No. 84.--MARCH, 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by REV. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

AN UNCIVIL JOURNAL.

The activity and universality of the American press are proverbial. Leaving out of sight the innumerable political organs which dabble in everything, there is not a department of human knowledge, not a recognized theological creed, not a leading foreign nationality, not a prominent _ism_ of the day, that has not its daily or weekly to represent it. And they all speak and investigate with unlimited freedom. The race of Robert Burns’s “chiel” who was “takin’ notes” has been multiplied until they here outnumber the sands on the sea-shore. Nothing escapes them. All shortcomings of whatever origin are certain of detection by some of them, and they are not restrained by any false modesty from instant proclamation thereof. Everybody is held accountable to everybody else. Republicans and Democrats keep up permanent mutual inquisition, Protection and Free-trade spy out each other’s defects, and rival sects seem firmly to believe in the chastening influence of announcement of their neighbors’ faults.

More than any of these, more than all put together, is Catholicity in the United States subjected to the most ceaseless and penetrating surveillance. The curiosity prompting this surveillance is sometimes friendly, but generally the reverse. English literature, essentially anti-Catholic and bigoted, has made its mark upon American education, and with many people the intolerant falsehood of much English history still passes for truth. So-called religious (Protestant) papers are never at a loss for a leader topic--“Abuse the Catholics.” Protestant ministers find heads of discourse always ready in anti-Popery admonitions. We personally know many excellent men among them who conscientiously strive to do their duty as they understand it, and are above such wrong; but there are large numbers of Poundtexts and Brandlighters, obscure in position, of uncertain education and wretchedly paid, who make of “Popery” a stalking-horse, and seek to fill their empty pews and depleted pockets with the fruits of anti-Popery excitement. Added to such editors and such preachers as we describe, there is a small army of literary and theological stragglers, 722 bummers, and disgraced deserters hovering on the rear of these regular forces, always in the field with lectures, pamphlets, keys to Popery, horrible disclosures, and all the pestilent riff-raff of anti-Catholic literature. One would think the Protestant army of observation on such a footing sufficiently well-organized, active, and effective to guard the walls of the American Zion and sound a timely alarm.

But the publishing firm of Messrs. Harper & Brothers is not of that opinion, and they appear to have discovered that it is their duty to take under their special protection and keeping the public schools, the Bible, the Protestant religion, and the liberties of America;--thus demonstrating the wretched incapacity and utter failure of our civil authorities, our religious press, and the Protestant ministry to do their plainest duty. The gentlemen in question publish, here in New York, _Harper’s Monthly Magazine_, and a hebdomadal called _Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization_. These periodicals contain a variety of light literature, papers on current topics, poetry, anecdotes, and highly-flavored anti-Popery articles. Besides these last, the _Weekly_ generally has one or more caricatures calculated to disseminate the worst falsehoods, and to excite hatred towards Catholics and contempt for their religion.

For years past, a constantly recurring subject of its most offensive form of caricature has been the person of the venerable Pontiff Pius IX. It is difficult to conceive how any man of even ordinary instincts of propriety--we care not what his religious prejudices might be--could have for this revered personage any feeling but one of profound respect. An aged bishop, fourscore years of age, whose purity of character is without speck or stain, whose long life has been one of labor and usefulness, piety and virtue, beginning his sacerdotal career as a missionary in a foreign land, then serving faithfully as the director of charitable institutions and hospitals, whose first acts of power were those of benevolence and universal amnesty, toward whom, on the part of the tens of thousands of Protestants who have seen and spoken with him, no sentiments but those of profound admiration and veneration are ever expressed--such a character as this is selected by the _Journal of Civilization_ as the favorite butt of its indecent ribaldry.

We here leave entirely out of sight all consideration of the question of outrage upon the religious sensibilities of millions of Catholics in the United States, and place the judgment of the offence upon the broad ground of civilized propriety. The men who perpetrate this outrage seek to justify themselves on the plea that it is as king or temporal sovereign of Rome they caricature him. Their offence is aggravated by so flimsy and paltry a pretext. The merits of the disputes among the monarchs of Europe do not concern us here in America to that extent, and if they did, as a question of monarchical right and precedence of seniority, the kings and emperors of Europe are all new-comers and upstarts by the side of the Roman Pontiff.

While these caricatures are essentially addressed to a sentiment of religious bigotry, their authors seek, by the false association of some political idea, not only to excuse them on that ground, but to reinforce that bigotry with all the strength of political hatred. Take, for instance, the filthy crocodile picture. There is an appeal whose falsity is only exceeded by its beastliness. Then the “Roman 723 Catholic mission from England to the heathens of America” (_Weekly_, Dec. 30, 1871), in which the pure Christian, the devoted philanthropist, the perfect gentleman--Most Rev. Archbishop Manning--is portrayed with iron shackles in his hand, which he holds concealed behind him, striving to entice the negroes to come to him; to whom a negro replies (so naturally!): “No, thank you. We have just been emancipated, and, if England is responsible for slavery in the United States, I don’t care to jump from the English frying-pan into the English fire.”

The favorite device of the _Weekly_ gentlemen is to represent the perpetrators of offences against law and order, and the participators in municipal robbery and corruption, as Catholics, and, in their persons, to hold the Catholic Church responsible for such offences. It is not necessary to dwell on the absurdity of such a charge, nor on the hardship and injustice of such a responsibility.

There are thousands of men in this city, supposed to be Catholics--nay, who, if asked the question, will say that they are--who have not been inside of a Catholic Church nor spoken to a priest for long years, men whose lives are scandalous in their irregularities and crimes. Such as these bring disgrace upon the church whose precepts they trample under foot. If arrested for violation of the laws of the land, we sincerely trust they may have legally meted out to them the fullest measure of punishment. The properly constituted authorities will have our thanks for so doing. The _Weekly_ writers are ignorant of much that touches Catholic faith and practice, but they are not ignorant of the fact that the custom among Protestant churches of considering as members those only who make avowed profession, and live up to the requirements of strict church membership, does not prevail in the Catholic Church. The difference with us is between _practical_ Catholics and those who, neglecting their religious duties, live in sin; and we state with profound regret that the number of this latter class is very much larger than any one who loves his church cares to see.

