Chapter IX. Progress Grows Jolly.

The agitators of progress were again hurrying through the streets and alleys of the town. They knocked at every door and entered every house to solicit votes in favor of common schools. Thanks to the overwhelming might of the party in power, they again carried their measure. Dependent, utterly enslaved, many yielded up their votes without opposition. It is true conscience tortured many a parent for voting against his convictions, for sacrificing his children to a system with which he could not sympathize; but not a man in a dependent position had the courage to vindicate for his child the religious training which was being so ruthlessly swept away. Even men in high office gave way before the encroaching despotism, for in the very uppermost ranks of society also progress domineered.

One man only, fearless and firm, dared to put himself in the path of the dominant power—the Rev. F. Morgenroth. From the pulpit, he unmasked and scathed the unchristian design of debarring youth from religious instruction, and of rearing a generation ignorant of God and of his commandments. He warned parents against the evil, entreated them to stand up conscientiously for the spiritual welfare of their children, to reject the common schools, and to rescue the little ones for the maternal guardianship of the church.

His sermon roused the entire progressionist camp. The local press fiercely assailed the intrepid clergyman. Lies, calumnies, and scurrility were vomited against him and his profession. Hans Shund seized the pen, and indited newspaper articles of such a character as one would naturally look for from a thief, usurer, and debauchee. Morgenroth paid no attention to their disgraceful clamor, but continued his opposition undismayed. By means of placards, he invited the Catholic citizens to assemble at his own residence, for the purpose of consulting about the best mode of thwarting the designs of the liberals. This unexpected fearlessness put the men of culture, humanity, and freedom beside themselves with rage. They at once decided upon making a public demonstration. The chieftains issued orders to their bands, and these at the hour appointed for the meeting mustered before the residence of the priest. A noisy multitude, uttering threats, took possession of the churchyard. If a citizen attempted to make his way through the mob to the house, he was loaded with vile epithets, at times even with kicks and blows. But a small number had gathered around the priest, and these showed much alarm; for outside the billows of progress were surging and every moment rising higher. Stones were thrown at the house, and the windows were broken. Parteiling, the commissary of police, came to remonstrate with the clergyman.

“Dismiss the meeting,” said he. “The excitement is assuming alarming proportions.”

“Commissary, we are under the protection of the law and of civil rule,” replied Morgenroth. “We are not slaves and helots of progress. Are we to be denied the liberty of discussing subjects of great importance in our own houses?”

A boulder coming through the window crushed the inkstand on the table, and rolled on over the floor. The men pressed to one side in terror.

“Your calling upon the law to protect you is utterly unreasonable under present circumstances,” said Parteiling. “Listen to the howling. Do you want your house demolished? Do you wish to be maltreated? Will you have open revolution? This all will surely follow if you persist in refusing to dismiss the meeting. I will not answer for results.”

Stones began to rain more densely, and the howling grew louder and more menacing.

“Gentlemen,” said Morgenroth to the men assembled, “since we are not permitted to proceed with our deliberations, we will separate, with a protest against this brutal terrorism.”

“But, commissary,” said a much frightened man, “how are we to get away? These people are infuriated; they will tear us in pieces.”

“Fear nothing, gentlemen; follow me,” spoke the commissary, leading the way.

The ultramontanes were hailed with a loud burst of scornful laughter. The commissary, advancing to the gate, beckoned silence.

“In the name of the law, clear the place!” cried he.

The mob scoffed and yelled.

“Fetch out the slaves of the priest—make them run the gauntlet—down with the Jesuits!”

At this moment, a man was noticed elbowing his way through the crowd; presently Hans Shund stepped before the embarrassed guardian of public order.

“Three cheers for the magistrate!” vociferated the mob.

Shund made a signal. Profound silence followed.

“Gentlemen,” spoke the chief magistrate, in a tone of entreaty, “have the goodness to disperse.”

Repeated cheers were raised, then the accumulation of corrupt elements began to dissolve and flow off in every direction.

“I deeply regret this commotion of which I but a moment ago received intelligence,” said Shund. “The excitement of the people is attributable solely to the imprudent conduct of Morgenroth.”

“To be sure—to be sure!” assented Parteiling.

The place was cleared. The Catholics hurried home pursued and hooted by straggling groups of rioters.

The signs of the approaching celebration began to be noticeable on the town‐common. Booths were being erected, tables were being disposed in rows which reached further than the eye could see, wagon‐loads of chairs and benches were being brought from all parts of town, men were busy sinking holes for climbing‐poles and treacherous turnstiles; but the most attractive feature of all the festival was yet invisible—free beer and sausages furnished at public cost. The rumor alone, however, of such cheer gladdened the heart of every thirsty voter, and contributed greatly to the establishment of the system of common schools. Bands of music paraded the town, gathered up voters, and escorted them to the polls. As often as they passed before the residence of a progressionist chieftain, the bands struck up an air, and the crowd cheered lustily. They halted in front of the priest’s residence also. The band played, “To‐day we’ll taste the parson’s cheer,” the mob roaring the words, and then winding up with whistling and guffaws of laughter. This sort of disorderly work was kept up during three days. Then was announced in the papers in huge type: “An overwhelming majority of the enlightened citizens of this city have decided in favor of common schools. Herewith the existence of these schools is secured and legalized.”

On the fourth day, the celebration came off. The same morning Gerlach senior arrived at the Palais Greifmann on his way home from the Exposition.

“I am so glad!” cried Louise. “I was beginning to fear you would not come, and getting provoked at your indifference to the interests of our people. We have been having stirring times, but we have come off victorious. The narrow‐minded enemies of enlightenment are defeated. Modern views now prevail, and education is to be remodelled and put in harmony with the wants of our century.”

“Times must have been stirring, for you seem almost frenzied, Louise,” said Conrad.

“Had you witnessed the struggle and read the newspapers, you, too, would have grown enthusiastic,” declared the young lady.

“Even quotations advanced,” said the banker. “It astonished me, and I can account for it only by assuming that the triumph of the common‐school system is of general significance and an imperative desideratum of the times.”

“How can you have any doubt about it?” cried his sister. “Our town has pioneered the way: the rest of Germany will soon adopt the same system.”

Seraphin greeted his father.

“Well, my son, you very likely have heard nothing whatever of this hubbub about schools?”

“Indeed, I have, father. Carl and I were in the midst of the commotion at the desecrated church of S. Peter. We saw and heard what it would have been difficult to imagine.” He then proceeded to give his father a minute account of the meeting. His powerful memory enabled him to repeat Shund’s speech almost verbatim. The father listened attentively, and occasionally directed a glance of observation at the young lady. When Shund’s coarse ridicule of Christian morals and dogmas was rehearsed, Mr. Conrad lowered his eyes, and a frown flitted over his brow. For the rest, his countenance was, as usual, cold and stern.

“This Mr. Shund made quite a strong speech,” said he, in a nonchalant way.

“He rather intensified the colors of truth, ’tis true,” remarked Louise. “The masses, however, like high coloring and vigorous language.”

A servant brought the banker a note.

“Good! Shund is elected to the assembly! The span of bays belongs to me,” exulted Carl Greifmann.

“Your bays Seraphin?” inquired the father. “How is this?”

Mr. Conrad had twice been informed of the wager; he had learned it first from Seraphin’s own lips, then also he had read of it in his diary; still he asked again, and his son detailed the story a third time.

“I should sooner have expected to see the heavens fall than to lose that bet,” added Seraphin.

“When a notorious thief and usurer is elected to the chief magistracy and to the legislative assembly, the victory gained is hardly a creditable one to the spirit of progress, my dear Carl. Don’t you think so, Louise?” said the landholder.

“You mustn’t be too rigorous,” replied the lady, with composure. “Rumor whispers many a bit of scandal respecting Shund which does, indeed, offend one’s sense of propriety; for all that, however, Shund will play his part brilliantly both in the assembly and in the town council. The greatest of statesmen have had their foibles, as everybody knows.”

“Very true,” said Gerlach dryly. “Viewed from the standpoint of very humane tolerance, Shund’s disgusting habits may be considered justifiable.”

Seraphin left the parlor, and retired to his room. Here he wrestled with violent feelings. His father’s conduct was a mystery to him. Opinions which conflicted with his own most sacred convictions, and principles which brought an indignant flush to his cheek, were listened to and apparently acquiesced in by his father. Shund’s abominable diatribe had not roused the old gentleman’s anger; Louise’s avowed concurrence with the irreligious principles of the chieftain had not even provoked his disapprobation.

“My God, my God! can it be possible?” cried he in an agony of despair. “Has the love of gain so utterly blinded my father? Can he have sunk so low as to be willing to immolate me, his only child, to a base speculation? Can he be willing for the sake of a million florins to bind me for life to this erring creature, this infidel Louise? Can a paltry million tempt him to be so reckless and cruel? No! no! a thousand times no!” exclaimed he. “I never will be the husband of this woman, never—I swear it by the great God of heaven! Get angry with me, father, banish me from your sight—it would be more tolerable than the consciousness of being the husband of a woman who believes not in the Redeemer of the world. I have sworn—the matter is for ever settled.” He threw himself into an arm‐ chair, and moodily stared at the opposite wall. By degrees, his excitement subsided, and he became quiet.

In fancy, he beheld beside Louise’s form another lovely one rise up—that of the girl with the golden hair, the bright eyes, and the winning smile. She had stood before him on this very floor, in her neat and simple country garb, radiant with innocence and purity, adorned with innate grace and uncommon beauty. And the lapse of days, far from weakening, had deepened the impression of her first apparition. The storm that had been raging in his interior was allayed by the recollection of Mechtild, as the fury of the great deep subsides upon the reappearance of the sun. Scarcely an hour had passed during which he had not thought of the girl, rehearsed every word she had uttered, and viewed the basket of grapes she had brought him. Again he pulled out the drawer, and looked upon the gift with a friendly smile; then, locking up the precious treasure, he returned to the parlor.

He found the company on the balcony. The sound of trumpets and drums came from a distance, and presently a motley procession was seen coming up the nearest street.

“You have just arrived in time to see the procession,” cried Louise to him. “It is going to defile past here, so we will be able to have a good look at it.”

A dusky swarm of boys and half‐grown youths came winding round the nearest street‐corner, followed immediately by the head of a mock procession. In the lead marched a fellow dressed in a brown cloak, the hood of which was drawn over his head. His waist was encircled with a girdle from which dangled a string of pebbles representing a rosary. To complete the caricature of a Capuchin, his feet were bare, excepting a pair of soles which were strapped to them with thongs of leather. In his hands he bore a tall cross rudely contrived with a couple of sticks. The image of the cross was represented by a broken mineral‐water bottle. Behind the cross‐ bearer followed the procession in a double line, consisting of boys, young men, factory‐hands, drunken mechanics, and such other begrimed and besotted beings as progress alone can count in its ranks. The members of the procession were chanting a litany; at the same time they folded their hands, made grimaces, turned their eyes upwards, or played unseemly pranks with genuine rosary beads.

Next in the procession came a low car drawn by a watery‐eyed mare which a lad bedizened like a clown was leading by the bridle. In the car sat a fat fellow whose face was painted red, and eyebrows dyed, and who wore a long artificial beard. Over a prodigious paunch, also artificial, he had drawn a long white gown, over which again he wore a many‐colored rag shaped like a cope. On his head he wore a high paper cap, brimless; around the cap were three crowns of gilt paper to represent the tiara of the pope. A sorry‐looking donkey walked after the car, to which it was attached by a rope. It was the _rôle_ of the fellow in the car to address the donkey, make a sign of blessing over it, and occasionally reach it straw drawn from his artificial paunch. As often as he went through this manœuvre, the crowd set up a tremendous roar of laughter. The fat man in the car represented the pope, and the donkey was intended to symbolize the credulity of the faithful.

This mock pope was not a suggestion of Shund’s or of any other inventive progressionist. The whole idea was copied from a caricature which had appeared in a widely circulating pictorial whose only aim and pleasure it has been for years to destroy the innate religious nobleness of the German people by means of shallow wit and vulgar caricatures. And this very sheet, leagued with a daily organ equally degraded, can boast of no inconsiderable success. The rude and vulgar applaud its witticisms, the low and infamous regale themselves with its pictures, and its demoralizing influence is infecting the land.

The principal feature of the procession was a wagon, hung with garlands and bestuck with small flags, drawn by six splendid horses. In it sat a youthful woman, plump and bold. Her shoulders were bare, the dress being an exaggerated sample of the style _décolleté_; above her head was a wreath of oak leaves. She was attended by a number of young men in masks. They carried drinking‐horns, which they filled from time to time from a barrel, and presented to the _bacchante_, who sipped from them; then these gentlemen in waiting drank themselves, and poured what was left upon the crowd. A band of music, walking in front of this triumphal car, played airs and marches. Not even the mock pope was as great an object of admiration as this shameless woman. Old and young thronged about the wagon, feasting their lascivious eyes on this beastly spectacle which represented that most disgusting of all abominable achievements of progress—the emancipated woman. And perhaps not even progress could have dared, in less excited times, so grossly to insult the chaste spirit of the German people; but the social atmosphere had been made so foul by the abominations of the election, and the spirits of impurity had reigned so absolutely during the canvass in behalf of common schools, that this immoral show was suffered to parade without opposition.

The very commencement of this sacrilegious mockery of religion had roused Seraphin’s indignation, and he had retired from the balcony. His father, however, had remained, coolly watching the procession as it passed, and carefully noting Louise’s remarks and behavior.

“What does that woman represent?” he asked. “A goddess of liberty, I suppose?”

“Only in one sense, I think,” replied the progressionist young lady. “The woman wearing the crown symbolizes, to my mind, the enjoyment of life. She typifies heaven upon earth, now that exact science has done away with the heaven of the next world.”

“I should think yon creature rather reminds one of hell,” said Mr. Conrad.

“Of hell!” exclaimed Louise, in alarm. “You are jesting, sir, are you not?”

“Never more serious in my life, Louise. Notice the shameless effrontery, the baseness and infamy of the creature, and you will be forced to form conclusions which, far from justifying the expectation of peace and happiness in the family circle, the true sphere of woman, will suggest only wrangling, discord, and hell upon earth.”

The young lady did not venture to reply. A gentleman made his way through the crowd, and waved his hat to the company on the balcony. The banker returned the salutation.

“Official Seicht,” said he.

“What! an officer of the government in this disreputable crowd!” exclaimed Gerlach, with surprise.

“He is on hand to maintain order,” explained Greifmann. “You see some policemen, too. Mr. Seicht sympathizes with progress. At the last meeting, he made a speech in favor of common schools; he sounded the praises of the gospel of progress, gave a toast at the banquet to the gospel of progress, and has won for himself the title of evangelist of progress. He once declared, too, that the very sight of a priest rouses his blood, and they now pleasantly call him the parson‐eater. He is very popular.”

“I am amazed!” said Gerlach. “Mr. Seicht dishonors his office. He advocates common schools, insults all the believing citizens of his district, and runs with mock processions—a happy state of things, indeed!”

“His conduct is the result of careful calculation,” returned Greifmann.

“By showing hostility to ultramontanism, he commends himself to progress, which is in power.”

“But the government should not tolerate such disgraceful behavior on the part of one of its officials,” said Gerlach. “The entire official corps is disgraced so long as this shallow evangelist of progress is permitted to continue wearing the uniform.”

“You should not be so exacting,” cried Louise. “Why will you not allow officials also to float along with the current of progress until they will have reached the Eldorado of the position to which they are aspiring?”

“The corruption of the state must be fearful indeed, when such deportment in an officer is regarded as a recommendation,” rejoined Mr. Conrad curtly.

A servant appeared to call them to table.

“Would you not like to see the celebration?” inquired Louise.

“By all means,” answered Gerlach. “The excitement is of so unusual a character that it claims attention. You will have to accompany us, Louise.”

“I shall do so with pleasure. When sound popular sentiment thus proclaims itself, I cannot but feel a strong desire to be present.”

The procession had turned the corner of a street where stood Holt and two more countrymen looking on. The religious sentiment of these honest men was deeply wounded by the profanation of the cross; and when, besides, they heard the singing of the mock litany, their anger kindled, their eyes gleamed, and they mingled fierce maledictions with the tumult of the mob. Next appeared the mock pope, dispensing blessings with his right hand, reaching straw to the donkey with his left, and distorting his painted face into all sorts of farcical grimaces.

The peasants at once caught the significance of this burlesque. Their countenances glowed with indignation. Avenging spirits took possession of Mechtild’s father; his strong, stalwart frame seemed suddenly to have become herculean. His fist of iron doubled itself; there was lightning in his eyes; like an infuriated lion, he burst into the crowd, broke the line of the procession, and, directing a tremendous blow at the head of the mock pope, precipitated him from the car. The paper cap flew far away under the feet of the bystanders, and the false beard got into the donkey’s mouth. When the mock pope was down, Holt’s comrades immediately set upon him, and tore the many‐colored rag from his shoulders. Then commenced a great tumult. A host of furious progressionists surrounded the sturdy countrymen, brandishing their fists and filling the air with mad imprecations.

“Kill the dogs! Down with the accursed ultramontanes!”

Some of the policemen hurried up to prevent bloodshed. Mr. Seicht also hurried to the scene of action, and his shrill voice could be heard high above the noise and confusion.

“Gentlemen, I implore you, let the law have its course, gentlemen!” cried he. “Gentlemen, friends, do not, I beg you, violate the law! Trust me, fellow‐citizens—I shall see that the impertinence of these ultramontanes is duly punished.”

They understood his meaning. Sticks and fists were immediately lowered.

“Brigadier Forchhaem,” cried Mr. Seicht, in a tone of command—“Forchhaem, hither! Put handcuffs on these ultramontanes, these disturbers of the peace—put irons on these revolutionists.”

Handcuffs were forthwith produced by the policemen. The towering, broad‐ shouldered Holt stood quiet as a lamb, looked with an air of astonishment at the confusion, and suffered himself to be handcuffed. His comrades, however, behaved like anything but lambs. They laid about them with hands and feet, knocking down the policemen, and giving bloody mouths and noses to all who came within their reach.

“Handcuff us!” they screamed, grinding their teeth, bleeding and cursing. “Are we cutthroats?” The bystanders drew back in apprehension. The confusion seemed to be past remedying. A thousand voices were screaming, bawling, and crying at the same time; the circle around the struggling countrymen was getting wider and wider; and when finally they attempted to break through, the crowd took to flight, as if a couple of tigers were after them.

Many of the spectators found a pleasurable excitement in watching the battle between the policemen and the peasants; but they would not move a finger to aid the officers of the law in arresting the culprits. They admired the agility and strength of the countrymen, and the more fierce the struggle became, the greater grew their delight, and the louder their merriment.

Holt had been carried on with the motion of the crowd. When he dealt the blow to the fellow in the car, he was beside himself with rage. The genuine _furor teutonicus_ had taken possession of him so irresistibly and so bewilderingly as to leave him utterly without any of the calm judgment necessary to measure the situation. After his first adventure, he had submitted to be handcuffed, and had watched the struggle between Forchhaem and his own comrades in a sort of absence of mind. He had stood perfectly quiet, his face had become pale, and his eyes looked about strangely. The excitement of passion was now beginning to wear off. He felt the cold iron of the manacles around his wrists, his eyes glared, his face became crimson, the sinews of his powerful arm stiffened, and with one great muscular convulsion he wrenched off the handcuffs. Nobody had observed this sudden action, all eyes being directed to the combatants. Shoving the part of the handcuff which still hung to his wrist under the sleeve of his jacket, Holt disappeared through the crowd.

