CHAPTER XVIII.

CHOOSING THE PATH.

“Now that the priest is gone, we have peace,” said the Seaton paper.

In fact, having driven the priest away, so that these poor souls were deprived of their consolations and restraints of religion, having destroyed their school-house, so that there seemed no possibility that the school could continue after the cold weather should set in, there appeared no more mischief to do. Catholicism was, apparently, dead in Seaton. The Catholics did not raise their voices. Those who mourned 312 their deserted altar, mourned in silence; the rest went back to their whiskey-drinking, their quarrelling and stealing. That was what the atheists meant by peace. “The lion and the lamb had lain down together,” but the lamb was inside the lion.

On the surface of these halcyon circumstances, Carl Yorke found his lotos-flower growing. Everybody was smiling and conciliatory. Congratulations, not always overdelicate, on his accession to fortune met him at every hand, and callers became more frequent, in spite of a reception as cool as politeness would allow. In fine, the Yorkes, having suffered a temporary eclipse, shone out again with dazzling lustre, regilt by their new prosperity. If they bore themselves rather haughtily in the face of this subservience, we can scarcely blame them. We can forgive, we may not care for, the frowns that darken with our adversity; but the smiles that brighten when fortune brightens, must, in a noble nature, awaken a feeling of involuntary disgust.

Dr. Martin and his wife called a few days after Carl came home. It was rather an embarrassing call, for there was scarcely a non-explosive subject on which they could speak, but by dint of careful management on the part of the ladies, and a determination on the part of each gentleman that he would not be the aggressor, no accident happened. Mr. Yorke and the minister exchanged a few remarks on agriculture, Clara hovering between them, and volubly smoothing the asperities of their uphill talk. Mrs. Martin and Melicent were kindred souls on the subject of worsted work, and grew quite intimate over a new pattern and a rainbow package of wools. Mrs. Yorke acted as presiding deity, and dropped a smile or a word at the right time, and Carl was somewhat cynically amused by the situation, and therefore amusing. The visitors had asked for Edith, but she declined to come down. When they had gone, however, she spoke kindly of Dr. Martin.

“He asked me once,” she said, “if, when I came to die, I should need any one but Christ. I could not answer him, for I did not understand then that he was attacking the doctrine of extreme unction, and intimating his belief that Catholics think only of the priest, and not at all of God. But I noticed that he showed a great deal of feeling, and when he said, ‘If you have Christ, you need no one else,’ there were tears in his eyes. Since then, I have liked him. I think he is mistaken, rather than malicious.”

Mr. Yorke looked gravely at his niece. “I sometimes think,” he said, “with Pope, ‘that there is nothing needed to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day.’ If people would ask what you believe, and listen to you, instead of telling you what you believe, and abusing you, much strife might be avoided.”

“I think that Dr. Martin’s motive in coming here was good,” Mrs. Yorke said. “He knows that we are going away, and wishes to part in peace.”

“Carl, have you settled what you are going to be?” Edith ventured to ask when he joined her afterward in the garden.

“No,” he answered, with hesitation. “Something depends. I am at the north pole, and all roads lead south. Meantime, I am not idle.”

She waited for him to continue, but he said no more, and she felt 313 chilled, and mortified at having questioned him. No one in the world was less curious concerning the private affairs of others than Edith, and she never asked a question, except from a feeling of tender interest. Therefore she considered herself repulsed.

“What are you studying now?” Carl asked, after a moment, the silence becoming awkward.

“I have almost given up books,” she replied quietly, and the hands with which she was weaving a morning-glory vine into its trellis were not quite steady.

Oh! if he would only question her, and insist on knowing everything. She was in deep waters, and she longed to tell him all, and ask the solution of her doubts. With a fine, unerring instinct which she felt, but did not understand, Edith could tolerate the thought of no other confidant. Yet a great barrier stood between them. She could go frankly to Dick, if she had anything to say to him, but Carl was different. She could tell him nothing, unless he asked her. Besides, he never told her anything. Now she thought of it, except these silent motions of sympathy, their intercourse had been very exterior. She knew nothing of his real life; and yet he, too, was at the point of choice in some things, and must have much to say to one he cared for and trusted. She waited a moment, then walked toward the house, and they separated rather coldly.

Edith had, indeed, dropped the study of physical science, but she had taken up another, and it perplexed her sorely. Within the last year she had been striving, with but little help, to learn something of the science of the heart. What was this love that had started up in her path, and demanded to be listened to, and returned? She had written as frankly as she could to Father Rasle, telling him of her promise to Dick Rowan, and his answer had disappointed her. She read some of the moralists, and her soul recoiled. If that was love, why were the stories of Jacob and Rachel, and Esther and Assuerus, told without sign of reprobation? She went to the novelists, and they pleased her but little better. In despair, then, she went to the poets. Eureka! Here was what she wanted: the affection at once pure and impassioned, heroic and tender, demanding all, yet sacrificing all, proud yet humble, inexplicable save by the poet and the lover. It was fitting that the poets should be its interpreters, for it was above common life, as song is above speech. Grapes were not sour because they grew high, nor things impossible because rare.

“Dear Mrs. Browning!” she whispered, as she read _Aurora Leigh_. “What a pity she had not faith! Her nature is glorious. How she spurns the low!”

She read Tennyson, and sighed with delight over the faithful Enid, and wept for Elaine dead, and floating down the river to Launcelot, her letter to him in her hand.

So, with the help of the poets, Edith escaped the danger of being contaminated by the efforts made to save her from harm. With her intuitive beliefs confirmed by these prophetic singers, she refused to let that yet unfolded blossom of her life trail in the mire, but held it up with a proud, though trembling hand. To her, loving was a very holy and beautiful thing.

But she longed to know what Carl thought of it.

Carl kept up his regular hours of study, and he set up his easel, and made a crayon group of his father, mother, and sisters. Mrs. Yorke 314 insisted that he should paint his own portrait separately for her. Being in a bitter mood one day, he sketched himself as Sisyphus standing on the hill-top, and watching the great stone, which he had just rolled painfully up hill, roll down again of itself. Edith sat by him, saying a word now and then, and watching his work.

When his hand paused to let his imagination picture first the dull misery in the face of the dazed and baffled giant, she said quietly, “What great bovine creatures the Titans were, after all! I did not admire them much, even when you read me the translation of the _Prometheus_. All that splendor of soul was Æschylus, not the fire-stealer. But wasn’t it a beautiful verse: ‘Stately and antique were thy fallen race’?

“Still, the mastodon is stately and antique, too. The Titans were too easily conquered. They cut like great melons. If their spirit had been equal to their size, they would have snapped the Olympians like dry twigs beneath their feet.”

Carl knew full well that she was talking _at_ him, but he was in no mood to be either shamed or inspired. He wanted to be coaxed. The manliest man has his time of not only wishing, but needing, to be coaxed, if only he would own it.

She stretched her hand, and softly, inch by inch, drew the porte-crayon from his yielding fingers. “Please, Carl! The picture would haunt me, though it were out of sight.”

It was better than a wiser word. Carl’s face cleared.

“I am going to paint your portrait in oil,” he said, “and keep it myself. Shall I?”

“I will be your rich patroness, and you a poor artist,” she said. “I order my portrait of you, and will pay--let me think what! It shall be a red gold medal of the Immaculate Conception, or a little ebony crucifix, with the figure in gold, whichever you choose. Then I will be a poor lady, and you a rich artist, and you shall buy the picture back, and--what will you give me for it? I know what I like that you have.”

“What do you like?” asks Carl, placing a large sheet of drawing-board on his easel.

“A tiny brooch, that you never wear, with a carbuncle in it. I confess to you that I have longed for it. It is like a coal of fire. It is most beautiful. You know I have a passion for gems. Flowers make me sad, but gems are like heavenly joys and hopes that never fade. There is no object in nature that delights me like a beautiful gem. They are the good acts of the earth. A ruby is an act of love, a sapphire an act of faith, an emerald an act of hope, a diamond an act of joyful adoration. Pearls are tears of sorrow for the dead, opals are tears of sorrow for sin. The opal, you know, is the only gem that cannot be imitated.”

“So you wanted the carbuncle,” Carl said, much pleased. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I waited till I knew that you cared nothing about it,” Edith answered.

“But I do value it very much now, young woman; and if you know where it is, you will bring it to me at once. I am impatient to see it.”

She went out and got the brooch. It was a smooth, oval stone of a deep-red color, with a tiny flame flickering in it. The lapidary had been too true an artist to spoil the stone with facets, and the result was a little crystallized poem. Edith laid it on black velvet, and held it out for Carl to see. “There!” she said. It had never occurred to him to look at it before, but now its beauty was apparent. 315

“I am delighted to give it to you, dear,” he said affectionately, and pinned the velvet ribbon round her neck with it.

They smiled at each other, well pleased; then she sat down by him, and watched while he began to sketch.

“Isn’t it odd, Carl,” she said, “that you and I should be rich people, when we were so poor a short time ago? Only I did not know that we were poor. I always felt rich after I came here.”

“I half remember a fairy story,” Carl said. “It is of a fairy who wove pearls around a sunbeam, or a moonbeam, to prove to her lover her miraculous power. I am going to paint you as that fairy. Shall it be a sunbeam or a moonbeam, milady?”

“Make it a tropical full moonlight, Carl, and give me a palm-tree to stand under. It would be refreshing to stand in the midst of such a scene, even on canvas.”

The artist sketched lightly and swiftly. “Here, at the right, a troop of fairies shall dance, only half seen. Near them, a thin arch of a waterfall shall leap, and drop, and lose itself in spray, and gather so slowly, and flow away so slowly, that the stream shall look like a vein of amethyst damaskeened into the turf, not a ripple nor a bubble to be seen. The orchestra, blowing on flower-trumpets, and shaking campaniles of bluebells and lilies-of-the-valley, are hidden by their instruments beside this waterfall, and their music makes the thin sheet waver as it drops. The palm-tree lifts itself against the moon, and seems to be on fire with it, and droops in a verdant cascade above you, every feathery plume fire-fringed with light. But only one beam, like a shaft of diamond, shall pierce that foliage, and there you stand, with your arms uplifted, braiding pearls around it. You are smiling softly, your hair is down, and filmy sleeves drop back to your shoulders. As you braid, the light prisoned inside changes the pearls to opals.”

“You will never be able to make me look like a fairy,” Edith said. “I see a moral in everything. Fairy stories and myths always seem to me Christian truths in masquerade; as though the truths, jealously wishing us to prize them, put on dress after dress, to see if we would recognize them in each. ‘If you really care for me, you will know me through any disguise,’ that is what they say. Why, Carl, if you and I were at a masquerade, and you did not know me, I should feel hurt.”

“We will try that some night in Venice,” Carl said, smiling to himself.

“Yes. But this moonbeam hid in pearls--to me it is like a true thought well spoken; or, no, it is the Immaculate Conception. And now, good-by. I must go to my school.”

Since she could not be permitted to instruct Catholic children, Edith went four times a week, and every Sunday, to the Pattens, and taught them whatever they seemed to be most in need of. The town-schools were far away, and the mother too hard-worked to do more than feed and clothe her children, and these ministrations were thankfully received. Edith held her school on a large flat rock near the house, so as not to interfere with Mrs. Patten, and embarrass her in her work. Only on Sundays did the young lady enter the house, and then there was a grand dress parade, to which the family looked forward all the week. On these occasions the children were all washed “within an inch of their lives,” as Mrs. Yorke’s Betsey expressed it; their best clothes, 316 given by Mrs. Yorke, were donned; and their hair combed down so smoothly that it seemed to be plastered to their heads. Woe to that child who should rumple a hair or disturb a fold when all was done! Since her accession to fortune, Edith had given the family, among other things, a clock--they had formerly reckoned time by the sun--and, at precisely half-past nine, Joe sat himself in the south window to watch for the teacher. According to Mrs. Patten’s notions of propriety, it would be indecorous for any of them to be seen outside the door on Sunday till after the instruction. The house was as clean and orderly as such a place could be made; the sacks of straw and dry leaves that answered for beds were made into two piles, in opposite corners, and used as sofas; the calico curtains that divided the bedrooms were artistically looped; a vast armful of green boughs concealed the rocks of the rough chimney, the sticks laid there to be lighted to get dinner by, and the pots and pans in which that dinner was cooked. Green vines and flowers and moss were placed here and there, and the door by which Edith entered was always made into a sort of triumphal arch, where she stood a moment to exchange her first salutation with the family. They were drawn up in two lines, to right and left, the girls headed by their mother, the boys by their father, and as that pretty creature appeared in the door, with her air of half-conscious shyness, and wholly unconscious stateliness, like a young queen appearing to her subjects, the feminine line dropped a short courtesy, and the masculine line achieved a simultaneous bow, both so crisp that they gave a sensation of snapping. What a beautiful salutation was that low, deliberate “Good-morning!” of hers; and what could equal in grace that slight bending, half bow, half courtesy, with which she greeted them! Opposite the door was a little stand, with a chair behind it, and the whole company stood till Edith had taken her seat there. She never did so without a blush of humility.

To one less earnest, and less preoccupied by the real work she had to do, this ceremony would have seemed sufficiently ludicrous. Or, perhaps, we should say, rather, to one less tender of heart. But Edith Yorke saw only the eager gratitude and desire to do her honor, the simple earnestness and good faith, and that mingling of poverty and taste which silently showed all the misery of poor Mrs. Patten’s life. For all that was done was hers. Without her, the children and their father would have been almost as clods.

There is a certain arrogance of affability with which the rich sometimes approach the poor, as though wealth and education constituted an essential difference which they are elaborately anxious should not too much humiliate their _protégés_. This the intelligent poor are very quick to perceive, and inwardly, if not outwardly, to resent. Others assume the rude manners of those whom they would benefit, in order to set them at ease--a good-natured mistake, but one which inspires contempt, and weakens their influence. Edith Yorke’s quick sympathies and delicate intuitions rendered it impossible for her even to make either of these missteps. She carried herself with perfect dignity and simplicity, was kind, and even affectionate, without lowering herself into a caressing familiarity, and thus gave them a sample of exquisite demeanor, and, at the same time, set them as much at their ease as it was well they should be. 317 If people of rude manners were always perfectly at ease, they would never improve. Mrs. Patten, who was often on her guard with Melicent, pronounced Edith to be a perfect lady; and when an intelligent poor person gives such a verdict, without hope of favor from it, it is, perhaps, about as good a patent of social nobility as a lady can receive.

Paul and Sally were still at “the hall,” where Melicent considered them her especial subjects, and taught them in season and out of season; but, alas! there were still nine children at home. Polly, the baby of six years ago, is now a stolid lassie of seven, and there are two younger, the last only six months old.

One hot Sunday in July, Edith found the feminine procession without its head. Everything else was in order, but Mrs. Patten sat in a corner of the room, holding her sick baby. It had been sick all the week, and Edith had visited it, and sent the doctor, but this morning it was worse.

“We need not interrupt your discourse, though,” Mrs. Patten said. “He doesn’t notice anything.”

In these Sunday lessons, usually consisting of Bible instructions, histories of the saints, and explanation of Christian doctrine, Edith had instilled a good deal of Catholic truth, without alarming her hearers. She had even obtained permission to teach the children to bless themselves, and say the Hail Mary; only Mrs. Patten had wished that _Mother of Christ_ should be substituted for _Mother of God_.

“But was not Christ God?” asked the young teacher.

“Yes, Miss Edith,” the woman replied. “But Mary was the mother of his human nature only, not of his Godhead.”

“You cannot separate them,” Edith said. “He was not born a mere man, and deified afterward: his birth was miraculous, and God was his Father. She was the mother of all that he was. To be a mother is not to create. You did not make that child’s soul, yet you are his mother. You would not stop to say that you are the mother of his body, and that his soul came from God. You are his mother, because you gave him human life; so Mary did for Christ. Besides, you will always be your child’s mother, though his body will turn to dust, and be regathered again at the last day. But the body of Christ never was destroyed. It sits now at the right hand of the Father, the same human form that Mary cherished, as you do that child.”

Boadicea was silent “They shall say Mother of Christ, then, if you prefer,” Edith said softly. But the next time she came, they said Mother of God. She made no verbal comment on the amendment, but bent and, for the first time, kissed the forehead of the child who gave the title, tears of joy shining in her eyes.

On this July day, after taking her seat, and watching the family arrange themselves to listen, Edith hesitated on what subject she should speak. She had one prepared, but presently concluded to change it.

“I will tell you what baptism is to-day,” she said; and then gave them a clear and simple explanation of the sacrament.

Joe sat on a low stool, with a child in his arms, tears dropping down his cheek now and then, as he glanced from the speaker to his sick child. Mrs. Patten’s face showed only a quiet endurance.

“So necessary is baptism,” Edith concluded, her voice slightly tremulous, “that even a baby must not die without it. If one should be in danger of death, any person who knows how can baptize it.” 318

She said no more, but, after distributing some little presents to the children, as her custom was, and sitting by the baby a few minutes, went home. The mother was very pale. She sat looking at her child, and seemed indisposed to speak. There was even a sort of coldness in her manner when she took leave of her visitor.

The children went out, and looked after the lady as long as they could see her, then gathered in a whispering group about the door. They felt, rather than knew, the impending sorrow. Joe went, stool in hand, and sat down by his wife. Her lips began to tremble. She was only a woman, poor soul! and wanted comfort, not only for the grief before her, but for the new and terrible fear that had risen up in her heart while Edith Yorke spoke.

“Joe,” she said unsteadily, “that girl is very learned. Dr. Martin can’t equal her. She makes everything awfully clear. She leaves no hole for you to crawl out. If baptism isn’t what she says, then there isn’t any sense in baptism.”

“Yes,” sighed Joe, “she’s a mighty smart gal.”

“Then,” the mother whispered sharply, “if what she says is true, what’s become of our other children, Joe?”

He looked up with startled eyes. He had been thinking of their present sorrow, not of the past. It is only the mother who for ever carries her children in her heart.

“There are three children gone, Joe,” she said imploringly.

He dropped his eyes, and considered anxiously, not so much the fate of his lost children as the fact that Sally looked to him for help. A shallow head goes with a shallow heart, and his first thought was merely how he should evade the weight of his wife’s dependence.

“Oh! you broken reed!” she exclaimed, with suppressed passion.

Thus apostrophized, Joe became desperate, and that desperation imparted to him an air of unwonted decision and authority.

“I tell you what it is, Sally,” he said, “these rules and regulations are very well for learned folks, and they’re to blame if they don’t keep ‘em. But I don’t believe that the Lord is going to punish us nor our young ones for what we don’t know nothing about. He knows well enough that we’d a had ‘em, every soul of ‘em, baptized, if we’d a thought he wanted us to. I’m sure I don’t begrudge the young ones being baptized. So don’t you believe, Sally, but he’ll sly ‘em in somehow, poor little creters! Why, do you s’pose that, while we were sitting here and crying over our dead babies, and saying, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord,’ that just at that time he’d got ‘em out of sight somewhere, and was pinching on ‘em and hurting on ‘em for his own amusement, with their scared little faces looking up at him? It don’t stand to reason, Sally.”

The first tears she had shed started from the mother’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. “Joe,” she said gratefully, “you’ve got some gumption in you, after all.”

Edith went home that day with a troubled heart. Two or three times on the way she stopped, having half a mind to turn back, but did not. She was too agitated to keep quiet or to eat. One thought filled her mind: a soul just slipping away from earth waited on the threshold till she should open for it the gate of heaven. The thought was overpowering.

In the afternoon, Mrs. Yorke and Melicent went to see the sick child, 319 carrying everything they thought might be needed. Edith had sent for the doctor again, and he came while they were there, and accompanied them home. She listened to their talk, and heard them say that the child could not live more than twenty-four hours longer. They spoke kindly, and they had acted kindly, yet it all jarred terribly on her. Of the highest interest at stake, of the miraculous possibility that she saw, they knew nothing. Dared she wait?

After tea her resolution was taken. She came down-stairs, and found Carl pacing to and fro at the foot of the terrace. He threw the end of his cigar away as she approached him, but did not take any further notice of her till it became evident that she wanted him.

“Carl,” she said, “I want you to go over to the Pattens’ with me.”

“Certainly!”

He did not annoy her with questions, nor exclamations, nor expostulations; he simply and promptly started. They avoided the family in going. When one is in suspense, it is distressing to have to explain to those who cannot help and do not understand the need.

“I am going to baptize the baby, if they will let me,” Edith said, when they entered the wood.

He only answered, “Yes!” He knew enough of Catholic doctrine to understand the importance which she attached to the ceremony.

The sun had gone down in a splendor of rose-color, and all the forest was steeped with it. The silver stems of the birches flickered like rubies, and all the streams and springs blushed as if they had newly been changed to wine for some great marriage feast. A brook ran toward them all the way beside their path, like a breathless messenger bidding them hasten at every step. Then that airy flood of light ebbed down the west, and left a new moon stranded there, and stars sprinkled all through the blue. When they came out into the clearing, it was deep twilight. The cabin window shone out red through the dusk, and from the open door a lurid path of light stretched across the garden-plot and plunged into the woods opposite.

Like most people who live in the woods, the family kept early hours, but to-night none of them had gone to bed, nor were the beds prepared for them. The children were huddled together near the fireplace, whispering, and casting frightened glances to where their father and mother crouched on the floor beside the cradle, in which lay their dying babe. They had no lamps nor candles, but a pine-knot, fixed in the fireplace, sent a volume of inky smoke up chimney, and made a crimson illumination in the room. In that light every face shone like a torch.

The sick child lay in a stupor, sometimes holding its breath so long that the mother started and caught it up. Thus partially recalled, it breathed slowly again. There was no sound in the room but that low breathing, and the hissing of the flame in the chimney.

But presently there was a sound outside of steps coming nearer, and as they looked at the door Edith appeared on the threshold, all her whiteness of face, dress, and hands changed to pink in the light, as Charity might look hastening on her errand. Her eyes were wide-open and startled; her hair, which had fallen, caught in the low bough of a tree as they came, was drawn over her left shoulder, and twisted about her arm.

After the pause of an instant, she came swiftly in, and knelt by the 320 cradle, leaving Carl standing in the doorway.

“Thank God! I am in time,” she exclaimed. “I have come, you dear parents, to baptize this child, if you will permit me. You were not to blame for the others, because you did not know. But now you know. Consent quickly; for it is almost gone!”

“Yes, yes!” said the mother. “Make haste!”

Edith called the children, and made them kneel about the cradle, with their hands folded, palm to palm, and she scarcely noticed that Carl came in and knelt behind them.

“I am so anxious to do it rightly,” she said, with one swift glance round the circle. “I never did it before, but it is very simple. I am very unworthy, and am afraid. All of you must say an Our Father for me.”

Edith put a crucifix in the father’s hands, and, as he held it up, bowed herself, and kissed the floor before it. Then she lighted a wax candle she had brought, and gave it to the mother to hold. Lastly, she knelt by the head of the cradle, and poured out a little vase of holy water.

“What is the child’s name?” she asked, quite calm by this time.

Mr. and Mrs. Patten looked at each other. There had been many discussions between them on the subject, and at this moment neither of them could call to mind a single desirable name which had not been appropriated by their children, living or dead.

“I would like to name him for my father,” Edith said. And they consented.

The words were spoken, then Edith leaned quickly, with a triumphant smile, and kissed the new-made saint, and whispered something to it.

The child had been lying in that stupor for several hours, but at her whisper he opened his eyes, and fixed them in a solemn and steady gaze on her face. There was something in the look significant and unchildlike; and, so looking at her, he calmly died. Only a sigh, and the lids half-drooped, that was all on earth. But who shall say what it was in heaven?

It was quite dark when the two went home again. The sultry air was still, and perfumed with sweet fern and wild violets, and the brook ran along with them now with a sound like a child talking to itself. They walked hand in hand, guided by that sound.

“I am very, very happy!” said Edith.

Carl said nothing, but stopped short.

“Have you lost the track?” she asked.

There was still a moment of silence, then he said in a stifled voice, “I have found it again.”

Poor Carl! his finding of that path was heroic. For an instant, a flower-wreathed wicket had seemed to swing across his way, and a path of delight to lead from it. He closed it, and walked on.

After a minute, Edith recollected that she had brought a second candle. They stopped and lighted it, then resumed their walk. She held the candle in her right hand, her left she placed in Carl’s again. The air was so still that the yellow flame waved only with their motion, and the light of it made a halo about them, and brought out leaves and flowers, and drooping branches, that shone a moment, then disappeared.

That ancient forest had arched over many a human group during the unknown centuries of its life, dusky hunters in the chase or on the war-trail, pale-faced pioneers, glancing right and left for the savage 321 foe, the Catholic missionary, armed only with the crucifix, yet with that weapon and with his pleading tongue conquering the hatchet and the tomahawk, children and youths going a-maying, yet never did it overshadow a fairer group than this.

Looking down at Edith, Carl renounced the thought of painting her as a fairy; he would paint her walking through a dark forest, with a candle in her hand. “Perish civilization!” he said suddenly. “I wish there was not a house between here and Massachusetts Bay!”

Edith smiled, but said nothing. She did not speak till, too soon, they reached the house. There she stopped to enter by the side door. “I will go in this way,” she said. “I do not wish to speak to any one else to-night. Please tell them what I have done.”

He was going, when she softly called him back. “After he was baptized,” she said hurriedly, “I whispered, and told him to pray for you and me when he reached heaven. Good-night, Carl!”

The next forenoon Edith went up to her chamber to dress before dinner. She braided her hair, put on a rose-colored lawn, and fastened a velvet ribbon around her throat with the precious carbuncle. She was blissfully happy, she scarce knew why. Never had she been conscious of such delight. “How sweet, how beautiful is life!” she said to herself. “Thanks, dear Lord! I am so happy!”

She looked smilingly over her shoulder toward the door, for Clara had come running up the stairs and burst into her room.

“Edith,” she said breathlessly, “he has come! Mr. Rowan has come! He is down in the parlor with papa, and mamma, and Melicent.”

Edith did not change her position nor say a word. She looked steadily at Clara, and waited.

“He is as handsome as a prince,” her cousin went on with enthusiasm. “He gave me this slip of paper for you. Will you be right down?”

“Go and tell him that I will come down in a minute,” Edith said quietly, and still looked at her cousin till she went out of the room and shut the door. Then, overcome by a sudden weakness, she dropped on her knees.

“I am very glad,” she said solemnly, and lifted her eyes. “I thank thee for bringing him safe home again. Help me!”

She unfolded the slip of paper, and read the line it contained: “Don’t come down, Edith, if you are going to say no to me.”

She had never thought of saying no to him.

A minute later she stood in the door of the parlor, where they all were. She was very white, but her lips wore a sweet and resolute smile.

Dick came to meet her, his face in a fine flame, and she placed her hand in his. “It is yours, with their consent,” she said.

For a moment he was unable to speak. He looked at her searchingly, his eyes full of tears. “Are you willing, Edith?” he asked.

“I am more than willing,” she replied.

He led her to Mr. and Mrs. Yorke. “I would not dare to ask you for such a precious gift,” he said, “if God and herself had not already bestowed it.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

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AN ENGLISHMAN IN CHINA.[78] 322

In November, 1867, Mr. T. T. Cooper, an English gentleman who describes himself as a “pioneer of commerce,” undertook an overland journey from Shanghai to Calcutta with the hope of discovering some shorter and more direct line of communication between India and China than that lying through the province of Su-tchuen and Eastern Thibet, the only route at present open. The undertaking was not a successful one, Mr. Cooper having been stopped and imprisoned at Weisee-foo, in the province of Yunnan, in July of the following year. This detention was the work of the Thibetan lamas, who have no desire for a free trade which will interfere with their monopolies, and who are, as a matter of course, violently opposed to the introduction of a religion which will weaken their own hold upon the people. Mr. Cooper, although an English Protestant who was contented to describe himself on his travels as a disciple of Confucius, and who took pains to inform the lamas that he could readily sympathize with their dislike of foreign innovations in religious matters, did not fail to share the effects of that distrust of foreigners which is so carefully kept alive in China by the governing classes, the literati, and the priests. While imprisoned at Weisee-foo, his interpreter, a Chinese Catholic, overheard the following conversation between two Mandarins, one of whom was Mr. Cooper’s jailer, which was, to say the least of it, not reassuring:

“Just as Philip took his place under the window, Tien asked the Atenze Mandarin if he had seen the foreigner who had passed through Atenze on his way to Tali-foo, adding, ‘We have him here in the Yamun.’ His guest replied, ‘No; the cursed barbarian! what is he? I heard he was writing all the time he was in my town, and drawing the country. The son of a dog, too, writes with a pen that requires no ink. I suppose he has come to see the country; and his people will come to take it by-and-by. You have got him here; why don’t you kill him?’ To this my friend Tien replied, ‘Why, it’s no use to kill him; he has no money. We have searched him; he has nothing; and now we are considering what to do with him.’ When Philip had got thus far, he was so completely overwhelmed that it was several minutes before he could proceed: when he had recovered a little, he went on to relate what the Atenze Mandarin said in reply. The ruffian evidently hated foreigners, for he said, ‘Oh! kill him. You dispose of him; and when I return from the fight, I will kill those sons of dogs, the missionaries on the Lan-tsan-kiang: they are fast converting the Lu-tsu, and they will very soon be masters of the country, and we shall be killed; so kill them all, I say.’”

A day or two later, our traveller, who seems to be very plucky and full of courage, managed to effect his escape, but only to retrace his steps to Shanghai. His account of his travels is most entertaining, 323 and as it contains a great deal which will be interesting to the general reader, as well as much which is especially so to Catholics, we propose to make copious extracts from it. The book itself has not been reprinted here, and the English edition is so expensive that it is hardly likely to be as generally read as its merits deserve.

The project of undertaking this long and perilous journey had suggested itself to our traveller’s mind so long ago as 1862, but various circumstances rendered it impracticable to begin it until 1867, when the promised support of influential Shanghai merchants made Mr. Cooper again cast about him for ways of surmounting the still remaining difficulties. These were the well-known jealousy manifested by Chinese officials toward strangers; the wild tribes dwelling in the mountains; utter ignorance of the language of the country; and the danger of carrying so large a sum of money as would be necessary for the expenses of the journey. After a month of perplexity, Mr. Cooper concluded to address himself to M. Lamonier, the procurator of the Catholic missions at Shanghai. “I knew,” he says, “that the posts of the French missionaries extended in an unbroken chain to beyond the western border of China; and I felt convinced that only by their help could I hope to pass through the empire. M. Lamonier, ever ready, as are all the Catholic missionaries, to forward all useful projects, soon dispelled my anxiety about the carriage of specie, for he arranged to give me a letter of credit for six hundred taels (£180, the sum he considered sufficient for travelling expenses), addressed to the mission stations in Yunnan, Sz-chuan, and Eastern Thibet; so that it would not be needful to carry a large sum in silver, until after passing beyond their posts. He also proposed a feasible plan for surmounting the difficulty of the language. A party of young missionaries were expected to arrive from France toward the end of the year; if I accompanied them to Sz-chuan, I could hire a house in some village containing a mission station, and, under the protection of the missionaries, set to work and acquire a sufficient mastery of the language. This arrangement would prolong my journey by six months; but the delay was unimportant, so long as the difficulty of the language was got over. And thus, before leaving M. Lamonier, the two great obstacles which seemed for a time to render my journey impossible were disposed of.”

A part of this plan, however, was not destined to fulfilment. The French consul at Hankou, whose dignity had been touched by some remarks made upon him in the Hankou _Times_ by its English editor, resolved to avenge himself by preventing our Englishman from availing himself of the services of the missionaries, and compelled them to leave Hankou without him. The French consul-general at Shanghai, Vicomte Brenier de Montmorend, on being appealed to, found means to soothe his subordinate’s ruffled temper, and although he lost the promised escort of the young missionaries, Father de Carli, the head of the missions at Hankou, obviated this difficulty by providing him with two native Christians to serve as interpreter and guide. These were both trustworthy men, who joined him rather for the sake of the missionaries than for any liking for the journey, but who, for that reason, served him so much the more faithfully. One of them, George Phillips, whose name Mr. Cooper contracted into Philip, for 324 convenience’s sake, was the eldest son of a family which had been Christians for several generations. “His superior education rendered him, save in dress and manner, quite different to ordinary Chinamen, whose natural superstition and prejudice were replaced by intelligence, strengthened by the study of European philosophy and theology, while a knowledge of the Latin, English, and Chinese languages made the term of interpreter in his case no empty title. Such was my interpreter, who proved, as I expected, a useful servant and intelligent companion.”

Having procured the services of these men, however, Mr. Cooper found it impossible to induce them to start from home until after the Christmas holidays were over; so that it was not until the 4th of January, 1868, that he finally left Hankou for the interior. He had previously taken the advice of the English secretary of legation at Pekin to conform himself in all respects to the line of conduct pursued by the missionaries, and had, during his month of enforced inaction, been trying to accustom himself to the pigtail and petticoats in which he was to introduce himself to the Chinese public. He had also been obliged to relinquish the idea of making scientific observations while on his journey, in order to avoid shocking the inveterate prejudices of the people against the use of instruments for that purpose. Even in keeping a daily record of his travels, he found it necessary to be constantly on his guard against their suspicious curiosity. One amusing instance of his caution in this respect, characteristic alike of our traveller and of his friendly enemy, is worth quoting:

“Round the fire of the little courier hut where we put up for the night, we were joined by a lama, who was, he said, _en route_ for Bathang. Since the unwelcome addition of the soldier spies to our party, it had become necessary for me to wait till all were asleep, to write up my journal. I was hard at work about midnight, when the lama returned to the room, pretending to have left his prayer-book behind; and seeing me engaged in writing, he became very curious to know what I was doing. Had I owned to recording a simple narrative of the day’s journey, he would have reported that I was taking notes of the country for some sinister purpose, so I replied that I was writing my prayers, a ceremony which I performed every night. This is a very common occupation of the lamas themselves, but he was surprised that a merchant should write prayers; so I told him that I always recited them after they were written, and would commence as soon as I had finished. He waited, and I soon commenced to read my journal over in a monotone like that in which the lamas recite their litanies. After reading thus for nearly half an hour, I stopped and asked my friend to recite his prayers for my benefit, promising to pay him for the service--and off he started and kept it up without ceasing until daylight next morning, when he awoke me, and received his fee of one rupee. He declared that I must belong to the Yellow religion, but I assured him to the contrary, merely saying that my religion much resembled his own. He was evidently puzzled, but pleased at my having made use of his services as a priest, and begged me to allow him to keep under my escort to Bathang.”

His inability to serve the interests of science was perhaps not a trouble of a nature to be very seriously felt by our traveller, whose chief object in undertaking his journey was a commercial one, and 325 whose quick perceptions and readiness to adapt himself to circumstances were a fair guarantee that he would neither run unnecessary risks nor let any available source of information pass unexplored. His book, which is very free from anything like unpleasant self-consciousness, shows him, notwithstanding, to have plenty of English pluck and determination, accompanied by a very un-English freedom from prejudice. One could find it in one’s heart to wish that in passing through scenery so impressive as that of Eastern Thibet, he might have added to his other good qualities as a narrator something more nearly approaching artistic perception than he anywhere exhibits. The absence of anything of the kind has, however, the effect of making his narrative singularly free from any appearance of conventional book-making--a result which is very like a perfect compensation.

At Sha-su, which he reached toward the middle of January, after a week or more of rather unpleasant boating experience, Mr. Cooper made his first acquaintance with real Chinese society, which he describes very well, and with some characteristic reflections:

“After breakfast, I paid a visit to the Catholic mission agent, Cheesien-sin by name, a wealthy merchant engaged in an extensive trade with Sz-chuan, with whom I had to arrange about funds for our journey to Chung Ching. We were shown into a little room next the counting-house, where we found several Christians, merchants from Chung Ching, smoking their pipes, each with his cup of tea on a small table before him. As soon as I seated myself, a little boy placed a tea-cup before me, and, throwing in a pinch of fragrant tea, poured in boiling water from a large kettle, which he took from a little stand over a charcoal fire burning in an iron brazier in the centre of the room; having thus helped me to tea, he took my long Chinese pipe, and, filling it with tobacco, handed it to me with a light, and then took up his place behind my chair. Nothing could exceed the quiet politeness and quickness with which this little fellow served me; to every one in the room I was a perfect stranger and a foreigner, yet, being in a house of business, no distinction was made between me and any of the Chinese present.... After waiting about half an hour, the merchant came from the counting-house, and, saluting me very courteously, apologized for having kept me waiting, and after a few remarks on the crops and weather, inquired my business. On learning the object of my visit, he appeared quite pleased, and expressed himself delighted to be able to do anything for a friend of the fathers, and, leading me into his office, he paid me over the sum I required, merely taking from me a receipt for the amount. We then went back to the waiting-room, where he introduced me to several of the Chung Ching merchants, and explained to his guests that I was a foreign merchant undertaking a great journey to open up commerce, and complimented me on my courage in starting alone on so great an enterprise. We all sat smoking and drinking tea for nearly two hours, when I rose to go; but my host said that dinner was just ready, and he would be glad if I would join himself and guests, apologizing at the same time for his homely fare, saying that, if he had known I was coming, I should have had a proper dinner.

“I was so charmed with the manner of this Chinese gentleman--for such in bearing he really was--that I accepted his invitation, and sat down 326 again; and in a few minutes all the other merchants, except two young men, who were permanent guests, left, and a serving-man then laid out the table, placing a pair of ivory chop-sticks, tipped with silver, for each of us, and brought in the dinner, consisting of fish-soup, boiled and fried fish, stewed ducks, mutton, and fowl. We took our seats--the host last--and were then handed cups (about the size of a large breakfast-cup) of rice, and in the interval before the soup and fish were brought in, baked melon-seeds were placed before us on small plates; these we nibbled at for a few minutes, until our host, taking his chop-sticks up, put their points into a plate of fish, and, looking round the table, bowed to us, whereupon we simultaneously helped ourselves, and commenced our meal. I kept up a lively conversation on the subject of foreigners and their wonderful inventions during the dinner, which I thoroughly enjoyed. When we had finished, we all stood up, holding our chop-sticks by the tips with both hands horizontally in front of our foreheads as a sign of thankfulness, and also respect to our host. We then sat down again, and little kettles of hot Samshu were brought in, and we commenced to drink wine with each other. The two young merchants soon became very loud in my praise, saying that I was quite different to the foreigners in Hankou, I was more like a Chinaman; but were very anxious to know if I was of the same religion as themselves; and when I told that I was a Christian, repeatedly embraced me, calling me a brother. We sat over our Samshu and smoked for a long time, the absence of anything like constraint among us, and the genuine hospitality of our host, making the hours pass quickly. I felt that I was seeing Chinese life from a standpoint hitherto unknown to most Europeans, especially Englishmen; and I felt much gratified with this my first admission into the private life of the people whose manners and customs I had adopted. During the time I was in the house I saw no females with the exception of a servant, nor did I ever in the house of any respectable Chinaman meet the womankind during the greater part of a year spent among this people.... As I was going toward the hotel, I could not help reflecting on the scene I had just left, so different in all respects from any previous idea I had formed of the Chinese character, of which, though I had dwelt for years in their country, I confess with shame, I had until now known nothing. I could not help contrasting the reception my host had given me, a total stranger and a foreigner, with that which he would probably have received at my hands had he visited me in Shanghai, when, as is usual with us Englishmen, he would very likely have had to come into my office without the least polite encouragement from me, and have transacted his business standing, after which I should probably have dismissed him with a gesture of impatience. It seems a great pity that we Englishmen, being such a great commercial people, do not associate ourselves more with the people amongst whom we trade. In China, we would do wisely to remember the old adage which tells us to ‘do in Rome as the Romans do,’ and to meet the Chinese more on a footing of equality; in fact, adopt as much as possible their ways of business, and by this means do away with that system of go-betweens which is so detrimental to us in all our dealings with the people, of whom we really know nothing. By 327 being brought more in contact with them, we should pick up their language, and instead of being at the mercy of that villanous thing known under the name of compradore, we should at once preserve our dignity, and enter into more pleasant and profitable relations with a people whose closer acquaintance is better worth cultivating than we in our national insularity are prone to believe.”

Such pleasant experiences, which were often repeated, were not always, however, the order of the day when our traveller met the individual popularly known as the “heathen Chinee.” At the mission-stations, or wherever he encountered isolated Christians, he received always the most cordial hospitality, since even the jealous Chinaman, in becoming Catholic, becomes also cosmopolitan.

At Chung Ching, where Monseigneur Desfleches sent a swell Chinese merchant to be his escort about the city, Mr. Cooper visited a newly-built and very beautiful Taouist temple, belonging to a sect differing widely from the Buddhists, and which he describes as representing the ancient polytheism of the country, as reformed and engrafted with a peculiar theosophy of Laotse, the great rival of Confucius. Here also he assisted at daybreak on a Sunday morning at the sacrifice of the Mass, served by a Chinese priest and Chinese acolytes, and listened to a Chinese sermon. The devout behavior of the congregation, many of whom gathered around him after the Mass was over, and, on learning that he was not a Catholic, naturally expressed fervent hopes that he might soon become one, made a great impression upon our traveller’s mind. He could not, he says, avoid being influenced by them, nor help offering up a silent prayer for the success of the Catholic missions in China. He finds the present power of these missions a “most striking instance of the inutility of coercion directed to restrain freedom of mind in religion. The fearful persecutions that assailed the missionaries and their converts during the eighteenth century, failed altogether to arrest the spread of Catholic Christianity, which now, but a hundred years later, numbers its adherents by hundreds of thousands, to be found in all the provinces of the empire.”

Apparently both the missions and the missionaries impressed him much; and he gives a lengthy account of them, prefacing it with the remark that whoever deems it irrelevant is at liberty to skip it. In his judgment, as in that of every intelligent observer, it is the literati and the governing classes who are the promoters of all the persecutions of the converts--the people themselves are neither so jealous of foreigners nor so attached to paganism as is often supposed.

The converts are principally recruited from the well-to-do middle classes, although there are in the villages many Christian communities composed of the industrious peasantry. When Mr. Cooper was in China, the missions were enjoying perfect toleration, but from his observation of the marked dislike of the Christians displayed by the officials and the literati, he was apprehensive that this apparent peace might be at any moment exchanged for all the perils of persecution--an apprehension which, as all the world knows, has since been most fearfully realized. We extract a few passages from his account of the missions, as recording the impressions of a candid observer as to the success of a work of which he was yet capable of lamenting that the devoted men who labor in it “are not the apostles of a simpler and purer faith.” Yet when he meets “apostles” of what 328 he supposes to be a “simpler and purer faith,” he can hardly preserve a decent gravity in contemplating either their methods or their results. “By their fruits ye shall know them” is naturally the last reflection suggested to the mind of a Protestant when he considers missionary work. The application of the text would be so speedily fatal to his Protestantism that the instinct of self-preservation keeps him from making it:

“The _Société des Missions Etrangères_, which from its headquarters in Paris directs the affairs of this mission, is most careful in the selection and training of the candidates for missionary life. As their work lies much among the wealthy and educated, though the poor and ignorant are by no means neglected, every missionary sent to Sz-chuan is specially educated for the purpose of meeting the Chinese literati on equal terms. They land in China generally as young and newly-ordained priests, under vows by which the rest of their lives is dedicated to the Sz-chuan Mission. Once having entered upon their work, they never abandon it, nor return to their native country; indeed, it is impossible for them to do so, for I have good reasons for stating that any recreant who may seek, in violation of his engagements, to quit the country, is certain to be apprehended by the Mandarins and sent back to the jurisdiction of the mission. This has an apparent connection with the edict of Khang-hi, which accorded toleration to those missionaries only who would swear never to return to Europe. The young missionary on entering China strips himself of his nationality; he shaves his head, and adopts the Chinese costume, and conforms in all respects to the Chinese mode of life. His first two years are spent either at one of the principal mission stations or at some out-station, in close attendance on an old and experienced father, under whose care he systematically studies the language and the manners of the people to whose service he has devoted his life. He is also trained in the working of the mission, and, as soon as he is a proficient in the language, is appointed to a permanent post under general orders from the bishop of the district to which he has been sent from Paris. It can easily be imagined that a mission numbering its converts by tens of thousands, and carrying its labors over such a vast extent of country as Western China and Eastern Thibet, must be a well-organized institution systematically administered. Taking advantage of the division of all the provinces into districts, each district is worked by the mission with more or less activity, as the disposition of the people will allow. The apostolic bishop resident at Chung Ching exercises a metropolitan authority over four other bishops, who reside at Cheutu and Swi-foo, in Sz-chuan, Yunnan-foo in Yunnan, and in Kwei-cheu, and Bishop Chauveau at Ta-tsian-loo. The latter has charge of the mission stations of Eastern Thibet established at Bathang, Yengin, and Tz-coo, on the western banks of the Lan-tsan-kiang. I was informed that there were, in 1868, three hundred French missionaries, besides native priests and catechists, engaged in the missions working in the above provinces. The pay of a missionary varies from one hundred taels[79] per mensem--the salary of a bishop--to twenty taels, the scanty stipend of the simple fathers. Out of this they provide themselves with everything. At small out-stations, of course, the people give many presents of food, but 329 even then the pay is so trifling, compared with the salaries drawn by Protestant missionaries, that one can only wonder how these French missionaries manage to exist, and it is only when their self-denying and abstemious mode of life is witnessed that an adequate idea can be formed of real missionary work.

“By a strict system of reports, coming from every missionary in charge of a district through his bishop to the metropolitan bishop at Chung Ching, the affairs of the mission are administered with the regularity of a well-organized government. Closely observing the Chinese customs, the bishops assume the title of Tajen, ‘Excellency,’ and the fathers, according to their precedence in the mission, Ta-low-ya, ‘Great Elder,’ and Low-ya, ‘Elder.’ Every convert coming into the presence of a father is obliged to bend the knee, a custom which a recent able French writer declares he has himself heard the Christians complain of as unbecoming. In exacting this apparently slavish mark of homage from their flock, the fathers imitate the magistrates, and by this means, as well as by the influence they naturally acquire in the direction of civil affairs among their converts, they very probably excite the jealousy and hatred of the governing classes. As an illustration of this, I may quote the words of an old and experienced father: ‘We are not persecuted on religious grounds, but on political, because they fear our influence over the people.’ From my own experience of the Chinese, I must say that (however repugnant to our Western ideas) the exaction of the utmost respect from their converts is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of the religious authority of the clergy, for the Chinese, as yet, know no intermediate step between servile submission and insolent independence; and, when compared with that of any Protestant mission in the world, their success is so wonderfully great, that I feel inclined to give them the full credit of knowing from experience what is best for the interest of their mission.... The education of the young is a special object of care; at all the principal mission stations there are separate schools for boys and girls. The boys are taught to read and write Chinese and Latin, besides geography and other useful information, which tends to dispel their Chinese prejudices. Promising candidates for the priesthood are usually sent to Macao and Hong-Kong, and occasionally to Rome, to receive their professional education. The girls are taught to read and write Chinese, and are instructed in sewing, etc. At Chung Ching and Cheutu there are boarding-schools, where young girls are educated till they are marriageable. These pupils are eagerly sought for by the converts in marriage, and are reputed to make excellent wives. The native Christians, as a rule, are remarkable for their good character; their houses are distinguished by their superior cleanliness and order.... I cannot but record how forcibly I was impressed by their devout attention to the offices of their religion, and this is not merely superficial--they are staunch adherents of their faith, but few being ever found to apostatize even under the pressure of persecution; and having myself witnessed the beneficial effects of their labors, I conclude with wishing the utmost success to the pious and laborious agents whose self-denial has been rewarded by such extraordinary results.”

On reaching Ta-tsian-loo, at that time the headquarters of Bishop Chauveau, to whom Mr. Cooper gratefully records his many obligations, 330 and whom he calls the ablest man and kindest friend he found in Western China, he made acquaintance with some of the Thibetan lamas, and visited their lamasery, of which he gives an interesting account. The chief lama paid him a visit at his hotel, and, as he showed a good deal of curiosity concerning his intentions, Mr. Cooper proceeded to define his position by remarking that he had heard that the lamas were averse to French missionaries entering their central kingdom, and added that he was not surprised that a great religious country like Thibet should object to the introduction of a new religion. The lama, unused to the easy way in which a travelled Englishman can carry his religion, was amazed, but on learning that Mr. Cooper was not a Frenchman, but professed a different faith from theirs, being in fact a simple disciple of Confucius, quite indifferent to new creeds, and disposed to look with friendly eyes upon all religions whatsoever, he became at once more cordial, invited him to the lamasery, warned him of a conspiracy against his liberty, and cautioned him to avoid identifying himself in any way with the Catholic missionaries. Mr. Cooper’s return call upon his new friend was not in all respects pleasant:

“Crossing the courtyard, the lama led me up a flight of stairs into his room, which differed from those occupied by the other lamas only in its furniture and superior cleanliness. The other rooms were dirty, and contained nothing save a small stove in the centre of the floor, and a large wooden bucket, somewhat like an attenuated churn, and containing the everlasting butter-tea of the Thibetans. My host’s room, however, had in it several chairs of Chinese make, and round the stove was spread a thick woollen carpet, on which I was invited to squat. Having comfortably seated myself, a youth attired in lama robes brought in silver cups, one of which my host filled with butter-tea, and, as an especial mark of hospitality, broke off from a huge pat of rancid butter a piece as large as his fist, and put it into my cup, which he politely handed to me; then, filling his cup in the same way, he invited me to drink with him. Good manners obliged me to drink, and I succeeded in swallowing a mouthful of the greasy mess with well-feigned pleasure, which, my host observing, nodded his head, and, bending gracefully forward with a flourish, stirred round the piece of butter in my cup with his little finger, and again pressed me to drink. I would have given worlds to have been spared this second trial; but, calling up all my resolution, I made another gulp, and hastily relighted my pipe, while my hospitable host sipped his melted butter with as much gusto as an alderman would his full-bodied port.

“Expressing a wish to view the lamasery, I was shown over it by the lama, and visited the chapel or temple, where he daily offered his prayers to the Grand Lama, as he said; meaning, I presume, Buddha. It was a superb little place. At one end a railing, richly ornamented and gilded, fenced off intruders from a gilded image of Buddha, about five feet high, sitting in a contemplative posture, enveloped in a white drapery of silk gauze. Round the four walls were rows of niches, like pigeon-holes, about a foot square, in each of which was a small Buddha of solid gold, about two inches high. There could not have been less than a hundred of these images, and my first impression was that they 331 were only gilt; but the lama pointed them out to me as gold, and several of them which I handled were made of the precious metal.... I learned from Bishop Chauveau that before the Chinese conquest the lamas used to marry, but that the Chinese, fearing the power of the sacerdotal caste, procured an order from Lhássa enforcing celibacy on all lamas. Notwithstanding this, at the present time, out of the population of the three kingdoms of Thibet, more than one-third are lamas. It may be imagined, therefore, what a power the priesthood has over the people. In almost every family one or more of the sons are lamas from compulsion. In a family of, say, four sons, the chief lama of the district will generally insist upon two becoming lamas, and, at the age of between twelve and fourteen, the boys are taken to the lamasery, where they are educated, and, when grown up, admitted into the priesthood. If the parents object to give up their sons to the priesthood, the threat of an anathema from the lips of the chief lama or the grand lama at Lhássa, is sufficient to overcome all opposition; thus the ranks of the priesthood are constantly recruited and their power strengthened. The population, owing to this, is gradually lessening, and the lay people are the mere slaves of the lamas, who live in luxurious idleness, for each lamasery possesses enormous estates, as well as the revenues drawn from the lay population in the shape of tithes on produce, both of cattle and grain.”

