Part IV. The Immolation.

LIX.

Several hours had passed since Fleurange’s return. Anxiety, horror, sadness, and emotion, which by turns filled her heart during the affecting scene we have just described, now gave place to a feeling in which a sweet, profound sense of gratitude predominated.

Ah! no one could comprehend, without the experience faith alone gives, the mysterious joy that penetrates the heart when the salvation of a soul seems assured; when, in a tangible manner, as it were, the abyss of divine mercy which ever surrounds us, opens and allows us to sound its depths; when, in answer to our tears, we almost behold the heavens open; when, in return for _pardon implored_, we are made to comprehend the ineffable signification of two other words, sweet as mercy and boundless as infinitude—_pardon obtained_.

Fleurange therefore felt, if not happy—for the impressions of the day had been too solemn not to have left a veil of sadness on her soul—at least calm and serene. The sight of that death‐bed had put to flight some of the dreams she so often abandoned herself to now without scruple—dreams of passionate joy at her approaching sacrifice, mingled with the perspective of a brighter future, in which her happiness with George would be increased and consecrated by the sufferings they first shared together—the cherished theme on which lingered her imagination, her heart, and even her soul, which had faith in the efficacy of sacrifice, and instinctively made it the basis of its hopes. Everything, even this, was forgotten for the moment. It was as if a graver, purer, holier strain had put to flight the mingled harmony in which heaven and earth seemed almost confounded. Hitherto, the idea of immolating herself with and for another had seemed noble; but at this quiet hour, after a day of so much agitation, a sublimer thought sprang up in her soul in spite of herself; it was that of a sacrifice unknown to the person for whom one immolates one’s self!

Was not the greatest of sacrifices—the sacrifice which is our example—of such a nature? Was it not made for those who were unaware of it? And has not this very ignorance been regarded by the eternal goodness as a plea for disarming eternal justice?

Fleurange did not attempt to thus define her confused thoughts; she allowed them to float in her mind without welcoming or rejecting them. She was in that frame of mind which unconsciously enfolds a latent disposition in the depths of the soul, that suddenly develops into efforts and sacrifices which seem impossible an hour before they have to be made.

She was alone in one corner of a large, white marble fireplace in which blazed a good fire. She preferred this salon to the others, which were heated invisibly, though it was the smallest in the house, and it was the one she habitually occupied. Clement, after accompanying her home, had returned to the sad place they visited together to obtain, if not an honorable, at least a separate burial of his unfortunate cousin’s remains. Mademoiselle Josephine, at her usual hour, had gone to her fine chamber, which she now occupied with less uneasiness than the first night, and had been for an hour in the capacious bed, where she had learned to sleep as comfortably as under the muslin curtains which generally guarded her slumbers.

It was nearly ten o’clock, and Fleurange in her turn was about to retire, when the noise of a carriage was heard, the bell rang, and a few minutes after a card was brought her. She looked at it: “The Countess Vera de Liningen”—and beneath, written with a pencil: “Will Mademoiselle Fleurange d’Yves have the kindness to see me a moment?”

“Vera!—the Countess Vera!—”

Fleurange repeated the name twice. It was the first time she had thought of it since she left Florence. She remembered hearing it once in a conversation between the Princess Catherine and the marquis, the first time she ever saw the latter. From that time, Vera’s name had never been mentioned before her. The marquis instinctively avoided it in talking with her the day before, as he did that of Gabrielle in conversing with Vera, and no one mentioned it at the palace. Fleurange’s surprise was therefore inexpressible. She remained with her eyes fixed on the card, till the valet de chambre took the liberty of reminding her the Countess Vera was waiting in her carriage for an answer.

“Certainly. Ask her to come up.” Then she waited, with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment, for the entrance of the visitor, without knowing exactly why. She was almost breathless from agitation; but when the door opened, and she saw the beautiful maid of honor, she felt partially relieved.

“Ah! it is you, mademoiselle,” she exclaimed joyfully. “Pardon me for not having divined it immediately, but I did not know this morning the name of her who received me so kindly.”

It now occurred to Fleurange that the maid of honor had been sent by the empress sooner than she expected with the favorable reply promised, but the visitor’s pale face and silence struck her and checked the words on her lips.

“You were unaware of my name this morning, but did you never hear it before?”

Fleurange blushed. “Never would be incorrect,” replied she.—And she stopped.

“No matter,” continued Vera. “I do not care to know when or how you heard it. I can imagine they did not say much to you about me. But allow me to ask you in my turn if you have not another name besides that under which I had the honor of presenting you to her majesty!”

“My name is Fleurange,” replied the young girl simply, “but it is not the one I habitually bear.”

“And your other name?” asked Vera, with a trembling voice.

Fleurange was astonished at the manner in which this question was asked, and still more so at the effect of her reply, which produced a frightful change in the listener’s face.

“Gabrielle!” repeated she. “I guessed rightly, then.”

An embarrassing silence followed this exclamation. Fleurange did not know what to say. She awaited an explanation of the scene which appeared more and more strange. But while she was looking at Vera with increased surprise during this long silence, a sudden apprehension seized her, and a faint glimpse of the truth flashed across her mind. Nothing could have been more vague than the remembrance of the name mentioned before her but once, but that time it was in a conversation respecting George, and she bethought herself that she understood it to be a question of a marriage the princess desired for her son. Was it with reluctance Vera had now brought the permission for another to accompany him? Such was the question Fleurange asked herself. Approaching Vera, therefore, she said to her softly:

“If you have come with a message, how can I thank you sufficiently, mademoiselle, for taking the trouble of bringing it yourself!”

Vera hastily withdrew her hand, and retreated several steps; then, as if suffering from an emotion she could not overcome, she fell into an arm‐ chair beside the table, and for some moments remained pale and breathless, with a gloomy, forbidding air, wiping away from time to time with an abrupt gesture the tears which, in spite of all her efforts, escaped from her eyes.

Fleurange, motionless with surprise, looked at her with mingled interest and astonishment, but, the frank decision of her character prevailing over her timidity, she came at once to the point.

“Countess Vera,” said she, “if I have not guessed the motive that brings you here, tell me the real one; there is something in all this which I do not understand. Be frank; I will be likewise. Let us not remain thus towards one another. Above all, do not look at me as if we were not only strangers, but enemies.”

At this word, Vera raised her head. “Enemies!” she said. “Well, yes, at present we are.”

What did she mean? Fleurange crossed her arms, and looked at her attentively, trying to guess the meaning of her enigmatical words, and the still more obscure enigma of her face, which expressed by turns the most contradictory sentiments; the enigma of her eyes, which sometimes gazed at her with hatred, and then with sweetness and a humble, beseeching look. At length Vera seemed decided to continue. “You are right,” she said; “I must put an end to your suspense, and explain my strange conduct; but I need courage to do this. To come here as I have, to appeal to you as I am going to do, I must—I must, without knowing why—”

“Well,” said Fleurange with a faint smile, “continue. You must what?”

Vera went on in a low tone, as if affected: “I must have had a secret instinct that you were kind and generous.”

This result of so much hesitation did not throw any light on the subject, but only made it more obscure.

“There has been preamble enough,” said Fleurange, with a calm accent of firmness. “Speak clearly now, Countess Vera, tell me everything without reservation. You may believe nothing to fear. Though your words do me an injury I can neither foresee nor comprehend, speak, I insist upon it. Hesitate no longer.”

“Well, here,” said Vera, suddenly throwing on the table a paper till now concealed.

Fleurange took it, looked at it, and blushed at first, then turned pale. “My petition!” she said. “You have brought it back? It has been refused, then?”

“No; it was not sent.”

“You mean that the empress, after showing me so much kindness, changed her mind and refused to present it?”

“No; on the contrary, she ordered me to forward your petition, and to add her recommendation.”

“Well?”

“I disobeyed her orders.”

“I await the explanation you doubtless intend giving me. Go on without any interruption; I am listening.”

“Well, first, did you know that George de Walden was the husband promised me—to whom my father destined me from infancy?”

“Who was promised you!—from infancy! No, I did not know that. No matter; go on.”

“No matter, indeed; that is not the point, though it is proper to inform you of it. Neither is it a question of his misfortune, or his frightful sentence, or that terrible Siberia where you wished to accompany him and participate in a lot the severities of which you could neither alleviate nor perhaps endure. This is the point: to preserve him from that destiny, to save him, to enable him to regain life, honor, and liberty—in a word, all he has lost. His property, name, and rank can all be restored to him. It is this I have come to tell you and ask you to second.”

“All can be restored to him?” repeated Fleurange, in a strange voice. “By what means?—what authority?”

“The emperor’s. I have appealed to his clemency, and my prayers have prevailed, but on two conditions, one of which is imposed on George, and the other depends on me. To these two conditions, there is a third which depends on you—you alone!”

Fleurange’s large eyes fastened on Vera with an expression of profound astonishment and anguish.

“Finish, I conjure you, if you are not mad in speaking to me so, or I in listening to you—if we are not both deprived of our reason!”

Vera clasped her hands, and passionately exclaimed: “Oh! I beg you to have pity on him!” She stopped, choked with emotion.

Fleurange continued to gaze at her with the same expression, and, without speaking, made a sign for her to continue. She seemed to concentrate her attention in order to comprehend the words addressed her.

“I am waiting,” she said at last. “I am listening attentively and calmly; speak to me in the same manner.”

Vera resumed in a calmer tone: “Well, this morning just as I had finished reading your petition and learned for the first time who the exile was you wished to accompany—at that very moment the emperor arrived at the palace and sent for me.”

“The emperor!” said Fleurange, with surprise.

“Yes, and can you imagine what he wished to say to me? You could not, and I am not surprised, for you are not aware how earnestly I had solicited George’s pardon, and, to this end, how zealously I had sought out every circumstance calculated to conciliate his sovereign. Well, what the emperor wished to inform me was that this pardon would be granted me—_me_, do you understand?—but on two conditions.”

“His pardon!” exclaimed Fleurange. “Go on, I am listening.—”

“The first, that he should pass four years on his estates in Livonia without leaving them.—” Vera stopped.

“I hear; and next?” said Fleurange, raising her eyes.

“Next,” said Vera slowly and anxiously, “that the will of my father and his should be fulfilled before his departure.”

Fleurange shuddered. An icy chill struck to her heart, and her head swam as if with dizziness. But she remained perfectly motionless.

“His pardon is at this price?” said she in a low voice.

“Yes; the emperor has taken an interest in me from my childhood; he loved my father, and it has pleased him to make this act of clemency depend on the accomplishment of my father’s wish.”

There was a long silence. Vera herself trembled at seeing Fleurange’s pale lips, and colorless cheeks, and her eyes looking straightforward, lost in space.

“And he?”—she said at last. “He accepts his pardon on this condition—without hesitation?”

“Without hesitation!” repeated Vera, blushing with new emotion. “That is what I cannot say. It is this doubt that humiliates and alarms me, for the emperor would regard the least hesitation as fresh ingratitude, and perhaps would annul his pardon.”

“But why should he hesitate?” said Fleurange, in an almost inaudible tone.

“Fleurange,” said Vera, in that passionate tone she had used two or three times during this interview, “let us rend each other’s hearts, if need be, but let us go on to the end. Have you had permission to see George since you came?”

“No.”

“But he expects you; he knows you have arrived, and the devotedness that has brought you here?”

“No, he is still ignorant of all this; he was to be informed of it to‐ morrow.”

A flash of joy lit up Vera’s black eyes. “Then it depends on you whether he hesitates or not—whether he is saved.—Yes, Fleurange, let him remain ignorant of your arrival, let him not see you again—let him never behold you again,” she continued, looking at her with a jealous terror she could not conceal, “and his life will again become brilliant and happy—as it was—as it always should be—and the remembrance of the last few months will disappear like a dream!”

“Like a dream!” repeated Fleurange mechanically, passing her hand over her brow.

“I have told you everything now,” said Vera. “I have done you an injury I can understand better than any one else. But,” she continued, with an accent that resounded in the depths of the listener’s soul, “I wished to save George, I wished to win him back to me! And I thought, I know not why, for I am generally distrustful—yes, I thought I could induce you to aid me against yourself!”

Fleurange, with her hands clasped on her knees, and her eyes gazing before her with a fixed expression, seemed for some moments insensible to everything. She was listening, however—she was listening to that clear, distinct voice which resounded in her soul in a tone so pure—a voice she had never failed to recognize and obey.

If George were free, if he recovered his name, rank, and former position, would she not still be in the same position as before? In that case, could she treacherously usurp the consent obtained from his mother, and that to the detriment of the one before her—the wife chosen from his infancy? Would it not be treachery to him to present herself before him at the moment of recovering his liberty, and thereby endanger its loss with the momentary favor that conferred it?

She placed her icy hand on Vera’s, and turned towards her with a sweet expression of resolution. “That is enough,” she said, in a calm tone. “You have done right. Be easy, I understand it all.”

Vera, astonished at her expression and accent, looked at her with surprise.

“Do not be afraid,” continued Fleurange, in the same tone. “Act as if I were far away—as if I had never come.” And, taking the petition lying on the table, she tore it in pieces, and threw it into the fire! There was a momentary blaze, which died away, and she looked at the ashes as they flew.

Vera, with an irresistible impulse, pressed her lips to the hand she seized, then remained mute and confounded. She had come determined to prevail over her rival, to convince her, to use every means of contending if she failed in her first efforts, but her victory suddenly assumed an aspect she had not anticipated. It had certainly been an easy one, and yet Vera felt it had left a bleeding wound. She experienced for a moment more uneasiness than joy, and her attitude expressed no more of triumph than that of Fleurange of defeat. While one remained with her head and eyes cast down, the other had risen. A passing emotion colored Fleurange’s cheek, the struggle of the sacrifice gave animation and an unusual brilliancy to her face.

“I think,” said she, “you have nothing more to say to me.”

“No—for what I would like to say I cannot, dare not.”

Vera rose and turned towards the door. A thought occurred to her. She approached Fleurange. “Excuse my forgetfulness,” said she; “here is the bracelet you lost this morning. I was commissioned to restore it to you.”

At the sight of the talisman, Fleurange started; her momentary color faded away, she became deadly pale, and, as she looked at it silently, some tears, the only ones she shed during the interview, ran down her cheeks. But it was only for an instant. Before Vera realized what she was doing, Fleurange clasped the bracelet around her rival’s arm.

“This talisman was a present from the Princess Catherine to her son’s betrothed. She said it would bring her good luck. It no longer belongs to me. I return it to you; it is yours.”

Fleurange held out her hand. “We shall never see each other again,” she continued; “let us not bear away any bitter remembrance of each other.”

Vera took her hand without looking at her. She had never felt touched and humiliated to such a degree; gratitude itself was wounding to her pride. But Fleurange’s sweet, grave voice was now irresistible, and spoke to her heart in spite of herself. She hesitated between these two feelings. Fleurange resumed: “You are right. It is not my place to wait for you at this time—you have nothing more to forgive me for, I believe, and I forgive you everything.”

And as Vera still remained motionless with her head bent down, Fleurange leaned forward and embraced her.

LX.

The Marquis Adelardi often declared he had witnessed so many extraordinary and unexpected events that he was seldom surprised at anything that happened. But the day that now dawned brought a surprise of the liveliest kind, and even a second one in the course of a few hours. He rose late, according to his custom, and was breakfasting beside the fire when a note was brought him which put a premature end to the repast just begun. After reading it, he fell into deep thought, then rose and strode around his room. Finally he went to the window, and read the following note a second time.

“MY KIND FRIEND: I have changed my mind. I earnestly beg you when you see Count George not to mention my name, and, above all, to take the greatest precaution to keep him for ever ignorant of the plans I formed and the journey I have made. This will be easy, for no one knows I am here, and tomorrow, before night, I shall have left St. Petersburg. Everything will be explained to you, but I only write now what is most essential for you to know without any delay.”

In vain he read and re‐read. Such were the words, signed _Fleurange_, which he held in his hands. For once the marquis was completely at a loss. Nothing—absolutely nothing—could account for this sudden change. The success of her petition presented the empress the day before was certain. He recalled every detail of his recent interview with her, during which, having nothing more to conceal, she naïvely revealed all the depth and sincerity of her sentiments towards George. He had long been aware of her firmness and courage, and the idea of her drawing back at the last moment in view of the trial never occurred to him. There was, then, an impenetrable mystery, and he impatiently awaited the hour he could go for the promised explanation. But he must first keep his engagement with George. Poor George! he inspired him now with fresh pity, though he had doubted, the evening before, if he was worthy of the consolation in store for him. It seemed now as if he could not live without it, and that a new and more frightful sentence had been pronounced against him. The marquis was about to start for the fortress to fulfil more sadly than ever the painful duty of his powerless friendship, when another letter was brought him. The mere sight of this second missive made him start, and he examined with extreme astonishment the address and the very envelope that bore it, the impression on the seal, and the slight perfume it gave out. All this was a source of surprise, and, for once, it was not unreasonable, as it generally is, to dwell on these exterior signs before solving the mystery by opening the letter. The reader may judge, after learning that the Marquis Adelardi recognized his friend’s writing in the address. Since George’s imprisonment, he had neither had permission to write, nor the means. In the second place, the paper, the arms on the seal, the perfume—all these things belonged to a different condition, for certainly none of these elegances had been allowed him in prison. The mere exterior of the letter, therefore, had something inexplicable, and, when he opened it to solve the enigma, he read as follows:

“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: Perhaps the very sight of this letter has given you a suspicion of its contents. If not, know that I am free, or, at least, I shall be so to‐morrow! Meanwhile, I have left the frightful cell where you found me yesterday, and now, thanks to the governor of the fortress, am established in his own apartment and surrounded once more by all the delightful accessories of civilized life of which I thought myself for ever deprived—accessories which are only a dawn of the delightful day before me. Yes, Adelardi, free! by the favor of the emperor, against whom I eagerly pledge myself never to enter into a conspiracy as long as I live. Free on two conditions: one to live at my home in Livonia four years; the other—guess what it is! It is not more severe than the first: it is to return to my first love—to her to whom I owe my pardon. In a word, to end where I began, by marrying Vera de Liningen! What do you say to that? Is not this a _dénoûment_ worthy of a romance? You predicted it once, do you remember it? ‘You will renounce this folly which tempts you, and keep the promise you made.’ I was far from believing it then, and perhaps it is well even now that that beautiful siren is seven hundred leagues off, for I know not what would be the result were I subjected to the fascination of those eyes which turned my head, whereas I am now wholly absorbed in the happiness that awaits me. Vera still loves me. She is also beautiful in her way, and, above all, possesses a charm which makes me forget all others. She has the beautiful eyes of liberty which I owe her. Therefore I am not tempted to refuse the hand she is ready to accept, or even my heart, though somewhat _blasé_, but now filled with gratitude strong enough to sufficiently resemble the love she has a right to expect.

“_Au revoir_, Adelardi! Come when you please; I am no longer a prisoner, though I have pledged myself not to leave here till I go to the empress’ chapel to meet her who is to accompany me into the mitigated exile to which _we_ are condemned.”

It would be difficult to describe the strange effect of this letter, coming so soon after the other, upon the person to whom they were both addressed. It would be impossible to say whether he was glad or sorry, indignant or affected, relieved or overwhelmed, by such sudden news; and, though only imperfectly enlightened respecting some of the circumstances he wished to know, he felt that somehow Fleurange had been informed of George’s pardon before himself, and the conditions attached to it. This was the evident meaning of her note, which now seemed to the marquis so generous, so touching, and even so sublime, that his whole interest centred, with a kind of passion, in this charming, noble girl. Her letter, which lay beside George’s before him, displayed the greatest contrast imaginable to the cold, selfish levity of the latter. At all events, he had no reason now to be anxious about him on whom everything seemed to smile, but rather about her who was immolating herself to‐day as much as yesterday—unsuspected by the object—and with a devotedness a thousand times more disinterested and more generous than before.

At that moment the door opened, and the marquis uttered an exclamation of joy and welcome at hearing Clement announced. He was just thinking of him, and wishing he could see him at once. As soon as he looked at him he perceived he was unaware of what had occurred. Clement returned home at a late hour the night before, and had not seen Fleurange since their return from the hospital. He now came from the burial of his unfortunate cousin in a distant, obscure spot, to beg the marquis to use his influence to obtain permission to place a simple stone cross on his forlorn grave. But he could not find any opportunity of introducing the subject, the marquis was so eager to enter on that which absorbed him. He informed Clement of George’s pardon and the conditions on which it was granted; but in his eagerness he did not at first perceive the effect of the news on his listener. The latter remained motionless, and for moments his excessive surprise prevented him from replying. The aspect of everything was so changed by the intelligence that his mind refused to take it in. He looked at the marquis with so singular an expression that he was struck by it, and clearly saw he had unguardedly touched a deeper and more vital point than he supposed.

“Pardon me, Dornthal, I have excited you more than I wished or expected.”

“Yes,” said Clement, in a strange voice, “I acknowledge it; but does she know what you have just informed me of?”

The marquis in reply gave him Fleurange’s note. He read it with a still more lively emotion than he had just experienced; but he succeeded better in controlling it.

“Poor Gabrielle! This is evidently a generous, spontaneous impulse, worthy of her. But,” continued he, in quite a different accent, in which trembled an indignation he repressed with difficulty, “I cannot comprehend how this—how Count George can unhesitatingly consent to the conditions _proposed_, for really I can never believe them rigorously _imposed_ by the emperor, still less that they could be accepted if he appreciates as he ought the sentiments which I should suppose would prevent him from accepting them.”

The marquis hesitated a moment, and then said: “Here, Dornthal, time presses; it is better you should know everything without delay.” And he gave him George’s letter.

As Clement read it, contempt and anger were so clearly displayed in his face that the marquis was confounded at the flash of indignation with which he crushed the letter and threw it on the table. “That is exactly what I should have expected from the man you told me of yesterday. Poor Gabrielle!” he continued, in a voice trembling with emotion and tenderness, “it is thus that the precious treasures of thy heart have been lavished and wasted!”