The resistance of the peasants was gradually becoming fainter. At length they succumbed to overpowering force, and were handcuffed.

“Where is the third one?” cried Seicht. “There were three of them.”

“Where is the third one? There were three of them,” was echoed on every hand, and all eyes sought for the missing one in the crowd.

“The third one has run away, sir,” reported Forchhaem.

“What’s his name?” asked Seicht.

Nobody knew.

A street boy, looking up at the official, ingenuously cried, “’Twas a Tartar.”

Seicht looked down upon the obstreperous little informant.

“A Tartar—do you know him?”

“No; but these here know him,” pointing to the captives.

“What is the name of your comrade?”

“We don’t know him,” was the surly reply.

“Never mind, he will become known in the judicial examination. Off to jail with these rebellious ultramontanes,” the official commanded.

Bound in chains, and guarded by a posse of police, these honest men, whose religious sense had been so wantonly outraged as to have occasioned an outburst of noble indignation, were marched through the streets of the town and imprisoned. They were treated as criminals for a crime, however, the guilt of which was justly chargeable to those very rioters who were enjoying official protection.

The procession moved on to the ground selected for the barbecue. A motley mass, especially of factory‐men, were hard at work upon the scene. The booths, spread far and wide over the common, were thrown open, and around them moved a swarm of thirsty beings drawing rations of beer and sausages, with which, when they had received them, they staggered away to the tables. Degraded‐looking women were also to be seen moving about unsteadily with brimming mugs of beer in their hands. There were several bands of music stationed at different points around the place.

The chieftains of progress, perambulating the ground with an air of triumph, bestowed friendly nods of recognition on all sides, and condescendingly engaged in conversation with some of the rank and file.

Hans Shund approached the awning where the woman with the bare shoulders and indecent costume had taken a seat. She had captivated the gallant chief magistrate, who hovered about her as a raven hovers over a dead carcass. Moving off, he halted within hearing distance, and, casting frequent glances back, addressed immodest jokes to those who occupied the other side of the table, at which they laughed and applauded immoderately.

The men whom Seraphin had met in the subterranean den, on the memorable night before the election, were also present: Flachsen, Graeulich, Koenig, and a host of others. They were regaling themselves with sausages which omitted an unmistakable odor of garlic, and were of a very dubious appearance; interrupting the process of eating with frequent and copious draughts from their beer‐mugs.

“Drink, old woman!” cried Graeulich to his wife. “Drink, I tell you! It doesn’t cost us anything to‐day.”

The woman put the jug to her lips and drained it manfully. Other women who were present screamed in chorus, and the men laughed boisterously.

“Your old woman does that handsomely,” applauded Koth. “Hell and thunder! But she must be a real spitfire.”

Again they laughed uproariously.

“I wish there were an election every day, what a jolly life this would be!” said Koenig. “Nothing to do, eating and drinking gratis—what more would you wish?”

“That’s the way the bigbugs live all the year round. They may eat and drink what they like best, and needn’t do a hand’s turn. Isn’t it glorious to be rich?” cried Graeulich.

“So drink, boys, drink till you can’t stand! We are all of us bigbugs to‐ day.”

“And if things were regulated as they should be,” said Koth, “there would come a day when we poor devils would also see glorious times. We have been torturing ourselves about long enough for the sake of others. I maintain that things will have to be differently regulated.”

“What game is that you are wishing to come at? Show your hand, old fellow!” cried several voices.

“Here’s what I mean: Coffers which are full will have to pour some of their superfluity into coffers which are empty. You take me, don’t you?”

“’Pon my soul, I can’t make you out. You are talking conundrums,” declared Koenig.

“You blockhead, I mean there will soon have to be a partition. They who have plenty will have to give some to those who have nothing.”

“Bravo! Long live Koth!”

“That sort of doctrine is dangerous to the state,” said Flachsen. “Such principles bring about revolutions, and corrupt society.”

“What of society! You’re an ass, Flachsen! Koth is right—partition, partition!” was the cry all round the table.

“As you will! I have nothing against it if only it were practicable,” expostulated Flachsen; “for I, too, am a radical.”

“It is practicable! All things are practicable,” exclaimed Koth. “Our age can do anything, and so can we. Haven’t we driven religion out of the schools? Haven’t we elected Shund for mayor? It is the majority who rule; and, were we to vote in favor of partition to‐morrow, partition would have to take place. Any measure can be carried by a majority, and, since we poor devils are in the majority, as soon as we will have voted for partition it will come without fail.”

“That’s sensible!” agreed they all. “But then, such a thing has never yet been done. Do you think it possible?”

“Anything is possible,” maintained Koth. “Didn’t Shund preach that there isn’t any God, or hell, or devil? Was that ever taught before? If the God of old has to submit to being deposed, the rich will have to submit to it. I tell you, the majority will settle the business for the rich. And if there’s no God, no devil, and no life beyond, well then, you see, I’m capable of laying my hand to anything. If voting won’t do, violence will. Do you understand?”

“Bravo! Hurrah for Koth!”

“There must be progress,” cried Graeulich, “among us as well as others. We are not going to continue all our lives in wretchedness. We must advance from labor to comfort without labor, from poverty to wealth, from want to abundance. Three cheers for progress—hurrah! hurrah!” And the whole company joined in frantically.

“There comes Evangelist Seicht,” cried Koenig. “Though I didn’t understand one word of his speech, I believe he meant well. Although he is an officer of the government, he cordially hates priests. A man may say what he pleases against religion, and the church, and the Pope, and the Jesuits, it rather pleases Seicht. He is a free and enlightened man, is he. Up with your glasses, boys; if he comes near, let’s give him three rousing cheers.”

They did as directed. Men and women cheered lustily. Seicht very condescendingly raised his hat and smiled as he passed the table. The ovation put him in fine humor. Though he had failed in securing a place in the assembly, perhaps the slight would be repaired in the future. Such was the tenor of his thoughts whilst he advanced to the climbing‐pole, around which was assembled a crowd of boys. Quite a variety of prizes, especially tobacco‐pipes, was hanging from the cross‐pieces at the top of the mast. The pole was so smooth that more than ordinary strength and activity were required to get to the top. The greater number of those who attempted the feat gave out and slid back without having gained a prize. There were also grown persons standing around watching the efforts of the boys and young men.

“It’s my turn now,” cried the fellow who had carried the cross in the procession.

“But, first, let me have one more drink—it’ll improve the sliding.” He swallowed the drink hastily, then swaying about as he looked and pointed upward, “Do you see that pipe with tassels to it?” he said. “That’s the one I’m going after.”

Throwing aside his mantle, he began to climb.

“He’ll not get up, he’s drunk,” cried a lad among the bystanders. “Belladonna has given him two pints of double beer for carrying the cross in the procession—that’s what ails him.”

“Wait till I come down, I’ll slap your jaws,” cried the climber.

The spectators were watching him with interest. He was obliged to pause frequently to rest himself, which he did by winding his legs tightly round the pole. At last he reached the top. Extending his arm to take the pipe, it was too short. Climbing still higher, he stretched his body to its greatest length, lost his hold, and fell to the ground. The bystanders raised a great cry. The unfortunate youth’s head had embedded itself in the earth, streams of blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils—he was lifeless.

“He’s dead! It’s all over with him,” was whispered around.

“Carry him off,” commanded Seicht, and then walked on.

One of the bystanders loosed the cross‐piece of the mock crucifix; the corpse was then stretched across the two pieces of wood and carried off the scene. As the body was carried past, the noise and revelry everywhere ceased.

“Wasn’t that the one who carried the cross?” was asked. “Is he dead? Did he fall from the pole? How terrible!”

Even the progressionist revellers were struck thoughtful, so deeply is the sense of religion rooted in the heart of man. Many a one among them, seeing the pale, rigid face of the dead man, understood his fate to be a solemn warning, and fled from the scene in terror.

The progressionist element of the town was much flattered by the presence at its orgies of the wealthiest property owner of the country.

The women had already made the discovery that the millionaire’s only son, Mr. Seraphin Gerlach, was on the eve of marrying a member of the highly respectable house of Greifmann, bankers. But it occasioned them no small amount of surprise that the young gentleman was not in attendance on the beautiful lady at the celebration. Louise’s radiant countenance gave no indication, however, that any untoward occurrence had caused the absence of her prospective husband. The wives and daughters of the chieftains were sitting under an awning sipping coffee and eating cake. When Louise approached leaning on her brother’s arm, they welcomed her to a place in the circle of loveliness with many courtesies and marks of respect.

Mr. Conrad strolled about the place, studying the spirit which animated the gathering.

To Be Continued.

ὙΠΝΟΣ

Not now for sleep, O slumber‐god! we sue; Hypnus! not sleep, but give our souls repose! Of the day’s music such a mellowing close As might have rested Shakespeare from his art, Or soothed the spirit of the Tuscan strong Who best read life, its passions and its woes, And wrought of sorrow earth’s divinest song. Bring us a mood that might have lulled Mozart, Not stupor, not forgetfulness, not dreams, But vivid sense of what is best and rarest, And sweet remembrance of the blessed few; In the real presence of this fair world’s fairest: A spell of peace—as ’twere by those dear streams(209) Boccaccio wrote of, when romance was new.

A Legend Of Saint Ottilia.

Attich, Duke of Alsace, had a lovely wife, with whom he lived in great happiness, desiring but one thing more than he possessed—this was the blessing of children. His prayers, however, remained unanswered until he vowed that, if the Lord would grant his ardent wish, he would dedicate the child entirely to his service. At length a daughter was born to him, but the parents’ first joy was turned into sadness, for the child was blind.

Ottilia (thus was she named) grew up a lovely maiden, with rare goodness and virtues, showing, from her earliest youth, singular piety and devoutness of character. One of her daily prayers was that God might bestow on her the gift of sight. By‐and‐by, to the great astonishment of all, this prayer was answered. Beautiful before, the new expression of her eyes so enhanced her charms that, whereas previously she had no lack of suitors, now she was wooed by many and most noble youths. These dazzling prospects affected the mind of her father, and led him to repent the vow he had made to give his sweet child to God. Then Count Adelhart, a brave man, and one who had performed great services for Attich, claimed the hand of Ottilia, and the duke resolved that his daughter should become his wife. Ottilia heard this with terror; she told her father how wrong she believed it to be, and how she feared the vengeance of heaven if they thus disregarded his vow. Seeing, however, that her entreaties were of no avail, and that they meant to marry her by compulsion, she fled she knew not whither. Then Attich called out his servants to pursue her, he himself, in company with Ottilia’s suitor, taking the lead. They took the road to Freiburg, in Breisgau.

The day began to decline, and their efforts to find her had been in vain, when, on riding up a hill from whose top they could overlook the country, they heard a cry; turning their eyes toward the place from whence the sound came, they saw her whom they were seeking standing on the summit. They urged their steeds onward, rejoicing in the certainty of capturing the fugitive. Then Ottilia threw herself upon her knees, and prayed to heaven for assistance. The rock opened beneath her feet, and, in the sight of all, she sank into the yawning depth. The rock closed again, and, from the spot where it had been reft in twain, a clear well flowed, taking its course downward into the forest below.

The mourning father returned to his now desolate home. Never again did he behold Ottilia.

The wonderful tale soon spread far and near. The fountain became a place of pilgrimage. People drank from its waters, to which a wonderful healing influence for weak eyes was attributed. A hermit built his hut in its neighborhood, and “The Well of S. Ottilia” was and is much frequented by old and young. The mountain itself bears the name of “Ottilia‐Berg.”

Thus runs the simple legend which, even after the lapse of centuries, brings people to visit this famous spring, partly drawn thither by religious faith in the curative power of its waters, and partly attracted by the renowned beauty of the scenery which surrounds the spot where heaven‐trusting Ottilia had thrown herself upon the intervention of Providence.

The Year Of Our Lord 1872.

There lurks a grim sarcasm in our title for those who, as the years grow and die out one after the other, ask each in turn: What have you brought us? what growth of good and lessening of evil? what new bond to link the scattered and divided masses of a humanity which should be common—but is not—more closely and firmly together? Have you brought us a step nearer heaven, that is, nearer the destiny which God marked out in the beginning for his creation, or thrown us backward? Years are the days of the world, of national life; and as each closes, even the superior minds which will not deign to believe in such old‐fashioned words as a God, a heaven, or a hell, cannot fail to ask themselves the question, What has the world gained or lost in this its latest day?

We know that we shall be greeted at the outset by the old cry:—Catholics behind the age again: it is plain their religion was not made for the XIXth century; they will drift backward and sigh for the days that were, the gloom and the mist and the superstition of the “ages of faith”: they refuse to recognize the century, to understand it and its glorious enlightenment: they decline to march hand in hand with the great leaders, the apostles of the day, in politics, science, and religion—the Bismarcks, the Lanzas, the Mills, the Fawcetts, the Bradlaughs, the Döllingers, the Beechers, the Huxleys, the Buckles, the Darwins, the novelists, and the newspapers; the “enlightened” ideas of the age on marriage, education, civil government, and the rest. We humbly plead guilty to the greater portion of this charge. Modern enlightenment, as preached by the apostles above enumerated, and others such, possesses still too few charms to win us from our benighted ignorance. To us Utopia appears as far off to‐day as when it grew upon the mind of Sir Thomas More in the shape of a dream too splendid to be realized; as far off as the fairyland which presented itself to our youthful imagination, where everybody was goody‐goody, where all were kings and queens with crowns and sceptres, or lovely princesses and amiable princes, who loved each other with the most ardent nursery love, and with only one crabbed old fairy to spoil the scene, whose witcheries caused the amiable princes to undergo a certain amount of mild misfortunes, creating a corresponding amount of misery in the bosoms of the lovely princesses, till at length the old harridan was overridden to her shame and confusion, truth and virtue triumphed, everybody married everybody else, and there was peace and joy for ever after. To drop fancy: the story of the year would not seem to bring happier tidings of the great joy which was announced at the coming of Christ: of “peace on earth to men of good‐will.” “Civilized” governments still hold fast by the good old rule,

That he may take who has the power, And he may keep who can.

We purpose passing in review a few of the chief events which have moved the world during the past year and made its annals memorable in all time. Our review must necessarily be a rapid one, a mere glance in fact, at the multitude of events which confront us, some like ghosts which we have summoned from their graves in the buried year, others which accompany us into the new and the unknown to ripen or wither with us into their measure of good or of evil.

As the year opened, the eyes of the world were fixed upon the sick‐bed of the Prince of Wales, stricken down by fever apparently beyond hope of recovery. The whole thing is long forgotten; but the anxiety which his illness caused—in view of the possible political complications which might have resulted from the death of the heir to the English throne—and the enthusiasm which his recovery evoked from end to end of the land, makes the event worthy of mention in the record of the year as significant of the innate as well as outspoken loyalty of the English nation for their crown and institution—a national trait which it is becoming fashionable to question.

Our own year opened tragically with the murder of Fisk by Stokes, his boon companion. The man’s end was in keeping with his life, and his name should not have sullied our pages, but for the consequent collapse of the long triumphant Erie Ring. The era of blood thus commenced has flourished bravely. _Quid novi? quid novi?_ was the daily cry at Athens when S. Paul entered it. We would not demean the commercial metropolis of the New World and of the new age by comparing it with the intellectual metropolis of paganism; but as the cry of the Athenians was each day: What new system, doctrine, or philosophy is there? the question of our more enlightened and Christian capital might well be: What new thing in the way of murder? Scarcely a day passes but some fresh horror greets our eyes in the morning. Nor is it left to the hand of man alone to take life as he pleases; the privilege has passed to women, and they make right good use of this latest form of their “rights.” We read till our blood curdles of the political poisonings of the XVIth century in Italy; of their secrecy and the safety of their carrying out. We are a more honest race than the Italians; we enshroud our deeds of blood in no false Machiavellian veil; we kill in open day. The lady or gentleman who has just taken away a life politely hands the pistol to the officer, who escorts him or her with the utmost courtesy to the police station, where a cell is luxuriously fitted up according to the exigencies of the case; the murderer stands up in open court, with the ablest champions to defend him; he calls upon the law to save him, and the “law” does. In the meantime obtuse people are beginning to inquire if there be such a thing as law in New York, and in America generally, and if the present administration of justice be not very closely allied to administering injustice.

We have felt compelled to touch on this point at some length; for murder, cool, deliberate, wilful murder, has marked our year with a red stain which was never dry; the murderers have either escaped or are living at ease and being “lionized” by the press in their prisons; justice is not administered among us. So true is this, that outraged public feeling, which requires a very heavy force to set its inertia in motion, has at length found it necessary to begin to weed the judiciary. Until it does so thoroughly, the law of New York is the law of the bullet and the knife.

If we were not above taking a lesson from people for whom we entertain, of course, a sovereign contempt, we might find something commendable in the action of the populace in Lima, Peru, on the occasion of the murder of Colonel Balta, the president, by Guttierez, the minister of war; who, in order to attain supreme power, caused Balta to be assassinated, having previously gained over the garrison of Lima, and had himself proclaimed dictator. The people, finding reason to object to this summary mode of settling questions, refused to accept this dictatorship; rose in revolt, overpowered the garrison, hanged the dictator and his brother to lamp‐ posts in the public square, and burned their bodies. We, are far from advocating the cause of “Judge Lynch”; but a slight touch of the sensible spirit displayed by the inhabitants of Lima has a wonderfully wholesome effect on evil doers in power.

Our political life for the past year has been absorbed in the presidential election and the settlement of the Alabama claims. This latter very vexed question has come at last to a final, peaceful, and satisfactory solution. Our claim for “indirect damages” against England was ruled out of court. An adequate propitiation was made in the final decision, given in our favor: England was compelled to pay us £3,000,000; she is supposed to have lost very much in prestige in consequence; particularly as the San Juan boundary question was also decided in our favor; the whole thing was settled by peaceful arbitration, and, therefore, no matter which party lost in prestige, or diplomacy, or pocket, both have good reason to congratulate themselves on getting out of sight, let us ardently hope, for ever, a very ugly question which was fast becoming a gangrene, corroding and eating out all good feeling between the two nations. It is one of the things which we sincerely trust may be buried with the dead year; and the two rival claimants we hope to see enter on a new lease of friendship and good‐will.

General Grant was re‐elected; the opposition arrayed against him under Mr. Greeley as candidate for the presidency, and such very able secessionists from the republican ranks as Messrs. Sumner, Schurz, and others, and the attempted coalescing of Democrats with dissatisfied Republicans, who would not coalesce, utterly broke down. General Grant’s is undoubtedly a national election: we trust, therefore, that his future term may correspond with the confidence placed in his rule by the nation; may be productive of all the good which we expect of it for the nation at large; may heal up old wounds still sore, and may lead the country wisely into a new era of prosperity and peace: the more so that the outer world is fast pouring in on us the most skilled artisans and law‐abiding, intelligent citizens of every European race.