But it is all the same thing to the Harper scribes, and the indifferent Catholic, the bad Catholic, the Catholic who is a scandal to his church, is a “good enough Morgan” for our _Weekly_, which constantly represents him as an active and devout member of the church, in direct communication with the Holy See. How if a similar rule were to be applied generally, and we should in every case of moral dereliction seek out the sect with which the sinner has some real or supposed affiliation, and charge the crime upon the religious teachings of that sect?

Is the Presbyterian Church to be made responsible for New York municipal defalcations because connection with them is charged on the Presbyterian, Mayor Hall? Is the Methodist Church answerable for Tammany frauds because Tweed is a Methodist? Let us suppose for a moment a man so devoid of all sense and decency as to compile a narrative of crimes and outrages perpetrated by people known to be Methodists, beginning years back with the well-known (Avery-Cornell) seduction and murder case in which a Methodist minister was the criminal, and coming down past the scandalous publication by Methodist printers of the infamous book of Maria Monk, to the late horrible story, in a Western city, of torture through long years of an unoffending child by its unnatural Methodist parents, to the shameful 724 malversations of a religious Book Concern, to the gigantic thefts in our city administration, to the Drew complication of the Erie abomination, which shines by its absence in all the late _Harper_ chronicles; and, having completed his catalogue, to present and denounce these crimes as the legitimate result of the teachings of the Methodist Church. It would be waste of words to point out the false reasoning, the injustice, the malice of such a performance. For, however Christian sects may differ on doctrinal points, and whatever may be alleged as to the extent of their theological errors, none of them deliberately teach immorality, and all inculcate the precepts of the decalogue.

What, then, shall be thought of a journal which, week after week, loudly and persistently, not only accuses the Catholic Church in the persons of her ministers of teaching the most flagrant immorality, but seeks--coupling with this grave charge the imputation of striving to create civil discord--by every artifice of rhetoric, by every device of exaggeration, by every appeal of gross caricature, to arouse the wildest passions and the fiercest bigotry? The journal in question labors to stir up, and it does stir up, bad blood and hot strife among hitherto peaceful neighbors.

The charge is a serious one, and we make it knowingly. Instances and illustrations in its support may be found in nearly all the numbers of the _Weekly_ for years past.

For its anti-Catholic operations, the _Journal_ is used as a sort of tender to the heavy transport, the _Monthly_, which frequently gives its readers long, elaborate, and malicious articles, made up mainly of exploded calumnies, threadbare anti-Popery rhetoric of the school of Brownlee and the early Know-Nothings, and the extraordinary lucubrations of a contributor whom we can only describe as Harper’s comic historian. This singular writer undertakes to demonstrate, for instance, that the Apostle of Ireland was not a Catholic missionary at all, but in religious faith a sort of Old-School Presbyterian, who went about distributing Bibles among the “savage Irish,” making strong “anti-Popery” speeches, and delivering lectures on popular education to the serfs of his day!

Absurd as these articles are from a literary point of view, they are yet full of inflammable material, and play as recklessly with fire as the more brutal incentives of the _Weekly_. For it must be borne in mind that most of these direct appeals to religious bigotry are intended not so much for home consumption as for their effect upon the general rural mind, and that their evident purpose is to arouse another Know-Nothing revival throughout the country.

There are, unfortunately, too many people thoughtless enough, or, perhaps, wicked enough, to respond to these incentives--people so far forgetting themselves as to imagine that their own religion, or something which they imagine stands for it, must be the state church in America, and that it is free to them to persecute and outlaw the professors of a faith which, in their ignorance, they despise and hate.

But we are satisfied that, on the other hand, there is too much intelligence, moderation, forbearance, and patriotism among American citizens to permit the success of schemes aimed at once against liberty of conscience, the peace of society, and the true freedom of our institutions.

And among these citizens we rank--by no means the last--the

CATHOLICS OF THE UNITED STATES. 725

We can only qualify as impertinent the coolness with which these scribes of the Messrs. Harper talk about “receiving” Catholics “hospitably into this free Protestant land.” When and how were these gentlemen constituted the dispensers of the hospitalities of this free country? When and how did this country become a “Protestant land”? At what period of the history of America were Catholics strangers here?

Under somewhat similar provocation, the great Montalembert, from the tribune in the Chamber of Peers, told certain Frenchmen: “We are the sons of the Crusaders, and we fear not the progeny of Voltaire.” And we, Catholics of the United States, say to these gentlemen who seek to inaugurate another Know-Nothing campaign, that here in America we are neither strangers nor new-comers of yesterday.

We came in the caravels of Columbus, we came with the Cartiers and the La Salles, the Brébœufs and the Jogues, the Joliets and the Marquettes, with the men whose blood of martyrdom moistened the soil of New York, with the men whose bones had mingled with the savannas of the South and the prairies of the West long before Plymouth Rock was heard of. We came--not with the Hessians of George--but with the army of Rochambeau and the fleet of De Grasse, with the arms of Catholic France and the gold of Catholic Spain, to aid our American struggle for liberty. The largest fortune risked in signing our Declaration of Independence was a Catholic fortune. As Catholics, we have proved our devotion to our country in three wars. The ranks of our army and the ships of our navy are full of our people, and if, at this moment, you undertake to blot the names of Catholic officers from naval and army registers, you will be compelled to deface entire pages. We are of all the walks of life, from the humblest to the highest, pursuing our legitimate business, and fulfilling our duties as citizens, fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers. We have schools, seminaries, and colleges successfully active, increasing in number and usefulness, and only not entirely filled with Catholic pupils because of the great number of youths sent to them by non-Catholic parents. We are merchants, bankers, editors, clerks, mechanics, artists, farmers, lawyers, physicians, legislators, and laborers. We fill professors’ chairs and seats on the judicial bench. We have among us thousands of cultivated men and refined and elegant women, the peers of any in the land. We are, as a body, good and law-abiding citizens. We respect ourselves. We mean to be respected. And we protest against the bigoted and senseless denunciation and caricature of our faith in the pretended exposure of fictitious plots against the institutions and liberties of our country.