At Bathang, which our traveller visited in May, 1868, he made still further acquaintance with the lamas, but seems to have found no cause to form a more favorable opinion of them. The lamasery which he describes, and the town of Bathang itself, have since been destroyed, as readers of the _Annals of the Propagation of the Faith_ will remember, by an earthquake which occurred on the 11th of April, 1870. The valley of Bathang seemed to Mr. Cooper a sort of little Eden, by reason of its great fertility and beauty. The town contained, according to him, some 6,000 inhabitants, including the lamas, who lived just outside it. Bishop Chauveau, however, whose information is of course more accurate, rates them at 8,000 or 9,000. Of these at least 3,000 were killed by the earthquake, including 430 of the lamas. One of these men had for some time been prophesying some fearful calamity as a judgment from the gods upon the frequent conversions from lamanism, and he induced the people to renew some of their heathenish practices, and it was during these performances that the town was destroyed, and the prophet himself killed. None of our missionaries were injured, and the ill fate of the lamas and their lamasery has had the fortunate effect of making the people look with still greater disfavor upon them. The gods, they say, seem to be getting tired of the lamas. Mr. Cooper being admitted as witness against them, such a disposition on the part of their deities would appear to be only natural:

“My arrival at the gates of the lamasery caused a great hubbub. Hundreds of lamas swarmed on the flat roof of the buildings which composed the square block enclosed by a high wall, while numbers hurried to and fro through the courts and passages in a state of great excitement. Dismounting outside the gate, I left my pony in charge of the gatekeeper, and entered. Scarcely, however, had I passed the inner gate, when a lama, addressing me in Chinese, inquired my business. I informed him that I was desirous of seeing the building, and, giving 332 him my card, desired him to present it to the chief lama, with a request for permission to view the lamasery. He requested me to remain at the gate until his return, and took my message to the chief lama.... From where I stood I could see but little of the interior building. As much, however, as was visible proved that the fame of the Bathang Lamasery was justly deserved. In the centre of the block of buildings, the roof of the sacred temple was plainly visible, its massive gold covering flashing and gleaming in the sunlight with dazzling brilliancy. On the roofs, and, indeed, everywhere, the place was literally alive with roosters, which kept up an incessant crowing, blending in a chorus with the chants of the lamas. These birds are sacred to Buddha, and number, I was told, more than a thousand. None are ever killed, and their ranks are constantly swelled by the donations of the country people, who bring the chickens to the lamasery as religious offerings. The birds are all capons, and, like the lamas, live a life of celibacy. Not a single hen is allowed to come within the building. Everything in the sacred edifice is dedicated to the worship of Buddha, and supposed to be free from the contamination of the outer world.

“I noticed several nuns about, with shaven heads, but dressed in the ordinary garb of Thibetan women, with this difference, that the color and material of their dress were the same as those of the priestly robes of green stuff. These nuns are the abject slaves of the lamas, performing all the drudgery of the house in common with youthful novices or deacons. They, however, in the outer world enjoy, like the lamas, a superior social position, and command considerable respect from both sexes of the lay people. They do not shut themselves up entirely in lamaseries, like cloistered nuns of the Romish religion, but often live with their families, and work at the household duties and in the fields. These nuns, like the priests, profess the strictest chastity, dedicating themselves entirely to the worship and service of Buddha. But, from my own observations, and from the openly expressed opinion of the lay inhabitants of Thibet, which I had frequent opportunities of hearing, virtue is a thing unknown among the priesthood, and the lamaseries are little better than dens of debauchery. Just as I had begun to be impatient at his long absence, the lama returned with a message that my presence was not desired within the building, as it would unsettle the priests at their devotions, but if I wished to leave an offering in the shape of money or anything else, it would be accepted. As this concession on the part of the chief lama was meant as an expression of good-will, I gave the messenger a tael of silver, and, with a feeling of disappointment, returned home. I afterward found that I had reason to congratulate myself on my exclusion from the lamasery, as many of its inmates were suffering from small-pox. This fearful disease commits great ravages among the Thibetan population; of whom almost every fourth person is disfigured by its effects.... When cases occur in a town, the lamas compel the families attacked to remove to the mountains, and seal up their houses. Should the sick persons be unable to bear removal, they are shut up in the house, all communication with them being prohibited, and are left to die or recover, as the case may be.”

It was in a great measure to the lamas that Mr. Cooper owed the 333 non-success of his journey, although, the object of it becoming known, the Chinese government also was interested in preventing its accomplishment, since with a new trade route opened to foreign enterprise, the existing monopolies would of course be destroyed. “Nothing,” says Mr. Cooper, “is more contrary to the policy of the Chinese government and lamas than the introduction of Assam tea. The Chinese on their part dread the loss of their valuable wholesale monopoly, to maintain which they give the lamas the monopoly of the retail supply; who, by this means, hold in absolute subjection the people, to whom tea is a prime necessary of life. The lamas, on their part, fear that, with the introduction of British trade, the teachers of the new religion would come, and free trade and free thought combined would overthrow their spiritual sway.... I myself was destined both now and in a subsequent journey to experience their determination to prevent the intrusion of the detested Palin.”

Nothing would be easier than to extend our quotations from this interesting traveller, every page of whose book is entertaining. On leaving Bathang, the impossibility of inducing a male Thibetan to act as a servant had made it necessary for his interpreter to hire an elderly female as a cook; but Mr. Cooper, while supposing that he was merely assisting at an impromptu picnic, found himself unexpectedly married, with all due Thibetan form, to a pretty little maid, who, her parents were persuaded, would be an excellent substitute for a servant. He soon managed to return her to her relatives, but not until after an amusing compliance with the religious customs of his new bride, which we must let him relate. They were passing one of those cairns of prayer-stones which the piety of the travelling Thibetans erect along the road. No Buddhist passes them without adding a stone and muttering a prayer:

“Lo-tzung, having contributed her quota of stones and prayers, gave me to understand that, in order to secure our future happiness, she must have a couple of Khatah cloths to attach to the flagstaffs, and there was nothing for it but to unpack one of the baggage-animals and get out the ‘scarves of felicity’(?) Having given them to the young lady, I was inwardly congratulating myself that now, at least, we should be able to continue our march, for the afternoon was wearing, and our station for the night still distant. But my matrimonial embarrassments had not yet ended. It was necessary for me to tie one of the ‘scarves of felicity’ to the flagstaff, and kneel in prayer with my bride. This I peremptorily refused to do; but poor Lo-tzung shed such a torrent of tears, and informed me with such heart-broken accents that, if I did not do this, we should not be happy, and that she especially would be miserable, that there was nothing for it but to comply. And there, on the summit of a Thibetan mountain, kneeling before a heap of stones, my hand wet with the tears of a daughter of the country, I muttered curses on the fate that had placed me in such a position.”

It had been Mr. Cooper’s intention to take this little girl along with him to Calcutta, since to cast her off would have given dire offence to the Thibetans, and there hand her over to the care of the Catholic Sisters. The hatred of the lamas, however, pursued him on his journey, and, by prohibiting the people from sheltering him or selling him food, they so nearly reduced the party to starvation that Lo-tzung 334 was only too glad to leave him and take shelter with an uncle. Later on, at Weisee-foo, as we have already related, he was imprisoned, and narrowly escaped with his life, only to begin at once to retrace his steps homeward. On reaching Kiating, on his return journey, he met for the first time traces of Protestant missionary work, and tells an amusing story about it:

“On the second day, a Chinese Christian called upon me, from whom I learned that a Protestant missionary had visited the city in the early part of the year, and had distributed a good many religious books; one of which, in the possession of the landlord of the hotel, proved to be a copy of the New Testament in Chinese. The owner produced the volume, and, adjusting his spectacles with a solemn air of wisdom, turned up the passage which runs as follows: ‘It is easier for a mule [the camel in the English version] to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’ Having read these words, he looked over his spectacles at me, and asked in a very contemptuous voice if it was possible for any man to believe such a statement, and if foreigners really did believe the statements made in this book? It had been my invariable custom since commencing to travel in China to avoid religious discussions, and always to proclaim myself a disciple of Confucius, so I now replied that I was not a teacher of religion, but only a humble disciple of Con-fu-dzu, but as to the statement about the mule passing through the eye of a needle, I thought I could explain that; and then proceeded to interpret the word ‘needle’ as used in the passage referred to. This somewhat mollified mine host, who remarked that he had no doubt that English teachers found great difficulty in writing the flowery language, and it would perhaps be as well if they did not write religious books for the Chinese under such circumstances. When I was alone, I could not but regret that the praiseworthy efforts of the missionary in Kiating had not been more successful. However, as soon as it becomes safe for Europeans to travel in China, there is little doubt but that the self-denying and hard-working Protestant missionaries will enter upon a new and extensive field of labor, in which their energy, devotedness, and well-known _pacific_ influence will doubtless win for them, if not success, at least admiration from their supporters at home.”

After leaving Hankou for Shanghai, he again came upon their traces--apparently without great gratification:

“As we steamed past the city of Yang-chow, in the province of Nganhoei, we saw the British fleet which had been sent up to demand satisfaction for an outrage committed on some Protestant missionaries, who had been beaten and otherwise maltreated. The sight of a British fleet on the Yang-tsu for such a purpose was curious indeed, and must, I have no doubt, have done much toward convincing the people of Yang-chow of the force of Protestantism, if not of its pacific nature. For myself, I remember the patient French missionaries, whose only resource had been flight into mountain fastnesses, and then recall the rebuke given by the Master to the disciple for drawing his sword against the high-priest’s servant; and it seemed hard to reconcile the presence of a fleet at Yang-chow for such a purpose with the doctrines professed by his servants. Probably, however, times have changed since Paul preached Christ crucified, and suffered martyrdom; and it may now 335 be found more expedient to proclaim the Gospel from the cannon’s mouth, and summon gunboats to exact reparation for our modern martyrs.”

Here we take leave of our traveller, whose unfortunate experiences did not prevent him from undertaking a similar journey, though by a different route, in the following year, and with a like unsuccessful result. His book is very well worth reading, simply as an entertaining record of travel in a little known country; although to a Catholic it has the further interest of furnishing another of those involuntary testimonies from Protestant pens, which record the unvarying failure of their own missionary enterprises in producing any beneficial effect upon the heathen, and the exceeding heroism and devotion and the uniform and great success which as invariably characterize our own.

[78] _Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats; or, An Overland Journey from China toward India._ By T. T. Cooper, late Agent for the Chamber of Commerce at Calcutta. With Map and Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1871.

[79] Not quite $170.

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THE ISLAND OF SAINTS.

Nature has been lavish in her gifts to this lovely island, once so famous as the nursing-school of the godly and learned. Though fallen from her high estate, though no longer the unrivalled land of science, she is still the

“Land of wild beauty and romantic shapes, Of sheltered valleys and of stormy capes; Of the bright garden and the tangled brake, Of the dark mountain and the sunlit lake!”

Rugged, precipitous cliffs protect her coasts, while her shores are indented by the most magnificent bays and harbors. Her bosom is stored with precious metals, and the most fertile soil in the world crowns her granite base. Her very geographical position is an advantageous one, for she is placed, as it were, an advanced guard on the outskirts of Europe--she opens the route to the great Western world, and she offers the first eastern port to the American mariner.

“Moist, bright, and green, her landscape smiles around;” pellucid lakes reflect as in a mirror the hills, rocks, and precipices on their margins; here are undulating plains of unequalled verdure; there, garden-like tracts where the myrtle, the rose, and the laurel need no culture; where the evergreen arbutus, in wonderful luxuriance of growth, appears to be indigenous; where every spot is enamelled with flowers and fragrant herbs.

Beautiful Ireland! most picturesque land on the face of the globe! Alas! why not also the richest and happiest?

Religion and learning early found a welcome home in this “emerald gem of the ocean.” Even in the dark days of paganism, the priest-and-poet Druid of Erin appears to have been superior in intelligence and culture to his brethren of England and of the Continent; and when Christianity was first preached in the land, no other people ever welcomed it with such ardent enthusiasm as did the Irish; no other people ever clung to their faith with such inviolable fidelity as Irish Catholics have since done.

During the five centuries that followed the apostolic labors of Saint Patrick, so great was the multitude of holy personages who trod in the way which he traced out; so eminent the sanctity of their lives; so 336 illustrious their learning, that Ireland received the proud title of “Island of Saints and Doctors.” The number of her churches was infinite, and her monasteries and convents were at once the abodes of piety and the sheltering homes of the poor and the stranger. Her theological schools and colleges were the most renowned of Europe. Their halls were open to the students of every clime, “who,” says Moreri, “were there received with greater hospitality than in any other country in the Christian world.” Hither, as to the “emporium of literature,” the youth of France, Germany, and Switzerland repaired in search of knowledge. But to the English nobility and gentry especially, the Venerable Bede tells us “Ireland showed the most cordial hospitality and generosity, for, great though their numbers, they were _all_ most willingly received, maintained, supplied with books, and instructed without fee or reward.”

And the tide of sanctity and learning overflowed the shores of the holy isle; many were the pious missionaries who, in those days of religious fervor, went forth to labor for the salvation of souls among the nations of Europe. The memory of their works is still preserved in the countries which reaped the fruits of their zeal. The Italian town, San Columbano, still bears the name of the great Columbanus, a native of Leinster; and St. Gall, in Switzerland, still reminds us of his friend and disciple Gallus. The hermitage of Saint Fiacre, another Irish saint, is still one of France’s consecrated spots; and the memory of the Connaught man, Saint Fridolin, “the Traveller,” is still blessed on the banks of the Rhine. The famous universities of Paris and of Pavia owe their origin to the learning and industry of Clement and John, both Irishmen. From Ireland the Anglo-Saxons derived their first enlightenment, and till the thirteenth century the literature of Scotland was the special province of the Irish clergy.

“When we look into the ecclesiastical life of this people,” says the learned Görres, “we are almost tempted to believe that some potent spirit had transported over the sea the cells of the Valley of the Nile, with all their hermits, its monasteries with all their inmates, and had settled them down in the Western isle--an isle which, in the lapse of three centuries, gave eight hundred and fifty saints to the church; won over to Christianity the north of Britain, and, soon after, a large portion of the yet pagan Germany; and, while it devoted the utmost attention to the sciences, cultivated with especial care the mystical contemplation in her religious communities, as well as in the saints whom they produced.”

Numerous vestiges are still to be found in Ireland of those days of enthusiastic faith. Ivy-grown abbeys and churches, and the habitations of saints; and the emblem of our holy creed, now rudely cut on pillar stones, now exquisitely carved in fine proportions, are to be met with scattered over the whole length and breadth of the land--“memorials,” we are told “by a celebrated archæologist, “not only of the piety and magnificence of a people whom ignorance and prejudice have too often sneered at as barbarous, but also as the finest works of sculptured art, of their period, now existing.”

In the wild and lonely valley of Glendalough, County Wicklow, are yet to be seen the remains of the noble monastery, “once the luminary of the Western world,” founded in the beginning of the sixth century by Saint Kevin, around which a city rose, flourished, and decayed. Gloomy 337 mountains encompass the silent and now almost uninhabited glen, in whose bosom lie the ruins of shrines which nearly thirteen centuries ago were raised in honor of their God by men joyous and thankful in the feeling of certain immortality--men whose fathers in their youth reverenced the Druid as a more than human counsellor.

“Yes, peopled were once these silent shades With saintly forms of days departed, When holy men and votive maids Lived humble here, and heavenly-hearted!”

Here are assembled dismantled churches, crumbling oratories, broken crosses, shattered monumental stones, and tombs, no longer to be distinguished, of bishops, abbots, and recluses. And near the wasted remains of the holy piles, one of those mysterious edifices, a tall and slender Round Tower, stands, still strong and straight, like a sentinel guarding the wrecks of the past. It is impossible to imagine a scene of sterner, more desolate grandeur. On the shore of one of the two lakes that lie embosomed in the glen, rises a beetling rock, in a cavity of which Saint Kevin is said to have lived while pursuing that course of study and contemplation for which his name is even now revered. In this same cavern, too, still known by the name of “Saint Kevin’s Bed,” the illustrious saint and patriot Laurence O’Toole is believed to have ofttimes mused and prayed when he was abbot of Glendalough.

In the county of Meath we find the remains of Saint Columb’s house--Saint Columbkille, the elegant poet, the pious founder of so many monasteries--a high stone-roofed construction of singular architecture, seeming to combine the purpose of an oratory with that of a habitation.

On the celebrated Rock of Cashel stands a group of ruins unparalleled for picturesque beauty and antiquarian interest. The most ancient structure, with the exception of the Round Tower, is Cormac’s chapel, built by Cormac MacCarthy, the pious king of “deep-valleyed Desmond,” in the beginning of the twelfth century. It also is a stone-roofed edifice, with Norman arches and an almost endless variety of Norman decorations. Near it rise the magnificent cathedral founded by Donogh O’Brien, King of Thomond, about 1152; and on the plain beside the rock, Hoar Abbey, the ancient castle of the archbishops, a perfect Round Tower, and numerous crosses.

And one of the grandest of these ancient holy piles, Newtown Abbey, now lies a crumbling heap on the banks of the Boyne. What it once was may, however, still be conceived, of from the exquisite beauty of some of the remaining capitals, vaulting, and shafts, and from the many fragments of its noble windows which are strewn about the neighboring cemetery. This, alas! like many another of the magnificent ruins of Ireland, has been used as a quarry; not by the unlettered peasant, who is rarely found wanting in a devotional feeling that leads him to regard antiquities, and especially those of an ecclesiastical origin, with a sentiment of profound veneration; but by contractors for the erection of new buildings, and sometimes even by men of station and education, who seem to have forgotten that age and neglect cannot deprive structures once consecrated to God, and applied to the service of religion, of any portion of their sacred character.

Bective Abbey, not far from Newtown, is another wonderful wreck, which seems to combine ecclesiastical with military and domestic architecture 338 in the most singular manner. It presents indeed a striking evidence of the half-monk, half-soldier character of its founders. Battlemented towers, cloister-arches, and rooms with great fire-places; the flues carried up through the thickness of the walls, and continued through tapering chimney-shafts, seem to have made the Abbey of Bective a kind of monastic castle, and previous to the use of artillery it must have been a place of great strength.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful edifices ever erected in Ireland was the church of Killeshin, near Carlow, once decorated with richly sculptured capitals representing human heads, the hair intertwined with serpents. This magnificent building was more hardly treated by the destructiveness of an individual who, about forty years since, resided in the neighborhood, than by the storms and frosts and thunderbolts of ages. The detestable vandal wantonly defaced the exquisite capitals, and almost entirely obliterated an Irish inscription which extended round the abacus!

On the romantic shores of the beautiful Lake of Killarney stands the venerable ruins of Muckross Abbey. No vestige of its former grandeur remains; “its antic pillars massy proof” are all ground into dust, and a magnificent yew-tree that has grown in the very centre of the wreck spreads its mighty, sombre branches like a funereal pall over the fallen temple. And in the lake on the “holy island” of Innisfallen, on a gentle verdant slope, surrounded by thick groves, are still to be seen the few crumbling stones that mark where stood the abbey once so renowned throughout Christendom for its learning and piety.

But it would be a vain task to attempt to enumerate all the beautiful memorials of Ireland’s splendor whose ivy-grown ruins still adorn the land they once made so famous.

“Her temples grew as grows the grass”--

and popular tradition tells us that numbers have been hidden from mortal eye, ever since the pious monks who prayed within them were barbarously driven forth or slain.

“In yonder dim and pathless wood Strange sounds are heard at twilight hour, And peals of solemn music swell As from some minster’s lofty tower. From age to age those sounds are heard, Borne on the breeze at twilight hour-- From age to age no foot hath found A pathway to the minster’s tower!”

Mingled among the mossy marbles of fallen altars; among the mouldering stones and the rusted iron of crumbled cloisters; beneath the “churchyard’s bowers”; by the bleak hillsides; on the margins of the sunlit lakes, or under the shadow of the mysterious Round Towers, lie, almost countless, the defaced, mutilated emblems of Ireland’s heart-deep faith--broken crosses--innumerable broken crosses--eloquent of the piety of those by-gone days, eloquent of the ruthlessness of the devastator. They are found scattered over the whole island, and are as various in their styles as in the perfection of their workmanship--some, differing in nothing from the pillar-stones of the pagans, save that they are rudely sculptured with a cross, to mark the graves of the early Irish saints--others have the upper part of the shaft hewn into the form of a circle, from which the arms and the top extend. Crosses, highly sculptured, appear to date from the ninth and twelfth centuries. In these the circle, instead of being simply cut into the face of the stone, is represented by a ring, binding, as it were, the shaft, arms, and upper portion of the cross together. There are scores of these beautiful remains in Ireland, but the finest, 339 perhaps, are those at Monasterboice, near Drogheda; they are so singularly symmetrical and artistic as to have excited the enthusiasm of every learned archæologist who has seen them.

There were originally three crosses at Monasterboice; two still exist, well preserved; the third was broken, tradition says, by Cromwell. The larger of the two nearly perfect crosses measures twenty-seven feet in height, and is composed of three stones. The shaft, at its junction with the base, is two feet in breadth and one foot three inches in thickness. It is divided upon the western side by fillets into seven compartments, each of which contains two or more boldly-cut figures, now much worn by the rain and wind of nine centuries. The sides of the cross are ornamented with figures and scroll-work alternately.

“The smaller cross, fifteen feet high, is exquisitely beautiful,” says Mr. Wakeman, in the _Archæologia Hibernica_, “and has suffered little from the effects of time. It stands almost as perfect as when first erected nine hundred years ago. The figures retain almost all their original sharpness and beauty of execution. Within the circular head of the cross, on its eastern face, our Saviour is represented sitting in judgment. A choir of angels occupy the arm to the right of the figure. Several hold musical instruments, among which is seen the ancient small and triangular Irish harp. The space to the left of our Saviour is crowded with figures, several of which are in an attitude of despair; an armed fiend is driving them from before the throne. The compartment immediately beneath bears a figure weighing in a pair of huge scales a smaller figure, the balance seeming to preponderate in his favor. One who appears to have been weighed and found wanting is lying beneath the scales in an attitude of terror. The next compartment beneath represents apparently the adoration of the wise men. The star above the head of the infant Christ is distinctly marked. The third compartment contains several figures, the action of which we do not understand. The signification of the sculpture of the next following compartment is also very obscure. A figure seated upon a throne or chair is blowing a horn, and soldiers with conical helmets, broad-bladed swords, and with small circular shields appear crowding in. The fifth and lowest division illustrates the Temptation and the Expulsion. An inscription in Irish, upon the lower part of the shaft, desires “a prayer for Muiredach, by whom was made this cross.”

We can imagine how, when this masterpiece was pronounced finished by the gifted artist, the chiefs and abbots, the bards and warriors, the monks and priests, and may be many a rival sculptor, crowded around it, full of wonder and admiration for what they must have considered a truly glorious, nay, unequalled work. And Muiredach most certainly was not refused the boon he craved.

We have mentioned pillar-stones, and though they do not belong to the Christian vestiges of the Island of Saints, still they are so mingled with the holier relics that they cannot be passed over in silence. Obscure, mysterious in their origin, many hypotheses have been formed respecting them by the learned, and they have been supposed by turns to be landmarks, idols, or monumental stones. Some of the Irish pillar-stones are inscribed with the Ogham character, a kind of writing believed to have been in use in Ireland before the introduction of Christianity. Stones very similar, but perforated, 340 are also found in Ireland, in Scotland, and even, it is said, in India. What may have been their origin is completely unknown.

The most remarkable of the pillar-stones is found at the celebrated hill of Tara, in the county of Meath. Dr. Petrie thinks that this monument is the famous Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, upon which, for many ages, the kings of Ireland were crowned, and which is generally supposed to have been removed from Ireland to Scotland for the coronation of Fergus Mac Eark, an Irish prince--a prophecy having declared that in whatever country this stone was preserved, a king of the Scotic (ancient Irish) race should reign. The learned Doctor refers to some MSS., not earlier certainly than the tenth century, in which the stone is mentioned as still existing at Tara. “If this authority may be relied on,” says Mr. Wakeman, “the stone carried away from Scotland by Edward the First, and now preserved in Westminster Abbey, under the coronation chair, has long attracted a degree of celebrity to which it was not entitled, while the veritable Lia Fail, the stone which, according to the early bardic accounts, _roared_ beneath the ancient Irish monarchs at their inauguration, remained forgotten and diregarded among the green raths of deserted Tara.” Deserted Tara! thirteen centuries have passed away since the kings and chiefs of Ireland were wont to assemble in the royal city--

“Tara, where the voice of music sung, And many a harp and cruit responsive rung, And many a bard, in high heroic verse, The deeds of heroes gloried to rehearse. And many a shell went round, and loud and long Rose the full chorus of the festive song. Ah! who can tell how beautiful were they-- The Fenian chiefs--how joyous, young, and gay! Each stood a champion on the battle-field, And but with life the victory would yield.”

Thirteen centuries have passed away since the work of decay began, and nothing now remains of its ancient grandeur. All has been swept away, save some faint indications of the site of the noble banqueting-hall, whose magnificence was so vaunted in bardic song and story, and the raths upon which the principal habitations stood.

These raths or duns, which are found in every part of Ireland, often consist of only a circular intrenchment, but most frequently form a steep mound, flat at the top and strongly intrenched. The works usually enclosed a piece of ground upon which, it is presumed, the houses of lesser importance stood, the mound being occupied by the dwelling of the chief. The circular enclosures generally contain excavations of a beehive form, lined with uncemented stones, and connected by passages sufficiently large to admit a man. These chambers or artificial caverns are supposed to have been store-houses for food and treasure, and places of refuge for the women and children in time of war.

In the centre of the principal mound of Tara, the Forradh, now stands the Lia Fail--the great pillar-stone--the stone of destiny--moved from its primitive site to its present in order to mark the grave--“the croppies’ grave,” it is called--of some men killed in an encounter with British troops during the rising in 1798.

By the side of the hoary ruins of the earlier monastic houses is almost invariably seen one of those singular and, for many centuries, mysterious edifices, the Round Towers. The question of the origin and uses of these remarkable vestiges long occupied the attention of antiquaries. They were supposed to have been built by the Danes, or to have a Phœnician or Indo-Scythic origin, and to have contained the 341 sacred fire from whence all the fires in the kingdom were annually rekindled. There were almost as many theories concerning them as there were towers, and each succeeding theory appeared to involve the subject in deeper mystery than ever--a mystery that was proverbial until dispelled for ever by the learned Dr. Petrie. This gentleman has decided that the towers are of Christian and of ecclesiastical origin, and were erected at various periods between the fifth and thirteenth centuries--that they were designed to answer, at least, a twofold use, namely, to serve as belfries, and as keeps, or places of strength, in which the sacred utensils, books, relics, and other valuables were deposited, and into which the ecclesiastics to whom they belonged could retire for security in cases of sudden attack; and that they were probably also used, when occasion required, as beacons and watch-towers. These conclusions were arrived at after a long and patient investigation of the architectural peculiarities of the Round Towers, and also of the religious structures generally found in connection with them, and the vexed question is at rest.

The sites of a hundred and eighteen of these buildings have been discovered, the greater number in ruins; indeed, of some only the foundations remain; others are almost perfect in external shape. They vary from eighty to a hundred and ten feet in height, tapering gradually to the summit, and terminated by a high conical stone roof. The Tower of Clondalkin, near Dublin, is nearly perfect; but perhaps the most noble example is found at Monasterboice, where it combines, with the magnificent crosses we have described, and the ivy-grown ruined churches, to form a group of sacred antiquities unsurpassed in interest and picturesque beauty.

Frightful as were the devastations of the Danes in Ireland--the unhappy land bore the brunt of their fury--and frequent as was the pillage of religious property, there have been found many beautiful relics of sacred objects belonging to the sacked and ravaged abbeys and churches. In newly-ploughed lands, in the beds of rivers, in the heaps of crumbled stones around the ruins, in the bogs have been discovered, among many other interesting evidences of early Irish civilization, pastoral crooks and crosiers, chalices of stone and of silver, and ancient quadrangular bells of bronze and of iron. These last appear to have been in use in Ireland as early as the time of St. Patrick. Some of them, we are told by Cambrensis, were so highly reverenced that both clergy and laity were more afraid of swearing falsely by them than by the Gospels--“because of some hidden and miraculous power with which they were gifted, and by the vengeance of the saint to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers and transgressors were severely punished.”

The crooks and crosiers are in general of exquisite workmanship, exhibiting a profusion of ornament of extreme beauty. Among these relics has been found one which affords the most striking evidence of the proficiency that Irish artificers had arrived at in many of the arts previous to the arrival of the English. It is known as the Cross of Cong, and was made at Roscommon, by native Irishmen, about the year 1123, in the reign of Turlogh O’Connor, father of Roderich, the last king of Ireland. The form is most elegant, and it is completely covered with minute and elaborate ornaments, a portion worked in pure 342 gold. The ornaments are, for the most part, tracery and grotesque animals fancifully combined, and similar in character to the decorations found upon crosses of stone of the same period. In the centre, at the intersection, is set a large crystal, through which is visible a piece of the true cross, as inscriptions in Irish and Latin distinctly record.

The copies of the Gospels and of the sacred writings which had been used by the saints of Erin were often preserved by their successors enclosed in cases of yew, or some wood equally durable. Some of these deeply-interesting evidences of Irish piety and learning have come down to us, and are to be seen in the collection of the Royal Irish Accademy at Dublin. One of them, the Caah, is a box about nine inches long and eight broad, formed of brass plates riveted together, and ornamented with gems and chasings of gold and silver. It contains a rude wooden box enclosing a copy of the ancient Vulgate translation of the Psalms in Latin, written on vellum, and, it is believed, by the hand of Saint Columbkille, “the Apostle of the Picts.” It seems to have been handed down in the O’Donnell family, to which the great saint belonged.

Another most interesting relic, also in the collection of the Academy, is the Domnach Airgid, which contains, beyond a doubt, a considerable portion of the copy of the holy Gospels used by Saint Patrick, and presented to him by Saint Macarthen. This MS. has three covers; the first and most ancient, of yew; the second, of copper plated with silver; and the third, of silver plated with gold.

Beautiful--sadly, solemnly beautiful--are the remains of Ireland’s ancient grandeur; but though her splendor may have passed away; though she be no longer “the school of Christendom”; though her abbeys and monasteries, her churches and towers and sculptured crosses, lie mostly heaps of wayside ruins, still her faith, her wondrous faith, is fresh and strong as in those bygone ages. As it was in those days of old when the fervent piety of her sons led them to distant lands, apostles of religion and science, so is Ireland’s faith now, warm and active as ever. In all her struggles, in all her sorrows, her faith has stood by her side to minister consolation and to ward off despair.

O lovely, unhappy isle! “thou chief of reliquaries,” though thy shamrock be watered with tears, still thou hast the better part!

“And if of every land the guest, Thine exile back returning Finds still one land unlike the rest, Discrowned, disgraced, and mourning, Give thanks! Thy flowers, to yonder skies Transferred, pure airs are tasting; And, stone by stone, thy temples rise In regions everlasting!”

Will “the bound and suffering victim” ever again breathe freely?--will religious freedom and political freedom ever again stand hand in hand on the dewy turf of Erin?--will the Lia Fail ever again roar beneath the seat of an independent Irish ruler?--these are questions which Time alone can answer. But whatever fate may be reserved for long-tried Ireland in the future, however disconsolate her present, every Irishman’s heart should glow with pride and love when he remembers the glory of her early days--glory such as no other country ever possessed--glory of which no centuries of relentless tyranny can deprive her--the glory of having been, when all was dark around, the home of learning and the fatherland of saints!

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THE LEGENDS OF OISIN, BARD OF ERIN, 343

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

II.

THE DEATH OF OSCAR.[80]

“Sing us once more of Gahbra’s fight, Old bard, that fight where fell thy son:” Thus Patrick spake to vexed Oisin, And the old man’s wrath was gone.

“Thou of the crosier white! whoe’er Had seen that plain with carnage spread. Or friend or foe, had wept for Eire, And for her princes dead!

“There lay the arms of mighty chiefs: There kings in death with helms unbound. A field of doom it was; a place By deadly spells girt round!

“Upon his left hand leaned my son: His shield lay broken by his side: His right hand clutched his sword: the blood Rushed from him like a tide.

“I stayed my spear-shaft on the ground: O’er him I stooped on bended knee: On me my Oscar turned his eyes: He stretched his hands to me.

“To me my Oscar spake--my son-- 344 The dying man, and all but dead: ‘Thou liv’st! For this I thank the gods! O father!’ thus he said.

“‘Rememberest thou that day we fought Far westward at the Sith of Mor?’ Caoilte spake: ‘I healed thee then, Though deep thy wounds and sore:--

“‘No cure there lives for wounds like these.’” Here ceased the lamentable sound. Five steps the old man moved apart; Then dashed him on the ground.

“My Oscar stared upon his wounds; To fields long past his thoughts took flight: ‘My son, I cried, thou hadst not died If Fionn had ruled the fight!’

“O Patrick! I have sung thee lays, Emprize of others, or my own; Where he was bravest all were brave; But his, and his alone,

“The gracious ways, the voice that smiled, The heart so loving and so strong: The women laughed my harp to hear; They wept at Oscar’s song!

“All night we watched the dying man: To staunch his blood we strove in vain: We heard the demon-loaded wind Along the mountain strain.

“All night we propped him with our spears: To staunch his blood we strove in vain: Till, drenched in falling floods, the moon Went down beyond the plain.

“Alas! the dawning of that morn, My Oscar’s last! With barren glare It flashed along the broken arms, And the red pools here and there.

“Then saw we pacing from afar, 345 A kingly form, a shape of woe: King Fionn it was that toward us moved With measured footsteps slow:

“King Fionn himself; and far behind Came many warriors more of Fail,[81] Down-gazing on Baoigne’s clan, Death-cold, and still, and pale.

“There lay all dumb the men of might; There, foot to foot, the foemen, strewn Like seaweed lines on stormy shores, Or forests overblown!

“Oh! then to hear that cry far borne On gales new-touched with morning frost As though he heard it not, the king Came, striding o’er that host,

“Seeking the bodies of his sons. So on he strode through fog and mist; And we to meet him moved; for now That Fionn it was we wist.

“‘All hail to thee, King Fionn! all hail!’ He answered naught, but onward passed Until he reached that spot where lay My Oscar sinking fast.

“‘Late, late thou com’st: yet thou art here.’ Then answered Fionn, ‘Alas the day! My reign is done since thou art gone, And all this host is clay.’

“My Oscar gazed upon his face: He heard the words his grandsire said: He heard, nor spake: his hand down fell; And his great spirit fled.

“Then all the warriors, far and near, 346 Save one that wept, and Fionn, my sire, Three times upraised a cry that rang O’er all the land of Eire.

“Fionn turned from us his face that hour: We knew that tears adown it crept: Never, except for Bran his hound, The king till then had wept.

He shed no tear above his son; Tearless he saw his brother die: He wept to see my Oscar dead, And the warriors weeping nigh.

“This is the tale of Gahbra’s fight, Where all the monarchs warred on one; Where they that wrecked him shared his fate, And Erin’s day was done.

“On Gahbra’s field the curse came down: Our voice is changed from that of men: We sigh by night; we sigh by day: We learned that lesson then.

Oh! many a prince was laid that day In narrow cairn and lonely cave: But all the fair-famed Rath thenceforth Became my Oscar’s grave.

Patrick, I pray the Lord of Life-- Patrick, do thou his grace implore-- That death may still my heart ere long: This night my pain is sore.”

[80] The substance of this poem will be found among the translations of the Irish Ossianic Society.

[81] “Inisfail”--Ireland.

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THE PLACE VENDOME AND LA ROQUETTE. 347

THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF THE COMMUNE.

FROM LE CORRESPONDANT.

_Concluded._

When we arrived at La Roquette, as there were no steps by which to descend from the cart, the national guardsmen, who had not insulted us, aided the laymen in getting out, but when it came to the turn of the priests they refused their assistance. They shut us up for more than an hour and a half in a narrow room which could scarcely hold us. It was nearly five hours since we left our cells at Mazas. Some aged priests--pardon these common details concerning the sufferings of all kinds we underwent--asked to be shown to a retired place. After making them wait a long time, they placed a repulsive bucket in the middle of the room. During our whole stay at La Roquette, a hundred soldiers, ten ecclesiastics, and some national guardsmen had no other--what the English and Germans call by a modest euphemism “a closet or privy”--than an article of the same kind, placed in the middle of an infectious apartment in the third story, and I was suffering from an inflammation of the bowels, brought on by want of exercise, of nourishment, and of sleep.

The time passed in this anteroom was not lost. We became acquainted and we encouraged one another. In the school of misfortune, people learn to be communicative, and to overlook differences of age and social rank. Those who did not anticipate any imminent danger were undeceived. We will add, to show how profoundly hope is graven in the heart of man, that the strongest pessimists easily yielded to the influence of the optimists. Not one was wanting in firmness and patience.

At last the door of the anteroom opened, and a citoyen with red pantaloons, a red girdle, and red cravat called over the prisoners. It was Citoyen François, the Director of La Roquette. Those familiar with the history of Paris know that, at the end of the Empire, the post of the sapeurs-pompiers of La Villette was taken by assault by a handful of demagogues, who killed several sapeurs-pompiers. The leaders of the insurrection were no other than _General_ Eudes, a member of the Commune, and Citizen François, the warden of La Roquette. The citizen-director of Mazas had still greater claims on the confidence of the Commune. It will be seen that the hostages were well guarded.

La Grande-Roquette, so called to distinguish it from La Petite-Roquette, which is opposite, and where young prisoners are confined, is the prison of those condemned to death and to the _travaux forcés_. It is divided into two distinct parts: the eastern and western buildings. Separated by a spacious interior court, they are united on the street by a third building, in the lower part of which is the jailer’s office; and, on the opposite side, by a sufficiently large chapel, which was, of course, closed and stript of 348 all the exterior emblems they could destroy.

Some of us were confined in the first story of the western building where the hostages were who came the night before. The second and third stories were occupied by those sentenced by the court of assize of the Seine.

The remainder, and I was of the number, were sent to the third story of the eastern building. The first story was occupied by about forty Parisian guardsmen, prisoners of the Commune; the second story by a somewhat larger number of _sergents de ville_, who were found at Montmartre in the affair of the eighteenth of March. In consequence of the defection of a part of the line, they fell into the power of the insurgents. There were also on the same story a dozen artillerymen, likewise prisoners. The third story, where I was conducted with seven ecclesiastics and three laymen, was already occupied by a hundred soldiers, some of whom, on their way through Paris at the time of the proclamation of the Commune, refused to serve it, and others had been taken prisoners in the engagements between the insurgents and the regular army. The following night, three vicars from Belleville and St. Ambroise were imprisoned with us.

The cells of La Roquette are extremely plain. They are about one mètre and a few centimètres wide and two and a half metrès long. No chair, no table: the only article of furniture is an iron bedstead. Neatness is the least thing to be remarked concerning them. It was very evident that several generations of criminals had occupied them without rendering them any more agreeable. This was not all. The first night I found myself among two kinds of insects whose names are unmentionable. When in the warm climes of the East, and in the villages of Southern Spain, I found myself _aux prises_ with these nocturnal enemies, I had at least the consolation of lighting my taper, of complaining the next day to the hostess, and of changing my room or the inn. But at La Roquette none of these things was possible. Having no chair to sit on, I remained seated on my bed.

I must, however, mention one advantage at La Roquette of which we were deprived at Mazas: the cellular discipline was not as rigorous. The prisoners could at certain moments of the day see each other in the court, or in the passage of the story they occupied. Each window lights two cells separated by a strong partition, but between the partition and the grating of the window, common to both cells, is a space through which the occupants can talk, and even pass a book. I could thus exchange some pious thoughts and fortifying resolutions with my neighbor, the Abbé Amodru. During the day we spoke of God, of death, eternity, of the assistance we could render our companions: during the night, we regarded with horror the lugubrious fires that seemed to be devouring the whole city.

The very night of our arrival, a battery of seven large marine pieces set up at Père-la-Chaise began to discharge shells and petroleum-bombs on different parts of Paris. As it was only a few mètres from our prison, it shook our cells and stunned us with the frightful detonation, and the whir of the projectiles passing above our heads. This battery did not cease its incendiary work till the following Saturday, the twenty-seventh of May, at half-past three, the moment when the regular army gained possession of the cemetery. Some days before my arrest, Citizen Delescluze declared in a proclamation, 349 little noticed, that the miserable advocates of the government of the fourth of September, ready in words to defend us against the Prussians behind the forts, ramparts, and barricades, had given everything up to them; but the Communists would show themselves faithful to their plan of defence against the royalists--“after the ramparts, the barricades; after the barricades, the houses; after the houses, fire and the mine.” This great criminal should have kept his word.

We were permitted on Wednesday morning to hold communication with one another. But the director gave the strictest orders that there should be none whatever between us and the soldiers. When the soldiers were not in one of the courts of the prison, we were shut up in our cells.

I observed M. l’Abbé Beyle, one of Mgr. Darboy’s vicar-generals, in one of the windows of the first story of the western building. He immediately recognized me, and informed me by some intelligible signs that the hostages would have recreation together in one of the courts, and that M. Deguerry would be very glad to see me and obtain news of the parish of the Madeleine.

At noon the wardens ordered us to descend. I was affected at the thought that I was about to see our archbishop and vicar-generals, my curé, and some of my friends belonging to the clergy and religious orders of Paris. I stationed myself before the door through which they would come out of the western building. The archbishop was the first to appear. He was hardly recognizable, such frightful ravages had privations and sufferings wrought on his frail and delicate constitution. He was immediately surrounded by the priests of the eastern building. The laymen were not less eager to manifest their respectful sympathy. While he was addressing me a friendly word, and I was kissing his hand, M. Deguerry entered the court. I had been for ten years one of his vicars at the Madeleine. Knowing his great need of an active life and a certain impressionability of his character, I expected to find him enfeebled, discouraged, and ill after two months’ confinement in the cell of a prison. Happily, there was nothing of the kind. His face was fresh and healthy, and his conversation cheerful and enlivening. In spite of his seventy-four years, he was as erect as ever. He, as well as the archbishop, had undergone much suffering, but privations and trials had made no inroads upon his strong constitution.

With the exception of a quarter of an hour I passed with Mgr. Surat, Père Olivaint, M. Bayle, M. Petit, the chief secretary of the archbishop, M. Moléon, the curé of St. Séverin, and some other _confrères_, I passed the whole time of recreation with M. Deguerry. He was desirous of news concerning his clergy and parish. The closing of the Madeleine greatly distressed him, but, when he heard that nothing had been injured or desecrated, he resumed his serenity. He said little of the humiliating treatment of Raoul Rigault, and the _ennui_ and sufferings of his long imprisonment in the cells of Mazas. So far from retaining any bitterness in his heart, he wished “to consecrate _the few years he still had to live_ in doing as much good as possible to those who had been persecuting the clergy and injuring the cause of religion; in adapting the charities and the ministry of the times to the exceptional wants of Paris; and in showing that by abandoning Jesus Christ and his holy teachings, peoples, as well as individuals, only meet with deceptive illusions 350 and material and moral ruin.”

We quote these words to show that M. Deguerry had no grave fears respecting his situation. The archbishop and he both knew that the death of the hostages had been discussed by the Commune, but they were convinced that these threats would never be executed. What reasons had they for such an assurance? Had they received an absolute promise? Were they ignorant of the revolutionary orgies of Paris, and the brutal hatred of its tyrants? Did they think, having nothing to reproach themselves for, that no one could conceive the idea of putting them to death? I was vainly endeavoring to find an explanation of this assurance when Mgr. Darboy joined us.

If his health was affected and his body enfeebled, his mind was undoubtedly clear and sagacious. He not only took broad and correct views of the events and men of the times, but he displayed an acuteness almost caustic. The consciousness of his ecclesiastical dignity and his intellectual strength suggested to him many observations, full of animation and reality, respecting the incredible humiliations that he had received from Raoul Rigault and other heroes of the club, or _estaminet_, who thought they were aggrandizing themselves and acquiring claims on the admiration of posterity by their absurdity and impertinence. He bitterly deplored the weakening of the public sense of respect for authority, and thought, without a reformation in this respect, Paris and the whole of France would never recover from their misfortunes. To support these observations, Mgr. Darboy recalled the conclusion of one of his last pastoral letters, in which he predicted that, if society, persisted in disregarding the precepts of the Gospel and abandoning the principles of religion and morality, it would be liable to a terrible overthrow.

I, in my turn, recalled to his recollection that a democratic journal had not hesitated to condemn this language as bearing the impress of exaggeration, so desirous was it that Paris should be divested of all religious belief or practice. He remembered the article spoken of, and seemed pleased to hear it quoted.

The archbishop knew I had only been arrested the week before, and was aware that, in consequence of my former functions, I had frequent intercourse with the political world. After questioning me respecting the religious condition of Paris and the parish affairs, and inquiring about Mgr. Buquet, who, notwithstanding his great age and notoriety, had bravely remained at Paris, rendering quite providential service in the diocesan administration, of which he was the only member free after the arrest and incarceration of M. Jourdain at the Conciergerie, and M. Icard at the Prison de la Santé, Mgr. Darboy added, in a tone that excluded all personal preoccupation:

“What is thought of the situation and fate of the hostages in the political world of Paris?”

“Thanks to the confidence inspired by the Commune, honest men, monseigneur, are daily taking flight. When the committee of public safety came to prove my mistake in not following in their traces, I only knew four persons in Paris with whom I could converse, and that rarely, on the events of the day:--M. L----, the chief secretary of the Crédit Foncier; M. G----, a former deputy from Seine-et-Marne; the Count de L----, an old officer; and M. G----, the president of the Conseil de Fabrique, at St. Eustache, imprisoned for a short time, though eighty-four years old, because a supply of bread and meat was 351 found at his house which he had the boldness to distribute to the poor of the Quartier des Halles. If, therefore, you wish to know the impressions of the political and diplomatic world now at Paris, you will be nearly reduced to mine, and it is a question if my modest _régal_ could tempt monseigneur’s appetite.”

“I perceive,” said Mgr. Darboy, smiling, “that the Commune has not had any time to depress your spirits. I am waiting for an answer to my question.”

“All persons of honesty and intelligence condemn your arrest, monseigneur, and that of the other hostages. Only the Prussians and the Commune are capable of reviving this barbarous custom. I have been assured that the representatives of several foreign powers have taken steps to free you from danger, and doubtless the government at Versailles, in the impossibility of directly intervening, will consider it a duty to encourage these efforts.”

“I was aware of this,” replied the archbishop with marked satisfaction. “It was doubtless under this diplomatic pressure that Protot declared to me that, if the Commune had taken hostages, it was in obedience to the brutal requirements of the lowest demagogues, and if they should possibly consider an execution necessary, they would choose one or two officers of the peace, or _sergents de ville_, and by no means a member of the clergy. As for the rest, I have entire confidence in the goodness of God and the testimony of my conscience.”

As Mgr. Darboy ended these words, at about half-past two, the warden, who guarded us, gave the signal for returning to our cells. His confidence astonished me, and would have diminished my apprehensions if, after my transfer to La Roquette, I had not firmly resolved not to yield to my illusions. And afterwards, in writing an account of this final interview to an eminent friend of the archbishop and my curé, I said: “While they seemed to have no fears, I had no hope.”

This was on Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of May. Some time after, about seven o’clock, I observed, through the bars of my cell, a strange movement in the large interior court. There was a great difference between Mazas and La Roquette. At Mazas, the prison discipline was in sufficient vigor, but at La Roquette there was no order and no discipline. This prison, placed between the Faubourgs St. Antoine, Ménilmontant, and Charonne, was at the mercy of all the wild beasts of these quarters, who knocked around and roared without any restraint. Some men of sinister appearance went from the office to the western building where the first hostages were kept, some armed with revolvers and others carrying mysterious documents. The director of the prison, with his red girdle and pantaloons, gave, or rather received, orders with an air that might be regarded as embarrassed or satisfied, according to one’s idea of his principles. The bad wardens did not conceal their joy, the good ones disappeared in consternation. A citoyen of imperious manners and wild aspect, before whom some bowed and others trembled, proceeded like a man in a fit of madness or intoxication towards the western building. I had not then sufficient presence of mind to recognize him, but I was convinced afterwards that it was Ferré; others, with less probability, declare it was Raoul Rigault. These two rivals of Robespierre would figure equally well at the post of infamy.

Most of the windows were closed in the first story of the western part facing us, where the principal hostages were incarcerated; a few were 352 open, revealing empty cells. At the same time, the windows of the second and third stories, occupied by those condemned by the court of assize, were filled with prisoners who were wondering, with a lively curiosity, at the meaning of the unusual spectacle which had struck us.

My anxiety became more and more intense, when I saw an officer of the insurgents half open the door that led from the court to the office, and say, with a solemn voice: “Are the _hommes de guerre_ ready?” Without being thoroughly initiated into the military language, I understood they were about to shoot the whole or a part of us. I threw myself on my knees to implore God to grant us all strength and courage. A few minutes past eight, I was stunned by a horrible firing. Six almost simultaneous discharges of chassepots, succeeded by some single reports, resounded in the prison court. A deadly silence succeeded this noise, and revealed to me that only a few steps distant had been committed one of those monstrous crimes that constitute an epoch in the history of the human race.

From the prayers for the dying I passed to the prayers for the dead. Never had I so thoroughly sounded the depths of God’s mercy. I no longer conjured him, but claimed an indemnification, worthy of him, for the victims of so base and execrable an outrage. I never could have survived this excess of man’s iniquity, if I had not felt myself sustained by an assurance of the eternal goodness and justice of God.

When I rose, the mournful noise of the clarions and drums, and the dismal rumbling of a cart towards Charonne, seemed to put an end to this tragedy.

Wednesday night was truly a night of torture for me. Every instant the outer and inner doors of the prison were opened to bring in, or carry away, victims. A court martial, or rather banditti under the guise of judges, held a session in the office. The unfortunate men, who were suspected of “complicity with the _chouans_ at Versailles,” or who refused to die for the Commune under the orders of old criminals, were mercilessly sacrificed. With the sound of drums and trumpets mingled the noise of the carriages that brought the suspected to La Roquette, and carried to Père-la-Chaise those who had been shot, and the bombs _à pétrole_. At the same time the cemetery battery did not cease its thunder, and the flames that were consuming the monuments of Paris cast their lurid gleams into our cells. Let the reader for a moment take my place, and he will feel that no description could equal so overwhelming a spectacle.

Being on the eastern side of the prison, which has no direct communication with the western, I was still ignorant on Thursday morning of the names of the victims of the night before. Two faithful wardens came at an early hour to announce the fatal news, and give me nearly the same details of this sad drama. According to them, the emissaries of the Commune were the only witnesses of the execution: it was therefore difficult to obtain a precise, and, especially, a complete account. One of these wardens, who went as near as he could to the place of execution, received orders to aid the executioners in placing the bodies upon a cart which was to take them to a corner of Charonne, at the extremity of Père-la-Chaise. It is to his details, and those of other wardens, and the prisoners of the western side, that I owe the following particulars.

An emissary of the préfecture of police presented himself with some 353 armed insurgents in the first story of the western side, uttering horrible threats: “The royalists are assassinating the republicans: it is horrible! it must be stopped!” Then taking a list marked with a red pencil, he cried in a loud voice: “Citoyen Darboy! citoyen Deguerry! citoyen Bonjean! citoyen Ducoudray! citoyen Clerc! citoyen Allard!” They were the six victims given up to the jury of frenzied demagogues. Everybody knows the three first. Père Ducoudray, of the Society of Jesus, was the superior of an educational establishment in the old Rue des Postes, and devoted himself to the formation of good Christians and good Frenchmen; Père Clerc, also a Jesuit, and formerly a naval officer, was one of the directors of the same establishment; and the Abbé Allard, an old apostolic missionary, who had been devoting his time to the service of the ambulances and still wore the armlet and cross of the international society of Geneva.