Having said so much for ourselves, we turn to the workings of events in Europe during the past year, which indeed have occupied our attention more, almost, than our home questions. Our gaze has been riveted with an interest of almost painful intensity on the two contestants during the late dread struggle, and the actions and bearing of each have brought out the inner character of the two nations in such strong relief that we can think of Germany and France as two individualities. On the one side, we behold United Germany, the victor in the fight, like a strong athlete glorying in his great strength, setting on his own brow the laurels which he plucked from that of his fallen foe; not resting on his honors, and satiated for the time being with his glory, but anxious, careful, trying his strength, not letting his arms rust for want of practice, preparing himself for new glories and new contests to come as though they were to come to‐morrow, and as a matter of course. On the other, we have France wounded and bleeding at every pore. We thought its life had ebbed out, stricken first by the terrible blows of a merciless conqueror, after by a delirious contest with itself. And what do we behold? No longer a weak convalescent, sick, sore, and spiritless, but a great nation, infused with a new life; strong and gaining in strength every day; cautious indeed and still uncertain, but these are not bad signs in a nation which is recovering at however rapid strides, and which fell from its overweening confidence. It has almost exhausted its terrible debt to Germany, and rid the soil of the foot of the foe. Its loans were eagerly taken up and covered four times over: its exports for the first six months of the year were in advance of those for the corresponding six months, esteemed a period of great prosperity, prior to the war; its army is again on a firm and sound footing; its children are peaceful, calm and obedient to the law in the face of the tyranny and unnecessarily harsh measures and dictation of the conqueror and the rash declamations of Gambetta, biding their time with a calm good sense which we scarcely expected in the French people. Of course the nation is taxed and heavily; but the wonder is that a nation can endure such blows and live; can not only live, but present to the admiration and astonished gaze of the world, a year after what we considered its death and burial, so glorious a resurrection into a powerful and wealthy country. As these two nations have been the centre of attraction to the whole world during the year, we feel called upon to touch upon each in a more special manner than on other nations.

On April 7th, the Emperor William delivered a speech from the throne, from which we cull the following extract:

“Honored Gentlemen: You will share the satisfaction with which the Confederate Governments look back on the events of the first year of the newly founded German Empire, and the joyful confidence with which they look forward to the further national and state development of our internal institutions. With equal satisfaction you will hail the assurance that the policy of his majesty, the emperor and king, has succeeded in retaining and strengthening the confidence of all foreign states; that the power acquired by Germany through becoming united in one Empire is not only a safe bulwark for the fatherland, but likewise affords a strong guarantee for the peace of Europe.”

Now, that sounds so well, at least it did in April last, that it is almost a pity to spoil it by the inevitable comments which cannot fail to present themselves to the minds of its readers in December, in the face of one or two little events which have occurred since April. But before commenting on it, we must add a further exquisite little piece of irony from the same speech of Bismarck’s—we mean of the Emperor William: Prince Bismarck only read it:

“The new administration in, and the consolidation of the affairs of, Alsace and Lorraine make satisfactory progress. The damage done by the war is gradually disappearing with the aid of the subvention given in conformity with the law, dated June 15, 1871.”

As it is not the purport of this article to go extensively into the various subjects which come under our notice, we think that the best mode of dealing with the German question will be to read the above speech by the December light:

Honored Gentlemen: You will share the satisfaction with which the Confederate Governments look back on the events of the intervening nine months since his majesty, the emperor and king, first found reason to congratulate you on the consolidation of the newly founded empire. Those events are, in brief, as follows:

1. As we consider national education to be the first means in making good, sound, and efficient citizens of the Empire, and as we consider it, moreover, to be the great moralizer of the masses in these days, we have found it necessary to take this education from the hands in which it has rested for so long, “which the Prussia of the past encouraged, and indeed enforced; which have had the honor to receive the zealous support of two deceased monarchs, the father and brother of the present sovereign; which have received for the last two generations the approbation of all sorts of thinkers—who believed that the Prussian state could only subsist by a strict military and religious organization, that a definite church system must be chosen by the state, and the people drilled in it as they were drilled for his majesty’s armies.”(210) Notwithstanding the very solid proofs which our success in the late war gave us of the efficiency of this system, when our soldiers went to battle under the double panoply of intelligence and faith in God, we have since found it fit to divorce religion from education, and place this moralizer of the masses in the hands of those to whom morality is a thing unknown, or, if it mean anything, means blind obedience to the state in all things.

2. Holding as we do that marriage is another powerful moralizer of the masses, and the strongest bond for the welfare, happiness, and power of a nation, we have thought fit to divorce it also from religion, to strip it of the sacred character with which Jesus Christ invested it, and which, even were it false, has been the chief means of restoring woman to her fitting station in life, of civilizing man, and substituting love and purity for sensuality and animal passion: being perfectly alive to all this, we have still seen fit to hand the power of the binding and the loosing of marriage into the hands of the magistracy, to be dealt with for the future as a civil contract, thus reducing it to the far more convenient form of a mere matter of buying and selling at will.

3. Having already testified in the most direct and special manner our gratitude for the great services rendered us by the Society of Jesus and kindred orders recently on the fields of France, and in the more lasting and beneficial fields of intellectual and religious culture under the educational system which obtained so long and with such profit to us, but which we have since seen fit to put an end to, we think it fit to prove their devotion still further to us by banishing them the Empire, breaking up their communities, closing their churches, appropriating their property to our own use and imprisoning them if we find them within our territory. We mercifully spare them the further trial of immediate martyrdom.

4. Having been compelled to meet the demands of two powerful bodies of our subjects whose interests on religious questions sometimes clash, we have very wisely, and very satisfactorily to both bodies, met those demands by special articles in our legislative code which have hitherto answered their purpose so well that both bodies have been enabled to work harmoniously though in friendly rivalry together as common children of fatherland. We have seen fit to erase those laws, at least in the case of the Catholics. We cannot allow their bishops to excommunicate our subjects, though we have hitherto allowed it, and though we still allow it to the Protestants.(211)

Honored Gentlemen: Having thus succeeded in creating a profound and widespread agitation by outraging the feelings and the conscience of 14,000,000 of our most faithful subjects, an agitation which has spread from these 14,000,000 to hundreds of millions of their co‐religionists outside the Empire, and indeed of large bodies and powerful secular organs opposed to them in faith, the confederate governments, the most powerful of which is Catholic, may look forward with joyful confidence to the further national and state development of our institutions. With equal satisfaction you will hail the assurance that the policy of his majesty, the emperor and king, has succeeded in retaining and strengthening the confidence of all foreign states,(212) that the power acquired by Germany is not only a safe bulwark for the fatherland,(213) but likewise affords a strong guarantee for the peace of Europe.

The new administration in, and the consolidation of affairs in, Alsace and Lorraine, have made most satisfactory progress. By careful and well‐ devised management we have succeeded in driving out the population of these two provinces, two of the wealthiest in the world, in rendering their cities desolate and their smiling country a desert: in gaining for ourselves a new legacy of hatred, and arousing the disgust and, what politically is worse, the suspicion of all governments outside our own.

As a further comment on this speech we must add the dangerous symptoms of revolt exhibited by the Upper House in the Prussian diet, and the dubiously constitutional mode adopted of bringing it to submission. The influx of French gold would seem to have created a South Sea Bubble commotion in financial circles. Rent in the chief cities and towns has increased twofold; the cost of living has risen with it. This falls heaviest, of course, on the middle and lower classes, so that we are not surprised to hear, that the rate of living having increased 60 or 70 per cent. for the poorer classes during the last six or seven years, and the French gold never having filtered down to their pockets, the poor have been unable to meet their new expenses, and “ever since the conclusion of peace with France,” to quote the special correspondent of the London _Times_, April 11th, “the German workmen have been at war with their ‘masters.’ ” As a last comment we see the German people fleeing from this glorious consolidation of confederate governments in such numbers that the central government is compelled to call into practice measures as harsh on the one side to restrain their own people from running away as they used to force out the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine. We believe we have said enough of German “Unity” on its first two years of lease to show that its workings, whether internal or external, have been anything but satisfactory so far, and far from hopeful to the world at large.

The strikes which were successful in Germany were not restricted to that locality. They spread through the greater part of Europe, and reached out here to us, with varied success. New York was in many departments of business at a standstill in what is generally esteemed as the busiest portion of the year. Fortunately with us and for the greater part elsewhere, the “strikes” passed off peaceably, and the masters and workmen succeeded in coming to a compromise at least for the time being. This uprising of labor against capital formed one of the most significant, we fear most threatening, aspects of the year. There was a union and a combination among the working classes of European nations and our own, which enabled them to offer a persistent, solid, and bold front to their employers. Funds and a more perfect organization, neither of which seem to us impossible, would convert trades‐unions into the most formidable power in the world. Christian education can alone hope to convert this into a legal power. At present it wavers between the dictates of good sense and fair demands and the wild and impossible, but, to half‐educated men, very fascinating, dreams of the Communists. Labor is beginning at last to feel its power, its numbers, its irresistible force; that the world cannot get on without it, as little as it can get on without the co‐operation of the rest of the world. Let the laboring classes receive an education worthy of the name, plant religion in their hearts while at school, and, when they come to face the hard problem, the division of wealth, they will be led away by no fallacious teachings that what is and always must be a necessity is a wrong done to humanity; but divorce the schools, as governments seem now resolved to do, from religion, and labor will merge into Communism.

France has borne her terrible trials with a calmness, a magnanimity, and a self‐dependence which have regained for her in the eyes of the world more than she ever lost at Sedan. We speak here of the nation, not of its haphazard government. Thiers is at present a necessity; and by the aid of the bogy “resignation” which he has conjured up so often, and whereby he frightens the still cautious Assembly into submission, he has managed to hold the dangerous elements in such a state of order that the nation has been able so far to regain public confidence that its loans were caught up with avidity; it has almost freed itself from the foot of the foe; it has frowned down the folly of Gambetta; restored its army to a sound footing, and won the admiration and good‐will of all by its truly patriotic bearing in the face of a rapacious, dictatorial, and merciless conqueror. But Thiers cannot last, and what is to follow? The country would not bear the rule of “the man of Sedan,” though, undoubtedly, his twenty years of firm government wrought it up to the pitch of material prosperity which even its terrible losses have been unable to destroy. The speech of the Duc d’Audiffret Pasquier on the army contracts, showing a system of finance in the army somewhat similar to that which has recently greeted our eyes in the city government, has killed Napoleonism for the nonce. We can only hope for the best in France from some other and nobler sprout of former dynasties; we cannot foresee it. We must not forget that the nation has been kneeling at its altars and shrines. Of course superior people and “witty” writers have laughed at and insulted a nation for being foolish enough and so far behind the age as to believe in the assistance of a God whom they could not contain in their capacious intellects. France has survived the laughter and disregarded the laughers; but her sons have been none the less obedient to the laws and constitution established, and thus restored confidence in their country, by acknowledging the efficacy of divine worship, and the intercession of the blessed Mother with her divine Son.

The year has, happily, borne no war stain on its record; for we cannot dignify the English expedition against the Looshais in India by that title. Revolts among the natives have of late been cropping up again in British India, while the silent but steady march of Russia, with all her vast forces, nearer and nearer to the outline of the British possessions, threatens at no distant date an inevitable collision between the two powers, which, in the not very doubtful event of Russia’s victory, would avenge Sebastopol, and, at the same time more than counterbalance the present supremacy of Germany in Europe.

While England was all aglow with the gorgeous story of pomp and pageantry coming from the far East, of reviews of armies, of gallant processions from end to end of the land, of displays of splendor, and more than royal magnificence flashing on the bewildered gaze of the Easterns; outshining in dazzling brilliancy their own “barbaric pearl and gold”—wrought up to win over their allegiance by giving them some idea of the vast power of that empire far away, whose representative could muster such a show of majesty—came a cruel little flash across the world telling us that the show was ended by the death of the chief performer at the hands of an obscure assassin. A few feet in advance of his party, in the gloom of evening, as he is about to step from the pier into his boat, the stroke of a knife from a hidden assailant, and—Lord Mayo, the great Viceroy, is slain. England viewed his death as a national calamity. Following close on the heels of the murder of Mr. Justice Norman by another native, of the outbreaks of the Kookas and the Looshais, it had a significance which the nation took to heart.

From a further corner of the East still comes a dread story of famine devouring 3,000,000 of people in Persia. Small succor was offered them by their Christian brethren: and such as was sent seems to have reached them with the greatest difficulty. Horrible tales are told of hunger overcoming all the ties of nature, and mothers, in their madness, devouring even their own offspring. The harvest for this season was a very excellent one; but its effects cannot be felt till the coming year.

The East has not exhausted its romance yet, though this time it wears a less grim visage. We refer to the discovery of Dr. Livingstone by Mr. Stanley, a reporter of the _New York Herald_. Everybody believed Dr. Livingstone dead: Mr. Bennett believed him living: he despatched Mr. Stanley to interview him somewhere in the middle of Africa, and Mr. Stanley obeyed as successfully as though he had only been despatched to one of our hotels to “interview” a political man. Of course nobody believed either Stanley or the _Herald_; and of course there has been much consequent laughing at the “easy‐chair geographers,” when white, after all, turned out to be white and not black, as the learned gentlemen thus designated demonstrated to a nicety. But we should imagine that the persistent doubts of these gentlemen were the highest compliment which could be paid, either to Mr. Stanley or Mr. Bennett, as indicating the almost utter impossibility of their stupendous and brilliant enterprise. To the world at large, the finding of a man, whom, with all due respect, we cannot but look upon as self‐lost, is the least part of the undertaking. Mr. Stanley’s expedition and disclosures of the horrors of the slave trade have awakened a new interest in that horrible traffic, and promises to enlist the sympathies of nations in unison against it.

After a sleep of centuries Japan has reopened her gates to Christian influences and civilization—gates closed since the work so gloriously commenced by S. Francis Xavier was marred by the narrowness and selfishness and unchristian spirit of European traders. The Mikado despatched an embassy under the leadership of one of his chief statesmen, Iwakura, in order to study this boasted civilization and see what it was like. In the meantime, Christians are still suffering persecution and even death in Japan. But why should Iwakura interfere to stop it when he finds “civilized” governments, such as Germany and Italy, setting Japan a brilliant example in the same line of policy?

Correspondents give us reason to dread a fresh outbreak in China similar to the Tientsin massacre. We trust that the representatives of the European powers and our own will be alive to this. Nothing of great import has occurred in the empire beyond the marriage of his Celestial Majesty.

Going back to Europe, we find Spain in much the same state as the opening year found her; restless, dissatisfied, and disunited. A Carlist rising was effected in the spring, which at one time threatened to be formidable; but, after showing itself in fitful bursts at different points, it finally died out, for the time being at least, with a greater loss of gunpowder than of life. It was mismanaged. There were and still are a variety of little eruptions here, there, and everywhere. An attempt on the life of King Amadeo was got up for the purpose of arousing some loyalty in his favor. It created a little sensation at first; but people speedily suspected something, and the subject dropped. All parties in Spain are still at daggers drawn. Even if Amadeo could, by his influence, which we very much doubt after his sufficient trial, conciliate them, they would not be conciliated. We do not expect to find Amadeo’s name at the head of the Spanish government this day twelvemonth. A good regent, not Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don Alfonso; but where is such a regent? Don Carlos possesses the greatest amount of genuine loyalty to his name and cause, and he would be the winning man, could he only manage his rising in a more efficient manner. Even the _Saturday Review_, the other day, almost lamented the loss of Queen Isabella.

The state of Italy is perhaps on a par with that of Spain, with the advantage of the utter lawlessness touched upon in our last number. We are now informed that a bill for the suppression of religious orders is introduced. Of course it will pass. A government which shakes hands with the _Garibaldini_, which is hand and glove with the murderer and assassin whom it fears, is strong when it comes to the spoliation of religious houses and the persecution of Christian men who it knows will not resist. We cannot pass Italy by—alas! what an Italy it has become!—without one word of admiration for the Holy Father. Men, journalists, all sorts of people, would have driven Pius IX. from Rome long ago. But the pilot is still at the helm of the barque of Peter, though pirates tread the decks. And never during the successive storms which have made his long reign so dark with trial has our great pontiff presented to the angry world a more forcible spectacle of a man utterly above all the pettiness, all the trials, all the misery, which human malice can inflict upon humanity, than at this moment in his own person; looking afar over the troubled waters for the calm which shall come from heaven, and bring men back from their insane mood at the old whisper, “Peace, be still!” He stands there the truest and purest living protest of justice shackled by injustice, and around that prisoned throne range the hearts of all true Catholics and all true men in the world.

In England, the Gladstone Ministry after many threatenings has managed to hold its own, in consequence probably of the successful termination of the Alabama claims. The Ballot Bill has at length passed, and in future we hope to be spared the degrading scenes which were wont to accompany English elections. The Irish Church Establishment has falsified Mr. Gladstone’s high hopes of new life, vigor, efficiency, and so forth, on being deprived of its “temporalities,” which came into act this year. It has come to a miserable collapse, and is now a pauper asking alms to live. The agitation for the disestablishment of the English Church is gaining ground, as is also the Home‐Rule movement in Ireland, which undoubtedly received a fresh impetus from the attack made by a renegade Catholic judge on the Irish clergy and on one of their leaders, Archbishop McHale, whose name is venerated wherever his fame is known. There has been a cry of a coal failure, and a much more serious one, because better founded and more immediate, of a potato failure in Ireland as well as England, which, coupled with the strike of the agricultural laborers and the coming winter, threatens an ugly season. Serious riots incurring a lamentable loss of life and property occurred in Belfast on the repeal of the Parties Processions Act. The rioters held the city in a state of terrorism for days. “Of course the Orangemen began it,” commented the London _Spectator_; “the worst murder committed, that of Constable Morton, was the murder of a Protestant by Protestants, because he upheld the law.”

In Mexico, the death of President Juarez, the murderer of the unhappy Maximilian, as well as of countless others, whom “people who ought to know” were never tired of calling the saviour of his country, the true patriot, and the like, oddly enough put an end to the internecine strife which was ravaging the country, and everybody suddenly collapsed into peace: “Yet Juarez was an honorable man.”

In the natural order, there have been terrible convulsions, followed, in the closing year, by a succession of tempests on sea and land, productive of dismal disasters. In the spring, an earthquake shook Antioch, and half the city was gone, with a loss of 1,500 inhabitants. In the same month, Vesuvius belched forth torrents of burning lava for days, causing a vast destruction of property and loss of life to a few overcurious sight‐seers. Later on came the inundations of the Po, accompanied by losses more grievous still. Then storms swept the country, and, indeed, all Europe, strewing the shores with wrecked vessels and their crews. Fire touched and marred, but, fortunately, did not succeed in destroying, two of the grandest monuments of European art—the Escurial of Philip II. in Spain, and the Cathedral of Canterbury in England, doubly consecrated—the second time by the blood of the martyred S. Thomas. It was more successful among ourselves; and a few hours’ blaze in the month of November destroyed the finest portion of our most ancient city, Boston.

Among what might be termed the curiosities of the year figured the Boston Jubilee; an assembling together of European bands and singers, with a native chorus of 20,000. It was called music. A second curiosity was the epidemic which recently broke out among the horses, and brought life in New York to a standstill, or at least to a walking pace, for several days. It is to be hoped that means of transit may be devised to prevent the effects of such a casualty in future. A third curiosity was an assembly of recreant priests and others to the number of 400 at Cologne in order to do something. What the something was never appeared. They dined, quarrelled, and separated; while the world was agape to see something arise which should crush God’s Church. Other curiosities were the great trials, civil and military, which took place during the year. Among the former class that of the man known as the “Tichborne Claimant” stands pre‐eminent. The story is too well known to be commented on here; the “claimant’s” case broke down; he was committed to Newgate prison, bailed out, and is now “starring” the country to procure funds for a new trial. The case was remarkable for the strangest and oddest disclosures of character and hidden life from the highest almost to the lowest classes, not only in England, but in many other countries. The trial of Marshal Bazaine for the surrender of Metz, which is still pending, stands foremost in the rank of military trials. _Væ victis!_ Many of Bazaine’s comrades were condemned for premature surrender by the Committee of Inquiry; we shall see whether the once great marshal will be able to come off with a clear escutcheon. Other trials were those of the Communists and the murderers of the Archbishop of Paris and the clergy. As a rule, a more villanous set never stood face to face with justice. They have had full, fair, and exhaustive trials; such as could offer any excuse for their crimes escaped; the others were shot.