He leaned on the table, and hid his face in his hands. For some instants there was a silence neither sought to break. At length Clement returned to himself. “Once more pardon me, M. le Marquis. I really do not know what you will think of me after the weakness I have shown before you. But no matter, it is not a question of myself, but of her. There is one point I recommend to you which there is no need of insisting upon: she must remain ignorant of the contents of this letter. She must never know—_never_, do you understand?—what kind of a love she thought worthy of hers.”

The marquis looked at him with astonishment. “And it is you, Dornthal, who are so anxious as to your cousin’s remembrance of Count George!”

This total absence of vulgar triumph and selfish hope added another notable surprise to those of the morning. Clement neither noticed Adelardi’s tone nor the kind, affectionate expression of regard which accompanied the words he had just uttered.

“I wish her to suffer as little as possible,” said he briefly; “that is my only aim and thought.”

He rose to go out. The marquis pressed his hand with a cordiality he rarely manifested, and after Clement’s departure he remained a long time thoughtful. Perhaps at that moment he was thinking how much more satisfaction there was in meeting and studying such a noble heart than most of those whose acquaintance he had hitherto sought and cultivated with so much eagerness.

LXI.

At Clement’s return, he learned that his cousin had asked for him several times. He immediately went up to the room she occupied. His emotion at seeing her again, though less sudden than that he had just experienced, was deeper than he anticipated, for he was unprepared for the change wrought within so short a time. She was, however, as calm and resolute as the night before, though she had passed through what might be called the agony of sacrifice—that hour of inexpressible suffering, not when the sacrifice of one’s self is decided upon, not even that in which it is consummated, but the intermediate hour in which repugnance still struggles against the will. It was this hour endured by our common Master in the order of his sufferings after he took upon himself our likeness.

Fleurange had only taken a short hour of repose before day. The remainder of the night she passed wholly in conflict with suffering. She then allowed the repressed sobs that filled her breast during her interview with Vera to burst forth without restraint as soon as she was alone for the night; she gave herself up to the poor solace of tasting at leisure the bitterness of sacrifice, repelling every consoling thought—almost allowing the waves of despair to gather round her, and, if not to break over her, at least to threaten her.

The chamber she occupied was more spacious and sumptuous than Mademoiselle Josephine’s, being that of the Princess Catherine herself. It was lighted only by a lamp which burned before the holy images enshrined in gold and silver in one corner, according to the Russian custom. Fleurange threw herself on a couch, and there, with her head buried in the cushions, her long hair dishevelled, and her hands clasped to her face inundated with tears, she gave vent to her grief for a long time without any attempt to moderate it.

Once before in her life she had abandoned herself to a similar transport of grief, though certainly with much less reason. It was when she left Paris two years before, and it seemed as if she was alone in the world, and all the joys of life had come to an end. Those who have not forgotten the beginning of this story may remember that on that occasion the sight of a star suddenly appearing in the clear sky brought her a message of peace. God knows, when it pleaseth him, how to give a voice to everything in nature, and to speak to his creatures by the work of his hands, and even of theirs. An impression of such a nature now infused the first ray of calmness into the tempest that completely overwhelmed her soul. Suddenly raising her head from the attitude in which she had so long remained, her eyes naturally turned towards the light diffused by the lamp before the images in the corner of the chamber, the richest of which sparkled in its ray. In these Greek paintings, as we are aware, the heads alone on the canvas stand out from the gold and precious stones that surround them. That which now attracted Fleurange’s attention was the image of Christ—that sacred face of the well‐known type common to all the representations of Byzantine art. That long, grave face, those mild eyes, with their calmness and depth, have a thrilling, mysterious effect which surpasses a thousand times every reproduction of human beauty. This impression, which a pious love of art enables every one to comprehend, was associated with a tender remembrance of Fleurange’s childhood. She had often prayed before a face of similar aspect in the chapel of Santa Maria al Prato. She now looked steadfastly into those divine eyes gazing at her, and it seemed as if that sweet penetrating look pierced to the depths of her soul, and infused a sudden, marvellous, inexpressible consolation. Changing gradually her previous attitude, she remained for some time seated with clasped hands, transfixed. At last, her eyes still fastened on the holy face, she fell on her knees, bent down her head, and remained a long time buried in profound recollection. Her immoderate grief seemed to diminish and change its character. Her tears, without ceasing to flow, lost their bitterness and changed their object; for in the mildness of that majestic look she read a reproach which she comprehended!—

“O my Saviour and my God! pardon me!” exclaimed she, with fervor, bending down till her forehead touched the floor.

Pardon!—Yes, in spite of her purity, her piety, and the uprightness of her soul, it was a word Fleurange was likewise obliged to utter. In it she felt lay solace and peace for her heart. She perceived it now for the first time. A new light began to rise in her soul, like the faint flush of aurora which precedes day, and her grief seemed a punishment merited for forgetfulness, her tears an expiation. These thoughts were still confused; but their influence was already beneficent, and she soon felt really springing up within her the courage and fortitude which she outwardly manifested during her interview with Vera. She had always been capable of action in spite of suffering, and she now sought it, realizing its benefit. The night was far advanced, but she did not feel the need of repose, and before seeking it she would give her heart and mind, even more fatigued than her body, the relief they needed. Under the impression of all the incidents and varied emotions of the day, she wrote the Madre Maddalena a letter which was the faithful transcript of all she had passed through. The joy of the morning, the sacrifice of the evening, her despair scarcely subsided, nothing was concealed or suppressed, not even a fresh ardent aspiration towards the cloister which she thought could no longer be shut against her, and which now seemed the only refuge of her broken heart.

There is a certain art in reading the hearts of others; but it is as great a one to be able to read one’s own, and this art Fleurange possessed in the highest degree when in the presence of that great soul which afar off as well as near watched over hers. This outpouring soothed her. She afterwards slept awhile, and, on awaking, courageously despatched the letter which we have just seen the Marquis Adelardi read and communicate to Clement.

But such a night leaves its traces. Fleurange’s swollen eyes, her contracted features, her pale, trembling lips, and her sad expression indicated suffering which was an insupportable torture to Clement. He would have spared her this at the expense of his life, as it is allowable to say he had proved. But now that the arduous duty of earnestly desiring her happiness through the affection of another was no longer required of him, the impetuous cry of his own heart became almost irresistible in its power, and Clement never manifested more self‐control than this morning in subduing the impulse which prompted him a thousand times to throw himself at his cousin’s feet, and passionately tell her she loved and regretted an ungrateful man, and that she herself was even more ungrateful than he! But instead of that, he silently pressed her hand. Fleurange saw he was aware of everything, and it was a relief to have nothing to tell. In a few words they made arrangements for their departure, and Clement promised her to start within twenty‐four hours.

Meanwhile, Mademoiselle Josephine appeared, and Clement, too preoccupied to use any circumlocution, simply announced the change in his cousin’s intentions, without giving her any explanation. But when, in the height of her joy, mademoiselle exclaimed, “She is going back with us!—O mon Dieu! what happiness!” Clement frowned and pressed her hand in so expressive a manner that the poor demoiselle stopped short and, according to her custom, buried her joy in utter silence, saying to herself that the day would perhaps come when she would understand all these inexplicable things, and, among others, why, when she wept at Gabrielle’s leaving them, it was necessary to conceal her sorrow; and now she was to remain, it was not permitted to manifest her joy.

“All this is very singular—I always seem to take aim at the wrong moment. And yet, Clement allow me to say that I suspect that, as to this Monsieur le Comte, it was I—and I alone—who was right.”

This last reflection did not escape her, it is reasonable to suppose, till later, at one of those seasons of special unburdening her mind to Clement which she sought now and then, and we should add that the smile in return amply repaid her for the frown we have just noted.

The evening passed away almost in silence. The Marquis Adelardi spent it with them. The frightful alteration in Fleurange’s features did not allow him to mistake the extent of her sufferings; and her calm, simple manner redoubled the enthusiasm she had always inspired him with—an enthusiasm which gradually ripened into solid friendship, and ultimately wrought a durable, beneficent effect on his life.

Before Clement and his cousin separated for the night, they spoke of Felix’s sad burial, and its lack of any religious ceremony. The marquis had promised to obtain the last favor Clement asked—that a cross should mark the spot where he reposed. The following morning Mass was to be celebrated for him in the Catholic church.

“We will attend this Mass together,” said Fleurange.

“Yes, Gabrielle, that was my expectation.”

The next morning, at an early hour, Fleurange and her cousin were prostrate at the foot of the altar in the large Catholic church on the Nevskoi Prospekt. After all the sorrow that had overwhelmed the young girl’s soul since the night before, this was an hour of sad consolation and repose. Her long journey, after all, in spite of the bitter deception, in spite of the grief and sacrifice at the end, had not been made in vain. He whose last hours she had consoled, and for whom they were now praying, had carried away with him the blessed influence of her presence into those regions to which repentance opens the door! Repentance! the salvation of the soul that feels it, the benediction of the soul that seconds it, the mysterious joy of the angels that inspire it and rejoice over it as one of the delights of their eternal beatitude!

They left the church, and slowly descended the long avenue bordered by trees called the Nevskoi Prospekt. They found their way impeded by a numerous crowd in front of the gate of the Anitschkoff Palace, which they had to pass. Fleurange, lost in thought, was walking slowly along without looking around, and Clement also was absorbed in his own reflections, when they were both startled as if by an electric shock.

“The newly married pair are coming out,” said a voice.

“Married!—condemned, you mean,” replied another, laughing. “You know they are both going into exile.”

They heard no more. Clement’s sudden effort to lead Fleurange away was powerless. She resisted it, and, leaving his arm without his being able to prevent it, she swiftly made her way to the front, and leaned against a tree. She saw the _grille_ open—the carriage appeared; it drew near; at last she saw him! Yes; she saw Count George’s noble features, his smiling face, his radiant look, and she caught a glimpse of the black eyes and golden locks of the bride. Then it seemed to grow dark around her, and everything vanished from her thoughts as well as from her sight!

Epilogue.

—“No, my Fior Angela, I once more say no, as when you made the same request at Santa Maria that lovely evening in May while we were gazing at the setting sun over the cloisters. What has been changed? And why should God call you now to this retreat if he did not call you then?—Because you suffer still more? But, my poor child, you were suffering then. Life, you said, seemed ‘empty and cheerless, unsatisfactory and imperfect.’ And, indeed, you were not wrong. That is its real aspect when we compare it with the true life that awaits us. From that point of view nothing truly can give it the least attraction; but with this kind of disgust there is no sadness mingled. We are not sad when an object seems poor and valueless compared with another object wonderful and divine of which we are sure. As I have already told you, this is the disgust of the world whence springs the irresistible call to the cloister; but, as I likewise said, this divine voice, when it speaks to the soul, resounds alone, to the exclusion of all earthly voices. A flame is kindled that absorbs and extinguishes all others, even those earthly lights that are attractive and pure. That divine call has not been made to you. The earthly happiness you dreamed of has failed you, that is all. And this disappointment for the second time has inspired you with the same wish as before; but, as on that occasion, I believe if God claimed your life he would not have permitted such a heart as that of my Fleurange to be divided for a day!

“This time, it is true, everything is at an end, and without remedy. You are irrevocably separated from him to whom you gave your heart—allow me to say now, to whom you gave it unreasonably!—You shudder, my poor child, you find me cruel, and all the false brilliancy which fascinated you, now lights up anew the image still present and still dear to your imagination; nevertheless, I will go on.

“There is an earthly love which, if it lengthens the road that leads to God, does not, however, turn one from it—which, by the very virtues it requires, the sacrifices it imposes, and the sufferings that spring from it, often seconds the noblest impulses of the soul.

“Do you not feel now, Fleurange, that the foundation of such a love was wanting to yours? I perceived it at Santa Maria as soon as I heard your story to the end, and looked into the most secret recesses of your heart. I then understood why God had placed obstacles in your way, and imposed a sacrifice on you. Your sufferings appeared to me the expiation of an idolatry you did not realize the extent of.

“If you had shown any doubt or hesitation as to the course to be pursued, if you had been weakly desirous of sparing yourself and escaping the sacrifice imposed, perhaps I should at that time have expressed myself more severely. But you acted with firmness and uprightness, and I deferred revealing to you the secret malady of your heart till, with time, peace should be restored to you. Till then, what you suffered seemed to me a sufficient punishment.

“But it was not to be so. The temptation was to be renewed, and under a form impossible for my poor child to resist. She yielded to the generous, passionate impulse of her heart, and found in the very excess of her devotedness a means of satisfying her conscience which she confusedly felt the need of. But something more was essential: she must suffer still more—more than before. In short, the idol must be shattered, and this destruction seemed to involve the very breaking of her own heart!—

“But it is not so, Fleurange. Across the distance that separates us I would make my voice heard, and wish it possessed a divine power when I say to you: ‘Rise up and walk.’ Yes; resume your course through the life God gives you, and courageously bless him for having snatched you from the snare of a love not founded on him, which must have proved hollow sooner or later. Then look around, see whom you can console and aid; see also whom you can love; especially notice who loves you, and banish from your heart the thought, equivalent to blasphemy, which you express in saying, ‘My life is stripped of all that made it desirable!’—

“Some day, my Fior Angela, you will again recall these bitter, ungrateful words, and will, I assure you, see their falsity. If God did not create you to love him to the exclusion of those lawful affections which reflect a ray of his love, you were still less created to find rest in a love deprived of that light—a love whose sudden rending and keen anguish preserved you from proving its perishable nature and spared you the pain of irreparable deception!

“Once more, Fleurange, prostrate yourself before God, and give thanks: then rise up and act. No lingering pity over yourself, no dwelling regretfully on your deceived hopes and the pain you have suffered. Courage! Your heart has been weak, it yielded to fascination; but your volition as yet has never ceased to be strong. However rough the path of duty, it was enough for you to see it in order to walk in it without faltering. Courage, I say! You will live. You will do better than live—you will recover from all this, and recall the time that seemed so dark as that which preceded the real day that is to illumine your life.

“At first this letter will add to your sadness. You will feel yourself deprived of everything, even of the consolation you expected of me; but do not yield to the temptation of burning this letter after reading it. Keep it to read over again, and be sure that sooner or later the day will come when a sweet promise of happiness will respond at the bottom of your heart at reading it. You will then comprehend what were the prayers of your Madre Maddalena for you, dear Fleurange, for they will on that day have been heard!—”

This reply to the letter Fleurange wrote during the night of agitation which followed her interview with Vera we lay before our readers at its arrival at Rosenheim after her return from her sad journey; but one summer evening, two years after, the young girl, seated on a bench overlooking the river, read it over the second time. She was in her old seat, but her appearance was somewhat changed. A severe illness, resulting from the emotion and fatigue endured two years before, endangered her life, and to her convalescence had succeeded a malady slower, deeper, and more difficult to heal, against which all remedies, though energetically seconded by a resolute will, long remained ineffectual.

During this period of weakness Fleurange had never known before, life assumed a new and formidable aspect. For a long time she was unable to struggle actively against the double languor of illness and depression; she had to endure inaction without making it an additional torture to herself and others; in short, she was obliged to be constantly and silently on her guard against herself. She succeeded, however, accepting with grateful docility all the care that surrounded her. She did not repel her friends from her crushed heart, but, on the contrary, endeavored to convince them that their affection was sufficient, and that, once more with them, nothing was wanting. By degrees, it required no effort to say this. As the sun in spring‐time melts away the snow, then warms the earth and covers it with flowers, so, under the influence of their beneficent tenderness, everything began to revive in her heart and soul. Was it not delightful, as she lay half asleep on her _chaise longue_ for long hours, to hear around her, like the warblings of birds, Frida’s caressing voice mingled with the tones of her cousin’s little children whom she loved to hold in her arms and caress when they awoke her? Was it not a consolation to rest her weary head on a bosom almost maternal? Was it not salutary to converse with her Uncle Ludwig when he wheeled his chair near the young invalid, and spoke of so many things worthy of her attention without ever turning it away from the highest of all? And Hilda? And Clara? And Julian and Hansfelt? Did they not all come with their constant affectionate interest, each one bringing, as it were, a flower to add its perfume to the air she breathed? Finally, was it nothing when she opened her eyes to meet the kind glance of her old friend who, after fearing to lose her, was never weary of gazing at her now she was again restored to life?

And what shall we say of him whom we have not yet named—him whose solicitude for her was not apparently greater than that of his parents and sisters, but who, during her long convalescence, ended by taking a place beside her which no one thought of disputing? Clement’s character has been badly delineated if, after the unexpected occurrence that restored freedom to his hopes, it is supposed he was prompt to admit them, and especially to express them. Nevertheless, since it was no longer an absolute duty to maintain a strong, constant control over himself; since the fear of betraying himself no longer obliged him to a restraint with his cousin which had extended to every subject, and ended by frequently obliging him to partially conceal from her the superiority of his mind and the rare nature of his intelligence, a change was wrought in him which he did not realize himself, and now gave to his physiognomy, the tone of his voice, and his whole person a wholly different character than before in the eyes of her to whom he thus appeared for the first time. She noticed it with surprise, and, when he stopped reading to express the thoughts that sprang spontaneously from his heart when moved, or his mind unimpeded in its flight, and touched on a thousand subjects hitherto deemed forbidden, she became thoughtful, and, in spite of herself, compared his eloquence of soul, whose source was so profound, and whose flight was sometimes so elevated, with the eloquence of another which once dazzled her, the only charm of which sprang from his carefully cultivated mind, and his mind alone. Every day she impatiently awaited this hour for reading or conversation. She already appreciated her cousin’s devotedness, the incomparable kindness of his heart, his trustworthiness, his energy, and his courage. She had given him credit for all these qualities before, and yet, all at once, it seemed as if she had never known him. She even asked herself one day if she had ever looked at him, so completely did the expression of his countenance—which beamed with what is most divine here on earth—a double nobleness of mind and soul—so fully did his look and smile atone for the imperfections already alluded to in Clement’s features, but which time had greatly modified to his advantage. She soon felt that, though she had always cherished a strong regard for her cousin, she had been unjust to him and never appreciated his real worth.

But the day, the hour, the moment when she discovered she had been not only unjust, but ungrateful, and even cruel, we cannot state, and perhaps she did not know herself. Was it the day when, after reading in a tremulous tone a passage that expressed what he dared not utter, he suddenly raised his eyes and looked at her as he had never done before? Was it on another occasion, when, playing one tune after another on his violin, he ended with that song without words which Hansfelt called _Hidden Love_, and suddenly stopped, incapable of continuing? Or was it when, towards the end of the second spring after their return, she had fully recovered, and he saw her for the first time in the open air standing near a rose‐bush with her hands full of flowers? Was it when he knelt to pick up one that had fallen at her feet, and remained in that position till she extended her hand and blushingly bade him rise? No matter. That day came, and not long before the one when we find her seated on the bench by the river‐side, attentively reading over the letter Madre Maddalena had written her two years before.

The young girl, as we have said, had changed somewhat since we last saw her. Her long illness had left some traces, but those traces which are an additional charm in youth, betokening the complete return of brilliant health. Fleurange’s form was more slender and supple; her complexion more transparent; her long hair, cut off during her illness, and now growing out again, encircled her youthful face with thick, silky curls—all this gave her something of the grace of childhood, and when she stood beside her cousin, whose tall stature and manly, energetic expression added the appearance of several years to his real age, it would never have been supposed she was not the younger of the two.

Motionless and absorbed, from time to time as she read her face colored and expressed a variety of emotions. But when she came to her own words: “My life is now stripped of all that made it desirable,” and what follows, “Some day, my Fior Angela, you will recall these bitter, ungrateful words, and will, I assure you, see their falsity,” she stopped short, and, raising her eyes full of tears to heaven, she said:

“Yes, Madre mia, you were right!” She covered her face with her hands, and remained a long time absorbed and overpowered by a flood of thoughts. In the depths of her memory, there were vague recollections of the past traced as if by lightning; and some almost forgotten scenes now rose before her like a confused dream.

That violent outburst of grief; the sobs he could not repress when he learned she was determined to go to George; and, later on, the words murmured on the ice when he thought the last hour of his life had come, scarcely heard at the time, and then speedily forgotten, came back to‐day like invisible writing brought out by the application of heat. The sentiments she had discovered only within a few days perhaps had long been experienced by Clement, if not always—and, if so, oh! then, how great had been his love and constancy, and what sufferings had he not endured for her sake! Alas! what had she not inflicted on that noble, faithful soul!

“Oh!” cried she aloud, “was there ever a person more blind, more ungrateful, more cruel than I?”

She stopped, started, and raised her head; she thought she heard her cousin’s step. She was not mistaken. He sought her in her favorite seat, and now stood before her in the same place where, three years before, she unwittingly caused him so much suffering as he looked at her. It was the same place, and the same season, and also the same hour. Daylight was fading away, and now, as then, the rising moon cast a silver ray over the charming face which he was again seeking to read. But this time his questioning look was comprehended, and the silent response of her beautiful eyes, as expressive as words, imparted to the heart that understood it one of those human joys reserved here below for those alone who are capable of a pure, constant, peculiar love—a love only worthy of being named after that for God.

We might now end this story, and lay down our pen, without attempting to describe the joy of the family when, as night came on, they saw the two absent ones return, and each one divined from their looks the nature of the conversation which tonight had detained them so long on the banks of the river. But towards the end of an evening so happy, Mademoiselle Josephine unintentionally made an exclamation it may not be useless to add:

“See! see!” she cried, in the exultation of her happiness, mingled with secret pride at her penetration, “how right I was in thinking Count George!—” She stopped confounded, suddenly recalling all past precautions, and fearing she had been imprudent in neglecting them.

But Fleurange unhesitatingly exclaimed: “Go on, dear mademoiselle, go on without any fear, and boldly pronounce a name I now neither shrink from nor seek to hear.” And, as she spoke, the remembrance of his past tortures crossed Clement’s memory, giving him a keener sense of his present happiness. She asked him, in a calm tone, “Is he still in exile, or has he been pardoned?”