There exists evidently, among the Know-Nothing writers referred to, some faint appreciation of these facts, and, with labored display of politeness, they seek to turn the difficulty by reference to “respectable citizens,” appeals to “intelligent Romanists” (thus designating us, in their clumsy courtesy, by a nickname), and such declarations as “we do not in any just sense accuse all adherents of that church of hostility to our institutions” (“_our_ institutions!”) We distinctly decline to accept any such qualification or apology. So far as our religion is concerned, we are all, lettered and unlettered, rich and poor, on a footing of perfect equality. The lady in the 726 parlor and the servant in her kitchen abide by the same religious observances, the rich banker and his poorest clerk hold precisely the same faith, and the wealthy merchant and his drayman out there in the street, kneel at the same altar. We are aware that all this is “horridly ungenteel,” but it is an old habit of our people. Eighteen hundred years ago and more, we were assured that the poor we have always. And we have them. They never leave us, and are not likely to. Poor-houses came in with the Reformation, and then poverty first became disgraceful. For poverty, and, yet more, for the shame of poverty, the needy and wretched cannot enter elegant Protestant conventicles.

And now that we have seen the nature and complexion of the attempted revival of Know-Nothing violence, it may be asked, Who are the men who promote it, creating prejudice, fostering bigotry, inflaming religious rancor, arraying neighbor against neighbor, and endangering the peace of the community? Have they a special mission from on high? Are their scribes inspired writers? Or, perchance, are the antecedents of those publishers and proprietors such as to have established a character for pure patriotism and disinterested virtue so pre-eminently superior as to authorize them to set themselves up the self-constituted guardians of American liberty and evangelical Christianity?

We propose to examine these questions in the light of the printed record of the responsible proprietors of the _Journal of Civilization_. To that printed record we shall strictly confine ourselves. And in taking the first step toward the fulfilment of our duty, we regret that circumstances will compel the revelation of some

AWFUL DISCLOSURES.

The excitement and violent denunciation of Catholicity produced many years ago by the publication of an infamous book said to have been written by one Maria Monk are still remembered among us, as well as the thorough exposure of its utter falsehood, made by Colonel Stone of New York, and other Protestant gentlemen.

The book was entitled _The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk_, and from its title-page purported to be published by _Howe and Bates_. Howe and Bates! Who were Howe and Bates? There was none to make reply. For neither to the book trade nor in the flesh were “Howe and Bates” ever known of mortal man.

As to the character of the book in question, we are further enlightened by the author of a work entitled “_Protestant Jesuitism_, by a Protestant,” published by the Harpers in 1838. At page 34 of the book, Maria Monk’s work is described as “one of the most arrant fictions that was ever palmed upon the community,” and the author adds: “The people of this land--and it is the common attribute of human nature--love excitement, and unfortunately there are those who know how to produce it, and profit by it.” Unfortunate, indeed, it is that there are those who stand ready to profit by foul slander and malignant falsehood concerning their neighbor. Unfortunate, indeed, that men can be found who, for the sake of a few dollars, could consent to spread, broadcast upon the world, printed vilification and outrage of noble, pure-minded women, who, solely for the love of God and out of their own abundant charity, devote their lives to alleviating the sufferings of the needy, the afflicted, and the sick. Who are they who profited by it? If we can obtain a satisfactory 727 answer to that question, we may probably be far on the way toward solving the mystery which hovers over the existence of “Howe and Bates.”

Maria Monk’s disclosures were not all made in the book published by that somewhat nebulous firm. The most “awful” of all her “awful disclosures” were made in the dignified form of a bill in equity which she filed against her publishers, who, by their own admissions and declarations, turn out to be not “Howe and Bates,” who from this moment for ever disappear from view, but Messrs. James, John, Joseph W., and Fletcher Harper.

The bill filed for discovery and account against the defendants as booksellers and publishers by Maria Monk, a minor, through her next friend, shows that complainant was authoress of a work which she had copyrighted and stereotyped, and that said stereotype plates were paid for by her with money belonging to her, and that she was liable for any balance unpaid; that after the copyright had been so taken out, the said plates got into the possession of the defendants, and that they had published the work under the title of “_Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk_, as exhibited in a narrative of her sufferings during a residence of five years as a novice, and two years as a black nun, in the Hôtel Dieu at Montreal.” Further, that she was a minor, was entirely unacquainted with the modes of doing business, that she believed that persons professing to be her friends had made some bargains for her in relation to said work, that this was known to the defendants, and yet they pretended to take out another copyright of the same work in the District of Massachusetts, and published a large number of impressions from the plates, and issued the book; and that they had large profits in their hands which belonged to the complainant.

Prayer that the said James, John, Joseph W., and Fletcher Harper make full statement, etc., and deliver over all sums of money and property, with account of sales and amount received for same.

We have had occasion to see that the proprietors of the _Journal of Civilization_ are fiercely patriotic. And they were so, long before that civilizing journal was founded. Their first impulse on receiving a copy of this latest “awful disclosure” by Maria Monk was an impulse of patriotism, of indignation that a foreigner should presume to expect copyright protection in the United States. Thrice is he armed who has statutory law, patriotism, and an act of Congress upon which to fall back, and the defendants, in such panoply as that, straightway filed a demurrer.[147] Maria Monk’s copyright was first issued and had precedence of seniority, but respondents demurred, first and principally, on the ground that “the complainant did not show herself to be a citizen entitled to take out a copyright.” The demurrer also set up other matters in avoidance.