Death has been mowing right and left among us with indiscriminating scythe. In Persia he grew weary of his own grim harvest. Eastern Europe was threatened with cholera, but escaped. Some tall heads have fallen among the mean; many whose names are memorable for evil as well as good; many others whose places it would seem hard to fill. The Catholic Church has lost Archbishop Spalding, Bishops McGill and O’Connor in America, Morris and Goss in England, Cardinal Amat in Italy. Their names will live in the church and in her prayers. Anderson and Meade have gone, Seward and Morse, and Bennett, the founder of the _New York Herald_, and Greeley, the founder of the _Tribune_. Persigny, and Conti, and Mazzini, each memorable in his way, dropped out during the year. Lever, one of the most genial of Irish novelists, is dead, and his much‐lamented countryman, Maguire, of Cork. The only surviving son of the Duc d’Aumale, a promising young man, was snatched away—an important event, as the claims of this branch of the family to the French throne fall now to the Count de Chambord. Bernadotte, Charles XV. of Sweden, has gone, and was succeeded on the throne by his brother Oscar.

And now, passing from the old, we look to the new, not without anxiety. The war against the church, in reality against the rights of man, the freedom of conscience, commenced in Germany, has spread thence to Italy, Switzerland, and Spain, and, under the form of the educational question, wider and further still. If Catholics would save the souls of their children, and of their children’s children, from the infidelity and the moral decay which we see around us, even in this free breathing atmosphere, they must be firm and united in their resistance to the encroachment of the state, where states possess no rights—over the dictates of conscience. The uprise of labor against capital, which was the real cause of the first French Revolution and its mad excesses, we have already touched upon. It should be a deep source of anxiety and care to true statesmen. War looms on the European horizon, gathers in silent thunder‐clouds all around. A flash is enough to kindle the combustion and make the thunder speak. Who shall say when or whence it comes? Europe is arming, and we have good authority for saying that “the next war will rage over half a century”—Bismarck himself. For the church we foresee an increase of bitter and severe trials. We can only appeal to that enlightenment which the age vaunts; to its common sense and common fairness to allow us the freedom in our own worship which they, if they possess any, claim for themselves. Public opinion is, to a great extent, the lever of the age. We must work at that until we shame it into powerful and persistent action to remove and overthrow the mountain of intolerance, bigotry, and opposition, which rulers, who are neither Protestant nor Catholic, are raising up in order to overwhelm all religion, all right, all freedom.

New Publications.

MY CLERICAL FRIENDS. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

We need not say more than that the above is by the author of that production of exquisite humor and satire, _The Comedy of Convocation_, to awaken a profound interest in its appearance. This new book from his pen is somewhat similar. It is a choice compound of argument, history, and wit. Its object is to represent the English clerical body as it is, with a special intention of showing the ridiculousness of the claim made by some of its members to the character of Catholic priesthood. The author is the son of a clergyman, and was himself a clergyman, and is at home in his subject. We promise our readers a rare treat in this new and spicy volume.

CONVERSION OF THE TEUTONIC RACE. CONVERSION OF THE FRANKS AND ENGLISH.

SEQUEL TO THE SAME. S. BONIFACE AND THE CONVERSION OF GERMANY. By Mrs. Hope. Edited by the Rev. J. B. Dalgairns, of the Oratory. London: Washbourne. 1872. 2 vols. crown 8vo. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Few readers of English books know much of those most splendid and important chapters of history, of which these two volumes contain a summary within a moderate compass. The lady who has written them is a very competent and graceful narrator of historical scenes and events. She has given us the cream of authentic and truly scientific historical works with care and skill, and at the same time she has clothed her narrative with a flowing and agreeable diction. There are scarcely two volumes to be found in the whole mass of recent English literature better worth reading than these. We are delighted, also, to meet again, in the preface of the second volume, with F. Dalgairns, from whose pen nothing ever comes which is not choice both in matter and style. His editorship adds a most satisfactory sanction to the historical and critical accuracy of these volumes, over which he has exercised a supervision, and some pages of which have been written by himself. These volumes which have gained great repute and favor in England will, we trust, have also a wide circulation in this country, and help to diffuse sound historical knowledge, which, as F. Dalgairns remarks, is such a powerful auxiliary to religious truth.

LIFE AND TIMES OF SIXTUS THE FIFTH. From the French of Baron Hübner. By James F. Meline. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

The dying Gregory XIII., worn out with the difficulties and responsibilities of his position, raised his weary hands to heaven, and exclaimed: “Thou wilt arise, O Lord, and have mercy on Zion”; prophetic words that were realized in the election of Pope Sixtus V., who, as Ranke justly observes, possessed in the highest perfection the moral and intellectual qualities demanded for the suppression of the prevalent disorders of the times. Perhaps there is no other pope whose life is of more universal interest. His striking individuality of character appeals to the popular mind, and has given rise to a variety of fables respecting him which fasten themselves on the memory and, though not literally true, yet embody a certain truth of their own.

His rise from obscurity to become a link of that august dynasty beside which “the proudest royal houses are but of yesterday,” his ability to cope with all the difficulties of his position at a critical period in the political and religious world, his astuteness in dealing with the most wily diplomatists, his clear notions as to the necessity of balance of power among different nations, his financial ability and genius for statesmanship, have all commanded the very admiration of the enemies of the papacy. “A grand old man,” the _British Quarterly_ styles him, and with reason. “A great pope, to whom posterity owes a debt of gratitude in consideration of the whole results of his pontificate,” says the _Edinburgh Review_.

The extraordinary events of the life of Sixtus V. were the result of his wonderful energy and persistency. People like decision of character—a man with a purpose, and the ability of putting it into execution. This is why all admirers of “self‐made” men like to retrace the upward steps of the life of this eminent pope, from the rustic boyhood of Felice Peretti on the shores of the Adriatic; his thirst for knowledge that impelled him to study by the lamp of the sanctuary; his girding himself with the cord of the humble Francis while yet a mere boy; his career as a young friar‐ preacher, drawing crowded Roman audiences to listen to his fervid eloquence, among them such men as S. Ignatius de Loyola and S. Philip Neri; his promotion to a cardinalship by a sainted pope who was his benefactor, and whose last moments he had the happiness of witnessing; his temporary retirement to his villa, where he gave himself up to quiet observation of the needs of the times, especially of his own country, the study of architecture and the improvements needed in Rome, and all those pursuits which tended to fit him for his subsequent elevation to the papacy. Sixtus V. did not look upon his success in life as solely due to his own merit. He recognized the finger of Divine Providence, and chose as his motto: “Thou, O God, hast been my defender, even from my mother’s womb.”

_The Life of Sixtus V._ by Baron Hübner, though written from a Catholic point of view, is acknowledged by the _Edinburgh Review_ to be one of the most valuable contributions to the literature of the age, so rich in historical biography. Its superiority to the previous lives of that pope is partly due to his access to the archives of Simancas, not open to research at the time of Ranke. Though the pontificate of Sixtus V. was only about five years long, it embraced a rapid succession of extraordinary and tragical events, as is evident when we remember he was contemporary with Queen Elizabeth of England, Mary Queen of Scots, Philip II. of Spain, and Henry of Navarre, whose names recall the persecution of the Church in England, the execution of Mary Stuart, the Armada, the overthrow of the League, and the accession of Henri Quatre to the throne of France, and show us what a weight of responsibility rested upon the Head of the Church. No wonder he was soon worn out by the pressure. The tiara is but a thorny crown at the best, as befits him who stands in Christ’s stead. The very condition of the Pontifical States was an affair of no slight difficulty. Only a man of extraordinary energy and decision of character could have surmounted it. Sixtus V. has been called pitiless from the terrible punishments he inflicted for apparently trivial offences, but he was personally humane, for at the murder of his nephew he was the first to entreat the pope (Sixtus being at that time Cardinal Montalto) to drop his investigations, and when he had cleared the Roman States of brigandage, he endeavored to conciliate the nobles. His inflexible severity seemed imperiously demanded. Twenty‐seven thousand brigands ravaged his dominions; the castles of noblemen were their strongholds; they were protected by neighboring princes; and the very streets of Rome often witnessed the attacks of peaceful citizens by armed bands. Sixtus himself when a cardinal had nearly lost his life in encountering a band of lawless young nobles as he was going home one night. He saw the absolute necessity of putting an end to such disorders and the terror of the inhabitants. Accordingly, one of his first acts after his election was to forbid the carrying of fire‐arms in the streets, and, when he found his order disobeyed by four young men, he had them hung the very next morning.

But he was strictly impartial in administering justice. No clerical offender was screened by the sacredness of his garments. The friar who imposed on the piety of the faithful was scourged from one end of the Corso to the other; the cardinal who was desirous of protecting a guilty servant was threatened with the Castle of St. Angelo; the traitor‐priest who gave Queen Elizabeth information of what was occurring at Rome was executed in such a manner as to strike terror into every treacherous breast. No wonder Sixtus became a terror to evil doers, and his very name sufficed to put an end to the brawls in the streets. The time arrived when he could say with grim humor: “_Fugit impius nemine persequente_”—“The wicked flee when no man pursueth.”

Sixtus V. left proofs of his genius and energy all over Rome. He kept thousands of men constantly employed. The dome of S. Peter’s was completed in twenty‐two months, though the architect said it would require ten years. He restored a colossal aqueduct that had fallen to ruin, and brought the Acqua Felice into Rome from a distance of about twenty miles. He opened great thoroughfares all through the city, built the Lateran Palace, erected monuments, undertook to drain the Pontine Marshes, encouraged agriculture and the manufacture of silk, established the Congregation of Rites and several others, limited the number of cardinals to seventy, and partly revised the Vulgate with his own hand. His practical nature by no means made him insensible to softer influences. His soul was so alive to music that at the exciting time of his election he lent an ear to Palestrina’s music hastily composed for the occasion, and remarked that Pierluigi had forgotten Pope Marcello’s Mass—a criticism that mortified the great composer, but which has since been acknowledged to be true.

He won the gratitude of the Israelites by his favor. Amazed Rome saw a Gentile actually scourged on the Corso for insulting a member of that ancient race. To another Israelite was granted special privileges for his success in increasing the production of silk.

Col. Meline’s book is not a literal translation of Baron Hübner’s _Life of Sixtus V._: it is rather a _résumé_, as the preface explains. It consists of three parts: the first reviews the life of that pope, giving such details as are of interest to the general reader; the second portrays the experience of a Transalpine traveller to Rome three centuries ago; and the third is a vivid picture of Rome at that time: the whole being an improved edition of three essays already given to the public.

The readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD are already too familiar with Mr. Meline’s felicitous style and his power of analysis to require any commendation on our part. And to the public at large he has recommended himself by his chivalrous defence of Mary, Queen of Scots. The strong lance he has wielded in the defence of her fair name against that doughty writer of fiction, Mr. James Anthony Froude, has been too universally applauded not to secure a general welcome to whatever comes from his able pen.

THE HEART OF MYRRHA LAKE; or, Into the Light of Catholicity. By Minnie Mary Lee. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

The enthusiastic author of this charming little story has succeeded in presenting much logic which is usually dull, in very attractive attire. The arguments and conclusions are so wonderfully clear, that it is to be hoped the book will fall frequently into the hands of the class most in need of it, but, alas! least likely to read it. There is in it much of quiet humor which is irresistible and very “telling”; as, for instance, when to the question, “What Catholic books have you read, sir?” the sturdy Methodist, Abner White, replies: “_Fox’s Book of Martyrs_, _Maria Monk_, _Six Months in a Convent_, _Romanism at Home_, _Priest and Nun_, etc.” And again, in the interview between Aunt Ruth and the committee of Methodist ladies who had come to wait upon her after her husband’s conversion, human nature, and especially Methodist nature, is painted with a very clever pen. Who has not known just such spinsters as Miss Nancy and Miss Sarah? And what a keen dash is this:

“ ‘Then we shall report that you choose to follow your husband, rather than the goodly rules of our Methodist discipline?’

“ ‘I shall go with my husband certainly,’ was the firm, respectful answer.

“ ‘And may God have mercy on your soul,’ solemnly added the spinster, as if addressing a person about to be hanged.

“ ‘Thank you!’ absently and innocently responded the quiet Quakeress.

“ ‘I suppose, then, _we need not even pray for you_?’ said one.

“ ‘You always _was_ a little queer, Sister White, you and Brother White, too, now that we come to think it over,’ said another.

“ ‘Extremely odd it is for one to lose all sense of propriety, and assume the responsibility of such a fearful step,’ rapidly spoke little Sarah.

“ ‘We pity you, and _would_ help you, but you won’t let us,’ was Mrs. Sand’s trembling good‐by.

“ ‘We wash our hands of all sin in this matter. It lies at your own door,’ were the last consolatory words of Miss Nancy.”

Many another reader might say with Myrrha, “When I took up that small book called _A General Catechism of the __ Christian Doctrine_, I little dreamed upon what a study I had entered. Again, after reading it through, I as little dreamed upon what a sea of speculation I had launched.” May the result of such reading prove as fruitful of good to all readers as to Myrrha! But such results seem to happen oftener in books than in real, selfish life. The best of this story is its ending, which, this time, is neither marriage nor death for the lovers.

FLEURANGE. By Mme. Augustus Craven. Translated by M. P. T. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

Rarely, indeed, have we met a work whose author exhibits so many of the qualities indespensable in a good novelist, as the one under consideration. Artistic in conception, pure and elevated in style, it is withal faultless in tone and sentiment.

It is not our purpose to give an outline of the plot of this tale, or to enlarge on the actors through whom it is evolved, but we shall confine ourselves to some observations on certain characteristics of the writer as developed in her work.

The author manifests a high degree of insight and the æsthetic sense, an intimate knowledge of feminine nature, and more of that of the opposite sex than its members may dream of—in acquiring which the delicate intuitions of her own sex doubtless serve a better purpose than the mere logic and learning of ours. Although the story introduces the reader into the highest social circles, and its incidents are of the most absorbing interest, there is no sacrifice of the dramatic unities, or any departure from the essential simplicity of the narrative. This severity of style, we may say, is at once the most winning quality of a work of genius, and the best test of its success; making the latter dependent on inherent excellence, rather than adventitious aids. In works of this character, art in letters reaches its highest development—that in which it becomes the most natural.

A noticeable feature is the epigrammatic conciseness with which a sentiment or description is finished. The reader is never wearied with platitudes or over‐minuteness of limning. Whatever idea occurs to the writer which she is willing to share with the reader is expressed in the fewest possible words. Is a scene to be presented to the mind’s eye?—a few touches of the artist’s pencil bring it vividly before us. The reader finds himself moved alternately to mirthfulness, or tears, or astonishment, as he encounters an unexpected bit of humor, and exquisite burst of pathos, or some reflection almost startling in depth or suggestiveness. Some passages are open to obvious inference, while others constitute studies if we would probe their philosophy. It was a question with those who watched the serial progress of the story, how the author could bring order and harmony out of the complications in which she had involved her principal characters; and the way this has been accomplished will be acknowledged as not the least of her achievements. No characters are interchanged or lose their identity. Each acts his part as naturally, and retains his individuality, as in real life; so that, when the _dramatis personæ_ are at length summoned to the footlights for a final adieu, we feel inclined to protest, in the name of all the delighted auditors, against the call, as a premature termination of a very pleasant intercourse.

The reception _Fleurange_ has met with thus far is very flattering. It has commended itself to the favorable judgment of the London _Saturday Review_, and other authorities of like critical acumen; has been _crowned_ by the French Academy; and received the general approval of the press and public, so far as we have learned, while passing through the pages of _Le Correspondant_ and THE CATHOLIC WORLD. We know of no recent imaginative work of which we could speak in terms of more unqualified approbation, or better deserving a permanent place in our literature, both as a work of art and for the sound principles by which it is pervaded and informed.

On the translation, we do not know that we could bestow higher praise than to say that it reads like an original work of the first order; while we are convinced that it is a faithful and conscientious rendering from the French text.

LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK By Aubrey De Vere. Dublin: McGlashan & Gill. London: Henry S. King & Co. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

“If the Ireland of early times is ever understood, it will not be till after thoughtful men have deemed her legends worthy of their serious attention.” This remark Mr. De Vere makes in his preface, and not until we had read through his _Legends_ did we fully realize its truth. It is a most certain fact that the twilight of Irish history can be changed into day only by the profound study of its legendary lore. We have read several lives of S. Patrick, and more than one history of Ireland have we studied, but from none of them did we get so clear an insight into the character of the saint and the genius of his people as from Mr. De Vere’s _Legends_, few and short though they be.

The subjects are beautiful and poetic, and the author’s conception of them lofty and spiritual. There is indeed a sacred melody about early Irish song which only a spiritual bard can evoke. Chords there are in Erin’s ancient harp which a hand of mere flesh and blood may not touch. Mr. De Vere has sung those songs; he has touched these chords, and they have given forth their true melody. It is not to his beautiful diction and varying metres, it is not to his wonderful descriptive powers and high poetic gifts, that we attribute this success, but it is to those two passions of his soul which impress themselves on all that he writes—love of God and love of Ireland. And here an opportunity is afforded us of speaking of Mr. De Vere as the poet of Ireland. That he is far superior to any Irish poet of the present day is beyond all question, and that his equal, in everything save popularity, to any English poet of the day is a verdict competent judges have not hesitated to give.

We often ask ourselves, How is it, then, he is so little known and read by his countrymen in America? For twenty years he has scorned “the siren’s tinsel lure,” and devoted all his talents to sounding the praises of Ireland and of Ireland’s Catholicity. His sole aim through life has been to enshrine Ireland’s faith and Ireland’s song in the temple of fame. Patriotism is his only incentive to labor; he seems indifferent to popularity, and perhaps this is one reason why he enjoys so little. But there are other reasons, we think, and they also are in his favor. Mr. De Vere is too polished, too thoughtful, and too spiritual to be a popular poet.

If he would descend from his high poetic ideal to sing love songs, he would soon be popular; but he will never prove a recreant bard. Those for whom he has so long and so faithfully labored must disenthrall themselves from the spirit of the age, and ascend to his level; then will they find in him all they can desire, and proclaim him their laureate. They will not find in him, it is true, the inimitable sweetness of Moore or the poetic fire of Davis, but they will find in him the patriotism of both, a polish superior to either, and, over all and above all, they will find a muse ennobled by the highest sentiments of religion and morality.

THE TRUTH. By Field Marshal the Duke of Saldanha. Translated from the Portuguese, by William John Charles Henry. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This little volume will be found to contain not only some of the most forcible arguments for Christianity that have ever been advanced, but particularly a collection (in the first chapter) of testimonials from ancient heathendom to what is only realized in Christ and his religion. Nothing can be more interesting, surely, than the study of the great tradition of expectation which fulfilled the prophecy of the dying Israel: “And He shall be the expectation of the nations” (Gen. xlix. 10). Our noble author opens his first chapter with this sentence: “From the east to the west, from the north to the south, in every language, in the literature of all nations, with a voice spontaneous, universal, and unanimous, the entire human race cried aloud for the coming of a Divine Teacher.” And when we have delightedly perused this first chapter, we as heartily endorse its concluding sentence: “This we believe to have most clearly demonstrated that, ... with one voice, unanimous, spontaneous, and universal, the human race cried out for the coming of a God of revelation.”