Each one replied in a firm and resigned voice: “Present.” I learned the next day from Mgr. Surat, the first vicar-general of Paris, that the Jesuit fathers had received two days before some consecrated hosts, and the Fathers Ducoudray and Clerc were able at this critical moment to give themselves the Holy Communion. They also gave him two sacred hosts at the arrival of their murderers, one of which he offered M. Deguerry, who thus met death with the Christian fortitude and the boundless trust that the bread of life confers.

In going down, Mgr. Darboy and M. Bonjean, who showed an invincible firmness to the end, locked arms.

They were all overwhelmed with gross insults on their way to the place of execution. An obscure corner had been chosen, on the circular railway that separates the main prison from the outer ramparts. The victims were able to give one another encouragement and final absolution and benediction. Some words have been attributed to the archbishop, the authenticity of which I cannot vouch for: I am not even sure that he spoke at all. It is very probable that, in the presence of death, they preserved a religious recollection, replying only by their silence and forgiveness to the insults of their murderers. What is beyond doubt, they all displayed an unalterable calmness and dignity.

Their murderers could not have been numerous, or else their state of intoxication and fury must have prevented their correctness of aim. Some of their victims, in fact, received only two shots. When their bodies were discovered, I had that of M. Deguerry examined by three physicians--Drs. de Beauvais, Moissenet, and Raynaud. A round ball had passed through one side of the eye into the skull, where it was imbedded in the fractured bones. It is preserved at the Madeleine. The other ball passed through one of the lungs. The physicians thought that his death must have been instantaneous. At the moment of being shot, M. Deguerry, with an impulse in accordance with his military turn, opened his cassock and exposed his chest to the aim of his murderers; the ball which entered his lung only passed through the back part of his cassock.

The wardens informed me that, before throwing the bodies into the cart, they were stripped of a part of their clothes, which were burned on the place of execution. I can testify to the exactitude of this, having twice seen the spots covered with the burning clothes. I also ascertained that the money of the six victims was afterward stolen 354 from their cells, and their books and papers cast into the fire. Some weeks after a half-burned breviary was seen in one of the closets of the ante-room of La Roquette. It is thus the Commune respected the last wishes and testamentary dispositions of its victims.

Those who were shot on Wednesday and the following days, and all the prisoners whom the committee of public safety reserved for the same fate, were victims of their devotedness to two noble and grand causes. They were persecuted through hatred of religion, the abolition of which the Commune had inscribed in its sacrilegious programme, and through hatred of the country represented by the French army and the national assembly at Versailles, who were defending order, liberty, honor, civilization, and the faith against barbarians.

After the massacre on Wednesday, the hostages could entertain no further illusion as to their fate. This was only the commencement of a bloody drama. Everything convinced me it would only end with the last of the hostages. Then we entered upon a long agony of four days, the sad changes in which no human tongue could describe. I will confine myself to enumerating without comment the most remarkable incidents.

On Thursday noon, we were allowed recreation together in the same court as the day before. Our faces were sadder, but our hearts were as courageous. The laymen manifested a cordial sympathy for the clergy and a like serenity. It was evident that all put their confidence in God--a confidence that is not vain. I conversed twenty minutes with Père Olivaint. Smitten in his dearest affections, he still had a gracious smile on his lips. I will not attempt to depict the expression of his face or repeat his conversation. His face had something about it truly supernatural, and his words were those of an angel. At the proposition of Mgr. Surat, M. Bayle, and Père Olivaint, the priests made a vow, if God would deign to snatch them from the jaws of death, to celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving in honor of the Blessed Virgin on the first Saturday of every month for the space of three years. I noticed among the laymen a face familiar to me. I inquired his name. It was that of one of the most intelligent and most courageous commissaires de police. It was he whom the government appointed in January, 1864, to make me a domiciliary visit and seize my papers, by way of expiating my support of M. Thiers as a candidate, and my opposition to the measures that had brought destruction on the empire and threatened at this very moment to cover Paris with blood and ruins. By a strange freak of fortune, our struggles in opposite directions had brought us to the same fate, which neither of us had hardly anticipated. If I had not been afraid of recalling a delicate remembrance, I would have assured him of my absolute forgiveness and of my devoted regards. Towards the end of our recreation, one of the shells from the battery of Père-la-Chaise broke, with a loud explosion, a stone in the wall under which we were walking. In ordinary times we should have shuddered and taken flight, but now it scarcely excited attention. In separating, we bade one another farewell till we met again--below, or in heaven: we did not know which.

In the evening we noticed fresh fires in Paris, and learned that the insurgents were setting fire to all the monuments of those quarters 355 where they had been repulsed by the army of Versailles. These fires distressed and exasperated me. Forgetting the danger I was in, I broke out in bitter complaints before my companions, who could not succeed in calming me. I was indebted to the heroes of petroleum, picrate, and glycerine for the only moments of irritation and despondency I felt during my captivity.

That morning they shot M. Jecker, the celebrated Mexican banker, in the court of La Roquette, and in the evening a refactory national guardsman against the outer wall. I comprehended the execution of the latter, but that of M. Jecker would have seemed to me an atrocious logogriph, if we had been on earth and not in the realm of demons. At eight o’clock, a warden notified M. Amodru and myself to descend to be shot. “_Finitum est_,” “All is finished,” said my kind neighbor to me. We knelt down by the window common to both cells, and gave each other absolution. The prisoners who understood the warden’s order regarded us from their cells with curiosity. The most cynical laughed at the prayers we were making in view of immediate death. I put on my sacerdotal garments, wrote my relatives, friends, and _confrères_ a few farewell lines, and read in my breviary the prayers of the dying. After half an hour, I learned they had made a mistake, and instead of exposing M. Amodru and myself to the range of loaded chassepots, two laymen were to be taken before a court-martial, which amounted to the same thing, if I except a pretence of trial. I learned later, from an under-officer and some _sergents de ville_, that the agents of the Commune announced, more than once, that prisoners were about to be shot, adding some time after with a malicious smile that they would lose nothing by waiting, and the ceremony was merely deferred till the next day.

I passed a part of the night in regarding the fires. The whole horizon was aflame toward Bercy. The battery at Père-la-Chaise, encouraged by the progress of the flames, redoubled its violence. The firing of arms and the booming of the cannon at the same time resounded in the direction of Montmartre and the Hôtel de Ville. I wondered if I was awake or under the influence of a horrible nightmare. A complete exhaustion of physical strength prevented me from fully deciding. I only mention this strange sensation because my companions in captivity also experienced it.

On Friday morning, at an early hour, my neighbor and myself received a visit from one of the subaltern employees of the prison. At first we felt some confidence in him, and we gave him two or three francs a day, as much from a wish to do a kind act, as a reward for his services, which were in a state of project. It did not require profound sagacity to discover that he was at the bottom only a spy and an accomplice of the Commune. The equivocal manner in which he pretended to console us in relating the progress of the Versailles army, showed he had the highest ideas of our simplicity and candor. Finding us more depressed and reserved after the catastrophe of Wednesday, he said to us in that tone, at once bantering and polite, which the Parisian _voyou_ has at command: “Is it possible you give credit to the stories in circulation respecting the death of the Archbishop of Paris and the Curé of the Madeleine? They are simply absurd. Some of the national guards, who had been drinking too much, were amusing themselves in discharging their guns against the prison 356 walls: I assure you, no one was shot.”

Then, knowing we were to undergo the same fate in a few hours, he eagerly proposed to the clergy of our story a lottery which, according to his delicate calculations, would procure him some profits without depriving him of the objects of art he was proud of fabricating. For eight days I was obliged to swallow such humiliations, which revealed poor human nature in quite a new aspect. The selfish proposition of this deceitful employee was rejected promptly, but we concluded to continue our daily gratuity, in gratitude for services he was always promising, and which were never performed.

When he left our story, he always went directly to the office to give an account of what he had seen or heard. We had not only to resist ferocity, but also craftiness and duplicity.

It was in the plans of the Commune that none of the hostages should escape death. The next Sunday, the first object that struck my eyes at the office of La Roquette was the list of their names. There was a horizontal mark against the names of those who were to be shot: when the execution was accomplished, they added a vertical mark, thus forming a cross. Every name had a horizontal line before it. If my memory does not deceive me, they followed the order of the list in the executions.

About two o’clock, three shells from the battery of Père-la-Chaise hit the prison roof only a few mètres above our heads, and covered the court with tiles and fragments of the chimneys. Some of the prisoners protested against the danger of these projectiles exploding in their closed cells and had the doors opened; others did not seem to heed the stunning incident: absorbed in prayer, they were more preoccupied with eternal than temporal things.

The shells that hit our prison were an indication of the rapid progress of the French troops, but this progress threw us into the most perplexing and intolerable of situations. We could only expect our safety from the Versailles army; we ought, then, in consideration of the general interests of civilization, and our own interests, to desire ardently its triumph. But it was no less evident that the nearer the army approached, the more imminent became our end. Thus the perspective which was our only hope of safety, inevitably announced at the same time our destruction. If the illimitable consolations of religion had not raised us above our misfortunes, we should have been a prey to the anticipated horrors of everlasting woe. In such cruel hours we comprehend the words of the God-Man, who, in the garden of Gethsemani and on Golgotha, drank to the dregs the chalice of all humiliations, all sorrows, and every kind of anguish, in order to sanctify them. “My God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me?” should not be separated from these other words, which exclude all despondency and presage a wonderful recompense: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!”

IV.

LA ROQUETTE--INSURRECTION--DELIVERANCE--CONCLUSION.

The close of the day on Friday was exceedingly gloomy. The same events took place in the interior court of the prison as on Thursday evening. At the sight of the mysterious agent who held a list in his hand, each one said to himself: “My name is probably inscribed on that list: may 357 God have mercy on me!” I again heard the fatal interrogation from the mouth of an insurgent officer: “Are the soldiers at their post?” From the cells in the building opposite some friendly hands indicated to us by signs that the number to be shot amounted to twelve, fifteen, sixteen!... It was hardly a fourth of those immolated to the hatred of the Commune. Unfortunately, the facts that each one witnessed were limited, as our horizon was restricted to the four corners of our cell, or at most to a part of the story we were in: each one, therefore, could only give some particulars of the changes of fortune and the victims executed.

On Saturday morning, one of the employees of the library, who manifested a solicitude beyond all praise, gave me, with tears in his eyes, the most minute details about the extent of the sad event. At five o’clock, an emissary of the Commune entered the first story of the western side, and called out: “Citoyens, attention to the roll: here, fifteen are wanted!” Among these victims were the Jesuit Fathers Olivaint, Caubert, and De Bengy; the four principal Fathers of the Society of Picpus: Abbé Sabattier, the second vicar of Notre Dame de Lorette: Abbé Seigneret, a young pupil of the Seminary of St. Sulpice; and Abbé Planchat, a genuine missionary, who displayed all the zeal of an apostle, not in China or Japan, but among the working-classes of the Faubourg St. Antoine. About forty gendarmes, soldiers, officers of the peace, and Parisian guardsmen were also summoned, the most of whom were imprisoned in the first story of our building to the east. They were conducted to Belleville, preceded by drums and trumpets, into one of the courts of the Rue Haxo. All the long way, a furious crowd, among whom women made themselves conspicuous by a frenzy bordering on drunkenness, vomited forth threats and imprecations. After shooting them with chassepots and revolvers, they mutilated their bodies with kicks and the butt-end of their muskets, and afterwards threw them pell-mell into a cellar, whence they were taken out three days after in a state of advanced putrefaction.

The most incredulous saw their last hour approaching, and I prepared myself once more to die. The insurgents stole or burned the things left in the cells. I placed my watch, papers, and my testamentary dispositions in the care of the employee at the library, with the names of the persons to whom he was to transmit them. I earnestly desired my body might receive a suitable burial, and, not knowing what means to take that it might be recognized, I communicated my anxiety to the Abbé Amodru, my neighbor. He had foreseen, and provided for, the difficulty, and, following his example, I wrote my name in legible characters upon several small slips of paper, which I put into my shoes and the different pockets of my habit.

It was the eve of Whit-Sunday. Having no longer the strength to kneel, I seated myself on my bed, and took sometimes my breviary, and then _The Following of Christ_ in my hands. I prayed God for courage and a spirit of sacrifice. In reading the Thirtieth Psalm, I was struck with these words: “Let me not be confounded, O Lord, for I have called upon thee!... Thou shalt protect them in thy tabernacle from the contradiction of tongues. Blessed be the Lord, for he hath shown his wonderful mercy to me, a fortified city.” But I immediately distrusted the hopes that so readily pervaded my soul I wished to remain facing the sad realities of death.

The constantly increasing noise of the firing announced the approach 358 of the contending parties. The barricades of the Château d’Eau had been valiantly taken by the Versailles troops: the Commune, in session at the Mairie du Prince Eugène, was obliged to beat a retreat. By a great effort, the scattered members sucoeeded in gaining the office of La Roquette, to conduct the labors of the cosmopolitan banditti. Between the army of deliverance and us were still those men of blood, whose last ravings were so many decrees of death and incendiarism. It is said that Ferré sprang like a tiger about to lose his prey, crying in a hoarse voice: “Make haste! shoot them, the _chouans_! Cut their throats, the robbers! do not leave one standing! Citoyens and citoyennes of the faubourgs, come and avenge your sons and your fathers, basely assassinated!” The unhappy men had no time to lose; the Versailles troops, on the one hand, were entering the Boulevard du Prince Eugène; on the other, they surrounded Père-la-Chaise; but, by an intolerable fatality, the source of our safety was at the same time that of our destruction.

A few minutes past three, the heavy bolts of our cells flew back with unaccustomed quickness. I was on my knees, saying, with a voice almost extinct, the office of the Eve of Whit-Sunday. My neighbor quickly opened the door of my cell. “Courage,” he said, “it is now our turn; they are going to take us all down to shoot us!”

“Courage,” I replied, “and may the will of God be done!” I had on my clerical costume, and advanced into the corridor where priests, soldiers, and national guards were all mingled together. The priests and national guards appeared calm and resigned, but the soldiers could not believe in the fate that awaited them. “What have we done to those wretches? we fought against the Prussians! we fulfilled our duty! What are they going to shoot us for? No, it is not possible!” Some uttered cries of anger, others remained silent and motionless as if they were in a dream. The priests knelt to fortify themselves by a last absolution; one of them urged the soldiers to imitate us, and addressed them some words of encouragement.

A voice with a metallic ring suddenly rose above this confused noise: “My friends, those ignoble villains have already killed too many; do not allow yourselves to be murdered; join me; let us resist; let us fight. Rather than give you up, I will die with you!” It was the voice of the warden Pinet. This generous son of Lorraine, aghast at so many crimes, could no longer stifle his indignation. Charged to open our cells slowly and deliver us two by two to the insurgents, who were waiting for us below, he had fastened the door of the third story behind him, rapidly opened our cells to advise us and aid in organizing a resistance, ready to sacrifice his life in aiding us to save ours. At first, I could not believe in so much heroism. The Abbé Amodru spoke in his turn, and joined his protestations to those of Pinet: “Let us not submit to be shot, my friends, let us defend ourselves. Have confidence in God; he is for us and with us; he will save us!”

There was a difference of opinion; some hesitated. To defend ourselves, objected one, would be madness; we should only incur a more cruel death. Instead of being simply shot, we shall be slaughtered by a mob or consumed in the flames. “Let us call up the national guards,” exclaimed a simple fellow (I had not believed such _naiveté_ possible 359 at La Roquette), “and prove to them that we are honest men, and not robbers and assassins.” “It is not _our_ lives they wish,” cried a soldier, whose impartial truthfulness renders it obligatory on me to repeat his words, and who had as little discernment as moral sense, “it is only the _curés_ they have a grudge against; let us not expose our lives in trying to defend theirs!”

I had not yet uttered a word, but followed with an anxiety, easy to comprehend, the phases of this strange situation. Some of my brethren asked what there was to fear or to hope for. “The _sergents de ville_ who are below are disposed to defend themselves,” cried the warden Pinet, whom the hesitation rendered more energetic and more eloquent. “Do not allow yourselves to be shot by that band of robbers.” I was already convinced that resistance, the success of which I thought more than improbable, was nevertheless the most suitable measure to be taken. From the eighteenth of March I had not ceased to protest against the silence and giving up of honest men to criminals; and to show myself to the end faithful to my programme, I emerged from my apparent inaction. M. Walbert, an old _officier de paix_, and the Abbé Carré, the Vicar of Belleville, suggested that a hole should be made in the floor to open communication with the _sergents de ville_ imprisoned on the second story, and they immediately set to work with boards and iron rods that we wrenched from our beds. I joined them. I, who in the morning had no longer strength enough to stand, and who had not yet eaten a mouthful of bread, broke boards in pieces and twisted off the rods with irresistible facility! In five minutes a large opening was made between the second and third stories. The _sergents de ville_ were ready to pay dearly for their lives. The under-officer Teyssier hoisted himself through the opening to aid Pinet in the command of the insurrection.

The interior court of the prison was crowded by an abject multitude come to witness our last sufferings. It is easier to imagine than to depict the appearance and the threats of this crowd. We put mattresses against the windows as a protection against bullets. There was a young man in the crowd who ordered us to come down, and aimed at us with a coolness that attracted my attention. “See that wretch,” said the warden Pinet to me, “he is one of the two condemned to death by the court of assize of the Seine!.”

“The barricade is on fire,” exclaimed some soldiers. “We are stifled! Help!”

Two enormous barricades had been constructed against the two doors of the story, with our beds and the flagstones torn up from the floor. I ran to the barricade on fire, and found myself in a cloud of smoke. “Do not be alarmed,” said a soldier, whose skill and presence of mind I admired, “I constructed the barricade, and took care to place only mattresses in front: bring me some water.” In fifteen minutes the fire was extinguished. I heard the insurgents, who sometimes threatened to set fire to our building, to blow it up, or order the batteries of Père-la-Chaise to fire at it: sometimes they perfidiously cried: “_Vive la ligne!_ surrender, and we will set you free!” The massacres of those who trusted to their promises proved how sincere they were.

At that moment, something as unexpected as fortunate took place in the prison. While we were organizing a desperate resistance, and the soldiers, more bold than prudent, were crying, “Let us go down to the 360 office, and boldly attack the Commune!” the Communists, frightened at our resistance and the rapid progress of the French army along the Boulevard du Prince Eugène, hastily fled from La Roquette in the direction of Belleville. The rabble, astonished at this sudden removal, were convinced of the great danger, and fled after them. The prisoners were restored to liberty, and naturally cried: _Vive la République! vive la Commune!_

Availing themselves of this confusion, the lay hostages who were to have been shot with us escaped from La Roquette: almost all succeeded in crossing the barricades or hiding till the next day in the late haunts of insurrection. Some of the clergy imitated them; others, particularly Mgr. Surat, who was dressed as a layman, hesitated. The wardens, from motives more praiseworthy than prudent, urged them to fly. This course seemed to me disastrous. The neighborhood of the prison was in the hands of the insurgents, whose irritation knew no bounds. I thought it my duty to warn the first vicar-general of Paris, and said to him through the bars: “Take care; to leave is certain death; to remain, uncertain!” I ascertained afterwards that I had not been heard. In going out of the prison, he was murdered in a frightful manner, with M. Bécourt, the curé of Bonne Nouvelle; M. Houillon, a missionary of the Missions Etrangères, and a lay prisoner. Some priests succeeded in concealing themselves in the Faubourg St. Antoine, and some returned to the prison.

Notwithstanding the departure of the insurgents who were to put us to death, we were still exposed to sudden attack and every danger while the prison gates were unfastened. I therefore protested in violent terms to the two wardens, who, frightened at the terrible consequences that would result from a return of the insurgents, urged us strongly to descend and go out. “We will not go out,” I replied; “the Versailles troops will be here in a few hours: if any misfortune happens to us by your fault, on you will fall the responsibility. Fasten all the prison doors, and only open them to the Versaillais.”

They warmly reproached me for an obstinacy they thought must prove fatal to us, but they faithfully obeyed my orders.

At eleven o’clock at night, the firing, which was not far off, ceased. The frenzied demagogues without uttered powerless threats against us. We kept a strict guard, and seriously began to hope. At a quarter before three, the firing recommenced toward Père-la-Chaise. Every hour now seemed an age. There was a formidable barricade in the Rue de la Roquette in front of the prison. Attacked on the side of the Bastille, it would have opposed a formidable resistance on account of its steepness, but, owing to the winding and concentric course of the French army, the insurgents, stormed from the heights occupied by our troops, left the barricade in disorder, and a battalion of marines took possession of La Roquette. Our resistance, that at first was only madness, ended miraculously. It was the great festival of Whit-Sunday. After four days of the greatest agony that can be imagined, we were, contrary to all expectation, restored to life and liberty.

While some of the prisoners cried, “Vive l’armee! Vive la France!” the most of them, affected by want of sleep and the mental torture that no human tongue could express, persisted in regarding our liberators as insurgents disguised as marines. Then began a singular negotiation between the prisoners and the marines, in which the former, more 361 incredulous than St. Thomas, saw nothing but snares, and the latter with immovable patience submitted to requirements that were almost puerile. The arms, flags, books, and papers of the battalion were demanded. The marines consented, but the prisoners, blinded and confused, were still far from being reassured concerning the identity of the marines.

Some of my companions and myself, who could not believe a disguise could be so perfect, were distressed at this prolonged hesitation, far from flattering to our courageous deliverers. We induced our companions to allow us to go out, that they might judge from our reception what course to take themselves. At the sight of the marines who rush toward us, not to massacre us, but to shake our hands and rejoice over our deliverance, the confidence of our companions revived, and they came to receive their share of cordial sympathy.

My surprise was great when I heard General Vinoy’s aide-de-camp eagerly inquire for Mgr. Darboy and M. Deguerry. “Where are they? How do they do?” It was four days since they were massacred by the Commune, and the frightful reality was still unknown at Versailles and Paris. Knowing the profound affection of the brave General Vinoy for the Archbishop of Paris, his aide-de-camp begged me to give him some correct details, which he immediately despatched to the general and to Versailles.

They were still fighting furiously around La Roquette. We were obliged to wait nearly an hour at the office, where we found, in fearful disorder, cartridges, cigars, swords, guns, proscription lists, proclamations, and the decrees of the expiring Commune, never to be issued.

Accompanied by an escort bearing before us the French flag, we set out in a body by the heights of the Faubourg St. Antoine, the Jardin des Plantes, and the quais on the left bank of the river, toward our homes. At each step we had to struggle against the most poignant emotions. Here, in the boulevards, were heaps of men and horses who had been killed, with pools of blood beside piles of cartridges and broken chassepots. There, trees were broken down and houses shattered by shells. The few inhabitants we met seemed confounded and in despair. Further on, we uttered a cry of horror at the sight of the Hôtel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the entrance of the Rue du Bac, the Tuileries, and the palaces of the Conseil d’Etat and of the Légion d’Honneur in flames or in ashes.

In the Rue des Saintes-Pères, a gentleman and lady whom I knew, but whose names I could not recall, stopped to ask if I was one of the Jesuit Fathers, and if I came from La Roquette. They wished news of Père Caubert. I informed them he was shot on Friday with Père Olivaint. At this, the gentleman raised his eyes to heaven, while the lady made an effort to overcome her emotion. “You see before you,” said he, “Père Caubert’s sister!” It was M. Lauras, one of the directors of the Orleans Railway, and Madame Lauras, _née_ Caubert.

I accompanied the soldiers, who had participated in my captivity, to the Palais Bourbon, and after a fraternal grasp of the hand I turned toward the Madeleine. The Place de la Concorde was upset, and a part of the Rue Royale burned down with petroleum. I found the Madeleine standing, and my residence in the Rue de la Ville-l’Evêque, but both injured by the firing. No one knew of, and what was more strange, no 362 one would believe in, the horrible deaths of Mgr. Darboy and M. Deguerry. My two _confrères_ at the Madeleine expressed the same doubt, the same incredulity. When at vespers I was about to ascend the pulpit to recommend the victims to the prayers of the faithful, they advised me to defer it, hoping the fatal news would not be confirmed.

I had told it to more than one hundred persons, begging them to inform, in their turn, the other parishioners of the Madeleine, but when, in an affecting but cautious and brief manner, I requested the faithful gathered at the foot of the altar to pray for the pastor of the diocese and the curé of the parish, basely shot on the twenty-fourth of May, in the prison of La Roquette, a cry of grief and horror escaped from every soul; the men and the women rose up in confusion, as if to protest against it; the gravest and most reverential for a moment seemed to lose their balance. Among the confused voices around the pulpit, these words were the most distinct: “No, no, such a crime is not possible!”

My moral conclusions will be simple and brief. It would be an insult to the reader to dwell on the great lessons to be drawn from such sorrowful and overwhelming catastrophes.

First Lesson. Divine Providence never chastised and enlightened a nation by severer blows. It behooves us therefore to consider the grave and exceptional malady that is afflicting society, and seek an efficacious and permanent remedy for it. We are all suffering from the evil, and we all should be preoccupied about the means of recovery.

Some days after leaving La Roquette, I wished to revisit the places where I had been imprisoned, in order to retrace, with precision, the events that took place in the last days of the Commune. I met there one of the most intelligent and most religious _juges d’instruction_ on the bench of the Seine. I visited with him the places of the greatest interest, Mgr. Darboy’s cell, and the spot on the circular road where the murder of the six principal hostages took place. The warden took us to Troppmann’s cell. “I supposed, till within a few days,” said I to the magistrate of the Seine, “that criminals like Troppmann were of a rare species that required fifty or sixty years to develop in the lowest grades of society. After the realities I witnessed at La Roquette, I am convinced they are to be found by thousands in Paris.” The _juge d’instruction_ replied that all the magistrates who studied the mysteries of those grades had the same conviction. It would therefore be simply folly not to consider the remedy most suitable to counteract such a disorder.

Second Lesson. In the horrible catastrophe that has just revealed so many material or moral sores, every one is more or less responsible and culpable. Every one should say his _meâ culpâ_, and seek to become better. The most guilty are certainly the turbulent working classes, the demagogues, the International, the secret societies, outlaws, and governments without morality, but they alone are not guilty. Literary men who diffuse in their pernicious publications the poison of scepticism and immorality; artists who are wanting in respect and decency; the journals of the rich and influential _bourgeoisie_, which defend the principles of material conservation, while by their attacks on the Holy See, the clergy, and the church generally, they sap the very foundations of morality; politicians who brutally proclaim, with a view to the rewards and the gratification of their cupidity, the 363 primacy of might against right--should disavow and correct their errors. Pious people and the clergy should redouble their solicitude and energy in extending and strengthening their influence, particularly in the most populous districts. There are no other means of safety.

Third Lesson. The reign of the Commune has revealed a frightful number of wicked men in society capable of every excess. They have trampled under foot the very first principles of natural order and social life, which the Reign of Terror would have feared to disregard. The executions at La Roquette, without preparation, without discussion or preliminary trial, were a thousand times more monstrous than the executions of the Revolutionary tribunal. In 1793, the Dantons and Robespierres were imitators, more or less imposing, of the Catilines of ancient Rome: in 1871, we have had Raoul Rigault and Ferré, the Catilines of the gutter. Ferocious beasts are not reasoned with--they are muzzled. Society therefore should have a power of legal repression proportioned to the dangers that threaten it.

But as the material order of things is founded on the moral order, the great principles of reverence for God, a respect for others and for ourselves, should be diffused and practised. It has been wished to establish society with no religious belief, make laws, found institutions, and keep the people in order, without reference to the teachings of the Gospel: this is building the social edifice upon quicksands. How can an economist, a politician, however incredulous, help understanding that while the mass in the great cities, especially at Paris, do not find in the faith, in the observance of religious duties, and in the eternal recompense of a future life, a source of morality, strength and consolation in view of the inequalities of fortune and social position, in view of the enjoyments and leisure of the fortunate ones of this world and of the unforeseen trials and sufferings that too often beset them, there can be neither security nor repose?

Jesus Christ and his Gospel are still the salt of the earth and the light of the world. To withdraw society from this divine and guiding influence would condemn it to sorrow, crime, and shame.

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GOD IS OUR AID. 364

A CHRISTMAS STORY OF ‘67.

In the dim twilight of an October evening, a rich man prepared to leave the vast treasures accumulated by a fruitless life. Fruitless, I say, for though his increasing millions ranked him a merchant prince of the great metropolis, yet the gold had hardened and crusted and metallized his heart--fusing a subtle poison that destroyed the softer instincts of his nature. Therefore, instead of bearing upward a Godward soul on prayerful incense, those last pulses concentrated in one bitter feeling against the daughter whose faith had won from him the intense hate of his life. The owner of millions each year increased his avarice, bowing him low before the god of the nineteenth century, and inciting the struggle, the sacrifice, the sin, for place and station and gold, literally proving the poet-king’s cry,[82] “_Quoniam omnes dii Gentium dæmonia!_” So, while the stormy gusts swept up the avenue, and the lowering sky increased the night, the old man gathered his failing strength for the last great effort. “Hold me, William, support me ere it is too late. Quick! give me the pen, I must sign while yet my hand has power.” Then they put the pen in his trembling hand, his stalwart son supporting him, and all the fiercer passions played upon that cold face, and in those cruel eyes, as he wrote the signature disinheriting the child of the wife whose fair face looked in silent reproach from the portrait opposite. And William Stanfield folded the paper and locked it in the escritoire, and old Thomas of the iron heart “slept the last sleep.” But this Stanfield, he of the stern Puritan stock, had not always been thus. First, he married his wife as a mere boy of twenty--a gentle New England girl--who had left William to him; William, so staunch in his loyalty to the heritage left by the _Mayflower_ stock. But Thomas laid his boyish love to rest within the quiet “God’s-acre” of the village church, and then wandered to New York to build his fortune. Fate did not withhold her favors from this sturdy son, who met and conquered her; for he was determined to succeed, and did!

And strange to say that at this time human softness yet lived amid the dross and corruption of the world, for Thomas Stanfield was by no means indifferent to certain influences. So, one bright Christmas morning, he found himself in New Orleans, and, stranger still to relate, his partner, Mons. Crécy, persuaded him to listen to the magnificent service at ---- Church. The music was exquisitely appealing, thrilling the nobler attributes of man’s better nature; and so this worldly materialist forgot to speculate or dream of gold for two long hours, and sat rapt, while his soul absorbed its divine inspiration. If there is a season when the hardness of humanity dissolves and merges into its spiritual essence, it is when music gently lifts it to its higher affinities, and brings it _en rapport_ with God. And thus the man of gold listened to the soft soprano, and far beyond the latticed grating caught a glimpse of dark eyes that haunted him long after the anthem ended. And when Etienne 365 Crécy asked him to dine at the “Grove,” his plantation near the city, he accepted, scarcely realizing what he did till he found himself behind a pair of splendid bays, with New Orleans far in the distance.

The balmy, bright-skied South always brought a pleasant Christmas, for oranges hung golden on the trees that formed the grove leading to the house, and the sweet breath of the blossoms perfumed the air. This to the Northerner, accustomed to ice and snow at this season, was a most enjoyable contrast; and his stroll over the beautiful grounds afforded real pleasure. Then they rested on the broad piazza, or gallery, as it is called in Louisiana, and talked of business details, when suddenly Mons. Crécy discovered that his guest was strangely distrait, for a clear, soft voice was sounding, to an accompanying harp, and Mr. Stanfield recognized the same silver tones that had absorbed him during the morning service. “_Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram_,” fell earnest and tender on his ear--it was, it must be, the same, and he turned to M. Crécy. “It is my daughter Madelaine,” said the old man; and at dinner he saw the same fawn-eyes that had first glanced from behind the grating in the old church. And those shy, sweet eyes found a place in the heart of the cold New Englander, and in the spring he bore her a bride to his beautiful home in New York.

Three years passed, and only the step-son shared their household. Some trouble attended the marriage, for the parish priest, Father Jean, at first refused to unite her with such an obstinate heretic. But the maiden loved this son of the Puritans, so either her gentle influence or his pertinacious perseverance overcame the scruples of the good priest, and Thomas Stanfield finally triumphed, giving some vague promise in reference to the children. He fully intended evading the fulfilment of the promise, for soon after his marriage he acknowledged thus much to his wife, who, with tears in her dark eyes, said she would only pray for God’s grace to change him. So, almost as a curse it seemed, for three years no child came to bless the marriage. True, the young wife was very dear to this stern husband, but the element which had strengthened his forefathers still waxed strong within him, and the self-asserting dogmatism heired from John Carver’s band sounded in the stern words that answered his wife when, with quivering lips, she told him of his little daughter’s advent. He kissed the pale young mother tenderly and lovingly, but even in that hour he did not restrain himself from replying, “She belongs to me!” and Madelaine understood too well what those words implied. So she only whispered, as her white face grew whiter, “_I will leave her to God._ May our Holy Mother care for her!”

Then the gentle soul departed with the cross upon her bosom, and those last words on her lips, and many, many years after Thomas Stanfield heard repeated in his dreams, “God shall help her.”

And a judgment rested on the rich man’s harvest, for this warm-hearted, earnest Southern wife was very dear to him. But the child grew in loveliness, and her impulsive nature felt the need of more than her cold father accorded. Firm as he had been in reference to the child, it seemed strange that he evinced so much indifference to her education, for though she had been baptized in his own church, and sent to Protestant schools, yet very little care was bestowed upon her religious instruction. When she grew old enough, she 366 accompanied her father to church, and through the long sermons her weary little eyes would often close. She went merely from habit, because her father wished her with him, for there was nothing in the cold, formal ritual, if that bare service can be called a ritual, to attract or warm her heart; but it was part of her duty to go; and so she went. Thus her childhood passed, and so her girlhood opened. Children rarely exert the reasoning faculties, accepting with boundless trust what is proposed by their elders. Faith and confidence are largely developed, therefore a grave record is written of those intrusted with these young immortals. But when reason waked and the heart expanded, this warm loving nature asked for more than what was offered, and her soul felt starved, hungry for the food it found not. Thomas Stanfield was now devoted to his business, from nine in the morning, when his _coupé_ drove him to his office, to six in the evening, when his key opened the massive door of his palace--his whole soul entered into the fascination, the strife for increasing millions. And at night, as he sat silent in his high carved chair, the closed eyes and set features told that the scheming still continued. Was it strange, then, that the young girl yearned for something more than her home offered? Well, one September evening, soon after their return from the country, the servant handed in a card, bearing the simple inscription, “Kenneth C. Arnaud.” Then Mr. Stanfield, disturbed in the midst of some speculation, testified by a grunt his welcome to a distant relative of his wife. “This is Miss Stanfield, my daughter,” he said, as he seemed to remember that another person occupied the room. The stranger was a courtly, handsome gentleman, and started as his eyes rested on the young girl. “How like my cousin Madelaine,” he said, “as I remember her in my childhood.” For the first time the old man seemed to realize the resemblance, and turned to examine the fair girl who was his daughter. “Yes,” he faintly assented, and the conversation dragged through a half-hour’s duration, when Mr. Arnaud rose to go. But this was not his last visit, for he passed the winter in the city; and many evenings found him at Mr. Stanfield’s house, where Madelaine sang to him the songs he loved best. Then a new life opened to the young girl, and her heart felt a strange happiness it had never known before.

The Advent season came--a time of joy and gladness in the churches that celebrate this season, but scarcely remembered or noticed in dissenting congregations; and on the first Sunday that Mr. Arnaud formed one of the family party, he proposed that Madelaine should accompany him to St. ----’s church, as the music was always attractive there. Old Mr. Stanfield was half asleep, when the name of this Roman Catholic church startled him. “Only to listen to the music, papa!” she laughingly replied to his frown, and she went. The ritual was new to her, the service a strange mystery, but she patiently watched it all, listening to the exquisite bursts from the choir. Then sounded the “Alma” with its sweet cadence, and the heart of the young girl thrilled within her. She could not explain, but she felt a strange attraction that drew her against her will to this beautiful ritual. Then came the lovely benediction, and the devotion of the kneeling hundreds, the solemn censer’s cloudlike offering, the elevation, and the echoing bell, at which a hush swept like an angel’s presence over 367 the rapt thousands. It was all a lovely dream to this young enthusiast, and, closing her eyes, troops of seraphim and cherubim seemed prolonging the words--

“Tantum ergo Sacramentum Veneremur cernui.”

She returned to her home filled with a new life, and for the first time her soul felt its thralls. She was very quiet that night, and even her father remarked the change. Poor child! she had needed all that had been denied to her, and the starved spirit was just tasting of the food immortal. Is it not often thus in life, that a charm, a mere instinct, leads us to the path for which we have been vainly striving? Give me thine heart! was the cry of the Holy Mother to the footsore and weary, to all who sought consolation from that loving breast; and the listening angels caught the echo of that cry, and bore it up to the great Pontiff, who sends the Comforter to spread the white-winged dove on the troubled soul that calls for peace!

The spring came, after the long, cold winter, and Kenneth Arnaud asked the old man for his gentle daughter. But Mr. Stanfield had always regarded Madelaine as a mere child, and seemed shocked and angry at the request. He had forgotten that eighteen years had passed since his soft-eyed wife had whispered, “I leave her to God”--and now a Catholic had asked his child in marriage! He did not answer the young man for several weeks, not till the sweet eyes of his daughter had been dimmed with many tears, and her childish heart had felt, ay, painfully felt, the first great sorrow of her life.

“It seems strange that my faith should prove an objection, Mr. Stanfield, for not very many years have passed since you gave your own example.”

The old man looked him steadily in the eyes, and replied:

“And the great unhappiness of that union was the education of the children that were to come. What say you of this?”

“That, your daughter shall determine.”

“You can speak this with safety, Mr. Arnaud, for my daughter has proved a quick pupil.”

“I can scarcely comprehend you, Mr. Stanfield, and, as a gentleman, will not understand the accusation implied.”

“I do not accuse you of influencing my daughter, but her bias in favor of the Romish Church is a subject that cannot afford me happiness.”

The conversation was serious, and very painful to both, and at last Mr. Stanfield closed the interview with this remark: “As my daughter’s happiness is concerned, I cannot withhold my consent, but I wish you to clearly understand that, when she renounces the church of her forefathers, she also relinquishes all right to her father’s estate.”

A proud smile curled the young man’s lips as he replied, “I feel privileged to claim her, even though the conditions were far more capable of inflicting unhappiness.”

And so they were married, and the old man and his son William bowed before the golden calf, and worshipped it, offering their souls as homage at its shrine.

For the young wife, one brief year of happiness passed, and yet there was unrest even then within her soul, for she craved with hungry longing the new life which she feared to taste, because the ties 368 binding her to her father appealed to her heart, and she dreaded an anger which she knew would never forgive what he considered so fearful an error.

But one cold morning in the winter of ‘61, the telegraph bore to New York tidings of the secession of Louisiana, then the sons of the sunny South rallied to her standard, and for four long years a bloody war desolated that section. She, the young wife, had never given her thoughts to politics, nor did she understand why hate and bitterness waged with such deadly strife between the two portions of a country which she so dearly loved; but her husband decided for her, and, feeling that her life was only a part of his, she followed. And those were years fraught with agony--years that recorded suffering that aged more than time had power to accomplish; for over each battlefield brooded a great host of prayer--prayer born of love intensified, and of partings which would know only the meeting above; and the race schooled by those years grew, developed, lived, more than generations ordinarily experience in a whole lifetime.

Col. Arnaud won a soldier’s reputation, and the autumn of ‘64 found him, with his fine regiment, encamped a few miles below the Confederate capital. Madelaine soon followed him to Richmond, bringing her little family, her boy Kenneth and a baby daughter. The winter was very trying to this delicate woman, for the city was crowded with refugees from all parts of the Confederacy; every square inch was occupied, and therefore comfortable accommodations were impossible to find. Then the depreciated currency rendered the price of necessities almost fabulous, so that barely to live required great sacrifice and control. But the courageous wife and devoted mother gathered her little ones, and contentedly dwelt in one small room, happy to welcome her husband whenever his brief furloughs allowed him to spend a day with her. But the great culmination approached, and the troops that wore the tattered gray were soon to furl the cross of stars that had proudly waved over many a gallant fight; and on one cold wintry morning she heard the newsboys shout “Extra! extra!” and soon Franklin Street was echoing with news of the fierce battle below Richmond. Madelaine had not seen her husband for almost four weeks, and her heart sank as she listened. “I will get a paper,” she said, and, leaving her nurse with the children, she descended to the street to purchase one.

Poor young thing--she little realized how literally she had followed the Scriptures, for she had forsaken all things, and he, her brave husband, was all she had to cling to; and now--but she was too truly a woman for control, and she fainted when she read the cruel words that told of her husband’s fate. A night of horror followed, and the roll of the ambulance in the early gray of the next morning startled her from her troubled sleep. They, those of his brigade, in their faded gray bore him to the small chamber where his young wife waited, and pale and ghastly she saw him laid upon the bed, where he was soon to sleep the long pulseless sleep. All that glory could render to sweeten the pain of dying was offered, for the journals rang with the grand charge he had led, and his deeds of daring were as household words in the crowded Confederate capital. But the great edict had gone forth, and the priest of his church came to offer the last consolations.

“My own true wife,” and he summoned the bowed figure, the frail 369 girl-woman who knelt beside him. The sweet eyes were dim with tears, and the voice was tremulous with passionate grief. His left arm drew her to him, for the right was crushed and powerless. “I am about to ask a brave act from you, my darling; do you think that you can please me?”

“Ask me anything, Kenneth, only stay with me. Oh! do not leave me yet,” and burning tears blinded her.

“‘My ways are not thy ways, nor my thoughts thy thoughts’: do you remember these words, my own wife? And then--only a little while, when we shall meet where the for evermore will indeed be eternal! But not of this did I wish to speak, Elaine, but”--and he hesitated--“if my faith could be taught to my little ones?”

She did not reply at first, but, with one gaze of devoted, earnest love, she turned, and kneeling by his side, with the weak precious hand clasped within her own, she repeated: “And receive, O Lord, thy servant into thy holy church, for which her heart hungers.” And he answered, “Amen!”

But this was no sudden desire influenced by her devotion to her husband; for, six years before, when she had listened to the sweet vesper service, the latent life had wakened, and the slumber had seen sleep no more, but the message, “Wake to thy salvation!” electrified her soul, and her whole nature thrilled its amen there; since then she had been peculiarly situated, and shrank from provoking anger in her father, as she realized how very stern he could be when he felt himself aggrieved. But now her heart told her she must no longer hesitate, the great crisis asked for action, and she felt that all worldly considerations must be forgotten when her husband, and her own heart also, called for a decision which shaped her life. So she was baptized by the holy father beside the bed where her husband lay dying; and the priest’s voice was very tender as he welcomed this stricken daughter Christ had given to his fold.

Only a few days after, she laid her husband to rest beneath the poplars at “Holleywood,” where many of his comrades were lying; and then came the gloomy, stormy March, and the sad April when the snowy flag was folded, and it was during this season that the widowed mother was received into her husband’s church.

The war had closed, and we all remember the fearful wreck that followed when Madelaine Arnaud found herself battling with the grim wolf whose shadow darkened her door. Her husband’s fortune was all gone, and the delicate, dependent woman felt that she had but little to hope for from her father; still she would not believe that he could entirely forsake her, even though she had become a member of the church his soul abhorred. So she wrote in her extremity and asked for advice. Many anxious days and nights passed, and no letter came; a fortnight intervened, when, one morning, she opened the envelope handed to her by the postman, and read:

“You have chosen your way in life, and, when you forsook your father’s faith, he also separated from one who had joined herself to idols. I enclose all that you may ever claim from me. “THOMAS STANFIELD.”

She found enclosed the last note written by her mother, only a few hours before her death, and a silver crucifix, with the name “Madelaine Crécy, La.,” inscribed on the back or flat side of the cross.

She was very young to be left so entirely alone, for she was not yet twenty-five, and two children depended on her for support. What could 370 she do, and how must she act? In her agony, she cried, “Save me, O Father, for without thine aid I am lost!” Then the crucifix fell from her letter, and, clasping it, she drew her boy to her, and, kneeling, prayed: “Lord, thy enemies and mine have risen up against me: I therefore cast myself at thy feet to implore thy succor.”

The soft eyes of the little one gazed into her own, and, nestling closer, he asked:

“What makes mamma so sad?”

There are seasons in life when suffering is too great for expression, when tears refuse relief, and the overcharged heart, paralyzed by pain, seems incapable of pulsation. Then even speech fails; and the poor, desolate woman only pressed her child closer, and appealed to her God for protection.

Thus days passed, and she seemed unable to act, for at the South all was poverty and desolation, while she dared not anticipate what awaited her in New York. But the few dollars were growing less, and her children required food, so she decided to try the great city, and thither with her faithful nurse she journeyed. Her mother’s note gave her strength, and she often re-read the faint tracery on the faded paper.

“For, my darling child” (the note read), “should you ever wander into the dear fold of your mother’s church, feel always that my blessing will rest upon you, and though I may not live to guard you, yet my prayer will be then as it is now for God to be with you. “MADELAINE CRECY STANFIELD.”

And though she did feel crushed and desolate on that stormy September evening which found her in the great city, still a strength came to her which she had never known, and she felt that God would protect her. Through the crowd at the depot she wended her way, and thence in the midst of a pouring rain to a cheap boarding-house, where she passed the night. The next morning she met an old servant who had known her as a child, and, with tears streaming from the old eyes, she took her to a small but respectable house in the town-part of the city, where she rented two rooms, and commenced her new life. A touching sight it was to see her in her sad mourning dress, she so fair and fragile, yet feeling that three depended upon her exertions, she rose to the emergency, and determined to succeed, or die in the service. She had brought a letter to a priest of her church, and to him she applied. He was very kind, and promised to do all that he could, but at the same time told her that pupils were not easily obtained, and recommended her to watch the newspapers. And she did search the journals, devoting herself to answering advertisements, but, save a few questionable replies, nothing came of this attempt. Meantime she began to feel the pinchings of want, and ventured to try sewing, but how was she to obtain work? “Go yourself, my dear young mistress,” said the good old negress--“go yourself; and may de kind Lord bless you!” And, shrinking and nervous, she applied to a merchant down-town. She could scarcely find words for her request, but her pale face appealed, and she bore away her parcel. Tireless were her continued efforts, and all through snow and ice she persevered in her work. “God will help her!” the dying mother had said, and through the darkness of her life’s storm she tried to comfort herself with this assurance.

It was very hard to realize that her father accumulated useless 371 thousands and lived in princely style at the other end of the city, while, only because she believed in her mother’s faith, she must suffer and toil with her little ones, needing comfort, and often even bread. Then the old man died, and, ere he died, the scene with which this story opens shamed his last hours.

But the exposure of three winters told on this delicate woman, and, when she felt her strength waning, all the horrors of starvation frightened her; for she knew that there were none to help her. She had moved still lower down-town, and into a smaller room, and there, with her faithful nurse, she endured life. But then there came a time when, though the will is strong to do, the physique fails to support, and the brave heart, struggling to conquer, feels despair steeling its vitals, and thus it was with Madelaine. The autumn of 1867 set in early, and November was cold and cruel to the poor. She, weaker than she had been, felt her slight unheeded cough increase, and, when December came, was too ill for any exertion. Bitterly the winter opened, snow covered the city, the wind keen and merciless swept the island, and thus the Christmas week found her with the little ones dependent, and she utterly helpless. The last penny had been expended, and the children were wailing with hunger.

Kenneth had looked into her own tearful eyes, and whispered, “Darling mamma, I will pray to Our Lady, and she will ask God to help you.” She only kissed her brave, trustful child, but had no strength for utterance. So, when the chill night wrapped the city and darkened the gloomy chamber, the child picked up his mother’s rosary, and, throwing it around his throat, held the crucifix in his infant hands, and, kneeling beside his mother’s low, poor bed, pleaded that the blessed Virgin would be kind to his dear mamma; and then the sweet child went to sleep murmuring Our Lady’s name.

The dawn was fast breaking over the city when the child kissed her, and said, “She has heard my prayer, mamma, for I dreamed that a beautiful angel like the picture in your prayer-book came to me, and said, ‘God will help her!’--and does not that mean you, mamma?”

“I hope that our kind Father will help us, my darling; therefore we must try to deserve his help.”

“Oh! he will help you, mamma, and I will help you, too.”

The day wore away, the last slice had been divided, and there was literally nothing else in the house. Hunger, starvation, was before them, and God, only God, could help them.

The snow fell heavily, the wind blew, and even the elements seemed warring against her, for she had not even fuel to keep off the cold.

Two o’clock chimed from Trinity, and, turning, she missed Kenneth. He was now eight years old, and often went out alone, but, with an instinct plainer than words, her heart rose to warn her of danger.

Three, four, five o’clock came, but still the child did not return. The lamps glared in the dark streets, and the night seemed too cold for human life--when--crash! a shriek, and a pair of horses dashed madly down the streets, throwing the occupants of the coach senseless upon the sidewalk. A crowd soon gathered, and bore the crushed and suffering man into the gloomy room where the sick woman lay. Her room opened on the street, and so they laid him on the small bed where the nurse slept.

“Bring a light,” sounded a gruff voice. 372

“Don’t you see dat de poor chile has no light for herself? Stonishing de fools dat libs in dese parts!”

A kind voice asked, “Is there no money? Take this and buy a candle.” The speaker was a shabbily-dressed man, but the whole aspect showed that he had known better days. He remained with the injured man, and while they go to find a light I leave them...

The snow was falling in great white feathery flakes, covering the dark alleys and darker tenements with its soft downy covering, and the little ragged, barefooted gamins of the great city were shrieking and screaming with delight; but not to build mimic forts or to join the army of snow-ballers did our little wanderer pause. “Mamma shall have some money,” he said, “and I will begin to work for it, so I will go to the streets where the fine houses are, and there the men will give me work.” Only eight years old was this little soldier in the grand army, but his noble face was radiant with the workings of his soul, which no poverty could injure. His little clothes were patched and scanty, and his poor little frozen toes came through the holes in his worn shoes; but the eyes shone with a light that could not be dimmed, and the firmly-set lips told that he was quite determined to do his best on that afternoon. At first he shrank from the cutting wind that swept from the East River, but, with hands in his pockets and cap pulled down, he ran on till he came to Broadway. Crowded with the happy crowd of the vast metropolis, the great highway was gay with bright faces on this eve of the feast of joy. Windows bright with presents for the favored children of fortune, shops thronged by smiling mothers eager to gratify their pampered darlings, and child-infant as he was, the little one paused to look at the pretty toys; but tears filled the large blue eyes, and he said, “Oh! I can’t look at these things, for poor mamma is sick and wants food.” At that moment, a gentleman passed, and the child went up and pulled his warm overcoat, “Will you give me some work, sir?” But the creature, a fashionable young fop in tights, shook him off, and passed on. Then came another, this time a respectable gray-haired worthy, and, running in front, the same appealing voice asked the same question. But the successful merchant, hurrying home, was intent upon some new speculation, and, suddenly disturbed, was not very amiable, as he replied, “Be off, you little vagabond!”

This time the policeman came up, and taking him by the arm gruffly ordered him to move on. And thus, on the eve of this blessed festival, when the great city joyed in each household, there was no grain for this wee waif, no crumb for the little estray, who was struggling against the power of the ebb which fate had sent to test his strength for the hereafter. On, on past the Fifth Avenue Hotel, through Madison Square, glancing at the glittering icicles or gleaming snow-drifts, shivering over the frozen pavements, on he travelled, faintly trying for that which seemed for ever denied to him.