Clement replied with a smile: “No, he has not been pardoned; he is still undergoing his sentence to the full extent.” After a moment’s silence, he added: “I had a letter from Adelardi this very morning which speaks of him.—Would you like to read it?”

At an affirmative nod from her, he took out his pocket‐book to find the letter. As he opened it, a little sprig of myrtle fell out. Fleurange immediately recognized it. “What! you still keep that?” said she, blushing.

Clement made no reply. He looked at it with emotion; it was a part of a carefully hoarded treasure, and for a long time the only joy of his hidden love! “Never, no never!” murmured he. “That was my reply that evening, Gabrielle, when you promised me a beautiful bride. Do you remember it?”

“Yes, for I had said the same words an hour before, and the coincidence struck me.”

“What can we think of it, now you are really the _fiancée_ I dreamed of as impossible?”

“That our presentiments are often illusory—and our sentiments also, Clement,” added she, turning towards him her eyes veiled with tears which seemed to implore his pardon.

We will not say what Clement’s reply was; only, that it made them both completely forget Adelardi’s letter. We will, however, lay it before our readers, who may be less indifferent to its contents than he to whom it was addressed was for the moment. It was dated at Florence. The marquis, whose visits at Rosenheim had become annual, announced his speedy arrival, after which he continued:

“The poor Princess Catherine, after whom you inquire, has had a return of her malady, so many times cured, and it is now increased by dissatisfaction and annoyance more than by age. No one succeeds in taking care of her so well as she whom she still remembers. Each new attack renews her regrets, which have found no compensation in the gratification of her wishes. I have often remarked, however, that there is nothing like the realization of a desire to efface the remembrance of the ardor with which it was sought, and even the transport that hailed its fulfilment. It is certain the princess’ actual relations with her son are by no means satisfactory; they are affected by the ill‐humor of both parties. George’s exile would seem enviable to many; for the place he inhabits has everything to make it delightful excepting the liberty of leaving it, and this mars the whole. He can enjoy nothing, he says, because everything is forced upon him. There is reason, therefore, to fear the future he is preparing for himself and his wife is very ominous.

“The Countess Vera is a beautiful, noble woman, capable of self‐sacrifice to a certain point, but haughty, high‐tempered, and jealous to the last degree. She thought the sacrifice she made in marrying George in the position he was then in, would secure his unsteady heart, and bind him faithfully to her through gratitude. She saw only too soon it was not so, and that the comparative liberty he had regained was soon regarded as a weary bondage. Thence resulted scenes which more than once have disturbed the life whose monotony they are not allowed to break. Will you credit it? In one of them, Vera, in the height of her irritation and jealousy, betrayed the secret hitherto so well guarded, and declared in her anger that _she regretted not having left him to the fate another was so ready to share with him_. She afterwards had reason to regret her imprudence, for George exacted a complete revelation, and the remembrance thus suddenly revived and clad with the double charm of the past and the unattainable caused him in his turn to overwhelm her with the most bitter reproaches. I am not sure but he had the cruelty to tell her he should a thousand times have preferred the fate she saved him from to that he now had to endure with her!—There can only be one opinion as to this mirage of his imagination; but, after all this, you will not be surprised to hear that they both long with equal ardor for their liberty, which they must wait for two years longer. According to appearances, it will be as dangerous for one as for the other. The princess has realized and predicted this since her visit to Livonia last summer, where I accompanied her.

“During her stay, George did not spare her any reproaches, and they were the more keenly felt because she had for a long time seen that the result of her wishes had been a sacrifice of her own comfort and happiness through her opposition to what had at once deprived her of her son and the only companion that had ever satisfied her. And when she is dissatisfied, she must always vent her anger on some one besides herself. Whom do you think she reproached the other day before me for all her troubles? Gabrielle!—who, she said, did not know how to avail herself of her ascendency three years ago as she should, and to retain it!

“Since she has seen that I by no means sympathize in her regrets—which will not be shared by you either, I suppose, nor, I like to think, by her who inspires them—she is offended with me in my turn, and declares in a melancholy tone that all friends are unfeeling and all children ungrateful!—”

Clement’s reply to this letter hastened the marquis’ arrival. He had seen his young friend’s hopes spring up and develop, and would not for the world have been absent from Rosenheim on the day of their realization. William and Bertha, the discreet confidant who knew how to console Clement in his sufferings without questioning him, were the only friends, besides the marquis, who were admitted that day into this happy family. The wedding was as gay as Clara’s, but the newly married pair were graver and more thoughtful. They had both passed through severe trials, which now gave a certain completeness to their happiness, often wanting here below in the most joyful of festivals.

And they also, in their turn, set off for Italy, and it may be imagined that, among the places they visited together, the first to which their hearts led them was that where awaited the Madre Maddalena’s welcome and blessing. At their return, Mademoiselle Josephine’s house, improved and embellished, became their home, on the condition imposed by their old friend that she should dwell under their roof the remainder of her days.

Was their destiny a happy one? We can safely reply in the affirmative. Was it exempt from pains, sufferings, and sacrifices? We can deny that still more positively. But it was, however, enviable; for of all earthly happiness, they possessed what was most desirable, without ever forgetting that “life can never be perfectly happy because it is not heaven, nor wholly unhappy because it is the way thither.”(231)

American Catholics And Partisan Newspapers.

To Catholics, as such, the political discussions of a Presidential campaign have no special significance. Thus far no issues between the two chief parties have particularly affected us. Both have generally been careful not to offend us; and although in local elections questions touching our schools and charities have sometimes become prominent, in the larger contest our votes have been fairly divided between the Republican and the Democratic candidates. If there ever unfortunately arise a distinctively Catholic party in American politics, it will not be because Catholics are unwilling to co‐operate freely with their Protestant fellow‐ citizens in secular affairs, but because we have been thrown upon the defensive by some combination directly and designedly hostile to our religious interests. None know better than we do that there is no excuse in this country for uniting religious with political issues. Our constitution gives equal liberty and protection to all, and we should be sorry to have it otherwise, for we know that the church makes all the more rapid progress in the United States by reason of her absolute independence. Asking nothing of the state but fair play, she gives no excuse to her enemies for making any discrimination against her children. Her position has been generally understood and approved; and although there are fiery bigots at all times who rave about the dangerous designs of the papists, and affect to dread a crusade with torch and sword as soon as we get to be a little stronger, the good sense of the American people has usually treated these sectaries with the indifference they deserve.

We have intimated, however, in former numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, that the chronic anti‐Catholic agitation might assume a new character which would require on our part a new attitude of resistance. A few years ago, when the settlement of the issues of the war first seemed to menace the dissolution of the Republican party, the most active leaders of that party began to cast about for a “new departure,” and one of their favorite plans for keeping the organization alive was the scheme of compulsory education by the general government. Of this project the Hon. Henry Wilson was a prominent advocate. It has not yet been formally brought into politics, for the party has been able to get along without it; but it has not been abandoned, and we need not be surprised if it be strongly pushed within the next few years. Now, Catholics look upon the question of religious education as one of paramount importance. They will not surrender the teaching of their children into the hands of Protestants and infidels; they will not consent, so far as _their_ young people are concerned, to the separation of religious and secular instruction. Any party which seeks directly or indirectly to limit the usefulness or hamper the operations of Catholic schools, must prepare to encounter in Catholics a united and determined resistance.

Thus far no such conflict has arisen. We may hope that it never will arise. And yet, during the canvass that has recently closed, two of the leading organs of Republican opinion have opened a bitter and apparently concerted warfare upon the Catholics of the United States which we cannot help regarding as highly significant. In the midst of a Presidential campaign, political organs never make such attacks except for political reasons. The papers to which we refer are in close relations with the party leaders. _The New York Times_ became for a time, when _The Tribune_ abandoned orthodoxy, the principal Republican newspaper of the principal state in the Union. It is known to have reflected with tolerable accuracy the sentiments of the Republican managers in New York, and it has always said what it assumed to be acceptable at the White House. For a long time it has been notoriously unfriendly to Catholics. It has amused itself, in its heavy, witless way, laughing at what they hold sacred and abusing all that they respect. Until a few months ago, its offensive utterances seemed to be merely the occasional vulgarities of a bigotry that, did not know enough to hold its tongue. But when Mr. Francis Kernan was nominated for Governor of the State of New York, its assaults became more methodical, more vehement, and apparently more malicious. Mr. Kernan is a Catholic; so _The Times_ instantly denounced him as “a bigot.” An utterly untrue pretence was made that Democrats were asking Irishmen to vote for him on account of his religion, and thus the point was insinuated rather than openly pressed that on account of his religion Protestants ought to vote against him. For the first time, to our knowledge, since Know‐Nothing days, the question of religious belief was dragged into the dirty arena of politics. Happily, the Catholics as a body kept their temper and their judgment during these infamous proceedings. They refused to be drawn into the discussion which _The Times_ wanted to provoke, and even when that paper surpassed all its former disreputable acts by reproducing in its columns a forged handbill, showing the name of Francis Kernan surrounding a huge black cross, and told the public that such were the devices by which the Democratic candidate sought to inflame the fanatical zeal of his followers, the Catholics contented themselves with one word of indignant denial. It would have been a rash display of political courage to which we do not believe _The Times_ capable of rising, if an open attack had been made upon the Catholic faith or Catholic morals. _The Times_ was even frightened at its own frankness in scolding at Mr. Kernan for a bigot. It professed to be shocked at the introduction of religious affairs into the discussions of the campaign, and carried on a cowardly anti‐Catholic warfare under cover of repelling purely imaginary assaults. Of course this subterfuge was well understood by all parties. The Catholics knew that they had done nothing to draw this fire; the Protestants also knew it, and a great many of them were indignant at the transaction. Was _The Times_ itself deceived? That is a question which perhaps we should not attempt to answer. In its wild bigotry, it is capable of believing almost any preposterous falsehood against us; but it is equally capable of inventing one. Some familiarity with the course of political controversies in the United States has convinced us that in a fight _The Times_ sticks at nothing. It would rather stab an enemy in the back than kill him in open battle. It never gives fair‐play; it never makes amends for a wrong‐doing; it never withdraws a calumny. Everybody who has had a controversy with it will bear witness that it is not in the habit of telling the truth about its adversaries. That it is in the habit of consciously, or, to speak more correctly, deliberately, lying we do not go so far as to say. But there is a kind of falsehood very common with people of strong prejudices to which _The Times_ is greatly addicted. It bears about the same relation to truth that hyperbole bears to historical statement. Let us suppose that _The Times_ really imagines the Catholic Church to be a dangerous and immoral organization, and its bishops and supporters in this country to be engaged in an enterprise which ought to be resisted; with this conviction of the general wickedness of Catholic principles, it imagines itself justified in charging upon individual Catholics a variety of specific crimes for which it has no evidence whatever. Catholics are none too good to commit murder, we can imagine it saying; therefore let us accuse Francis Kernan of killing his grandmother. The Pope is an impostor; therefore it cannot be wrong to call Archbishop McCloskey a thief. Indeed, men who would blush to tell an untruth in private intercourse with their fellow‐men have no hesitation in publishing slanderous accusations which they suppose may “help their party”; and, if we should say that their conduct in doing so was to the last degree infamous, they would affect to be shocked by our strong language. The editor of _The Times_ would think twice before he went into a club parlor, and publicly accused some prominent citizen of a criminal action, unless he had the strongest possible proof of the commission of the offence. But he makes such accusations every day in his newspaper, without knowing, and we presume without caring, whether they are true or not. Anybody whom he dislikes he regards as an outlaw. Anybody who comes in his way is a fit subject for the penitentiary. We saw a striking illustration of his entire insensibility to the demands of truth and honor in his behavior towards a rival newspaper a few weeks ago. At the close of the year, _The Times_ made great efforts to secure the old subscribers of _The Tribune_, who were supposed to be dissatisfied with that paper’s recent declaration of political independence, and the means which it took to secure them was one which in any other business would have resulted in a suit for slander and a verdict in very heavy damages. _The Times_ first circulated a report that _The Tribune_ had sold itself to one of the most disreputable stock‐gamblers in Wall Street, and then assured the public that the circulation of its competitor had fallen away more than half, and was rapidly going down to nothing at all. Both these stories were well known to be entirely untrue, and, if the editor of _The Times_ was not conscious of their falsity when he penned them, he might easily have learned the truth by a moment’s inquiry. But he did not want the truth. He wanted to say something damaging, and these were the most damaging things he could think of.

How much he succeeded in damaging Mr. Kernan by his campaign slanders against Catholics, we can guess from the figures of the election. Mr. Kernan received about 5,000 more votes for Governor than Mr. Greeley received in this State for President; but he received 5,000 fewer than the candidate for Lieutenant‐Governor on the same ticket. This loss is probably attributable directly to the anti‐Catholic feeling, for Mr. Kernan is a gentleman to whom no personal objection could possibly be made except on religious grounds. No doubt an equally large number of voters were repelled, by the bigotry _The Times_ fostered, from supporting the Democratic and Liberal ticket at all; so that we shall not pass the bounds of probability if we estimate the fruit of prejudice and falsehood in this case as equivalent to ten thousand votes.

Catholics are used to injustice, and they are not quick to resent it. In America, the church has prospered under every sort of obstacle and discouragement short of the direct hostility of the government, and it is not likely that her course will be stayed by _The New York Times_. But it is well for us to look at the situation carefully, and judge who are our friends. If any political party is to make bigotry part of its stock in trade, we cannot help taking notice of such a declaration of hostilities, and we shall govern ourselves accordingly.

We have said that _The Times_ and _Harper’s Weekly_ appear in this matter to have acted in concert. Perhaps it is unfair to hold the party managers fully responsible for the utterances of these two violent newspapers; but we cannot forget that both journals are in close communion with the Republican administration, and that both have been governed during the campaign by the judgment of the Republican leaders. The editor of _The Times_ enjoys the most intimate association with the federal organization popularly known as the “Custom‐house faction” in New York City; the editor of _Harper’s Weekly_ is the personal friend of the President, and speaks the mind of the President’s chief advisers in Washington. If, then, these two papers have made a systematic assault upon the Catholic Church in the midst of a sharp political controversy, and have taken pains to give their furious Protestantism a direct political bearing, the party for which they speak must be prepared to face the responsibility. It should be observed, however, in justice to the sensible and unprejudiced members of the party, that _Harper’s Weekly_, though it may have been encouraged in its bitterness by partisan considerations, did not draw from such motives its first anti‐Catholic inspiration. It has always been our enemy. A spirit, of commercial fanaticism, the hatred of a religion which it will pay to abuse, has distinguished the firm of the Harpers ever since the public has known anything about them. The political campaign of 1872 made no difference in the tone of their paper; it merely gave force, and concentration, and regularity to the attacks which had previously been spasmodic.

How coarsely it attempted to turn to political account the religious bigotry upon which it had always traded may be seen in an article entitled “Our Foreign Church,” published in _Harper’s Weekly_ of the 14th of September last. The writer starts with the assumption that all religious denominations in this country, except “the Romish Church,” patriotically renounced the authority of their European rulers when the American republic was founded. The Methodists “rejected the control in political and ecclesiastical matters of their founders”; the Presbyterians repudiated the General Assembly of Scotland; Episcopalians revolted from the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Jews “threw themselves boldly into the tide of American progress”; while the Catholic Church alone stood aloof, and “refused to separate itself from its European masters,” and conform its organization to the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of the United States. Ridiculous as this complaint sounds, it is no burlesque, but a faithful synopsis of the nonsense which Mr. Eugene Lawrence is permitted to print in _Harper’s Weekly_. A church of divine origin, according to this preposterous person, is to change its divine laws to conform to the requirements of temporary human institutions; and the political theories of Thomas Jefferson are to govern the ordinances of Jesus Christ. It is the glory of the true church that she is above all secular constitutions. She has seen the rise and fall of countless dynasties and states; she will survive the ruin, if every form of government now known upon earth shall be eventually overthrown. Empires, kingdoms, republics, are all alike to her. She was founded for all ages and all climes; she was not created, as Mr. Eugene Lawrence seems to think she ought to have been, for the exclusive benefit of the United States of America. This is a great country; but we presume that our constitution, amendments and all, occupies but an insignificant place in the divine order of the universe.

Obeying its heaven‐appointed head, who did not see fit to choose either Europe or America for the place of his human birth, the Roman Catholic Church in America, according to _Harper’s Weekly_, is a foreign body, and, therefore, dangerous (as all foreigners are) to the peace of society. “It is loud in its denunciations of American civilization;” it “furnishes three‐fourths of the criminals and the paupers who prey upon the Protestant community”; it never intermits its “attacks upon the principles of freedom”; and “its great mass of ignorant voters have been the chief source of our political ills.” Moreover, “the unpatriotic conduct of the Romish population in our chief cities during the rebellion is well known. They formed a constant menace and terror to the loyal citizens; they thronged the ‘peace meetings’; they strove to divide the Union; and when the war was over they placed in office their corrupt leaders, and plundered the impoverished community.” We are almost ashamed to copy, even for the purpose of denouncing it, this insult to the memory of our dead Catholic soldiers. There is not a man in the United States who does not know of the noble share of these outraged “Romish” troops in the terrible struggles of the civil war; not a man who is ignorant of the splendid record of the Irish regiments under the Union flag on every hard‐fought field from the first Bull Run to the last conflict before Richmond. “The Romish population of our chief cities” furnished the bone and sinew of more than one gallant army during those four sad years. They gave up their lives for the country of their birth or their adoption with a heroism that stirs every sensitive heart. Their priests followed the army on the march and into the fight. Their Sisters of Charity nursed the wounded and the sick. The greatest of their prelates, aided by another bishop who is still living, spent the last remains of his strength in defending the cause of the Union in hostile foreign capitals. Nothing, in fine, could be more magnificent than the patriotism with which the adherents of this “foreign church” sacrificed life and fortune for their country during its hour of need; and we have no language to define the infamy of endeavoring to make capital for Gen. Grant by maligning the devoted men whom he led to death at Shiloh and in the wilderness, and whose bravery, we are sure, he would be the last man to depreciate.

And now, continues the writer in the _Weekly_, as the Presidential election approaches, “our foreign church has assumed more openly than ever before the form of a political faction.” “Romish priests” and “Romish bishops” have taken the field as the partisans of Mr. Greeley, “the candidate of disunion _and of religious bigotry_”!—the italics are ours—and the church is engaged in an attempt “to place the fallen slaveholders once more in power.” For these statements we deliberately declare that there is no justification whatever. Mr. Eugene Lawrence invented them out of his own bigotry and malice; and when he had the folly and insolence to threaten us, as he did at the close of his article, with “the vengeance of the people,” he added to his untruthfulness a degree of hypocrisy which we have rarely seen equalled even in the publications of the house of Harper & Brothers. We say hypocrisy; but perhaps that is unfair. Mr. Lawrence may be silly enough to tremble at the bogies of his own devising. He may imagine that the rest of the world is as much afraid of the Pope as he is. He may fancy that the whole party of which he is such a hard‐working member is burning with desire to take the Jesuits by the throat and hang them on the nearest lamp‐post. If he did not suppose that a profitable market could be found for his sensational wares, he probably would not be at the trouble of the manufacture. If the “vengeance of the people” do not menace the Jesuits, it will certainly not be the fault of Mr. Lawrence. In the issue of the _Weekly_ for Oct. 12, he had a furious narrative of “The Jesuit Crusade against Germany,” the points of which are substantially these: The Jesuits, with the aid of the Inquisition (of which they are the directors) and of a hired band of convicts and brigands, obtained the absolute mastery of the city of Rome and the papal government. The wretched people “cowered before their Jesuit rulers,” and within the crumbling walls of the guilty capital “priests and cardinals perpetrated their enormities unchecked and unseen.” They then, by means of their “lawless police,” overpowered the Œcumenical Council, and forced it, “by intimidation and bribes,” to accept the doctrine of infallibility, to curse liberty and education, and to set on foot a bloody crusade against political and intellectual freedom. This was in accordance with the Jesuits’ time‐honored policy. “The fierce and fanatical Loyola” used to burn heretics in Spain and Italy, and taught his followers that no mercy should be shown to such offenders. It was the Jesuits who set on foot the persecutions under Charles V. and Philip II., and “excited the unparalleled horrors of the Thirty Years’ War.” In 1870, they were getting ready for a new religious war. Napoleon III. was their chief backer. In fact, the attack upon Germany in 1870 was the result of a conspiracy between Rome and Paris, concluded at the council, and the purpose of the war was nothing less than the establishment of the Jesuit Order on the ruins of prostrate Germany! For this scheme _the Irish Catholics of Dublin, London, and New York __“__furnished men, sympathy, and possibly money.__”_ And now that the conspiracy has failed, and that the papists of France have been beaten (in spite of all the sinews of war so lavishly furnished by the Irish laborers and servant‐girls of New York), the Jesuits are getting, up another European convulsion. “The Romish Church, organized into a vast political faction, is stirring up war in Europe, calls upon France to lead another religious crusade, and promises the aid of all the chivalry of Catholicism in avenging the fall of Napoleon upon the German Empire.” It purposes to involve all the great states of Europe in a common ruin, “and erect the Romish See upon the wrecks of the temporal empires.” The pilgrimage of Lourdes is a part of this scheme. The Catholic Union is another. The International Society of Workingmen (of which the Jesuits are the secret instigators!) is another. Mr. Lawrence exhibits the venerable fathers in the unfamiliar garb of communists, and substitutes the red cap for the beretta with all the effrontery and _nonchalance_ in the world. The Order which in one column is the detested safeguard of absolutism becomes in the next the raving propagandist of social anarchy, revolution, and universal democracy. Can any rational person after this condescend to dispute with Mr. Lawrence?