The work is designed for a defence of Christianity against the infidelity of the day. And we think it a most able and a singularly attractive one. Let our young men especially read it. It will make them a match for any sceptical show of learning.

CATHOLIC WORSHIP. A Manual of Popular Instruction on the Ceremonies and Devotions of the Church. By Frederick Canon Oakeley. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.

Recent converts and inquirers after religious truth frequently experience some difficulty in understanding the ceremonies of the church and the various devotional practices of Catholics. We know of no more suitable book to place in the hands of such persons than this little treatise of Canon Oakeley. It is concise, clear, and methodical. Nothing is left unexplained, from the practice of taking holy water upon entering the church to the consecration of a bishop. This book will be found to be of great use not only to converts, but to Catholics in general, containing as it does a thoroughly reliable explanation of everything connected with our worship. This second edition is an evidence of the favor with which it has been received by the Catholic public.

THE SHADOW OF THE OBELISK, and Other Poems. By Thomas William Parsons. London: Hatchards, Piccadilly. 1872.

This modest volume is from the author whose translations from Dante, that have appeared in our magazine, are attracting deserved attention.

Mr. Parsons’ powers as a lyric poet are considerable. His verse has, for the most part, the easy and often careless diction of a school which many think gone out, but which we believe destined to revive. Yet here and there we see the influence of Tennyson. The lines, “To Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” are in the latter style. For strength his sonnets are his best efforts. We wish he had favored us with more of them.

There is ample variety in the pieces collected. The poet has travelled much. “The Shadow of the Obelisk” sets us musing in Rome. “The Birthplace of Robert Burns” takes us to “bonnie Scotland.” “St. James’ Park” tells us the writer has philosophized in London. While the “Willey House,” “On the Death of Daniel Webster,” and “Hudson River” are themes from his native America. The lines, “On a Magnolia Flower,” are fragrant with the South—the pale, sad South—and one of the gems of the book.

Mr. Parsons is a Unitarian, as he takes care to indicate; but, like Longfellow, he has Catholic sympathies. However, there is one short translation from Dante, entitled “A Lesson for Easter,” the last two lines of which _seem_ to talk Protestantism:

“Ye have the Testament, the Old and New, And this for your salvation is enough.”

But the preceding lines should throw light on the Catholic poet’s meaning:

“Christians, be staid: walk wisely and serene: Be grave, and shun the flippant speech of those Who think that _every_ wave will wash them clean— That _any_ field will serve them for repose. Be not a feather to each wind that blows: There is a _Shepherd_ and a _Fold_ for you: Ye have a _Leader_ when your way is rough.”

All this is unmistakable orthodoxy; and, therefore, the two lines quoted, which come next, speak of the evidence of the Old and the New Testament for the “one Fold and one Shepherd” and the infallible “Leader.”

We conclude by hoping that Mr. Parsons will vouchsafe us another volume of minor poems, and especially of sonnets.

THE LIFE OF FATHER MATHEW, THE PEOPLE’S SOGGARTH AROON. By Sister Mary Francis Clare, Author of _The Illustrated History of Ireland_, _Advice to Irish Girls in America_, _Hornehurst Rectory_, etc.

The indefatigable Nun of Kenmare could not have employed her pen on a worthier subject than the life and labors of the Apostle of Temperance. She will have accomplished a great end if this work serves to keep green in the hearts of her countrymen and of all Catholics the memory of one who accomplished more good than many who possessed more brilliant abilities, yet who neglected to employ their talents in that usurious activity which wins a blessing.

DAILY STEPS TO HEAVEN. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1872.

This, as well as the preceding work, belongs to a series of publications by the same author, embracing religious, historical, and miscellaneous books, which have attained an extraordinary popularity in the old country and in the United States.

A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. By Rev. Reuben Parsons, D.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

This work has been compiled “for the use of colleges, schools, and families.” It contains short biographical sketches of the principal characters of history, together with chronological tables. The subjects are for the most part well selected, and, as far as we have read, are well and correctly treated. The style of the author is terse and vigorous, and well adapted to this kind of composition.

The printing is excellent, the binding neat, but the figure in the frontispiece has suffered not a little at the hands of the artist—an accident which mars somewhat the general appearance of the book.

THE NEW GOD. Translated from the German of Conrad von Bolanden, by Very Rev. Theodore Noethen, V.G. Albany: M. O’Sullivan. 1872.

Our readers have already had a sufficient taste of this author’s quality in “The Progressionists,” now going through our pages, to desire the further treat to be found in the new products of his pen. We do not recall any series of fictitious writings, designed to combat vicious principles and actions, more admirable as specimens of vigorous and effective composition. The most obtuse progressionist could scarcely fail to comprehend the drift of the underlying argument, while the more fastidious reader will be carried along by the interest of the tale through which it is conveyed. Father Noethen is performing an acceptable service in making these works known to the English reader.

Bolanden’s works fairly palpitate with the gravity of themes of living interest. The new German Government, the burthen of the present tale, has given evidence of their telling effect by ordering their suppression.

GERALDINE: A TALE OF CONSCIENCE. By E. C. A. New York: P. O’Shea.

_Geraldine_ was one of the first successful religious novels which followed the revival of Catholic doctrine in England, and bids fair to hold its own for many a year to come. It enjoys a wider reputation than either of Miss Agnew’s other works, one of which, _Rome and the Abbey_, forms a sequel to this.

Mr. O’Shea also issues a reprint of Cardinal Wiseman’s _Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion_; intended, apparently, as the commencement of an uniform series of the great author’s works.

It is to be regretted that this work had not undergone a thorough revision by some competent hand before its reappearance, in order to adapt it to the present state of scientific investigation. Although true science can never be out of harmony with revelation, its successive developments may enable us to see the conditions of that harmony and relation in a clearer light than when the _Lectures_ were originally published.

THE HISTORY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. Translated from the French of the Abbé Orsini, by the Very Rev. F. C. Husenbeth, D.D., V.G. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1872.

This work is already known to many readers in the presentation edition issued by the Messrs. Sadlier some years since, and the recent English edition of which the above is a _fac‐simile_. We are glad to see an edition like this made accessible to the great body of readers, though the fire in which the publisher was involved, will interfere for a time with that consummation. It has a number of pictorial illustrations, and there are appended the letters apostolic concerning the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception.

LIZA. By Ivan S. Turgenieff. New York: Holt & Williams. 1872.

_Liza_ is another work from the pen of M. Turgenieff, the distinguished Russian novelist, several of whose works are already familiar to us. His quiet sarcasm in depicting the Russian of the old school, who needs no scratching to reveal the genuine Tartar—crafty and brutal, but with a kindly streak withal—and the Russian of the present generation who has imbibed foreign habits and theories by no means elevating, is admirably calculated to correct the evils of a transition state of society. The former affords us two affecting pictures in this book of women of repressed lives, who humbly kiss with their dying lips the hand that has crushed them. One of them leaves a young son, Fedor Lavretsky, who never forgets his pale and gentle mother, who in turn hardly dared caress him for fear of the sharp eyes and cutting tongue of her sister‐in‐law, Glafira, who had taken charge of the child. He is brought up under a system of repression, and, when his father dies, he goes to Moscow determined to repair the defects of his education. There he falls in love with the face of a beautiful girl who regards him as a _schöne Partie_ and marries him. He gives himself up to the happiness of his new life, and is induced by his wife to leave his estate, and, after various changes, to go to Paris, where admiration seems to have intoxicated her. Fedor, becoming aware of her real character, settles an annuity on her, leaves her, and returns to his native land. He cannot bear, however, to go to his own seat where he passed the first happy days of his married life, but betakes himself to his aunt’s place—the stern Glafira, who had died during his absence. The desolate house is once more opened, and he stands alone in the room where she breathed her last, and looks with softened heart on the sacred icons in their gilded frames in the corner, and the worn carpet, covered with drippings from the wax candles she had burned before them, and on which she had knelt to pray. His old servant waits on him, he drinks tea out of the great cup he had used in his boyhood, looks over the large book full of mysterious pictures which he had found so wondrous in childish days. Everything recalls the earlier remembrances of his life. “On a woman’s love my best years have been wasted,” thought he.

Going to pay his respects to his great‐aunt, who is admirably drawn with a few vivid touches, he meets with Liza, whom he left a child, but is now nineteen years of age. There is a natural grace about her person; her face is pale, but fresh; her eyes lustrous and thoughtful, her smile fascinating, but grave, and she has a frank, innocent way of looking you directly in the face. Lavretsky is instantly struck with her appearance, and the impression is deepened the oftener he sees her. Liza’s mother is one of those women, _qui n’a pas inventé la poudre, la bonne daìne_, as one of her visitors ungratefully remarks. Her daughter owes the elevation and purify of her character to the nurse of her childhood, who gave herself up to penitential observances. Instead of nursery tales, she told Liza of the Blessed Virgin, the holy hermits who had been fed in their caves by the birds, and the female martyrs from whose blood sprang up sweet flowers. She used to speak of these things seriously and humbly, as if unworthy to utter such high and holy names, and Liza sat at her feet with reverent awe drinking in the holy influences of her words. Aglafia also taught her to pray, and took her at early dawn to the matin service. Liza grew up thoroughly penetrated with a sense of duty, loving everybody, but loving God supremely and with tender enthusiasm. Till Lavretsky came, no one had troubled the calmness of her inner life.

After some time, learning through a newspaper that his wife is dead, he confesses his love to Liza. She feels drawn towards him, her heart seems to respond to his love, but it is hardly with genuine passion; it is rather the agitation of a lily too rudely stirred by the breeze. Not that she has no depth of feeling; but, as she afterwards acknowledges, when she did indulge in hopes of happiness, her heart shuddered within her. Love seemed almost a profanation, as if a stranger had entered her pure maiden chamber.

Suddenly, the wife, supposed to be dead, reappears. It is all a mistake. Her husband is stunned. He feels he can never give back his love to one who has no longer his respect. And Liza is lost to him. After several attempts, he sees her again. Her eyes have grown dimmer and sunken, her face is pale, and her lips have lost their color. She implores him to be reconciled to his wife, and they part without her allowing her hand to meet his.

Six months later, Liza takes the veil in a remote convent in Russia. The Greek as well as the Latin convent seems to be the ideal refuge of startled innocence and purity. Once Lavretsky goes there, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He sees her as she is leaving the choir. She passes close by him with the quick, noiseless step of a nun, but keeps steadily on without looking at him. But he sees the almost imperceptible tremor of her eye; she bends her emaciated face still lower, and the hands that hold the rosary are clasped more tightly together.

But the chief value of M. Turgenieff’s novels to a Catholic lies not in the stories themselves certainly, but in the delightful pictures of Russian life and manners they present, and the influence they have had in softening the rugged manners of the north and changing the condition of the serfs.

WONDERS OF THE MOON. Translated from the French of Amédée Guillemin, by Miss M. G. Mead. Edited, with additions, by Maria Mitchell, of Vassar College. Illustrated with forty‐three engravings. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

This little book contains a tolerably full account of all that is known about the moon, and that is of interest to the general reader. Our knowledge of our satellite is in some respects hardly equal to that which we have recently acquired of the much more distant sun; though so near, comparatively, to us, it is still too far away for the telescope ever to give us as clear a view of it as we need; and the spectroscope is of little use in its examination. We shall never know much about it, and especially about its other side, unless we go to see it; and a trip to the moon, chimerical as it may seem, may not always remain an impossibility for some adventurous person who is willing to run his chance of finding in the apparently uncomfortable little place the necessary conditions for human life. However, not a few of us will be content with the information given in this book, which is vastly greater than what most persons would probably acquire by examining the moon with the finest telescope; for a telescope is of little service to one unaccustomed to use it, and few things are more provoking to an experienced moon‐gazer than evident failure of others to see what seems to him so plain. To those, then, who really wish to get a good idea of the moon, and especially of its physical constitution and probable scenery, in really the most satisfactory way, this little volume, notwithstanding a few slight inaccuracies (such as the placing of Petit’s bolide at 9,000,000 miles from the earth), will be quite interesting and valuable. These inaccuracies, if in the original, should have been corrected in the translation.

THE GREAT PROBLEM: The Higher Ministry of Nature viewed in the Light of Modern Science, and as an aid to advanced Christian Philosophy. By John R. Leifchild, A.M., author of _Our Coal Fields and our Coal Pits_; _Cornwall: Its Mines and Miners_, etc., etc. With an introduction by Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., Chancellor of the University of New York. New York: G. P. Putnam & Son. 1872.

Dr. Crosby introduces this really able and valuable essay with a just and manly rebuke of the unparalleled absurdity and impudence of our modern materialistic scientists; and it is high time for him, considering what balderdash he is obliged to listen to from his chancellor’s chair. The essay of Mr. Leifchild is a series of arguments on the topics of natural theology, in which some of the principal manifestations of the power and wisdom of God in the physical world are pointed out and referred to their true cause and end. The author most absurdly saws off the limb of the tree on which grows all the fruit he admires so much and gathers so carefully, by denying the value of metaphysics. But, in spite of that, his sound mind holds implicitly the very metaphysics he ignorantly despises, and he is therefore able to reason very well and conclusively. Most persons who read books of this kind are more ready to listen to a geologist teaching theology than to a professed theologian, and they prefer the roundabout method of coming to a point by induction to the straight road of logical deduction. This book is likely to be useful, therefore, and is, besides, printed in very clear, legible type, which makes it a pleasant book to read, though laboring under the sad inconvenience of having neither index nor table of contents. There are a good many interesting facts and statements about eminent writers interspersed, e.g., Spinoza and Leibnitz; but the author is seriously mistaken in ascribing any pantheistic doctrines or tendencies to Henry Suso and Tauler. We are happy to welcome such books from English writers who are adepts in the physical sciences. For these sciences, and the men who are really masters of them, we have a great respect in their own sphere. And we consider it a very praiseworthy and useful task for men of this kind, to undertake to show the conformity of these sciences with the queen over all the scientific realm—Christian philosophy.

THE MINNESINGER OF GERMANY. By A. E. Kroeger. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1872.

In this little book we have a very charming, as also very learned, exposition of mediæval art. The Minnesinger or minstrel‐knights of the latter half of the XIIth and earlier half of the XIIIth centuries are but little known outside of Germany. In this book we are introduced to the principal masters of this beautiful and ephemeral school of song, Gottfried von Strassburg, Walter von der Vogelweide, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, Hartmann von der Aue, Regenbogen, Conrad von Würzburg, and Henrich von Meissen, known as “_Frauenlob_,” or “ladies’ praise.” These poets sang chiefly of religion and love. But foremost among all women, the great Mother of God chiefly claimed their enthusiastic homage, as we see by the long extracts given by Mr. Kroeger of some of their glorious “Hymns to the Virgin.” Here is an example, from “The Divine Minnesong,” attributed sometimes to Gottfried of Strassburg:

“Thou art the blooming heaven‐branch, Which blooming, blooms in many a grange; Great care and strange God lavished, Maid, on thee.”

We have, unfortunately, no space for a selection of the beauties collected for us in this book, and can only recommend our readers to procure it for themselves. It is full of gems, and is especially welcome to us as evidence of the high degree to which the burning faith of those days had led and guided lyrical art. Hartmann von der Aue’s “Poor Henry” is, so we are told, “the original of that sweet story of self‐sacrifice which Longfellow has made universally known as the ‘Golden Legend,’ (p. 190).” The same hymn we have already quoted has this allusion to the “living wine of true remorse” and the following words:

“He whom God’s love has never found Is like a shadow on the ground, And does confound Life, wisdom, sense, and reason.”

Conrad von Würzburg, in his “Golden Smithy,” represents himself as a gold‐ smith working an ornament for the Queen of Heaven, and says, “If in the depth of the smithy of my heart I could melt a poem out of gold, and could enamel the gold with the glowing ruby of pure devotion, I would forge a transparent shining and sparkling praise of thy work, thou glorious Empress of Heaven.” Walter von der Vogelweide sings these grand words:

“Who slays the lion? Who slays the giant? Who masters them all, however defiant? He does it who himself controlleth; And every nerve of his body enrolleth, _Freed from passion, under strict subjection_.”

Mr. Kroeger has done a service to art, to history, and to religion in opening thus before our eyes a few of the treasures of the _so‐called_ dark ages.

COLLEGE JOURNAL. Georgetown College: Dec., 1872, Vol. I., No. 1.

This is as elegant a little paper in outward appearance as we remember to have seen. The articles are written with taste and correctness, and we offer a hearty welcome to the young gentlemen of classic Georgetown on their editorial _début_. We have only one piece of advice to give them, which is, to be careful that their wit and humor be as classic and scholarly as their serious pieces. Most papers, especially juvenile ones, break down on this point. We wish our young friends honor and success in their enterprise.

The Catholic Publication Society will publish in a few days Wild Times, a story by Miss Caddell.

Books And Pamphlets Received.

From C. DAREAU, Quebec: Francis Parkman. Par L’Abbé H. R. Casgrain. 18mo, paper, pp. 89.

From A. WILLIAMS & CO., Boston: The Blazing Star; with an appendix treating of the Jewish Kabbala. 12mo, pp. 180.

From JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Boston: The Masque of the Gods. By Bayard Taylor. 12mo, pp. 48.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: Humanity Immortal. By L. P. Hickok, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, pp. 362.—God‐Man. By L. T. Townsend, D.D. 12mo, pp. 446.—Autobiography of Amos Kendall. Edited by his Son‐in‐law, Wm. Stickney. 1872.

From ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston: Paul of Tarsus: An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By A Graduate, 12mo, pp. 401.

From D. VAN NOSTRAND, New York: A Treatise on Acoustics in Connection with Ventilation. By Alexander Saeltzer. 12mo, pp. 102.

From J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., Philadelphia: Thoughts on Paper Currency, etc. By Wm. Brown. 18mo, pp. 240.—Black Robes; or, Sketches of Missions and Ministers in the Wilderness and on the Border. By Robert P. Nevin. 12mo, pp. 366.

From A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., New York: The Scripture Doctrine in Reference to the Seat of Sin in the Regenerate Man. 18mo, pp. 125.

From DESFORGES & LAWRENCE, Milwaukee: A Religion of Evolution: Letters of “Internationalist” Reviewing the Sermons of J. L. Dudley, Pastor of Plymouth Congregationalist Church, Milwaukee, 8vo, pp. 42.

From C. C. CHATFIELD & CO., New Haven: Hints to Young Editors. 12mo, pp. 31.

From CARROLL, Wheeling: Pastoral Letter of the Rt. Rev. Richard Vincent Whelan, Bishop of Wheeling, to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese. 8vo, pp. 12.

Ninth Annual Report of the New York Catholic Protectory. Paper, 8vo, pp. 66.

Constitution and By‐Laws of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America, with the Journal of Proceedings and Address of the First General Convention held at Baltimore, Md., Feb. 22, 23, 1872. 8vo, pp. 57.

Library Work in the Army. United States Military Post Library Association. Annual Report, 1871‐2. Paper, 12mo, pp. 57.