In deciding the case, the Vice-Chancellor closed the delivery of his opinion by saying: “It [the bill] does not show any privity of contract or dealing between the parties; no agreement expressed or implied by which the defendants can be held to account to the complainant for the profits of the work. It rather shows that, by fraud 728 or wrong, the defendants obtained possession of the stereotype plates, and, altering the title of the book to that of _Awful Disclosures_, etc., published it in defiance of her rights. If she has sustained loss by such conduct of the defendants, she must persuade a jury to give her compensation in a verdict of damages against them, when, perhaps, the merits of her _Awful Disclosures_ and _Nunnery Unveiled, and the motives of those who have promoted and prompted the_ publication, will duly be considered.”

Demurrer sustained, and bill dismissed at costs of complainant.

All of which, and more, may be found in _Edwards’s Chancery Reports_, vol. iii., p. 109.

PAST AND PRESENT.

Within the past twelve years, a new generation of readers has grown up in the United States--a generation far outnumbering its predecessor, and the circulation of the journal published by the Harper Brothers has increased immensely. The great body of its readers of to-day are profoundly impressed with a sense of its unvarying and undying patriotism, and it probably never occurs to the soldier who, when a mere boy, shouldered his musket in defence of the Union, that his now furiously patriotic _Harper’s Weekly_ was originally, and as long as it was found to pay, the advocate of secession and the apologist of slavery. How sadly true this is, we propose to show by presenting the results of our examination into

THE JOURNAL IN THE HOUR OF TRIAL.

On opening the volume of the _Weekly_ for the year 1861, we felt quite confident of finding an admirably executed full-length picture of the then President-elect of the United States, and confess to some disappointment when, instead thereof, occupying the entire first page, we discover portraits of “The Georgia Delegation in Congress,” followed by sketches highly laudatory of the seven gentlemen composing the delegation. The same number makes calm and commentless record of “The South Carolina Proclamation of Independence,” and the spread of secession through the South.

_January 12, 1861._--Under the heading “The Great Southern Movement,” the publishers “beg to draw attention to the following list of illustrations of the _Pending Revolution_,” such unseemly words as rebellion and treachery being left to the unprincipled Abolition papers of that day. In the same number we have “The Revolution at Charleston” in cuts of “Anderson at Sumter” and “The Charleston Militia taking Fort Pickens”--thus making a nice balance. Doubtless the Lincoln portrait will come in our next number.

Why, what are these? Portraits and laudatory notices of Governor Pickens, Honorable Judge McGrath, and “Rev. Dr. Bachman, who asked a blessing on the Secession Ordinance,” the signing of which, according to the fervid account cited from a Charleston paper, was a scene “profoundly grand and impressive”; there were “patriarchs in age--the dignitaries of the land--the high-priests of the church of Christ--reverend statesmen--and wise judges of the law”--in the midst of whom “the President advanced with the consecrated parchment”--which holy document was the ordinance of secession. We continue turning leaf after leaf with but slight edification--Skating Park--Old Fashions--Humors of the Day--Rarey the Horse Tamer--Love Story--etc. 729 Pleasant reading for people sitting over a volcano.

_January 26_ gives us “The Prayer at Sumter,” a drop of mournful comfort. Then an editorial, “WANTED, A CAPITAL.” It opens impressively: “_Some practical people, viewing the dissolution of the Union as a fixed fact_,[148] and assuming that all or nearly all the Border States will go with their Southern slave sisters, are already casting about in search of a new capital.” The vigorous patriotism of this idea is strengthened by a sweet allegory, in a column of small type, entitled “John Ardens and James Placens.” You see the delicate joke in the mild Latin? Ardens is a fiery fellow, who absurdly insists on having what he is entitled to. Placens is a gentleman, a practical philosopher, who very sensibly submits to any imposition on pocket or principle for the sake of peace. The placid moral is, “In things indifferent yield rather than quarrel.” Logically enough, two pages further on we have “The Firing on the Star of the West,” as a mere passing incident of the day. Meantime Fort Sumter does heavy duty on the illustrated pages, and is served up without intermission, from sea, from land, by day, by night, _en barbette_, _en côtelette_, and in every other conceivable way.

_February 2, 1861._--Another grand page of portraits--not of Lincoln and Seward, but of “The Seceding Mississippi Delegation in Congress,” followed by a page in small type of fulsome praise of the seven members--Jefferson Davis, Brown, Barksdale, Lamar, R. Davis, Singleton, and McRae. With the praise we also have copious and labored arguments for slavery and secession, thus: “Personally, Senator Davis is the Bayard of Congress, _sans peur et sans reproche_; a finished scholar; a high-minded gentleman; a devoted father; a true friend. He is emphatically one of those ‘born to command,’ and is doubtless _destined to occupy a high position either in the Southern Confederacy or in the United States_.” On which we would merely remark that as to the non-fulfilment of this prophecy there has been some disappointment in the first-named country, and great dissatisfaction in the second. This Mississippi article closes with the assurance from one of the seven that slavery is not only national, but “a universal institution of God and man, nature and Christianity, earth and heaven--having its origin in the law of God, sustained by the Bible, sustained by Christianity,” etc., etc.

We continue turning the leaves. And now that we have had quite enough of “the Seceding Delegations,” we naturally hope that room may be found for a portrait of the President-elect. At page 76 we come to “Portrait of the South Carolina Minister of War,” which is not the object of our search.

_February 9._--What, again? “THE SECEDING ALABAMA DELEGATION IN CONGRESS.” A full-page of portraits of nine gentlemen who do not look at all amiable. Following this comes the regulation two and a half columns of praise in small type, interspersed with extracts from their speeches. Of one of these delegates--a party by the name of Curry--we are assured that

“Nature has endowed him with a mind so active that he can apparently discover, by a glance so rapid as to seem intuition, those truths which common capacities struggle hard to comprehend, while his genius enables him to enforce by argument, and his accomplishments to illustrate, those topics upon which he 730 addresses the House.”