“_I will_ find it for her,” he said, “for the beautiful angel, our Holy Mother, told me that she should be taken care of. I see her now far up in the clouds.” And up in the leaden sky, far beyond the pure, beautiful flakes, he gazed, half-hoping that the Mother of Christ would smile on him again. And did she not even then hover over the young boy-warrior? Did she not pray that he, too, might be strengthened 373 in this hard fight which his infant powers essayed? _Adjuvabit eam Deus_![83] the dying mother had prayed, and his promises would not fail. At last, far up the avenue, when the cold, shadowy twilight stole on the great city, he paused before a stately mansion. Curtains of silk and costly lace draped the windows, and liveried servants were sitting on the box of the handsome coach awaiting the master’s coming. Then the heavy door of massive bronze opened, and the master slowly descended the broad steps.

“Oh! you will help me, won’t you? Please give me some work, for I want to earn money for my mother!”

“Send that little beggar away,” was the irritable rebuff, and the footman flung him aside, not heeding where he fell. The carriage rolled away, and no thought was given to the small human bundle, roughly hurled from the rich man’s path. Then night darkened over the city, and the stars, God’s eternal sentinels, guarded earth as they had done eighteen centuries before when they watched the birth of the incarnate God. And beneath the same shimmering light the boy-warrior lay, all worsted in the strife, as thousands had sunk before, and all unconscious of the cruel hearts that still pulsed on. The torn little cap had fallen off, and the fair golden curls shaded the pale, childish face, turned upward as if in appeal to the Blessed Mother he had seen in his dreams. Was she watching still, and did her kind eyes see the crucifix clutched in the poor cold hands--the crucifix with the dead Christ, whose birth the morrow would celebrate? But the soft feathery flakes fell steadily on, covering the sweet face of the little one. Ah! God of infinite love and goodness, will the great army with the ranks of sin, and greed, and lust, prosper and thrive and live, while this young soldier, this infant of purest soul and lion heart, lies all unheeded, dying, the victim of cruelty and selfish forgetfulness?

But see--a policeman tramps near, and he comes with stalwart tread, swinging his burly arms, and clapping his gigantic hands to keep the fingers from freezing, for verily death seems to breathe out in the stealthy, deadening cold. Bravely he glances with searching look up and down the broad avenue, then pauses suddenly by the side of the obstruction just without the pavement.

“God and his holy saints forsake me, if this same bundle ain’t a child! Ugh! but it’s an ugly night for this small specimen to be left here! But come, let’s see, my little man,” and he tried to move him. “St. Patrick save me! if I ain’t afraid that he’ll never feel again!” And he dropped the little arm he held, and the crucifix, falling, lay dark against the glittering snow. The sight of the cross at once touched the stout Irishman, and this sturdy six-footed son of the Green Isle, this huge guardian of the great city, gathered the stray lamb to his bosom tenderly, pityingly, as its own mother, and bore it to the station-house. And, full of the warm impulse of his race, he chafed the poor little hands, and lingered by the pallet on which he lay, till great tears fell from eyes that had not seldom looked unmoved on the misery of the metropolis. He raised the child’s crucifix to his lips, and though he hurriedly summoned a physician, he muttered, “Poor little lamb, if he does come back to life, it will only keep an angel longer from Our Lady’s home!”

The man returned to his duty, and hours passed before he was relieved, but ere he returned to his own home, and the young wife waiting him, 374 he went back to the station-house to look after “the pretty young one” who had died with the cross in his hand; for he fully expected to find him dead on his return.

“We have had hard work to bring him back, Murphy,” said the doctor, as the man walked up to the child. “Only five minutes more, and the cold would have reached the little heart, which was losing all sensation. We have had a time of it, and he has just fallen asleep. These are what we found on him. The card was fastened to his worn jacket, and the crucifix has also a name engraved.” And picking up the card from the table the policeman read, “Kenneth Arnaud, 312 East ---- Street.” On the back of the silver cross was the name, “Madelaine Crécy, August 15, 18--.”

“Poor little child! said the policeman. “I’ll take him home, for his house is near my own.”

So he wrapped the sleeping child in an old blanket, and carried him through the storm. A light glimmered on the first-floor front room as he approached the house, and the man stepped in to inquire about his young charge. As he opened the rickety door, the wailing voice of a woman smote him with the agonizing pain it expressed. “The gentleman may remain,” she said, “but for God’s sake find my child. O sir! bring me back my child!” and her sobs and moans were heart-rending. The negress rocked to and fro with the little girl, trying to keep her warm and still her feeble cries for bread, chanting the while in dull monotone, a habit peculiar to her race, and which at this time increased the oppressive gloom of the place, not at all relieved by the flickering tallow-candle, nearly burned out--on the small bed in the corner the wounded gentleman lay groaning in agony, and impatiently awaiting a messenger he had summoned--a sad eve truly that announced the blessed festival!

At this time the policeman tapped with his club, but receiving no answer, and not caring to wait in the cold, he once more opened the door. Standing mute on the threshold, for the scene at first deprived him of speech, then walking to the centre of the room, he asked, “Is the mother of Kenneth Arnaud here? For I have found a child of that name, who wore a crucifix on which was engraved ‘Madelaine Crécy.’”

With one wild scream the mother answered, “He is mine!” and, as she clasped him to her heart, the soft eyes unclosed, and the feeble little voice whispered, “Darling mamma, I asked them all for work that I might buy you bread, but--oh! my head hurts, for a wicked man flung me away from a gentleman who rode in his carriage. But, mamma, don’t cry, for she--the one with the angels--will care for us. Oh! I have just seen her, and I waked to find your own eyes where hers had been. Dear mamma, keep me with you, away from the cruel man, and the ice, oh! the cold snow!” And his little frame shivered with the recollection.

“Madelaine Crécy!” the sick man muttered on his couch in the corner. And the policeman approached. “Yes, sir, that was the name on the crucifix, and I thought the little fellow was dead when I picked him up in front of the millionaire’s house on Fifth Avenue.”

“My God! and it was my servant who cast him from me! Will you take a message to that house, my good man? Do not refuse me, for gold shall pay you well. I--I am that millionaire, and an avenging God has crushed me.” With his uninjured arm, he drew out a card from his 375 pocket, and said, “Take this to my residence, and tell my housekeeper to come to me at once.” Then, placing an eagle, his own valued pocket-piece, in the policeman’s hands, he prayed him to hasten his errand.

But the mother’s weak voice also called the kind Irishman. She had heard nothing of the conversation, for she was absorbed with her darling, who in broken words had told his little story.

“I have nothing to give you, sir,” she said with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “The rosary was my mother’s, and besides this I have not even food for my children. But I will pray for you, and God will bless and reward you, sir; he will grant what I cannot give.”

She clasped his rough hand, which her tears fell upon, and he hurriedly left the room, for his own eyes were very dim.

Many and varied are the phases which the great city presents to these her guardians, but in his fifteen years’ experience none had touched him more than this.

He closed the door after him, and the solitary candle burned to its socket. It was now past midnight, and a long silence ensued, broken only by the snores of the negress, for the starved infant had cried itself to sleep. The bruised stranger forgot his own suffering as he contemplated the surrounding misery, and for some time the stillness was profound. At last he muttered, “Madelaine Crécy! Madelaine Crécy! can it be the same! Then God have mercy on my soul!”

“Who calls my mother’s name?” asked the sick woman.

“I, your father’s son, Madelaine Arnaud. I, your brother, who despoiled you, and sold his life for gold, but,” and his voice trembled with emotion--“but who will devote that life to you now, if you will allow it, to atone for the cold selfishness of the past.”

“I should be no daughter of the church which you despise, William Stanfield, if I bore anger to my father’s son. I teach my little children to pray, ‘Forgive us, as we forgive those who sin against us,’ therefore must my heart refuse all malice against God’s creatures, else would my own prayers avail not.”

He could not answer then, for he, the bigot, the scorner of that church which he had ridiculed, felt now the beauty of her teaching when, even in the midst of her sufferings, this desolate woman could forgive one who knew that he was responsible for so much that might have been alleviated.

“Elaine!”--ay, it was the first time that she had listened to her old name since the night when her brave husband had spoken his farewell, and the sound thrilled her with strange memories--“Elaine, your roof has sheltered me to-night, and saved from destruction one who claims as a proof of your forgiveness acceptance of the home which he will share with yourself and little ones.”

And, ere she answered, the chimes of Trinity heralded the dawn of that thrice-blessed morning when the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will.” And that message of the Incarnation brooded with its holy evangel on the troubled hearts within, as, when the Christmas sun shone over the snow-covered city, the carriage of the rich merchant bore its precious freight to his home, and light, and life, and joy succeeded the gloomy night. And she, when her prayer ascended on that night of shelter and rest, realized the fulfilment of her mother’s benediction: “Adjuvabit eam Deus!”

[82] “For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils.”

[83] “God shall help her.”

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CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM. 376

NO. XII.

THE COSMOS IN TIME AND SPACE.

The supernatural moment unites created personalities to the infinite. By the moment of substantial creation the first duality is established between the infinite and the finite. This duality is brought into harmony and unity in the Theanthropos, who knits together the finite and the infinite in the oneness of his single personality. But as the hypostatic moment united only created natures to the infinite, another moment was necessary, namely, a medium between the Theanthropos and substantial creation. This is the _supernatural_, which, by raising created persons above their natural sphere, enables them to arise, as it were, to the level of the infinite, and establishes a communication and intercourse between them. This we have shown in the preceding article. The question which now remains to be treated of at present is the following: _Who or what is to be the medium of communicating the term of the supernatural moment to created personality?_

Although God, in acting outside himself, might have effected everything immediately by himself, without allowing any play to second causes, yet, following the law of his wisdom, he exerted immediately by himself as much power as was required to set second causes in action, and then allowed them to develop themselves under his guidance. The law of wisdom is the law of sufficient reason, which implies that no intelligent agent can, in acting, employ more power than is absolutely necessary to attain its object; for acting otherwise would be to let the amount of action not necessary to attain the object go to waste, and be employed without any possible reason. Hence the necessity on the part of the infinite to admit secondary agency in the effectuation of this moment, whenever that was possible, in order to observe the law of wisdom. Applying this theory to the external action, we see that the substantial and the hypostatic moments were effected immediately by God himself, because no secondary agency could be employed therein; but the supernatural moment was effected by God through the agency of the Theanthropos, who merited it by his own acts of infinite value.[84] Hence, as the Theanthropos is the meritorious cause of the supernatural moment, he is pre-eminently its mediator, and therefore the medium of communicating it to created personality. This consequence of Christ being the medium of the communication of grace, in force of his being its meritorious cause, is so evident that we know of none who has ever disputed it. The only question which remains to be solved--a question of the greatest importance--is this: When the Theanthropos was living on earth, he would communicate the term of the supernatural moment in the personal intercourse and intimacy in which he lived with his followers; but as 377 he has withdrawn his visible presence and intercourse from the earth, how is the term of the supernatural moment to be communicated to human persons in all time and space?

We answer by laying down the following principle: _This medium must be such as will preserve the dignity and the prerogatives of the Theanthropos, as will befit the nature of human personality, as will fulfil the object which the supernatural term is intended to attain_.

Because, if the medium which is chosen does not fulfil these conditions; if it does not maintain the dignity and prerogatives of the Theanthropos; if it does not befit the nature and constitution of human personality; if it frustrates the ends of the supernatural moment instead of attaining them, it is evident that infinite wisdom could never have chosen it without contradicting itself. The principle is, therefore, evident. Now, what can this medium be in its nature which fulfils all these conditions? It can be nothing else than _the sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space_. In announcing such a principle, the reader is at once aware that we require some kind of presence of the Theanthropos in the cosmos extending to all time and to all space.

But what is meant by sacramental extension, and why should it be so?

To answer this question, let us get first a true metaphysical idea of the sacrament. The term sacrament in theological language is applied as conveying the idea of an instrument of grace. Hence, to get at the idea, we must inquire into the idea of instrument. Now, what is an instrument? It is an organism which contains a force. And what is force? It, being one of the first elements of our thoughts, can be defined but imperfectly, less by its essence than by its effects. It might be defined to be the energy of a being retaining its existence through the means of an effort of concentration, or diffusing it outwardly by a movement of expansion. Every act of force must be reduced to this two-fold movement: either we shut ourselves, as it were, in ourselves to concentrate our life, and give ourselves the highest possible sensation; or we expand ourselves to communicate our life to others, and according to the degree of this double tension we exhibit the phenomenon of force. The hand contracted or closed is the symbol of the force of concentration; the hand open to give is the image of the force of expansion. The force of concentration in its highest possible act is eternity--the possession of interminable life all at once. He alone possesses it who in an instant--one, indivisible, and absolute--experiences in himself and for ever the plenitude of his being, and says, _I am who am_; the sublimest idea ever conceived and ever uttered. The force of expansion at its highest possible act is the external action; and he alone possesses it who, absolutely sufficient to himself in the plenitude of his being, can call to life, without losing of his own, whomsoever and whatsoever he lists--bodies, spirits, worlds, and for ever in ages without number, and in space without limits.

Now, God, in giving us being, has given us force, without which a being could not conceive itself, and has given us this force in its double element of concentration and expansion: the one, which enables us to continue its existence, and to develop ourselves; the other, which enables us to propagate ourselves: the one, by which we tend to the act of eternity; the other, by which we tend to the act of 378 creation.

But there is this difference among others between us and the infinite, that _he_ possesses in himself and by himself the force of concentration and expansion, whereas our force is borrowed and communicated to us by means of _instruments_, which his infinite wisdom has prepared. Life is kept in us by something _forcing_ to us the _instruments_ to which God has communicated the power of sustaining and repairing it.

We subsist by the invisible force contained in an organism. The same must be said of the force of expansion. We cannot act outside ourselves, on any being at all capable of resistance, by the simple direct act of our will, but must make use of instruments, among which our body is the first.

Now, the reasons of this are, that, if we possessed the force of concentration and expansion in ourselves and by ourselves, it would follow that, as these two forces constitute the essence of life, we should have life in ourselves and by ourselves, we should be to ourselves the reason of our being and subsistence, and consequently we should be infinite and not finite. Hence, pantheism, which admits the unity of substance independent and self-sufficient, and all else as phenomena of this substance, rejects all idea of instrument in metaphysics, and all idea of sacrament in theology.

Nor would it do to say that God might communicate that double force to us immediately by himself without the aid of any instruments. For two reasons we must reject such a supposition: First, the law of secondary agency, which requires that created substance should act, and it would not for any purpose do so were God to do everything immediately by himself. Second, the law of communion, so necessary to the unity of the cosmos, which is founded exclusively upon the action of one element upon the other, else the communion would be merely imaginary and fictitious.

We conclude: An instrument in its metaphysical idea is an organism containing a force of concentration and expansion. A sacrament, being an instrument, must therefore be an organism containing a force of concentration and expansion; and, as an organism is something outward and sensible, it follows that a sacrament must be also outward and sensible. And as the force which the sacrament is designed to convey is altogether supernatural, it follows that a sacrament must be an instrument of conveying supernatural force. We may, therefore, define a sacrament to be a sensible instrument or organism containing a supernatural force of concentration and of expansion.

But it is evident that no instrument, no organism in nature, is capable of conveying a supernatural force of concentration and of expansion; for that would imply an act superior to its nature, which is a contradiction. It follows, therefore, that this supernatural force must be communicated to the organism by the Theanthropos, otherwise it could never fulfil its destination and office. The Theanthropos, in order to be the means of communicating to all human persons in time and space the supernatural term, which is nothing else but a supernatural force of concentration and expansion, must communicate and unite his infinite energy and action to an external organism, and thus himself convey through that organism the supernatural life. And this union of the infinite energy of the Theanthropos with an outward organism must not be successive or temporary, but permanent and stable; since the object is to convey 379 the supernatural force to all human persons in _all time_ and in _all space_.

This is the sacramental extension of the Theanthropos in time and space, the continuation upon earth of the hypostatic union, the filling up, as it were, of his incarnation, a second incarnation; not of the Word with human nature in the unity of his personality, but an incarnation of the Theanthropos, the Word made man, with visible, outward, external instruments, in the unity of one sacramental being, to convey to men in all times and spaces the supernatural life of grace.

This sacramental extension of the Theanthropos must be divided into various moments, owing to the requirements of the object for which it is intended. The object of the supernatural moment is to reproduce the Theanthropos in all human persons by a similitude of his nature, perfections, and attributes, and by a real union with and transformation into his life.

The infinite, from all eternity, under the subsistence of primary, unbegotten activity and principle, begets and conceives intellectually a similitude of himself absolutely perfect under the subsistence of intellectual expression, _Logos_ or Word. This action of the _Principle_ begetting the Word, exhibiting all the essential requisites of generation, constitutes the Principle--_Father_; and the begotten--_Son_. In his works _ad extra_, the infinite, in effecting the mystery of the hypostatic moment, does nothing less than exalt the cosmos, as recapitulated in the human nature of the Word, to the very same dignity which arises in his bosom when in the day of his eternity he begets his eternal Son. For the Theanthropos, or the Word made man, is not the Son of God figuratively, or by adoption, or by any other action than that which begets him from eternity. He as man-God is the Son of God really, naturally, and by the same identical action which eternally engenders him. Hence, the cosmos, as abridged in the human nature of Christ, in force of the hypostatic moment, is really, naturally, and by the same eternal action of the Father, the Son of God Almighty.

The infinite wishes to extend this divine _Sonship_ of the cosmos, as recapitulated in the human nature of Christ, to human persons also. This of course cannot be effected except by an adoption founded upon the following elements:

1. A perfect similitude of the nature, properties, attributes, and virtues of the Theanthropos.

2. A real union with him.

3. A communication of his life.

4. A communication of his beatitude.

In other words, a reproduction of Christ and his nature, his attributes, his life, and his bliss.

To effect this reproduction are required: First, a similitude of the nature of Christ; a similitude of his intellect; a similitude of his will; a sharing in his feelings. Second, a real and substantial participation of his life, in order that this similitude may be sustained, and that, initial and germinal as it is in this world, it may grow and develop itself by communing with its proper object, and thus become perfect and able to attain a participation of his bliss in palingenesia.

Thus the eternal Father, seeing all human persons bearing the image of his Son, having his mind, his will, his feelings, communicating with his life, extends to them the feeling of a father and the inheritance of children.[85]

Hence, the different moments of the sacramental extension of the 380 Theanthropos:

1. A moment of supernatural generation by which the Theanthropos attaches his infinite energy to a visible instrument, permanent in time and space, and through which he confers a similitude of himself and the other divine persons; a similitude in essence, in intellect, in will, in feeling, in aspirations, in an initial and germinal state, and which establishes the incipient and germinal union of human persons with the Trinity.

2. A moment by which the Theanthropos attaches his infinite energy to a visible instrument, and through which he carries that initial and inchoative similitude and union to a definite and determinate growth.

3. A moment by which the Theanthropos attaches his infinite energy to a sensible instrument, in order to communicate to human persons the power to perpetuate his sacramental extension in time and space.

4. A moment by which the Theanthropos communicates his infinite energy to human persons, to exalt their natural force of expansion, and enable them to propagate the human and supernatural species.

5. A moment by which the Theanthropos attaches and unites the _real substantial presence of his person_, that is, of humanity and divinity, both subsisting in his single divine person, to a sensible instrument, in order to communicate to human persons his real, substantial, theanthropic life, in order to put all human persons of all time and space in real living communion with each other, by meeting in him and through him as a common centre, and in order to reside continually in the visible cosmos.

The third and fourth moments follow necessarily from the others, both having the like office.

The first of them is intended to perpetuate the sacramental extension of Christ. An organism to be set in motion requires the agency of human persons; consequently, the supernatural organism or the sacramental extension of Christ, in order to be applied to human persons, requires the agency of human persons, appointed and fitted for such office by another visible instrument to which a particular theanthropic energy is attached.

This third moment is demanded also for another object, that is, the transmitting whole and entire, and without any error, by a personal intercourse, of the whole body of doctrines which are the object of the supernatural intelligence bestowed by the first moment. No other possible way can be thought of transmitting whole and entire the whole body of doctrines, the object of the supernatural intelligence, than a personal intercourse, the only safe, natural, philosophical manner of transmitting doctrine. Hence, for this object, also, a moment was required by which the Theanthropos, attaching his infinite energy to a particular instrument, would fit human persons to teach infallibly the whole body of doctrines he came to reveal, and to put in act his sacramental extension.

The fourth moment relates to the natural union of sexes in reference to generation.

Human persons being exalted by the first moment to the supernatural order, their personal acts must necessarily become supernatural; much more the highest possible personal act of expansion, which is the transfusion of their united life into a third. Consequently, it was befitting that the Theanthropos should attach a particular supernatural energy to the union of the sexes with a view to the act of generation, in order to exalt and sanctify it, and thus enable 381 them not only to generate as persons exalted to a supernatural state, but to bring up the offspring in the same supernatural order.[86]

All the moments of the sacramental extension of Christ but the fifth imply a personal action of the Theanthropos, attached to each particular instrument constituting the moment.

The fifth moment alone implies a real substantial presence of the whole person of the Theanthropos under the visible instrument. This requires explanation and proof, since it has been denied with the fierceness and rage of an opposition which did not and could not comprehend the grandeur, the sublimity, the magnificence of the elevation of the cosmos, by the fact of the hypostatic moment. Catholicity holds: 1. That, though the Theanthropos has withdrawn his _visible_ presence from the cosmos, he remains in it still, not by a spiritual, figurative, phenomenal presence, but by a real, substantial presence of his _whole person_, that is, of his body, blood, soul, and divinity--a presence hidden under the modifications of bread and wine.

2. That the manner according to which this real, substantial presence of the Theanthropos is obtained, is by a change of the substances of bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of the Theanthropos, not still and dead, but as vivified by his soul and divinity; a change effected by the sacramental words impregnated with the infinite power of the Theanthropos, and uttered by the minister over the elements to be changed.

Now the question arises: Is this substantial presence of the Theanthropos necessary? Is it metaphysically possible in the manner that the Catholic Church admits it?

As to the first question, we observe that such a presence is not absolutely necessary when considered of itself, independent of, and previous to, the adoption of the present plan of the cosmos by the infinite intelligence of God. But considered in relation to the present plan of the cosmos and as a complement of it, it _is_ necessary. Infinite intelligence might have selected another plan, but, having once chosen the present plan of the cosmos, the real presence becomes absolutely necessary as a complement bringing it to perfection. This we shall endeavor to prove by the following arguments:

First, the end of the action of the infinite outside himself is the highest possible manifestation of his infinite excellence. To attain this end, an infinite effect would have been necessary. But as an infinite effect was a contradiction in terms, infinite wisdom was to find means whereby to effect the highest possible manifestation of himself, in spite of the ontological finiteness of the cosmos to be effected. This means was to produce a variety of moments; to bring the whole variety of moments to the highest possible unity in the person of the Theanthropos.

1. To produce a variety of moments, in order that the _infinity_ of the perfections of God, which could not be expressed by the terms effected in _intensity_ of being, might be expressed in _extension_ and _number_.

2. The highest possible unity, in order that the infinity, simplicity, and oneness of God might be portrayed.

3. In the person of the Theanthropos, in order that, if this variety brought into unity could not be ontologically infinite, it might be infinite by a union and communication the highest possible.

These are the three leading principles, according to which infinite 382 wisdom resolved the problem of the end of the external action: highest possible variety, highest possible unity, highest possible communication.

Now, let us see if and how the effectuation of real cosmos was governed by these principles.

In view of these principles, God effected substantial creation and the hypostatic moment, by which the whole substantial moment was united to the person of the Word in the bond of his divine personality.

Was the problem of the highest possible variety and the highest possible unity and communication in the person of the Theanthropos resolved? It was, so far only as nature and substance were concerned; because the hypostatic union only wedded _human nature_, and through it all inferior natures, to the person of the Word. But this unity and communication excluded, and had to exclude, all human personalities. It excluded them in the fact; it had to exclude them, otherwise human personality would have ceased to exist. Here the problem must be resolved anew--how to raise human personality to the highest possible union and communication with the Theanthropos. Another moment was effected to initiate the solution of the problem; and this was the supernatural moment. By it human personality, by being endowed with a higher similitude of the Trinity and the Theanthropos, and by receiving higher faculties, is brought into a real and particular union with the Word, and through him the other persons of the Trinity. But the supernatural moment does not resolve the problem yet; because the union which results thereby is union between human persons and the Word as God, not a union between human persons and the _Theanthropos_, the Word made man.

A real and efficient union between two terms requires a real relation between them. Now, the supernatural term establishes a relation between human persons and the Word, but not a relation between them and the Theanthropos, because it is wholly spiritual and incorporeal. A true relation between persons composed of body and soul must be a contact, not spiritual only, but also corporeal.

Hence, if we exclude the real substantial presence of the Theanthropos as such, we have a union of human persons united to the Word, but not a real efficacious union of human persons united to the _Theanthropos_. On this supposition, the cosmos would lack the highest possible unity and communication, and would fail to realize the end of that external action. But, admit the corporal presence of the Theanthropos in time and space, admit that presence incorporating and individualizing itself in human persons, and the whole wisdom and beauty of the design flashes at once upon your mind--the whole cosmos, as abridged in the human nature of Christ, made infinite by the hypostatic union with the Word; all human persons incorporated body and soul into the body and soul of the Theanthropos, built up into his body and soul, transformed, as it were, in them and through them, and in them coming in the closest possible communication with the divinity which a _person_ can attain. In this plan only everything holds together and presents order, harmony, and beauty.

But, if the real substantial presence of the _Theanthropos_ was necessary in order to bring human personality to the highest possible union and communication with the infinite, and thus realize the end of the external action, it was also required that the being and actions 383 of human personality might be elevated to the dignity, excellence, and value of _theanthropic being and acts_. In the hypostatic union, human nature and all the inferior natures which it eminently contains, as connected in the person of the Word, are deified, and their acts have the value and dignity of divine acts.

Hence, so far, the end of the external action which is to raise the cosmos in its nature and acts to an infinite dignity by union and communication, is attained. But human personality, not being an element of the hypostatic union, could not acquire in its being and in its acts the dignity and excellence of divine being and acts, and consequently the end of the external action could not by the hypostatic moment be realized as regards the same personality. Here another problem arose in the divine mind--how to raise human personality to such a union with the Theanthropos as, without infringing upon its nature, to raise its being and its acts to the value, excellence, and dignity of theanthropic being and acts, and thus to exhibit in it the most perfect image of the infinite. This problem was resolved by the incorporation of the Theanthropos, under the modifications of bread and wine, in human persons. This plan does not imply an hypostatic union, which would do away with human personality, but a union so strict, so close, and so intimate, as merely to fall short of the hypostatic. For, in it and by it, the Theanthropos, the God made man, in his whole person, composed of body, soul, and divinity, is incorporated in human personalities by the act of eating, and his body pervades their bodies, his blood circulates in their blood, his soul inheres upon and clings to their soul, his divinity purifies, sanctifies, ennobles, exalts their whole being, and, like food, results in a transformation--a transformation not indeed of the Theanthropos into the flesh and blood of the human person, as it happens with ordinary food, but a transformation of the human person into the body, blood, soul, and almost divinity of the Theanthropos. “Cresce et manducabis me, nec tu me mutabis in te sed tu mutaberis in me.”[87] The fathers have endeavored to express the intimacy of the union by adopting various similitudes. Some have likened it to a piece of glass when impregnated by the rays of the sun, and appearing like a smaller sun. Others have compared it to the action of fire upon iron, which, when heated and become red hot, looks exactly like fire, and could fulfil the functions of fire. St. Cyril of Alexandria has chosen the similitude of two distinct pieces of wax, which when melted and mingled together are so intimately united as to form one single piece, defying every possible recognition of their former separation. But all these similitudes, possible as they may be, can never express the mysterious intimacy and closeness between human personalities and the Theanthropos in the eucharistic banquet.

Now, how does this resolve the problem? Most perfectly. The infinite intends to exhibit in human personalities an image, an expression of himself as pure and as perfect as possible--an image of his being and of his life or action in obedience to the end of the external action, always preserving the conditions of human personalities. Now, what does the cosmos of personalities when united to the Theanthropos in the mystery of the Eucharist, when pervaded by him, when so closely 384 and so intimately united to him as to feel his flesh come in contact with their flesh, his blood glowing in their blood, his heart beating against their hearts, his mind illumining and guiding their minds, his will captivating and mastering their will, his divinity ennobling and exalting their whole being and faculties--I say, when the cosmos of personality is thus united to the Theanthropos, does it not represent most vividly the infinite being of God? Does the infinite in looking at such a cosmos see anything but as it were one Theanthropos filling and pervading all?

As to expressing the action of the life of the infinite, and thus raising the acts of a human person to the dignity and value of theanthropic life, it will appear evident if we recollect that the life of the infinite establishes the eternal religion in the bosom of God which expresses itself in the mystery of the ever blessed Trinity. For the Father, in recognizing himself intellectually, and as it were theoretically, produces an intellectual image of himself, absolutely perfect in every sense. Both in recognizing themselves aspire a practical acknowledgment of themselves, the Holy Ghost, who completes the cycle of infinite life, and perfects the eternal religion.

Now, this eternal religion are human persons destined to express, to realize in themselves, that they may be a most perfect image in their action and life of the life of the infinite. This they could never do either naturally or supernaturally. Naturally, because such acknowledgment requires an infinite intellect to apprehend the infinite excellence and perfection of God, and an infinite power of appreciation to value, esteem, and love it practically. Now, naturally these faculties of human persons are simply finite. Even the light of grace, which strengthens the natural intelligence, and the supernatural force, which corroborates the will, cannot do it, because in their nature also finite. It is, therefore, the infinite intellect and will of the Theanthropos which alone can appreciate him intellectually and love him as he deserves. Now, the mystery of the Eucharist enables human persons to partake of this intellectual and volitive recognition of the infinite by their union with the Theanthropos. When, after the solemn and happy moment of feeding upon the flesh and blood of the Theanthropos, I turn myself to adore God, to render him the homage of adoration which I owe him as creature, then I am not alone with my limited understanding and will. It is with the intellect of the Theanthropos, which pervades and illumines my intellect, that I recognize theoretically his infinite perfections. When at the same moment I turn to him to offer him the tribute of my love, I cling to him then, not with the finite, limited, circumscribed power of my natural or supernatural will, but of a will under the guidance, the mastery, the possession, the infinite power of expansion of the will of the Theanthropos, under the immense weight of his love; and when I yield my heart to exuberant joy and complacency in his infinite loveliness and bliss, it is not the little vessel of a heart, which can contain but a finite joy, but a heart under the pressure of infinite jubilee, which gushes up from the heart of the Theanthropos and overflows into my heart, and makes it swim in a joy and a delight known to those alone who have tasted it. Thus, with the Theanthropos in my bosom, pervading my mind, my soul, my heart, my flesh, and drawing me toward him even as the bridegroom draws his bride to him, even as the mother presses her offspring close to her bosom in the 385 intensity of maternal love, I know and I feel that I am adoring God as perfectly as a human person could possibly do, and the finite personal act of my adoration becomes infinite because mingled with the infinite act of the Theanthropos.

Hence the Eucharist is necessary, because it resolves the problem, how to elevate human persons to the most perfect image of God by incorporating the Theanthropos in human persons, and sharing with them his perfections and his acts.

So far, we have proved the necessity of the real presence, because, in force of the end of the external action, the cosmos, not only in the natures which it contains, but in the personalities also, required to be brought to the highest possible union and communication with the infinite.

We shall prove the same necessity from the requirements of supernatural life.

The supernatural term conferred upon human persons, consisting of a superior essence engrafted on their natural essence, and of supernatural faculties, must live, that is, act and develop itself.

Now, life, in the highest metaphysical acceptation of the term, consists in communion--the communing of a subject with an object. In the infinite, this communication is active. For the first principle lives inasmuch as he communicates his life to his conception, and both transfuse it into the spirit. But as the finite cannot contain life in itself, it must communicate with an object in order to appropriate it to itself. A person elevated to the supernatural moment cannot therefore live, except by communion with the objects proper to that moment. Now, what is the proper object of the supernatural faculties of intelligence and of will? For the intelligence, it is an actual apprehension of the infinite and the finite in all their relations, inasmuch as they are intelligible and inasmuch as the faculty is able to apprehend them. For the will, it is the infinite and the finite in all their relations, inasmuch as they are lovable. Hence, the supernatural intelligence must apprehend and come in contact with the infinite, his nature, his perfections, the mystery of his life and of his bliss, with the infinite, inasmuch as he acts outside himself, and, hence, with all the moments of his action and their terms. The same must be said of the supernatural will. This communication must be real and effective, otherwise the life which would flow from it would not be real, but fictitious and unsubstantial. But how to put the supernatural faculties of elevated persons in real, actual, substantial communication with the infinite and the finite in all their relations, so that the supernatural term may live, be unfolded, and transformed into them? By the real substance, presence, and communication of the Theanthropos, who in his single individuality realizes the infinite and the finite in all their relations to each other. By communing actually and substantially with him, the essence of the supernatural moment comes in contact with the essence of the infinite, with his attributes, the eternal mystery of his life; it comes in contact with all substantial creation as abridged in the human nature of Christ; it comes in contact with the supernatural term, as Christ contains the fulness of it in his soul. Supernatural intelligence comes, therefore, in contact with all the objects which it is intended to appropriate, that it may expand, grow, and become perfect. The same happens to the supernatural will. Thus, in union 386 with the Theanthropos by the eucharistic presence, they come in communion with all the objects which are to bring them to perfection by a gradual development and transformation.

Take the corporal presence of the Theanthropos away, and the supernatural faculties would only be in communication with the infinite, but not with the finite; with God, but not with his cosmos; because these faculties could never come in contact with the whole cosmos, except inasmuch as it exists and lives in the Theanthropos.

This argument introduces us to another. Every elevated person, to live fully and perfectly, must be in communication not only with the infinite and the finite as to nature, but also as to personality. Every elevated person must commune in a real, living, actual, quickening manner with elevated persons in time and space. The perfection of unity of the cosmos claims this communing, as it is evident; and the fulness of life of each particular person demands it, because life in its plenitude[88] results from communing with all its proper objects.

Now, how to bring together all elevated persons living at a distance of time and space--some in the initial and germinal state, others in the state of completion and palingenesia? We come into communion with things and persons distinct and separate from us by time, space, or individuality, by a _medium_ common to us and those things or persons we wish to enter into communion with. Thus, I come into communication with persons at a certain distance from me by the mediums of light and air, which are between me and them, and common to both. Suppose I was speaking, the air which exists between me and my hearers would be the common medium of communication. In articulating, I would strike the air which surrounds me, and the strokes would be transmitted from particle to particle in every direction until they would reach the ears of my audience, and thus a communication by speech would be established between us. If, therefore, all elevated persons must come in contact with each other, there must be something which will bring them together--a medium common to them all--to make them commune with each other. Now, this medium is the real substantial presence of the Theanthropos incorporating himself in all elevated persons. I commune with the Theanthropos, with his divinity and his humanity, with his intelligence, his will, his heart, his body: I appropriate him to myself; another communes likewise with the Theanthropos; and thus we are brought together, we come in contact, we are united in the same life, intelligence, will, heart, body; thus we meet and live in one common theanthropic life. This is the foundation partly of that sublime, magnificent, ennobling doctrine of Catholicity, the _communion of saints_--communion of all persons elevated to the supernatural moment. Communion! What is the medium which brings them together? It is the real, living, substantial presence of the Theanthropos incorporated in them, and on which they have fed and shall feed for eternity.[89]

How beautifully, how divinely was this communication of the Theanthropos given to us in the shape of food and at a banquet! Men 387 in all times and in all places, by a prophetic instinct implanted in them by the Creator, have recognized the banquet as the supreme and the best expression of union and communication; because it was to appropriate, to drink life at one common source, from one common food. In the eucharistic banquet this is realized truly. Imagine a banqueting-hall as unbounded as space, and a banquet as long as time. Suppose millions upon millions of elevated persons entering the banqueting-hall to partake of the same repast. It is nothing less than the flesh and blood of the Theanthropos, not dead, but living and quickening, by the indwelling of his soul and divinity, under the appearance of the simplest and most primitive elements of life--bread and wine. All partake of it; it penetrates and fills them all. A glow of theanthropic life runs through their supernatural being; their supernatural intelligence grows brighter at the flashes of his infinite, finite intelligence; their will expands at the embraces of infinite and finite loveliness; their hearts swell with virtues under the pressure of the heart of Jesus; their affections are purified, cleansed, ennobled, divinized at the contact of the affections of Jesus; their very flesh is spiritualized at the touch of his flesh; a seed, a germ of immortality is sown in it, to bud and blossom in the end of time. They live; not they, it is the Theanthropos who lives in them. And what wonder is it, then, that their natures, coming in contact in him, their intelligences meeting in him, their will harmonizing in him, their hearts beating together in him, their emotions mingling in him, their flesh touching in him and through him--what wonder, I say, is it, then, that they should communicate with each other, and that their virtues and their very merits should become common? Those who have never realized such a doctrine may often have marvelled, on hearing a Catholic speaking of those who have passed from the initial and germinal state to the state of palingenesia, as if they were present to him, as if he were actually holding sweet converse with them. This doctrine explains it all. A Catholic feels truly that the life of the apostles and evangelists glows in his bosom, that the blood of martyrs runs in his very blood and ennobles it, that the guileless simplicity and innocent loveliness of the virgins beams on his countenance, that the virtues of all the saints are transfused into him; because at the eucharistic banquet he can meet them living in the eternal mediator of all things, the Theanthropos, and in him and through him he mingles with them, associates with them, comes into the closest possible communication with them. Utopians have dreamt of a universal society, in which everything would be common. It is the eucharistic doctrine of the substantial presence of the Theanthropos which alone realizes this universal, sublime, ennobling society of all elevated spirits in one common medium, and having everything common in the only mediator, Jesus Christ, in all time and space.[90]

We feel that withal the arguments we have brought forward in 388 vindicating the beautiful and sublime dogma of the real presence of the Theanthropos in his cosmos will have no effect on some minds, unless we remove the metaphysical difficulties which are raised against it, and show consequently its possibility. Therefore, we willingly hasten to the task. And as these objections are very popular, we shall put them in the popular form of a dialogue. The dialogue is between W. and D., the first a Protestant, and the other a Catholic.

_W._ I shall begin by a very strong objection. I cannot conceive the possibility of the body of a full-grown man being within the small portion of space filled by a wafer. Christ was a full-grown man. He is so now. How, then, can he reside or be contained in such a small particle of space as the host?

_D._ You will be kind enough to observe what the Catholic Church teaches, that it is the _substance_ of the body and blood of Christ, which is under the modifications of bread and wine.

_W._ Suppose it is; what difference does that make?

_D._ All the difference in the world. Pray, what is a substance?

_W._ It is that part of a being which remains immutable amid all the vicissitudes and changes of the being. These changes or vicissitudes are called accidents or modifications; that which remains always the same and immutable is called substance.

_D._ Right; and, pray, has substance any dimensions, has it length, breadth, height, or depth, or is it what philosophers call a simple being?

_W._ It must have no dimensions, because dimensions may change and vary, and the substance must be always the same.

_D._ Then substance is a simple being, that is, it has neither height, depth, length, or breadth.

_W._ So it would seem, and so, if I recollect aright, all the metaphysicians worth the name hold it to be.

_D._ Right again; and, if you remember, Leibnitz calls it a _monas_, or a unit, and distinguishes two kinds of substances, the simple and the composite. The simple is one substance; the composite is an aggregate of simple substances or _units_. Thus, bodies are an aggregate of substances or units.

_W._ Well, suppose that bodies as to substance are an aggregate of simple units, what of that?

_D._ Why, then your objection is answered.

_W._ How?

_D._ Did we not say that the Catholic Church teaches that it is the _substance_ of the body and blood of Christ, which is under the modifications of bread and wine? Did we not agree upon the theory that substance has no dimensions? Did we not admit that a body is an aggregate of simple units, as to substance, and that consequently in that respect it has no dimensions? Then it matters not how large or how small you may imagine the wafer to be, it cannot make the least difference; seeing that our Lord’s body in the holy Eucharist is there in its substance, or as an aggregate of simple units, and consequently has no dimensions, and occupies no space whatever. And remark, that what happens in this particular case happens in every other being under 389 the class of bodies. The substance or the number of simple units forming a body occupies no space whatever, and is whole and entire under each and every modification. What is particular to the Eucharist is that the substance of the body of Christ lies not under its own, but under foreign modifications. But I trust you see no difficulty in this?

_W._ Not much; the main difficulty of space being removed, I can very well conceive that God could easily cause a substance to appear under foreign modifications; for I see no contradiction to any essential attributes of a substance in appearing under the garb of the modifications of another. But what I cannot conceive is this: if we admit composite substances to be an aggregate of units, that is, of beings having no dimensions or parts, how do you account for the phenomenon of extension? A monas, or unit, is like a mathematical point, that is, a cipher with regard to extension; multiply, therefore, the units as much as you like, and the result will always be a cipher with reference to space. How, then, do you explain the phenomenon of extension?

_D._ First of all, you will be kind enough to understand that it is not the Catholic Church who is bound to explain the phenomenon of extension. It is the metaphysicians who hold the theory, though it is the only true one. It is enough for the church to say, Your best and most universal theory is, that a body is an aggregate of units devoid of extension. I show you that my dogma agrees perfectly with your theory. But it may be as well to mention the explanation which the metaphysicians just mentioned give to the objection. They hold that extension, as it falls under the senses and the imagination, is not real, but phenomenal, and that the real objective extension is nothing more than the constant relation of all the units of a nature to produce in a sensitive being the phenomenon of the representation of space.[91]

_W._ But the greatest difficulty remains yet. Nobody can be in different places at the same time. You hold that the body of Christ is in as many places as there are hosts in the universe. This would establish the astounding phenomenon of a body in millions of different places at the same time. This is certainly absurd, and I conceive that you will find much more trouble in explaining away this difficulty than you did the first.

_D._ I must beg leave to call your attention again to the fact that the Catholic Church teaches that it is the substance of the body of Christ which is in different places at the same time.

_W._ Oh! you are there again with your substance! I must own you have an ingenious way about you, and, if you succeed in making me see how this circumstance removes the objection, as it did the first, I give it up.

_D._ But it _does_ remove it. And let me tell you that you 390 Protestants, in fighting against the dogmas of the Catholic Church, commit two very serious faults: First, you do not provide yourselves with philosophy enough to cope with her. Secondly, you do not sound the depth of her statement. Then it generally happens that, when you think you are proposing your strongest objections, and you are very sure you have her in a corner, you are merely combating a phantom of your own imagination.

Now, let us see if the substance of the body of Christ can be in different places at the same time. To do this, we must examine the other question, How can a simple being reside in space? Metaphysicians teach that a body may reside in space in two ways, according as it is considered either in its phenomenal representation or in its real objective nature and substance. In its phenomenal representation, a body resides in space by contact of extension; in its real objective nature and substance, by acting upon it. I lay my hand flat upon the surface of a table, and suppose I consider both my hand and the table in their phenomenal extension. Under this respect, all the points and parts which form the phenomenal extension of my hand come in contact with all the respective parts of the table which my hand is able to cover.[92] Under this respect, a body naturally _cannot_ be in different places at the same time without a contradiction, because the supposition would imply that the parts of my hand which are in contact with the respective parts of the table are also in contact with parts of other bodies at any given distance.

But if we consider a body not in its phenomenal extension, but in its real objective nature and substance, the case is different; because, as we have seen, the body as to its substance is simple and unextended, and therefore, as such, it cannot reside in space by contact of extension, inasmuch as its parts touch the phenomenal parts of space; for it has no parts which may touch. Hence it follows that it resides in space as every other simple being, that is, by acting upon it.[93] In this case, a body in its substance and objective nature does not reside in space except by its action upon it.

Now, naturally, a body in its objective nature and substance is limited in its action to a certain defined space, and cannot extend its action beyond it. But there is no possible contradiction in supposing that a body may be endowed by the infinite with the power and energy to act upon any indeterminate amount of space at the same time.

Now, with regard to the body of our Lord, we have seen that it is in the holy Eucharist in its objective state, and consequently is there by its real action. The miracle in this case is, that the infinite power of the Word to which it is hypostatically united intensifies its natural sphere of acting upon space, and makes it extend to thousands of places at the same time. To conclude: The question, Can the body of Christ be in different places at the same time? resolves itself into this other: Can the substance of the body of Christ act really and truly in different places at the same time? Who could give a reason worth anything to show that it cannot? Who could prove any contradiction in the supposition? There would be a contradiction in 391 saying that the phenomenal dimensions of the body of Christ, at the same time that they touch the dimensions of one definite space, touch also the dimensions of numberless other spaces. But there is no contradiction in saying that the substance of the body of Christ can act by virtue of the Word, to whom it is united, in numberless places at one and the same instant.

The completion of the theory of the cosmos in time and space will be given in the next article.

[84] Council of Trent.

[85] “Quos prescivit et predestinavit conformes fieri imagini filii sui, ut ipse sit primogenitus in multis fratibus.” Rom. viii. 29.

[86] There are two other moments, but as these imply the question of evil, they shall be treated of when speaking of that question.

[87] St. Augustine.

[88] We speak of initial plenitude.

[89] We hold that an elevated person once united to the substance of the Theanthropos, though not always actually united to his body, because this sacramental union only lasts as long as the species would naturally last, yet is continually so united in a spiritual though not less real manner.

[90] We have given the real presence, and the communion of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, as the foundation of the communion of saints. To this might be objected that all the saints of the Old Testament, and many elevated persons, such as children dying after baptism, and grown persons who never could communicate, never were united to the Theanthropos in the Eucharist, and consequently would be excluded from the communion of saints. We answer, first, that we have only made the real presence _partly_ the foundation of the communion of saints. Second, we speak of the perfect state of the cosmos, and consequently not of the imperfect and incipient state, such as was the state of elevated persons in the Old Testament, who were united to Christ by faith and charity. As to children and grown-up persons who never communicated, we answer that we are giving the general law, and not accidental cases. The foundation, therefore, of the communion of saints is the union with Christ, real and actual, of the supernatural faculties. The perfection of the communion of saints is the real presence and incorporation.

[91] We have given here the theory of the best of modern philosophers. But any one acquainted with the scholastics will at once perceive that their theory agrees perfectly with the above. The fundamental idea of the scholastics in reference to matter is that it is something absolutely indeterminate, which they express by saying that it is neither quantity nor quality, etc., and that it becomes determinate by the form, which is something altogether unique and devoid of dimension. Matter they compare to potentiality, something only possible, the form to the act or actuality. We subjoin a few extracts from St. Thomas:

“Materia prima aliquo modo est quia est in potentia. Sicut omne quod est in potentia potest dici materia ita omne a quo habet aliquid esse potest dici forma. Forma dat esse materiæ.”

It is clear, therefore, that, according to the scholastic theory, what gives being to matter is the form, something altogether simple and unextended.

[92] “Corporalia sunt in loco per contactum quantitis.”--_St. Thomas._

[93] “Incorporalia non sunt in loco per contactum quantitis sed per contactum _virtutis_.”--ID.

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THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS.

NO. IV.

After the very full and detailed exposition of the facts of the liquefactions, as millions have seen them in the past--as tens of thousands may, and do still, see them each year--the question forces itself on us: Is this a miracle, as the Neapolitans believe, and as many earnest and critical examiners from other lands have been led to hold, after a careful and candid investigation into the facts of the case? Is it a suspension of the ordinary laws of nature, and an intervention of the supernatural power of the Most High, producing an effect above and beyond the ordinary course of nature? or is this liquefaction a phenomenon entirely within the sphere of natural laws--either the result of some law, or combination of laws, producing this effect; or is it the result of the art and skill of men? One of these three it must be: either the spontaneous effect of some natural laws, or the artificial result of human trickery, or a miracle. The decision must depend on the character of the facts.

The Neapolitans, and, with them, Catholic writers generally, hold it to be a miracle. On the other hand, such a visible substantiation of the claims made by the Catholic Church that miracles do continue in her fold, as the Saviour promised, and are the seal and confirmation of her divine authority, has not failed to arouse the opposition of those who deny that authority.

In meeting the argument, or the facts of the case, they have not always followed the same line. Two or three centuries ago, they contended that the liquefaction was a lying wonder produced by witchcraft or magic, or by the power of Beelzebub. A little later, natural philosophy was appealed to. This liquefaction of the blood, when the vial was brought near to the head, arose, they said, from a law of sympathy in nature, akin to if not merely a peculiar form of 392 that law which causes blood to flow from the wounds of a corpse if the real murderer lay his hand on the dead body.

These replies, or attempts at a natural solution, are antiquated. We need not seriously consider them.

In the last century, the objectors took a very different ground. The whole thing, they said, was a device of the priests. Some called it a “trick of long standing and great ingenuity”; others stigmatized it as “one of the most bungling tricks ever seen.”

This style of objection still holds its own.

During the present century, another style of objection has come into vogue, based on the ever-increasing spirit of rationalism. The laws of nature, we are told, are invariable and supreme. No violations of them are possible. All miracles--in the sense of occurrences above and beyond those laws of nature, occasional interruptions in the grand scheme of universal order, law, and causation--are to be at once rejected. “The idea of _their_ possibility can only occur to those who have failed to grasp the great inductive principle of invariable uniformity and law in nature.” “It is hardly a question of evidence. The generality of mankind habitually assume antecedently that miracles are now inadmissible; and hence, that, in any reported case, they must in some manner be explained away.... Of old, the sceptic professed he would be convinced by seeing a miracle. At the present day, a visible miracle would be the very subject of his scepticism. It is not the attestation, but the nature of the alleged miracle, which is now the point in question. It is not the fallibility of human testimony, but the infallibility of natural order, which is now the ground of argument.” (Rev. Baden Powell, _Order of Nature_.)

We have not the space to examine this theory at length, and to show that it is at bottom anti-christian and pantheistic, contrary to the soundest principles of true philosophy. Nor is it necessary for our purpose to do so. All the philosophical disquisitions in the world will not prove to a man having eyes that, because “the laws of nature are immutable, and miracles are therefore impossible,” the blood which stands in the ampulla was liquid when taken out, or is solid at the conclusion. He saw that it was hard, and sees that it is now fluid. He will laugh at the philosopher and believe his own eyes.

Neither is it necessary to confute at length the opinion accepted so blindly by Protestants, that the age of miracles has long since past, and that miracles have entirely ceased since the days of the apostles. If God can work miracles, what man can limit him in the exercise of that power, either in time or place? And did not the Saviour promise the continuance of signs among them that believe--a continuance to which he put no limitation?

The assertion that the Catholic Church is erroneous, and that consequently there can be no miracles in her fold, is more than akin to the words of the Pharisees to the blind man, whom our Lord had restored to sight: “_Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner._” The appropriate answer was: “_If he be a sinner, I know not: one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see_” (John ix. 24, 25).

We therefore leave the general subject of miracles to be treated by others; and we confine ourselves to the fact of the liquefaction. In this, as in every other case of alleged miracles, the decision depends entirely on the character of the testimony and on the nature of the 393 facts which that testimony establishes.

The testimony in this case is overwhelming in amount and unimpeachable in character. The liquefaction with its marked features and details are clearly established. We have only to seek its cause.

Is it due to the regular action of the natural laws which, under the given circumstances, produce the liquefaction, independently of any special act of men designed to bring it about? How does a solid body naturally pass into a fluid condition?

A solid body may become fluid by deliquescence. Certain substances drink in water from the atmosphere around them to such an extent as to become fluid. They are said to deliquesce.