The English Inquisition worse than the Spanish. By an English Priest. Montreal. 18mo, pp. 34.

From Hon. EUGENE CASSERLY: Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the U. S. transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, Dec. 4, 1871.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XVI., NO. 95.—FEBRUARY, 1873.

Who Made Our Laws?

It is a characteristic of every succeeding century to consider itself much wiser than any or all that have preceded it. In this respect our beloved NINETEENTH is no exception; in fact, with a vanity that may be palliated, if not excused, it considers that, comparatively speaking, the world has hitherto been in its schoolboy days, and only attained its majority on the first day of January, 1800. It is true that the great advances made in the physical sciences, in chemistry, astronomy, and geology, and in the application of steam and electricity, have marked our age as one of true progress in a certain direction, and are substantial subjects of self‐ congratulation; but it must also be remembered that very little of the genuine happiness of mankind in general depends upon any or all of these discoveries and appliances. Man, being an intellectual as well as an animal being, must look to spiritual discoveries and mental agencies for his chief sources of enjoyment; and, as the soul controls the body, as his main duty in this life is to qualify that soul for an eternity of bliss, as the unlimited future is superior to the limited present, it follows that the things merely of this world play a small and insignificant part in the real drama of the life of a human being. The sad misconception of this solution of the problem of man’s destiny has been the principal mistake of materialists, and their consequent punishment here below has been so marked that the criticism of the charitable is considerately withheld.

Fortunately for us Catholics, the great desideratum—the law that includes all laws—is immovably fixed, and no new discoveries, no alleged progress, no experiment, can disturb it. Immutable as the eternal hills, it stands to‐day as when promulgated in Judæa over eighteen hundred years ago by its Divine Founder, and though the heavens and earth may pass away, we have the assurance that it shall not. But there have sprung out of the operation of this great law other laws which may be called secondary or subsidiary, which have long affected the welfare of Christendom, and upon the observance or rejection of which much of the welfare or misery of nations has depended and must for ever depend. Political justice, social order, art, science, and literature, everything which relates to the relations of man with his fellows, and brightens and beautifies life, have a great deal more to do with forming the character and insuring the purity of a people, as well as the regulation of their actions justly, than railroads, telegraphs, and anæsthetic agents. Respect for the memory of the dead and charity for the living prevent us from pointing out individual instances where men, remarkable for their skill and perseverance in forwarding the latter projects, have neither been distinguished for their truthfulness, liberality, nor for any moral quality typical of intelligent Christians. The best of these men are simply clever mechanists, increasing, it is true, our sum of knowledge of the effect of certain forces in nature, yet without being able to reveal the nature of the forces themselves, which seems impossible; but whoever teaches us true ideas regarding the active agencies that govern ordinary life is the true benefactor of his species, and is the governor of his audience or race. Have our discoveries in this science of making mankind more moral, humane, and refined kept pace with our more intimate acquaintance with the secrets of nature and the laws of mechanism, or have we to look back to the despised past for all our ideas of rectitude in legislation, honesty in the administration of government, and truthfulness in the plastic arts? We fear that a candid answer to this question would involve some loss of our self‐esteem. While, like the degenerate Hebrews, we have been worshipping graven images, the work of men’s hands, we have been neglecting the Tables of the Law.

All national governments reflect more or less correctly the ideas of the people governed. The absolutism of Russia is as much the reflex of the mental status of the inhabitants of that vast and semi‐civilized empire as that of the United States is of our busy, hasty, and heterogeneous population. The first is a necessity growing out of a peculiar order of things, wherein many tribes and barbarous races are to be found struggling towards light and civilization; the other is the creation of the matured minds of experienced and profound statesmen, acting as the delegates of a self‐reliant and self‐sustaining people. Still, though the framework of the government is _unique_, the ideas of justice and equality which underlie it are old. In one sense they are not American, but European, for it cannot be denied that the principles of our constitutions, state and national, the laws accepted or enacted in harmony therewith, and the modes of their interpretation and administration, are taken from the civil polity of the nations of the Old World, as those again have been the direct and palpable result of the teachings of the Catholic Church. Russia to‐day is mainly barbarous, and subject to the unfettered will of one man, because centuries ago the East broke away from the centre of Catholic unity, and, in losing the Apostolic authority, lost all its vivifying power, and the ministers of the so‐called Greek Church their capacity and efficiency as civilizers and law‐givers.

The West was more loyal, and consequently more fortunate. If we consider for a moment the chaotic condition of the greater part of Europe when the church commenced to spread far and wide the teachings of the Gospel, slowly but steadily pursuing her holy mission, we may be able to appreciate the herculean task before her. Then, in every part of Europe, from the pole to the Mediterranean, from the Carpathians to the Atlantic, disorder, ignorance, and rapine prevailed. Wave after wave of Northern and Eastern hordes had swept over the continent and most of the islands, submerging the effete nations of the South, and carrying destruction and death wherever they surged. The old Roman civilization, such as it was, was entirely obliterated, all municipal law was abolished, the conquered masses were reduced to the condition of serfs, and, as each successive leader of a tribe rested from his bloody labors and built a stronghold for his occupancy, he reserved to himself the exclusive monopoly of plunder and spoliation in his own particular neighborhood. This of course led to rivalry and unceasing warfare between rival marauders, and the incessant slaughter and oppression of their retainers and tenants.

It was with these fierce and lawless _nobles_, as they loved to style themselves, that the church for centuries waged most persistent and uncompromising warfare, and against them she hurled her most terrible anathemas. It was she who taught the sanguinary barons and chieftains that there was a moral power greater than armed force and stronger than moated and castellated tower, who took by the hand the downtrodden, impoverished serf, freed him from his earthly bonds, taught him the knowledge of God’s law, the principles of eternal justice and the rights of humanity, and instilled into his heart those ideas of human liberty which have since fructified and now permeate every free or partially free government in both hemispheres. Those great results were achieved in many ways, as local circumstances required; by teaching and exhorting, by persuasion or threats, by taking the serf into the ministry of the church and thereby making him the superior of his former master, by introducing gradually just and equitable laws, and when necessary forcing their adoption on unwilling sovereigns and reluctant nobles, and, perhaps, most potently by the example of her own organization, which permitted the humblest of her children to be crowned by a free election with the tiara of the successors of S. Peter.

The influence of the church in secular affairs was particularly remarkable in England, from which we have drawn so many of our political opinions and principles. The early missionaries to the Britons and Saxons were doubtless men of high intelligence as well as sanctity; but the Norman and Anglo‐Norman ecclesiastics who came into the country with William the Conqueror and clustered around his sons and successors were still more remarkable for astuteness and breadth of view. For many generations after the Conquest they may be said to have governed England in so far as they framed her laws, conducted her ordinary jurisprudence, and mainly directed her foreign and domestic policy. The most interesting, though by no means the most impartial, chapters in Hallam and Blackstone are those devoted to the struggles between the lay lawyers supported or subsidized by the nobility, and the clerical jurists who defended the privileges of their order and the natural rights of the oppressed masses. The Great Charter, of which we hear so much from persons who very probably never read it, was undoubtedly the work of the latter, though signed by all the barons with their seal or mark; trial by jury, the germs of which may be traced into remote antiquity, was systematized and as far as possible perfected under their auspices; courts of equity, for the rectification of “injustice which the law from its generality worketh to individuals,” were their creation, and even until comparatively late years were presided over by them; and representative or parliamentary government may justly be said to have been the fruit of their fertile and ever‐active brains. Its founder, in England at least, was de Montfort, who, though not in orders, was the follower, if not the pupil, of the great S. Bernard.

It is thus that we, the ungrateful or forgetful eulogists of the XIXth century, while laying the flattering unction to our souls that we have done more than put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, ignore the long, painful, and continuous efforts of our spiritual forefathers to christianize, civilize, and make free our ancestors in the order of nature whom pagan despotism and barbaric cupidity sought to degrade and brutalize. In our self‐glorification we forget that all we have in legislation, of which we are naturally so proud and for which we never can be too thankful, is the product of long years of toil and reflection of humble priests and learned prelates, whose names are now scarcely remembered. The ideas of justice and clemency generated in the minds of those men of the past by the spirit of Catholicity are the same which govern our daily actions, and regulate the most important affairs of our lives and of those most dear to us, though we are so occupied or so ungrateful that we fail to acknowledge the sources from whence they arose.

For instance, the possession of real estate forms one of the principal attractions for the ambition of industrious Americans, yet how few of them ever think that the laws regulating its disposition, acquisition, and inheritance are the very enactments framed by monks, hundreds of years ago, and recognized by armed laymen after long and at times doubtful contests with the advocates of the arbitrary feudal system. Personal liberty, speedy trial by our peers, were first secured in an incontestable form by an archbishop of the church which some of our so‐called and “loudly called” preachers are never tired of denouncing as tyrannical. That the right of the people governed, to elect representatives to make laws affecting their “lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,” was obtained and carried into practical effect by a Catholic statesman many centuries before Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin were born, seems to have been forgotten by our pseudo‐liberals; while the grand principle of political equality which lies at the foundation of our republic, instead of being less than a hundred years old, is coeval with Christianity itself, and in its operation within the church is more expansive and less discriminating as regards social rank and condition.

But though, in this inconsiderate age, we fail to acknowledge the deep debt of gratitude we owe to the workers and thinkers of the past for our laws, civilization, and correct ideas of government, we cannot if we would deny that we are still ruled by those very ideas, and that none of our boasted, and in their way valuable, discoveries have had the effect to give us a new or a better scheme of jurisprudence, whereby mankind can be made better, wiser, or happier.

The people of the United States are not generally considered a profoundly reflective people; we are too much engaged with the present to care much about either the past or future; but we respectfully suggest that, while we may be justly proud of our laws and system of government, it is hardly fair or generous to assume to ourselves all the credit for their formation and existence. We have done enough to secure the liberty of our fellow‐ men, and maintain our authority in the family of nations, not to be able to be just, if not generous, to the memory of the men who have bequeathed to us so invaluable a legacy; and let us therefore accord to our Catholic ancestors due credit for the conception and transmission of the laws under which we all so happily live. After all, their ideas rule more than our own, whether we will or not.

Dante’s Purgatorio. Canto Sixth.

When from the game of hazard men depart, The loser stays, and, casting o’er his throws, Learns a hard lesson with a heavy heart; While with the winner all the assembly goes: One runs before, one plucks his robe behind, But he delays not, though beside his way Another comrade calls himself to mind; And every one perceives that he would say: “_Press me no more!_” to whom he lifts his hand, And by so doing keeps the crowd at bay; Such I was, freeing me from that dense band, To this and that one bending my survey, And promising to answer each demand.

Here was that Aretine whose lethal wound The savage hands of Ghin’ di Tacco made; Also that knight who in pursuit was drowned. Here with stretched palms Frederic Novello prayed, The Pisan, too, at whose defeat his sire, Good old Marzucco, showed a strength sublime. I saw Count Orso, and that soul whom dire Envy and spite, but no committed crime Tore from his mortal frame, as he declared; Pierre de la Brosse I mean: so, while she may, Be that bad woman of Brabant prepared Lest she go join a far worse flock than they.

When I had freed me from the gathering press Of shadows praying still that others’ prayers Might hasten forward their own blessedness, I thus began: “Thy page, my Light! declares Expressly, in one text, that Heaven’s decree To no beseeching bendeth.(214) Yet this race Prays with such purpose: will their praying be Without avail? or have I in that place Misread thy word?” He answered: “It is gross And plain to reason: no fallacious hope Is theirs, if thy sound mind consider close; The topmost height of judgment doth not slope, Because love’s fire may instantly complete The penance due from one of these: but where I closed that point with words which you repeat, A gulf betwixt the Most High was and prayer: No praying there could cover past defect. Yet verily, in so profound a doubt Rest not, till she who, ’twixt thine intellect And truth, shall be thy light, herself speak out. Dost understand me? Beatrice I mean: Thou shalt behold her in a loftier place, This mountain summit, smiling and serene.” “Good Guide,” said I, “then let us mend our pace, I feel no more my weariness: o’er us The mountain shadow grows and hides mine own.” “We will go forward”—he gave answer thus— “Far as we can, ere this day’s light be gone; But thy thought wanders from the fact. That height Ere thou canst gain, thou shalt behold the day’s Returning orb, who now so hides his light Behind the hill that thou break’st not his rays. But yonder look! one spirit, all alone, By itself stationed, bends toward us his gaze: The readiest passage will by him be shown”

Sordello.

We came up tow’rds it: O proud Lombard soul! How thou didst wait, in thy disdain unstirred, And thy majestic eyes didst slowly roll! Meanwhile to us it never uttered word, But let us move, just giving us a glance, Like as a lion looks in his repose. Then Virgil, making a more near advance, Prayed him to show us where the mountain rose With easier slope, and still that soul replied Nothing to his demand; but question made About life, and our country. My sweet Guide Began to answer: “Mantua”—and the shade From where it had been, separate from his band, All rapt in self, sprang up towards him in haste, Saying: “O Mantuan, I am of thy land, I am Sordello.” And the twain embraced.

Ah slavish Italy! thou common inn For woe to lodge at! without pilot, thou Ship in great tempest! not what thou hast been, Lady of provinces, but brothel now! That gentle soul so quickly, at the dear Sound that recalled his country, forward came To grace his townsman with a greeting here; And now thy living children, to their shame, Are all at war, and they who dwell most near Prey, each on each, with moat and wall the same! Search, wretched! search all round thine either coast, And then look inland, in thy bosom, see If peace in any part of thee thou know’st! What though Justinian made new reins for thee, What boots it if the saddle remain void? Without his mending thy disgrace were less. And O ye tribe that ought to be employed In your devotions, and let Cæsar press The seat of Cæsar if God’s word you heed, See, since your hand hath on the bridle been, How wanton grown and wicked is the steed, Through want from you of the spur’s discipline. O German Albert! who abandonest Her now run wild, unchecked by curb of thine, When thou shouldst ride her with thy heels hard‐pressed; May heaven’s just judgment light upon thy line, And be it something strange, and manifest, To make him tremble that comes after thee, Because, for lust of barren fiefs out there,(215) Thou and thy Father have not shamed to see The empire’s garden desolate and bare. Come see the Capulets and Montagues, Monaldi and Filippeschi, O thou being Without concern! these wan with fears, and those Already crushed: come sate thyself with seeing, Thou cruel man, the outrage that is done To thy best blood, and make their bruises well! And thou shalt see too, thou cold looker‐on, Santafiore’s lords how safe they dwell. Come see thy Rome that mourning all alone Weepeth, a widow, calling day and night, Why, O my Cæsar, dost thou leave thine own? Come see what love there—how all hearts unite! And if no pity move thee at our moan Blush for thy fame beholding such a sight. And, lawful if I speak, O most high Jove Who wast for _our_ sakes crucified on earth, Are thy just eyes who watchest men above Turned elsewhere?—Or is this before the birth Of some great good a preparation hid From us in the abyss of thy intent, That all the Italian towns are tyrant‐rid, And every clown that comes on faction bent Makes as much clamor as Marcellus did?

My Florence! well may’st thou remain content At this digression; it concerns not thee, Thanks to thy people, great in argument! Many with justice in their hearts there be Who stay the shaft lest, coming to the bow Without discretion, it might err; but they On their lips wear it. Many men are slow To serve the state, and turn from place away; Thy people do not—every one bends low, Crying before he’s called for: “I obey.” Now make thee joyful, who may’st triumph well; Thou who art rich—so wise! and so at peace! If I speak true in this—let the truth tell. Athens and Sparta, that raised civil Greece To such a height, and framed the ancient laws, Towards the well‐ordered life made small beginning Compared with thee, whose legislation draws Threads out so fine that thy October spinning Comes before mid‐November to a pause. How many times hast thou renewed thy men, Yea, within days that in thy memory dwell, And changed thy laws and offices, and then Customs and coins! if thou remember well Thou wilt behold thyself, unless quite blind, Like a sick woman, restless, that in vain Seeks on her pillow some repose to find, And turns and turns as ’twere to parry pain.

The Church The Champion Of Marriage.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” least of all the continued crusade the church has headed and now heads against the enemies of Christian marriage. What marriage is, what duties it involves, what holiness it requires, what grace it confers, we leave to other pens more learned or more eloquent to define. What are the Scripture authorities and allowable inferences concerning the married state, its indissolubility and its future transformation in heaven, we leave to theologians to state. Those who may feel curious as to that part of the question, or as to the local and civil enactments concerning marriage and divorce, we refer to two able articles published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of October, 1866, and July, 1867.(216)

But as witnesses are multiplied when a strong case has to be made out in favor of some important issue, let us turn to the tribunal of history, and look over the record of the church’s battles. Witnesses without number rise in silent power to show on which side the weight of church influence has ever been thrown—the side of the oppressed and weakly. Every liberty, from ecclesiastical immunities to constitutional rights, she has upheld and enforced, and it would be impossible that she, the knight‐errant of the moral world, should have failed to break a lance, through every succeeding century, for the integrity of the marriage bond.

Take, for instance, the history of the new Frankish kingdom in the VIth century, at the time when the church was laboriously moulding pagan hordes into Christian and civilized nations. The times were wild and unsettled, the very laws hardly established, heathen license barely reined in by the threatening barrier of solemn excommunication. They were times of great heroism, it is true, but none the less of great abuses and of startling crimes. The bishops of the Christian church stood alone in the midst of the universal depravity, like mighty colossi, defying the civil power and rebuking royal license. S. Nicetus, the Bishop of Trèves, was one of these. The young King of the Franks, Theodebert, who was betrothed to Wisigardis, the daughter of the Lombard king Wakon, had, during a war against the Goths, taken a beautiful captive named Denteria. He made her his mistress, and, forgetful of his solemn betrothal, lived with her for seven years. The bishop never ceased boldly to admonish him and warn him, but to no purpose. After a while, his powers of persuasion failing to effect his charitable design, he resorted to the penalties of the church, and excommunicated him. But, instead of suspending his evil career, the king persuaded many of his courtiers to follow his example. The holy bishop excommunicated them all with calm impartiality. Despite the censures under which they lay, they insolently attempted to assist at High Mass one Sunday in the bishop’s presence. S. Nicetus turned to meet the sacrilegious throng, and undauntedly announced that, unless those who were excommunicated left the church, the Mass would not be celebrated. The king publicly demurred to this, but a young man in the crowd, possessed by the devil, suddenly started up, and in impassioned language gave testimony to the holiness of the bishop and the vicious and debased character of the king himself. Four or five stalwart men got up to hold him, but were unable to do so; his strength defied their utmost efforts, and burning words of condemnation continued to fall from his lips. The king, abashed, was forced to leave the church, while S. Nicetus caused the young man to be brought to him. The touch of the holy bishop’s hand, and his efficacious prayer breathed over him, cured him at once of the grievous affliction which had beset him for ten years. Finally, the displeasure of the Franks at the insult offered to the King of the Lombards and his daughter grew so serious that, with S. Nicetus at their head, they called a general meeting to denounce his conduct. He listened to their reproaches, and at last agreed to dismiss his mistress and fulfil his contract with the Lombard princess.(217)

An eminent French writer, De Maistre, says of the part played by the popes in the middle ages: “Never have the popes and the church rendered a more signal service to the world than they did in repressing by the authority of ecclesiastical censures the transports of a passion, dangerous enough in mild and orderly characters, but which, when indulged in by violent and fierce natures, will make havoc of the holiest laws of marriage.... The sanctity of marriage, the sacred foundation of the peace and welfare of nations, is, above all, of the highest importance in royal families, where excesses and disorders are apt to breed consequences whose gravity in the future none can calculate.”