Naturally enough follows, on page 88, a View of the City of Montgomery, showing the state-house where “THE CONGRESS OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY MEETS.”

_February 16, 1861._--Concerning so-called stay-laws passed in the South, which were at the time generally understood to mean practical repudiation of mercantile debts due to the North, hark how sweetly sings the Northern secession siren with elaborate Harp accompaniment: “We trust that our Southern friends will believe that we have no partisan purpose in view if we direct their attention to the fatal consequences of the stay-laws, etc., etc. For many years our Southern States have enjoyed first-rate credit, both at the North and abroad. Southern obligations have always been preferred in New York to obligations from the East or West.... Southern men have been considered here as good under all circumstances. Their honor has been relied on to any extent. _Houses which would not trust Western or Eastern dealers a hundred dollars have been delighted to give credits of thousands to Southerners._ The simple reason was that people have had an undying faith in the honor of the Southern people--a firm conviction that under no circumstances would they seek to evade payment of their debts.” And here the siren’s song is broken by a gush of tears--“Is this faith, is this conviction to be demolished now by the passage of stay-laws?” Then follow the perennial “View of Sumter,” double-page Paris fashions, etc., until we reach (p. 109) Views of the “Mint and the New Custom House,” New Orleans, “of which the United States have had only a brief occupancy”--“both of which have been seized by the state authorities.” There is no comment on this “seizure” by the state authorities, but more than three months afterward we shall find “civilization” waking up in wrath and fulminating thus: “All that the rebels of New Orleans wanted when they stole the mint was to be let alone.” In this same number (p. 112) we have the sneering caricature of the calamity of the country which at the time afforded the enemies of the American Union exquisite delight and “prolonged shouts of laughter.” It is entitled “_The Crippled American Eagle, the Cock, and the Lion_.” To the eagle, dilapidated, lame, and on crutches: “LION.--Why, Brother Jonathan, you don’t look so fierce as you used. How about the Monroe Doctrine now? COCK.--Yes, my good Jonathan, what you tink of PRIVATEERING under de present circumstance?”

At last, in the number of February 23, we reach portraits of “President and Vice-President”--what? surely we must be mistaken! No--the print is very clear in its large capitals--“Of the Southern Confederacy.” And very good portraits they are, too, but not of the President and Vice-President we were expecting to see. The number of March 2 gives us a full-page woodcut of “The President-elect Addressing the People.” The “people” are represented by twenty-six hats and the scanty outlines of eleven men, but in compensation we have a thrilling view of two gigantic lamp-posts, and, in exaggerated disproportion, the pillars of the balcony over the centre of whose summit appears the upper half of a small, lean figure supposed to be that of A. Lincoln. This is somewhat disappointing, but, by way of consolation, the next page enlightens us on the subject of patriotism: “This subject of patriotism is in a fair way of being more thoroughly 731 ventilated than it ever was before. Everybody appears to admit that patriotism is a virtue, and that a man should love his country. But the question arises at every corner, What is our country?” The topic is illustrated by watery hypotheses from Smith, Jones, and Thomson, and the editor adds some strong milk to the water with--“Can he claim the title of patriot if he loves his state only, and confesses no obligation to the rest of the confederacy?”

For men who have progressed far enough in constitutional law and patriotism to call the Union a confederacy we have strong hopes. Further on, under heading, “The Southern Confederacy,” we are advised that “the President has nominated”--so and so--“to his cabinet.” Then follows “President Davis’s Inaugural”--not the President we are looking for. Then come “Snake Stories,” “Aunt Maria,” “The Mazed Fiddler,” “Romance by Lever”--pleasant reading for perilous times--until, at last, our search is ended, our patience rewarded, and at page 144, in the number of March 2, 1861, we have a full-length portrait of Abraham Lincoln, President-elect of the United States. It is

A REMARKABLE PICTURE.

It is indeed a picture so remarkable that we would advise every American who voted for Mr. Lincoln, every American who, whether he voted for or against him, yet credited him with the reputation of being at least a decent person, and every man, of whatever nationality, who considered him not positively a degraded loafer--we would advise all such, if they can find a copy of _Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization_, of March 2, 1861, to contemplate and study that picture, and then form their opinion of the Christianity and the patriotism of the men who, at that crisis of the country’s fate, and in that dangerous hour of feverish excitement and political passion, could, in cold blood, spread such a firebrand sketch broadcast through the land. We further commend this counsel more especially to those present readers and approvers of the _Journal of Civilization_ who cherish the memory of a murdered President whom they remember as at least blameless in life, pure in character, kind of heart, charitable in impulse, and noble in patriotism.

We will endeavor to describe the drawing. Mr. Lincoln is represented, in a room at the Astor House, standing, or rather staggering, under the influence of liquor, with a just emptied glass in his hand. He is surrounded by four boon companions, two of them with drunken leer and Bardolphian noses; a third in the background looks vacantly on with expression of maudlin stupidity; while the fourth, like the rest, glass in hand, stands at the open window, and--partially sobered by the shock--gazes at a passing funeral procession. On the moving hearse, accompanied by mourners and decked with solemn black plumes, are inscribed the words:

UNION,

CONSTITUTION.

Under this work of art--a wretched, scratchy woodcut--we read:

OUR PRESIDENTIAL MERRYMAN.