As in the other cases to which we have referred, there was a political moral to this story also. If we would avert this horrible era of blood and fire, said _Harper’s Weekly_, we must vote for General Grant, and stand up for the straight Republican ticket. Grant is the firm ally of Germany against Jesuitism. Grant is the champion of public schools against religious education. Grant is the enemy of all manner of Romish fraud and violence. Greeley is the friend of priests and persecutors, the foe of the Bible and education, the accomplice of that infamous “Jesuit faction” which “would rejoice to tear the vitals of American freedom, and rend the breast that has offered it a shelter”; and if he should be elected the “Jesuit Society” would celebrate the victory “like a new S. Bartholomew, with bells, cannon, processions, prayers at the Vatican,” and hasten “the rising of the Catholic chivalry ... in their sanguinary schemes against the peace and independence of Germany.” Such was the wicked nonsense with which _Harper’s Weekly_ in the autumn of 1872 attempted to make political capital out of the ignorance and bigotry of its readers.

But this was not the worst. The Jesuits were not only conspirators against political and mental freedom, they were the principal enemies of the freed people of the South. Their society (_risum teneatis, amici_) had “allied itself with the Ku‐klux of Georgia and Mississippi”! And so infatuated was the _Weekly_ with the monstrous folly of this tale that week after week it returned to the same slander. On Oct. 26 it printed a portrait of the Most Reverend Father‐General, accompanied with one of the most outrageous pages of falsehood and defamation ever put into type. “In our country,” says the author of the article, “the Jesuit faction has allied itself with the Ku‐ klux.” “The Jesuit Society assumes the guise of liberalism, and cheers on the rebel and Ku‐klux in their plots against the Union.” “In America the Jesuits link themselves with the Ku‐klux.” They do this because they hate the republic. They denounce, “with maledictions and threatenings, the course of modern civilization.”

“The world is in danger from the mad schemes of the triumphant society; it is rousing France to a new crusade with omens and pilgrimages; it threatens the German Empire with a war more disastrous and destructive than Europe has ever seen. It summons its adherents to the polls in Italy; it guides the elections of Ireland, terrifies Spain, and even disturbs the repose of London; and in our own country, so recently torn by civil war, the papal crusaders, linked by the tie of perfect obedience, stand ready to profit by our misfortunes, and to stimulate our internal dissensions; to crush those institutions that have ever reproached their own despotism, and destroy that freedom which is the chief obstacle to their perpetual sway.”

The picture which the _Weekly_ draws of these dangerous brethren is horrible enough to throw a child into fits:

“A dreadful mystery still hangs over them. Their proceedings are secret, their purposes unknown. At the command of an absolute master, they wander swiftly among the throngs of their fellow‐men, eager only to obey his voice. Obedience is to the Jesuit the first principle of his faith, instilled into his mind in youth, perfected by the labors of his later years; he hears in the slightest intimations of his chief at Rome the voice of his God, the commands from heaven; and in the long catalogue of fearful deeds which history ascribes to the disciples of Loyola, the first impulse to crime must always have come from the absolute head of the Order, and its single aim has always been to advance the power of the Romish Church. Scarcely had its founder gained the favor of the Pope, and fixed his seat at Rome, when he revived the Inquisition. Italy trembled before the spectacle of ceaseless _autos‐da‐fe_; the tortures and the cries of dying heretics, the ruin of countless families, the flight of terrified and hopeless throngs from their native land to the friendly shelter of Germany and Switzerland, were the earliest fruits of the relentless teachings of Loyola. The Jesuits led the armies of the persecutors into the beautiful Vaudois valleys, and the worst atrocities of that mournful example of human wickedness are due to their brutal fanaticism. Soon they spread from Italy through all the kingdoms of Europe; everywhere they brought with them their fierce and cruel hatred of religious freedom, their cunning, their moral degradation, their bold and desperate policy. They ruled in courts; they terrified the people into submission; they were the most active politicians of their time; their wealth was enormous; their schools and colleges spread from Paris to Japan; and for three centuries the name of the Jesuits, covered with the infamy of the massacres of the Vaudois, the Huguenots, the Hollanders, and the Germans, surrounded by its terrible mystery, the symbol of a dark and dreadful association, has filled mankind with horror and affright.”

The practical conclusion to be drawn from all this rhetoric was that everybody, and especially every German, ought to vote for Gen. Grant and the straight Republican anti‐Jesuit ticket. It was the Jesuits who “nominated Mr. Greeley, a person known to be in friendly connection with the Romish leaders and closely linked to the Papal Church.” The Jesuits “cover Grant with monstrous calumnies, and celebrate the erratic Greeley.” “Let every German beware lest he lend aid to the enemies of his country. Let him shrink from the support of any candidate who is maintained by the influence of the Jesuits.” “We trust every sincere Protestant ... will labor ceaselessly to defeat the schemes of the Jesuits, and drive their candidate back to a merited obscurity.” And in the same number we find the following wicked paragraph:

“A Jesuit, the Rev. Mr. Renaud, was appointed some time ago by Archbishop McCloskey to superintend the Romish interest in our city charities. The result was at once apparent. The Jesuits excited a revolt in the House of Refuge. One of the keepers was murdered. One of the convicts was sent to the State prison. The rebellion was subdued; but the Jesuits still defend the murderer, and assail with calumnies the House of Refuge, one of the most valuable and successful of our city institutions. This is a curious confirmation of that dangerous character of the Jesuit Society which is painted upon a larger scale in our article in the present number on ‘The Jesuits.’ ”

The next slander of the _Weekly_ was to identify Tweed with the Jesuits. “When the Romish priests,” says this astonishing journal (Nov. 2, 1872), “at the command of their foreign master, began their assaults upon the public schools, they found a ready ally in the Tammany Society.... Tammany became the representative of a foreign influence and a foreign church. It was European rather than American. It teemed with the coarse prejudices, the dull ignorance, the intense moral blindness that to American sentiment are so repulsive, with that mental and moral feebleness that belongs to populations racked by the despot and oppressed by the priest.” An infamous compact was now struck between Tammany and the Papal Church. The “Romanists” supported the political leaders in riotous license, gross vices, and indecent corruption; while an enormous debt was laid upon the city “to satisfy the demands of the Romish priests.” Thus Tammany, by the aid of its foreign allies, became despotic master of New York.

“Covered with the ineffaceable stains of treason and of public robbery, its members attempted to rule by force, and in the spring of 1871 New York lay at the mercy of rebels, peculators, and foreign priests. The press was threatened, whenever it complained, with violence, lawsuits, and the frowns of infamous courts. The Common Council was imported from Ireland, and foreign assassins threatened the lives of those ardent citizens who planned reform.”

The overthrow of the Tweed and Connolly Ring was a stunning defeat for the Pope and his agents. The nomination of Greeley and Kernan (the one openly, the other secretly; a slave of the Jesuits and the Inquisition) was a desperate attempt of the Jesuits to recover what they had lost. And then followed the usual homily, “Vote for Grant,” etc.

In this bitter political campaign against the church the writers for _Harper’s Weekly_ were zealously assisted by their artist, Mr. Thomas Nast. This individual has done more to degrade his profession than any other draughtsman we know of, except, perhaps, the makers of lascivious pictures for some of the flash newspapers. He has made a practice of ridiculing the religious belief of hundreds of thousands of honest people who came to America, as he did, from a foreign land, because America offers to all immigrants the fullest measure of political equality and religious freedom. It has been his pleasure to depict the priest invariably as a sleek, sensual, brutal, and repulsive rogue; the bishop as a grim, overbearing, and cunning despot, or now and then as a crocodile crawling with open jaws towards a group of children. In the _Weekly_ of Oct. 12, he represents Brother Jonathan attempting to sever the tie which binds an American bishop to the Pope, holding out, as he does so, a naturalization paper inscribed “This ends the foreign allegiance.” The Pope has his arms full of papers: “Orders to all state officials that are Roman Catholics”; “Down with the American public schools”; “The promised land, U. S.,” etc.; and the bishop carries similar documents: “Orders from the Pope of Rome to the Catholics in America”; “Vote for Horace Greeley”; “Vote for Kernan; he is a Roman Catholic, and will obey the orders of the church.” Another picture, entitled “Swinging around the circle,” was intended to represent all the disreputable supporters of Mr. Greeley in company. “Free love and Catholicism” were side by side, in the persons of Theodore Tilton and a priest, and “Mass and S. C.” figured as a conventional Irishman with one of the Ku‐klux. Mr. Kernan was drawn (Nov. 2) kneeling, in an abject attitude, at the feet of the Pope (“Our Foreign Ruler”), and swearing, “I will do your bidding, as you are infallible”; in the background stood a priest loaded with papal orders against the public schools; and on the wall was a copy of the forged handbill, with the legend, “For governor, Francis Kernan,” surrounding a black cross. In a picture of the “Pirates under False Colors,” a priest with a cross held aloft in one hand, and a tomahawk half hidden in the other, is a conspicuous figure in a gang of ruffians. In another cartoon a vulgar‐ looking priest is seen sprinkling the ruins of Tammany Hall with holy‐ water.

Now, we know very well that from one point of view the introduction of these calumnies into politics was fraudulent. Mr. Greeley certainly had no leaning towards the Catholic Church and no affiliations with Catholic leaders, and Gen. Grant, we venture to affirm, is insensible to the bigotry which his unworthy followers brought up as a reason for his re‐ election. We have nothing to ask of any President, and we give our votes according to our individual preferences. But while we do not purpose acting as a religious body in any political movement, we do not purpose either to be set aside by any political party as an outlawed and degraded people, upon whom venal pamphleteers and ignorant politicians may trample at pleasure. If party organs take pains to attack us, and pour out, day after day, and week after week, their filthy libels upon us, the party which sanctions such a warfare and tries to reap the fruits of it shall bear the responsibility. The Catholics of the United States are too numerous, too intelligent, and too public‐spirited to be treated with contempt by any faction, whether that faction call itself Liberal, or Republican, or Democratic. We prefer, as we have often said before, to let the politicians alone, and go our various ways in quiet, some after one leader, some after another. But it may as well be understood that, if any of these parties invite an irrepressible conflict with us, they will find out, we trust, that we are not disposed to flinch from the defence of our rights, which are identical with the rights of all other American citizens.

Brussels.

“There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spoke again, And all went merry as a marriage bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”

_Childe Harold._

The roar of cannon that ushered in the day of Waterloo—the deadly Waterloo, big with the fate of empires—the fatal Waterloo, that sealed the doom of the mighty conqueror, that hurled him on the prison‐island in the far‐distant ocean, where expiation could be the only consolation of the proud, haughty heart that knew no law but the iron will, which, irresistible to all else, was shivered on the Rock of Peter—was not the first, and may not be the last, sound of fearful strife there heard, as Belgium has ever been the chosen battlefield of Europe.

And so well is the fact recognized, that the sole condition on which she now exists as an independent state, is that of perfect neutrality. No matter what may be her sympathies, what may be her interests, she cannot take the sword: she can only defend her frontier, and prevent the entrance of either friend or foe. This it is that gives her importance; her central position, which makes her the key of the Continent, causes England to watch over her with tender interest, gives the mistress of the seas a _pied‐à‐terre_ in case of a general war—a contingency which may arise at any moment.

The late King Leopold I., the Nestor of the European sovereigns, held an exceptional position; the head of one of the smallest states, he had perhaps the largest personal influence. His sagacity and experience made his advice sought and respected by all. When, in the revolution of 1848, thrones were tumbling down, and kings flying in every direction, of course Brussels had to follow the prevailing fashion, and, without knowing exactly what was wanted, the Bruxellois assembled around the palace; but before they could state their grievances, Leopold appeared upon the balcony, told them there was no necessity of any demonstration; he had come to Brussels at their invitation, and was ready to leave, if his departure would make them happier. Whereupon they reconsidered the question, and concluded to let well enough alone.

After the separation of Holland and Belgium, Brussels increased rapidly, and is now one of the pleasantest capitals in Europe. The new part of the city, the Quartier Leopold, is a beautiful faubourg, and the boulevards that encircle the city with a belt of green verdure, furnish a delightful promenade. The park, a portion of the forest of Soignes, is charming; the great trees meet in arches, and shade the crowds of ladies and children, who live in the open air on fine days. On Sundays, the military bands play from 2 to 3 P.M.; and every summer evening, from the 1st of June to the 1st of September, the orchestra of the Grand Opera gives concerts in the kiosk of the _Quinconce_, the flower‐garden of the park.

Life in Brussels is very pleasant, easy, and independent; all the appliances of modern civilization are within reach, botanical and zoological gardens, picture galleries, theatres; the opera is a permanent fact, at a reasonable rate; the orchestra led by Hanssens (recently departed for another world) was admirable; numbered among the violinists De Beriot, blind, but playing always with rare skill, and the other artists were of equal merit. Of late years Brussels has become a _foyer_ for discontented spirits—

“Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray. Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may.”

And mingle they do without fear of _mouchards_, and air their opinions, no matter how wild and dangerous. If they go a little too far, the government or persons attacked interchange a few diplomatic notes with the Belgian authorities, and then the police politely request them either to be silent or try another dwelling‐place. Prim was for a long time resident, but one fine morning was advised to take his departure, as his intrigues were becoming too open and dangerous, but had been kept secret long enough to lay the mine that exploded and blew the Queen of Spain into France; and Henri Rochefort, driven from France, issued his _Lanterne_, which threw light on many facts then thought to be false, but which events proved to have been only too true.

Brussels is a paradise for women of taste; for where else can be found such laces and fairy webs, such garnitures of _point de Bruxelles_, of Valenciennes, of Malines, of Duchesse? A morning stroll down the Montagne de la Cour and the Madeleine is a feast for the eye, for lace‐making is one of the fine arts; the large houses employ three or four first‐class artists to draw the designs, and, as the competition is great, the efforts to surpass are immense. In making up a bride’s trousseau, it is etiquette for the mother of the bride to give the white laces, the happy bridegroom the black; and the prices where the parties are wealthy run up to an enormous amount.

The gold embroideries are equally beautiful; in one _fabrique_ we saw a set of vestments just finished for the Cathedral of Tournai; they were for Lent, and were violet, with the instruments of the Passion exquisitely done in raised embroidery. The effect was admirable; on the back of the chasuble was the cross with the spear and the sponge, and so perfect was the sponge it seemed as though it could be grasped. The column was on the front of the vestment. It was a complete set for priest, deacon, and sub‐ deacon, with five copes, so that the artist had full opportunity for the display of his talent. The same house had recently sent off the dresses for the Empress of Austria and the ladies of her court, to be worn when they walked in the procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Specimens of the embroidery, which was of silver on white satin, were shown us, and, judging by what we saw, the effect of the whole must have been charming.

The Musée Ancien is devoted to the artists of the past. Hubert and Jean Van Eyck, whose discovery of the use of oil in mixing colors revolutionized art, are represented by the “Adam and Eve” and the “Adoration of the Magi.” Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More is worthy of the subject and the artist. Crayer’s Saints and Martyrdoms abound; one, the “Apparition of Our Lord to S. Julien,” illustrates the beautiful legend of S. Julien and his wife, S. Basilisse, who founded a hospital, where they received and tended the sick poor. One winter night, hearing sighs and groans at the door, S. Julien went out, and found a man nearly frozen to death. He carried him in, warmed him before the fire, restored him to consciousness, and then laid him in his own bed. The next morning the holy couple went in to see their guest. The bed was empty, and, as they approached it, Jesus, for it was he who had taken the form of the poor sick man to try their charity, appeared to them, and said, “Julien, I am your Lord and Saviour, who announces to you that ere long you and your wife will repose in God.”

The “Martyrdom of S. Peter,” by Van Dyck, is terrible. The saint is fastened to the cross, and three men are placing it in the ground. One, kneeling, is endeavoring to push the end of the cross into the hole prepared to receive it, another supports the cross on his shoulders, the third steadies it. Meanwhile, all the blood in S. Peter’s body seems to have descended into his head and face, which is brick‐dust color, and looks as though it would burst. Altogether it is a fearful picture, so lifelike that one waits to hear the thump the cross will give when finally placed. Such pictures make us appreciate our feather‐bed Christianity, the comfortable way we try to gain heaven and at the same time keep up an agreeable acquaintance with the world, and perhaps its friend, the devil.

The finest Rubens in this Musée is “Christ ascending Calvary.” It is when he is met by S. Veronica and some other women, who are magnificently dressed, thus making the contrast greater between them and the exhausted, blood‐stained figure of Our Lord, who is sinking beneath the weight of the cross, and the agonized face of his blessed Mother, who, supported by S. John, is advancing with outstretched hands to the assistance of her beloved One.

The flower‐pieces by Seghers, the famous Jesuit painter, are exquisite; interiors by Cuyp and Teniers, displaying their delicate care and finish, are numerous; pictures by Rembrandt, with all his wonderful effects of light and shade; some charming faces by Velasquez—two lovely little girls hand‐in‐hand, who look as if they would step out of the frame and speak; two splendid half‐lengths of Albert and Isabella, by Rubens, whose portraits are always admirable; and some very good specimens of the Italian school, among which are a Madonna of Sassoferrato, and a portrait of a young woman, by Guercina, which is very beautiful.

The Musée Moderne is a collection of the modern Belgian school, which deservedly ranks among the first. “Hagar in the Desert,” by Navez, is as touchingly beautiful as any of the masterpieces of the great past; Leys, Wiertz, Gallait, Portaels, whose “Fuite en Egypte” is found everywhere, are men whose genius is recognized by all Europe; Van Schendel has produced effects of light as remarkable as Rembrandt; Willems and Stevens in finish rival Cuyp and Teniers; and Verboekhoven’s cattle‐pieces are unsurpassed. Art is encouraged and fostered by the government; every year there is a grand competition for the “Prix de Rome”; a committee is appointed by the crown to decide upon the merit of the pictures, and the successful one receives the Prix de Rome, which is four thousand francs, a sum sufficient to maintain a student in Rome, in artist style, three years, while he continues his studies.

Brussels is comparatively modern; it was a mere village when Malines, Louvain, and other towns had acquired importance. In 1005, it passed by marriage into the possession of the Comtes de Louvain, under whom it rapidly increased; in 1040, it was surrounded by massive walls, of which some portions still remain in the garden of the Curé of S. Gudule. In 1106, Comte Godfrey le Barbu acquired the title of Duc de Brabant, but Louvain continued the most important town in the duchy, and preserved the title of capital until the time of Albert and Isabella, who preferred Brussels on account of its healthful climate and the vicinity of the well‐ stocked forest of Soignies.

The Grande Place of Brussels is unique; any change is forbidden by law; as it has been for generations, so it must remain; and when one descends suddenly from the park and boulevards, brilliant and gay with all the sparkle of modern life, into the Grande Place, it is like another world. The Hôtel de Ville is on one side; opposite is the Maison du Roi, adorned with a statue of the Blessed Virgin, beneath which is the legend, _A Feste, Fame et Bello, libera nos, Maria Pacis_, placed there in 1625 by Isabella in gratitude to our Lady of Peace, for having delivered the city from plague, famine, and war. In the place immediately below, is the noble monument erected in reparation to the memory of the unfortunate Comtes d’Egmont and de Hornes, on the spot on which, as the inscription runs, “they were unjustly executed by the decree of the cruel Duc d’Albe.”

It was unjust and cruel, but still we cannot judge the past by the present. Then, principles were positive facts, not vagaries expected to give way at any moment to expediency, but realities plain and palpable, upon which depended not only this perishable present, but the never‐ending future, with its eternity of weal or woe. As men were expected to live up to their principles, so were they expected to die for them. It is a high standard by which to live, but it is the safest. We fancy nowadays that the cruelty then dealt out for thoughts and opinions was abominable, but we forget that those ideas, those thoughts, produced the frightful effects of the ravages of the Gueux, of the orgies of John of Leyden; that from religious they degenerated into social excesses of the lowest kind—excesses which, if prolonged, would have reduced Christian Europe to Vandal barbarism.

And so the brave, unfortunate Comte d’Egmont, the hero, whose valor contributed so signally to the brilliant victory of Philip II. at St. Quentin, lost his life for having tampered with the political sectaries, or rather by being led into the snare by the Prince of Orange; when too late, he saw his error, which was only political; his faith he ever kept pure and untarnished. The Prince of Orange, on the eve of leaving Brussels to join the enemy in Germany, urged him to go, but Egmont refused; the prince told him if he remained he would be lost; that he was a fool to run the risk. Friends until then, they parted in anger. Egmont spurned him, and said, “Adieu, prince sans terre”; the prince replied, “Adieu, comte sans tête”—words which were too fatally verified soon after. The Maison du Roi is now occupied by the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire, and it was in a small room in the second story that Comte d’Egmont passed the night preceding his death, and wrote those touching farewell letters to his wife and the King of Spain which reveal the nobleness of his character. The famous picture by Gallait, “La tête d’un supplicié,” is a portrait of Egmont. We have seen the original in the _atelier_ of Gallait, and he assured us it was an accurate resemblance. _Requiescat in pace._

The Hôtel de Ville on the Grande Place is the finest of the municipal palaces found in almost every city of Belgium. It is built round a quadrangle, and the oldest part is the wing to the east of the tower, commenced in 1402, at the angles of which are elegant turrets; the façade consists of a gallery of open arches, surmounted by the Grande Brétèque, a balcony from whence proclamations were made; above this are two rows of windows, and an enormous battlemented roof, pierced with thirty‐seven dormer windows.

The tower is 330 feet high; the lower half, from the basement to the summit of the roof, is square; the upper part, built in 1444, is octagonal, surmounted by a magnificent spire of open‐work, remarkable for its lightness and delicacy; on its apex is fixed a table of stone, twelve feet in circumference, and on this stone a globe of copper, supporting a colossal figure of S. Michael trampling on the devil, thirteen feet high, made of a number of thin plates of copper‐gilt, in 1454, which serves as a weathercock, and turns with the least breath of wind. There is a shocking tradition, currently reported, but not positively confirmed, that the architect of the beautiful tower hung himself on its completion, because he had not placed it exactly in the centre of the façade; which certainly did not remedy the evil, as putting himself out of the world did not put the tower in the right place.