In the early part of the VIIth century, S. Columbanus, the great Irish monk who founded the powerful monastery of Luxeuil in Burgundy, began that opposition to royal license which finally cost him his exalted position, and made him an exile and wanderer from his chosen abode. Queen Brunehault was practically reigning in Burgundy under the name of her grandson Theodoric. She connived at the young sovereign’s precocious depravity, and herself furnished him with attractive mistresses, thereby preventing his marriage with a suitable princess, for fear of losing her own influence over him in public affairs. One day, as S. Columbanus, whose monastery the king had munificently enriched, came to see Theodoric on matters of importance, the queen rashly presented the king’s illegitimate children to the saint, and begged him to bless them. Columbanus refused, turning away his eyes and saying sternly, “These children are the offspring of guilt, and they will never sit upon their father’s throne.” Another time, after many vain threats and remonstrances, the saint again visited Theodoric, but, instead of accepting the hospitality of his palace, took up his quarters in a neighboring house. Brunehault and her grandson, keenly alive to the implied rebuke, and resenting the public slight thus put upon them before their court and subjects, sent some officers of their household with costly vases and golden dishes, full of delicacies from the royal table, to Columbanus, at the same time entreating him to come to them. The saint made the sign of the cross, and spoke thus to the messengers: “Tell the king that the Most High spurns the gifts of the unjust; heaven is not to be propitiated by precious offerings, but by conversion and repentance.” And as he spoke the vases fell to the earth and broke, scattering the food and wine that had been brought to bribe the servant of God. The king, afraid of the divine judgments, promised to amend, but did not fail to relapse into sin, upon which Columbanus wrote to him again, and finally excommunicated him. Theodoric then visited the monastery of Luxeuil, and in retaliation publicly accused the saint of violating his rule. Columbanus answered, “If you are come here to disturb the servants of God, and stir up confusion among them, we will relinquish all your aid, countenance, and presents, O Theodoric; but know that you and all your race shall perish.” The king retired, awed for this time into silence; but, being further incensed against Columbanus by his grandmother Brunehault, he had him exiled to Besançon. The saint’s reputation was such that no one would venture to guard him, and he of his own accord soon returned to Luxeuil. Theodoric, growing more obstinate the firmer he saw his judge become, again ordered him to leave, even threatening force. Columbanus defied him, and announced that physical violence alone could drive him from his post; but, upon the persecution of the monastery continuing unabated, he judged it more perfect and charitable to exile himself for the peace of his community. Three years after, Theodoric and his children were all killed, and Clotaire, his relative and ruler of a neighboring kingdom, reigned in Burgundy in his stead.

The Byzantine Empire also was constantly torn by schisms and dissensions originating in the unbridled passions of its ignoble sovereigns. In the VIIIth century, Constantine VI., surnamed Porphyrogenitus, the son of the Empress Irene, married at his mother’s instigation an Armenian woman of low birth but irreproachable morals, named Mary. It was not long, however, before he became enamored of one of his wife’s attendants, Theodota, whereupon he proceeded to divorce the Empress Mary and force her to take the veil. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Tarasius, refused to dissolve the first marriage and perform the second, as required by the dissolute emperor, who then attempted to blind him by alleging that his wife had conspired to poison him. This the patriarch firmly refused to believe, and, moreover, represented to the emperor the scandal of his conduct, the infamy that would attach to his name in consequence, and especially the incalculable evil his bad example would cause among his not too chaste courtiers and people. Constantine lost his temper, and violently replied that he would close the Christian churches, and reopen the temples of the heathen gods. The patriarch threatened to refuse him the right of entering the sanctuary, and of assisting at the sacred mysteries; but when an unworthy priest, Joseph, the treasurer of the church of Constantinople, was found willing to celebrate between the emperor and Theodota an invalid “marriage” in one of the halls of the palace of S. Maurice, Tarasius hesitated to pronounce the excommunication. At this distance of time, it is not easy to point out the reasons and excuses which the unsettled state of things in the Byzantine Empire may have furnished for this act of seeming compromise; much less should we rashly condemn a holy and zealous bishop; but it is noticeable that such instances have never been repeated when it was the popes themselves who were directly appealed to.

As the patriarch had foretold, evil results followed the sovereign’s licentious example, a frightful laxity of morals prevailed, and insubordination to the church went hand in hand with the violation of the marriage bond. Tarasius excommunicated the priest Joseph two years after, but, although he had refrained from directly and publicly censuring the principal culprit, he was none the less persecuted by him.

In the following century, a still worse case of the kind took place, the chief actors in it being Bardas, the ambitious uncle of the wretched Emperor Michael the Drunkard, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, S. Ignatius. The former, who had the practical control of the state, and had induced his sottish nephew to give him the title of “Cæsar” of the Byzantine Empire, deliberately left his lawful wife, and lived in publicly incestuous union with the wife of his own son. S. Ignatius indignantly reproved him, and when the prince, braving his censures, presented himself in church on the Feast of the Epiphany, the patriarch publicly refused to admit him to the Holy Communion. Bardas furiously threatened him before the faithful, but the holy prelate boldly presented his breast to the blows he seemed about to receive, and in a few solemn words invoked the wrath of God on the sacrilegious “Cæsar.” He was promptly exiled to the Island of Teberinthia, where Bardas, partly by threats and partly by hypocritical promises, induced all his suffragans to repair in a body, and entreat him to resign the patriarchate. With holy firmness he resisted the treacherous appeal, whereupon Bardas had him put in irons, deposed, and replaced on the patriarchal chair by Photius, a creature of his own and a layman. The famous schism of Photius thus sprang from the same cause as later heresies, and everywhere we see contumacy to ecclesiastical authority making common cause with abandoned passion and shameless license.

The Photian schism was abetted in the West by another rebellious son of the church, Lothair, King of Lorraine, who was anxious to get rid of his wife Thietberga. This was one of the most famous cases of the sort during the middle ages, and was prolonged over many years, breeding not only the utmost moral disorder, but threatening also to bring about even political convulsions. Lothair had conceived a criminal passion for one of his wife’s maids, Waldrade, and to marry her his first endeavor was to prove the queen guilty of incest before her marriage with him. For this purpose he summoned his bishops three times at Aix‐la‐Chapelle, in 860, and had Thietberga condemned to the public penance usually inflicted in those days on a fallen woman. The time‐serving prelates, after a superficial examination of the evidence, allowed the divorce on the plea that “it is better to marry than to burn”; thus giving an early historical proof of the old saying about a certain person “quoting Scripture.” Widalon, Bishop of Vienne, who had not concurred in this iniquitous decree, wrote to the pope for guidance. The pope, Nicholas I., firmly standing by the tradition of the church, and vindicating the fundamental dogma of the sanctity of marriage, replied uncompromisingly that the divorce was null and void, the bishops blamable for their servility, and that even were it proved beyond doubt that Thietberga had been guilty of incest or any other sinful intercourse before marriage, yet the marriage itself could never on that account be legally dissolved. The queen herself then appealed to the pope, who appointed two legates to inquire into the matter. Baffled in his first attempt, Lothair now trumped up a second pretext, and pretended that he had been previously married to Waldrade, and that the queen had therefore never been his lawful wife. The pope replied that, until this matter was disposed of, the queen should be sent with all honor to her father, and suitably provided for from the royal treasury. Thietberga was now arraigned before a packed and bribed tribunal, and forced to acknowledge herself an interloper, but found secret means of sending word to the pope that she had acted under compulsion. Nicholas then wrote an indignant letter to the king and bishops, annulled all previous decisions, and commanded a new and _fair_ trial of the case to be held. He then wrote to the Emperor of Germany, Louis II., and the King of France, Charles the Bald, as well as to all the bishops of the four kingdoms, Lorraine, France, Germany, and Provence, whom he ordered to repair to a council at Metz, where his legates would meet them. He charged them to have more regard to the laws of God than the will of men, and to protect the weak and innocent with all the dignity of their influence. Lothair, however, succeeded in corrupting the legates themselves, and the council merely met to confirm the previous infamous decrees and condemnations. Two of the prelates were chosen to report to the pope and bear hypocritical and falsified messages to him, but in vain. Nicholas, secretly advised of this treachery, and no doubt also divinely inspired, detected the imposition, abrogated the decrees of the false council, and canonically deposed the two guilty prelates from all their functions and dignities. They immediately took refuge at Benevento with the Emperor Louis II., who, hotly espousing their cause, marched with his army against Rome, and surprised the clergy and people in the act of singing the litanies and taking part in a penitential procession at S. Peter’s. His soldiers dispersed the people by force of arms, and blockaded the pope in his palace. Nicholas escaped in disguise, and for two days lay concealed in a boat on the Tiber, with neither covering for the night nor scarcely food enough to sustain nature. Thus the conflict between a sovereign’s unbridled passions and the calm and immutable principles of the Gospel was carried so far as to entail actual persecution on the sacred and representative person of the pontiff. The emperor, repenting of his hasty attack, sent his wife to the pope to negotiate a reconciliation. The two insubordinate bishops at the same time sent an embassy to Photius, the sacrilegious successor of S. Ignatius in the See of Constantinople, to demand his support and countenance. “And thus,” says Rohrbacher, to whom we are indebted for these graphic pictures of the early struggles of the church, “did the schism born of the adultery of Lothair in the West join hands with that born of the incest of Bardas in the East.” Lothair and the rebellious bishops now quarrelled among themselves, and one of the deposed prelates, the Archbishop of Cologne, repaired in haste to Rome to reveal the duplicity, the plotting, and insincerity that had characterized the whole of the proceedings.

The king himself, however, showed a disposition to submit, most of the bishops begged the pope’s forgiveness, and the former legate, Rodoaldus, having been excommunicated for his collusion with the king, a new one, Arsenius, Bishop of Orta, was appointed. The conditions he was charged to demand were explicit—either Waldrade must be dismissed, or the excommunication until now delayed in mercy would be pronounced. Unwilling to submit entirely, yet dreading the consequences if he did not, Lothair actually recalled Thietberga to her lawful position, and allowed Waldrade to accompany the legate to Rome, as a public token of her repentance and obedience. But although his royal word was plighted, he soon found his blind appetites too much for his reason and his faith, and, sending messengers to bring back his mistress, relapsed into his former sins. Waldrade herself was now publicly excommunicated.

In the meantime, Pope Nicholas died, and was succeeded by Adrian II., who proved himself no less strenuous an opponent of royal license than his holy predecessor had been. Lothair, naturally inclined to temporize, offered to go to Rome and plead his own cause with the new pontiff. In a preliminary interview held at Monte‐Casino, the pope reiterated his firm intention of coming to no understanding before the king had made his peace with Thietberga and finally dissolved his criminal union with Waldrade. The next day was Sunday, and the king hoped to hear Mass before he left for Rome, but he could find no priest willing to celebrate it for him, and was forced to take his departure in diminished state for Rome, where no public reception awaited him, so that he had to enter the Holy City almost as a pilgrim and a penitent. In those days of princely hospitality and profuse pageantry, such an occurrence was rare, and, therefore, all the more significant of the majestic and practical power of the church.

Lothair, now thoroughly sensible of his sin, and warned by the terrible dissensions of the past of what further misery to his country and people his prolonged obstinacy might involve, signified his intention to submit unconditionally to the pope’s decree. High Mass was then celebrated in his presence and that of all his noble followers by the pope in person, and when at the moment of communion the king approached the altar, Adrian impressively addressed to him the following unexpected adjuration:

“I charge thee, O King of Lorraine, if thou hast any concealed intention of renewing thy shameless intercourse with thy concubine Waldrade, not to dare approach this altar and sacrilegiously receive thy Lord in this tremendous sacrament; but if with true repentance and sincere purpose of amendment thou dost approach, then receive him without fear.”

The king, evidently moved by this solemn address, knelt down and communicated, and his retainers and courtiers took their places at the sacred board. That no pretext might remain for further equivocation, the holy pontiff warned them also, before administering the Blessed Sacrament to them, saying:

“If any among you have wilfully aided and abetted the king, and are ready wilfully to aid and abet him again in his wicked intercourse with Waldrade, let him not presume to receive sacrilegiously the body of the Lord; but you that have not abetted him, or that have sincerely repented of having done so, and are resolved to do so no more, approach and receive without fear.” A few of them shrank back at these awful words, but the greater part, whether in sincerity or in contempt, followed the king’s example and received.

After this, which did not take place till 869, we hear no more of Lothair’s passion for Waldrade.

Germany, too, had her Lothair, and, in the XIth century, King Henry IV., one of the most abandoned sovereigns that ever reigned, brought upon himself not only the papal anathema, but the displeasure of his electors and confederated vassals themselves by his shameless trifling with his marriage vows. His wife Bertha, a beautiful and virtuous woman, the daughter of Otho, Marquis of Italy, never found favor in his sight; and, in concert with some of his simoniacal bishops, Siegfried, the Archbishop of Mayence at their head, Henry held a diet at Worms in 1069 to procure a divorce from her. Siegfried, however, feeling uneasy at the part allotted him, sent to the Pope Alexander II. for advice, and received from him a severe reprimand for having countenanced the dissolute king. The papal legate, an austere and holy man, Peter Damian, arrived during the session of a diet at Frankfort, where the king’s cause was to be finally judged. Despite Henry’s protestations that his divorce would enable him, as he hypocritically said, to marry lawfully a wife that would please him, and to abandon his numerous harem of favorites, whom he would have no excuse any longer to retain, the stern sentence of Rome was passed against him—either excommunication or reconciliation with his wife. He reluctantly submitted, but only in appearance, for he refused even to see Bertha, and soon gave himself up to his former illicit pleasures. His brutal treatment of his second wife, Praxedes of Lorraine, whom he married according to his own choice after the death of Bertha, drew upon him further ecclesiastical censures, and he left a memory justly branded by all historians as more infamous still than that of the notorious Henry VIII. of England.

At the same time that his passions were revolutionizing the German Empire, Philip I. of France was showing an equally deplorable example to his vassals and subjects. He was married to Bertha, daughter of Hugh, Count of Frisia, by whom he already had two children, one of whom, Louis le Gros, succeeded him; but, blinded by a sinful affection, he carried off, in 1092, Bertrade, the wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou, and lived with her in a doubly adulterous union.

Hugh of Flavigny, a contemporary historian, says of this occurrence: “Even if our book were silent, all France would cry out, nay, the whole of the Western church would re‐echo like thunder in horror of this crime. It is truly monstrous that an anointed king, who should have defended even with the sword the indissolubility of marriage, should on the contrary _wallow shamelessly_ for years in _intolerable disorder_.” The Blessed Yves, Bishop of Chartres, immediately lifted his voice against the enormity of the crime; but though his fervent reproaches fell upon a deadened conscience, and his letter to the king was in vain, still among the bishops of France none could be found, at least for a long time, to perform a scandalous “marriage” between the king and his mistress. At last the Archbishop of Rouen allowed himself to be blinded, and consented to unite them, but a prompt and sharp interference on the part of Rome punished him by a deposition from all his ecclesiastical dignities, which lasted for several years. The whole of the controversy had now come clearly to the knowledge of the Pope Urban II.

The Count of Anjou had declared war against the ravisher, and the king had put the B. Yves in irons under the guard of the Viscount of Chartres. In the meanwhile, the pope wrote a scathing letter to the metropolitan of Rheims and the episcopate of France. “You,” he says, “who should have stood as a wall against the inroads of public immorality, you have been silent and allowed this great crime; for not to oppose is to consent. Go now, speak to the king, reproach him, warn him, threaten him, and, if necessary, resort boldly to the last measures.” From 1092 to 1094 the pope never ceased publicly and privately to oppose Philip’s unlawful passion, and, sending as his legate Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, convoked an assembly at Autun for the 15th of October, 1094, to decide the matter. The king insolently attempted to forestall the papal decision by calling a council for the 10th of September previous, which accordingly took place, and in which a few contumacious bishops confirmed the king in his obstinate resistance to the head of the church. As the queen had died a short time before, Philip presumptuously began to hope that his marriage with Bertrade would now be legalized; but, since she herself was the wedded wife of the Count of Anjou, it will be easy to see how vain were his expectations. The Council of Autun met, and, finding the king determined to continue in sin, solemnly excommunicated him. Philip then wrote a threatening letter to the pope, declaring that, if he did not absolve him from the church’s censures, he would go over to the anti‐pope Guibert, styled Clement III. Philip now attempted to secure immunity for himself in another way: he promised all sorts of reforms, both ecclesiastical and moral, if he could only obtain permission to indulge his guilty passion undisturbed. To this proposal the B. Yves replied, like S. Columbanus to Theodoric, that it was impossible to compound for sin by costly gifts, that God desires ourselves, not our treasures, and that heaven is won by penance and not by gold.

At length, in 1095, the Council of Placentia was held. Philip pleaded for a delay, which was granted him, but at the following council, that of Clermont, he and his concubine were at last rigorously excommunicated. And here Rohrbacher takes occasion to remark, _à propos_ to the crusade which was then occupying Christendom: “Indeed, of what use would a crusade against the Turks have proved if the popes had not, at the same time, resolutely opposed the introduction of Turkish disorders into Christian society?”

In 1096, Philip consented to submit, and went in state to the Council of Nismes to meet the pope, and be absolved from the excommunication, which, as he found, weighed very heavily on his conscience. Throughout the middle ages this one trait, a lively faith, proved, indeed, the only barrier against excesses which, had they been unrestrained by the fear of ecclesiastical censures, would have simply produced a state of license worse than that of the latter days of the Roman Empire. But Philip’s repentance was short‐lived; he recalled Bertrade, and even gave away benefices and church dignities to her favorites, seculars, and persons of questionable morality. Urban II. died, and was succeeded by Paschal II., who again sent his legates to the king, and, at the Council of Poictiers, excommunicated the guilty pair a second time. At this council a strange scene took place. A layman threw a stone at one of the legates, and, though it missed him, it split open the head of another bishop who was standing near. This was the signal for a violent attack on the prelates; the unruly crowd outside the church battered down the doors, and rushed in, throwing stones and missiles of all kinds among the deliberating bishops. Of these a very few, seized with panic, hastily made their escape, but the greater part stood like heroes at their post, and even took off their mitres that their heads might present a better mark to the infuriated and partisan mob. Nor was this the only act of violence perpetrated in the name of Philip and Bertrade. Shortly after this scene, while staying at Sens, they remained a fortnight without hearing Mass, which so incensed Bertrade that she sent her servants to break open the doors of the church, and caused one of her priests, a tool of her own, to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice in her presence. Philip now noisily proclaimed that he was going to Rome to receive absolution, but Yves of Chartres warned the Pope of the king’s insincerity, and the pontiff remained conscientiously cold to all his advances until he had wrested from him a solemn oath not only to cease his criminal intercourse with Bertrade, but also to abstain from seeing her or speaking to her unless in the presence of a third person. Nevertheless, the solemn absolution was not pronounced in his favor before the Council of Beaugency, assembled in 1104, _twelve_ years after his first sin in carrying off the lawful wife of his own vassal and kinsman.

The XIIth century, so stormily begun, was disturbed later on by yet another controversy of the same kind. It has been noticed by Protestant writers, says De Maistre, that it was almost invariably marriage, its indissolubility and the irregularities against its integrity, that have provoked the “scandal” of excommunication. In this admission, made rather to criminate than to honor the church, made indeed to throw the obloquy of schism upon the popes themselves, is there not an unwilling testimony to the Papacy’s unflinching championship of virtue?