“The Presidential party was engaged in a lively exchange of wit and humor. The President-elect was the merriest among the merry and kept those around him in a continual roar.”--_Daily Paper._

Now, let it be borne in mind that this very suggestive piece of malice 732 was published just on the eve of Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration at Washington, whose atmosphere was black with lowering clouds of rebellion, where threats were rife that he would never take his seat in the Presidential chair, and where men’s minds were already warped and inflamed by misrepresentations and falsehoods concerning him, the belief in which by a large portion of the community would seriously blunt any sharp opprobrium of murder, and soften down assassination to the meritorious taking off of an unworthy drunken demagogue. If the conductors of this organ of “civilization” are capable of giving the greatest publicity to a horrible caricature on such a subject, and at a moment fraught with such dreadful contingencies, need there be any room for surprise that they do not stickle at far worse when the subjects of their defamation are “only Catholics”?

ANOTHER PICTURE.

But we have not yet done with this number of March 2. It was the strongest bid of the journal for Southern favor and patronage. On the same page with the cut we have described is another, a more elaborate, more artistic, and better executed picture. Scene: Interior of a church--pews full of worshippers--minister officiating--administration of the sacrament. At the chancel railing kneels George Washington. With one hand, the clergyman standing in the sanctuary holds away the cup from the would-be communicant, and with the other contemptuously waves him off. The Father of his Country makes a gesture of indignant remonstrance, while the minister’s assistant with a long stick points to a tablet in the wall, on which are engraved the words:

THE HIGHER LAW.

NO COMMUNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.

Is the reader edified? There is more to come. The officiating minister is Henry Ward Beecher--an unmistakable portrait. His assistant is John Brown--an excellent likeness--and the pointer he uses is one of the well-known “Harper’s Ferry Pikes.” Under the engraving we read:

NO COMMUNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.

“Stand aside, you Old Sinner! We are holier than thou.”

Will the members of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, who now see the efforts of the journal to misrepresent Catholics in doctrine and in morals, please read these efforts by the light of this George Washington picture?

We also commend careful examination, of this picture to the friends and admirers of Mr. Beecher. Let them ask themselves this question: Would the men who, for the sake of a little larger circulation, do not hesitate to caricature their own Protestant co-religionists--would these men, we say, be reasonably expected to be very scrupulous in the vilification of those whose Catholic faith they detest?

And for similar reasons, we commend consideration of both these pictures to all readers of a _Journal of Civilization_ which, week after week, by innuendo, assertion, falsehood, and caricature, strives to awaken the lowest prejudices of religious intolerance, the vilest 733 passions of religious bigotry, and the sweeping persecution of American citizens who choose to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.

We see that, in 1861, the proprietors of the _Journal of Civilization_ held sentiments looked upon in this latitude as rebel and pro-slavery. We freely admit that they had a perfect right so to do, accepting, of course, the legal and social consequences flowing from such holding. Open to them to assume the social and moral superiority of Southern gentlemen over Northern traders. Free to them to vaunt Southern honor at the expense of Northern honesty. But surely they might advocate, as they did, with all the eloquence of their editorials and all the influence of their wide circulation, the dissolution of the Union and the strong reprobation of anti-slavery sentiment, without insinuating that Eastern and Western merchants are swindlers, without calumniating Mr. Lincoln, and without vilifying Mr. Beecher?

The journal’s proprietors were perfectly well aware how grossly Mr. Lincoln was misrepresented, and how utterly he was misunderstood in the South. To what extent sectional bitterness was intensified against him was shown by the free application of the epithet “gorilla.” Under these circumstances, was it--we will not say considerate--but was it honest, was it fair, to picture him as a drunken clown to men who did not know him, and were all too ready to believe it? Was it respectful, was it decent, to caricature the President-elect to those who did know him, as celebrating in drunken orgies the death of the Constitution and the funeral of the Union?

Henry Ward Beecher was looked upon in the South as the ardent apostle of an Abolition evangel which taught servile insurrection and midnight murder--not an enviable reputation surely. But was it fair, was it honest, to give shape, body, and unnatural proportions to this belief by picturing him as insulting the Father of his Country, aided by John Brown as his henchman, armed with a Harper’s Ferry spear?

And so we reach the journal’s issue of March 9, 1861, but have thus far found no portrait of President either elect or _de facto_, except as a drunken clown (Mr. Merryman). We learn, however, by way of explanation, that he is a sectional President! A long editorial of this number is headed RECONSTRUCTION, and contains such vigorous Union sentiment as this:

“Granted--if you will, for the sake of argument--that the Southern rebellion against the election of a sectional President is treason, and liable to punishment--is it wise, is it prudent, is it possible to punish it?”

Again:

“It would undoubtedly be a very mischievous undertaking to keep half a dozen states in the Union against the deliberate wishes of their people. Whatever popular feeling--roused to frenzy by the seizure of forts, arsenals, revenue cutters, and mints--might prompt on the spur of the moment, _there can be no question but the enterprise of holding the Union together by force would ultimately prove futile_. IT WOULD BE IN VIOLATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF OUR INSTITUTIONS!”

An interesting number, this of March 9, with a fine portrait of “General David E. Twiggs, late of the United States Army,” a whole-page view of “Inauguration of President Jefferson Davis of the Southern Confederacy,” and an article explanatory of the same.

No “sectional President here,” and the inauguration is described as 734 “solemn and impressive.”

At page 160 (March 9) we have a cartoon of four vulgar caricatures, entitled collectively “The Flight of Abraham” (as reported by a Modern Daily Paper), and separately: (1.) THE ALARM.--A gaunt figure sits upright in bed with nightcap on. A lantern is held in at the open door, from which come the words: “Run, Abe, for your life, the Blood Tubs are after you!!!” (2.) THE COUNCIL.--General Sumner, with a pair of large cavalry boots in one hand, and in the other a handkerchief which he holds to his eyes, weeping vociferously--boo-o-o, stands near “Abe”; on the other side is Mrs. Lincoln in dowdy dishabille, crying bitterly, “Do go!” (3.) THE SPECIAL TRAIN.--” He wore a Scotch plaid cap and a very long military cloak, so that he was entirely unrecognizable”--an ignoble picture. (4.) THE OLD COMPLAINT.--Lincoln presents himself to the astonished Buchanan dissolved with fright, while Seward whispers to Buchanan, “Only a little attack of ager, your excellency.”