The first story of the Hôtel de Ville contains a gallery in which are magnificent full‐length portraits of Philippe le Beau, Charles V., Philip II., Albert and Isabella, and other dignitaries; the council‐room, audience‐chamber, and all the other apartments are splendidly ornamented, the walls hung with Gobelin tapestry, representing scenes in the life of Clovis and Clotilda. The ceiling of the council‐chamber is a masterpiece of Janssens, in which the most extraordinary effects of light and shade are produced; it represents an assembly of the gods, and their majesties vary in their positions as they are seen from different points.

The remainder of the Grande Place is lined with venerable old houses, terminating in fantastic gables, most of which were originally the halls of various guilds and corporations; their façades pierced with numerous odd little windows and covered with quaint designs, bas‐reliefs, pilasters, balustrades, and inscriptions; some of the houses are gilded, which adds to the picturesque appearance of the place, and on the summit of the Brewers’ Guild is a fine equestrian statue of Prince Charles of Lorraine—the good prince, as he is still affectionately called. In mediæval times, the Grande Place was the ordinary scene of tournaments and executions; here the Knights of the Golden Fleece held their brilliant _réunions_, and Philip l’Asseuré and Charles V. gave splendid fêtes, which in the reign of Philip II. were succeeded by very different scenes, under the stern rule of the Duc d’Albe.

Just behind the Hôtel de Ville, at the corner of the Rue du Chêne and the Rue de l’Etuve, is the beloved little statue of the “Premier Bourgeois de Bruxelles.” The present bronze statue, after a model by Duquesnoy, was made in 1619, and this replaced an old stone statue which is said to have existed in the IXth century. Its origin is not known, but the favorite tradition is that it represents a youthful Duc de Brabant, whose father dying left him an infant of three years under the regency of his mother, the Duchesse Lutgarde. The neighboring Comte de Malines coveted the fair inheritance, declared war against the boy‐duc, and approached Brussels, determined to take it by force of arms. The Brabançons flew to defend the rightful heir, and, when the decisive day arrived, they besought the duchesse to let them carry the little fellow in his cradle, and suspend it from a great oak‐tree that overlooked the battle‐field. The duchesse in tears consented, accompanied them to the field of Ransbeek, and remained by the tree, from the highest branch of which the cradle was suspended.

The battle raged with fury; three times the Brabançons were driven back to the tree, but the sight of the brave little boy, who looked on with intense interest, never exhibiting fear or impatience, spurred them on to fresh efforts; at last the day was won, and the cradle carried back in triumph to Brussels, the duchesse radiant with joy. To commemorate the event, the oak‐tree was transplanted to Brussels, placed at the corner of a street, since then called Rue du Chêne, and the statue erected at its side; in the course of time, the tree has disappeared, but the statue remains, the object of undying love and interest. To steal it is considered an impossibility; in 1585, he was seized and carried off to Antwerp, but was speedily recaptured and brought home in triumph by a small party of Bruxellois; again he was taken away in a baggage‐wagon by the English troops after the battle of Fontenoy, and, on being recovered, was allowed for a short time to delight by his presence the inhabitants of Grammont, until he was reclaimed by the Bruxellois. In 1747, he was stolen by some soldiers of Louis XV., and again a few years later by two English soldiers, who, however, found him too heavy to carry away; the last time he was disturbed was in 1817, but the same good fortune attended him, and he was again recovered, to the great joy of the Bruxellois, who look upon him as the good genius of the city, and consider his loss a public calamity.

In the XVIth century, Louvain and Brussels gave him two splendid dresses for fête‐days; Charles V. presented him with a complete suit, and settled a pension on him. In 1698, the Elector of Bavaria not only gave him a uniform, but invested him with a military order, and appointed a valet‐de‐ chambre to wait on him. Peter the Great visited him, and added to his pension. In 1747, Louis XV. made him a knight, and solemnly decorated him with the Order of S. Louis, at the same time presenting him with a suit of gold‐laced uniform, a _chapeau‐bros_, and a sword; and in 1780 he was the first who wore the national cockade of Brabant, hence his present title, “Le Premier Bourgeois de Bruxelles.”

On national fêtes, and during the _Kermesse_ in July, he is always dressed in the uniform of the Garde Civique, which he has worn since 1830, his numerous orders displayed on his infant breast. In addition to these gifts, several persons have made him presents, while some have actually remembered him in their wills. He thus possesses a positive revenue which is regularly paid, a treasurer who is responsible for his disbursements, a lawyer, and a valet‐de‐chambre; and let any stranger beware of ever speaking disrespectfully or slightingly to any Bruxellois of the “Premier Bourgeois de Bruxelles”!

Brussels abounds in charitable institutions and convents of every order; some are peculiar to the place. There is but one house in the world of the “Dames de Berlaimont”—an order of canonesses who follow the rule of S. Augustine—and it was founded by the Comtesse de Berlaimont, whose husband was one of the great officers of the court of Charles V. It is eminently aristocratic in its design. Any number of quarterings was required for the fair candidates in the palmy days of the old régime, but ideas have been modified by the wheel of the revolution, and now, if the head and heart are right, whether the blood is more or less blue is not strictly considered. The convent is splendid, the canonesses charming, and the education received by the young ladies under their charge leaves nothing to be desired.

Convents of Poor Clares are now few and far between; one is still found in Brussels. The rule is very strict—the strictest, we believe, for women in the world, not even excepting those of the Trappistines and Carmelites. It is forbidden to see strangers, but the superioress graciously relented in our favor, drew aside the heavy serge curtain behind double iron grilles armed with spikes, and told us we could look at her, but not speak. This announcement was made before the curtain was drawn. We kept profound silence, and for a few moments contemplated the figure, that stood motionless and speechless. What could have carried her there, from family, from home with all its charms? At the moment of solemn choice, the world enters but little into the thoughts: it is the strong ties that God and nature have implanted in the human heart that are the hardest to unloose.

She had left all for the rigid rule, for the self‐denying life, of a Poor Clare; the happy unbroken sleep of youth for the broken night of prayer and meditation; and, when sleeping, not even to lie down, but to sit half‐ upright; to go barefooted, never to touch meat, never to speak—only imagine it, a woman, and never to speak!—never to her fellow‐beings—ever to God. It was for him she had left home and friends, to find her eternal home and the never‐failing Friend; to be thirteen hours a day in prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, to expiate by her life the sins of the world around her. It is a wonderful life, a supernatural life; but, when truly desired, supernatural grace is given to lead it courageously to the grave.

The oldest church in Brussels is Notre Dame de la Chapelle, in the Rue Haute, which derives its name from having been at first a simple oratory in which the great S. Boniface, the apostle of Germany, had said Mass. The style is Gothic, and recently the choir, which is very fine, has been restored; it had been disfigured by an atrocious high altar in the style of the Renaissance; but in this reign of good taste it was decided to remove it, and in making the changes it was found there was a false wall, which, on being destroyed, disclosed the beautiful circle of the apse, which is remarkable for having the presbyterium and the credence‐table cut in the wall, something that has only been found in two other churches—one in France, another in Germany.

Notre Dame des Victoires—or Notre Dame du Sablon, as it is more generally called from its situation on the Place du Petit Sablon—is in the form of a Latin cross, with a polygonal apse to the choir. The Place du Petit Sablon during several centuries was the favorite residence of the aristocracy, and is yet surrounded by the Hôtel de Merode, and the palace of the Duc d’Aremberg, which was formerly occupied by Comte d’Egmont. Consequently in this church the monuments are very fine, especially the mortuary chapel of the Princes of Tour and Taxis, in which is an exquisite statue of S. Ursula, by Duquesnoy, and the tombs of the De Hornes, d’Egmonts, and De Chimay.

The beautiful collegiate church of SS. Michel and Gudule is built on a height formerly called Mont St. Michel, and its great towers dominate the city, and can be seen from every point. Its plan is cruciform. The choir is entirely surrounded by chapels, from which it is separated by double rows of columns; on one side is the Chapel du Saint‐Sacrement de Miracle, on the other the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin, behind that of S. Mary Magdalen. It is a magnificent church, one of the richest in Belgium, and the vestments and appointments are superb. The laces are a treasure in themselves—laces which now cannot be bought, are used in the sanctuary, and the vestments and antependiums are of corresponding magnificence. One antependium, which is the Lamb surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists, is considered the finest piece of embroidery in Belgium.

But the glory of S. Gudule is not the gold, and silver, and lace, but the Très‐Saint‐Sacrement de Miracle, which is there preserved, and which is the object of the profoundest love and veneration. For it did Charles V. build the exquisite chapel whose four splendid windows were presents from his sisters, the Queens of Portugal and Hungary, his brother Ferdinand, King of the Romans, and Francis I. of France. Sovereigns, princes, nobles, and people for five hundred years have adored the sacred Body of our Lord, so cruelly profaned and outraged by the Jews, on Good Friday of 1370, who on that day, the day of Redemption, assembled in their synagogue, and stabbed the consecrated hosts stolen from S. Catherine’s, and, when they stabbed them, the blood which had flowed for them on Calvary, flowed again beneath their sacrilegious hands.

Day and night reparation is offered; the synagogue is now a _chapelle expiatoire_, attached to which is a community for perpetual adoration, and the Confrérie du Très‐Saint‐Sacrement de Miracle, established in S. Gudule, embraces thousands. The Duc d’Aremberg gave the monstrance, which is a cross of diamonds, surmounted by a triple crown of diamonds, from which hangs a little ship of the same precious stones, presented by the captain and crew of a vessel, in gratitude for delivery from shipwreck. Marie Antoinette sent her wedding necklace of diamonds to be suspended around it, and the lamps around the sanctuary are kept burning by the children of the family d’Aremberg.

The great ornament of the nave is the pulpit, elaborately and exquisitely carved in oak by Verbruggen in 1699, originally in the church of the Jesuits, in Louvain, and, on the suppression of the Order, given to S. Gudule by Maria Theresa, in 1776. The lower part represents the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise by the angel of the Lord, armed with a flaming sword. On the left is seen Death gliding around with his dart. The pulpit itself, in the hollow of the globe, is supported by the tree of knowledge, crawling up which is the serpent, while on the extreme summit stands the Blessed Virgin holding her divine Son, whom she is assisting to bruise the serpent’s head with a large cross. On either side the railing of the steps is formed by a hedge in which numerous birds are enjoying themselves; on the side of Adam are the eagle, the jay, and a monkey; while in the vicinity of Eve are the peacock, the ape, and the parrot.

And why these birds are there is the result of a little domestic disagreement between the artist Henri Verbruggen and his wife Martha Van Meeren, whom he married, hoping to find a tenth muse, but who only proved a prosaic everyday somebody, who fretted herself to death because Henri loved pleasure even more than art, and, while amusing himself with his friends, forgot there was no money in the house, nothing in the larder, nothing wherewith to dress Mme. and Mlle. Verbruggen. Poor Martha, who loved order, and would have been the treasure of some honest burgher, only provoked and irritated Henri by her occasional plain statement of facts. Affairs were in this sad condition when the Jesuits of Louvain, knowing the splendid talent of Verbruggen, ordered a pulpit for their church. The artist was enchanted. Here was a field for his genius; he immediately conceived an admirable work, which should contain, as in a book, the whole history of the Christian religion.

Said he, “I will make a globe, which will represent the earth, under which I will place Adam and Eve, the moment after their fatal disobedience, which entailed on us such misery. This globe will be the pulpit, the canopy of heaven will cover it, the tree of knowledge will overshadow it, around which will creep the serpent, and above, Mary, crowned with stars, the moon at her feet, her infant Son before her, will bruise the serpent’s head with the cross. By the side of the man I will place the cherubim with the flaming sword; near the woman, young and beautiful, hideous death—that will be a contrast!”

The artist commenced his work with ardor. The wood grew animated beneath his fingers. But pleasure for ever distracted him; the more people admired, the more he amused himself. Martha was miserable; she could see no hope of order and plenty. Irritated by the complaints of his wife, Verbruggen determined to revenge himself in his _chef‐d’œuvre_, and so perpetuate his vengeance. He was making the stairs of the pulpit. In his angry malice, Verbruggen thought he would punish Martha by placing satirical emblems to characterize women. On the staircase, by the side of Eve, who has just sinned, and who still holds the apple, he placed, as symbols, a peacock for pride, a squirrel for destructiveness, a cock for noise, an ape for malice—four defects of which poor Martha was totally innocent.

Man he made with pleasure. On his side he placed, first, an eagle, to typify genius—but just then Martha bade adieu to the world and her troubles, and Verbruggen was a happy widower. Too late, the sculptor understood his loss; the gentle, patient wife was gone, and now he only remembered her good qualities; his courage and energy forsook him; he could not work. Months rolled on; his friends pitied him, and tried to rouse him from his deep despondency.

“You weep for Martha,” said they; “there are others as good; you are only thirty‐six—marry Cecile Byns. She is joyous and lively like you. She will be a mother to your daughter, a charming companion for you.”

Verbruggen listened to the good advice; he asked the hand of Cecile Byns, who was one of those women that rule while laughing, that carry the point while appearing to submit. Cecile knew her power over Verbruggen, and made him obey.

“I love you,” said she, “but I will not marry you until the work which will make me proud of the name of Verbruggen is finished.”

“Only say the word,” replied Henri, “and I will complete it.”

Accompanied by her mother, she visited his _atelier_. She asked the explanation of the emblems he had placed on the side of Eve. The sculptor blushed.

“When I made what astonishes you,” he stammered, “I did not know Cecile Byns.”

“Very well,” replied the young lady; “but after the symbols of our defects, which perhaps we have not, how do you intend to designate your own noble sex?”

“I had just commenced,” he answered, blushing redder than before. “You already see the eagle, perhaps it typifies vanity.”

“Not at all,” interrupted Cecile. “The eagle is a bird of prey, an emblem of brutal tyranny. What do you intend adding?”

Verbruggen was silent. Cecile continued: “To be just to men, as you fancied you were towards us, you will place near the eagle a fox, a symbol of vain gossip; a monkey eating grapes, for drunkenness; a jay, for foolish pride. You must avow, my dear Verbruggen, these defects belong to men as much as the faults you have given to us, and which adorn the other staircase. And now, when this great work is completed, I will accompany you to the altar.”

The sculptor did not reply. He obeyed, fulfilled faithfully the orders given, and received for reward the hand of Cecile Byns; since which happy event he was never known to offer any further insult to the devout female sex.

And so the pulpit was finished and placed in the church of the Jesuits in Louvain, where it was the object of universal admiration, as it still continues to be in beautiful S. Gudule the pride and joy of Brussels.

Sayings Of S. John Climacus.

It is better to displease our relatives than displease God.

Obedience is simply going about anything without any judgment of our own.

Let your conscience be the mirror in which you behold the nature of your obedience.

A new wound is easily closed and healed; but the old wounds of the soul are cured, if ever, with great difficulty.

He is truly virtuous who expects his death every day; but he is a saint who desires it every hour.

Marriage In The Nineteenth Century.

“Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass.”—Matt. xxiv. 35.

It is only truth that is immutable in this world, and only truth’s representative that dare speak to‐day the same language it spoke eighteen, twelve, or three centuries ago.

Truth cannot progress, for it partakes of the nature of God’s perfection; it is not an ideal of our own evolving, susceptible of improvement as our knowledge grows wider, but a type towards which we are, on the contrary, making slow stages of assimilation. Of all individual parts of truth, hardly one of which remains in our day unassailed, none is so fiercely attacked as the truth about marriage. And yet, as we have shown in a previous paper,(232) almost every argument against it has repeatedly been put forward by barbarians and Romans, Byzantine emperors and feudal chiefs, and borne out by all the imposing display of military force, legal servility, and even ecclesiastical truculence. One might almost say of the agitation against marriage in our day, “What has been will be, and what will be has been.” If it is no longer in the individual passions of kings and nobles that the conflict centres, it is still a “sovereign” who plays the part of Philip Augustus or Henry VIII.—the “sovereign people.” Instead of one mighty colossus, it is a legion of personally obscure individuals which the church finds opposed to her; but the principle is the same, the issue is identical. What councils and embassies did formerly is now done oftener and in privacy; new agencies have widened the possibilities of communication, of discussion, and of adjustment, and causes are more rapidly multiplied, as well as more speedily settled. The press has lent its power to the altar, and redeemed, in part, its too well‐earned reputation as a pander and a tempter; and besides these new helps, we have, as of old, all those oft‐tried resources of personal eloquence, canonical censures, and grievous penances.

Still the question is exactly the same in the nineteenth as it was in all preceding centuries: Shall passion or reason rule mankind? Shall the most sacred of all rights of property be protected and maintained, or shall communism be allowed gradually to extirpate the human race?

The historian Rohrbacher, whom we have often quoted in the paper referred to above, specially insists upon the confusion which the legalized disruption or total disregard of the marriage vow would introduce into society, and supports his opinion by that of De Maistre. He also adduces the argument that, since the creation of man in the earthly Paradise was a perfect and complete act, and only one woman was there joined to one man, therefore the union of one man and one woman was distinctly God’s type of what he meant all future unions to be. We might speak of many Scripture proofs of the original institution of marriage being a state of perpetual monogamy until death, but such proofs would involve too lengthy a sketch of _one_ portion of the subject, and this aspect has been so often discussed that we turn with a feeling of relief to any less hackneyed view of the question.

Speaking broadly, we may say that the Hebrews were the first, as they were for a long time the only, people whose laws protected both the honor and the property of women. Because they did so, they were also most stringent as regards the tie of marriage. Again, with them ancestry and descent were of paramount importance, and every family jealously guarded its record and registers; this also implied a strict protection of marriage, and, in fact, would have been impossible without it. Even when dispensations were allowed the Jews “because of the hardness of their hearts,” the son of the first wife was not to be put aside for the son of the second, if the latter were more pleasing to her husband than the former, and this because the sacred rights acquired at her betrothal were absolutely inalienable.(233) In the marriages mentioned in the Old Testament, the consent of the woman is always formally asked,(234) and she is considered competent to inherit property and transfer it to her husband.(235)

Among other nations of antiquity, the more truth was obscured in their religious forms, the more degraded became their ideal of marriage. This is patent even among such civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans; the whole of mythology is a deification of the passion of lust, and a caricature on marriage. Still, where greater genius abounds, there also we find glimpses of a higher morality. For instance, in Homer’s magnificent poems, conjugal love and fidelity stand out nobly as the themes of his especial admiration. It would require a thorough examination of many of the passages of the _Iliad_, and greater space than we have now before us (since this idea can only be used here as a collateral one), to bring out the full force of this striking fact, and some day perhaps it may be our good fortune to return to this topic; suffice it to say at present, that any one who reads Homer attentively will be struck by the majestic attitude of Juno, the constant protectress of the Greeks, and by the hearty sympathy shown by the poet in a struggle undertaken purely to vindicate the dignity of marriage and the rights of hospitality. This is perhaps even more obvious from the fact that even the good personages of the poem, the self‐sacrificing and devoted Andromache, the noble Hector, the infirm and guiltless Priam, are all included in the sweeping misfortune which is the swift and just retribution of the cowardly rape of Helen. The vindication of the principle of marriage is evident, while in the _Odyssey_ its glorification is even more obvious. This illustration, for which we have to thank a very zealous and learned religious whose kindness put the suggestion entirely at our own disposal, is one which it is worth while for thoughtful persons to consider, as it gives a far greater moral importance, and consequently a more perfect artistic interest, to one of the few colossi of the intellectual world.

The law of Jesus Christ succeeded the preparatory dispensation of Moses, and perfected all its enactments, marriage among the rest. It gave the marriage contract an added dignity by making it the image of the union—single and indivisible—of Christ and the church, and by elevating it into a sacrament; in other words, a means of sanctifying and special grace. In this is certainly the secret of the church’s inflexibility with regard to marriage. Since by it a distinct and sacramental grace was vouchsafed, it followed that this grace in itself was sufficient to enable the contracting parties, provided they faithfully corresponded to it, to remain holily in the state of matrimony until death; so that, whenever any serious breach took place between them, the church could reasonably argue that the fault lay with their dispositions, not with the contract itself. In the old law, marriage, though holy, was not a sacrament, and was susceptible of greater relaxations; but in the new law, with a higher dignity added to it, and more abundant grace attached to it, it is too strong to need concessions and too noble to wish for them.

The Hebrews also, in propagating their own race, used the only means then in their power of propagating the knowledge of the true God; but in the new dispensation we have substituted a generation according to the spirit for the previous generation according to the flesh. Polygamous marriages among the Jews were a mysterious channel provisionally used for the increase and maintenance of God’s worship upon earth; but, since the coming of Christ, men have been won by the Word of God, the preaching of his servants, the sufferings of his martyrs, and the learning of his disciples. Those who are now constantly born into his fold are born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”(236) Having said so much upon the historical and Scriptural aspect of marriage, we leave it to others to dispute the particular meaning of such and such texts, and the particular inferences to be drawn from the context, and go back to the church’s firm stand upon this matter.

Not only has she been the foremost champion of the integrity of marriage in past ages, but she is now almost its only one. No body of such force or numbers exists in the world, which alone gives her the priority among the upholders of Christian marriage; and when the tenets of the few other bodies to whom marriage is sacred are examined, they will be found to be inspired and created by her principles, so far as they refer to this matter.