Is this liquefaction a deliquescence? Most assuredly not.

1. The substance within the ampulla--the indurated blood--so far as the eye can judge of it, through the glass of the ampulla and the glass sides of the reliquary, bears no resemblance to any of the substances which are known to deliquesce.

2. The process of deliquescence is well known and is not to be mistaken. It is gradual; and the exterior of the deliquescing substance, being in immediate contact with the water-bearing atmosphere, is always seen to yield first to the liquefying influence of the water. On the contrary, the liquefaction is often instantaneous--_in un colpo d’occhio; in un tratto_. Even when gradual and not instantaneous, the differences are marked. The upper portion will become perfectly liquid while the lower portion remains still hard; or the lower portion will liquefy while the upper portion retains its hardness; or, again, the upper and lower portions may both remain hard while the middle portion becomes fluid; or the middle portion will continue hard and solid while they become perfectly liquid: sometimes, the outer surface next to the glass sides of the ampulla will be seen to soften and liquefy first--in this case following the course of a deliquescence; sometimes precisely the reverse occurs--the central portion is seen to become liquid while the exterior remains hard and unliquefied. When we add that occasionally one side or lateral half liquefies while the other preserves its hardness, and also that, while frequently the entire mass becomes liquid, yet, on many occasions, a certain portion remains hard for hours and days and then liquefies--perhaps gradually, perhaps only after the entire mass has become hardened again--it will be seen that this liquefaction presents every possible mode and shade of difference to distinguish it from the single mode of deliquescence.

The difficulty becomes greater if we consider the obstacles to a freer communication between the outer atmosphere and the substance within the ampulla. The ampulla is a tightly-closed glass vessel, and is itself held within the reliquary, another tightly-closed vessel of metal and glass. This twofold barrier must forbid any ready and rapid passage of atmospheric water from the air to the substance within the ampulla.

Again, no connection whatever can be discovered between the superabundant moisture or the dryness of the atmosphere at Naples and the occurrence or non-occurrence of the liquefaction. We may take a series of twenty days, which the diary marks as very rainy, or occurring in a long-continued rainy season; and a series of twenty others, when the weather was dry--so dry, they were praying for rain. It will be seen that the phases of the liquefactions for each series 394 are so alike that they might be interchanged. The general hygrometric condition of the atmosphere evidently has no perceptible influence for or against or on the liquefactions.

Nay, more, it frequently happens that the blood, after liquefying, grows solid again on the same day, and then liquifies, perhaps solidifies anew, and liquefies a third time. All these changes have sometimes taken place within one hour. Now, did the atmosphere, during that hour or during that day, pass through corresponding extreme changes of its hygrometric condition? Ordinary men did not feel them. Meteorological observers have not noticed them. Registering instruments do not record them. And yet, the habit of watching their neighboring and often threatening volcano has made the people of Naples as observant of such changes as sailors at sea, and has given to that city one of the ablest schools of meteorology on the Continent.

We may well conclude, therefore, that the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius is not the deliquescence of a solid body, arising from humidity of the air to which it is exposed.

Is it the melting of a solid substance through the action of heat?

This is a more important question. Many of those who charge bad faith and trickery on the “priests and monks” officiating at the expositions, maintain that it is by an adroit application of heat that the liquefaction is brought about. Others, who admit the sincerity and good faith of the Neapolitan clergy--which, knowing the men, they feel cannot be impugned--still attribute the liquefaction to the heat of the altar, all ablaze with lighted tapers, and of the crowd thronging the chapel, and packed most closely just in the sanctuary itself and around the altar.

We undertake to show that the liquefaction is in no way produced by or dependent on heat.

I. Often, when the crowd is greatest, and the heat most intense--say in September--the liquefaction is delayed for hours; perhaps does not occur at all, or only a portion liquefies, while another portion remains solid.

II. On the contrary, it has occurred quickly and for the entire mass, even though the crowd was comparatively small. This is especially seen in the extraordinary expositions, even in winter, when not a score of persons were present.

III. It has taken place in the open air, while the reliquary, placed upright in an open framework, and held aloft above the heads of the people, was borne in procession through the streets; and this in the winter months of December and January, as well as on the vigils at the beginning of May.

IV. It has occurred on days when snow covered the streets, or the cold was so excessive as to cause the usual procession through the streets to be dispensed with. As the churches in Naples are not heated, the temperature within the cathedral must have been very low, probably not above 45° Fahrenheit.

V. This very question has been submitted to scientific investigation. The professors of the Royal University of Naples, headed by Dr. _Nicholas Fergola_, the most eminent physicist of the faculty, instituted a number of interesting observations, which Dr. Fergola published. We copy from his work a table giving the actual temperature in a number of instances, as shown by a standard thermometer which they stationed on the altar in close proximity to the reliquary at the time of the liquefaction:

TABLE. 395

OBSERVATIONS FOR TEMPERATURE AND TIME AND CHARACTER OF THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS, MADE BY THE PROFESSORS OF THE ROYAL UNIVERSITY, NAPLES.

A, date; B, temperature, _Fahr._; C, number of minutes which elapsed from the commencement of the exposition of the relics on the altar, until the liquefaction of the blood; D, character of the liquefaction.

+---------------+---+---+---------------------------------------+ |A. |B. |C. |D. | +---------------+---+---+---------------------------------------+ |1794. Sept. 19.|80°|27´|From hard to perfectly liquid. | | 20.|80 |21 | ” ” ” liquid. | | 21.|80 |19 | ” ” ” ” | | 22.|78 |24 | ” ” ” ” | | 23.|77 |25 | ” ” ” ” | | 24.|78 |5 | ” ” ” ” | | 25.|80 |10 | ” ” ” ” | | 26.|77 |5 | ” ” ” ” | |1795. May. 2.|76 |12 | ” ” ” semi-liquid. | | 3.|76 |2 | ” ” ” perfectly liquid. | | 4.|77 |41 | ” ” ” liquid.* | | 5.|80 |22 | ” ” ” ” * | | 6.|75 |12 | ” ” ” ” * | | 7.|76 |29 | ” ” ” ” * | | 8.|77 |29 | ” ” ” ” * | | 9.|80 |33 | ” ” ” ” * | | 10.|67 |15 | ” ” ” ” * | |1795. Sept. 19.|74 |25 | ” ” ” ” with floating lump.| | 20.|78 |26 | ” ” ” perfectly liquid. | | 21.|81 |27 | ” ” ” ” ” | | 22.|78 |25 | ” ” ” ” ” | | 23.|80 |24 | ” ” ” ” ” | | 24.|81 |32 | ” ” ” ” ” | | 25.|78 |18 | ” ” ” ” ” | | 26.|74 |3 | ” ” ” ” ” | +---------------+---+---+---------------------------------------+

On the six days in May, marked *, the reliquary was placed on its stand on the altar about mid-day, for the afternoon intermissions. A silk veil was thrown over it; and it was left undisturbed until after 3 P.M. At that hour, the blood was found hard each day; and subsequently it liquefied again, during the afternoon service.

The foregoing very important table speaks for itself. Once the temperature stood at 67°, and the liquefaction took place in 15 minutes, although the day before, with the thermometer standing at 80°, it had been delayed more than twice that time. Twice the thermometer marked 74°; the liquefaction was delayed in one instance only 3 minutes; in the other, full 25 minutes. Once the temperature was 75°. In that case 12 minutes of delay were counted. Thrice it was 76°; and the times were 2 minutes, 12 minutes, and 29 minutes. Four times it was 77°; the liquefaction occurred after a lapse of 5, 25, 29, and 41 minutes, respectively. Five times the thermometer stood at 78°; and the times of delay in the several cases were 5, 18, 24, 25, and 26 minutes. Seven times it stood at 80°; and the delays were respectively 10, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27, and 33 minutes. The highest point observed at the time of the liquefaction was 81°. It was reached twice. Here again the times differed. On one occasion the liquefaction was delayed 27 minutes; on the other, 32 minutes.

In view of these varied results from so many careful tests, the commission of professors could only report, as they did, and as Dr. 396 Fergola maintains in his essay, that the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius evidently does not depend on the degree of heat to which it is subjected during the expositions.

VI. The same conclusion may also be reached by a single consideration. When a solid substance is liquefied or melted by heat, it will continue liquid if the heat is kept at the same temperature or rises. It will resume its solid condition only when the temperature falls below that degree which is the melting point of the substance.

Now, in those summer days which we have spoken of--such as the six days of May, 1795, marked in the table of Fergola--days on which the Neapolitans seek the repose of a _siesta_--the hottest hours are from 12 M. to 3 P.M. During these hours, the temperature is naturally higher than it was at 9.30 or 10 A.M., or is afterward at 4 P.M., or later. Yet the blood, which liquefied at 9.30 or 10 A.M., almost invariably becomes solid again during these hottest hours, if the reliquary be placed on the altar and a silk veil thrown over it, and it liquefies again during the afternoon exposition, although the heat of the day is then sensibly diminishing.

The more accurately and carefully the facts of the liquefaction are studied, the more clearly do we see that it does not depend on temperature, general or local. It is not produced by the action of heat.

This exclusion of the agency of heat has “considerably exercised” some of the opponents of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Confident that all miracles are, now at least, inadmissible, and that this and every other alleged miracle is susceptible of a natural explanation, if we only knew it, they eagerly catch at any, even the most far-fetched and improbable theories, and put them forward with equal inconsiderateness and confidence.

We have heard it said: Oh! Naples is an exceptional, volcanic district. There may exist there some occult or obscure volcanic agency, which suffices to produce the liquefaction; who can tell what strange results may come from a combination of all the volcanic agencies ever at work in that vicinity?

Is Naples the only volcanic district in the world? Does any other volcanic district present anything like this liquefaction, or calculated to throw light on it? Even in Naples, is there another similar example? And has not this liquefaction continued regularly, even when Vesuvius was quiescent for a long term of years. Previous to December, 1631, the volcano had slumbered in perfect tranquillity for nearly two centuries. A French traveller tells of the flocks of cattle he saw browsing within the very crater itself, then a vast green valley sunk in the plateau forming the top of the mountain. Yet all this while the liquefactions continued as they had done before, and as they have done ever since, in other seasons of quiet, and in seasons of active volcanic eruption.

And then, we ask, what other sign or indication is there giving evidence of this natural influence or law? And what sort of a natural law is that which acts only on one single vial of blood, and has not acted on the thousands of others in the same conditions.

Again, it has been urged, in much the same strain, that our knowledge of the laws of nature is still very imperfect. Many laws are as yet undiscovered. Every year is marked by some advance in our knowledge of them. It by no means follows that this liquefaction is miraculous, 397 merely because as yet we are unable to assign the precise law or laws of nature which govern it. Perhaps, some time, men will discover them. Then all will be plain. Until then, they tell us, philosophy requires us to note carefully and accurately the facts of the case, and to wait for some explanation or solution of them in the future.

It is always well to take note of the facts, and to make our theories subordinate to those facts. What we find fault with our opponents for, in this question, is that they do precisely the reverse: they fix a theory in their minds, and if the facts of the case do not agree with their theory, why, so much the worse for the facts.

One word on the laws of nature. Although there may be many of which we have now no knowledge, and which we may hereafter discover, still we do know some. These may be supplemented--they cannot be contradicted or reversed by any laws hereafter to be discovered. The legitimate conclusions based on the certain knowledge which we have, are not to be impugned or held doubtful until we discover other laws. We do know, for example, that when a man’s head is severed from his body, he dies. All the known and unknown laws of nature cannot make him live again.

It will not do to base an argument in one paragraph on the invariable uniformity of law and order in nature, and, in the next, to maintain that we are as yet all at sea about these laws.

Among the well-known and uncontested laws of nature by which we may be guided in our argument, are several which have a close connection with the subject before us. We refer to them.

I. We know that solid bodies become liquid by increase of temperature; for each body, there is a certain melting-point. Above that, the solid body becomes liquid; below that, it remains solid, or returns to solidity.

II. The same liquid, at the same temperature, has the same volume, or occupies the same space. It is on this law that our thermometers are constructed.

These two laws are known and established beyond doubt, if anything is known or established beyond doubt in physical science. Let us consider them in reference to the substance which is seen to liquefy in the vial or ampulla in the reliquary.

I. This substance has no fixed melting-point. Looking at Fergola’s table, we see that it liquefied one day at 67° in 15 minutes, while the day before, at 80°, it liquefied only in 33 minutes. One day at 76° it liquefied perfectly in 2 minutes, and the next day at 77° it occupied 41 minutes. It has liquefied in the month of January, during a procession in the public street, while it was borne aloft on a stand, and freely exposed to the general temperature--then probably between 50° and 60°, if not lower. At other times, in midsummer, with a temperature over 80°, it has remained solid and unliquefied for hours and for days. Nay, after having become liquid, it frequently solidifies again, just at the hours between 12 M. to 3 P.M., when the heat of the day reaches its maximum. It is clear that this liquefaction completely sets aside the first-mentioned law of the melting-point.

II. The law of volume is set aside with equal peremptoriness. As you look at the liquid in the vial, you see that it changes in volume, either increasing or decreasing. Sometimes the liquid occupies only about three-fourths of the space within the vial. Before your eyes, it 398 will increase, sometimes with froth, sometimes even bubbling more or less violently, sometimes retaining a perfectly tranquil and level surface; sometimes rising very slowly, sometimes rapidly; and it may continue to rise until it fills the vial. Or again, if the vial be full, or nearly full, the liquid within it will sink, either suddenly or gradually, hour by hour, with or without froth or bubbling, until it occupies perhaps three-fourths of the space. These changes take place in summer and in winter indifferently. They are entirely independent of the temperature. They evidently set aside the second law we have recited regarding volume.

III. A third law of nature is, that her steps are forward and not backward. A movement once made is never revoked. Chemical changes are progressive, and, so long as the ingredients and agents remain the same, they never go back to repeat a combination which has once been made and then changed for another.

Yet continual repetitions of the same forms, combinations, or conditions of the substance within the ampulla are a special characteristic of the liquefactions.

We will produce, hereafter, in a fitting place, evidence that for centuries the ampulla has not been opened, and consequently that its contents have not been changed. Nevertheless, the alternate hardenings and liquefactions, the variations of color, the frothing, and the ebullitions, and the increases and decreases of volume, have continued to succeed each other, and to be repeated hundreds, some of them thousands, of times.

Nay, leaving aside for the moment these longer periods, and confining our examination to the ten or twelve hours of a single day, during which the ampulla is all the while under the public gaze, and any interference of chemical art with the contents is absolutely impossible, we still find these repetitions of the same form or combination. The blood was solid when first taken out, it liquefied, stood liquid for an hour or two, solidified again, and again liquefied. Perhaps it solidified a third time, and a third time liquefied. It commenced to froth, and it ceased, then commenced again, and again ceased. It changed color, and again returned to the prestine tint. It changed in bulk, either increasing or decreasing, and again returned to its former level.

This reiteration of some or of all of these changes, in a single day, while the ingredients in the ampulla are evidently neither added to nor diminished, is contrary to the course of nature. The opposition is seen, the same in character, but manifested in vaster proportions, when evidence compels us to admit that the substance in the ampulla has not been changed or meddled with for years, and even for centuries; while yet these reiterations ever continue. The argument is the same in both instances.

There is no uncertainty as to the facts of the liquefaction or the well-known laws of nature which we have referred to. Nor is there any doubt that the facts are violations of those laws. Other laws of nature, yet to be discovered, may fill gaps in our knowledge, and may complement the laws already known. None will be discovered to contradict or upset them. It is as vain to wait for the discovery of some unknown law which may account for the facts of the liquefaction, as it would be to look for some other unknown law of nature in virtue of which Lazarus lived again, and came forth from the tomb--a law 399 which, curiously enough, happened to act just at the moment when our Saviour stood before the tomb, and cried out: “_Lazarus, come forth._”

Can anything be more absurd than this theory which, with words of seeming scientific caution and of wide philosophic views, would attribute the liquefaction to the action of some as yet undiscovered laws. In truth, what sort of a regular natural law would that be which manifests its unshakable uniformity by somehow or other coming into play, and producing the liquefaction, just at those precise days, hours, and places which men have from time to time selected, because convenient to them or suited to their thoughts of religion--a law which caused the blood to liquefy regularly on the 14th of January, each year, so long as that day was celebrated as a festival; and skipped back to December 16 when a new festival on that day was substituted instead--which is ready to put off the liquefaction from the 16th of December to the Sunday following, whether the delay be of one, two, three, four, five, or six days, according to the day of the week on which the 16th may fall, and continues its complaisant action for the quarter of a century during which several archbishops of Naples preferred a celebration on the Sunday after to a celebration on the 16th of December itself; and which was quite ready to go back again to liquefying the blood on the 16th of December as soon as another archbishop decided to return to the old usage--which is equally accommodating in May, and always commences its series of liquefactions for nine consecutive days precisely on the Saturday before the first Sunday in May, regardless of whether it fell on April 30 or any day after up to and including May 6--and which, stranger yet, has been known often to adapt itself to the journeyings of strangers coming to Naples, and to bring into play its power of liquefaction on the very days and hours when these strangers could come to the _tesoro_ chapel, and the ecclesiastical and the civil authorities had come to an understanding, and the relics were brought out and placed on the altar?

It is useless to multiply words. The theory of general law must be ruled out, as utterly inconsistent with the facts of the case.

Whenever the liquefaction occurs, it must be each time in consequence of something done or occurring on that occasion; either because of something done by man intentionally and advisedly for the express purpose of producing the liquefaction, or perchance unintentionally--that is, without a knowledge of the effect to follow--or else because of the exercise on the part of God of his supernatural power, in answer to the faith and earnest prayers of a believing people. In this case, it is a miracle, as the Neapolitans and those who agree with them steadfastly hold it to be.

We have already stated facts amply sufficient to exclude one arm of this alternative. The liquefaction cannot be the natural result of any action of man, whether intentional or accidental. Any liquefaction produced by the art of man would of course be within the sphere of natural action, and would necessarily be subject to the natural laws of liquefaction. If produced by heat, the law of the melting-point would be observed. If it in any way depended on the mutual action of chemical ingredients, the laws of such action would never be seen to be reversed and set aside repeatedly, even in a single day. In whatever way the liquid was obtained, it would observe the law of 400 constant volume at the same temperature, and would not so frequently either decrease or increase its bulk. In one word, man has no power to set aside the laws of nature as we plainly see them set aside in this liquefaction. We are forced to conclude that it is not his work. The liquefaction which is seen at Naples is not, and cannot possibly be, the natural result of any art or skill, or of any blundering of the Neapolitan clergy.

This will be made still clearer if circumstances allow us to examine somewhat in detail, as we hope to do in a closing article, the various solutions which have been proposed, and the attempted imitations of this liquefaction. Their signal failure in every instance serves as practical confirmations of the conclusion to which we have been already led. If with the aids of science and skill at their command, men have failed to reproduce the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, is it not clear that the priests and monks of Naples are not competent of themselves to produce the original?

The liquefaction must be, as the Neapolitans hold it to be, a _miracle_--a fact contrary to the laws of nature, wrought by the power of God for a purpose worthy of himself.

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THE PRINCETON REVIEW ON DR. FABER.[94]

Twenty years ago, Dr. Newman delivered a series of lectures on “The Present Position of Catholics in England.” The scope of these lectures was the exposition of the English Protestant view of the Catholic Church. Dr. Newman showed, with an ability, skill, and cogency of argument, a mastery of language, a wealth of illustration, and a keenness of satire which even he has rarely equalled in his voluminous writings, what is the nature, origin, basis, and life of this view. Its sustaining power, he proves, is _tradition_, its basis _fable_, its life _prejudice_, its protection ignorance. We take the liberty of recommending this volume to the writer whom we are now intending to criticise, to the conductors of the distinguished review for which he writes, and to the clergy and reading laity in general of his eminently respectable denomination. The indignation to which the British Lion was roused, and the fierce assault which he made upon the illustrious athlete who entered his cage and took him by the beard of prejudice, so thick, of such ancient growth, and so venerable in his own eyes, is an evidence of the power of Dr. Newman’s arm and the efficacy of his weapon. The exposure which he made of one of the apostate traducers of the Catholic religion, after whom the English public for a while ran open-mouthed, gave occasion to a prosecution for libel, as the result of which Dr. Newman was condemned to a fine and imprisonment. It was a striking illustration and confirmation of what Dr. Newman had so boldly declared. The consequence has been 401 that the person whom Dr. Newman was judged by the English jury to have libelled stands just where he did before the sentence was pronounced, and that Dr. Newman himself is fawned upon by the British Lion with almost the affection which another lion felt for Androcles when he drew a thorn from his paw.

The old Protestant tradition or view about Catholics lingers still about its ancient haunts in England, and probably survives in the minds of a majority of the English people. Its force is, however, diminished, and its prestige is waning, thanks, in great part, to Dr. Newman, but in a considerable measure also to his gifted and holy friend and disciple, Dr. Faber. In the United States, the Protestant view and tradition about Catholics was colonized along with the other British institutions which the first settlers transplanted from the mother country. It has given way in part within the last quarter of a century, and with more facility than in England. Yet it still retains an extensive and strong hold upon our soil, and needs many vigorous efforts in order that it may be wholly uprooted. The article we are reviewing is an instance and an evidence of the condition in which this old Protestant view is lying at present in a large class of minds, of whom the author may be taken as a representative. On the one hand, his whole tone and line of thought and reasoning is a perfect illustration of the thesis of Dr. Newman’s lectures. On the other, his manner of speaking about Dr. Faber and his writings shows the beginning of a caving-in of the great dyke of prejudice even among the stricter and more old-fashioned Protestants. As to the way in which a Catholic should endeavor to open a breach for the tide through this heap of sand, Dr. Newman has shown it to such perfection in his aforesaid lectures that we can only follow out and apply his method, and push forward in some new directions the work which he has substantially completed. We will, therefore, begin by a somewhat long quotation from one of these lectures, as the basis of the remarks we have to make ourselves, in which we shall endeavor to make the line of argument adopted by Dr. Newman bear more directly and in detail upon certain specific topics brought to view in the article under notice:

“PREJUDICE THE LIFE OF THE PROTESTANT VIEW.

“In attributing the extreme aversion and contempt in which we Catholics are held by this great Protestant country to the influence of falsehood and misrepresentation, energetic in its operation and unbounded in its extent, I believe in my heart I have referred it to a cause which will be acknowledged to be both real and necessary by the majority of thoughtful minds, Catholic or not, who set themselves to examine the state of the case. Take an educated man, who has seen the world, and interested himself in the religious bodies, disputes, and events of the day--let him be ever so ill-disposed towards the Catholic Church, yet I think, if he will but throw his mind upon the subject, and then candidly speak out, he will confess that the arguments which lead him to his present state of feeling about her, whatever they are, would not be sufficient for the multitude of men. The multitude, if it is to be arrested and moved, requires altogether a different polemic from that which is at the command of the man of letters, of thought, of feeling, and of honor. His proofs against Catholicism, though he considers them sufficient himself, and considers that they ought to be sufficient for the multitude, have a sobriety, a delicacy, an exactness, a nice adjustment of parts, a width and breadth, a philosophical cumulativeness, an indirectness and circuitousness, which will be lost on the generality of men. The problem is, how to make an impression on those who have never learned to exercise their minds, to compare 402 thought with thought, to analyze an argument or to balance probabilities. The Catholic Church appeals to the imagination, as a great fact, wherever she comes; she strikes it: Protestants must find some idea equally captivating as she is, something fascinating, something capable of possessing, engrossing, and overwhelming, if they are to battle with her hopefully: their cause is lost unless they can do this. It was, then, a thought of genius, and, as I think, superhuman genius, to pitch upon the expedient which has been used against the church from Christ’s age to our own; to call her, as in the first century Beelzebub, so in the sixteenth Antichrist; it was a bold, politic, and successful move. It startled men who heard; and whereas Antichrist, by the very notion of his character, will counterfeit Christ, he will therefore be, so far, necessarily like him; and, if Antichrist is like Christ, then Christ, I suppose, must be like Antichrist; thus, there was, even at first starting, a felicitous plausibility about the very charge which went far towards securing belief, while it commanded attention.

“This, however, though much, was not enough; the charge that Christ is Antichrist must not only be made, but must be sustained; and sustained it could not possibly be, in the vastness and enormity of its idea, as I have described it, by means of truth. Falsehood, then, has ever been the indispensable condition of the impeachment which Protestants have made; and the impeachment they make is the indispensable weapon wherewith to encounter the antagonist whom they combat. Thus you see that calumny and obloquy of every kind is, from the nature of the case, the portion of the church while she has enemies--that is, in other words, while she is militant--her position, that is, if she is to be argued with at all; and argued with she must be, because man, from the very force of his moral constitution, cannot content himself in his warfare, of whatever kind, with the mere use of brute force. The lion rends his prey, and gives no reason for doing so; but man cannot persecute without assigning to himself a reason for his act; he must settle it with his conscience; he must have sufficient reasons, and, if good reasons are not forthcoming, there is no help for it; he must put up with bad. How to conflict with the moral influence of the church being taken as the problem to be solved, nothing is left but to misstate and defame; there is no alternative. Tame facts, elaborate inductions, subtle presumptions, will not avail with the many; something which will cut a dash, something gaudy and staring, something inflammatory, is the rhetoric in request. He must make up his mind, then, to resign the populace to the action of the Catholic Church, or he must slander her to her greater confusion. This, I maintain, is the case; this, I consider, _must_ be the case; bad logic, false facts; and I really do think that candid men, of whatever persuasion, though they will not express themselves exactly in the words I have used, will agree with me in substance; will allow that, putting aside the question whether Protestantism can be supported by any other method than controversy--for instance, by simple establishment, or by depriving Catholics of education, or by any other violent expedient--still, if popular controversy _is_ to be used, then fable, not truth; calumny, not justice, will be its staple. Strip it of its fallacies and its fiction, and where are you?”[95]

Where would the Rev. Mr. Scribner be if his article were stripped of its fallacies and its fiction? What would become of the _Princeton Review_ if it should publish a fair and favorable account of the life and writings of Dr. Faber, without the potent antidote administered along with that sweet draught of stolen waters which might otherwise prove too alluring to some of the young and candid members of the Presbyterian flock? The writer of the article, who has evidently been educated in the old-fashioned Protestant tradition about the Catholic Church, has fallen in love with Dr. Faber and his works, and with the greatest frankness and candor has opened his mind to the public. We can see plainly reflected in his pages the astonishment which came over him as he began and went on from volume to volume of the writings of the eloquent Oratorian, and from page to 403 page of his charming biography. We can see, with equal distinctness, how he fell back on the old Protestant view, the old prejudice, with a sort of violent effort, in order to protect himself against the new light which had beamed on his mind and the new sentiments which had stolen unbidden into his heart. Moreover, since he could not deny himself the pleasure of communicating the new treasure he had found to his fellow-Presbyterians, he could not help feeling that they also needed a safeguard, and could find none that would answer except the old one behind whose shelter he had hidden himself. Suppose that a number of earnest and inquisitive Presbyterians should be induced, by reading the sketch of Dr. Faber’s life and writings furnished by one of their own pastors, to purchase or borrow the books which he so much delights in? Suppose they should come to the conclusion that the beautiful character of F. Faber is a fair specimen of the fruit which the Catholic religion produces? That his doctrine is really and truly the Catholic doctrine which flows from the lips of all our preachers and from the pens of all our spiritual writers? Suppose these same persons should meet with some priest possessing somewhat of the same spirit with F. Faber, should listen to his conversation and hear his sermons, or should perhaps attend a mission or retreat? We ask the question, not as a Catholic, but as any one might ask it, and simply looking at it as a question of the gain or loss of vantage-ground by the respective parties. Does not any one see, that whereas we have need of nothing more than a fair chance to compare the evidence, the excellence, the attractiveness of the two religions, in order to hold our old ground and gain new, the Presbyterian has lost the greatest advantage he has hitherto possessed, as soon as the frightful cloud of odium which the old Protestant view has thrown around us has been dissipated? Therefore, that odium must be kept up; that antecedent impossibility that there can be any truth in the claims of the Catholic Church because it is so very wicked, must be placed as a bar to the ingress of every argument. So has the Rev. Mr. Scribner reasoned and acted. We will not impute to him a deliberate and conscious purpose to falsify or calumniate, and are willing to admit that he is probably in a great measure the victim of the gigantic fraud which he indorses and recommends. His language about the Catholic Church and her hierarchy is of that kind which might justly cause the cheek of any one not steeled to the endurance of the grossest insults to mantle with indignation. But, when we reflect on the fact that many honest, candid, and well-disposed minds are duped to such an extent by this fraudulent Protestant tradition that they are almost incapable of seeing anything except through its medium, we are more inclined to pity than anger. It is a great misfortune, even when it is not a wilful fault, to be under the control of this horrid delusion, this gloomy nightmare, which besets the very cradle, haunts the nursery, and sits brooding and glowering on the breast of so great a multitude of our fellow-Christians. We will, therefore, try to do something to relieve them of this incubus, and to lead them to think and feel more rationally and justly about Catholics and their religion. We will take the expression of the common Protestant view by the author before us in its objective sense, without reference to his 404 personal and subjective motives in repeating such ignominious charges, and simply examine them in themselves and with reference to the grounds on which they rest.

The first passage we quote is the last sentence of the article. It is expressed conditionally as to the form, because the direct statement of the author was quite different, and apparently contrary to it. Yet it does not appear that the author entertains any doubt, or at least intends to suggest any doubt, of its truth:

“We may admit that the Papacy is the Mystical Babylon, the Scarlet Woman, the Antichrist drunk with the blood of the saints, ‘the great Whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication,’ and yet believe that God has a people in the Church of Rome who live and die within her pale.”

Here we have what Dr. Newman calls the “expedient of superhuman genius,” the startling, fascinating, terrifying idea, the Protestant view, which forestalls all argument by prepossessing the imagination with a nightmare of preternatural horror. The writer has had this image before him from a child. He alludes to it as something well known to his readers. It is like the “Old Smoker” in the chimney, or the goblin in the garret, or the mad bull around the corner, waiting to execute vengeance on naughty little girls and boys who ask questions. We find it very difficult to argue seriously against this chimera. It is like arguing against the odd fancy of the eccentric Jesuit Hardouin, that the North American Indians are the descendants of devils. It is revolting or ludicrous as it is looked at in different lights. It appears to our mind to be vulgar, silly, superstitious, and fanatical. Not, of course, because it is the use of language and imagery taken from the Scripture, but because it is a wholly arbitrary, fanciful, and unwarrantable use and application of such language and imagery. It is like the grotesque use of Scriptural names and images by the fanatics of the Cromwellian revolution. It is assumed as something certain and well known that the Papacy is foretold and described in these prophetic visions and predictions, as certain and well known as the interpretation of Joseph’s dream, the dreams of the chief butler and chief baker of Pharaoh, the vision of Nabuchodonosor, or the Messianic predictions of Daniel. Nothing short of this would justify the manner in which Protestant writers apply these terms to the Roman Church, and shut out all calm and sober consideration of her claims and doctrines by an appeal to the prophecies respecting Antichrist and Babylon. You cannot argue from a mere hypothesis, as if it were a fact or a certain truth. In this case, the entire probability of the hypothesis depends on first proving that the Roman Church really possesses and exhibits the qualities which must belong to the objects of the prediction. A sober and rational inquiry into the real meaning of these sublime, terrible, and obscure prophecies exacts, first of all, a study of the interpretation of the fathers. It requires, moreover, an examination and due appreciation of the expositions of Catholic commentators. It must be dispassionate and scientific in its character. Now, the vulgar Protestant application of these prophecies to the Roman Church has none of these characteristics. It finds no countenance from any writers before the time of the so-called Reformation. It was invented and used as a convenient and telling weapon of assault. It is rejected by some of the eminent scholars of the Protestant persuasion. On what 405 does it rest? On nothing but the conjectural interpretation of a certain number of individuals. We should find no difficulty in proving its absurdity and falsity if we chose to undertake the task. But that is not our object. All we contend for at present is, that it is an irrational and abusive employment of terms to call the Roman Church by the names of symbolic persons or objects in the prophecies, as if it were certain that this application is just and true, and that these names need only to be repeated in order to designate the Catholic religion as a detestable monster, to be shunned and fled from, but not to be approached and fearlessly examined.

As the Rev. Mr. Scribner has been haunted from infancy by these Apocalyptic monsters, and has always associated them in his imagination with the Roman Church, it is quite natural that distinctive Catholic doctrines should appear to him clothed with the same alarming and hideous outward semblance of monstrosity. So, then, he says that,

“Even if the sincerity of some who profess to have been converted to the belief of the _monstrous doctrines_ of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, the supremacy of the Pope, purgatory, the worship of the saints, and the adoration of the Virgin, must be admitted, still there are some who have secret doubts as to the possibility of such persons being true Christians” (p. 516).

Why are these doctrines called _monstrous_? Doubtless, all error is more or less monstrous, as a greater or less distortion of the truth. Therefore, one who considers these doctrines erroneous might mean no more in calling them monstrous than if he said they are great errors. But it seems to us that our author used the word to express an antecedent, obvious monstrosity of some sort, which makes these doctrines incredible in themselves, without any reference to the fact of their being either proved or disproved to be parts of revealed doctrine. Now, looking at the matter as if we were mere inquirers or philosophers, what is there more incredible in the doctrine of transubstantiation than in that of the Incarnation, in the sacrifice of the Mass than in that of the Cross, in the supremacy of the Pope than in the supremacy of the twelve apostles, in purgatory than in hell, in the worship of the saints and the Virgin than in the divine adoration of the humanity of Christ? Whoever will take the trouble to read our philosophers and theologians, will find that they demonstrate the futility of all the antecedent objections which can be made to the credibility of any Catholic doctrines. As to the arguments in proof of these doctrines from Scripture, tradition, and reason, whoever maintains that they are so obviously proved to be false by the contrary arguments, that it is only a monstrous ignorance, folly, credulity, or wickedness which can induce any one to hold them as Christian doctrines, had better favor the public with a clear and succinct treatise containing the reasons for his opinion. It might, perhaps, answer the purpose of a Protestant _End of Controversy_, which has been a great desideratum for a long time.

When he incidentally hits on the subject of relics and miracles, our estimable author is still more overcome. Dr. Faber, in his eyes, is always a charming, grown-up infant, who is only made more lovely and attractive by believing everything. But not so with those who cannot claim his sympathy for their sweet simplicity, and must be considered as grown-up men:

“With the exception of a few such men as Faber, it is not to be 406 believed for a moment that the educated prelates and priesthood of the Romish Church have themselves a particle of faith in what they teach the people concerning their Popish legends. We do not know what to think of the man who does not feel intense indignation at the bare thought of Pope, cardinals, and priests all encouraging the people to reverence the disgusting pretended relics with which their churches are filled. Let it be remembered that the highest Romish authorities in all countries continue to this day to give their sanction to _what they know to be imposition_ on the credulity of the people; and can it be doubted that even the most bigoted person, if he knew the real facts, would question the truth of a system which rests so extensively on known and deliberate deception?” (p. 528).

There is something which seems so honest and unpremeditated about this outburst of indignation that we are disposed to give the author the benefit of that excuse of childlike simplicity which he so kindly makes good in behalf of Dr. Faber. He has no thought of proving his assertions, does not seem to think they require any proof, or that they can be questioned by any one who is not ignorant and bigoted. _Let it be remembered_, he says, as of something learned in childhood, like the rules of grammar or the date of the discovery of America. Evidently, here is the old Protestant view, the old tradition, which has all the force of an infallible authority. Now, it is not the fault of Presbyterians and other Protestants that they have had this prejudice instilled into their minds in youth. While their ignorance is invincible, it is also inculpable. But if they adhere to it without reason, through supine indifference to truth or affection for their old prejudices, when their attention has been called to the reasons and motives for doubt and examination, they become morally blameworthy. A simple denial of the truth of the accusations made in the foregoing paragraph, on our part, is enough to destroy all their prestige in the mind of any candid and intelligent Presbyterian who is not ignorant or bigoted. Our word carries as much moral weight as that of the conductors of the _Princeton Review_. And we deny emphatically, invoking God as a witness to our sincerity and truth, every item of the foregoing accusation. It is an atrocious calumny, and those who have uttered it are bound to prove it or retract it, even if they have been themselves deceived, and have had no intention to calumniate. This is all the reply we have to make to the attack on the personal honor and integrity of the Catholic priesthood. But in regard to the topic itself of relics and miracles, we will say a word out of charity to our bewildered and indignant friend, and to all like him who are willing to hear the other side.

_Disgusting pretended relics._ What is the sense of that word _disgusting_? Does it mean that real relics are disgusting, or that pretended relics are disgusting because of the imposition? If it mean the former, we do not understand the feeling any more than we understand the feeling of one who is disgusted with the furniture which has been in the family for a long time. You cannot argue the question in that way. The only way of arguing the matter at all is to discuss the matter itself. If the relics of the saints are entitled to reverence, and have a secret, miraculous power, the feeling of disgust is simply an abnormal and senseless feeling, which ought to be suppressed by an act of the will. If it is a question about the genuineness of the relics, no one who is not grossly ignorant of history can be unaware of the fact that, from the second century down, relics of martyrs and saints have been highly honored and religiously 407 preserved. There has never been any difficulty in procuring genuine relics in abundance of the contemporary saints. As regards the relics of the cross, and other relics connected with the persons of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, the apostles, and the most ancient and illustrious saints, we must refer the curious reader to books for information. We can only strike, so to speak, a few random blows at the prejudice which encrusts the Protestant mind, and endeavor to crack it. We merely wish to convince our friends of the absurdity of their hasty and wholesale condemnation of our motives, spirit, doctrines, and practices, that they may think it worth while really to examine the matter with seriousness. So, without going into any general examination of relics universally, we will just take up an instance of a particular case of relics in the house where we are writing, as an example of our ordinary and practical conduct in respect to relics. In an oratory which is used for private devotion, there is placed above the altar a large and ornamental sarcophagus, the front and sides of which are of plate glass. Within is a wax figure of a Roman youth reclining on a crimson couch, dressed in crimson silk, crowned with a chaplet of flowers, and with the eyes closed as if he had just died. Within the breast is a reliquary, with relics of a body taken from the Roman catacombs. In the corner is a phial, marked with a red ribbon, and which once contained blood. These are the relics of Justinus, a young martyr of Rome, which are duly and officially authenticated as having been taken from the Catacombs. Now, whoever knows anything of Roman archæology knows that the most learned and careful antiquarians give us certain marks by which the remains of martyrs may be identified. The Rev. Mr. Scribner will not hazard his reputation as a scholar, we presume, by classing the folios of De Rossi and other savants of Rome among the impostures of priestcraft. We have, then, the relics of a true martyr, arranged and placed in such a way as to make an object of contemplation to the eye of taste and of Christian faith, which is pleasing, instructive, and fitted to excite pious emotions. What is there disgusting in this?

But then there are the legends about miracles wrought by the relics of the saints, and other miracles. Very true, my dear friend, and, no doubt, very puzzling and startling to one who has been accustomed to believe that the marvellous and miraculous passed away with the age of the Bible. But, reflect for a moment on the full extent of the admission you will have to make to the infidel rationalist, to the enemy of Christianity, who makes our whole religion mythical, if you reject all this portion of the belief of Catholics as founded on the fabulous. Read Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of England_, the twenty-third book of St. Augustine’s _City of God_, St. Ambrose’s description of the discovery of the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and Isaac Taylor’s _Ancient Christianity_. You will find that we modern Catholics are in the same boat with the fathers, the prelates, the Christian people of the fifth century. We float or sink together. It seems to us, however, that before one resolves to follow the shallow and sophistical Isaac Taylor and his servile copyist, the translator of the _City of God_, in condemning our Christian forefathers as the authors or the dupes of a gigantic system of imposture, and before one pronounces a similar sentence on the whole 408 body of their modern descendants, it would be well to examine somewhat carefully the evidence in the case. For instance, to confine ourselves to modern times, there are: the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius; the ecstatic virgins of the Tyrol, and the recent similar case in Belgium; the miraculous conversion of the Jew Ratisbon; the case of Mrs. Mattingly of Washington; the miracles of Lourdes; the miraculous cure of a young lady at St. Louis, attested by three physicians; the miracles wrought by the relics of F. Olivaint, the martyr of Paris; the miraculous conversion of sixteen Mohammedans at Damascus, one of whom has suffered martyrdom; and many other events, believed by a vast number of intelligent persons, upon grounds of evidence, to be supernatural and miraculous. We do not ask our Protestant friends to believe these things on our word or without evidence. We simply say that it is the part of good sense and necessary for you, if you expect to sustain your own cause against us, that you should examine these things, and, if you deny altogether this whole class of professed facts, should give good reasons for it. Will you rule the whole case out of court by a sweeping principle that these things are in themselves impossible and incredible, and therefore false? We defy you to do it without subverting the whole basis on which rests the belief in the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. Moreover, we defy any one to evade or rebut the evidence of some of the miracles we have mentioned, especially the cure of Bourriette at Lourdes and of Mrs. Mattingly at Washington. We mention these, because we have given the evidence of the former in our own pages, and of the latter in the edition of the works of Bishop England, prepared for the press by the author of this article more than twenty years ago. The authority of the Roman Church, nevertheless, and the truth of the Catholic faith, do not in any manner rest on any one or all together of the visions, revelations, or miracles in question as their basis, and as the ground of a divine faith. Their highest value, even when fully proved, is to confirm and enliven our faith in truths of which we are previously certain.

The Rev. Mr. Scribner says with great truth that “one great lesson taught by this biography [of Dr. Faber] is the lesson of charity” (p. 531). He is also so obviously correct in his remark that “charity does not require us to admit that to be true which is false,” that we wonder he took the trouble to make it. Moreover, we cannot and do not wish to dispute his right “to pronounce a flaming Roman Catholic professor a child of the devil who shows himself to be one.” But we wish to add to his statement one more, which is that justice requires, as well as charity, that one should not make atrocious charges or apply opprobrious epithets without adequate proofs and motives. Let the reverend gentleman consider, then, coolly and deliberately, and let every Protestant reader of this article consider and judge of the following sentence:

“It would not be enlightened charity which would make us think that, perhaps, after all, _the licentious Roman Catholic priests of Spain and Italy, and the brutal priests of Ireland_, are Christian men” (p. 531).

Charity! We do not ask your charity. We spurn with indignation any such despicable counterfeit of charity as that which is here repudiated. The Catholic Church does not need any mantle to throw 409 over any priests who are either “licentious” or “brutal.” Let the jurisdiction over clerical delinquents, which rightfully belongs to her, be admitted and sustained by the civil governments, and she will treat them with the right kind of charity, by restraining them from all power to sin, and giving them an opportunity of doing penance. Civil governments, when they have been engaged in a conflict with the church, and Protestant leaders, have always been ready enough to encourage, to employ, and to reward these outcasts of the priesthood, or impostors who have falsely pretended to be priests. By their suborned testimony, the British government hanged Oliver Plunkett at Tyburn. For the sake of another of the same sort, an English jury fined and imprisoned the most honorable and illustrious writer in England. Examples nearer home are not wanting, and are not, we suppose, quite yet forgotten. All those worthless members of the priesthood who have been disgraced, or who deserve to be, we leave to bear by themselves the judgment both of men and of God. But on what evidence are the priests of Spain and of Italy called in general and unqualified terms “licentious,” and the priests of Ireland “brutal”? We would like to know what opportunity American Presbyterians have of knowing accurately the condition of the Spanish clergy. Blanco White, as Dr. Newman shows, furnishes no testimony which can be used to prove any such assumption as that of our very confident friend Mr. Scribner. In regard to Italy, is there any testimony given by trustworthy, competent witnesses, who have lived there long enough to know what the character of the clergy is, or anything which the violent enemies of the church in Italy have been able to establish against the clergy, which warrants the opprobrious epithets applied to them in the elegant passage we have cited above? That the busybodies who are trying to make mischief in Italy, and whose proceedings are viewed with intense disgust by some honorable Protestant clergymen, keep some very disreputable company among the Italian clergy, we have no doubt. We suppose there are more than one hundred thousand priests in Italy, and, as we have seen two such specimens as Gavazzi and Achilli, we cannot wonder if there are some scores of similar individuals who are able to keep their places under the protection of so detestable a government as that of Victor Emanuel. These are the men who consort with Protestant emissaries, and who malign the virtue of their brethren, which they hate and envy because of their own wickedness. But, as Dr. Newman remarks, those who leave the Catholic Church, and yet retain some moral probity and gentlemanly honor, do not furnish Protestants with the evidence they want in order to sustain their defamation of the Catholic priesthood. Men like Wharton, Blanco White, Lord Dunboyne, Gioberti,[96] Capes, Hyacinthe, and Döllinger, do not answer the purpose for which they are wanted, because they will not utter the gross calumnies or invent the startling, sensational lies which certain infamous scribblers like Maria Monk, or mountebank lecturers like Leahy and the last new Baron, manufacture for the greedy ears of a credulous public.

The insult offered to the clergy of Ireland is equally offensive and 410 touches us still more closely. It is not so bad an epithet which is applied to them, but, while it is vague enough to make it difficult to seize and expose the precise calumny which the writer intends to fasten, it is forcible enough to make it as insulting and opprobrious as any epithet which a gentleman could well use, or a refined and scholarly periodical suffer to appear on its pages. It is like the gross caricatures of _Harper’s Magazine_. We blush at the thought of noticing such an aspersion on the Irish clergy. The priests of Ireland _brutal_? The Irish people are not a brutal people, and it is impossible that a brutal clergy should spring from them. The clergy are loved by their people, they cannot therefore be brutally cruel; they are respected by them, and therefore they cannot be brutally vicious. They are educated men; they meet noblemen and gentlemen on equal terms. Irish society is cultivated, refined, and polished, and the Catholic priests of Ireland are respected by the respectable Protestants of Ireland. Such an accusation as this could not be made in Dublin, or on the floor of the British House of Commons, without calling derision on the head of the unlucky person who ventured to use a sort of language about Catholics, which polite society is beginning to regard as unfit for its ears.

It is no wonder that a gentleman so prejudiced against the Catholics and their religion as Mr. Scribner has shown himself to be, should be astonished or puzzled at the conversions which have taken place in the past twenty-five years:

“How one educated in the Protestant faith can become a sincere Papist it is difficult for us to understand, and to many minds the thing seems impossible” (p. 516).

He tries to diminish, and as far as possible to shirk the difficulty by laying the blame on Anglicanism and Puseyism:

“It must be remembered that for an Anglican or Puseyite to become a Catholic is a very different thing from the conversion to Romanism of any other intelligent Protestant.”

The perusal of Dr. Newman’s _Lectures_ will show that the Protestant view and the Protestant prejudice have had as deep and strong a hold in the English Establishment as in the Kirk, and, therefore, the difficulty remains where it was. But, although we may allow that a High-churchman is logically nearer to a Catholic than is a Presbyterian, there are plenty of cases of the conversion of those who were brought up in the other Protestant churches. Hurter, Phillipps, Stolberg, and De Haller were Lutherans. Mr. Lucas was a Quaker, and F. Baker was brought up a Methodist; Dr. Brownson was a Unitarian, and Judge Burnett was a Campbellite. There are numbers of converts in the United States from the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, and other denominations. It does not alter the case that some of the best known of the converts who were brought up in various sects became Episcopalians first, and afterwards Catholics. For, as our author asserts, they became by that step “almost Catholics.” And how did they first become convinced of those “almost Catholic” doctrines, and altogether Catholic principles which they only logically followed out when they became Catholics? Then, again, we have the two Drachs, the two Ratisbons, Hermann and Veith, who were Israelites. Infidels, too, have been converted, as well as Protestants and Jews; men of every country, rank, and profession, noblemen, 411 clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, physicians, merchants, military and naval officers, have embraced the Catholic faith. Since the time of the so-called Reformation, these converts have amounted to hundreds of thousands, and it is our opinion that there must be at least fifty thousand at the present moment in the Catholic Church of the United States. This fact must, therefore, be looked in the face, and it must be admitted that there is something in the Catholic religion which is capable of convincing the understanding and winning the homage of the most intelligent, upright, and conscientious persons, even though they have been educated in Protestantism.

Mr. Scribner admits, with a commendable candor and frankness, the sincerity and excellence of Father Faber:

“One at least who followed Dr. Newman into that communion deserves, as far as his love for the Lord Jesus and his self-sacrificing zeal are concerned, to be held as a model--Frederick William Faber. In his numerous devotional books, in all his correspondence, and in his hymns, almost all of which are of the highest order for beauty, tenderness, and spirituality, there breathe sweet humility, childlike trust in Jesus as the Saviour of the lost, and the most loving submission to the divine will.... And yet this man, whose self-sacrificing piety and loveliness of Christian character all must acknowledge, was, during almost the whole period in which he so earnestly sought the good of others by his incessant toil, as sincere and thorough a Romanist as if he had drunk in the system with his mother’s milk.... But as long as one retains with these errors (‘the monstrous doctrines of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, the supremacy of the Pope, purgatory, the worship of the saints, and the adoration of the Virgin’), however inconsistently, the essential truths of the Gospel, his holding them is not incompatible with piety. Whoever is a true worshipper of Christ is born of God, and that the subject of this biography worshipped and loved the Saviour it is _impossible to doubt_.... One great lesson taught by this biography is the lesson of charity, and that we should be cautious in assuming that a man is not a Christian because he is a Romanist. Undoubtedly, when we obey the injunction of the Scripture to pray for ‘all saints,’ we pray for many who are in the Church of Rome. Even a Romish priest who prays to the Virgin, and who teaches the people to pray to her, as Faber certainly did, may be, like him, an humble worshipper and lover of Jesus. And though he may practise austerities, he may do so in a different spirit from that which actuates the masses in his own church, for, instead of being full of self-righteousness, he may have no confidence in his own righteousness.... We may admit, etc., and yet believe that God has a people in the Church of Rome who live and die within her pale” (pp. 515, 516, 517, 531, 532).