Editorial correspondence at page 162 gives us the valuable information that “Senator Wigfall is a finished orator--probably the most charming in the senate,” and that he is “the exact opposite of Chandler and Wilkinson”--“very unpleasant speakers to listen to.” Senator Mason, we are told, “with all his faults is perhaps the nearest approach in the present senate to the beau ideal of a senator.” At page 168 (March 16) we have a large cut representing “The Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln _as_ President of the United States,” and we cannot help contrasting the phraseology of this announcement with a previous one: “Inauguration of President Jefferson Davis of the Southern Confederacy.”

And so we progress to April 27, 1861, page 258, where we find President Lincoln’s Proclamation of April 15 thus announced: “War is declared. President Lincoln’s proclamation, which we publish above, is an absolute proclamation of war against the Gulf States.” Better late than never, we at last, after long, weary waiting, find in this number, page 268, the long-looked-for “Portrait of the President,” accompanied by a biographical sketch of Mr. Lincoln. It was really high time that the readers of the _Civilization_ should be told something of their President nearly two months after he had assumed the reins of government. To make everything pleasant and impartial, however, the opposite page gives us the copy of a full-length photograph of General Beauregard. Having paid your money, choice is optional.

We have thus seen with what persistence and industry the _Journal_, during the long, critical months of the beginning of that eventful year 1861, was the ardent panegyrist of everything Southern, the stern rebuker and enemy of anti-slavery, the mocker and caricaturist of Northern Union sentiment, and the contemptuous sneerer at Abraham Lincoln. But all this fine talk about principle and lofty assumption of stern virtue was a mere question of circulation, and the sympathy of the _Journal_ went with its pecuniary benefit, so far and no farther.

The immutability of its principles was subject to be disturbed by just such considerations as those which carried conviction to the understanding of Hans Breitman, and which he so admirably explained in his great political speech:

“Dese ish de brinciples I holts, And dose in vitch I run: Dey ish fixed firm and immutaple Ash te course of de ‘ternal sun:

Boot if you ton’t abbrove of dem-- 735 Blease nodice vot I say-- I shall only be too happy To alder dem right afay.”[149]

From an editorial leader of May 25, we hear that the _Weekly_ is in receipt of abusive and threatening letters from various persons in the Southern States, the cause assigned for which rude conduct is “the statement in _our editorial of March 4_, to the effect that civil war between the _Free States on one side and the Slave States on the other_ will inevitably, sooner or later, become a war of emancipation,” etc., etc. The reader may notice here that the expression, “Free States on one side and the Slave States on the other,” just as clearly and forcibly puts forth the doctrine of state sovereignty and the right of secession, as does the title of Alexander Stephens’s late work, which, in the smallest of nut-shells, gives the same doctrine in the few words, _The War between the States_. But what is of as great importance is that the contingent danger of emancipation was not presented by the journal at so early a date as _March 4_. There is no such editorial of March 4, there is no editorial of any kind of March 4, and, moreover, there was no number of _Harper’s Weekly_ published on that date. The editorial referred to appeared _May 4_. And here we would frankly say that we are quite willing to accept this March 4 for May 4 as the result of mistake, oversight, or careless proof-reading.

With the abusive and threatening letters came advices that “In Tennessee vigilance committees forbid its (_Harper’s_) being sold.” “In Louisiana, the governor prohibits its distribution through the post-office.” And now, the Harpers, like Macbeth, have heard enough, and, seized with the frenzy of patriotism, thunder after this fashion:

“As for _Harper’s Weekly_, it will continue, _as heretofore_, to support the government of the United States,[150] the stars and stripes,[151] and the indivisible union[152] of thirty-four states.

“We know no other course[153] consistent with the duty of citizens, Christians, and honest men. If any subscriber to this journal expects us to give our aid or countenance to rebellion[154] against the government, he will be disappointed. If any man buys this journal expecting to find us apologize for treason,[155] robbery, rebellion, piracy, or murder, he will be disappointed. That is not our line of business. The proprietors of _Harper’s Weekly_ would rather stop this journal to-morrow than publish a line in it which would hereafter cause their children to blush for the patriotism or the manhood of their parents.”

This sharp change of sentiment, this sudden right-about face, may be 736 best illustrated by the notes we have appended and by the utterances of the _Journal_ before and after certain occurrences.

BEFORE. AFTER.

_Editorial (leader) March _Editorial (leader) May 18, 30, 1861, entitled “The Two 1861._ Constitutions.”_ “Mr. Jefferson Davis, “The Constitution of the Ex-Senator from Mississippi, Southern Confederacy has has transmitted to the been published. It is a copy select council of rebels at of the original Constitution Montgomery a document which of the United States, with he calls ‘A Message.’ It is some variations. The a most ingenious and principal variations plausible statement of their are”--nineteen of these are case. Mr. Jefferson Davis is then described, and the renowned for having made the article concludes: “We have most specious argument on thus enumerated the record in justification of principal alterations in the Mississippi repudiation. He Constitution effected by the has not forgotten his Congress at Montgomery. cunning. His ‘Message’ would _Most of them would receive almost persuade us--if we the hearty support of the would forget facts and people of the North. But law--that rebellion is comment is superfluous._” right, and the maintenance of government and the enforcement of law a barefaced usurpation.”