Of the Anglican communion, especially in its more advanced branches, it is sufficient to say that, having better than any other body preserved the forms, it has as its reward attained to more of the spirit, of a “church,” and consequently inculcates a higher morality. But the following testimony, which, from the name of the sheet furnishing it (the _Reformed Missionary_), we suppose represents some other Protestant body, is more interesting because more unexpected. A Catholic paper of Nov. 16, 1872, the _Standard_, has preserved this testimony for us. Under the title of “The Divorce Question Again,” it discusses church authority and its relation to the civil law, and uses the following strong language: “Spiritual interests and spiritual _discipline_ belong to that supernatural order of grace which has its home in the bosom of the Christian church.... There are many things besides loose divorce legislation which the state either tolerates or legalizes, but which the church cannot sanction or countenance for a single instant without committing spiritual suicide. And if the state should expressly dictate to the church a line of action at variance with the plain teaching of Christ, then it would be our _solemn duty_ to obey God rather than men.... The _church must interpret God’s Word_, and exercise spiritual discipline in accordance therewith, no _matter what course the state may take_ in disposing of kindred questions. As Dr. Woolsey has expressed it: ‘_Whatever be the attitude_ of the state, the church _must stand_ upon the principles of the New Testament as she expounds them, and apply them to all within her reach!’ ”

What is here said of the “state” may be applied to the people, the press, popular license, and all the modern agencies which the evil one has added to his former royal and learned tools. But if among earnest though mistaken Christians we find such auxiliaries as the _Reformed Missionary_ and the eloquent sermons of Anglican divines,(237) we have also to encounter such authorities as the following on the side of passion and licentiousness: “Dr. Colenso, embarrassed by the obstinate adherence to polygamy which he observed among the Kaffirs, came to the resolution, after conference, it is said, with other Anglican authorities of the highest rank, to remove the difficulty by a process which, though adopted in a well‐known case by Luther and Melancthon, had not previously received the official sanction of Anglican bishops. As polygamy would not yield to Protestantism, Dr. Colenso agreed to consider polygamy ‘a Scriptural mode of existence.’ Here are his own words: ‘I must confess that I feel very strongly that the usual practice of enforcing the separation of wives from their husbands, upon their conversion to Christianity, is quite unwarrantable, and _opposed to the plain teaching of our Lord_.’ And then he proves, of course from the Bible, that polygamy is not inconsistent with the all‐holy religion of the Gospel. Here is the _proof_: ‘What is the use,’ he asks, ‘of our reading to them (the heathen) the Bible stories of Abraham, Israel, and David, with _their_ many wives?’ But Dr. Colenso was not without support in his view on polygamy. ‘The whole body of American missionaries in Burmah,’ he observes, ‘_after some difference of opinion_, came to the unanimous decision to admit in future polygamists of old standing to communion, but not to offices in the church (as if the last were a greater privilege than the first!)’ ‘I must say,’ he continues, ‘that this appears to me the only right and reasonable course!’ ”

At the beginning of this extract, we read that Dr. Colenso was _embarrassed by the obstinate adherence to polygamy_ among the Kaffirs. This means, we infer, that he had originally withstood this heathen practice. Why had he done so? If he believed it sufficiently immoral to attack it, he was guilty of violating his conscience in ceasing his attack; if he had always believed it “Scriptural” or allowable, he was guilty of hypocrisy in attacking it at all. Then, when he asks, “What is the use of our reading to them the Bible stories of Abraham, Israel, and David, with _their_ many wives?” he gives us unconsciously another advantage by tacitly confessing the necessity of a divinely inspired interpreter of the Bible. If Dr. Colenso had been a Catholic, the difficulty would not have existed. Does he suppose that Catholic converts among savage nations do not hear the same stories? But in their case, a teaching and speaking church comes to their rescue, and explains what otherwise would seem dark. It is strange to hear a Protestant Christian, bred up on the rule of “the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible,” hesitate as to the effect of certain stories in the Bible. If the poor Kaffirs were to be evangelized upon the principle that a Bible precedent was practically a permission for all time, they would soon have Judiths and Jaels among them, as well as Abrahams, Israels, and Davids.

In the _Times_ (London) of Dec. 20, 1872, on the occasion of a public “Day of Intercession” for more missionaries, we read the following stringent criticism upon the body which of all others most nearly approaches the ideal of a church: “The Church of England,” says the _Times_, “utterly abandons large regions on the ground that in tropical climes there will be polygamy or an equivalent disregard of the marriage ties, and that no preaching can prevail against it”—a confession of powerlessness which quite coincides with what we have said of Dr. Colenso. Still it is not fair to class the Anglican communion, despite this weak shrinking from a difficult task, with the more systematic deserters from the championship of duty; but, if we are grieved and astonished at her defection under certain circumstances, what shall we say of the following breach of ecclesiastical discipline on the part of those whose very names argue in this case a departure from the path of known duty? In the New York _World_ of the 5th of January, 1873, we read among the announcements of business transacted in the mayor’s office the previous day this startling disclosure: “During the day the mayor was waited upon by a wedding‐party, the principals of which were Michael M’Clannahan and Mary Donovan, who wished to be united in matrimony without going to the trouble of getting up a public church celebration. Mr. H—— performed the duty according to the statute, and the bride and bridegroom went on their way rejoicing.”

It is not for us to judge these persons, nor speculate upon the motives that led them to take such a step; but the occurrence is nevertheless a sign of the demoralization which is every day on the increase among our people.

Polygamy, under the name of Mormonism, is still tolerated and protected in the United States, and the annals of divorce in the states where Mormonism is illegal quite make up the deficiency. In Connecticut, according to the deposition of the Rev. Dr. Woolsey, President of Yale College, made before the Western Social Science Congress in Chicago, the ratio of divorce is one in every _eight_ marriages. We were told by a distinguished New England convert that the Vermont marriage law was practically so lax that the following “cause” for a divorce was considered legal: A couple, not very long married, mutually wished for a separation, simply on the score that they were dissatisfied with their bargain. They went to a lawyer to ascertain the technicalities of the case, and were told—appearances having to be saved!—that some specific cause must be alleged. The easiest was cruelty. But the parties had never been violent; so the lawyer suggested that the husband should, in his presence, give his wife a “blow.” This was soon accomplished by a light slap on the cheek of the willing “victim”; cruelty was pleaded, and the divorce obtained.

In Rhode Island, the proportion of divorces to marriages in 1869 was one to fourteen, and the law of that state leaves it practically to the discretion of the courts to annul any ill‐assorted marriage on the ground of uncongenial temper, desertion, drunkenness, or any sort of bad conduct. In that year, out of 166 divorces, only 66 were granted on the plea of adultery, while it must also be borne in mind that this grave charge is often unjustly and maliciously made to cover some shameful behavior on the part of the plaintiff, or to gratify his or her revenge. Speaking of a clergyman who was reported to have married one man successively to five wives, all of whom were living at the same time, a Protestant paper comments thus on the story: “It may be true or false. _It is not altogether improbable._ It suggests very serious reflections, as indicating what is possible under our laws, and the course things are taking in American society.” The paper goes on to speak of the clergyman’s responsibility in such a case, and although advocating the desirability, “for many reasons,” of the office of solemnizing marriage being “confined _almost entirely_ to ministers of the Gospel,” does not see that it stultifies itself directly after by explaining that “the trust is reposed in them, _not by any right to it on their part, as holding an ecclesiastical office_, but on account of their position and general character(!). They are able to guard marriage, and _give it_ a religious character and sanction. But they act, so far as the law goes, simply as civil magistrates.”

And let us add that here is precisely the evil, and that as long as clergymen are lowered to the level of magistrates, loose morals will never be uprooted.

The _Nation_ of March 2, 1871, has the following:

“We cut from the marriage notices of the _Philadelphia Press_ the following illustration, omitting names, of the way in which attempts to reduce human marriages to the level of those of the lower animals are dressed up in fine language:

“ ‘In Philadelphia, February 23, S—— and S——, the parties protesting against all marriage laws, whether legal or conventional, which subject either the wife or the husband to any control or influence on the part of the other which is not in accordance with the dictates of pure and mutual love.’

“This is, of course, simple ‘pairing.’ Marriage means the assumption by a moral agent of an obligation to perform certain duties, even after they become disagreeable. The arrangement by which the parties live together as long as they find it thoroughly pleasant is that common among birds, beasts, and fishes, and has nothing human about it.”

The _Independent_, a Protestant religious paper, sneers at all barriers to divorce, Catholic, Protestant, or civil, as “shallow,” and declares that “no matter with what solemn ceremony the twain may have been made one, yet when love departs, then _marriage ceases_ and divorce begins.”

A certain unhappy section of those waifs of womanhood, the advocates of woman’s rights, is known as the champion of “free‐love,” that is, in plain words, adultery. Mrs. Stanton, one of the leaders, has said somewhere that “marriage is but a partnership contract terminable at the will of the parties,” and has advocated marriages for three years.

To this last proposition we have only one objection. Why _three_ years? If a marriage is based on mere passion, three _months_ or six at the furthest would be enough to exhaust the cohesive element, for if the adage be true that “_no man is a hero to his valet_,” it is equally certain that no man and woman could by any human possibility live together for that time in the familiar intercourse implied by marriage, without discovering to each other certain asperities of temper, inequalities of disposition, in short, all the little meannesses of our poor human nature. This disenchantment, following the close and daily companionship that is almost inevitable in married life, is enough to kill passion, though it cannot even daunt principle. Again, in a marriage based on passion, the satiety that follows in the train of unlawful love would be reproduced, and would break up the connection in far less than three years. In fact, when we come to sift the question, we find that, putting aside the religious spirit presiding over marriage, that state of life has no appreciable sign to distinguish it from the score of illicit connections punished by law or branded by society. We find here almost a parallel to the question lately agitated in England among Episcopalians, as to the reason why the Church of England should be called a “church,” and not, like all other independent Protestant bodies, a “sect.” We ask, What is to distinguish such a “marriage” as our modern reformers advocate from the “_liaisons_” at which society pretends to be so virtuously shocked? Where is the intrinsic difference between a woman who sells her honor to many men at once and one who surrenders it to a single man at a time for just that period during which pleasure shall keep her constant to him?

Another form of attack upon the sanctity of marriage is the trade of the great journals in daily advertisements such as these, which meet our eyes every morning:

“Absolute divorces legally obtained in different states. Desertion, etc., sufficient cause. No publicity. No charge until divorce is obtained. Advice free.

——, _Attorney_, —— Broadway.”

Or, with slight variations, thus:

“Also Commissioner for every State.

——, _Counsellor‐at‐Law_, —— Broadway.”

Here we see the press and the law conspiring to lend aid—and, more than that, encouragement—to the loosest and most devastating of passions. Then, again, the tone of the newspapers with regard to moral irregularities is a painful sign of the times. Thus we read in a great “daily”:

“Out West they call divorces ‘escapes.’ A speedy and safe ‘escape’ is guaranteed for a very low figure, and, _as usual_, a great many parties figure for it.”

There is a levity about such remarks that is saddening, when taken in connection with the future of a great people.

The morbid curiosity of the public is thus excited under the convenient plea of satisfying it, while, with regard to the institution of marriage itself, the saying is exemplified, “Give a dog a bad name, and then shoot him.” Marriage is ridiculed, conjugal affection put down as antiquated, home‐lovingness pitied as old‐fashioned, family reunions voted dull, and, as a natural consequence, youth is more or less alienated from the unfashionable circle. It is easy, then, to turn on marriage as a principle, remove the stumbling‐block altogether, paint in seductive colors a substitute for home, and familiarize the public with so‐called legal but transient unions. Once this principle is established in the abstract, it will be merely a question of time as to its practical extension. Granted that a man or woman may change companions as often as they choose, who is to regulate _how_ often? Like the husband of Scheherazade in the _Arabian Nights_, every day? Why not? Again, if one man may have many “wives,” why should not a woman have many “husbands”? And so on _ad infinitum_ the license might spread unchecked, till there would be as many conflicting interpretations of marriage as there are already of the Bible. Absolute communism would be quite a logical sequence, and, in a society so utterly confused as to parentage, there could be little question as to inheritance!

Christian marriage, on the contrary, has both a social and a sanitary, as well as a religious aspect. It creates a strong and healthy race, and at the very outset of each man’s career gives him a position by investing him with a responsibility. He feels that the pride which his old father and mother have in him must not be shamed; that the honor of his family is bound up in his actions; and that his behavior may influence for good or for evil both the moral and temporal prospects of his near kindred. A man so weighted feels a just pride, which, in default of higher motives, may even yet guide him into greatness; and though such a man may yield to temptation, fall into vice, and disgrace himself, so much at least of his early training will survive as to make him feel keenly the shame of his position. This alone has saved hundreds. It has been the serpent in the wilderness to many, but it would no longer be an imaginable motive were the ideal of Christian marriage, with its attendant responsibilities, to be swept away. There is another aspect under which the frequency of divorce and the condoned irregularities of intercourse between the sexes are a constant threat to public security—we mean in provoking murder. Three parts of the fearful murders committed in New York, and also in many other parts of the Union, are traceable more or less to ill‐assorted marriages and a spirit of unchristian rebellion against lawful restraints. Lately there has been a glaring case in point, the details of which are fresh in the memory of every one. A man is deliberately shot dead on the very threshold of what is practically a “Divorce Court”; the murderer is a brutal husband incensed at the victim’s testimony against himself. In 1872, three of the most famous New York “characters” figured in a terrible drama ending in death, imprisonment, and disgrace. What was the reason that set two of the most unscrupulous speculators in the world at deadly enmity? The disputed favor of a woman who, according to the new code, only asserts her rights, and claims to change “husbands” as often as she pleases. God help the age and nation in which such things are daily done, and where animal passion laughs in the teeth of law! Who does not see how every right and security hangs by the sanctity of marriage? Marriage, in the proper sense of the word, implies exclusive and permanent possession, and represents the first and greatest right of property. If that property is to be made movable, salable, _takable_, in a word, why not other less sacred and less valuable property also? “Property is theft,” say the socialists, and certainly it is, if we can previously agree to consider marriage so. If all kinds of possessions (life itself included) are to be thus transferable, every individual will be reduced to protect them single‐handed against the world, and from this state of things will grow a monster system of organized murder and legalized rapine. The early Californian society would be nothing to this imaginary community.

In France, Italy, and Spain, the infamous laws not only encouraging but actually enforcing _civil_ marriage are sapping the foundations of society; and in England, a country hitherto held as a model for its conjugal and homely tendencies, the tenets of “free‐love” are making giant inroads into social life, and leavening the mass of everyday literature. Bigamy and divorce are almost worn‐out sensations; they have supplied the ablest pens with thrilling subjects, and have furnished the best theatres with the only dramas that really “take.” Something new and more monstrous yet is needed, and the prurient imagination that shall first succeed in originating a new version of social sin will become the power of the moment.

Such is the present situation. We do not know if there ever has been a worse stage of immorality, except, perhaps, that before the Flood; for at all times of unparalleled license there have been some extenuating circumstances, of which we are afraid we must own ourselves bereft. In the beginning of the Christian era, license was confined to pagans; for in the tottering Roman Empire the Christians were all soldiers of the cross, and their watch for the Bridegroom was too eager to allow them time for temptation; in the transition state that followed, the church’s power already made itself felt, and though barbarian kings still defied their pastors, the latter had at hand ecclesiastical terrors that seldom failed in the end to subdue the half‐converted Goth or Lombard. In the days of the ill‐starred Renaissance, when a spirit of neo‐classicism threatened once more to deify sin under the garb of art, the Council of Trent sat in solemn judgment, and condemned abuses which had unhappily paved an easy way for heresy: while later on, even in the days of the wicked and brilliant court of Versailles, there was found a Bourdaloue to rebuke the public sinners who sat in the high places, and to eulogize Christian marriage in the midst of a gathering which seemed to have utterly forgotten its meaning.

Faith still lingered—the faith that made the middle ages what they were—that faith that condemned public sin to as public a penance, and out of great excesses drew great examples. Louise de la Vallière was almost the last representative of this mediæval spirit of generous atonement; and her heroic words, when told in her cloister of the death of her son, “I should weep rather for his birth than for his death,” were the genuine outcome of a faith that could restore a prostitute to innocence, and place upon a once guilty brow almost a virgin’s crown.

With Voltaire, the work that Luther had begun was perfected, and henceforth it was not Europe that believed, but only a few scattered exiles who here and there kept the lamp of the faith dimly alight in the stifling atmosphere of universal and fashionable doubt. Even among believers the spirit of ready sympathy, with the slightest indication of the church’s unspoken meaning was gone, and there remained only the too self‐conscious effort of unquestioning loyalty. Still, thank God! it did and does remain, and, though shorn of all poetry, it is none the less vigorous in self‐defence. But we may now say that indeed the flood has broken loose, the Philistines are upon us, the whole array of the world’s newest forces is brought to bear against us, and behind her dismantled outposts the church retreats to her citadel, the naked Rock of Peter. Men say that the Council of the Vatican was inopportune, presumptuous, and imprudent; let the world’s gracefully lapsing course be a living refutation to such words. Every outward stay is gone; every difficulty in the way of the reunion of pastors is trebled; every see is hedged about with physical bars that are insurmountable; nothing remains free but what cannot be fettered—the tongue. Who can wonder if the church, in this dire emergency, delegates to one man the power she can no longer collectively exercise in peace? As in old Flemish cities there sits up in the lonely belfry of the cathedral a watcher whose duty it is to guard the city against fire, and to warn the people through a brazen trumpet at which spot he descries the first appearance of danger, so in the heart of the City of God there sits now the watchman whose eye and voice are bound to raise the alarm and direct the remedies through the length and breadth of listening Christendom.

The Council of the Vatican has made the word of the Pope the brazen _tocsin_ of the Christian world.

And now, having said so much of the possibilities opened up by the present lax spirit in morals and equally lax interpretation of what remains in the shape of legal restraints upon vice, let us speak of what Christian marriage ought to be. We will be brief, for the position almost defines itself. Of the indissolubility of marriage under all circumstances, even in the case of one of the parties breaking the marriage vow, we will not speak, nor even of the fidelity which marriage requires in every thought and slightest intention. But we would insist upon that which ensures a happy and holy union, namely, the preliminary motive. We have seen how bad marriages and an unworthy idea of this state of life lead to shame, to socialism, to violence, sometimes to a criminal ending in a common jail; let us see now what leads to bad marriages themselves. Two motives there are—one mercenary, and one sensual. We heard a very impressive Jesuit preacher say a few years ago, in the pulpit of one of the most beautiful and frequented churches in London, that to make a good marriage _both_ prayer _and_ seemly preparation are necessary. Some parents, he said, in their pious anxiety to leave all things to Providence, and to avoid that solicitude for worldly things which the Gospel condemns, neglect to avail themselves for their children of the allowable means and legitimate opportunities of social life; but to these he would say, Remember the words of Christ: “Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”(238) On the other hand, many parents sinned far more grievously and—he was loth to say it—more frequently by altogether leaving the Creator out of the question in the serious matter of their children’s settlement in life. Which of these two extremes is the prominent one in this country? We need not answer the question. We know too well how nine‐tenths of those marriages are made which within a few months or years are broken in the divorce courts, or otherwise dissolved by a shameful _esclandre_. We know how wealth especially, position, associations, beauty, and accomplishments all rank before moral worth in what is called lightly but too truly the “marriage‐market.” We know how marriage is looked forward to through girlhood, not as the assumption of a sacred responsibility, but as the preliminary step to emancipation; we know how it is heartlessly canvassed by men as an expensive but advantageous luxury, its cost being in proportion to the social figure it will enable them to make, but its essence of no deeper moral account to them than the purchase of one trotter or the undertaking of one speculation more or less. We do not say that there are no exceptions to this rule—far from it; but that is just the point: however honorable these cases are, the fact still remains that they _are_ exceptions. Again, where the motive is not directly mercenary, it is often selfish; old men will marry for mere comfort, physical luxury, and the regularity of a well‐ appointed home—things which the presence of a handsome, thoughtful, and tolerably intellectual woman alone can ensure; women no longer young, but still hungering for the whirl of fashion, will marry unsuitably for the sake of an assured position and means to continue the frivolous course of their former lives; in fact, all shallow disguises of selfishness have their representatives in the “marriage‐market,” from that of the millionaire who wants a wife to sit at the head of his table and wear his diamonds, to that of the day‐laborer who wants one to cook his dinner, mend his clothes, and eke out his week’s earnings by her own hard work. Marriages made in this spirit are unblest and always end badly: the millionaire will divorce his wife, and the laborer murder his in a fit of intoxication; the end is the same, the means differ only according as natural temperament and habits of education diverge.

How far otherwise with marriage in the true Scriptural, Christian sense of the word! In poverty or in riches, alike sacred and full of dignity; always conscious of its sacramental crown; ever mindful of its holy ministry, the salvation of two souls, the ladder to heaven of two lives that without it might have made shipwreck of their eternal interests! A thing apart from the common unions of earth, different from a commercial partnership, stronger than a political coalition, holier than even a spontaneous friendship. A thing which, like the riddle of Samson, is “sweetness out of strength,” and whose grace is so sublime that in heaven it can only find one transformation worthy of itself. “You err, not knowing the power of God; for in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven.”(239) We are not told that the tie will be like brotherhood or like friendship; we are left to infer that between husband and wife some more peculiar link will exist hereafter than will be common to us all as children of the same Father, and it is plainly foretold that this relation will be as that of the angels towards each other.

We have only to look into the gospels and the teachings of the Apostle of the Gentiles to see by what means we may in the married state so sanctify our lives as to deserve this heavenly transformation; we have only to read the marriage‐service to learn the plain, straightforward, but most solemn duties, the performance of which will secure us spiritual peace and joy in this life or the next. To use the sacrament worthily, we must come to it with worthy preparation and steadfast intention, first as Christians resolved never to perjure themselves before God, then as rational beings willing to abide by whatever unforeseen consequences their deliberate vow may entail in the future. For it is an idle pretext to allege that, if one party breaks the engagement, the other is _de facto_ absolved from it. Where in the formula, Catholic or Protestant, is this proviso? The only qualifying sentence is this, “Until death do us part.” How, then, can any reasonable person interpret “death” to mean sin, incompatibility, or any other incidental unpleasantness? We think that those who are so ready to foist unwarrantable meanings on the plain and naked oath they have sworn in full possession of their senses at the altar, would hardly be the persons we should like to trust as men or women of unimpeachable honor in the ordinary transactions of life.