Let the reader peruse these passages carefully. They read very differently from the other set of extracts, and yet they occur together, mixed up with each other, and we have separated them in order to exhibit more clearly the singular clashing in the author’s mind between old, timeworn prejudices, and a new, intruding set of thoughts and sentiments derived from the perusal of F. Faber’s life and writings. We have shown how he attempts to reunite the two. But they cannot live peaceably together in the same breast, any more than could Sara and Agar in the same tent. They are incompatible. It is impossible to make out of Father Faber an exceptional case. If the charge of idolatry is sustained against us, and if, in other respects, the Roman Church deserves the epithets applied to her by our enemies, Father Faber went with his eyes open, and remained with his eyes opening wider and wider, and died in a religion which cannot be embraced without bringing death to the soul. He was no adherent of 412 any softening, modifying, minimizing school. He was not like any of those whom Protestants are wont to regard with favor as belonging more to themselves than to us, as a sort of secret, unconscious Protestants, who are only externally united to the Roman Church, while their spirit is alien from her spirit. There was nothing of Pascal, Martin Boos, or Hyacinthe about him. He was not even one of those who stopped short at the line of strictly defined and obligatory doctrine, as if afraid of being extreme Catholics. He was no Gallican, no rigorist, no advocate of anything that might be called Neo-Catholic or Anglo-Catholic. Even in regard to minor and accessory matters, to modes and ways in which there is great room for variation in opinion and practice, he preferred those which characterize the genius of the Italian and Spanish nations, and which seem to the colder and more reserved temperament of the English to be the most remote and foreign to their tastes and intellectual habits. He endeavored to divest himself of everything which bore the semblance of conformity even in accidentals to Anglicanism, and to throw his whole soul into what he considered to be the most perfectly Catholic mould. He outran in this many both of the old English Catholics and of his fellow-converts. Especially in regard to the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made himself the champion of the most exalted views concerning the power and glory of the Mother of God, and the importance of her cultus in the practical teaching and piety which is directed to the end of the conversion and perfection of souls. He followed St. Bernardine of Sienna, St. Alphonsus, and the V. Louis Grignon de Montfort, and his entire spiritual doctrine is derived from similar sources, as it were flowing from the very topmost heights of mystic contemplation, above the clouds, and far remote from the paths and ken of ordinary mortals. In his theology, which is remarkable both for accuracy and depth, he always follows those authors whose doctrine accords with the strictest criterion of Roman orthodoxy. It is not, then, anything in Father Faber which is peculiar and self-originated, or which he brought over from his Protestant education, and has mixed with Catholic doctrine as a clarifying ingredient, that makes his books popular with Protestants, and has excited the admiration of the writer in the _Princeton Review_. F. Faber’s doctrine and sanctity are purely Catholic products. The homage which he has extorted is homage paid to the school in which he learned, and the masters and models he followed. The sheep shows the quality of his pasture in the fineness and whiteness of his wool. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.” If our reverend friend were more familiar with the lives of the Saints and the works of Catholic spiritual writers, he would cease to wonder at F. Faber and his works. We can point him to whole libraries of works in which the characters and actions of a multitude of similar men and women are depicted, and where countless forms of the same divine truths and holy sentiments are presented. Those who “practised austerities” to the greatest possible extent, the solitaries of the desert, the holy monks and nuns, the saints of the most heroic type, are precisely those who were marked at the same time by their entire conformity to the doctrine and spirit of the Roman Church, their profound humility, and their ardent love of the great Lord and Saviour of mankind. Contrasting F. Faber, and others like 413 him, with the great body of fervent Catholics, as if they had a “different spirit,” the great body being “full of self-righteousness,” and these select few having “no confidence in their own righteousness,” is sheer nonsense, and an unmeaning rattle of words. We cannot all pretend to possess the genius, the loveliness of character, the extraordinary graces, or the exalted sanctity of F. Faber. But all those who hold the genuine Catholic doctrine which our holy mother the church teaches, and possess in any degree the genuine Catholic piety which she inculcates, are, so far, like F. Faber. The same spirit is in all, whether they be the frail and sinful confessing their sins with contrition, the sincere though imperfect who are striving to keep God’s commandments with more or less diligence, or the more advanced in Christian virtue and holiness of life. Those who have a false and counterfeit piety, who indulge in the spiritual sins of pride, self-confidence, and vainglory, who are willing victims to the illusions of the devil, and seek to play the part of saints in order to gratify their self-love and win applause, are like other sinners, except that they have more of the hypocrite about them. They generally become heretics, or fall into open sin, and cease acting their wearisome part, unless they are truly humbled and converted. These are the persons who have a “different spirit” from that which actuates the true children of the church. That F. Faber touched the common chords which vibrate through the great Catholic heart is shown by the fact that he is the most popular spiritual writer of this century. Three hundred thousand copies of his works, in some six or seven languages, had been sold some time ago, and they still continue to circulate everywhere. It is not a little remarkable that the same chord is obedient to his touch in the hearts of so many Protestants. What genius, learning, reasoning, philosophy, cannot do, the faith and love which spring from prayer and penance accomplish with ease. It is a remarkable fact, and we call the attention of Catholic preachers and writers to it, as well as that of Protestants. One who disdained the thought of diluting Catholic doctrine to suit the delicate palate of the age, who was regardless of the opinion of men, who plumed his pinions for a kind of audacious flight into the lofty ether in which saints alone are wont to soar and poise in contemplation, who threw off all drapery from the glorious form of Catholic truth, and loudly called on all men to gaze and worship, is the one who wins the confidence and captivates the hearts of the greatest number of the church’s lost and estranged children. We trust that his works will win their way, and exercise their gentle, attractive force still more extensively among evangelical Protestants. The recommendation of a Presbyterian pastor, which goes forth under the sanction of Princeton, will, we trust, produce its full effect, and excite the pious curiosity of a great number of readers to become acquainted with the biography and writings of the gifted, lovely, holy poet, priest, and teacher, who has been called the Bernardine of Sienna of the nineteenth century.

We have endeavored to bring out into strong relief what is really of the greatest moment in the article of the _Princeton Review_, and what the weak though violent counter-protests only make more prominent and definite, that the concessions to the personal and doctrinal purity of Father Faber are a yielding of the most grievous of the charges against 414 Catholics and their religion. It argues, we hope, a change in the spirit and manner of maintaining the controversy with us which is coming on. The teaching of Father Faber is admitted to contain the “essential truths of the Gospel,” and his most distinctively Catholic and Roman doctrines are admitted to be “not incompatible with piety.” The conclusion is rigidly logical and irresistible, that Calvinists must consider the controversy between us as one not respecting _directly_, but only _indirectly_, the essential, fundamental dogmas and precepts of the Gospel and Christianity. Let them, then, realize this view to themselves, think in accordance with it, and regulate their conduct and language in harmony with it. Let them no longer ignore and practically abjure the Christian church from the fourth century to the present moment, and confine their sympathies to an imaginary primitive period and the sphere of modern Protestantism. Let them study ancient, mediæval, and modern Catholic authors, read history and theology, and learn to discuss the real issue with us. The Chinese method of warfare, charging upon us with shields aloft, bearing the hideous figure of the beast with seven heads and ten horns, with outcries and shouts of derision and vituperation, will not answer any longer. Those who choose to follow such tactics will soon be forced to throw their shoes into the air and take to flight. It is too late to frighten even Presbyterian children with such nonsense. The weakness and helplessness of the poor Irish Catholics, and of the handful of Catholics in England, made them for a long time the easy victims of oppression and calumny. But the day for treating the Catholics of the English-speaking world with haughtiness and contumely has passed by. We desire, however, no revenge or retaliation. We ask nothing of Protestants except that they will seek the truth. In the words of Montalembert: “The truth, and nothing but the truth--justice, and nothing but justice--let that be our sole revenge!”[97]

[94] _The Princeton Review_, October, 1871. Art. II.: _The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber._ By Rev. William Scribner.

[95] _Lecture IV._, p. 206. Dublin. Third Edition.

[96] We do not intend to affirm positively that Gioberti formally renounced the communion and faith of the Catholic Church, a matter about which there hangs a great obscurity. But his violent enmity to the Jesuits and his revolutionary principles in general would have certainly led him to attack the clergy and the existing order in the most vulnerable part.

[97] _Monks of the West_, Introduction, last paragraph.

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LIMITATION.

Through limit and hindrance man works: no limit hath God, and no need; But his wind is musical only when prisoned in the cane of the reed. AUBREY DE VERE.

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MODERN OPERA.[98] 415

Nothing better pictures an epoch than the art and literature which it produces. The great characters, religious and political, immortalized by history, have always been surrounded by a cluster of noble geniuses, artistic and literary. The generosity and magnanimity of heroes is reproduced in the sublime purity of the works of art of their epoch. Nobility of art bears testimony to the excellence of morals. Our century is no exception to this. Confusion of principles in politics and religion is accompanied by an analogous overturning of morals, of art, and of literature. We are living in a time of general depravity; at least, it is so as regards those who pretend to march at the head of modern civilization. But their depraved literature, their shameless arts, exercise their disastrous influence over those who would wish to resist the current of the bad passions of the day. It is to them that M. Stein gives warning of the danger, in depicting the bad conditions into which dramatic music has degenerated. It is a study of contemporaneous manners, not so much from an artistic as from a religious and political point of view.

GENTLEMEN: A few days ago, it was shown you here how considerable is the influence of the fine arts upon the moral life of mankind; it was demonstrated how they can guide the human sentiment towards different ends, good or bad.

You will permit me now to call your attention to a branch of the fine arts which, more now than ever, and more than all others, exercises its influence on the moral life of the people, and which merits thus the highest degree of interest from this assembly. It is dramatic poetry allied to musical art, that is, the Opera.

You all know the great extent of this branch, which has captivated the favor of the public to a degree perfectly exceptional, and which has banished to the second place all other branches of dramatic art.

The reasons of this extraordinary success are not so well known. The excessive predilection of public theatregoers for the opera is of quite recent date. Only forty years ago, the masterpieces of dramatic poetry enjoyed the same favor as those of dramatic music. By the side of Mozart and Carl Maria von Weber, Shakespeare and Schiller were found on a footing of equality; to-day they must retire before Meyerbeer and Offenbach, and be contented to remain eclipsed by these favorites of the public. If you question on the subject enthusiastic lovers of the opera, they will answer that, in our day, opera has made progress so considerable, and attained to such perfection, that the understanding of music is so general among the people, that this predilection of an enlightened public for dramatic music is the most natural thing in the world. You know there never can be question of any other than an enlightened public; for it cannot be doubted that every man who frequents the theatre is a man of progress. The gallery 416 represents the preparatory school; the boxes, the pupils in philosophy.

However, it is difficult to believe that artistic taste and love of music are the sole motives which cause the public to fill the halls of the opera-house. Forty years ago, the works of Mozart, of Weber, and other masters were well appreciated by connoisseurs, but they did not meet with as much success from the public as modern operas enjoy to-day. Or is it rather that Donizetti and Verdi, Meyerbeer and Offenbach, understand the art better than Mozart and Weber, Spohr and Spontini? We cannot admit it. The reason must be elsewhere, and surely, gentlemen, you wish to know it.

In a pamphlet published ten years ago, Richard Wagner says: “The essential foundation of art, as practised generally in our day, is industry: its moral end is gain, its æsthetic intention to kill _ennui_.”

This richly endowed artist has in view his colleagues in dramatic music, the composers of opera. He knew these men well, and understood himself how they set to work. But in the words quoted he has perfectly explained the end and tendency of modern opera.

The end is no other than gain; and, as means conducive to this end, effect is necessary, which must be attained at any price. Industrialism, that tyrant of our age, has also submitted the opera to its power, and under its domination the art exhausts itself forcibly, because tied to the fly-wheel of the artistic fabric. To produce effect, to surprise and bring out something which has not yet been seen--these are the objects of actual dramatic music. To this end is sacrificed not only art, but also all that exists--religion, politics, morality, and truth. This unfortunate course has been inaugurated by the Italians. In their dramatic works, Donizetti and Verdi have sought but for effect, theatrical success, and to this end have completely sacrificed dramatic truth. For love of effect, they have trodden upon law, morals, and even reason. The domination of sense over mind is the characteristic feature of their music.

But it is among the French that this style has attained its greatest perfection, and even among the German composers, who, for love of effect, have Frenchified themselves. The most skilful author of scores of operas, Scribe, has offered his pen to these greedy musicians for money, and shows his readiness to sacrifice all to it. Scribe understood the Parisian public for which he worked. He knew its weakness, and he has succeeded in imposing the vitiated taste of that public on the whole civilized world.

In the texts furnished by Scribe, all is intended for scenic effect--all means are employed to reach this end. The requirements of dramatic truth and of morality, even of good sense, are sacrificed to the one end, effect. Frivolous and immodest allusions, which offer gross food to the impure fancy, and necessarily soil the imagination of innocence; doubtful scenes, as, for example, in _Fra Diavolo_, where a young girl unrobes and goes to bed before the audience; scenes of the bath, as in the _Huguenots_; scenes of seduction, as in _Robert le Diable_; political allusions, exaltation of and homage to the revolutionary passions, as in the _Muette de Portici_; base flattery to the irreligious opinions and prejudices of the day; even, in fine, scenes peculiarly religious, that are put into the piece to produce striking contrasts, and bring out voluptuous scenes better--these are the artistic means of which these poets and composers 417 have made use to produce effect, and to make money with this effect. Thanks to these industrials of the opera, it happens that in France a new opera has no longer chance of success, if it be not abundantly provided with these means for exciting bad passions.

Now, how is it in Germany? The German good-nature imitates everything of which the French set the example. It allows itself to be deceived, even to the point of finding _naïveté_ where there is nothing but immodesty. It thinks even that it recognizes a religious character in works which do but abuse and vilify religion. The German good-nature imagines that these creators of French art have carried dramatic music to its highest perfection, whilst in reality they are merely skilful workmen, and often something much worse.

If it be denied that our so-called artistic and intelligent public is intoxicated with drinking from the poisoned cup of the French opera, it must be conceded that in Germany there are still many men who know and love art, and who therefore, at the start, do not sacrifice to this musical Baal, but render testimony to the truth with regard to the modern opera. They do not trouble themselves about the shouts and railleries of the crowd, who are unreflecting, and seek in art only sensual enjoyment and pastime.

Permit me here to recall the memory of a generous man, a grand master of the musical art, whom the city of Düsseldorf formerly counted among its citizens--to wit, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. From the letters he has left, we know that, during his artistic career, he desired earnestly to try his creative power on the opera, but could not succeed because, notwithstanding his multiplied efforts, he could not find a text to please him. During his sojourn in Paris, his father wrote him to employ Scribe to furnish him a text, to make the composition at Paris, and to have the joint work performed there. This letter of the father betrays a man well versed in business. In his answer, Mendelssohn first speaks of the difficulties which are raised against strangers who wish to represent their works in Paris; then says: “It must be added that, among the French, the principal condition is one to which we must always be opposed, even when the epoch requires us to be ready to make concessions to the taste of the day. This essential condition is immorality. I have no music for that. It is ignoble. If the present age exacts such requirements of the opera, I renounce it for ever. I prefer to compose religious music.”

Honor to the honest man! Honor to the artist who in acting thus honored himself--who refused to gain money and to make himself famous by selling for so base a use the divine gift which God had given him!

As Mendelssohn indicates here, it is particularly Meyerbeer who has devoted himself to this bad style. In his youth, this talented artist had composed several operas which had not been favorably received. He had tried without success in the German school as well as in the Italian. He gave himself up to the mercantile style, and his career was brilliant. Meanwhile, Meyerbeer employed Scribe to write his texts, and these two minds understood each other wonderfully. The one furnished piquant scenes, without regard to the exigencies of reason and morals, and threw in a profusion of seductions for all the passions. He set to work all the wonders of decoration. The other illuminated the whole with seductive music, which sought but for 418 effect, and had no regard to dramatic truth. In this manner, Meyerbeer has become not only the most famous, but also--and this is the principal thing--the richest musician of the entire world. He knows his business, as no one before has known it.

Meyerbeer is distinguished particularly for his predilection for religious scenes. With consummate skill, he uses them to produce striking contrasts. None of his last operas fail in this spicy seasoning. As a Jew, he is impartial among the different Christian sects. He maligns and mocks them all. In _Robert le Diable_, it is Catholicism which is put under contribution to furnish material for his religious scenes; in the _Huguenots_, he abuses Protestantism in the same manner and to the same end.

Marcel, a personage insignificant and dull, a fanatical Huguenot, interrupts everywhere the action of the piece with a Protestant canticle, always inopportunely and without reason, but producing always a grand effect by contrast. It is the air of the canticle of Luther: “Our God is a tower of strength.” The success of the _Huguenots_, this opera being so much a favorite, rests almost entirely on the contrasts produced by this canticle.

In the first act, a merry company of cavaliers is found at table drinking and singing a riotous song. Marcel, the incomprehensible solitary, proceeds to thunder out, with a loud voice accompanied with brazen instruments: “Hear me, strong God! My voice is raised to thee.” This canticle, in the midst of jovial drinkers, intermingled with the song they are singing--how can it fail of effect? In the second act, there is a very violent scene. At the instigation of Queen Margaret, the Count St. Bris has proposed his daughter to the Chevalier Raoul, who refuses her. Valentina, the daughter, despised and scorned, complains; Queen Margaret preaches peace; all shout and fence, and Marcel adds his chorus in a thundering voice, “God, our guard and protection, listen to our cries!” Is not this a shameful prostitution of sacred things? But it produces effect; and our opera-going public, which boasts of its delicate taste, is enchanted with it, and imagines that the violent impression produced by these contrasts is a religious and edifying sentiment.

In _L’Africaine_, the last production of Meyerbeer, he introduces us immediately, in the first act, to a sitting of the secret council of the King of Portugal. It is understood that the grand inquisitor and a certain number of cardinals play the principal _rôle_. Finally, Vasco de Gama is condemned, loaded with chains, and thrown into the deepest dungeon. Why? Because he has affirmed the existence of distant and unknown lands of which the Scripture does not speak. You know well that ecclesiastical dignitaries have always had the habit of refuting with chains and a prison novel ideas and scientific discoveries. At least, by this scene the public is convinced of it, with the aid of stunning music. This same opera, so much approved, contains also a very piquant amorous intrigue. There are several choruses of prayer, then a large vessel on the stage, and finally a manchineel tree, which spreads death. We must agree that it is the possible and the impossible.

However, it is not the Jew Meyerbeer who has pushed to the extreme his musical industry. The Jew Offenbach has gone much further. The former speculated principally on the curiosity of the unreflecting masses; but while his art is under subjection to frivolity, he still seeks 419 to preserve a certain decorum. But Offenbach has got rid of the last remains of modesty and propriety. Yet the Christian public besiege the workshop, and applaud with frenzy the musical indecencies of this industrious Jew.

_Orphées aux Enfers_, _La Belle Hélène_, _La Vie Parisienne_, such, for several years, have been the favorite works with a public in advance of its age. These operas have been played every day for weeks and months on every stage; and often there are disputes over the tickets for these representations. Of course, it is all owing to the beautiful music.

With these impure works, dramatic music has attained the extreme of degradation. After having been lowered by Meyerbeer and the modern composers of France and Italy to the rank of an _equestrienne_, who rides round the circus in elegant costume, the muse of music has been thrown to the demi-monde by Offenbach. She could not fall lower.

Gentlemen, permit me to repeat the question which was laid before you in the beginning. What is the reason that modern opera has gained the favor of the public to so eminent a degree that not only the classical works of this kind, but also the masterpieces of declaimed drama, are banished from the theatre? Now, we can answer this question. The reason of this surprising phenomenon is that, by the modern opera, art has entered into the service of sensuality, art has lost all generous and elevated motives. It has tasked itself to amuse a public depraved by pleasures of every kind--to satisfy curiosity, to flatter the bad passions, the errors and prejudices of the age, and to make a bad use of the questions of the day.

Those who still doubt what I say have but to notice the intimate union of the ballet with the opera which the prevailing taste dictates as an inexorable law. In most cases, the ballet has no logical or artistic connection with the opera. It is a foreign element which imposes itself upon musical and dramatic action, and which is given with the avowed intention of exciting voluptuousness. Reason is forced to despise the ballet; moral sentiment condemns it; musical art is obliged to lament over it as a sad aberration; nevertheless, modern opera has concluded an alliance for life with this frivolous creation of the present time. You know the proverb, “Tell me what company you keep: I will tell you what you are.”

Our friends of the opera do not like to be told these things. Judgments like these are for them the expressions of a mind opposed to modern civilization, and lost in obsolete ideas. If one of these partisans of modern opera hears what I have just said, he will certainly say that the darkness of my ultramontane soul is blacker than the color of my robe. He will maintain that it is only æsthetic education, artistic sense, enthusiasm for music, which draws him and his equals to similar works; and, nevertheless, the old operas which are veritable works of art, but which do not contain any piquant subject and little food for sensuality, leave them cold and indifferent in the depth of their hearts. The symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart cause these lovers of art to yawn, and the name alone of an oratorio makes their flesh creep.

What position have we Christians to take, in order to oppose these alarming phenomena of the present day? A critic of the seventeenth century, named Wehrenfels, has laid down this principle for dramatic art in general: “Finally, all our dramatic representations should be 420 such that Plato could tolerate them in his republic, that Cato could listen to them with pleasure, that vestals could witness them without wounding their chastity, and, what is more important, that Christians could listen to them.”

You will say this is too antiquated a principle. Among the greater part of our amateurs at the theatre it will only provoke expressions of doubt; they will say that this poor Wehrenfels is far behind modern civilization. Notwithstanding, no one undertakes to refute this principle, to demonstrate that these requirements are groundless. But as long as they are not refuted, we must consider them justified, and we ask if they should not be applied to the opera. Is not the drama when sung to be submitted to the same true moral and æsthetic laws as the drama recited?

To the phenomena of life as produced before our eyes, we apply the scale of conscience and of reason. Why should it not be our right and our duty to apply them also to the opera, and to regulate our conduct from the result of such an examination? No one will deny that this question is well founded. Nevertheless, it would meet with much resistance. Our enthusiasts of the opera have tacitly agreed that, where it is a question of opera, good sense and conscience should be silent. But ourselves, gentlemen, ought never to abandon these principles. We should no longer be Christians, if we did not apply to the opera the principles we practise in our lives.

Let us, then, apply these principles to the music of our day. What must we do if it be condemned for frivolity, for immodesty and abuse of religious things? If we find that the scenes are arranged solely with a view to effect, and in disregard of good sense and logic? If reason and conscience, by common accord, condemn this degradation of art, and the deception with which this degradation is presented as veritable art? What must we do, in presence of these great accusations against modern opera?

Would you condemn to silence your reason and your conscience because you are promised amusement? Would you wish, as a return for your money, to have sung on the stage words you despise, words you would repulse if they were spoken? Would you put a temptation before your children, in leading them to the opera--these same children whom you tried to bring up in honesty, in religion, in piety, and the observance of all Christian duties? Do you believe that at the opera, where religion is made a plaything, where it is exposed to contempt, attacked and calumniated, they will learn to esteem and to obey it? Will they learn good morals, decency, and propriety from the dancers of the ballet? It is sufficient to place before you these questions; you will answer them yourselves. But why this severe criticism? What will result from it?

Will my words succeed in turning dramatic music from its bad course, and making it enter on a better? Will the thousands and thousands of individuals who find their greatest pleasure in modern opera take notice of them at all? I do not count upon that. But I hope with confidence, gentlemen, that my words will engage you to examine more closely the subject of which I have been treating. You will not form your judgment from charlatans of criticism and enthusiastic partisans of sensuality; but you will judge for yourselves, by vigorously applying your Christian principles. If you are thus affected, my words will have borne fruit.

[98] _Lecture of M. Stein, Curate of Cologne._ Delivered before the Catholic Congress at Düsseldorf.

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THE STUDY OF SACRED HISTORY.[99] 421

It has been said that a distinguished English lady, remarkable for her intelligence in the treatment of many questions affecting the condition of the proletarian classes, and by whose persevering efforts the erection and management of reformatories for juvenile offenders, and industrial schools for that vagrant portion of the community known in our civilized era as “street Arabs,” and who herself personally superintended most admirably a reformatory for young girls in Bristol, was accustomed to say to her visitors, in reply to their astonishment at her wonderful perseverance and success: “Whenever I see anything that I can call radically wrong, I never feel satisfied till I can render to myself an intelligent reason why it has gone wrong; and then, when I know what the causes are, I set myself to the task of preventing, as far as possible, the occurrence of anything of the same kind in the future.”

This practical view of the duties of life, which proved of such benefit to the beneficiaries of that philanthropic lady, seems to have been adopted by the author of the work before us, and to have been applied on a more comprehensive scale. Becoming convinced, after long investigation, that one of the evils which at present afflict society arises out of spiritual ignorance of the history of the church and of the pre-Christian era, instead of supinely contenting himself with bemoaning the calamity, he set to work and produced a book which, under its present modest title, contains a concise history not only of the Catholic Church, but of the ways of God’s providence to man from the creation, as far as they have been revealed to us through the pages of Holy Writ and in the writings of ancient authorities. The reverend author by this admirable work hoped, if he could not contribute to dispel the mists of doubt and dissent now so widespread in both hemispheres, to at least put into the hands of the rising generation a preventive and an argument against those who would either deny the existence of a revealed law, or, admitting, would pervert its commands to their own weak or vicious purposes. His success so far has been proportionate to his ability and purity of motive.

We are all aware that the best part of the Christian people has been plunged into profound grief and stupefaction by the recent murder, or, as the Holy Father more emphatically expressed it, the parricide of the late Archbishop of Paris, and so many of his faithful clergy. Now, who were the perpetrators of that most foul deed? In one sense, certainly, not a wild, tumultuous mob, acting without system or guidance, nor yet private assassins in the employment of the secret societies, or moved thereto by personal malice or revenge. On the contrary, the deed was done in the open day, by the arbitrary orders of what was claimed to have been a regularly established government, and executed by its armed soldiery, two of whom, even when about to obey the mandates of their supposed superiors, knelt at the feet of 422 the holy prelate and begged his forgiveness for the crime they were about to commit. It is not claimed by the apologists of the Communists that their illustrious victims were guilty of any offence against the state, or that even the form of a trial was accorded them; and yet there are to be found many persons, considering themselves honorable and intelligent, who openly or secretly applaud that glaring and cruel act of injustice, and who thoroughly sympathize with the European revolutionists--those enemies of all law, who, if they had the power, would repeat in every city in Christendom the late disgraceful scenes of Paris. It is a melancholy fact that outside the Catholic Church the horrible murder of the venerable Archbishop Darboy and so many of his clergy has been the cause of ill-disguised congratulation, not only among those who are in direct affiliation with the revolutionists, but amid the sects who profess to regard the Decalogue as part of their fundamental doctrine. Have we yet heard from the thousands of pulpits and hundreds of newspapers, occupied and controlled by the various Protestant sects, one open and manly protest against the atrocious criminals who have so recently sullied the fair fame of France by deeds that would have disgraced the most degraded forms of savage life? Not one.

A fact like this, so patent and portentous, while it shows how large a portion of civilized society has fallen away from the plainest teachings of Christian charity and justice, must necessarily lead to the inquiry as to the best means of arresting, and, if possible, correcting so monstrous an evil. Recognizing it as such, it is our duty fearlessly and persistently to endeavor to correct it, for “_Felix qui potuis rerum cognoscere causæ_” will always be a true maxim, even when we are engaged in the study of the worst of human miseries and disasters with a view to their alleviation.

In contemplating the many evils which now afflict Christian society, the creation and formerly the obedient creature of the Catholic Church, we must recollect that God has not given to his church the gift of being the infallible preserver of the faith in every nation and at all times, no more than she can guarantee to all people civil order and wise government. There is no doubt that the church is the tree set up in this world, the leaves of which are the health of mankind, “_et quis tibi imputavit si perierint nationes quas tu fecisti_” (Wisd. xii. 12); but who shall accuse her of countenancing the disorders which have arisen through the rejection of her authority, and to which she has ever been strenuously opposed? Our Lord himself contemplates the rebellion of nations and people against his doctrine. To the angel of the Church of Ephesus the Spirit said, “Be mindful from whence thou hast fallen: and do penance, and resume thy first works. Or if not, behold I come to thee and will move thy candlestick out of its place, except thou dost penance” (Apoc. ii. 5). Even the presence of the priesthood among us in adequate numbers is no assurance against schism and infidelity. Though we may have every confidence in their sanctity and the soundness of their teachings, we cannot always be certain that the duties of their holy calling will be performed with uniform discretion, intelligence, and zeal, or that the hearts of their congregations will respond on all occasions and amid all circumstances to the teachings of their pastors. It is true that at all times and in all places the soldiers of the Cross have proved themselves the faithful guardians of piety and morality, but it must be admitted that occasionally, 423 particularly in Europe, they have not attached sufficient importance to the necessity of the intellectual training of the masses and to the wonderful advances of the human mind in abstract and practical sciences. What the Abbé Fleury wrote of a past generation is partially, at least, true in this. In the preface to his _Historical Catechism_, he says:

“We see a great number of devout persons who have read great numbers of spiritual books, and are familiar with a large variety of devotional practices, but who are totally wanting in an understanding of the very groundwork of religion.”

Fleury’s testimony receives a remarkable corroboration in the circumstance that, in the last century, whoever derided the traditional belief in God and in the Christian revelation acquired credit with the multitude as an “_esprit fort_.” In short, the idea of there being so much as the possibility of an “_esprit fort_” who believed in God and who _ex animo_ professed the faith of the church, appeared to be unknown, and the universal notion in France was that the choice consisted in being feeble and pious or strong-minded and atheistical. Under the influence of this notion, the principal part of the male population of France fell away from the faith, and it has required the persistent efforts of at least two generations of priests, and with but partial success, to lead them back to the church. Religion in Great Britain during the past century is known to have largely taken its complexion from France, and it is remarkable that the bulk of the English Protestants affected to form precisely the same estimate of it, and that it was a power inimical to the cultivation of the understanding and a decided enemy of knowledge and progress. The same phenomenon appears in Italy. The Italian people are still deeply attached to the traditions of the Catholic faith, but the popular idea of the Catholic religion, misled by the slanders and misrepresentations of the revolutionists, is that it is the religion of the timid, the feeble, and the pious, that its wants are limited to functions and processions, beads and prayer-books, or what would be rather scoffingly called “_roba di pietà_,” and that it is in no way conscious of any wants proper to a manly understanding, and consequently never expected to take any pains to satisfy them. In Germany, there are perfectly analogous symptoms. Catholics in some parts of that great empire bear the contemptuous name of _Dunkelmänner_, men of darkness; and they are looked upon, not merely by the positive enemies of all religion, but by the busy throng, as certainly no friends to the legitimate progress and cultivation of the gifts of the understanding.

The consequences of these disastrous tendencies to fall off from the practice of the virtues and observances of the church are apparent to all thinking men, and, if not checked, will have an equally marked effect on the morals and faith of future generations. To some extent, we humbly submit, they are due to a want of thorough education, not only spiritually but humanly, among a large number of Catholics, who, not deficient in piety and the desire to live according to the precepts of Christianity, are too often led away by the sophistries and superior knowledge--real or affected--of the opponents of their faith. Learning is said to be the handmaiden of religion--and is never so brilliant as when employed in her service, while religion, profiting by her assistance, moves on from one triumph to another. It 424 does not appear to be a part of the providence of God that man should simply grow into a knowledge of the doctrines of the church, in the same manner as he advances to bodily maturity, but by intelligent and persevering teaching and diligent practice. In our world, every year brings new-comers on the stage, and the message to the Church of Ephesus was, “_Age pœnitentiam et prima opera fac_.” The Catholic clergy inherit a tradition, long anterior to that of the past century, of being the patrons and the cultivators of the human mind, and they still should remember these true and ancient glories of their sacred calling. The language of the sacred liturgy on the day of Pentecost is beautifully expressive on this subject:

“_Da tuis fidelibus_ _In te confitentibus_ _Sacrum septenarium._”

_Sacrum Septenarium_--the sacred seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, amongst which we find the “spirit of understanding and of knowledge.” All the gifts of the Holy Ghost doubtless require to receive their due share of honor and cultivation. But in a generation which has gone so widely and so terribly wrong by the way of a perverted and deceived intellect, the cause of faith in the world demands that the battle be fought with a special determination on the ground of the intelligence. If Satan relies on the perversion of the mind for leading them away from belief in the truth and divinity of the revelation brought by Moses, and perfected by the coming and ministry of one greater than Moses, St. Michael must contend with Satan for the possession of the body of Moses. The more the spirit of deception that has gone abroad seeks to discredit the Mosaic revelation, which is the forerunner in the world of the revelation of Jesus Christ, the more we must diligently persevere and insist that all who are willing to listen should stir up within themselves the gifts of the spirit of understanding and knowledge, and qualify themselves to resist and confront the spirit of error wherever they meet with it and on all fitting occasions. Every Catholic family ought to be a centre or focus of Christian information. In every household there ought to be books containing the narrative of the works of God through the line of his great saints, beginning from the sacred narrative of Moses downwards to the present time. Sacred history is the true tower of strength to the cause of faith.

This study should not, as it has heretofore generally been, confined to ancient history; for, though we may find in the Old Testament the wonderful working of God in his intercourse with his creatures, and see developed and completed his works and promises to his chosen people, we have, under the new dispensation and in the history of the Catholic Church, as indubitable proofs of the promises and fulfilment of them in the fulness of time by our divine Maker. The history of the Popes, for example, from St. Peter to Pius IX., is replete with providential incidents, astonishing the worldly and baffling the so-called wisdom of the sceptical. The perpetual rejuvenation of the church herself when apparently crushed and disintegrated beneath the load of kingly oppression and the lawlessness of the mob, is in itself not only a perpetual miracle, but the evident fulfilment of the promises of the Founder to be with her all days even to the consummation of the world. The lives of the grand throng of saints, martyrs, confessors, and missionaries--the glory and pride of the church--their sufferings, triumphs, and miracles; their love of art 425 and literature, and all that makes life holy and beautiful, are fraught with lessons before which even the story of Abraham’s sacrifice and Joseph’s forgiveness sink into comparative insignificance. Sacred history should be read as a whole, from the beginning of time to the present day, giving to the more ancient part its proper share of attention, not only for its own sake but as prefiguring the more perfect system of Christianity. But the history of the Church deserves and should receive our chiefest and most marked attention.

The book of the Rev. Henry Formby, which, under its simple title, contains a concise and chronological narrative of sacred history from the creation down to our own times, in this respect is one of the most useful publications that has recently appeared from the English press, and, though but an abridgment of a much more voluminous work on the same subject, it preserves all the essential features of the original with singular simplicity and lucidity of style. The title gives but a faint idea of its merits, for in truth it is not a mere collection of stories in the general acceptation of that term, but short, succinct, and correct historical sketches of events related in the Old Testament, and a condensed and necessarily short history of the church from its foundation. The arrangement of the subject is admirable, and, in view of the vast field of Biblical lore to be traversed, and the numerous historical facts of the first importance to be touched on, at least in the confined limits of one volume, there are displayed a clearness of narration, and a nice appreciation of the salient points in the spiritual progress of the human race, that make the book easy to be read and understood by even the most ordinarily instructed person. In fact, if the author had substituted “pictures” for “stories” in his title-page, he would have been more correct.

A general knowledge of the history of the creation, and of God’s once chosen people, the Jews, as well as an acquaintance with that of the church herself, the perfection of what was imperfectly prefigured under the old dispensation, ought to be an essential ingredient in the education of every Catholic child and of every adult, no matter what may be his condition in life; but heretofore the undertaking has been so laborious on account of the want of elementary books on those all-important subjects, that but little was generally known of the workings of Providence in ancient times, and the typical significance of many of the events related in the Old Testament, except by the learned few. Even the early history of the church has been practically a sealed book to the English-speaking masses, whose ideas of her long years of suffering, persecution, and final triumph have been of the most indefinite and oftentimes erroneous character. We have to thank Father Formby for supplying this defect in our Catholic literature, and in future there can be no excuse for ignorance of at least the origin, labors, and progress of the religion we profess. In about one hundred and sixty pages, the half of his book, devoted to the Christian era, he presents to us very complete and exact, if not very elaborate, views of the leading events in the history of the church for over eighteen centuries. In addition to this, he has appended to many of the sections in the part occupied with the pre-Christian period short moral reflections, and institutes comparisons between the old and new order of things, which are not only edifying, but highly instructive, particularly to young readers. For example, with reference to the days of the creation of the world, he remarks: 426

“Jesus Christ rested in the tomb from the work of redemption on the Sabbath or seventh day, and arose again from the dead on the first day of the week. For this reason, the Christians no longer keep holy the original Sabbath, but the Lord’s day, or first day of the week, in memory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

And again, after relating the dispersion of the builders of the Tower of Babel, he draws this beautiful comparison:

“The nations of the world suffered a great punishment upon their pride in the confusion of their speech, and in their separation one from another. Jesus Christ has in part removed this punishment; for he has again made all the nations of the earth one religious family in his church, under the supreme government of the successor of St. Peter, and as partakers of one and the same sacrifice at the altar.”

In allusion to the well-known story of the sale of Joseph to the Egyptians by his brethren, he says:

“Joseph, hated by his brethren on account of his love of virtue and innocence, and sold by them for a slave into the land of Egypt, is a striking figure of Jesus Christ hated by his own people on account of his love of justice and sanctity, and delivered up by them bound into the hands of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.”

Father Formby’s diction and treatment of his subject are varied and suited to the epoch which he describes. In the early pages of his book, he adopts the figurative orientalisms of the Hebrew writers, but further on he sobers down to the less florid and more matter-of-fact style of modern times. His descriptions of the crusades and the origin and growth of the religious orders are exceedingly graphic and correct, though of course merely outlines of what would fill books enough to make up an ordinary library if written in detail, and his summing up of the so-called reformation is deserving of particular notice.

“There is something worthy of being carefully observed as regards the Protestantism which began in the sixteenth century to cause whole nations and peoples to renounce the faith and discipline of the Catholic Church. But as other great heresies, such as that of Arius, have had a similar ruinous effect in causing a great falling off from faith without the end of the world following in their wake, Protestantism cannot simply for this reason by itself be understood to be the sign to which St. Paul refers. What is remarkable, however, in Protestantism is, that though Dr. Martin Luther and the others who were leaders at the time formed sects, the disciples of which called themselves by the names of their masters--as Lutherans from Luther, Calvinists from Calvin--Protestantism has long ago ceased to be the name of any particular doctrine. Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Socinians, and all the different sects which arose at this time, as regards what is meant by Protestantism, are just as good Protestants the one as the other. They may, and do, dispute with each other about what is to be held to be true as Christian doctrine, but as regards Protestantism they are all quite agreed. How come, then, those who are completely at war with each other about Christian doctrine to agree completely about ‘Protestantism’? The reason is, that Protestantism proper has but one solitary doctrine and one solitary precept, viz., ‘_Depart from the Roman Church_.’ All who satisfy this one precept entitle themselves to the name of ‘Protestant.’ It is true that, up to the present time, those who have protested against the Roman Church have generally had the credit of deserving to be, in some way or other, known as Christians; but this is rapidly ceasing to be the case. ‘Protestantism’ has now come to be the name of the confederacy of almost all without exception whose cry is, ‘Depart from the Roman Church,’ so that there would seem to be no rashness in recognizing it as the departure (_discessio_) which St. Paul points to as the sign indicating the world to be drawing 427 to a close.”

In addition to the merits and attractions of this valuable contribution to contemporaneous Catholic literature, we observe that most of the leading incidents recorded in sacred history are illustrated by wood-cuts very handsomely designed and executed, so that the eye as well as the understanding is made familiar with the historical places, incidents, and characters sought to be portrayed, and the frontispiece is a large and excellently clear engraving of Jerusalem. The growth of Catholic literature in England, where even in the recollection of many of us Catholicity, confined to the humble minority, was banned and ostracized by author and reader alike, is one of the most healthful signs of the times, and it will be a great dereliction of duty on our part here in America if we do not profit by the labors of our co-religionists abroad, hoping some day to reciprocate the favor.

[99] _The Pictorial Bible and Church History Stories, Abridged._ By the Rev. Henry Formby. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1871. 8vo, pp. 320.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

ESSAYS CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. By John Henry Newman, formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Vols. I. and II., 8vo. London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1871. New York: For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.

“These essays, with the exception of the last, were written while their author was Fellow of Oriel, and a member of the Established Church. They are now, after many years, republished, mainly for the following reason: He cannot destroy what he has once put into print: ‘Litera scripta manet.’ He might suppress it for a time; but, sooner or later, his power over it will cease. And then, if it is, either in its matter or its drift, adapted to benefit the cause which it was intended to support when it was given to the world, it will be republished in spite of his later disavowal of it. In order to anticipate the chance of its being thus used after his death, the only way open to him is, while living, to show why it has ceased to approve itself to his own judgment.... This, accordingly, has been his attempt in the present edition of these essays, as far as they demand it of him; and he is sanguine that he has been able to reduce what is uncatholic in them, whether in argument or in statement, to the position of those ‘difficultates’ which figure in dogmatic treatises of theology, and which are elaborately drawn out, and set forth to best advantage, in order that they may be the more carefully and satisfactorily answered.”--_Author’s Preface._

Anything from Dr. Newman’s pen has a strong personal claim upon the interest of Catholics. The volumes before us contain fifteen essays, written at different times between the years 1828 and 1846. The subjects are mainly connected with the intellectual progress at that time developing in the mind of the author. The volumes are necessary to a collection of his works, and also to a perfect acquaintance with classic English literature.

THE FOURFOLD SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. London: Burns, Oates & Co. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, New York.

The rapidity with which volume follows volume from the prolific pen of 428 the Archbishop of Westminster has often astonished our mind. From hints given in the preface to this last publication, we get, in part, an explanation. It appears that his Grace employs a skilful stenographer to take down and then copy for the press his extemporaneous lectures. In this way, one who has a mind stored with the acquisitions of a lifetime, and is gifted so unusually with the _copia fundi_, can accomplish what could otherwise be done only by a man of more leisure than is enjoyed by the active prelate of the London diocese.

These four lectures make a pendant to the last four published, and complete the general view of the subject. They are like all the works of Archbishop Manning, of which our opinion has been so lately expressed. We need, therefore, only to announce the publication of these new lectures, and our readers will understand for themselves the value and interest they possess.

THE TRADITION OF THE SYRIAC CHURCH OF ANTIOCH, concerning the Primacy and the Prerogatives of St. Peter, and of his successors, the Roman Pontiffs. By the Most Rev. Cyril Behnam Benni, Syriac Archbishop of Mossul (Nineveh). London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1871. For sale by The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren Street.

This unique production symbolizes the contrariety and unity of the East and West in a singular manner. It begins at both ends, and finishes in the middle, where the appendices usually put at the end are snugly sandwiched between the Syriac original and the English translation. This translation has been made by the Rev. Joseph Gagliardi, and is, of course, at that end of the volume which, to our Occidental habits of thought, appears to be the natural beginning. The Syriac begins at the opposite end, and thus both languages have their own way, and the book will answer equally well for the reader in Nineveh and the one in London. The tradition of the Church of Antioch, where St. Peter established his first see, is scarcely inferior in interest and importance to that of the Roman Church. The learned prelate has gathered together the best and most authentic testimonies to the supremacy of the Roman See from documents both ancient and modern, liturgies, official acts, and writings of prelates and learned men, both Catholic and schismatical. The references are most carefully given, and the whole work is critical and scholarly. It is published in a very handsome and ornamental style, and cannot fail to interest the curious, the learned, and all who are engaged in theological pursuits. The testimonies to the authority of the Holy See which it contains are very valuable, and as they are given in a clear English translation, methodically arranged, and accompanied by full explanations, they are intelligible to any person of ordinary education. We cannot flatter ourselves that we have very many among our subscribers who will be able to appreciate the beauties of the Syriac original.

THE LIFE OF JESUS THE CHRIST. By Henry Ward Beecher. Illustrated. New York: J. B. Ford & Co. 1871. Vol. I.

The publishers of this work have given it a very handsome exterior, and adorned it with a number of excellent illustrations of scenes and places in Palestine. The attempts at reproducing some of the most celebrated representations of our Lord are, however, not successful. As for the work itself, it is an effort to imitate the fascinating and popular style of Renan in such a way as to satisfy those Protestants who call themselves Evangelical. That the author has the art of pleasing the multitude cannot be questioned. That he is an artist in the highest and truest sense we cannot admit. And, so far as more solid qualities are concerned, he is not to be compared for a moment, in respect to that erudition which brings rabbinical and classical 429 treasures to enrich and illustrate the Evangelical narrative, with Dr. Sepp, whose _Leben Jesu_ still remains both the most valuable and the most interesting of all works of this class thus far produced, in spite of much that is fanciful and visionary.

If the doctrine of this book were sound, we should hail its publication with joy, even although we could not consider it to be a literary masterpiece. Even if it contained only the errors common to Protestants; still, if it were sound on the great central truth of the Incarnation; one might think it likely to be useful in preserving among Protestants the true doctrine of the divinity and humanity of Christ contained in their formularies. As it is, we must condemn it as more mischievous and absurd than the _Vie de Jésus_ of Renan. Of course, no Catholic who has any regard for his own principles will ever think of looking for religious instruction or edification in any book proceeding from Mr. Beecher’s pen. The evil which this shallow and utterly heretical production, coming forth in such a taking guise, will cause will be among Protestants. One class of them--those who swallow its honey with pleasure--will take in a deadly poison of heresy. Another class, who will look at its doctrine coolly and critically, will be strengthened in their tendency to rationalism and unbelief by its crude absurdity.

Mr. Beecher teaches a more gross and monstrous doctrine than that of Arius, Nestorius, or Appolinaris. It is, namely, that God contracted and diminished his divine nature within the mental and physical limits of manhood. God became the human soul of a human body. This is the anthropomorphism of Swedenborg. It destroys all true conceptions both of the human and the divine nature of our Lord. Pantheism is better than this. The reasoning and exegesis on which this revolting doctrine is based are not worthy of a moment’s notice. All is mere superficial, rhetorical, sentimental talk, without a shred of philosophy or theology. We shall look with some curiosity to see what judgment the Episcopalian and Presbyterian divines of the stricter sort will pronounce on this latest product of the pseudo-Evangelical school. What those of them who have some theological knowledge will think, we know very well; but we are desirous of seeing whether they will express their thoughts in clear and emphatic language, and caution the Protestant public against a doctrine which subverts the Nicene Creed and the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, to say nothing of other formularies which are essentially the same with these.

Behold a new proof of the utter insufficiency of the text of Scripture alone by itself even to preserve the orthodox doctrine after it has been fully presented to the mind! How much more, then, to give it at first hand! What the orthodox Protestants still retain of the faith is the faith of creeds, councils, and tradition, and the exercise of private judgment on the text of Scripture is destroying it fast.

CINEAS; OR, ROME UNDER NERO. From the French of J. M. Villefranche. 1 vol. 12mo. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1871.

If we except _Fabiola_, _Callista_, and _Dion_, we feel no hesitation in saying that _Cineas_ is equal to any production of its kind yet offered to the English reader. In this tale, history and tradition are interwoven with fiction, and the result is a graphic sketch of Christianity in the apostolic ages. The portico, the Pantheon, the temple, and the catacomb are brought upon the stage, and made to represent their parts. The scene changes from the Circus Maximus to the Mamertine, from Rome to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Athens; and at each change of scene the infant church appears clothed in new 430 beauty, in new holiness, in new strength. It is much to be desired that Catholics of the present day should become acquainted with the religious life of their brethren of the early church. No other study is so well calculated to enliven our faith, animate our hope, inflame our charity, and incite us to that heroic virtue so necessary to perseverance in the present age. _Cineas_ tends to promote this study, and as such we welcome it, commend it to the perusal of every Catholic, and thank the translator and publisher for the care with which they have performed their respective tasks.

THE LETTERS OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE TO HER DAUGHTER AND FRIENDS. Edited by Mrs. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1871.

THE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. Edited by Mrs. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1871.

These two books, simultaneously issued from the same press and edited by the same author, bear strong marks of similarity and contrast. Each, in its way, has long been looked upon as a model of epistolary correspondence in its appropriate language, and each is defaced by that superficial, not to say anti-Christian, philosophy which prevailed among the “higher classes” in France and England during the last and the preceding century. The French authoress, however, has somewhat the advantage of her English sister, not only in the possession of a language especially adapted, by its grace and flexibility, to this species of composition, but from the fact that she lived surrounded by a strong Catholic public opinion, which, with all her cynicism and fashionable scepticism, she could not wholly disregard. We find, therefore, in many of her letters, particularly those to her daughter, flashes of true, genuine moral sentiment, which are the more striking from contrast with the worldly tone which generally characterized her life and correspondence. Lady Montagu, on the contrary, was brought up in that hard, unsympathetic school which was inaugurated in England after the frenzy of the Reformation had subsided, and with all her wit and womanly elegance we cannot look upon her otherwise than as an intellectual pagan. We may search from cover to cover of Mrs. Hale’s edition of her correspondence in vain to find one religious sentiment that would not have been as appropriate in the days of Horace or Zeno as in the eighteenth century of the Christian era. This is the more singular when we recollect that these gifted women, married to husbands far their inferiors mentally, and, as it appears, merely for the sake of conventionalism, by a not unnatural effort transferred the love women usually bear to the partners of their joys and sorrows to their offspring, and centred all their affections and hopes in their children. With our children we are apt “to assume a virtue if we have it not,” yet still we find these two intellectual mothers writing to their daughters in strains which, if not positively immoral in the broad sense of that term, certainly could not actively conduce to strengthen them against the temptations by which they were constantly surrounded, or to elevate their minds above the glitter and hollowness of the society in which they were obliged to move. Both these distinguished writers were well-bred, thoroughly educated according to the idea of their times, and were the associates of generals, statesmen, poets, and artists, and their frequent and familiar reference to the then leading men of their respective countries are not only interesting, but instructive, as giving us a view of the interior life of many eminent personages hitherto known to us only by their public acts; but when we consider how many unexceptionably good books this age of cheap printing has put 431 within our reach, and the shortness of this busy life itself, we cannot recommend to our readers, particularly the younger portion, the perusal of either volume; nor do we see the necessity of a new edition of works which are merely ornamental, without having the merit of being innocuous.

A COLLECTION OF LEADING CASES ON THE LAW OF ELECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES. With Notes and References to the latest authorities. By Frederick C. Brightly, author of “The Federal Digest,” “The United States Digest,” etc. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 17 and 19 South Sixth Street, Law Booksellers, Publishers, and Importers. 1871.

Mr. Brightly, who has done so much in his previous works to facilitate the law-student and the lawyer in their studies and preparation of cases, by means of his admirable and learned digests and treatises, has now acquired a new claim upon the gratitude of the student and professional man by his _Collection of Leading Cases on Elections_. The author has been most happy in the selection of his subject, for there are few branches of the law so important, in a free and representative government like ours, as the law of public elections.

In the early days of our Republic, when there was more conservatism than at present, only the most important civil officers of the Federal and State governments were elective by the people, and the elective franchise was not so universally participated in by the masses as at the present time. Then the executive, elected by the people, was clothed with the appointing power, which he exercised with greater deliberation, calmness, and discrimination than is possible to the people amidst the excitements and intrigues of a popular election. He was held responsible to the people for an honest, faithful, and judicious exercise of this high prerogative. But gradually the executive, elected by, and justly accountable to, his constituents, has been stripped of this power, and the same has become vested in or been resumed by the people, who, while possessing, according to the theory of the lawgivers of Ancient Greece, a greater amount of purity of intention, are swayed more by impulses and the passions of the hour. The legislative bodies then, as now, have always been elected by the qualified voters. Then elections were comparatively few, and the contests in the courts over executive, judicial, and ministerial offices, and in the legislatures over the contested seats of members, were comparatively few.

The law in such cases was sought for entirely from the analogies of the English common law cases and the parliamentary precedents and decisions. Now, while the Federal offices remain mostly as they were under our first Presidents and Congresses, in the States almost every office, from governor and judges of the highest courts down to magistrates and constables, has become elective by the people, and the States, with whom, under the Constitution, rests the power of regulating the qualifications for the exercise of the elective franchise, have generally removed all qualifications thereon, and conferred universal suffrage, as it is called, upon the people.

There is scarcely a function of government, from the most vital and momentous to the most trifling, that is not discharged in our regard by elected officers; our lives, our liberties, our property, our castles, and our reputations are confided to the protection or neglect, if not abuse, of officers elected for short terms; so that every interest of life and of society is thus governed, controlled, and administered indirectly by the voting masses.

We will give a single illustration of this: If we take thirty-three and a third years as the average span of human life, it may be said that in every thirty-three and a third years [the time has been 432 estimated as much shorter in regard to what we are going to state], the entire property of the country, its countless millions, are administered or acted upon by a single officer, the Judge of the Probate Court, or other officer of the law, elected by the people, and thus incidentally by the masses themselves. Thus the various elections, which we so heedlessly disregard or pass by, are, in fact, the casts of the die that determine the fate of the nation, its prosperity, happiness, and honor. The importance, therefore, of the law regulating these elections in their varied relations may be estimated from this fact.