_Editorial (leader) April _Editorial (leader) June 8, 20, 1861._ 1861._

It begins by stating that “The rebellion in this country Virginia affirms “the right has not half the excuse that of a state to secede from the Sepoys had. The Indian the Union at will,” and that soldiers were at least Missouri and Kentucky standing upon their own soil “declare that, in the event and opposing a foreign race of forcible measures by the which had vanquished them by general government to resist arms. It was a blind stroke the dismemberment of the for the independence of their Union, they will take sides nationality. But the Davis with the seceded states.” rebellion is the resistance of a faction of citizens against “It seems questionable,” the government of all; and the continues the _Weekly_, liberty for which they claim “whether the continued that they are fighting means alliance of these states, on baldly and only the liberty of these conditions, is an holding other people in unmixed gain. If this Union slavery.”[156] of ours is a confederacy of states which is liable to be dissolved at the will of any of the states, and if no power rests with the general government to enforce its laws, it would seem that we have been laboring under a delusion these eighty years in supposing that we were a nation, and the fact would appear to be that,” etc., etc., etc.

_Editorial “Better than _Editorial May 18, 1861, Dollars,” April 20, 1861._ headed “In Memoriam.”_

Portrait of the typical “They have led us by the nose, Northern man in contrast and kicked us, and laughed at with the typical Southern us, and scorned us in their man, in which the first is very souls as cravens and described as mean, tuppeny tinkers. They have avaricious, and swelled, and swaggered, and unprincipled. “Cotton Pork sworn, and lorded it in is a Northern man, mostly Washington and at the North, from New England, though as if they were peculiarly often transplanted to New _gentlemen_[157] because they York, and doing well in our have lived by the labor of climate. Some varieties of wretched men and women whom his genius have been tried they did not pay--whom they at the South, but they don’t sell to pay their debts, and thrive there. They can’t stand whipped and maimed savagely at 737 so much sun.” their pleasure. They have snorted superciliously about “At the South--an odd their rights, while they region--dollars are well deprived four millions of thought of, to be sure, but human beings of all rights still they don’t govern.... It whatsoever, and have sought to seems ridiculous, but people gain such control of the talk and think much more about general government that they honor at the South than about might override altogether the dollars.” state laws which protect the equal rights of men. They have Cotton Pork, we are told, “is aimed to destroy the _for his country if dollars beneficent, popular system are on his country’s side, which peacefully and patiently otherwise he crawls on his and lawfully was working out belly to lick the feet of the the great problem of enemy who offers him civilization; and while they dollars_.” have been digging about the foundations of the temple to “Strange how differently they make sure of its downfall, talk down South! They spend no they have loftily replied to energy in denouncing civil our inquiries, ‘We only want war. They do not want to to be let alone.’” fight. _They seek peace._ But if it comes, they will make no wry faces. It will cost them much, but they utter no such philanthropic shrieks as proceed from the mouth of Cotton Pork. They seem to think that there are things worse than fighting in this world, and better than dollars. An odd people, surely.”

We trust that the Southern gentleman and Cotton Pork, Esq., “a Northern man,” are pleased with their respective portraits.

We have long and patiently borne with the insults and aspersions upon our faith and conduct as Catholics persisted in for years by _Harper’s Weekly_. Trusting that better counsels would prevail, and unwilling to add by controversy a single spark to the fire already kindled, we have deferred from day to day, and from month to month, saying what we might at any time have said.

Fully aware of the by no means reputable “anti-Popery” antecedents of its proprietors, of their palpably governing motive, and of the speculation they saw at the bottom of the movement, we might, so far as we were personally concerned, have looked upon the malicious movement as not meriting serious attention.

But we are also aware to how great an extent the prestige of the wealth and commercial standing of a large publishing-house, the widespread circulation of their periodicals, and most especially their noisy and incessant proclamation of a patriotism claimed as at once unvarying, inflexible, unselfish, and devoted, had misled or blinded the general public, ignorant of their real precedents, and we have, therefore, found it our duty to enlighten as well our own readers as those of the _Weekly_ as to the real state of the case.

In so doing, we wish to call attention to the fact that we have here confined ourselves to the information furnished by public judicial decisions, and to their own record as published by themselves.

Finally, we most earnestly, and in the spirit of charity, urge these gentlemen to devote themselves to their plain, and what they may make their noble, duty as journalists. Let them be advised for their own good to cease fanning the flame of a hateful bigotry, and to pursue in the future such a course as may induce right-minded men to look upon their title-page illustration as indeed the flambeau of civilization, and not the torch of the incendiary.

[147] Demurrer is thus defined: “A stop or pause by a party to an action for the judgment of the court on the question, whether, assuming the truth of the matter alleged by the opposite party, it is sufficient in law to sustain the action, and hence whether the party resting is bound to answer or proceed further.”

[148] In passages here quoted from _Harper’s Weekly_, the italics are ours.

[149] We give this passage not only because we think it apt, but also to vindicate the witty Hans from the inept aspersions of the _Harper’s_ critic, who deliberately reaches the solemn opinion that “in Hans Breitman there is nothing funny but the grotesque dress. Translate his poetry into English, and it is, with here and there a solitary exception, the baldest of all commonplaces.”

[150] “Wanted, a Capital.”

[151] “The Crippled American Eagle.”

[152] “There can be no question but the enterprise of holding the Union together by force would ultimately prove futile. _It would be in violation of the principle of our institutions._”--_Harper’s Weekly, editorial leader of March 9, 1861._

“If the Union is really injurious to them (our Southern friends), heaven forbid that we should insist on preserving it.”--_Harper’s Weekly_, 1861, p. 146.

[153] “Most of them” (“alterations in the Constitution _effected by the Congress at Montgomery_”) “would receive the hearty support of the people of the North.”--_Harper’s Weekly, March 30, 1861._

“Some practical people, viewing the dissolution of the Union as a fixed fact.”--_Weekly, Jan. 26, 1861._

[154] “Is it wise, is it prudent, is it possible to punish it?”--_Harper’s Weekly_, p. 146, 1861.

[155] “He [Jeff. Davis] is emphatically one of those ‘born to command,’ and is doubtless destined to occupy a high position, either in the Southern Confederacy or in the United States.”--_Weekly, Feb. 2, 1861._

[156] “Stand aside, you Old Sinner! We are holier than thou!”--OUR COMMENT.

[157] So italicized in the article.

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THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 738