If mercenary motives are uppermost in the majority of marriages in this age and in this nation, sensuality is none the less responsible for a share of the misery attendant upon modern unions. We have already spoken of the evil of marriages founded on passion, and of the shameful way in which the colloquial adage, “Marry in haste, and repent at leisure,” is thus frequently illustrated. To this also the remedy lies in a serious Christian spirit of preparation for marriage. The root of all evil developments in the relations between the sexes lies in the early education of the contracting parties, and it is here that the only radical cure can be tried. The church bids her children be especially circumspect at the juncture of marriage, but she also teaches them to reverence the sacrament from childhood upward as a type of the union between herself and her divine Spouse. If, as children, marriage appears to us in the shape of the angel of home, watching over the existence it has created, and dignifying the parental authority it has built up; if in youth the goal of marriage is looked forward to as the _toga virilis_ of life, the reward of a dutiful childhood, the ennobling badge of our enrolment among the soldiers of the cross, then and only then will our country find in us efficient citizens, earnest patriots, and reliable defenders. If among men there is revived the chivalrous spirit of deference and forbearance towards women which sealed the middle ages as a charmed cycle among all divisions of time, and among women there is cultivated that generous and true womanliness which made SS. Monica and Paula, and Blanche of Castille, the typical heroines of the wedded state, then may we expect to see “a new heaven and a new earth.” Marriage means reverence for each other on the part of the persons married, as representing in themselves the sacrament typical of Christ’s union with the church; it means reverence for the children who are entrusted to their care by God and their country, and whom they are bound by the solemn adjuration of Christ not to scandalize; it means reverence for themselves, as the tabernacles of a special grace and the progenitors of new worshippers at God’s feet, new subjects of the kingdom of heaven. It is the woman especially who is bound to feel and express this reverence, for woman is, as the French poetically say, the priestess of the ideal. Besides, the highest perfection ever reached in the married state was reached by a woman, the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God. Among married saints there have always been more women canonized than men. The women of a nation form the men; and, if marriage is to be reformed, it must be done first through the women. We hope and pray that it may soon be so, but we fear that outside the church, where the reform is, in the abstract, not needed, there is not sufficient impetus to ensure its being made. We say in the abstract, because practically there are many marriages made among Catholics, celebrated in Catholic churches, and decorously observed through the course of a blameless life, which yet call loudly for reform, and sadly lack the noble Christian spirit that made perfect the unions of Delphina and Eleazar, and of S. Louis of France and Margaret of Provence. But however deficient in some cases our practice may unhappily be, our doctrine remains ever unchanged, and our laws ever inflexible. Thanks to the church, marriage is still recognized as an act not purely animal nor yet purely civil; and, thanks to the infallibility of the church and her calm expectancy of eternal duration, it will remain to the end of time an honored institution. If threatened, it will still live; if derided, it will nevertheless conquer. Christian marriage is the mould in which God has chosen to throw the lava of natural passion, and without whose wholesome restraints we should have a shapeless torrent of licentiousness, scathing mankind with its poisonous breath, carrying away all landmarks of ancestry, property, and personal safety, and finally exterminating the human race long before the appointed time for the dread judgment in the Valley of Josaphat.

A Pearl Ashore.

By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”

If one should wish to enjoy perfectly a fugue of Bach’s, this is perhaps as good a way as any: listen to it on a warm afternoon, in a Gothic Protestant church, in a quiet city street, with no one present but the organist and one’s self. If any other enter, let him be velvet‐footed, incurious, and sympathetic. It would be better if each listener could suppose himself to be the only listener there.

The wood‐work of the church is dark, glossy, and richly carved. Rose, purple, and gold‐colored panes strain the light that enters, full and glowing up in the roof, but dim below. On the walls, tinted with such colors as come to us from Eastern looms, and on the canvas of the old painters, are texts in letters of dull gold—those beautiful letters that break into bud and blossom at every turn, as though alive and rejoicing over the divine thought they bear. A sunbeam here and there, too slender to illumine widely, points its finger at a word, touches a dark cushion and brings out its shadowed crimson, or glimmers across the organ pipes, binding their silver with gold, as though Light would say to Song, “With this ring I thee wed!”

Those clustered, silvery pipes are surrounded by a border of dark, lace‐ like carving, and a screen of the same hides the keyboards. Through this screen shines the lamp on the music‐desk. Some one is stirring there. You lean back on the cushions, so that the body can take care of itself. Mentally, you are quiescent with a delightful sense of anticipation. If the situation should represent itself to you fancifully, you might say that your soul is somewhat dusty and weary, and has come down to this beach of silence for a refreshing bath. Knowing what you are to hear, watery images suggest themselves; for in the world of music it is the ocean that Bach gives us, as Beethoven gives us the winds, and Handel the stately‐flowing streams.

We have made a Protestant church our music‐hall, because, though not the dwelling‐place of God on earth, it is often the temple of religious art, and, having nothing within it to which we can prostrate ourselves in adoration, it can yet, by signs and images, excite noble and religious feeling. Indeed, we would gladly banish to such concert‐rooms all that music, however beautiful in itself, which intrudes on the exclusive recollection proper to the house of God.

This, we repeat, is as good a way as any to hear a fugue of John Sebastian Bach’s. So also thought Miss Rothsay; and she was one who ought to know, for she was a professional singer, and as sensitive musically as well could be.

It was an afternoon in early September, and she had only the day before reached her native city, after a prolonged residence abroad. Hers had been that happy lot which seems to be the privilege of the artist: her work, her duty, and her delight were the same. That which she must and ought to do she would have chosen above all things as her recreation. Now, with a perfected voice, and a will to use truly and nobly that gracious power, she had returned to her native land.

Her first contact with the New World had given her a slight jar. Utility seemed to mean here something rough and harsh, and the utility of beauty to be almost unrecognized. She had as yet met with only two kinds of people: those who regarded her talent as beautiful indeed and useful, in so far as it brought her money, but otherwise superfluous; and that yet more depressing class who were enthusiastic in hailing a new amusement, a new sensation, and who valued the singer as a necessity to elegant dissipation. As yet, she had met with no serious disciple of music.

Yet, when she stepped from her door to walk about, to renew her knowledge of familiar scenes, and make acquaintance with changed ones, she was pleased to perceive some of that tranquillity which, in her foreign life, had been so conducive to a steady growth in art. The fine streets she traversed were quiet, distant from the business world, and out of its track. The September air was golden, and the sun so warm as to make the shade welcome. Here and there, through openings between the houses, or at the ends of long avenues, were to be seen glimpses of country; and a thin haze, so exquisite that it might be the cast‐off mantle of Beauty herself, half veiled, while it embellished, the landscape. It was quite in keeping to see an open church door. One who loitered on the steps explained that there was to be an organ recital, but could not say who the organist was to be.

Miss Rothsay entered, scarcely seeing her way at first, seated herself, and looked about. The atmosphere of the place suited her taste. None but noble and sacred images presented themselves. Art was there in its sublimity, and in its naïve simplicity. Here was a form full of austere beauty, there one whose grace verged on playfulness. The scene had the effect of a sacred picture, in the corner of which one can see children playing or birds on the wing.

Miss Rothsay, without knowing it, made, herself, a lovely picture in the place. Her oval, pale face was lighted by liquid gray eyes, now lifted, and drinking in the upper light. On her fair hair was set a foreign‐ looking black hat, turned up over the left temple with an _aigrette_ and feather. A slight and elegant figure could be perceived beneath the dark‐ blue mantle.

Wondering a little, while she waited, who the organist might be, she ran over in her mind those she had known before going abroad. From that, dismissing the present, her thoughts glanced over those she had known abroad, and at last rested on one she had not seen nor heard of for eight years. Eight years before, Laurie had gone to Germany to study, and he was probably there yet. She recollected his face, more youthful than his years, and full of a dreamy beauty; the figure, tall and graceful, yet wanting somewhat in manly firmness. She heard again, in fancy, that changeful voice, so low, eager, and rich‐toned when he was in earnest; she met again the glance of his sparkling blue eyes, full of frankness and enthusiasm. Where was he now?

Had he been a common acquaintance, she would have inquired concerning him freely; but he was a rejected lover, and she would not, by mentioning his name, remind people of that fact. Why had she rejected him? Simply because he had seemed to her not to reach her ideal. It had occurred to her since that time that possibly his manner and not his character had been at fault. At twenty years of age, she had been more mature than he at twenty‐ five. She liked an appearance of dignity and firmness, and had made the mistake often made by those older and wiser than herself, of thinking that dignity of soul must always be accompanied by a grave manner, and that an air occasionally or habitually demonstrative and variable, which is merely temperament, indicates a fickle or superficial mind. Sometimes, indeed, the strongest and most profound feelings, in reserved and sensitive persons, seek to veil themselves under an affectation of lightness or caprice, and the soul looks forth with a sad scorn through that flimsy mask on the hasty and egotistical judge who pronounces sentence against it.

“And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love,”

is true of some of the finest natures.

Miss Rothsay, during these eight years of her separation from Laurie, had more than once felt a misgiving on his account, lest she had done him injustice. Observing and studying the manners of those she met, she saw that what passed for dignity was sometimes only the distrustfulness of the suspicious, the caution of the worldly‐wise, the unsympathizing coldness of the selfish, or the vanity of the conceited. She had lost not only her admiration, but her respect for that unchangeable loftiness which chills and awes the demonstrative into silence; and she had remembered, with a growing regret, Laurie’s cordial ways, that seemed to expect friendliness and sympathy from all, and to appreciate the purity of his soul, that never looked for evil, and turned away from it when it intruded itself, and thus seemed scarcely aware that evil existed. Still she had been too deeply engrossed in her studies to give him much thought, and it was only now that she became conscious of regret.

Meantime, the organist had taken his place, and was arranging his music. The light of the lamp shone on a face wherein were exquisitely blended strength and refinement. One could see there passion purified by prayer, and enthusiasm too deep for trivial excitement. The face showed, too, when studied, that tranquil reserve, not without sadness, which is learned by those who have too often cast their pearls before swine, yet who do not despair of finding sympathy.

He placed the music, sat an instant in fixed recollection, as though he prayed, then lifted his tapering hands, so nervous, light, and powerful, and let them fall on the keys. To the listener beyond the screen, it was as though her reverie had been broken by a burst of thunder. Then the sea rolled in its waves of sound, strong, steady, a long, overlapping rhythm. What did it mean, that fugue? Did it symbolize the swift‐coming assaults of evil that seek to drag the race of man downward, as the persistent sea eats away, grain by grain, the continents? Was it, perhaps, the ceaseless endeavor of the faithful will that, baffled once, returns ever to the charge, and dies triumphantly struggling? Did it indicate the generations of men flowing on in waves for ever, to break at the feet of God; or the hurrying centuries, cut short, at last, by eternity? However it might be interpreted, the music lifted and bore the listener on, and the silence that followed found her otherwhere than the last silence had left her. She was the same in nature, but her mood was higher; for music does not change the listener, it merely intensifies what is positive in his nature, whether it be good or bad, to its superlative degree.

Vibrating and breathless still with the emotion caused by that grand composition so grandly rendered, Miss Rothsay perceived a slip of paper on the cushion, and reached her hand for it. It proved to be a programme of the Recital. She glanced along the list, and read the name of the organist at the end—it was Duncan Laurie!

She heard, as in a dream, the soft‐toned Vorspiele that followed, and only came back to music when the third number, a toccata, began. But the music had now to her a new meaning. It seemed to triumph over and scorn her. She heard through that melodious thunder the voice of Nemesis.

But when the closing piece, a noble concerto by Handel, sang out, it reproved that fancy of hers. There was no spirit of revenge nor mean triumph in Laurie’s nature.

The audience, small and select, went out quietly. The organist closed the instrument, and prepared to follow, yet waited a moment to recover full consciousness of the everyday world he was going to meet. The air seemed to pulse about him still, and wings of flying melodies to brush his face. Never had he felt less inclined to meet idle compliment or talk commonplace. “I hope no one will wait for me,” he muttered, going out into the vestibule.

But some one was waiting, a pale‐faced, lovely woman, who looked at him, but spoke not a word. The look, too, was short; for when he exclaimed and reddened up to the eyes, and held out a trembling hand, her eyes dropped.

There is a commonplace which is but the veil to glory or delight, like Minerva in her russet gown. The conventional questions that Laurie properly asked of the lady, as they walked on together, were of this sort. When did she come home? was as one should say, When did Joy arrive? When do the stars come? And the steamer that brought her could be as worthy of poetical contemplation as the cloud that wrapped a descending Juno, or the eagle that bore away a Ganymede.

Not long after, when some one asked them who was their favorite composer, each answered “Bach!” and, when alone together, each asked the other the reason for that answer.

“Because,” said the lady, blushing, “it was on the waves of one of Bach’s fugues that I reached the Happy Islands.”

“And because,” returned the lover, “when some of Bach’s music had rolled back into the ocean, it left a pearl ashore for me.”

The Benefits Of Italian Unity.

From The Etudes Religieuses.

Revolution is a dangerous syren. The nations of the earth have yielded to her seductions, but the day is coming when with one voice they will curse the great enchantress who has lured them on to apostasy. For a century she has not ceased to announce an era of prosperity to the rising generation, but at length we see her promises are as deceptive as her principles are corrupt. From the heart of all nations rise up groans and maledictions against her teachings, and against her agents who have betrayed the hopes of their partisans, brought death instead of life, ruin instead of prosperity, and dishonor instead of glory. In a word, revolution is in a state of bankruptcy. This is not acknowledged by the politicians of the _tiers‐parti_ and their followers. They still continue to proclaim the sovereignty of the “immortal principles,” declare revolution a success, celebrate its material and moral benefits, and boast that “real social justice was _for the first time_ rendered in 1789”—after eighteen centuries of Christianity! But people are ceasing to be duped by any such political sophisms; they are beginning to regret profoundly the peace, order, and security, and all the benefits assured to the world by the supremacy of religion, and lost through social apostasy. The wisest of politicians are tired of revolutions. People who have lost their sacred heritage, and find themselves deprived of the highest blessings of life, are beginning to remember their baptismal engagements, and to feel the necessity of putting an end to revolution, and returning to the social order established of God. The prodigal son, famished with hunger, makes an energetic resolution: _Surgam et ibo ad patrem!_ Hesitation is no longer possible. Weary of your modern theories, we will return to our Father’s house—to Christ and his church!

The man who comprehended most thoroughly the Satanic nature of the revolutionary spirit—Count Joseph de Maistre—had an intuitive assurance of the calamities that would avenge the disregard of the laws of order, and lead future generations back to the sacred principles of their ancestors. The foresight and warnings of this eminent writer are well known. Addressing the French, he says: “Undeceive yourselves, at length, as to the lamentable theories that have disgraced our age. You have already found out what the promulgators of these deplorable dogmas are, but the impression they have left is not yet effaced. In all your plans of creation and restoration you only leave out God, from whom they have alienated you.... How has God punished this execrable delirium? He has punished it as he created light—by a single word—_Fiat!_—and the political world has crumbled to atoms.... If any one wishes to know the probable result of the revolution, they need only examine the point whereon all its factions are united. They all desire the degradation, yea, the utter subversion, not only of the monarchy, but of Christianity; _whence it follows_ that all their efforts must finally end in the triumph of Christianity as well as the monarchy.”(240) In these few words the great philosopher gives us a complete history of the era of revolution in the past as well as the future. He declares it a widespread overturning of order, necessarily followed by terrible misfortunes, till a counter‐stroke turns the nations back to the way appointed by God.(241)

While M. de Maistre was regarding the progress of events from the heights of his genius, he gave the most minute attention to the ravages of the revolutionary spirit in every department. In the _Mélanges Inédits_, for which we are indebted to Count Joseph’s grandson, and which appeared on the very eve of our great disasters (1870), we find more than a hundred pages devoted to reviewing the _benefits_ of the French Revolution. They contain an inventory drawn up by the aid of the republican papers of the time, in which the moral and material results of revolutionary barbarism are attested by the avowal of the barbarians themselves. A certain historian of the Revolution would have done well to examine this catalogue before officially undertaking, in the presence of the National Assembly, the awkward apology so generally known. And what if he had continued to verify the benefits of the revolutionary syren, still beloved of certain politicians, till the end of the year 1872? How glorious would be the balance‐sheet of the “immortal principles” in the eighty‐fourth year of their reign! Every Frenchman knows what it has cost to be the eldest son of the Revolution!—As statistics are held in such high honor in our day, why not draw up the accounts of ’89, and establish clearly the active and passive of the revolutionary spirit now spreading throughout the world?

We lay before our readers some notes that may be of service in this vast liquidation, taken from two valuable works that have been kindly brought to our notice.(242) We do not feel at liberty to designate the eminent person who wrote these _Notes_, which, if we are rightly informed, were first published in the _Messager Russe_. All we feel permitted to state is that we can place full confidence in the probity of this traveller. He belongs to the diplomatic corps, but unfortunately is not of the Catholic religion. We will let him testify for himself. It will at once be seen by the frequent quotations we shall make that he is a man of superior mind, decision and honesty of character, and of an upright and incorruptible conscience.

“Eleven years ago, I witnessed the foundation of the kingdom of Italy. I have just seen the work completed—the edifice crowned—Rome made the capital.—My observations have been made in person, and are impartial, as I had no preconceived opinions. My numerous quotations are taken in a great measure from Italian sources, nay, even _the most Italian_. My position as an independent observer, unbiassed by any feeling of responsibility, enables me to judge events in a cooler manner than might be done by an opponent of the various publicists that have treated of the successive phases of the great Italian drama.”(243)

Here, then, is contemporaneous Italy studied by an observer of incontestable impartiality—studied on the spot, and from authentic sources. It is by no means uncommon to hear the correspondents of Catholic journals accused of exaggeration. Certain newspapers under party influence, like the _Journal des Débats_ and the _Indépendance Belge_, are paid to divert public attention from facts that cannot be denied. We are sure the Italo‐Parisian and the Italo‐Belgian press will not say a single word about the _Etudes sur l’Italie contemporaine_.(244)

I.

How shall we characterize the Italian crisis as a whole? Is it merely one of those accidental revolutions which history is full of, or is it a genuine revolution with its systematic hatred of Christian society? Our readers must not be astonished at such a question. I know some Catholics—a little too liberal, it is true—who have not thereon, even in these times, perfectly correct notions. We remember certain unfortunate expressions respecting the governments of the _ancien régime_ which committed the unpardonable fault of injuring Italian liberty, and even respecting that venerable Christian administration that has been dragged through blood and fire. Did not the honorable M. Dulaurier recently confess in an ingenuous manner the illusions he was under before he set foot on Italian soil, and how he believed in the possibility of a reconciliation between the Pope and the excommunicated king? He says he heard on all sides a sentiment to which he gave credence without much reflection: “Why interpose between the two parties contending for Rome? Pius IX. and Victor Emmanuel are both Italians: they will end by settling the difficulty, and we shall trouble ourselves for nothing.” The reality, the sad reality, forces us to a different opinion.

It was a beautiful illusion—once greatly dwelt upon in official papers—to think Piedmont sincerely and uniquely preoccupied about the freedom of Italy; to believe in the Subalpine posture of disinterested chivalry, and in Napoleon III. going to war in a great cause merely for the glory of being a liberator. Doubtless there was, for some time, a liberal party in Italy dreaming at once of a confederacy and of national independence. But Mazzinism and its ideas of unity prevailed, and it was manifest to those whose eyes were not blinded that the Piedmontese government superseded _Giovane Italia_ by taking advantage of the _naïveté_ of honest liberals.(245) All sincere and upright minds must free themselves from so illusive a deception. The mask has fallen off, so must the scales from their eyes. The Italian movement is essentially revolutionary—or Satanic. It is not one of those transformations so frequent in the political life of a nation: it is a work of subversion, a war on the church, a religious persecution, and “pure impurity,” to use Joseph de Maistre’s words.

It has been demonstrated quite recently in this magazine that the whole tendency of the Italian Peninsula, and its providential destiny, are opposed to unity; that the Revolution has done violence to nature and religion, to the institutions and traditions of the past, and to the faith and morals of the people weighed down by the yoke of unity; and that it has lied to history, to the world, and to God. _Les Etudes sur l’Italie contemporaine_ takes a similar view of the case:

“The unity of Italy was not a national necessity; ... the movement was not spontaneous, but forced.... The Piedmontese government has shown some shrewdness (unscrupulous shrewdness) in borrowing its programme from Mazzini. The campaign of 1859 led the way to this political intrigue. As to the nation, it imagined the promised regeneration would produce a new era of happiness when the foreigner was once got rid of. The masses have given in to the ambition of the minority.

“In the transformation of Italy, we see action precede reflection; we see what Frederick the Great said of Joseph II.—the second step taken before the first.... It must be remembered that the geography of Italy was one of the causes of its division, the length being so disproportionate to its width, which prevented a common centre, and led to separate developments and outlets.... Even if railways are now a means of greatly shortening distances, the union of the remote parts ought to be the result of a natural and progressive tendency—not revolutionary.