That numerous questions and contests should have arisen in a country where so many offices are to be filled, and where elections are so frequent, is not strange, and that the decisions of our own courts upon these litigated cases should have become numerous and controlling is a natural result. The law of elections has been greatly developed and expounded in this country in recent years. The leading cases bearing upon these subjects have been skilfully and carefully collated by Mr. Brightly, illustrated by his own notes and references, and presented to the legal profession and the public in the volume before us. He could not have selected a theme of greater interest or importance to our country, especially at this time, than the law of elections. He has handled it with the same accuracy, learning, and industry which have always characterized his works, and elevated his reputation as a jurist and author. The present work carries with it an interest far more general than professional works usually possess, and may be read with improvement and pleasure by all who are fond of a good and readable book, who seek for useful knowledge on a matter of vast public import, or who take an interest in the purity of elections, and in the general morals and welfare of the commonwealth. We commend it to their perusal.

The title of Father Doane’s new book is to be _To and from the Passion Play in the Summer of 1871_. It will soon be published by Mr. Donahoe, Boston.

MR. P. O’SHEA announces as in press, and to be published by subscription, _The Lives of Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States_, by Mr. Richard H. Clark, A. M. The work will be published in two large octavo volumes, and will be ready about the first of December. These volumes will contain the biographies of all the deceased members of the American Catholic Hierarchy, from the earliest dawn of Christianity on this continent to the present day, and will trace the history of the church through the important episcopate of Archbishop Carroll, and chronicle with graphic effect the labors, sacrifices, and achievements of over fifty bishops who have been called to their reward.

The Catholic Publication Society will soon publish a new edition of Father Young’s _Office of Vespers_, greatly enlarged and improved.

The volume of _Sermons of the Paulist Fathers for 1870_ will be ready for delivery on the 25th of November.

THE 433

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XIV., No. 82.--JANUARY, 1872.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by REV. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

WHO IS TO EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN?

Every day that passes over our heads and witnesses the rapid increase of the population of the country adds to the interest which attaches to the reciprocal rights and duties existing between the state and the citizen, as far as the question of the proper education of our children is concerned. It has become a matter of the most vital importance, superior to mere party consideration in the success of this or that faction of politicians; for in the proper appreciation of its magnitude and in its judicious and permanent settlement may be said to lie not only the future welfare of this republic, but the supremacy of Christianity itself on this broad continent. The history of the church from its very foundation is full of instances of the decay of religion and morality in one country simultaneously with their growth or revival in another. It was thus that the faith, grown weak in the farther East, found so many earnest professors in Italy, and when Gaul and the Spanish peninsula succumbed to their pagan conquerors, the light of the Gospel was transferred to the islands of Britain and Ireland, and brightened into an effulgence which, in a few centuries, penetrated the darkest recesses of the then semi-barbarized continent. In Europe to-day, the church, assailed on one side by Cæsarism and on the other by the secret societies, can hardly hold her own, notwithstanding the justice of her cause and the zeal and learning of her champions; and it would seem to be one of the mysterious designs of Providence that the theatre of her triumphs and conquests is, for a time at least, to be transferred to the fresher and more vigorous New World. The astonishing growth of Catholicity in America in our own day is an evidence of this, but our present victories will be barren of any good results if we neglect the proper education of our children, who, as we gradually pass away, are destined to take our places for good or evil.

The time has come when the question, Who is to educate our children? should be definitively answered. Pulpits, forums, and the press, in 434 their respective spheres, have discussed the matter from almost every stand-point, and some of the ablest thinkers, particularly in the Eastern States, have devoted their time and erudition to the elimination of order out of the chaos of crude and transcendental opinions which of late have filled the pamphlets and books of so many writers in Europe and America on the subject of education. Theories innumerable have been advanced, and historical precedents quoted in favor of particular systems, without much approach to unanimity, and still the problem remains as ever unsolved.

Amongst other expressions of opinion on this all-important subject, we have before us a long and very elaborate essay in the _Congregational Quarterly_ of Boston, strongly in favor of the continuance of the public-school system as received in that classical city, and as earnestly endeavoring to demonstrate that, unless the Bible, “without note or comment,” prayers, hymns, and piety, be taught in the state schools in conformity to the statute of 1826, these institutions will become worse than useless, and should be discountenanced. In the language of the writer: “The school system which requires the ethics can receive them only as indissolubly one with the religion, and the state that cannot sustain a statute like the Massachusetts law of 1826, which requires the principles of piety as well as those of morality to be taught, cannot sustain a common school system.”

As a counterpoise to our New England contemporary, we find in the last number of the _American Educational Monthly_, a magazine published in this city, as stout a defence of secular education, while exhibiting a decided preference for the removal from our public schools of the Bible and the discontinuance of all teaching of a religious character. Its arguments on these points, if less subtle, are more practical than those of the _Congregational_, and some of the facts it adduces in support of its views are thus plainly stated:

“It is well to repeat here what was said in the beginning: that knowledge is not virtue itself, but only the handmaid of virtue. This is the lesson of Connecticut statistics--a state having a first-class university as well as the usual network of common schools: in every nine and seven-tenths marriages there is sure to be one divorce. Ohio, which has no university comparable to Yale, and whose common schools are presumably no better than Connecticut’s, has but one divorce in twenty-four marriages in a much larger population. There are graduates of common schools who make it their business to procure divorces by observing prescribed forms, yet without the knowledge of one or other of the parties--contrary to the spirit of the law.”

From the contemplation of these and other results of our common schools, in which piety and morality are supposed to be taught, the writer in the _Monthly_ concludes that it is better for us to “leave devotional instruction to those whose business it is--to parents and clergymen.”

Another writer, the editor of one of the most widely circulated of our sectarian weekly newspapers, also a decided advocate of the public school system as at present existing, puts forward among others the following novel argument for its perpetuity:

“We hold, therefore, that it is unnecessary and unwise to disperse or redistribute our common school pupils in accordance with the dogmatic or ecclesiastical leanings of their parents respectively--that the inconvenience and cost of so doing would immensely overbalance its benefits. We should need far more schools; yet our children would have to travel much further to reach one of the preferred theological stripe than at present. We do not decide that soundness of faith is of little 435 consequence--far from it; we only insist that provision is already made for theological instruction apart from our common schools, and that there is no need of making such provision within them. The Roman Catholic and the Protestant coincide with respect to spelling and grammar; the Trinitarian and the Unitarian are in perfect accord as to mathematics, at least in their application to all mundane affairs. Then, why not allow them to read and cipher from the same text-books on week-days, and learn theology in their respective churches and Sunday-schools on the Lord’s day? This seems to us the dictate of economy, convenience, and good sense.”

Nearly every week similar effusions appear in the columns of the so-called religious press, in which are enunciated opinions and speculations as absurd as the above, and yet as varied as the clashing sects they profess to represent. On one point alone, and that a very suspicious one, are they agreed--in a general determination to reduce the children of the Catholics of this country under the sway of a system of public instruction which parents can neither encourage nor countenance. On the minor features of this system, with their usual want of unity, they widely dissent one from the other.

Now, whence this confusion of ideas about one of the plainest and most vital requirements of a free Christian people--education? Does it not lie in the utter misapprehension of what education really is? In pagan times, education was supposed to be the accumulation of knowledge for its own sake or for the superiority it conferred on its possessor over his less instructed fellows. It was of the earth, earthy. From a Christian point of view, its aim, primarily and principally, is to facilitate, by proper training and instruction, the attainment of our true happiness--the knowledge and observance of the laws of God here and eternal happiness hereafter. To the pagan, this world was everything, and consequently he utilized his knowledge for worldly advantage alone. For the Christian, education is merely a means to a great end, and, as eternal bliss is infinitely greater than any temporal enjoyment to him, the training of the soul, the immortal part, in the ways of religion is of paramount and incomparable importance. Secular education, when properly applied, should not be undervalued, inasmuch as we have duties in this life to be performed, to ourselves, our country, and our fellow-man; but it should be tempered and permeated, so to speak, with religious instruction, so that the learner, as his mental faculties expand with his years, may be gradually but constantly led to the knowledge of those divine truths which the church teaches her children, and his character thus be insensibly formed on a true Christian basis. If we admit, as every professing Christian is bound to do, that man’s chiefest object in life is the salvation of his soul, if “the knowledge of God is the beginning of wisdom,” it is the merest folly to suppose that this knowledge, so all-important in itself, can properly be imparted to our children after ordinary school-hours, when the young mind is fatigued and needs repose or recreation, or on one day out of seven, when so many distractions occur to call off the attention of most children. This would be to make religion distasteful, if not odious, to our boys and girls, and lead them to dread the recurrence of a day which, to them at least, should be one of gladness and innocent enjoyment. We do not underrate the value of parental advice and example, or ignore the benefits conferred on our rising population by pastoral instructions and Sunday-school training, but we assert the day-schools should also 436 take their part in supplying food to the ever-expanding and question-asking minds of the American youth.

The formation of character, one of the great objects of education, should be conducted on principles somewhat similar to those of domestic economy. We do not eat all the sweets at one time and the sours at another, the solids at one meal and the dessert at the next, but by a judicious admixture of both produce a savory and salutary combination which gives health and strength to the body. It may be said that mere secular education--such as geology, geometry, history, natural philosophy, botany, astronomy, etc., as taught in our common schools--presents no opportunity for moral instruction. Nothing can be more fallacious. That great master of dramatic literature, Shakespeare, whose knowledge of the springs of human action has seldom been equalled, has told us that we can find books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. Properly directed, the anatomy of the smallest insect, equally with the contemplation of the vast firmament with its countless planets and stars, may become a silent and involuntary prayer to the Creator of all things. There is not a force, physical or deduced, that is revealed to the mind of youth that ought not to be made to bear with it some conception of the unseen Power that presides over and governs the universe, and the teacher who neglects to place before the minds of his pupils the moral to be drawn from those symbols of the Creator’s almightiness does but half his work, and that the less nobler part. Leaving dogma and doctrine aside, are the generality of our public school teachers capable or disposed to thus draw from nature the beautiful lessons of God’s wisdom and power--lessons which no book can adequately teach, but which should be before one’s eyes from infancy to the grave?

Some persons speak of religion in connection with the education of youth as if it were a mere matter of sentiment or a holiday pastime, to be occasionally indulged in when the more serious duties of money-making and political advancement have been complied with. On the contrary, it is a matter of everyday life, controlling and guiding our intercourse with mankind individually as well as collectively, and as we are responsible for our actions every conscious moment of our life, so should it in one form or another be associated with our every pursuit and act. If this be true among full-grown men and women, is it not apparent that any system of youthful training that would dissociate religion from secular studies in early life would send into the world vicious or ignorant adults, who would either ignore altogether the practice of honesty, truthfulness, and morality, or who in their ignorance would make these great attributes of Christianity subserve their worldly interests and passions? Education, therefore, that would exclude religious instruction from our children during their hours of study, which is half of their young lives, is not education at all, at least in the Christian sense of the word. It may make them expert financiers or glib politicians, but it cannot make them upright, truthful, and benevolent citizens. In this regard, we agree with the writer in the _Congregational_ when he says, “We call attention in the outset to the immense difficulty, if it be not the absolute impossibility, of separating religious instruction from any practical system of public education.”

But we do not coincide with him in his estimate of the right and duty 437 of the state to provide this education. Granted that religion is an essential element in education, who is the proper authority to inculcate it? Clearly not the state, for, in our theory of government, the state knows no religion, nor under any pretence can it lay claim to any apostolic authority to preach and teach the Gospel to the nations. That is a power far anterior to and above all existing governments. That the state is or ought to be religious in the character of its acts cannot be denied, but this character should be derived from the teachings of the church to its individual members, and gives it no power to prescribe to the church what she should teach or allow to be taught, for the authority of the teaching church is from God, and that of the state from man. It is true that the common law framed by our Catholic ancestors recognized the laws of the church, as far as public morality and the observance of Sundays and holidays were concerned, as part of the law of the land, but it was never intended that the state should be placed above the church in matters spiritual, much less to make it the teacher and expounder of her doctrines. This innovation was one of the fruits of the “Reformation,” which, while professing to liberate the minds of men from spiritual thraldom and the authority of the popes, actually subjected their consciences and forms of faith to the whim of parliaments and the arbitrary _dicta_ of local lay tyrants. Even to this day, the House of Lords in England, composed as it is mostly of laymen, and those, too, not remarkable for their piety or morality, is the court of last resort to determine and decide what are and what are not the doctrines taught by our Holy Redeemer.

If the state claim the right to educate our children, that right cannot be derived from the natural law; for the state, being an artificial organization, cannot in its corporate capacity have any natural law. On the contrary, the natural law bestows the possession, care, and custody of the child on the parent, and the duty thus imposed cannot be relinquished or delegated without a manifest infraction of the first principles of that law. Besides, the state is only constituted to do for the citizen what he, from his want of ability, means, or strength, cannot do for himself. Its office is simply the administration of justice, retributive and distributive, and the enactment of laws to facilitate that object. All outside of that is simply usurpation, which may, and generally does, degenerate into tyranny. Whenever a state invades private reserved rights and oversteps the bounds of its legitimate duties, law and justice are not only brought into contempt, but enactments in themselves abstractly just are despised and evaded. The futile attempts to enforce certain sumptuary laws in this and other countries prove this conclusively.

Nor does the state derive its power to educate our children as it sees fit from the will of the people as expressed in the fundamental laws of the land. In the Declaration of Independence, it is clearly stated that among the _inalienable_ rights of mankind are life, liberty, and the pursuit of _happiness_. Now, who that has been blessed with children does not know that the care and custody, education and maintenance, of his offspring constitute the greatest happiness of his life, compared with which riches, honors, and fame dwindle into insignificance? One of the most powerful arguments against Southern slavery, now happily for ever abolished, was that it separated the child from its parent: but what is the value of freedom to me if, as 438 the _Congregational_ suggests, I must see my child forced into a common school, to listen to the reading of a Bible which I believe, at best, to be a mutilated and perverted copy of the Holy Scriptures, and be obliged to repeat prayers and hymns that too often, alas! are but blasphemies against the holy name of him who died on the cross for man’s redemption? In one case the body alone suffered, in the other the eternal salvation of immortal souls is imperilled. Even the framers of the constitution, that noble document about which so much is said and so little understood, having surveyed their work, and finding it defective in respect to providing guarantees for the perfect freedom of religion, hastened by an amendment to supply the deficiency. “Congress,” they ordained, “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”[100] and our own state, on November 3, 1846, by its constitution, emphatically declares that “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without _discrimination or preference_, shall for ever be allowed in this state to all mankind.” (Art. I. sec. 3.)

Does the state derive its authority to teach religion to our children from God? If so, where is its authority? The writer in the _Congregational_ evidently considers the Bible an authority on matters of faith and discipline. Yet we fail to find in the inspired writings any authority for the state of Massachusetts, or any other purely political corporation, to teach the doctrines of Christ. But, if the state have a right so to teach, it has a right also to decide what shall be taught, and this, of course, must depend on the character of the officials through whom the state for the time being acts; for as yet, unlike other and more favored Protestant countries, we have no fixed state religion, and must depend on the popular electoral vote for our faith and ideas of morality. We would like the advocates of religious teaching in schools, “the Bible, prayers, hymns, and piety,” to be more explicit on this point. Are our children to be taught religion according to the parliamentary doctrine of the Church of England, or the total depravity notions of the followers of Calvin; are they to be obliged to deny the divinity of Christ with the Unitarians, and eternal punishments with the Universalists? Are we, in fact, bringing children into the world to be liable any day to be indoctrinated into the vagaries of Methodism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Muggletonianism, Mormonism, or any other of the thousand “isms” born of that fruitful mother of dissent, the much vaunted Reformation? Or are we to have them treated to a dose of each and every one in turn as the political wheel brings their professors to the surface? The idea seems perfectly absurd, and yet it is the logical consequence of the _Congergational’s_ position that the state can teach religion in its schools; for the state, being liable to be controlled at any time by any of the believers in the “isms,” must of necessity teach its own ism, and, having the sovereign authority, who can dispute its choice? But, says the writer in the _Congregational_, and those who agree with him, we do not violate the rights of conscience, we only advocate the reading of the Bible, “in which the Papist does not believe,”[101] prayers, hymns, and piety. Now, in 439 what does the religion of the Congregationalists consist, if not in these very matters which they would insidiously intrude on the attention of our children? Does any one believe, if the writer in question, or those who believe in his sentiments, had the control of our schools, that the prayers and hymns would be such as a Catholic child could conscientiously listen to? Would the Apostles’ Creed and the _Confiteor_ be among the forms, or would the _Stabat Mater, Ave Maria Stella_, in Latin or English, or any other of the beautiful appeals to the clemency and protection of the Blessed Mother which the church puts into the mouths and hearts of her little ones, find a place in schools presided over by the advocates of religion and piety, as prescribed by the law of 1826? And yet, we venture to say that more than one-half of the children who attend the public schools in the very city in which this _Quarterly_ is published are Catholics, and born of Catholic parents. Yet we are told that not only the morals, but the religion of our children is to be at the mercy of politicians, calling themselves the state, too often elevated to power by most corrupt intrigues. Is there anything particularly virtuous in the character of our legislators or the members of our board of education that would induce us to suppose that they were specially selected by Providence to teach his laws and expound his doctrines? And still, for all practical purposes, they are the state. They enact the laws, select the schoolbooks, appoint the teachers, and prescribe the course of study to be pursued. If their appointees leave out the Bible, prayers, hymns, etc., the schools become, in the language of the _Congregational_, the instruments of “sweeping away the political Protestantism of the land,” while, if they do enforce the observance of these religious exercises, we have a new set of apostles annually or biennially elected by political coteries to teach our children!

The three great sources of authority which all writers on the philosophy of government ascribe to the state are, then, wanting, to justify these assumptions of the advocates of the right of the state to teach religion to the children of its citizens, but the _Congregational_ still argues that it has a right to teach “morality and piety.” How are morality and piety to be taught without religion? What is its idea of morals abstracted from practical religion? Does the writer who adorns its columns believe that the end and aim of all true education is to promote man’s true happiness, and, if so, does he believe in a hereafter of eternal rewards and punishments, and how we are to earn the one and avoid the other? He knows as well as we do that, of some dozen leading Protestant sects in this country, not two are agreed on the essential Christian duty and faith of man necessary for his salvation. Who, then, is to decide but the state, which, as we have endeavored to prove, has neither a divine mission nor even human consent to interfere in spiritual matters? It may be said that the state does not decide these questions, but it does. Every hour devoted to a child’s instruction, relatively at least, involves the question of man’s true destiny; for the religious question, which is the question of man’s true destiny, sums up all other questions. As far as Catholics are concerned, they object to each and all such teachers, whether appointed by the warring sects or by the temporal authority. For example, the writer in the _Congregational_, though evidently an intelligent and accomplished 440 gentleman, would not be a very safe teacher in a school composed in whole or in part of Catholic children. Any person who could endorse as he does Draper’s absurd assertion that the _Imitation of Christ_ was the forerunner of the Reformation, call the illustrious Fénelon a Jansenist, style millions of his fellow-citizens by the cant epithets of “Romanists” and “Papists,” and coolly declare that Catholics do not believe in the Bible, is evidently unfitted to form a correct opinion on any religious subject, much less to be entrusted with the instruction of youth.

“But,” says the writer above quoted, “the safety of democracy requires compulsory education. The work cannot be entrusted to churches, or to corporations, or to individuals.” Now, this may mean very little or a very great deal. If it mean, as he hints in another part of his article, that the state has an absolute right to teach a particular religion or any religion at all in its public schools, and enforce attendance therein, for the preservation of our democratic form of government, we entirely dissent from his proposition. The very essence of a free government lies in its recognition of religious liberty and the natural rights of individuals, and our best guarantees of freedom rest on the fact that majorities, which for the time being represent the power of the state, all potent as they may be, cannot set aside the fundamental law, and dare not infringe on the civil or religious liberty of the citizen. No state could or ought to attempt an exercise of power so utterly despotic and foreign to the genius of our institutions.

We are aware that of late it has been customary to denominate our form of education as the American system, for the purpose, doubtless, of exciting public prejudice in its favor. The system is not by any means American in the national sense. It is purely local, and of Puritanical origin and growth. When the New England colonies by persecution and violence secured for themselves uniformity of worship, such as it was, they established schools, in which prayers, hymns, and piety were taught _ad libitum_, with all the raw-head-and-bloody-bones anti-Catholic fiction which the descendants of the Pilgrims mistook for veritable history. Being all of one mind, such a system of training could have no perceptible evil effect on the pupils; for, if they did not hear intolerance and falsehood in the school, they were pretty certain to hear them in the meeting-house. But times have strangely altered since then, as the writer in the _Congregational_ is forced to admit. “The reason our school system had to be modified,” he says, “was not that it was _per se_ right from the day it was enacted, but because the foreign immigration and the changes of time had produced an immense revolution in the religious spirit of the people, and required the readjustment of the civil creed in the school system.” In no sense, then, can this system of public education which is sought to be thrust upon us be called American, except, perhaps, as contradistinguished from that of England, France, Germany, Austria, and other so-called despotic countries, in all of which the denominational plan, more or less generally, prevails. In the latter two countries particularly, one Catholic and the other Protestant, the scheme of secular education has been tried and abandoned, and the wisdom of the new system has been proved beyond peradventure. If it be American to tax citizens for the support of schools and compel them to send their children to be called Romanists and idolaters, then is the 441 public-school system entitled to that distinctive appellation? We do not think that it is.

The state having no authority by the natural or divine law to assume control of the education of our children, by what other right can it claim it? Some may say, from political necessity, that the state, in order to protect its own interests, must see to it that a certain amount of intelligence is diffused among its supporters. Here the whole question comes up again. What is that intelligence which is necessary to the preservation and well-being of our free institutions? Is it a certain knowledge of mathematics, geography, and the physical sciences, or is it not probity, morality, and lawful obedience to the constituted authorities? Yet these are virtues that can only be taught through religion, and the state, having no religion, cannot teach them. Is it not for the general interests that we should have stalwart, healthy, well-fed, and sober citizens? And yet the state does not profess to enforce a general plan whereby every one should be provided with proper exercise, employment, medicine, food, clothing, and shelter. To do so would simply be to attempt to realize the utopian dream of the socialists; and still it would be no greater a usurpation of power than the design of furnishing our children with a general system of instruction, and, indirectly, with a uniform religion. If the state, as it ought to do, requires a certain amount of intelligence in its citizens, let it make the presence or absence of that knowledge the test of citizenship and the passport to places of honor and public confidence. The right to vote and hold office, for example, is not an inherent right, but depends on many qualifications, such as sex, age, nationality, freedom from crime, ability to support one’s self, and previous residence. Why not add ability to read and write intelligibly?

There are cases, however, in which we admit that the state has not only a right, but is in duty bound, to interfere with the disposition and education of children. When parents, either through poverty, misfortune, crime, or any other cause, are unable or unwilling to take proper charge of their children, the state, for its own protection and to save the community from the consequence of vice and idleness, is justified in taking care of them, for this does not violate the principle of civil polity that a state is constituted to do only for the citizen what he is unable to do for himself. Hence, the establishment of almshouses, asylums, nurseries, reformatories, and other benevolent institutions, which all wise governments provide as barriers against prospective crime and distress. But even in those exceptional cases, as much care as possible should be observed in following out the spirit of our free institutions, which are so strongly opposed to any interference in matters of conscience, even among the most humble and unfortunate.

But while we are combating the arguments of our Boston contemporary in favor of compulsory education, it may be said that no compulsion is used or intended to be used in this or many other states in the Union. This is a mistake; there is compulsion of the most practical kind. It is true that the officer of the law does not come into our homes and forcibly drag our children to school, but the tax-gatherer does so, almost as efficiently, if more silently. The masses of the people in this, as in most other countries, are poor. With the American Catholics this is peculiarly so. They are taxed to support the public 442 schools, and must either send their children there or pay for their education elsewhere. This double payment, in most instances, they cannot afford. How many tens of thousands of parents are there not among us whose scanty means will not permit them to indulge in the luxury of seeing their children instructed in the ways of true religion, and who are consequently compelled, if they desire even a primary education for their offspring, to send them to schools which they neither admire nor would select if they had a free choice!

We are accused of being hostile to the Bible. Such is not the fact, and those who make the assertion are well aware of its falsity. The Bible has always been an object of especial care and veneration in the Catholic Church. It is one of the sources of her authority and the muniments of her holy mission. What we object to is the profanation of its sacred character by unworthy and profane hands. It has repeatedly pained us to see even “King James’s Version,” imperfect as it is, scattered broadcast by the agents of the Bible societies in hotel and steamboat saloons, barbers’ shops, and bar-rooms, not to be read, but to be devoted to the meanest purposes of waste paper. The treatment of the holy book in some of our public schools is little better. If any person doubts that Catholics venerate and read the Bible, let him go to our large Catholic publishing-houses and see the numerous and splendid editions of the Old and New Testaments which are constantly being issued from their presses.

Though on principle we decidedly object to the reading of the Bible in our public schools, our greatest objection is to the schools themselves. We hold that the education that does not primarily include the religious element is worse than no education at all, and, we hold, also, that the state has no right to prescribe what form of faith, doctrine, or religious practice should be taught to the children of its citizens. We claim that Catholic parents have a right to demand that their children shall be educated by Catholic teachers, be instructed from Catholic books, and at all times, particularly during hours of study, be surrounded as much as possible with all the influence that the church, into whose bosom they have been admitted by baptism, can surround them. This can never be done in our public schools. However high the personal character of the teachers in those institutions, and whatever may be the peculiar merits of their discipline and success in turning out smart accountants and superficial thinkers, we maintain that, in the formation of character and the cultivation of the spiritual and better part of our nature, they have been and must necessarily be failures. What parent can read without a shudder the following extract from a Boston paper regarding the recent investigation of a _savant_ who, it is well known, is no friend to Catholicity or the teachings of the church:

“Professor Agassiz has of late given a portion of his valuable time to an investigation of the social evil, its causes and growth, and the result has filled him with dismay, and almost destroyed his faith in the boasted civilization of the nineteenth century. He has visited and noted down the houses of ill-fame throughout the city of Boston, and has drawn from the unfortunate inmates many sad life stories. _To his utter surprise, a large number of the unfortunate women and girls traced their fall to influences which surrounded them in the public schools._”[102]

It has been already stated, on the authority of the _Educational Monthly_, that in the State of Connecticut, the paradise of public 443 schools and nursery of public-school teachers, there is one divorce annually to every nine marriages, and now we have the unbiassed testimony of Agassiz, after mature examination of the malign influence of state schools in the sister state. Is there any reason to doubt that this sad state of morals exists in other cities, and may be traced to the same source, and, if so, is it not time that our public system of instruction, at least for females, should be discontinued?

But even in a material point of view our common schools have been far from a success. In the efforts, conscientious we must believe, to eliminate sectarianism from the school-books, the Board of Education and Trustees of our cities have almost destroyed their usefulness for any purpose. The primary rules of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the elements of pure mathematics, can be taught with impunity, but, when the higher branches of study are reached, the religious question again comes up. Take geology, for example, that most interesting science, the abuse of which has led to more atheism than all the sophistries of Voltaire or Volney. As at present taught in our schools, without explanation or qualification, it cannot help being detrimental to the faith, and consequently to the morals, of the curious and undisciplined minds of the scholars. As to history, it is impossible, even with the most careful revision, to reproduce it without constant reference to disputed events and characters, regarding which Protestants and Catholics can never agree. Can we imagine a history of modern Europe, with the great facts of the civilization of the Old World by the church, the establishment of the temporal power of the Popes, the “Truce of God” and the Crusades in the middle ages, the great rebellion against spiritual authority--miscalled the Reformation--the penal persecution of the Irish Catholics, and the French Revolution left out? At best, such a book would be a sorry compilation of dates and miscalled facts, and yet to describe those great epochs in European history with any degree of accuracy would necessarily offend the opinions or prejudices of either Protestants or Catholics. If history be “philosophy teaching by example,” we must look for it somewhere else than in our public schools.

But, because we are opposed to the existence of common schools, are we therefore against popular education? On the contrary, the efforts of the humbler class of Catholics throughout the country to secure education for their children independent of state interference are almost incredible.

In this city alone twenty thousand children are annually taught in the free schools attached to the various churches, at an expense of a little over one hundred thousand dollars, independent of the thousands who attend the pay-schools of the Christian Brothers of a high grade.[103]

Let us now sum up in brief our objections to the further continuance of the present public school system:

I. All education should be based and conducted on true religious principles.

II. The state has no right to teach religion in its schools.

III. State or public schools without religion are godless.

IV. As such, they are incapable of forming the character of our children, or teaching them morality according to the Christian principle.

V. In endeavoring to avoid what is called sectarianism, they defeat 444 the ends of even mere secular education.

Now, it may be asked, What remedy do we propose for the evils which our public school system has already produced? What substitute are we prepared to offer that will both satisfy the demands of religion and the requirements of the state? We answer, by the establishment of denominational schools for Catholics, wherever practicable, under the supervision of the proper ecclesiastical authorities, and likewise for such of the sects as do not approve of mixed schools. How are these schools to be sustained? In either of two ways. If the state will insist on levying a general school tax, let it be divided _pro rata_ according to the number of pupils taught in each school: let the denominational schools have their proper proportion, and the mixed or non-religious schools theirs. The amount thus apportioned to the Catholic schools might be deposited with a board or other executive body, to be composed in whole or in part of clerics and laymen, and, if necessary, let the state appoint proper officials to see that accurate returns of attendance are made. The other way, which to our mind is much preferable, would be to abolish altogether the school tax, and throw upon the parents of all denominations or of no denomination the responsibility of educating their own children. Compulsory education may do very well in countries where the subject is but an automaton liable at any time to be moved by a despotic government, based on principles that the people are made for the government, not the government for the people, and where the acquired intelligence of the masses is merely used or misused for the benefit of a few hereditary rulers; but in a country like our republic, the strength of which lies in individual effort, and where wealth, fame, and honor are within the reach of every one, even the humblest who has energy and ability enough to win them, we can have no fear that parents, and, least of all, Catholic parents, will be derelict in their duty in respect to the proper secular education of their children. The struggles they have made and are making to support their free day-schools, despite the onerous tax with which they are burdened by the state, would be renewed with fourfold energy if that drain on their resources were removed.

The advantages to be derived from the adoption of either plan would be manifold and incalculable.

It would satisfy the conscientious scruples of those parents who 445 consider that they should not be required, directly or indirectly, to send their children to the public schools, as at present conducted. It would not only advance the material prospects of the pupil, by giving him a thorough education devoid of all the restrictions and mutilations which an attempt at fairness and the production of non-religious books have produced; while he would, gradually and without apparent effort, imbibe the true religious spirit that would be his guide and best defence in after life. It would also elevate the character of the teacher by placing him in his true position, midway between the divinely appointed minister of the Gospel, and the instructor of children in matters purely secular, and, by holding out to him a higher and nobler goal than that resulting from mere personal ambition or the hope of pecuniary reward, would doubly increase his zeal and efficiency. For the public generally, the change suggested would be equally salutary. The welfare of the state does not rest on piety alone, nor on mental intelligence alone, but on both acting together, the latter, of course, being subordinate to the former. No man, no matter what may have been his natural gifts, was ever less brave in action, less wise in council, less enterprising in commerce, or less loyal to his government, because he was taught from his infancy to regard the practice of religion as his first and principal duty. The desire of eternal happiness, as much an instinct of our nature as the mode of securing it, is the fruit of proper religious education, reacts on a man’s conduct even in matters exclusively pertaining to the things of the world, and compels him to a more steadfast and fearless course in the discharge of his civic duties.

But it would also have another and not less marked effect. It would rid the community of a host of officials, many of whom are incompetent, and some of whom, we are sorry to say, are corrupt, and it would also save the public treasury vast sums of money, much of which is now uselessly squandered. Who would believe that in this great city, where there is so much learning and public spirit, the Board of Education, consisting of twenty-one persons, is principally composed of liquor and billiard saloon keepers, horse dealers, retailers of articles used in the schools, and of that nondescript class called brokers? Yet this intellectual body exercises supreme control over the public schools of New York, and proposed this year to spend no less a sum than $3,150,000, or more than double the amount required for the same purpose eight years ago.[104] The way in which a portion of this money is spent may be inferred from a statement recently published in one of our daily newspapers, from which we extract the following paragraph:

“The next item is incidental expenses of the Board of Education, including shop account, $60,000. What are ‘incidental’ expenses? It means expenditures for which the items cannot be anticipated, or of which it is not agreeable to furnish a statement; it means simply a general fund to be expended by the clerks and officers of the Board of Education as they think proper ‘incidentally.’ Among these ‘incidental’ expenses is what is known as a tea-room; that is to say, the members have a supper or refreshments furnished to them at their meetings, and as they choose to order. This is never returned or charged under the head of tea-room, 446 supper, dinner, or board bill, but is covered up under the head of postage-stamps or other ‘incidental’ expenses. How much of the $60,000 goes in this way, it is, of course, impossible for us to know.”

Is it any wonder, then, that, in view of such extravagant use of the public money, of which the above is only a specimen, the education of about one hundred thousand children, the average attendance at our public schools, should cost over three millions of dollars, or at the rate of thirty dollars _per capita_, while in the Catholic free schools one-fifth of that number are taught at an expense of one hundred thousand dollars, or at the rate of only five dollars a head, per annum?

Are the Catholics competent and prepared to assume the duties and responsibilities of the education of the vast number of children of their communion who now attend the public schools? Most decidedly. As to our ability to teach, we point with something like pride, certainly with satisfaction, to the success of our numerous colleges, seminaries, and convent schools, to the latter in particular, where are always to be found among the pupils a respectable minority composed of daughters of many of our most intelligent Protestant families. We call attention, also, to our twenty-four city free schools, now in full operation, many of which, though of recent origin, will compare favorably with the oldest of our common schools. Besides the professors of our colleges, who are constantly preparing young men for the ministry and for the scarcely less responsible duties of teachers, and such orders as the Christian Brothers, we have many trained lay instructors ready and anxious to devote themselves to the good work of Christian education. Then, again, there are numbers of Catholic teachers now in the public schools, male and female, many of whom we know personally, who would prefer to give their services exclusively to the training of children of their own faith if such an opportunity presented itself. Said one of this class, a teacher of over twenty years’ experience, on a late occasion to the writer, “If I dared, I would like to expose the dangers and absurdities of our school system; but I cannot, for I would surely be found out and dismissed, and then what would become of my wife and family? I wish we had separate schools for ourselves, and then I would feel like teaching even at a less salary than I now receive.”

We submit the consideration of this very grave and, in our mind, most important question to the serious consideration of our patriotic and reflective countrymen, no matter of what creed or opinion, having an abiding confidence in their sense of justice and equity. To the fanatical portion of the community who will not listen to reason, we have only this to say: Though you may pretend not to know it, and may even be unconscious of the fact, your instincts tell you that the present system of education saps the foundation of the Catholic religion, and it is for this reason you hold so tenaciously to it; but let us add, the system itself, being godless, undermines all religion and morality likewise. But such is your infatuation and hostility to our religion that to so undermine it you are willing to see your own faith, whatever that may be, ruined and wrecked as long as you can accomplish your object, and the next generation become atheists and sceptics, totally devoid of all faith. Holding the political power, and in spite of your boasted fair play and in defiance of the spirit of our free institutions, you are determined to uphold your system 447 and tax us for its support against our consciences, against religion, freedom, equal rights, and the spirit of American institutions. Your efforts to stretch the powers of our government, to the detriment of our natural, divine, and political rights, will ultimately end in your own confusion. They are more worthy of some half-crazed theorist or mad follower of Fourrier and the Communists than of a citizen of this great republic. The government that robs a parent of his rights and his children is neither free nor democratic, but is the aider and abettor of that system of free-lovism which is said to have originated in pagan Sparta, and has culminated in our own country at Oneida. But let it be understood that, as Catholics and free citizens, we proclaim our rights, shall resolutely defend them, asking for nothing which we are not willing to grant to others, and being content with no less for ourselves.

[100] Amendment proposed March, 1789.

[101] See page 587, October number of the _Congregational Quarterly_, under the title “The State--Religion in its Schools.”

[102] _The Pilot_, Nov. 4, 1871.

[103] For the benefit and edification of our readers, we subjoin an official tabular statement of the attendance on, and expenses of, the Catholic free day schools of the city of New York for the present year:

Daily Annual Location of Schools. attendance. Expenses for the support of schools.

Nos. 272 & 274 Mulberry St., 1,100 $6,000 Barclay and Church Sts., 573 3,118 New Bowery and James Sts., 1,400 9,000 No. 29 Mott St., 1,225 5,745 Nos. 54 & 56 Pitt St., and 264 Madison St., 1,620 9,500 Nos. 8 & 10 Rutgers St., 1,050 5,000 Leroy St., 1,000 5,500 Nos. 300 & 302 East Eighth St., 1,600 7,000 Nos. 121 & 123, and 135 & 137 Second St., 1,420 5,970 Nos. 8 & 10 Thompson St., 240 2,000 No. 208 East Fourth St., 1,700 6,217 No. 48 Fourth Ave., 200 2,000 Nos. 511 & 513 East 14th St., 1,250 10,000 No. 32 West 18th St., and 111 West 19th St., 720 5,000 No. 118 West 24th St., and 236 West 26th St., 140 1,120 Nos. 333 & 335 West 25th St., 650 3,000 No. 209 West 30th St., and 211 West 31st St., 400 1,600 No. 143 West 31st St., 400 1,000 East 36th St., near Second Ave., 1,250 6,000 No. 309 East 47th St., 130 2,660 East 50th St. and Madison Ave., 350 1,000 East 84th St., near Fourth Ave., 560 4,000 West 131st St., and West 133d St., near 10th Ave., 320 1,000 West 125th St. and Ninth Ave., 130 1,000 ------- --------- 19,428 $104,430

[104] The expenses of the Board of Education of this city for six years have been as follows: 1863, $1,450,000 1864, 1,787,000 1865, 2,298,508 1866, 2,454,327 1867, 2,939,348 1868, 2,900,000

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ONE CHRISTMAS EVE IN LA VENDEE.

It was in ‘93--that horrible ‘93, whose very name makes our blood curdle and our hearts beat with a sense of terror and security, as when we gaze on the painted panorama of a battle-field or some scene of crime and danger and despair long since enacted, but brought vividly before us by the graphic power of eloquence or art. The words have a spell in them that fascinates us, and defies us to pass on without pausing to look upon the memories they evoke. Well, it is of this tragic ‘93 that I am going to speak. But not to describe its horrors. It only makes the frame of my story, a most veracious story, and full of the spirit of that wonderful epoch, where we see all that was noble and loveliest in humanity shine forth by the side of its most criminal and appalling aberrations.

It was Christmas eve fourscore years ago. The fertile soil of La Vendée, red-dyed by streams of patriot blood, was hidden under a deep quilt of snow. All the landscape slept as in a death-sleep under a pure white pall. Hills and plains were garmented in white. The snow had fallen heavily during the night, and its untrodden purity was as smooth and uniform as the blue of the winter sky, that looked down upon it and grew pale. The cottages that dotted the fair expanse hardly broke its uniformity, for they too were liveried in white, the roof thick thatched with snow, and the whitewashed walls only a degree less dazzling than the brightness of the ground. The hedges that divide the fields in La Vendée as in England were filled and covered with snow, and the hoar-frost like a fairy lace-work glittered and shone on the soft, unblemished surface, and the trees with rolls of snow resting on their bare gaunt arms held up clusters of icicles that sparkled like crystals in the tepid December sun.

The village of Chamtocé lay in this white landscape; and in the middle of the village stood the church, and close by the church the presbytery.

On the road that led from St. Florent to Chamtocé a young, lithe 448 figure was crushing the crisp white carpet with a long, elastic step. His face was concealed, the upper part of it by a cap drawn low over his forehead, and the lower part by a woollen scarf wound round his throat, swallowing up the chin and nose in its capacious folds. The weather was not cold enough to need this ostentatious display of _cache-nez_; true, _la nappe blanche de la Noël_ (white cloth of Christmas), as the peasants call it, was spread, but there was not a breath of wind, and it was not freezing. It had frozen during the night just enough to sprinkle the hoar-frost abroad and hang a thin fringe of glass from the roofs of the houses and deck the trees with icicles, but this was not what the Vendéans called freezing. The Loire pursued its journey majestically to the sea unchecked by the icy hand of the black frost, the cruel black frost, that had but to blow with its bleak breath for one night on the strong deep stream to paralyze its waters and chill their moaning into icy dumbness. So, the cold was not bitter. The traveller knew it, too, for on coming to a point of the road where it turned abruptly, and disclosed the church with its slim, gray belfry, and, on the rising ground beyond it, a windmill, still as spectre suspended midway between the white earth and the pale sky, he looked cautiously up and down the road, assured himself there was no one in sight, and then, raising his beaver cap, stood bare-headed in the attitude of a man saluting some object of love and veneration.

“Nearly four years since I knelt under the shadow of thy walls, and now I have come home, and thou dost greet me with the same unchanged, unchanging welcome!”

He replaced his cap, drew it low over his face, and continued his way.

“Home, did I say?” he muttered presently. “Have I still a home to come to? Gaston most likely is gone, fallen like the best blood of La Vendée in God’s and the king’s cause. And Marie!”

A sudden flush suffused the bronzed cheek. The pilgrim walked on with a quicker step, and was soon at the gate of the presbytery.

“Ah! here it is, just as I left it--the little wicket that opened so often with a ready welcome. A good omen to begin with!”

He pushed it and walked on. The door of the dwelling-house stood ajar; winter and summer it was never shut; he pushed it open, and knocked gently at a door on the left.

“Come in!” said M. le Curé.

And François Léonval entered and stood face to face with the only father he had known on earth. Nearly four years had passed since they had parted, and the old priest who had baptized him, and taught him, and wept with him beside his mother’s grave, was just the same as when he had left him, benign, cheerful, a trifle more bowed perhaps and a good deal whiter, but the same in everything else--nothing was changed within. He looked up promptly, closed his book, and then, with a glance where “charity that thinketh no evil” deprecated a certain vague mistrust, he said:

“What can I do for you, my boy?”

“Monsieur le Curé! mon père! Is this the welcome you give me?”

“François! my son! my best-loved!” And the old man held out his arms, and the two clasped each other.

“Ah! my son!” exclaimed the curé, when his emotion left him power to speak, “this is an hour worth suffering for; it pays me for many days 449 of anguish. Little did I dream to have such a joy before we met in heaven. My son! my boy! Blessed be God and Our Lady of Mercy, who have watched over you and brought you back to me! I never thought to see your face before I died!”

“And why not, mon père!” said François, laughing, and embracing him again; “you know the prodigals are sure to return sooner or later; besides, you promised to pray me safe home, and not to go to heaven till I came back to get your blessing. Did you forget your promise?”

“Forget it! Does a father forget his son? But you have travelled a long way; you will tell me all presently; but first you must have need of food and warmth. Victoire!”

The grim old gouvernante appeared, and on recognizing François her features expanded into a smile of genuine delight, and she embraced the young man with motherly affection, and overpowered him with questions that she never waited to hear answered, while she bustled about the table, running backward and forward to her kitchen, and making ready with all speed the very best her store could supply. The frugal meal was soon spread, and the curé, to whom, after the first outburst of joy had subsided, her presence was an unguessed relief, said with a sudden change in his voice and look that struck cold on François’s heart:

“Ah! François, François, it was not well to leave me all these years without a sign or a word. Gaston held out for a long time that either you had escaped from the country, or that you were still fighting, and that it was in either case only the fear of getting us into trouble that prevented you writing, or the want of a trusty messenger, and I believed him while I could; but when two whole years went by, and still we had no news, what could I think but that you had fallen? Victoire, put on your hood, and go--but stay--no, I had better go myself. We must run no risks: there is a price on your head, you say? I will go myself. These are times when we need the cunning of the serpent more than the innocence of the dove. Alas! what does innocence avail my little ones? But shame upon me for an ungrateful wretch! Does it not avail them the palm-branch and the crown, and are not the purest of the flock chosen for a sacrifice to plead for the guilty?”

Thus discoursing, he wrapped himself in his heavy serge cloak, and clutched his stick, and went in search of Gaston, but not without first speaking a word in Victoire’s ear.

And who was Gaston? Gaston was cousin-german and adopted brother of François. They had been brought up from infancy together by Gaston’s mother. When they were both sixteen, she died, leaving the lads to the care of the good God and Monsieur le Curé, and bidding them love each other like true brothers, and live together in the comfortable cottage, which, being her own, she bequeathed them as a joint legacy till either should marry, and then, if they chose to separate, the one who left was to have compensation in a sum of money to be kept by M. le Curé till the event entitled either of the youths to claim it. Besides the cottage, their mother, for both the lads looked on her as such, left two thousand francs, to be equally divided between them when they came to be twenty-one. This was the wedding portion she had brought to Gaston’s father, and as she had adopted François, and given him a true mother’s love, she wished to divide her all, share and share, between him and her own son.

Gaston had a goodly inheritance of land from his father, so she was 450 not impoverishing him by sharing her own with his brother, and he could never feel in after-life that she had wronged him. So Jeanne Léonval thought, at least. And perhaps she was right at the time. But as years went on, Gaston saw things differently; his ideas about the value of money changed, and with them his notions regarding right and justice, and he began to feel an undefined vexation and sense of injury on the subject of his mother’s will. For Gaston had a worm at his heart--the worm that entered the heart of Judas, and sucked it dry of love, and truth, and mercy, and led him at last to deicide and despair. He loved money, and he was growing to love it more every day; it was filling up his heart, and making him hard and selfish, and brushing off the bloom of his boyish freshness. He was growing into a miser. Nobody noticed the growth. Gaston did not suspect it. He lived like other people, frugally but abundantly, in the homely manner of his mother and the people of his class. He wore good clothes, and the same as those around him. But though he did not take to the ways and crotchets of the miser of the story-book, his heart was none the less developing the miser’s spirit, and growing rapidly absorbed, to the exclusion of all other aims, in the love of money. He grudged more and more parting with it, and he longed and pined more greedily after its possession. François, who lived with him, saw nothing of this. He saw him indeed eager and active in turning his land and stock to account, vigilant to seize every opportunity for gain, sharp at striking a bargain, chary of spending his money on many innocent pleasures that tempted the self-denial of older and wiser heads; but this was right and fair so far. There were plenty of idlers, and fellows to spend their money as fast as they made it, and it was well to see Gaston prudent and thrifty, and laying by for the rainy day and the little ones who would be coming by-and-by. So argued the honest, open-handed François, who approved the wisdom of his brother, but did not practise it, and never could keep a franc in his pocket while he saw any one in want of it. Quite as self-denying as Gaston, he pinched himself from a different motive. He saved to give. He gave to the widow who would be driven from her shelter if he did not come in time to pay the rent; he gave to the cold and the hungry; no hearth wanted wood, no mouth craved for bread, while François could supply both. Not a child in the village but loved him, not an elder but smiled a blessing on the young man as he passed. Gaston knew it, and forgave him. He loved him well enough to forgive him even that share in his mother’s _dot_ that was coming to François one of these days. But when the day came, and he saw the money that ought to have been his handed over to his cousin--he disowned the brotherhood that moment for the first time in his life--Gaston felt the fiend wake up in him, he felt he was badly treated, wronged and robbed of his due, and he was wrathful against Jeanne and François. In the angry spirit of the moment, he spoke bitter words to François, and reproached him for having come between him and his mother. But François, who retained the guilelessness of a child, cared too little about the money to seize the base motive of his brother’s anger; he thought it was an outburst of latent jealousy against the orphan child who had come between him and the fulness of 451 his mother’s love, and, with the warmth of a generous nature, François forgave him his unjust reproaches; he offered to give up all at once unconditionally to his cousin, and to leave the cottage, and take no compensation, provided only Gaston would give him back his love and trust. Gaston was not utterly hardened, and the generosity and frankness of his cousin disarmed him, and shamed him out of his unworthy resentment; he embraced him, and asked him to forgive him, and they were true brothers from that out. The coils of avarice twined round Gaston’s heart, and choked his best instincts and his finest impulses, but they did not crush out his love for François. That grew and flourished like a lily amongst weeds. So they stayed together till they grew up to man’s estate, and then an event occurred in the distant town of Chapelle-aux-lys which was to make a new era in the lives of both.

A niece of the curé’s died, leaving one orphan child, whom she implored her uncle to receive and take care of; Marie was alone in the world; and there was no one to whom the mother could bequeath her except the curé of Chamtocé. Great was the perplexity of the worthy priest when he received the intelligence of his niece’s death, accompanied by the unexpected legacy of a grand-niece, and a request that he would enter into possession at once. Victoire was called into council, but, instead of helping him out of the difficulties of the position, she staggered him by asking if he meant to buy a cage and hang _la petite_ in the window like a canary? That was the only way _she_ saw of taking her in. Why, they were so tight for room that if she, Victoire, were not the woman she was, it would be simply an impossibility to fit herself and her _effects_ into the space allotted to her at the presbytery; and where, in the name of common sense, did M. le Curé think she could make room for another inmate? The curé admitted the inexorable logic of this fact, and immediately proposed adding another room to the house; this was the Vendéan’s ready way of simplifying difficulties when his family outgrew his dwelling. Victoire said of course that this remedy was open to them, but what were they to do with _la petite_ till the room was built? Hang her up in the window? M. le Curé rejected the cage alternative, and suggested his niece be sent to one of the farmers’ wives’ for the time being. “Which of them?” Victoire begged leave to inquire. Mère Madeleine would take her and welcome, but she had four sons at home, so that would not do. Then there were La Mère Tustine and La Tante Ursule, and a great many other estimable matrons who would gladly give her a shelter, but between their hospitality and Marie’s acceptance of it there stood some impediment in the shape of sons or brothers that shut the door on the young stranger. The curé and his gouvernante were puzzling over the case, and seeing no way out of it, when François Léonval came in. The curé loved all his children, but, if there was one that he loved better than all, it was the child-like, open-hearted François. He told him at once of his trouble, and asked him what he was to do. François solved the difficulty instanter by offering him the spare room at home--his mother’s formerly, and never occupied since her death--assuring the curé that he and Gaston and Gervoise, their old _bonne_, would take every care of his grand-niece, and that, far from being in the way, she would be quite a godsend to them all in the dull cottage. The curé smiled with a deeper thankfulness than the 452 young man understood at the biblical simplicity betrayed in this proposal, and it took a good deal of argument to make François see that the scheme was not practicable; but when ultimately he did see it, he was ready with an amendment which the curé saw no fair reason for rejecting. This was that Mlle. Marie was to be installed in her uncle’s room, and he was to come and stay with the brothers while another was being added to the presbytery. This point settled, the first thing to be done was to get possession of Marie. The curé would have gladly gone to fetch the poor little orphan himself, but this was Saturday, a very busy day for the country priest, and to-morrow would be Sunday, a busier day still, and when it was quite impossible for him to be absent. But François here again came to the rescue. He would drive over to Chapelle-aux-lys, put up for a few hours--it was a good three hours’ drive--and be back by nightfall with the legacy. François Léonval was perhaps the only youth in the village to whom such a mission could have been entrusted without its provoking a stream of chattering comments on all sides, but the curé knew that not even that queen of gossips, Tante Ursule, would find a word to say against it in his case. So he gave his blessing to François, who ran home as fast as he could, put the strong bay mare to the cariole, and was soon trotting over the snow on the road to Chapelle-aux-lys. This was how Marie came to Chamtocé.