In 1140, Louis VII. of France, surnamed _Le Jeune_, refused to sanction the canonical nomination of Peter, Archbishop of Bourges, whom Thibault, Count of Champagne, valiantly defended and upheld. At the same time, Raoul, Count of Vermandois, a man advanced in years, who had long been married to Thibault’s niece, wished to dissolve his marriage in order to contract another with Petronilla, the sister of the Queen of France, Louis’ wife, Eleanor of Antioch. He succeeded in persuading a few bishops to grant him this permission on the plea of relationship between him and his first wife, which, if true, would have made that union illegal from the first. S. Bernard, in a fervid letter to Pope Innocent II., denounces his vile conduct, giving a most lamentable picture of the state of the kingdom of France. “_That which is most sacred in the church_,” he says, “is trodden underfoot.” The pope, through his legate, Cardinal Yves, excommunicated the Count of Vermandois, and laid his whole territory under an interdict. Mass could no longer be said, the sacraments were not administered, the churches were closed, the bells silent. The king revenged himself by declaring war on the Count of Champagne, who had given shelter to the archbishop, and appealed to Rome against the Count of Vermandois. He devastated Thibault’s territory with fire and sword, and behaved, says Rohrbacher, rather like a Vandal chief than a Christian king. In 1142, he arrived before the town of Vitry, sacked it, and set fire to its church and castle. In the former were no less than 1300 persons, men, women, and children, who had sought safety in the sanctuary. He ruthlessly closed all avenues to the church, and burnt the miserable inhabitants as they vainly strove to escape. The town was hereafter called _Vitry le Brûle_. The Count of Champagne, weakened by this terrible onset, sued for peace, and promised to exert his influence to have both excommunication and interdict taken off the person and fiefs of Raoul de Vermandois. It was, in fact, provisionally suspended, but, as the culprit still refused to dissolve his criminal union, he was excommunicated for the second time. S. Bernard was a prominent actor in this controversy, and powerfully worked for the preservation of peace.

But greater troubles were yet in store for France and the church. In 1193, Philip Augustus lost his first wife, Isabella of Hainault, and soon afterwards sent the Bishop of Noyon, Stephen, with great pomp to the King of Denmark, Canute III., to ask the hand of his sister Ingeburga in marriage. The request was joyfully granted, and the queen‐elect brought back to France with all possible honor. The marriage took place at once, and the king confessed himself much pleased with his new consort. The next day he caused her to be solemnly crowned, a ceremony to which great importance was attached in those days; but, strange to say, during the service itself he was seen to turn pale as if with horror, and to cast sudden looks of aversion towards the queen. He, however, retired with her to Meaux, and lived with her a short time, still unable to conquer his dislike, which many did not fail to attribute to witchcraft, for Ingeburga was both comely, virtuous, and accomplished. The king now called together his parliament at Compiègne, his uncle, the Archbishop of Rheims and legate of the Holy See, presiding. The queen, who did not understand French, and whose Danish attendants had all been sent away, was present at the deliberation. Unheard, therefore, and even unchallenged, she was speedily declared too closely related to the king through his former wife Isabella to be united to him in lawful marriage. This seems to have been the favorite pretext for dissolving inconvenient marriages in those times, as it was also later in the too famous case of Henry VIII. of England and Catharine of Aragon, but even in this we see the spirit of subordination to the general authority of the church still underlying the partial revolts of her unruly sons. When Queen Ingeburga was made acquainted by an interpreter with the sentence rendered against her, she was painfully astonished, and, bursting into tears, cried out in her broken French, _Male France! Male France!_ Some pitying hearts there must have been in that assembly of lords spiritual and temporal, some remorseful consciences among that gathering of Frenchmen, who, as Rohrbacher quaintly says, “forgot even to be courteous to a stranger and a woman.” Ingeburga, rising, then added, “Rome! Rome!”—sublime appeal of oppressed innocence to the fountain‐head of justice and honor! Philip had her immured in the Abbey of Cisoing. Pope Celestine III. sent legates to inquire into the rights of the case, but the king succeeded in intimidating them, and no conclusion was arrived at in the council held at Paris. The pope then wrote an energetic letter to the bishops, concluding by a decision to this effect, that, having carefully examined the genealogy upon which turned the question of the alleged close relationship between the king’s first and second wives, he solemnly annuls the unlawful act of divorce passed at the Parliament of Compiègne, and decrees that, if the king should attempt to marry any other woman during Ingeburga’s lifetime, he should be proceeded against as an adulterer.

This speedily came to pass. Not content with repudiating his wife, he attempted, in 1196, to marry another, Agnes of Merania (Tyrol). Ingeburga instantly appealed to the pope, saying that for this outrage her husband “allegeth no cause, but of his will maketh an order, of his obstinacy a law, and of his passion _une fureur_,” as Rohrbacher rather untranslatably puts it.

The Protestant historian Hurter says: “In this instance, the pope stands face to face, not with the king, but with the Christian. Innocent III. (he had succeeded Celestine) would not sacrifice the moral importance of his office even to procure help for the Crusade or to prepare for himself an ally in his dissensions with the German emperors.”

Pope Innocent remonstrated with the king first through the Bishop of Paris, Eudes de Sully, then personally by letter, and threatened him with the last and most awful punishment, excommunication. The king temporized, and would give no satisfactory answer, until in 1198 the papal legate, Peter of Capua, was directed to give him his choice between submission within one month or the imposition of an interdict upon the whole kingdom. This appalling measure had never before been so sweepingly resorted to, and the preparations for it were as solemnly magnificent as if they had portended the funeral of a nation. The council met at Dijon in 1199, and, during its seven days’ session, once more invited the king to attend and avert the doom his sin had well‐nigh brought upon the realm. But Philip remained inflexible, despite the last and urgent letters of the pope, and the interdict was accordingly pronounced.

Four archbishops, eighteen bishops, and a great number of abbots composed the august assembly, and on the seventh day of the council a strange and impressive scene closed the unavailing deliberations. At midnight the great bell of the cathedral tolled out the knell of a parting soul, the prelates repaired in silent and lugubrious procession to the high altar, now divested of all its ornaments, the lights were extinguished and removed, the figure of Christ on the great rood was veiled in penitential guise, the relics of the patron saints were removed into the crypt below, and the consecrated hosts yet unconsumed were destroyed by fire. The legate, clothed in purple, advanced to the foot of the denuded altar, and promulgated the awful sentence that was to deprive a whole Christian kingdom of the consolations of religion. The assembled people answered with a great groan, and, says a historian of the times, it seemed as if the Last Judgment had suddenly come upon men. A respite of twenty days was allowed before the interdict was publicly announced, but after Candlemas Day, 1200, it was not only announced, but rigorously enforced. The effect was terrible; thousands flocked to Normandy and other provinces belonging to the King of England, to receive the sacraments and perform their usual devotions; the king’s own sister, on the occasion of her marriage with the Count of Ponthien, had to remove to Rouen to have the ceremony canonically performed. The king, meanwhile, vented his fury on the bishops, imprisoned some, confiscated the temporalities of others, and caused many to be even personally maltreated. Queen Ingeburga was dragged from her convent, and barbarously imprisoned in the Castle of Etampes, near Paris. Philip’s wrath extended to all classes; the nobles he oppressed, the burghers he taxed beyond their means, until his very servants left him as a God‐ forsaken man. The pressure at last became so terrible that he was heard to exclaim in a transport of rage, “I shall end by becoming a Mussulman! Fortunate Saladin! he at least had no pope over him!” At a meeting of the lords and prelates of the kingdom, at which Agnes of Merania assisted, Philip moodily asked, in the midst of an ominous silence, what he was to do. “Obey the pope,” was the instant and uncompromising reply of the assembly; and, when the king further obtained a confession from his uncle the Archbishop of Rheims that the decree of divorce passed by him had been invalid from the first, he exclaimed in ill‐concealed anger, “You were a fool to give it, then!”

At this juncture, both Agnes and the king sent ambassadors to Rome to ask for a suspension at least of the interdict, but the pope was inflexible, and would hear of no negotiation before an unconditional submission. This Philip reluctantly promised; the interdict had now lasted seven months, and he could no longer withstand the dangerous and threatening attitude of his dissatisfied subjects. In the summer of the year 1200, Cardinal John Colonna, Cardinal Octavian, of Ostia, and several others repaired first to Vezelay, then to Compiègne, where they met the king and received his overtures. On the eve of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, the assembly of lords spiritual and temporal met at the Castle of S. Léger, where the legate insisted on the deliberations being held in public. The anxious people crowded round the doors of the great hall, eager to watch every fluctuation in the proceedings. At last, on the legate’s urgent advice, and in his presence, Philip consented to visit Queen Ingeburga in state. She had been sent for to be present, but had not yet seen her husband. It was their first meeting since their separation six years before. At sight of her, the king recoiled, crying out, “The pope is forcing me to this.”

“Nay, my lord,” replied the injured wife, calmly and meekly, “he seeks but justice.”

Philip soon afterwards swore by proxy to receive the queen as his only and lawful wife, and to render her all the honors due to her rank. As soon as this was done, the bells rang out a joyous peal, and the people knew that peace had been made. The sacred images were again uncovered, the church doors were opened, and Mass was everywhere celebrated with great pomp. The people were frantic with joy, but the king, though he had bent under the weight of influence that had been brought to bear upon him, still persisted in asking for a divorce from his wife on the before‐mentioned plea of relationship. The pope delayed an answer, and, the better to satisfy the reason of the refractory king, appointed another meeting to be held at Soissons, six months after the date of the recent one at S. Léger.

To this meeting Canute III. of Denmark sent bishops and learned doctors to plead his sister’s cause, but, as on the king’s side was arrayed the best—though servile—talent of France, the case seemed not very hopeful, until an unknown and obscure ecclesiastic arose, and, towards the end of the council, which had already lasted a fortnight, modestly asked leave of the august judges to speak in favor of Queen Ingeburga. His address startled and moved all who listened, and they agreed with one voice that this sudden and almost inspired burst of eloquence was surely a sign of the will of God directly urging the queen’s rights. Philip, anticipating the papal decision, determined to surprise the assembly by forestalling it. He accordingly appeared on horseback very early one morning at the gate of the palace of Notre Dame, the queen’s residence, and in public—and shall we not say primitive?—token of reconciliation took Ingeburga away with him, making her sit on a pillion behind him. They rode away quietly and almost unattended, but soon after it became known that he had again imprisoned her in an old castle, and that, having thus broken up the council before a public decision had been rendered, he still considered himself free to seek the divorce. Soon after the difficulty was lessened by the death of the unfortunate Agnes of Merania, whose health had been shattered by the terrible and infamous publicity necessarily brought upon her during her recent pregnancy. It was not, however, for many years after her death, not until 1213, that Philip was sincerely and permanently reconciled to Ingeburga, whom he calls in his will his _dear wife_, and to whom he left a suitable provision as queen‐dowager.

Hurter and Schlegel both give witness to the admirable conduct of the mediæval popes in these and kindred struggles. The former says: “If Christianity was not reduced to a vain formula like the religion of the Hindoos, or relegated to one corner of the globe like a common sect, or sunk altogether in the mire of oriental voluptuousness, it was entirely owing to the vigilance and constant efforts of the popes.” And Schlegel, in his _Concordia_, speaks thus: “We hardly dare to liken the Guelphs, with the popes at their head, to anything approaching _liberalism_, so degraded has the term become in connection with _modern liberals_; yet they alone, because they had religion and the church on their side, were the _true liberals_ of the middle ages. Indeed, if we look at the position of the popes in its highest type, we shall find that they were always either gentle peace‐makers and arbiters in times of unnecessary and foolish wars, or stern champions of the oppressed, and austere censors of morals.”

We pass over a few other less important cases, and come at once to the last and most fatal, those connected with the Protestant Reformation. In the XVIth century, the old story of Bardas and Photius was lamentably repeated in England. Germany was in open revolt; Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, was extorting shameful permissions for polygamy from the married monk Luther; religious were trampling their vows underfoot; Wittenberg, according to the Lutheran chronicler Illyricus, was no better than a den of prostitution; troops of “apostate nuns,” as Luther himself called them, were constantly arriving, begging, says Rohrbacher, for _food, clothing, and husbands_; Luther, their prophet, was hawking his mistress, Catharine Boris, about among his disciples, offering her as a wife first to one, then to the other, till he was at last forced to take her himself, to the no small disgust of his best friends, who remonstrated in the following graphic words: “If any, at least not _this_ one.” The Germanic world was crazy with a new revolution, and henceforth the struggle was no longer to be a partial one, a revolt of the flesh, but a radical onset upon everything divine, upon revelation and faith, as well as upon moral restraints and social decencies. Philip of Hesse, petitioning in 1539 for permission to marry a second wife while the first was living, says that “necessities of body and of conscience obliged him thereto”; that “he sees no remedy save that allowed of old to the chosen people” (polygamy); that “he begs this dispensation in order that he may live more entirely for the glory of God, and lie more ready to do him earthly services; that he is ready to do anything that may be required of him in reason (as an equivalent), whether concerning the property of convents or anything else.” He also hints that he will seek this permission from the emperor, “no matter at what _pecuniary cost_,” if it be denied him by the Wittenberg divines, and alleges as a sufficient reason that it is too costly for him to take his wife to diets of the empire, with all the honors due to her rank, and equally too hard for him to live without female society during such times of gaiety. The permission was granted at last, reluctantly, it must be admitted, for even the first Reformers, lax as they were, were not Mormons. Melancthon drew it up, and eight divines, including Bucer and Luther, signed it, but made secrecy a condition. The shameful “marriage” was performed on the 4th of March, 1540, between the landgrave and Marguerite de Saal, and perhaps the most revolting feature of the proceeding was the consent of Philip’s lawful wife, the Duchess Christina.

In Chambers’ _Book of Days_, a collection of curious information, we read that a still more liberal dispensation from the ordinary rules of morality was in the last century accorded by the Calvinistic clergy of Prussia to the reigning King, Frederick William, successor of Frederick the Great, to have three wives at the same time, the Princess of Hesse, the Countess Euhoff, and Elizabeth of Brunswick. The progenitor of the Prussian dynasty had already given a similar example of licentiousness. In Luther’s time, Albert of Brandenburg, Grand Master of the religious order of chivalry, the Knights of S. Mary, otherwise called the Teutonic Order, broke his vows and took a wife, having already abjured his faith. Prussia, then only a province dependent on the Order, he seized as his own, Protestantizing it, and making moral disorder the rule there rather than the exception.

But we must glance at England, though the story of its defection is so well known that we will not do more than pencil the outlines of the conflict on this occasion. After twenty years of married life, without a scruple to mar his domestic peace, without a breath of scandal to sully the fair fame of the queen, Henry VIII. suddenly strives to obtain a divorce from his wife, Catharine of Aragon, that he may marry one who is already his mistress and the acknowledged head of his court. A faithful son of the church until a personal test of fidelity is demanded from him, he had already refuted Luther’s errors, and gained the title of “Defender of the Faith.” But passion blinds him, and everywhere he seeks a sanction for his unrestrained license. He applies to Rome and to Wittenberg: the latter answers in a deprecatory tone, “Rather than divorce your wife marry _two_ queens”; the former, in the person of Clement VII., urges him to desist from his unlawful courses. Repulsed the first time, the pope sends Cardinal Campeggio, his legate, to treat of the matter with Cardinal Wolsey; they summon the queen to their presence; she refuses point‐blank, and appeals directly to Rome.

In 1531, Cromwell, the astute and traitorous _protégé_ of Wolsey, suggests schism to the king as a means to the desired end. Henry, knowing the corrupt and venal state of the clergy in England, eagerly accepts the proposals, and instantly attempts to enforce a declaration of his supreme headship of the English Church by putting in force, against the clergy, several obsolete statutes of Norman origin, named “præmunire”; the whole ecclesiastical body is threatened with the punishment of attainder due to high treason, and to save the rest they offer the king a ransom of £100,000 (equal at that period to at least four times that sum according to modern computation). The king only accepts this amount with the supplementary condition of the “oath of supremacy.” At one stroke the episcopate is gagged, and schism practically effected. Meanwhile, Cranmer is sent to Rome to apply anew for the divorce.

His mission proved unsuccessful, and on his return a final council was held at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, where, however, the queen refused again to appear, and was therefore condemned as _contumacious_. Shortly after, at Lambeth, her marriage was annulled, and her daughter, the Princess Mary, declared illegitimate. Pope Clement VII. threatened to excommunicate the king; Henry never heeded him. A public consistory, held at Rome in 1534, reversed the Lambeth decision, but the die was already cast, and the complaisant parliament was ready to confirm Henry in all his desires. More’s and Fisher’s were the only dissentient voices heard throughout the kingdom; we know at what cost their courageous protest was raised. A reign of blood was inaugurated; confiscations enriched the royal treasury, and the servile episcopate bent to the shameful yoke like one man. Of the Franciscan friars, Peyto and Elston, who dared to preach to the king’s face against his adulterous union, the Protestant historian Cobbett says: “They were not fanatics, as some have said; they were the defenders of morality and order, and I know of no instance in ancient or modern history of a greater and nobler heroism than this.”(218)

In 1536, Queen Catharine died, and the same year was performed the marriage of Henry with Anne Boleyn by a Catholic chaplain, who was ordered to say Mass early one morning by the king, Henry falsely alleging that he had in his possession the newly arrived permission from Rome. But passion is no foundation whereon to build a permanent and happy domestic life. Anne’s immorality matched Henry’s, and ere long she was accused, vaguely, it is true, of treason, adultery, and incest. Her supposed accomplices and lovers were all executed, and she herself, in cruel derision, condemned on the 15th of May, 1536, to be executed on the 19th, while, on the intermediate 17th, the Archbishop of Canterbury, according to his royal master’s orders, declared her marriage annulled, and her daughter Elizabeth illegitimate. Thus she was first proved to have never been the king’s lawful wife, and then beheaded for _infidelity_ to the man who had never been her husband. Of Henry’s subsequent wives and his methods of disposing of them we need say nothing; the separation from Rome had won him a sad independence of the only tribunal once recognized by kings, and divorce, adultery, and consequent murder had already begun the dark record which has ever since steadily increased in England.

The church was the only bulwark adequate to resist that flood of violent and powerful passions which kingly supremacy naturally incites and fosters, and, in breaking with the church, the licentious sovereigns of the XVIth century acted indeed with the _wisdom_ of the children of this world. Still the church stood fast, sad but not conquered; the Mosaic law stood fast, passing into the dicta of society even where it was exiled from the legal courts—for who does not attach even now some idea of obloquy to a divorced or impure person?—still history pointed to the inevitable punishments that fall on the adulterer, and of which the “churches” so‐called, born of royal adultery, have invariably been palpable monuments.

In our days, who can doubt that that church alone which guarantees the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage can hope to become the saviour and regenerator of modern society; that that church alone which protects and ennobles woman can remain triumphant in lands where woman’s influence is slowly leavening the whole social mass; who can doubt that that church alone which can trace its uncompromising laws back to Mount Sinai can hope to retain the moral mastery over the unruly ages to come, even to that age which shall witness the Last Judgment and the final condemnation?

Fleurange.

By Mrs. Craven, Author Of “A Sister’s Story.”

Translated From The French, With Permission.