In due time the room was built, the curé took leave of the brothers, and returned to the presbytery, where Marie reigned henceforth with soft, despotic sway over himself, the stiff old Victoire, and all who came within her kingdom. She was soon the acknowledged belle of Chamtocé, and the number of her admirers and the zeal with which they competed for her hand in the village dance, or the honor of carrying her red morocco _Heures_ to and from church on Sundays and fête-days, became a serious complication in the existence of the venerable curé. For his flock loved him with the love that casteth out fear, and had no secrets from him; old and young went to him with their _confidences_ as a matter of course, and the rival candidates for Marie’s favors carried their hopes and fears and complaints of her and of each other to his sympathizing ears with merciless garrulity. It was no small thing to bear the burden of this confidence, to hearken to these knotty cases, and to give advice and sympathy befitting each particular one. The curé, to be sure, had more experience than most men in this kind of diplomacy, having been the bosom confidant of all the swains who had sighed to the belles of Chamtocé these forty years past; but he declared that Marie’s lovers gave him more to do than the whole generation together. There were nine eligible _partis_ going, and all nine were competing for her. The good man was driven to his wits’ end. Marie remained serenely indifferent to them all, and never gave a glance of encouragement to one above another, nor could her uncle detect the faintest sign of preference toward any of them. He took refuge, therefore, in perfect neutrality, and refused to interfere in behalf of any of the suitors. She was young enough to bide her time and try their fidelity before she adopted a choice so important to them and to herself. Marie was fifteen when she came to Chamtocé. The revolution had broken out in Paris and was spreading rapidly through the provinces. La Vendée, which was destined soon to 453 play such a noble part in the fiercest tragedy the world ever saw, was still comparatively quiet; but before Marie had spent two years in her new home, the Royalist movement was firing the hearts of the Vendéans, and the enthusiastic spirit of Charette and Cathelineau and Stoffel was fanning the flames of patriotism and goading the peasants to that grand and universal uprising whose story stands unparalleled in the annals of chivalrous loyalty. The Republican soldiers, _les bleus_, as they were called, were scouring the country, depopulating villages, murdering the priests, and hunting down the nobles, ordering off whole streets to the guillotine in a batch, spreading terror and devastation everywhere. The peasantry had risen _en masse_ and joined the Royalist troops, and were selling their lives and their altars dear. Chamtocé was not behind hand in the patriotic movement. It furnished its goodly contingent of soldiers to the king, and many were the episodes of daring and self-devoted loyalty that marked the progress of the Vendéan cause in the pretty, peaceful village.

Marie was just seventeen when the first recruitment took place. It was a bright spring morning. She was sitting in the latticed window of the presbytery parlor, a dark-eyed, merry-looking maiden in a fan-shaped Vendéan cap, whose soft white cambric frilling set off her warm olive complexion admirably, and made her a very pretty picture as she sat singing to her spinning-wheel, bobbing her head with a quick, graceful movement that kept time to the play of her foot and hands. At a table at the other end of the room the curé was writing away diligently. He was too much absorbed in his work to be disturbed by the musical purring of Marie’s wheel, or the broken snatches of song with which she varied the _rond-rond_ and enlivened the pleasant, monotonous labor; he knew she was there, but her presence was no more hindrance to him than the sunshine that was streaming unbidden through the window, and filling the little room with warmth and brightness.

Suddenly the _rond-rond_ ceased, Marie looked up, and fixed her eyes on some distant object along on the road. Then she stood up, and said hurriedly:

“Mon oncle! mon oncle!”

“Well, my child?” answered the curé abstractedly, without pausing from his work.

“I see horsemen galloping toward the village. _Sont-ce les bleus?_”

The word made the curé start like the touch of a spring. He dropped his pen and was beside her in an instant. They looked out steadily toward the dust-cloud that was advancing rapidly, and for one minute neither spoke. Then the curé exclaimed joyfully:

“No! They are Charette’s men!”

And so they were. But none the less was there cause for Marie’s cheek to grow pale, and the heart of the old pastor to beat with a great emotion. They knew what brought these Royalist soldiers to Chamtocé. Charette wanted men, and he had sent here to levy them. In less than an hour, every available man in the village was up on the _place_ for inspection. The difficulty was whom to take and whom to refuse, for the brave fellows whose exploits and valor won for them later the sobriquet of _peuple de géants_ (race of giants) were all clamoring to be enrolled under the king’s flag, and to go forth and die for the king’s cause.

For the first time to-day since that outbreak that had bound them in closer brotherhood, François and Gaston quarrelled. Both wanted to go, 454 both were equally good for the service; the recruiting officer, unable to choose between them, declared they must decide for themselves. The only way to do this was to defer it to the curé. They walked off to the church, where the old man was speaking plain, soul-stirring words of encouragement and exhortation to a throng of men and women, the men exulting, the women weeping, but all of one mind and heart in the cause, and ready to give their best and dearest to serve under the banner of the fleur-de-lis.

Marie was kneeling close by the altar, amidst a group of weeping mothers and sisters. Her eyes were dry, but dim and restless; she spoke to no one, but turned constantly toward the door, as if she were watching for some new arrival. When the brothers came in, there was a movement, the crowd made way for them as they walked up to the altar, and hushed their sobs to hear what they were going to say.

“Monsieur le Curé,” said Gaston, “only one of us may enlist, and you are to choose between us; which of us may go and fight for the king?”

“Ah! my children, what is it you ask of me! How can I choose!” exclaimed the old man, clasping his hands. “You are both dear to me; I would have you both fight for the king and win a crown of glory. If you fall fighting in defence of God and his altars, yours will be the crown of the martyrs. Which is most pure at heart, strongest in faith, most worthy to serve in the cause of God? He alone can tell!”

“François! François!” cried many voices in chorus, and the people gathered round the poor man’s friend, and blessed him, and bid him joy of being chosen for the good fight.

“So be it!” said the curé; and François knelt down, and the curé laid both hands upon his head and blessed him.

Marie was a silent and unnoticed spectator of the scene. She was still on her knees, clasping the altar-rails with both hands so tightly that the strain left them white and bloodless. François waited till the crowd had followed M. le Curé out of the church, and it was empty except of the two, and then he went close up to Marie and knelt down beside her. He did not speak, and she did not look at him, but she knew that it was François.

“Marie!” he said, and laid his hand on her arm.

Then she turned and looked into his eyes, and these two knew that they loved each other.

“If I fall, you will remember me, Marie, and pray for me,” said François, taking her hand in both his.

“Yes.”

“And, Marie, if I return--”

“We will come to this same spot and bless God together, François.”

“You will wait for me a year and a day?”

“I will wait for you to the end of my life.”

They sent up one last prayer in silence, then kissed each other and parted.

As François left the church he met Gaston, who was seeking him in great concern everywhere. The brothers walked home arm-in-arm, discoursing with full hearts of this sudden and solemn parting. When they entered the cottage, François went straight to his room, and came out with a small deal box in his hand.

“_Frère_,” he said, “I have not much to trouble about in the way of property, but what I have you will keep for me. My savings are nothing to speak of, seven hundred francs in all; here is the box. I should not have had even that sum but for the sale of the cattle at Easter. Do 455 the best you can for me with it; lay it out in stock or grain--whatever brings most as times go. The sheep were the best investment the last two fairs; I wish I had done more in that line; but I was never overwise with my money, and this will thrive better in your hands than in mine, _frère_; only I would rather you didn’t let it lie out long at a time, as you do with your own; gather it in soon after a good stroke, and let it grow till it’s a good sum; it’s not safe in these days to leave one’s money floating in any business.”

Gaston’s astonishment had grown to stupefaction by the time his brother brought this speech to an end. What did it mean, this sudden desire to make money and let it accumulate? François had all his life been as careless of louis-d’or as of carrots or apples, and gave them away as readily for the asking; and now that he was about to face the cannon, and stood a strong chance of never needing them again, he was smitten with an insane desire to have them increase and multiply. Though Gaston said nothing, François read this wonder in his eyes.

“Don’t think I’ve put my heart in the money,” he said, laying a hand on Gaston’s shoulder, and looking wistfully into his face; “I’d hand it to you for your own, to do as you liked with it, if I were alone in the world; but I’m not, _frère_. I’ve another to think of now.”

He drew away his hand, and averted his face quickly, but Gaston saw his lip quiver, and the drops gather in his brave, truthful eyes. He saw it all at a glance, and followed the recruit’s figure, as it disappeared again into his room, with an expression on his face that it was better for both François did not see; if he had looked at his brother then he would have read a secret that would have pierced his heart like a sword. Gaston stood staring after him as if he had been turned to stone, his features fierce and hard-set, the veins in his forehead swelling and throbbing, all his frame shaken by a vehement struggle. Gaston mastered it, his face relaxed, and he went in after François.

“_Frère_,” he said, “you may trust me,” and held out his hand to him.

François clasped it, but looking at his brother with a puzzled smile:

“Trust thee!” he repeated, “as if I needed thy pledge for that! Brother, I trust thee as I trust my soul.”

“And, _frère_, as Monsieur le Curé said just now, the best and purest are chosen for the sacrifice; if--”

“_Vive Dieu et le Roi!_” cried François, raising his cap. Then he was silent a moment before he said:

“If I fall, you will be a good brother to Marie, and do what you can to comfort her.”

“And the money, what shall I do with it?”

“Give it to her.”

The brothers embraced, and set out in search of M. le Curé. He blessed them all once more, and the brave young fellows fell into ranks with the soldiers, and marched off singing their battle-psalm, their hearts beating with high hope and faith and courage; while brave Vendéan mothers followed them out of the village, speeding them with blessings and cries of _Vive Dieu et le Roi!_ It echoed through the gathering twilight with a strange, inspiring pathos. Quiet and darkness fell upon Chamtocé, the shadows died out of the silent church, the red flame of the sanctuary lamp rose and fell, flickering like a crimson pulse in the gloom, and casting its halo on the bowed head of the 456 Vendéan soldier’s _fiancée_.

PART SECOND.

François’s money multiplied with such unprecedented luck in Gaston’s keeping that the little deal box was soon too small to hold it. Gaston kept very little money of his own in hand, he let it float, as his brother said, but whatever he had was always in gold--he never took payment in anything else, and he followed the same plan for François. If it had been his own, he could not have put more zeal into the management of it; and it was with a sense of personal pride and success that at the end of a year he counted over François’s treasure, and found he had trebled the original sum. And Marie--how fared it with her? She was waiting in patience and hope and prayer till the time named by François as the furthest date of his return came and passed and brought no sign of him, and then her heart sank. She could not think that he would leave her in such cruel ignorance of his fate if he were still alive; but neither could she believe that he was dead. They would have heard of it somehow. Bad news travels quickly at all times, and even in those days of terror, when postal arrangements were broken up, and it was at the risk of his head that a messenger carried a letter, news came from the most distant points to out-of-the-way villages in a way that was almost miraculous. _Les bleus_ were everywhere, ubiquitous, stealthy, vindictive, but they could not cut off communication between the Royalists. Fresh recruits started from Chamtocé, and wounds and deaths and noble exploits were chronicled from the distant camp or battle-field, but not a word came over the hilly plains of La Vendée to tell of the fate of François Léonval. Two years went by, and still the silence was unbroken. Then one morning Gaston dressed himself with unwonted care, and went to the presbytery. He found M. le Curé alone. They sat some time together, and when the young man rose to take his leave, the curé said:

“You will meet her probably on the way home. Plead your own cause, my boy; I have done what I could for you; you have my best blessing if you can persuade Marie.”

Gaston met her and pleaded. But not successfully. “François said a year and a day, and after that, if you did not hear, you might be sure he had gone before us,” urged Gaston, choosing the word that would fall less harshly on his listener’s heart; “and now two years have passed and he has neither written nor sent. I do not ask you to forget him, or to cease to love him; we will both love him, and think of him always as dear brother, and he will be happier in heaven for seeing you happy here. Let me fulfil my promise to him that I would take care of you. Come home with me, Marie, and be my wife!”

“I promised that I would wait for him,” answered Marie, her dark eyes looking out toward the west with a gaze of patient longing as she walked on by Gaston’s side.

“A year and a day. You told me he said a year and a day.”

“He said it, but I put no limit to the time. I said I would wait to the end.”

“But he would not have it, Marie; he loved you too well to wish you to waste your life in solitude and vain hopes.”

But Marie shook her head and repeated:

“I promised I would wait for him.” 457

“And your uncle--does his wish count for nothing? You know that he has long since given up all hope, and that the thought of leaving you alone in the world is embittering his old age. ‘I am getting old,’ he said to me just now, ‘but the only thing that makes me dread death is this anxiety about my _pauvre petite_. Who will take care of her when I am gone?’ ‘I promised François I would, _mon père_,’ I said. ‘Then go and plead with her for yourself and for me,’ he replied, ‘that Marie may let you keep your promise.’”

They walked on in silence till they came to the gate of the presbytery, and Marie raised her face to Gaston’s and said:

“Wait one year more, Gaston, and then, if you still wish, come and tell me, and I will go home with you.”

“I have waited three years already, and I would wait as many more to win you,” answered the young man; and as he bent his face over hers--not a handsome face, but illuminated now by eyes that were liquid and beautiful with beseeching love--Marie thought that, since she must choose a home when her uncle was gone, she would rather share Gaston’s than any other, and that it might not be such a difficult thing to love him by-and-by.

That night, when Gervoise had gone to bed, and the place was quiet and all the bolts drawn, Gaston took out François’ money-bag and counted over the contents. It was a good round sum now. He built up the louis into little piles and reckoned them, and then poured them back into the bag; and the coins flashed like little suns in the dim light of his lantern; and Gaston feasted his eyes on them: he thrust his hand into the heap, and, gathering up a handful of coins, let them drip down through his fingers one by one, listening to the pure ring of the metal as if it had been music, as indeed it was to him. Now that Marie had promised to be his wife, this gold which was hers would soon be his, and before the year was out it would be a still bigger heap. He had not told her or the curé that Francois had left any money in his charge, not from any idea of latent treachery to François--oh, no! Gaston was incapable of that; but it had been his dream ever since François had gone to win Marie and then settle this money on her, telling her, of course, whose gift it was. Partly from methodical habit, and partly from an unconfessed pleasure in the sight and touch of the gold, he had made a point of counting it all over after every fresh transaction, but from this night out he began to count it oftener. The fact that it was now to all intents and purposes his own added a new zest to the operation, and the prospect of it became by degrees the chief solace of his working hours, till at last he came to count it regularly every night and to long for the moment when he could lock his door and turn the flame of his lantern on the burning blaze of the gold.

The year came to an end. There was no news of François, and Gaston, being still of the same mind, claimed his promise, and Marie came home with him.

But seven months later François was tramping along through the snow on his way to Chamtocé, and now he is sitting before the pine-wood fire in Monsieur le Curé’s parlor. He had not asked for Marie, and the curé had not named her. The dumb entreaty of François’ eyes smote him to the heart, and he had not the courage to tell the pilgrim that the light which had lured him on through the smoke of the battle, in the 458 dreary watches of the bivouac, in the many miseries of his soldier life, was a mirage that had tempted him along the desert path, only to mock him when he neared it, and fade out of the sky like a false and fickle star. No; he had not the courage to tell him that Marie was his brother’s wife.

When the curé entered the cottage, he found Gaston sitting down to his dinner alone. Marie had gone to nurse a sick neighbor’s child. The curé was glad of her absence. It made his mission easier. “_Mon garçon_,” he said at once, “I bring news that will startle you, and I am thankful to be able to break it to you before Marie hears it. Your brother is come back.” The curé expected his announcement to startle Gaston, as he had said, but he was not prepared for the effect it produced. The young man stood bolt upright, looked at the curé with wild, scared eyes, and dropped again into his chair without uttering a word.

“Have you told him?” he gasped, after an interval of silence that the old priest felt himself incapable of breaking.

“No; her name was not mentioned by either of us.”

“Ha!” Gaston drew a breath of relief; “then perhaps--who knows? He may take it less to heart than we fear?”

“I don’t know. At his age, four years is a long absence; still we cannot tell. But at any rate, my son, you must come and give him a brother’s welcome, and do what a brother’s love can do to lighten the disappointment to him.”

He took Gaston’s arm, and they went out to the presbytery together.

The curé’s heart belied his words when he held out the hope that François’ love might not have borne unchanged the test of absence. He knew the youth too well to believe it. And he was right.

The meeting between the brothers was quiet, but none the less terrible. The curé told François how it had all happened; how faithfully Marie had kept her troth, hoping long after he and Gaston had given up all hope; how at length he had urged her to listen to Gaston; and how, tardily and with a sad heart, she had yielded to both their entreaties. François heard him to the end, and then, in a voice of heart-rending gentleness, he said:

“It was my fault, _frère_; I do not blame thee. God’s will be done!”

He held out his hand, Gaston clasped it, and the brothers stood for a moment face to face in silence. Both were very, pale, but it was not François who was the paler of the two.

Gaston went home, and François watched his figure across the little garden and down the road till it disappeared like a blue speck on the white background, and then he fell upon the curé’s neck and sobbed like a woman.

Before many hours Chamtocé was on tiptoe with alarm and curiosity. A shepherd had arrived in haste with the news that one of the royalist captains had passed through Saumur in disguise, and been traced to Chapelle-aux-lys, whence _les bleus_ were started in pursuit of him; there was a large price on his head; and _les bleus_ were so enraged against him for his desperate exploits and for having baffled them so long, that they were resolved to show no quarter to the people that harbored him, and would set fire to the town rather than let him escape. An old cowherd who had been born and bred in the service of the Maulevriers had recognized François Léonvel on the road, and, guessing whither he was bound, had sent a trusty messenger with a word 459 of warning to Chamtocé.

Gaston was the only person, besides the curé and Victoire, who knew of his brother’s arrival so far, and when Gervoise came in with this news, which she caught from the village gossips on her way from evening prayers, his first impulse was to rush to the presbytery, and warn his brother to start at once, and seek some safer hiding-place. He went out quickly, but, as he had his hand on the wicket, he saw Marie coming towards the cottage. She was the last person he wished to meet just then, but he could not avoid her without exciting surprise in her mind, and perhaps suspicion. So he tarried till she came, wondering why she walked so slowly, as if she did not make sure he was waiting for her, or as if--as Gaston’s heart whispered to him--she would rather he went without speaking to her. Why? Was it possible the truth had come to her ears already? He could not believe it, still it was with a painful quickening of his pulse that he saw her at that leisurely pace.

“Were you waiting for me, Gaston?” she said simply.

“No. I am going in to Monsieur le Curé for a minute; I will be back presently. Are you not well, Marie?”

“Yes, _mon ami_, quite well, only tired and cold.”

She drew her shawl closer round her with a little shudder, and passed him and entered the cottage. Gaston’s heart leaped up as if an adder had stung it, and then sank as suddenly with a horrible faintness. He leaned against the snow-stuffed hedge and felt as if the very life were frozen within him. The blood rushed to his throat; he put his hand to his forehead as if a spasm of pain had stunned him; but soon rousing himself from his absent attitude, he walked on to the presbytery. But he did not enter it. He did not see it, in fact. He walked on and on like a man in a dream, looking neither to the right nor the left, and when suddenly he remembered where he was, and whither he was bound, he had left the village more than a league behind him, and was standing on the sloping beach of St. Florent, under the shadow of its semicircular hills that look down upon the Loire, where the little islet of ---- sits like a brooding swan midway in its waters. The night had fallen, but the moon was not yet up, and the darkness was only lightened by the snowy reflex of the landscape. A bank of cloud hung like a heavy curtain over the hill, and hid away the moon. Somehow Gaston was glad of the darkness. But it was in vain that he strove to make it dark within. No outer darkness could conceal from him the workings of his heart. He saw into its troubled depths as clearly as if a thousand moons had been shining in the purple vault above him. He saw the tempter busy with his fiercest instincts, and he saw what a base and miserable tool he was. Ay, but desperate as well as base. Much must be forgiven to a desperate man. Here was his whole life wrecked. His wife’s affection and trust--he felt it had not yet grown to love--was lost to him; his gold was lost to him--his precious, darling gold, that he had hugged to his heart till it grew to be a part of it, a second wife; and he must give it up just at a moment when he wanted it as he had never done before, and had laid out all his money, and had not a louis to ring on his hearthstone except this gold of François’. A curse upon the hour he took it! François would never ask it back--never accept it, most likely, Gaston felt. 460 But Marie would never consent to keep it. No, and she would grow to hate him in spite of herself for having come between her and François, and forced her to break her troth to him. His life, that was so bright and rich, how dark and wretched it had become within these last few hours! And was there no rescue from it all? Yes. He had only to speak a word, and he was saved. Let him start off now, before Marie knew of François’s return, and meet _les bleus_, and they would come quietly to the presbytery, and take him away in the night, and there would be an end of François for ever, and of the misery he was going to cause. Treachery? Bah! His was the treachery to come back after being as good as dead all this time. Was it a crime to have married Marie, when he left her three whole years without a word of love or a sign of existence? She was happy now, but if once she saw François she would never know happiness again. The sight of his misery would fill her heart with remorse, and break it. What right had François to go away at all when he knew that Marie loved him? It was no doing of Gaston’s that; he wanted to go in his stead. Would that he had! But now he was to be a ruined, blighted man to the end of his days. And to what purpose? To save François from being shot a little sooner than he might be; for so surely as he had a head on his shoulders, so surely would he have a bullet through it some day. No one would be the worse of his having it to-morrow instead of a month hence or a year, and two human beings would be considerably the better of it.

Gaston had flung himself on a snow-heap by the side of the river, his face buried in his arms, while he worked out his wrongs and his despair to this conclusion. François must die. There was no other way out of it. Once he brought his mind to face this alternative and close with it, there was no time to be lost, and it would be dangerous to go over the ground again. He must act at once if he were to act at all. Gaston shook the snow from his arms, and sprang to his feet. But a change had come over the scene, and he could hardly realize that it was the same he had surveyed in the dim white darkness half an hour previously. The heavy bank of cloud had melted away; only one small patch remained, fringed with silvery rays that lighted up the sky like the glory of a tabernacle; all round it myriads of stars were twinkling in the liquid depths of blue, and gazing on their own brightness in the steel-blue mirror of the Loire, that trembled lightly as the golden shafts shot down through it and illuminated its cold, pure bosom like a second heaven. Presently, the moon came out, not “pale for weariness of climbing” the steep sky, but radiant and beautiful, and shone serenely in the clear December heaven, and all the world was bathed in silvery twilight. The solemnity of the scene thrilled through Gaston’s soul, and made his pulse beat with an unknown fear; but it was the ennobling fear with which nature inspires us in her sublimest aspects--the reverent awe that uplifts the soul, not the guilty terror that casts it down, paralyzing and debasing it.

His ghastly project cowered before him like a fiend dragged from outer darkness into the splendor of God’s sunshine. The divine beauty of the world without rebuked and annihilated the foulness of the world within. No base or treacherous thoughts could contemplate the purity and glory of that starry splendor, and not perish. It drew the earth 461 heavenward, and made all things grand and solemn. The meek, low hills grew mighty and majestic; they stretched their pure white peaks to kiss the stars, soaring high above the haunts of men, as if they scorned the earth, and would have naught in common with the pettiness, the guilt, and the folly that had their dwelling on the plain. The very silence had a voice in it more powerful than thunder. It rang with inarticulate harmonies through Gaston’s soul--mysterious, unuttered whisperings, as of angels hovering to and fro, brushing the crystal twilight with their wings.

And were there not angels near him in his hour of struggle? Did he not hear them pleading at his heart, touching his storm-tossed spirit with their loving, beseeching eyes, weeping, perhaps, over the impending ruin of his God-imaged soul? Surely, if angels ever weep, earth has no misery more worthy of their tears. And were they less powerful than the fallen spirits who were fighting against them for the noble prize, or did they love God’s human creature less than the fiends hate him?

Gaston called to mind the days long ago, when he was an innocent child, and prayed every night to his angel guardian before lying down to sleep, and believed that the beautiful benign spirit stood at the right side of his little cot, watching him while he slept. It was many a day since he had prayed, but now the words came back on him with a strange, impelling power, and played upon his heart like the notes of a long-forgotten melody. They rose to his lips, but he choked them down. He could not let them pass. Whom was he to speak to--an angel? There was a gulf between the Judas that he was to-day and the unsullied little child who used to breathe that prayer in an angel’s ear.

Gaston felt the scene was subduing his soul to a dangerous softness, and unnerving him for his purpose. What a fool he was to stand there moon-gazing! He turned his back on the river and the hills, and strode homeward at a rapid pace. He tried to sing, but his voice jarred like a discord on the holy silence, and he checked himself. It was near ten when he re-entered the village. Every house was closed and quiet, but not asleep. This was Christmas eve. The children were put to bed with many a promise that they should be called for midnight Mass, but most of the elders were watching, saying their rosaries, or singing _cantiques_ in family groups while awaiting the summons of the bell to gather round the crib of the new-born King. Gaston saw the lights gleaming from many windows, and wished them out. He had no mind to be seen prowling alone in the snow at this time of night, and on such a night, so he crept on stealthily under the shadow of the cottages, till he came to his own gate. He dreaded meeting Marie, and having to answer her questions as to why he had been out so long. But perhaps she would ask no questions. Was she really so pale when he met her that time, or was it his terrified fancy? Anyhow, she could not know yet for certain that François was here, whatever fears or hopes--yes, Gaston must use the word--the gossip that had reached her ears may have suggested. But on entering the bright, spacious kitchen where the table was spread for supper, all its pewter and delft glancing in the light of the pine-logs that blazed merrily in the broad chimney, he saw no one but old Gervoise, sitting bolt upright in her high-backed chair in the chimney-corner, and nodding significantly at the knitting 462 that lay on her knees. The noise he made drawing a stool to the fire awoke her. He asked where her mistress was, and Gervoise told him that Marie had come in for a few minutes and then gone out again, and that they were not to expect her home that night, as the child was worse. He was glad of her absence; yet it frightened him. Was it a pretext--was she shrinking from him, afraid or loath to meet him! At any rate, it changed his intention of starting at once; he decided that he would wait till all the village was up and astir for midnight Mass, and then he would slip off and ride hard, so as to reach Chapelle-aux-lys and be back again before daylight and Marie’s return. He said he did not care to eat anything, and went up to his room. He locked himself in, lighted his lantern, and pulled out the fatal money-bag; he felt he must strengthen himself by the sight of the gold, and count over his treasure once more, to make sure it was worth the price he was going to pay for it. This done, he flung himself undressed on the bed, and, worn out by the conflict of the last few hours, was soon sound asleep. But he had not been asleep long before he was aroused by a long knocking at his door, and a rough voice demanded admittance. Gaston sprang to his feet.

“Who’s there?” he said.

“_Les bleus._ Open in the name of the republic!” and the speaker dealt a blow on the door that nearly broke it in.

Gaston opened without further parley, and six men entered the room.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“We want one François Léonval who is concealed in this house. Tell us where to find him and we will go, and do you no harm; but if you try to shirk it--” The man swore a brutal oath, and pointed his pistol at Gaston’s head.

But Gaston Léonval had a Vendéan’s spirit withal. It was not to dastardly personal cowardice that he would betray his brother; he felt the cold touch of the muzzle on his forehead, and, quietly pushing it aside, he told the man he might search the house, and he wished him joy if he found what he was looking for. “We had better begin by the outhouses and the garden,” said the one who seemed to take the lead; “two of you stay inside to prevent any tricks, while we are outside.” And he left the room, followed by all but one soldier, who remained to mount guard over Gaston.

But a safer and stronger sentinel was keeping watch by the wretched brother, urging him with terrible power and show of reason to say the word that would free him for ever. Only an hour ago, he was resolved to run great risks to say it, and now he had only to make a sign, and run no risk whatever, and he could not bring himself to do it. Confound that moonshine! It had made a woman of him. He went to the window and looked down into the garden to watch the proceedings of the soldiers. Then he heard them searching the rooms below, banging doors and overturning everything, and presently the officer came up-stairs again.

“Hearken, _mon garçon_, it’s no use trying to play hide-and-seek with _les bleus_,” he said, “you won’t find it answer. Now, once for all, where is this François Léonval?”

“I tell you he’s not here,” replied Gaston doggedly; “if he was, you would find him.”

“Most likely, if we had time to lose hammering at the walls and hunting 463 up the chimneys; but _les bleus_ have a more expeditious way of going to work. When we can’t bag our game, we fire it. So walk out, and we will set a light to the house and make a little Christmas bonfire for you. If he’s a coward, he’ll soon cry _merci_! If he’s a brave man, why he’ll go out in a blaze, and that’s as good a death as another. So here goes, give me the light!”

He seized the lantern, took out the socket, and deliberately advanced towards the bed.

“Hold!” cried Gaston, clutching his outstretched arm; “the man you are in search of is not here; he is at the presbytery.”

The _bleu_ laid down the light.

“Stay here,” he said to the soldier who had remained in the room; “we will whistle for you when it’s time to join us.”

He descended the stairs quickly, and Gaston heard the door close, and saw the five figures disappear down the road. After that he seemed to fall into a sort of stupor, and stood without moving hand or foot, staring stolidly out of the window, while the soldier waited in silence for the promised signal. It came at last, wounding the silence like the hiss of a snake, and Gaston knew that his brother was in the hands of the torturers.

No sooner was he alone than a legion of demons seemed to people the room, filling it with hideous forms and voices, mocking and scoffing, and asking him what he had done with his brother. He stamped in rage, and dashed his hands through his hair, and began to walk rapidly up and down. But the spectres kept pace with him, grinning and hooting and repeating with maddening iteration: “What have you done with your brother?”

“What had he done with him?” cried Gaston aloud--“why, only what François would have done with himself sooner or later. And was he to let his house be burnt down and his gold melted to postpone the day perhaps for twenty-four hours? Pshaw! what an idiot he was to take on so about it. It was all that whistle that set his nerves on an edge. Why did it keep on hissing and hissing? The _bleus_ and their capture were half a mile out of ear-shot by this. Fate had been good to Gaston, and served him much better than he could have served himself. It had taken the matter out of his hands, and he had been no more than a passive agent in its grasp, in the grasp of law and might--ay, and right too. When François came back like a simpleton and thrust his head into the lion’s mouth, what could he expect but that it would close on him and crunch him? It was over now. Marie would never hear of his return and need never curse the day she gave her hand to Gaston, and Gaston might sleep in peace, and without being haunted by terrors of his brother’s return.” Thus did he argue with the fiend and strive to beat him off, and stifle remorse that had entered his soul, and was gnawing at him with fierce, relentless tooth. But it would not do. Across the legion of fiends there flitted visions of the past, that he could not shut his eyes to, struggle as he would. First, there rose before him a curly-headed little brother whose small arms were round Gaston’s neck, clasping him as they lay in a little cot beside their mother, breathing softly in sweet child slumber; then he beheld a frank, bright boy kneeling with him beside that mother’s death-bed, while she blessed them and promised to meet them in heaven. Then the boy was a youth who stood with his hand on Gaston’s shoulder, and looked into his eyes, and said: “Brother, I trust thee as I trust my 464 soul!” This faded away, and he saw the same youth bronzed and war-worn, and betrayed in his manly trust, but still holding out his hand to Gaston, and saying with the well-remembered voice, now husky with the strong man’s agony: “I do not blame thee, brother; God’s will be done!” Slowly but vividly the visions rose before Gaston’s soul, and he could not but look on them, and, as he looked, sweet memories of his childhood rushed upon him like a torrent and bore him down; his boasted courage was gone, his pride, his love, his gold melted away like false phantoms, and he was alone with his sin and his despair. He remembered François’ noble unselfishness, his truth, his grateful love of their common mother, his reverence for her lightest wish; he remembered his many acts of kindness to the poor and the suffering, and how he had seen him followed by blessings from the old and young whom his generosity had helped and comforted; and oh! bitterest of all was the memory of their parting, when François gave him his little hoard in trust, and bid him take care of Marie. And this was the brother he had sold! O God! It was all too horrible to be true. Gaston seized the bag of gold, rushed from the house and into the stable, and, without waiting to saddle her, leaped on his mare’s back, and dashed off in pursuit of _les bleus_. They were only six, and he had gold enough to buy them if he only came in time. The mare flew as if she knew what hung on her speed, dashing up the snow that spattered her flanks and enveloped her rider in a moving cloud as they galloped along. The moon was still magnificent, and the stars shone down with the same calm splendor--the patient, far-away stars that 1793 years ago rang out the glad tidings to the watchers on the hills of Judea: Glory to God! Peace to men! Gaston, as he flew past the scene of his recent struggle, felt a chill of supernatural terror freeze him to the marrow of his bones. The stars stooped down till they seemed to touch him, and pierce him with needles of fire; the hills, the stern, uncompromising hills, shook their pale brows at him, and turned and ran with him through the waste of snow; and above them, from the battlements of heaven, rang out a myriad voices in ecstatic song: Glory to God! Peace to men! But ever and anon, breaking the high harmony of that song, came a shriek as of a mocking fiend: “What hast thou done with thy brother?”

The mare took a longer stride and put out her strength with a sudden increase of vehemence as they came to a turn in the road where it crossed the river and rounded the base of the hills. Gaston’s heart leaped up to his throat, as he caught the hammering of hoofs ahead. Thank heaven! he was in time. The horsemen came in sight. They slackened their speed, nay, they were dismounting now. Out in the open road with no shelter of any sort in sight? What did it mean? The mare strode on. A few more pulls, and she would be up with them. Gaston could distinguish the trim figures of the soldiers and François’s loose peasant dress. But now he lost sight of them; they had moved behind a hedge. Only for a moment. The six slim figures emerged from the snowy foreground, and six muskets gleamed horizontal in the moonlight.

“Hold! in the name of heaven, hold!” shrieked Gaston.

He flung down the bag, that burst and sent the gold rippling on the ground--but it was too late; there was a rattle, and flash followed 465 flash, as he sprang from his horse and rushed between the murderers and his brother. François lay prostrate, writhing in the snow, that his blood was turning to crimson. Their eyes met for one moment, and then François’ closed for ever. Gaston fell on the body with a cry that was like the shriek of a condemned soul; and then he felt a hand on his arm.

“There are the midnight bells sounding,” said old Gervoise, in a querulous voice. “I have been calling to you through the door these ten minutes, and you wouldn’t awake. I thought you were dead, so I got my own key and opened it.”

Gaston, dazed and terror-stricken, and doubting still whether he was dreaming or waking, started up, and told Gervoise not to wait for him, that he would follow her in a minute. Then he fell upon his knees, and prayed as a soul might do who had passed the gate “where hope enters not,” and been snatched back from the dark abyss.

“It was a vision to save me from the crime of Cain. Blessed be the mercy that has rescued me!”

He lighted a candle, opened a drawer in which he kept some writing materials, and sat down with a pen in his hand. He hid his face in his hands, and his lips moved convulsively in prayer for a moment, and then he began to write. It was not long. He did not read the letter over, but sealed it with a broad red seal, and then, with that strange force of habit that asserts itself so unaccountably in moments of supreme emotion, he carefully replaced the pen and paper in the drawer. After this he laid the letter on the table in the middle of the room, and, taking his coat and cap, sallied out into the night.

The Christmas bells were ringing out their welcome to the new-born King, tripping in silver-footed chime on the midnight silence, grave and merry, full of glad pathos and exulting hope, and forebodings solemn and tender. And the hymns and anthems of the villagers answered their call and swelled the chorus of the chimes; but the voice of a noble sacrifice that went up from Gaston’s heart mingled in diviner harmony with the pure joy-jargon of the bells. He entered the church, but, instead of going up to his accustomed seat, he stood near the door, half concealed by the angel holding the _bénitier_. He saw the stream of familiar faces flow in and take their places, and then turn with eager expectation toward the sacristy. The well-trained voices of the choir, unsustained by harp or organ, intoned the glorious hymn, _Adeste Fidelis_, and old and young answered in loud-voiced chorus: _Venite adoremus, Venite in Bethlehem!_ The altar was wreathed with lights and flowers, every pillar and picture-frame sparkled with the red-berried holly; the little lowly crib with its suggestive imagery glowed with crimson lamps; and before it the loving prayer of simple hearts made a fitting welcome for the Child that was born in poverty, and first worshipped by shepherds. As midnight struck, the door of the sacristy opened, and Monsieur le Curé in his grandest vestments came forth; but before the door had closed again, Gaston caught sight of a figure kneeling furtively behind it. He gave one long look at the golden door of the tabernacle, signed himself with the sign of the cross, and slipped out of the church.

Early on Christmas morning, a horseman rode in from Chapelle-aux-lys with a letter for M. le Curé! It was signed _Loison, soldat de la République_; and its purport was to inform him that one François 466 Léonval, who had born arms for nearly four years against the republic, and taken refuge the day before at Chamtocé, whither the soldiers of the republic were bound in pursuit of him, had, in order to prevent the shedding of innocent blood, left his native village in the night, and of his own free will given himself up to justice. He had died like a soldier, worthy of a better cause, and had begged the writer to bear his last words to the curé of Chamtocé, which were that he was happy to give his life for God and the king; and he prayed a blessing on his brother, and Marie his sister-in-law, and begged them and the curé to be mindful of him in their prayers. He fell crying _Vive Dieu et le Roi!_ which treasonable words had been enough to shoot him again if he were alive; but being dead, the writer, who respected a brave man, though he was a traitor, conveyed them in fulfilment of his promise to François Léonval.

Soon after this event the Reign of Terror came to an end. The fertile fields of La Vendée smoked once more under the furrowing ploughshare, and peace and plenty smiled upon the land. Absent ones returned to gladden many hearts, and to tell the story of their short and wonderful campaign, and brought back glory-laden banners, tattered and blood-stained, to hang in the village church, as trophies of Vendéan valor, to show future sons of La Vendée how their fathers had fought the good fight. Once more there was marrying and giving in marriage, and toil and prosperity reigned in Chamtocé.

When the winter snows had twice melted off the hills, and the snowdrops peeped up under the grimy hedges, like white-robed little choristers singing their glad good-by to the winter, and the lusty young spring had laid his emerald finger on the earth, the bells rang out their full, exhilarating peal, and a gay procession wound its way to the church, where Monsieur le Curé in his surplice and stole awaited the bridal train. His voice shook, and big drops rolled down his aged cheeks, as he laid his hand on the two bowed heads and called down the blessing of the God of Abraham on Marie and François Léonval. This was his last ministration. He tarried long enough to bless the marriage of his two best-loved children, and then he went home. They laid him to rest beside a humble grave that was always freshly decked with flowers. It bore a white stone cross and a marble slab, on which it was recorded that François Léonval in life was a brother with a noble heart, and in death a martyr who had died for a noble cause, and that, like his Master, “having loved his own, he loved them to the end.”

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THOUGHTS FOR THE WOMEN OF THE TIMES. 467

BY ONE OF THEMSELVES.

The woman of the nineteenth century owes all the advantages of her social position to the Catholic Church.

The disadvantages of that position, which are more or less justly the causes of discontent and complaint, are the natural fruits of Protestantism.

For many centuries, the church maintained a severe conflict against influences, principalities, and powers, which must have baffled the efforts of any but a divine institution, to rescue woman from the depths of degradation into which the iniquities of heathenism had thrust her. It required the superhuman patience and energy of a system animated by divine charity and sustained by omnipotent power to prosecute the struggle successfully, and to place woman in the position for which she was designed by her Creator. So far as she has since preserved the high relations with her Maker, with the family, and with society which were achieved for her by that struggle, it has been by virtue of the same power that first effected her elevation.

The divided and antagonistic forces of Protestantism have been as adverse to the interests of woman as it was possible for disjointed elements, acting discordantly, to be. Fortunate has it been for her that the very discrepancies of its moral elements have operated in a great measure to neutralize its influence. Since the days when the first Reformers (?) pronounced the result of a solemn debate in their decision that the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel might live with two wives conjointly without compromising his character as a good Christian under the _new religion_, and those of England exulted in the action of Henry VIII. when he repudiated the saintly Catharine of Aragon--for twenty-five years his faithful and lawful wife--and took the wanton Anne Boleyn in her stead, the general tendency of Protestant influence has been to rob woman of the dignity with which the church had invested her, by loosening the obligations of the marriage bond and diminishing the sanctity of the conjugal relation. If it has not entirely succeeded in degrading her to be the mere victim of man’s capricious whims, it has done what it could. Want of harmonious action between its constituent parts has been the best protection Protestantism has afforded to woman against this result. The boasted “progress”--originating in the revolt against divine authority exercised through the church--so far as it affects the condition of woman, has been steadily in this direction, especially during the present century.

Women are conscious of this. They are aware that the ground upon which they stand is becoming, year by year, less and less firm, the guarantees of their rights more and more feeble and inoperative, while the chances of a conflict for gaining a more secure footing are strongly against them. But while they are keenly alive to these facts, the cause for their existence is an enigma they have not yet solved--its remedy, a contingency they have not reached even in conjecture.

They could not be persuaded that it is the boasted “spirit of the age” which is in fault; that its irrepressible tendencies are to raise one 468 class by depressing another, and to create a countless multitude of tastes and wants which can be gratified by none but the favored class who are the possessors of great wealth.

They fret vainly--beating against the little that remains of ancient bulwarks erected to shield them, as if by destroying these their condition would be improved--and indulge an idle dream that women’s suffrage will remedy the evils, real or imaginary, of which they complain. “Let us vote,” they say; “let us have some voice in regulating our own affairs, and, if we do not succeed in shaping them entirely to our wishes, we shall at least reduce the number and weight of our grievances, be enabled to open new channels through which we can attain the independence we desire, and, by making our presence felt as an element of the body politic, be acknowledged as an existing fact that is of some importance to the nation.”

It is indeed an idle dream! The mind of every intelligent person must, upon a very little reflection, discover innumerable reasons why woman must cease to be woman, wife, and mother, before she can exercise the elective franchise to any purpose.

As a true American woman, we cannot regard the clamor which has been raised upon the subject of woman’s rights with the entire contempt it has met in many quarters. There is an invisible current of sad and mournful facts underlying this agitation.

If “material prosperity” is the key-note of Protestantism--as the testimony of its own writers would seem to prove--the development of material comfort and luxury is its highest expression. In all the appliances, arrangements, and habits of our domestic and social life, there has been a constant and alarming increase of expense during the past fifty years. New fashions have been invented, new wants created and multiplied, so rapidly that the supply, never exceeding the demand, has altogether exceeded the means of a great majority of our people. The few who were able to indulge in each novelty as it appeared have gone to surprising lengths; while the many, whose revenues were wholly inadequate, have strained every possible resource to keep pace with their wealthy leaders in expensive follies. Crime, bankruptcy, widespread ruin, and desolation have followed, of course. Multitudes have been left in poverty, with all the habits, tastes, and aspirations which wealth alone can gratify, and of these multitudes a large proportion are women. Accustomed to affluence, they are determined not to accept poverty--the synonym for _disgrace_ in their circle--and eagerly cast about them for some avenue of escape. Hence the frantic efforts to obtain entrance into new paths, hitherto untrodden by woman, for securing the object of their ambition.

Woman has a right to be all that her Maker designed when he created her as a “help” to man. He is not of more importance to society in his own place than she in hers. He would not render himself more ridiculous by forsaking his own duties and avocations for the care of the household, the kitchen, and the nursery, than she would by abandoning these for the public employments of men. The present state of affairs is sufficiently deplorable, but I do not see how such an exchange would mend the matter. Nor can we see any remedy, but by returning to old-fashioned ways. Very comfortable ways they were, too, however disdainfully the Flora McFlimsys of modern times may toss 469 their pretty befrizzled heads at the mere mention of them.

What sensible woman would not prefer the happy solitude of a Eugénie de Guérin--whereof her pen discourseth so eloquently that even the chickens fed by her hand seem to the reader like birds-of-paradise--in her beloved Cayla, to all the magnificent bleakness, splendid miseries, and heart-burning rivalries too often enclosed within the walls of a palace on the Fifth Avenue?

There are still further causes of uneasiness for women.

Twenty-four years of security in Catholic certainties, and in the enjoyment of such countless consolations as flow from the acceptance of Catholic verities and guidance, have not obliterated from our memory the discomforts formerly experienced from some of these. American women cannot abide the patronizing and condescending tone assumed by the men of society toward them. For our own part, the air of lofty contempt for which it was exchanged after our profession of the Catholic faith was truly refreshing in comparison. They want no such ostentatious toleration. They glory in the consciousness that woman may claim as inalienable a right to be sharply criticised as men enjoy, and have no thanks for such forbearance and namby-pamby nonsense as would be extended to a spoiled child. Nor would men offer it, if they possessed the robust hardihood and manly frankness of their grandfathers.

These women, many of them intelligent and thoughtful, are restless with an unrest which comes from being tossed upon the heaving waves of vague uncertainty from point to point, without the power to attain any fixed position.

Men regard their efforts to gain _terra firma_ with a blending of pity and contempt--in which the contempt is ill concealed and largely predominates--and the question whether a party rope shall be thrown out to draw them ashore, only to offer them before the car of some new political Juggernaut, hangs in the balance. Woe to the women of America should that question be decided in the affirmative!

In all the perplexing “changes and chances of this mortal life,” it is much to stand upon the firm basis of a well-defined and secure position, with the assurance that, so long as one is true to the duties and requirements of that position, a power fully competent to sustain its own guarantees is pledged to shield and protect it in every exigency.

This is the situation in which the Catholic woman is placed at the present juncture. She occupies an elevated standpoint, from which she can watch with great serenity and confidence all the strifes and agitations, moral, social, and political, that convulse this nineteenth century. She knows that the firm and consistent action of the church of Christ, as the champion and protector of woman’s rights, from the period of its first establishment to the present time, is a sufficient assurance of its future course; and she need not fear that an institution through which the Almighty sways the moral forces of the world so potently as to bring to naught the raging of the heathen, and render all the fractional efforts of Protestantism powerless, will prove a broken reed to lean upon in the hour of danger.

But the church requires from her daughters a _quid pro quo_. Nor does she leave them in doubt as to its character. Every duty of the Catholic woman of whatever age, relation, or state in life is so 470 simply and clearly defined for her, that to mistake or err is impossible, except through wilful dereliction: For the child, reverence and submission to parental authority; for the maiden, humble devotion to the plain everyday duties of home, and a modest reserve that seeks the seclusion from which she must be

“Wooed, And not unsought be won”;

for the married woman, respect for him who is “her head, even as Christ is head of the church”; entire devotion to his spiritual and temporal interests; and a loyal fealty to the sacred gift of maternity, by which the First Great Cause brings her into most intimate communion with himself; permitting her through its penalties, as one of Eve’s daughters, to offer her portion of expiation for the sin of that first parent, before his holy altar. For the mother, this tender Mother of souls provides abundant consolations and counsels in every hour of need, with measureless grace and strength to enable her to discharge perfectly every duty towards the young immortals committed to her keeping.

In no feature of the maternal care and solicitude with which the church surrounds her daughters is the contrast with the cold neglect and indifference of Protestantism more striking, than in the treatment extended by each system to those women who remain in a state of celibacy.

The condition of such under the Protestant _régime_ is truly pitiable, and the very title of “old maid,” with rare exceptions, entails odium and contempt more surely than moral depravity.

Hence the dread entertained by the girl in Protestant society for a single life, and the universal impression that to be married is the first great object of her existence. Alas! that escape from the sacred but irksome duties involved in that step should too frequently be the next!

Even mothers encourage their daughters in this view of the matter, and enter into their conspiracies for securing husbands with misguided zeal. Very little reflection is devoted to the question whether the parties are suited for each other, or the mutual attachment sufficiently strong to enable them to bear jointly the numerous and inevitable trials which pertain to every state and condition of life. The attention is chiefly directed to considerations of a widely different character, relating wholly to pecuniary affairs. It is a most singular fact, in connection with this phase of our subject, that--the great _desideratum_ once secured--the young wife too generally begins at once to regard and treat the husband whom she has been so anxious to gain as the adversary to her interests and happiness, instead of adopting the old-fashioned idea that he is her best friend. Strange as it may seem, this is a very common mistake in these days, and the source of much domestic discord and misery.

A lovely young mother--one of the fairest and most intelligent specimens of the modern American woman whom we are so happy as to know--said to us, the other day: “My boys are well provided for in any event, and, if they were not, they could fight their way in the world like others; but, I assure you, I shall bestir myself to make such provision for my girls as will secure them from being ground to powder by their husbands!”

This from a most devoted and exemplary wife, happy in a husband who dotes upon her, was sufficiently surprising.

“But,” said we, “you would not on any account have your daughters 471 remain unmarried; and would you be willing to give them to men with whom you would not trust their money?”

“Ah!” she replied, “I should prefer to rely upon their securing respect and good treatment with plenty of their own money at command, than with an empty purse.”

We sighed as we inquired mentally if it could be that our American men were really becoming so mercenary, and, recalling the old-fashioned doctrine of perfect community of interests between husbands and wives, marvelled much whether families governed by such maxims, and homes regulated from the start upon such a footing, would more abound in the desirable elements of old-fashioned comfort than those wherein the wife ruled, as of yore--yea, and supremely, too--by the old, old fashion of _love_!

The Catholic maiden of advanced age has a place as secure, and a sphere of action as respectable, in Catholic society as the married woman, nay, the very spirit and effect of her religion is to ensure for her increased respect on account of her vocation to celibacy. We know of many beautiful instances where such persons are the beloved and guiding spirits of households embracing all ages, and the beneficent patrons of their neighborhoods.

If she is favored with a vocation to a religious life, how many homes are open to her happy choice, where affection, honor, and countless opportunities for the exercise of angelic virtues and charities await her!

Verily, the Catholic maiden need not despair if she has no vocation for matrimony! She knows she does better in remaining single than she would in entering the married state without such vocation. These questions are, therefore, made the subjects of long, serious, and prayerful consideration. The Catholic wife enters that state, forewarned and forearmed for all the painful trials and anxious cares it involves, with the full knowledge that she can evade none of them, however trying to flesh and blood or irksome to her tastes and habits, and remain guiltless in the sight of the Arbiter of her destiny, before whose tribunal she appears as often as she approaches the holy sacrament of penance.

She takes up the tender and healthful delights of maternity with joy. and bears its pains and penalties with cheerful courage and patience. Already the Catholic mothers of America may glory in the fact that their children will form a very large proportion of the future citizens of our great republic. Let them, then, rise to the level of their destiny. Let them see that those children are thoroughly instructed in the principles of their religion. No station is so humble and no lot so hard as to prevent the mother from teaching the children God has given her, if she is earnest in her wish to do so. In no way can her boys be better prepared for exercising their elective franchise intelligently, and no one can deny that a woman’s suffrage offered through a fine group of boys will be far more efficient than her single vote.

Catholic women are inexcusable if they do not put aside the allurements of the world, spurn the glittering kaleidoscope of fashionable vanities, and, clinging with ever-increasing affection and allegiance to the ancient and mighty Mother, who is their best, their only sufficient, friend and protector, keep themselves aloof from all the agitations that distract their less favored sisters in the fruitless attempt to build up woman’s rights upon the ruins of her 472 ancient safeguards.

Woman’s suffrage--should they obtain it--will only betray their feet into a political slough, and bespatter them with political defilements from which none but an omnipotent power can rescue and cleanse them. Woman has everything to lose and nothing to gain in this movement, for, after all, men will manage affairs to suit themselves. The Almighty pronounced no idle decree when he said to the woman: “Thou shalt be under thy husband’s power, and he shall have dominion over thee.”

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EVER.

The steadfast gaze brings out the star, That, like an eye Set in the sky, Its sweet light shedding from afar, At morning dawn, and still at even, The night alway, And livelong day, There twinkles ever, deep in heaven:

Thy constant prayer so reacheth Love, That, like the star, Seeming so far, Its glad strength sending from above, To youth’s fair dream, and memory’s smart, To grief’s sad moan, And joy’s sweet tone, Aye burns for us, deep in God’s heart.

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THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 473