“The first idea of Rome as the capital sprang from the classics. It was a rhetorical expression (according to Senator Stefano Jacini).... If official Italy had need of Rome, Rome by no means had need of Italy.... And what do they wish to do with Rome? The unionists in favor of a monarchy wish to transform it into a modern capital that it may become the centre of the general action and influence which united Italy is ambitious of exercising in the world. The Mazzinians, the socialist republicans, and the free‐ thinkers wish to make it the centre of the doctrines they are desirous of substituting for Christianity. These new apostles are not agreed among themselves, but they are all fighting in the breach against the Catholic organization, and their real object is the destruction of Christian principles.”(246)

To effect the unification of Italy, it was therefore necessary to conspire against the natural inclinations of the inhabitants, against the rights of local principalities, and against the real interests of the nation, to conspire not only against the temporal, but the spiritual power of the papacy. Where they do not find the normal conditions of assimilation, they do not hesitate to resort to deeds worthy of brigands. Conspirators, alas! have never been wanting in the country of Machiavelli. In the present age they superabound. “It has been the misfortune of Italy—its robe of Nessus—that for twelve years all who have succeeded to power, even the best, have been conspirators.”(247) Yes; and foremost among them is the _great_ and _good_ Cavour, whom a French diplomatist—an honest man, however—has lately depicted, with an enthusiasm that has hardly died away, as struggling to promote the greatness of his country.(248) We do not dispute Cavour’s ability, or his perseverance in striving after a certain end, or his subtleness and patience in the execution of his designs, or his skill in availing himself of the very passions he pretended to yield to. He succeeded—is it not a glorious title to fame?—in keeping Napoleon III. in leading‐strings till a Prussian Cavour is found to continue the _rôle_ and lead the emperor on to Sedan. But herein Cavour showed himself crafty, deceitful, and—why should we not say it?—criminal. Has not M. Guizot called a certain writer a “_malfaiteur de la pensée_?” Besides, Cavour spoke of himself to his friends somewhat as we do. Our French diplomatist, M. Henry d’Ideville, in a curious page of his _Notes Intimes_, lets us into the secrets of the game and those who took part in it.

“You see, my dear d’Ideville (it is Cavour who is speaking), your emperor will never change. His fault is a disposition to be for ever plotting.... With a country as powerful as yours, a large army, and Europe at peace, what is he afraid of? Why is he for ever disguising his intentions, going to the right when he means to turn to the left, and _vice versa_? Ah! what a wonderful conspirator he makes!”

M. d’Ideville is a man of wit. With all possible courtesy, he replied:

“But, M. le Comte, have you not been a daring conspirator also?”

“I? Certainly,” replied M. de Cavour. “I have conspired, and how could I do otherwise at such a time?... We had to keep Austria in the dark, whereas, your emperor, you may be sure, will remain for ever incorrigible. I have known him a long time! To plot, for ever plot, is the characteristic of his nature. It is the occupation he prefers, and he pursues it like an artist—like a _dilettante_. In this _rôle_ he will always be the foremost and most capable of us all.”(249)

US ALL! Yes, there it is ably expressed in a word: all conspirators and accomplices, not to speak of the dupes. On the 24th of March, 1860, M. de Cavour, after signing the treaty that ceded Nice and Savoy to France, approached M. de Talleyrand, and, rubbing his hands, whispered in his ear: “We are accomplices now, baron, are we not?”(250) Alas! wrongfully acquired, and never any benefit, we now see why we have lost Alsace and Lorraine!

The entire route from Turin to Rome is marked by the deeds of these conspirators, by their tricks and intrigues, and by their crimes and double‐dealings, which have resulted in the profit of Piedmont and Prussia, and the disgrace of our poor France. M. d’Ideville’s conscience evidently reproached him at last for having liked Cavour so well, and for imprudently interesting himself in the Italian scheme. The other diplomatist, who has anonymously given his _Etudes sur l’Italie_ to the public, seems never to have had the least sympathy with the iniquitous and sacrilegious ambition of the Sardinian government. It is true he does not belong to the French diplomacy infatuated with the ideas of ’89!(251) He finds nothing seductive in the policy of the conspirators. The fiction disguised under the attractive title of national rights, the age of annexations, the trick of the plebiscites, the system of moral agency, the so‐called exigencies of civilization and progress, and the revolutionary messianism which constitutes the foundation of the Napoleonic ideas, have no attraction for him. His style is tolerably forcible when he speaks of all these stratagems: “Such tactics are nothing new. They have always been resorted to in order to palliate schemes of ambition and hypocrisy.”(252)

II.

A government given to conspiracy condemns the nation that supports it, as well as itself, to degradation—to moral and material ruin. If for a while it flatters itself with the hope of systematizing the revolution and directing its energies, it soon becomes its slave and finally its victim. When the hand is caught in machinery, the whole body is soon drawn after it, the head as well as the rest.

Our diplomatic traveller states some aphorisms in connection with this subject that are full of significance, and reveal the genuine statesman.

“A government that owes its existence to a revolution is not viable in the long run unless it has the power and wisdom to sunder all the ties that connect it with the party to which it owes its origin.

“Every government that has a similar origin to the Napoleonic Empire, and, still more, one which owes its existence thereto, will find itself in danger when traditionary principles once more assert themselves for the safety of society.

“Governments of a revolutionary origin have been known to become conservative and renounce their former principles of action. The Italian government may likewise wish to do this, but it cannot.

“All who have risen to power in Italy have had some connection with the revolutionary party, and are obliged to favor it. In particular instances, they have sometimes manifested a certain firmness towards its factions, but in essentials they have yielded to the inevitable pressure.

“Revolution leads to disorder, and, when it triumphs, the destiny of the country is thrown into the hands of its adherents. Political bias must take the place of capacity and often of honor itself.”(253)

One of the first material disasters produced by a triumphant conspiracy is the squandering of the finances. There is an immediate necessity of enriching itself, repairing all deficiencies, paying traitors, buying consciences and votes, keeping a secret reserve of ready money to reward the zeal of journalists, and stimulate or lull the passions according to the exigencies of the moment. The wretched state of the budgets in United Italy will become as proverbial as the _marchés_ of the 4th of September in France. With all the domains Piedmont has received from the annexed states, it ought to be rich—rich enough to pay the debt its accomplice, the Empire, has bequeathed to us. The finances of the different states, especially of Rome, were in perfect order, and, with the exception of the kingdom of Sardinia, the receipts surpassed the expenses. Now the credit of Italy is destroyed, and nothing is heard of but duties and taxes, such as were unknown throughout the Peninsula in 1859, more particularly at Rome. Figures are eloquent—we must refer to them:

“Previous to 1860, there were seven states in Italy, each with its court, ministers, administration, and diplomatic corps. All these governments expended about five hundred millions of francs a year, and the imposts amounted to nearly the same sum. These seven states had a debt of about two milliards and a half. At the present time, without reckoning the interest on the floating debt to the National Bank, Italy annually pays about three hundred millions of interest, corresponding to a debt of seven milliards, and all this notwithstanding the sale of domanial property amounting to six hundred and fifty millions, notwithstanding the alienation of the railways of the state and the manufacture of tobacco, and notwithstanding the seizure of ecclesiastical property, all of which have amounted _in nine years_ to nine milliards three hundred and sixteen millions of francs received at the state treasury. Nevertheless, the public debt amounts to the aforesaid sum of seven milliards. And yet the army is badly maintained, the navy poorly organized, and the administration in a state of chaos and unparalleled demoralization.”(254)

And here is M. Quintino Sella, who has just made known the projected budget for 1873; he acknowledges a deficit of sixty millions, as had been anticipated, while the ordinary receipts amount to eight hundred and five millions. If the kingdom of Italy were administered as economically as in the time of the seven sovereigns, a budget of eight hundred and five millions would leave a surplus of three hundred millions. And yet one of the pretexts of unification was that it would save the expense of so many courts, which bore hard on the people! Poor people! they know now what to think of cheap governments, and will soon see that the ministration of the imposts is leading to bankruptcy, in spite of the fresh confiscations and appropriation of conventual property about to be made at Rome.(255)

And it must be remembered that, in spite of these great budgets, the army is badly maintained and the navy poorly organized. Custozza and Lissa had previously convinced us of this. Austria was well aware of it, and even the France of M. Thiers suspects that, in spite of the valor of the old Piedmontese soldiery, and the discipline of the Neapolitan army; in spite of the aptitude of the Genoese and Venetian sailors, the military forces of Italy are a mere illusion, particularly on account of the inefficiency of the leaders of the army and navy. Since the time of M. de Cavour, whose ability is by no means beyond doubt, there have been only second‐rate men beyond the Alps—not a statesman, not an orator, not a minister, not a financier, not a genuine soldier—everywhere and in everything there is the same disgraceful deficiency. _Facundum sed male forte genus._

“I knew well the men of 1848, some of whom are still remaining, but they must have degenerated through ambition and the necessity of sustaining their position, for even in the revolutionary ranks there was more elevation in 1848 than at the present time.

“Previous to 1860, the armies of the different states, including, of course, the Piedmontese army, constituted a more powerful and better organized force than is now under arms. ‘Our army,’ says General La Marmora, ‘has the traditional reputation of being disciplined, but it is demoralized by a want of stability in its organization, and a lack of moral influences.’ La Marmora opposes among other things the exclusion of chaplains and of the religious element among the troops.

“The Sardinian and Neapolitan navies greatly surpassed the Italian. The men were better drilled, and the shipping in better order. Such is the opinion recently expressed by the English naval officers in port at Naples who were at the exposition of the present year.”(256)

And yet the military forces are the only remaining bulwark of order in Italy—I mean material order, for moral order no longer exists anywhere. The so‐called conservative party, that is to say, the moderate revolutionists, rely on the army. But the ultra revolutionary element is also to be found there, and some day the advanced party will, for its own designs, entice away the officers that followed the hero of Caprera in his campaigns. It will not be sufficient to name Cialdini, Cadorna, or even La Marmora, to counteract the fatal consequences of Castelfidardo and the Porta Pia. By excluding religious influences from the army, and giving it a false idea of patriotism, the source of courage and energy is dried up. After all, revolution will never be friendly to the army, and the genuine soldier will always execrate revolution, whether instigated by princes, citizens, or the mob. A soldier who entered Rome through the breach, lately wrote to the _Libertà_: “The day the King of Italy is satisfied with mere volunteers, as the Pope was, we shall see whether it is the Pope or the king that is loved and esteemed the most by the Italian people.”

In opposing the system of territorial divisions on account of the army, which he considers unsuited to the Peninsula, General La Marmora’s opinion is founded on a proof that has the misfortune to prove too much. “If there were small territorial armies,” says he, “in addition to separate administrations in the various regions of Italy, the unity for which we have done so much, and Providence still more than we, would incur great danger.”(257) Why not boldly declare, general, that there are two Italys—the _Reale_ and the _Legale_, one of which has a tendency to revolt against the other? And, above all, why utter a blasphemy against the sovereign providence of God?(258) _Italia legale_ labors in vain; the revolutionary impulse given to it by Cavour is an accelerated movement; it will never reascend the declivity that leads _al fondo_. It will always have against it not only the betrayed interests and the revolted conscience of _Italia reale_, but, above all, Divine Providence, who will one day show that the favors and proofs of protection accorded to the “regenerators” were merely for them, as for Napoleon III., the snares of avenging justice. _In insidiis suis capientur iniqui._

“As to greatness and political importance, admitting even the possibility of indefatigable and intelligent effort, Italy will never equal the glorious traditions of its past history. Italian glory is the glory of the different states of the Peninsula.... To acquire fresh glory, there must be, besides unity, a strength of organization it does not possess, and cannot, because it is a mirage and not a reality.

“The North invades the South: this cannot be called community of interests. It is an attempt at absorption on the part of the North, and at the expense of the South.

“Once at Rome, the programme was to have ended. A new life was to commence; fresh energy was to be the signal of an era of grandeur and prosperity; interiorly, there was to be a more perfect administration; exteriorly, a prudent _national_ policy, that is to say, the Napoleonic idea of the Latin races that Italy was to revive. Rome was to be the great centre of liberal influences.... All this had been announced and promised. As for me, I see no choice between a blind alley and a _politique d’aventure_.

“It seems to me the union, at a critical moment, should find protection in the wishes of the inhabitants. I can testify that if the former sovereigns of Naples, Florence, Parma, and Modena could return, the day would be hailed by a majority of the inhabitants as one of deliverance. In Lombardy it is different, I acknowledge. The _noblesse_ say, as I myself heard a personage of great note: We are badly governed, but at least it is no longer by foreigners. The middle classes are republicans, and in the country the Austrian rule is regretted. The people of Venice either aspire to a republic or regret the unfortunate Archduke Maximilian, whom they would have liked as an independent sovereign. In the old pontifical provinces called the Legations, they would not care to return to the former condition of things as they were, but some would be satisfied with the Pope and a local autonomy; the remainder form a sufficiently numerous republican party.”

“In a word, THERE IS EVERYWHERE DISSATISFACTION AS WELL AS DISAPPOINTMENT, AFTER TWELVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.”(259)

It is not astonishing, therefore, that at an audience on the 18th of last Nov., the Grand Duke Nicholas, nephew of the Emperor of Russia, said to Pius IX., with all a young man’s frankness: “Most holy Father, since I have been in Italy, everywhere I go, I hear nothing but evil of King Victor Emmanuel and his government.”(260)

We need only open our eyes to see the interior condition of united Italy as soon as there was any question, no longer of conspiring and declaiming, but of organizing and governing. And its exterior political relations compare quite as unfavorably with the programme of emancipation. By a kind of divine irony, Italy has become a mere humble vassal of Germany—of the Holy Protestant Empire of Berlin—and the future King of Rome was only acting his part when he proclaimed himself the King of Prussia’s hussar.(261) It is well known at the Quirinal that, though influenced for the moment by the dominant party, the authorities may some day return, even through interest, to traditional principles and the old political code which does not recognize the revolutionary schemes of nations or parties. Besides, the Italian princes, who represent the law, are still living. Francis II. may be found to be a genuine Neapolitan, Ferdinand IV. a very good Tuscan, Robert I. an excellent Parmesan, and Francis V. the best of Modenais. And, lastly, is not Pius IX. more of an Italian than the Savoyard who styles himself the King of Italy?... And if the French, whose connivance can no longer be expected, even under M. Thiers, should favor the restoration of the throne to a prince, “_qui a la justice dans le sang et dans l’âme_,” and would at need have it in his hand, the Italian framework, which merely stands through toleration, would be threatened with sudden and ignominious ruin. It is all this that recently induced the _prince‐héritier_ to mount like a Hungarian foot‐soldier behind the triumphal chariot of the German Cæsar.

Another evil: the Prussians are not the most scrupulous people in the world about other people’s property, and their investigations in the Peninsula have excited suspicions as to the object of their cupidity. Let M. de Bismarck, more audacious and grasping than the late M. de Cavour, once succeed in driving the Hapsburgs from Germany, will it not occur to him to take advantage of the title of the Lombardo‐Venetian kingdom for the benefit of the Cæsar of Berlin? For it is skilfully demonstrated in Germany that the Germanic race has the power, and, therefore, the right, to a powerful navy, and, for the benefit of this navy, an outlet on the Adriatic. And there is no other possible ally but Prussia to protect what calls itself the kingdom of Italy!

“Alliances are beneficial when the parties unite their influence for a common end. (Allies, in our day, no longer seek to know each other’s principles or origin.) But when they are not formed _inter pares_, or nearly so, and especially when they are intended to guarantee the very existence—the vital principle—of the weaker ally, then the alliance loses its true character, and soon ends in subjection on the ground of politics or economy, and sometimes both.”(262)

Such are the glories of Italy _free from the Alps to the Adriatic_! If, in spite of her presumptuous _farà da se_, she was obliged to have recourse to a foreign hand in order to rise, and still needs a foreign arm to stand erect, she will, according to appearances, have need of no one to aid her in falling: she will topple over of herself. The so‐called free country is only an enslaved kingdom—a vassal, a satellite without strength and without prestige.

III.

Of all the Italian formulas that have served to mislead the liberal mind, there is not one more odiously false and deceptive than the too famous expression, _A free church in a free country_. History has already interpreted it, A persecuted church in an enslaved country. The revolutionary factions that have assumed the authority have imposed thereon the complete execution of their plan, and we know that the Masonic lodges, though they denounce Mazzinian deism, have fallen into the atheism of Renan, _al fondo_!

The sacrilegious frenzy of the Revolution, and the madness of those that encouraged it, have been stigmatized in forcible terms by the august prisoner of the Vatican:

“Unbelief assumes an air of authority, and proudly stalks throughout the length and breadth of the earth, doubtless imagining it is to triumph for ever.... Woe to those who are linked with the impious, and dally with the Revolution under the pretence of directing it! Sooner or later they will be drawn into the abyss. The recent disasters at Naples may be adduced as an example. A great number of curious people, heedless and devoid of all prudence, hastened to get a nearer view of the devouring flames issuing from the fearful mouth of Vesuvius, and many of them became victims of mistaken curiosity. So it is with those who covenant with the Revolution and the revolutionists, hoping to overrule the former and keep down the latter. Rash people! they will all become a prey to the flames that surround them on every side.”(263)

The revolutionary lava floods the streets of Rome and covers the whole Peninsula. It began in the cities, spread into the country, and will end by swallowing up the army. The universities and common schools are invaded, the torrent engulfs the workshops and stalls, and undermines the walls of palaces. Princes even have opened their gates at its approach. In vain the Holy Father sounds the cry of alarm; in vain his prime minister publicly denounces the progress of the deadly current—party spirit seems to have paralyzed all in authority.

We will not describe the exploits of this new Islamism against the papal power. The history of its ambuscades and pillages is sufficiently well known. There never was a richer treasure of dishonor for revolution to endow a people with. “The title of liberators was all the same retained.” Yes, all the same!

Joseph de Maistre somewhere refers to an English functionary as saying that every man who spoke of taking an inch of land from the Pope ought to be hung. “As for me,” adds the witty writer, “I cheerfully consent, in order to avoid carnage, that _hung_ should be changed to _hissed_.”(264)

Let us wait. An avenging God will do both: _subsannabit_, _conquassabit_. Had the plots of the unionists merely aimed at the temporal power, perhaps divine justice would have been satisfied with a hiss at the hour of some Italian Sedan, but the gibbet—it is a law of history—is reserved for persecutors and apostates.

When the Sardinian government knocked at one of the gates of Rome, as it awaited a propitious moment for battering it down, it bound itself before all Europe to solve the problem of the separation of church and state which had puzzled all the doctors of liberalism, and of which it pretended to have found the key. It was said the Roman question and the Italian question were to cease to be antagonistic, or, at least, they were to resemble those rivers that, while mingling their waters, preserve their own colors, as we see in the Rhône and the Saône. It was promised a channel should be made wide enough for this double current of opinions. Hence the origin of the famous law of the Guarantees. This scheme of conciliation is properly appreciated in the _Etudes sur l’Italie Contemporaine_:

“How many times I have heard it said that the Papacy and the Italian government, even though they never came to an agreement, might at least be like two parallel lines indefinitely and pacifically prolonged! This is a mistake arising from a judgment founded on impressions—and when I say impressions, I mean appearances.

“From the beginning, this law of Guarantees was a one‐sided and fruitless attempt.... The government and the Chambers never had any doubt as to the refusal of the Pope. This law was like an olive branch presented at the point of the sword as a suitable corrective to palliate the violent occupation of Rome.... I do not think a single statesman could really have believed in the success of this law, otherwise than as the decree of the conqueror.

“Besides the moral, juridical, and historic reasons to hinder an understanding between the Pope and a sovereign master of Rome, there was also the impossibility of coexisting with a power that rests on an unstable foundation.

“Even from the point of view of modern but not subversive ideas, A SEPARATION MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT OF STATE AND CHURCH IS THE SEPARATION OF STATE AND REVOLUTION.”(265)

These are golden words. But our diplomatic traveller is forced to acknowledge that the Italian government cannot break its iniquitous bonds, that it lacks honesty and force, and that all the factions seek their own good first and then the evil of others. Our author, though, unfortunately, too indifferent a spectator to Italian persecution, at least has the advantage of being an unexceptionable witness.

“Practically, it is not the state, it is society, that modern Italy separates from the church.... One of the greatest mistakes the unionists have made since the beginning of the Revolution has been the war declared against the clergy and the church. It is at once a political and historical error, and the greater for being committed at Rome.

“Tolerance (practised from time to time according to orders) has its reaction, and of the deepest die, in a recrudescence of insults, sequestrations and confiscations imposed on the ministers of the sanctuary and even the sanctuaries themselves.

“Anti‐Christianity has established itself with a bold front at Rome—with its schools of free‐thinkers, speeches in which atheism is proclaimed without the least reticence, burial without any religious ceremony, and irreligious books sold at low prices.

“In everything relating to teaching, the choice generally falls on the unbeliever.

“Materialism is taught _ex cathedra_ in all the universities.

“They have not yet touched on the most vital question—the suppression of the convents (at Rome) and the incameration of the property of the clergy. But they will come to that, and speedily.... The attempt at what is called a conciliation must sooner or later end in an outbreak.”(266)

They did come to it—to that shameful encroachment of the government on the religious corporations. The party demanded it, M. de Bismarck advised it, and the diplomatic corps tolerated it. What will not diplomacy tolerate? It was, however, clearly demonstrated to the representatives of different governments the urgent necessity there was of taking under their united protection the independence of the Sovereign Pontiff so poorly guaranteed by the usurper, of declaring the inviolability of church property, the possession of which—and it is a wholly legitimate one—is a _sine qua non_ condition of pontifical independence, without considering that most of these establishments have a double claim as to their origin and destination, to be regarded as international property.(267) Nothing was done. The tolerance of official Europe towards the Piedmontese filibustering has been unlimited, though unrestricted usurpation has been followed by open persecution. Pius IX. had good reason to severely allude to “the so‐called governments” that find amusement in the Revolution. Europe seems to have sent its diplomatists to the court of the usurper in the capital of the Christian world, that they might close their eyes to all the schemes of Freemasonry, and the numberless vexations and spoliations, that they might play the _rôle_ of stage‐dancers in the sacrilegious comedy! Such base complacency justifies the expression of a Catholic writer: “Europe is in a state of mortal sin!”

I am almost ashamed to be obliged to refer to the authority of a diplomatist who belongs neither to our nation nor our religion. I wish I could quote some official report of a minister from France! Might not M. Fournier have employed his time better than in figuring at banquets offered to a renegade, and in listening to heretical and atrocious speeches from the professors of the Romano‐Piedmontese university? I will console myself in transcribing a page from M. Dulaurier, the honorable member of the Institute, likewise an ocular witness, and a witness worthy of credit, even from a subscriber to the _Débats_:

“These grievances and many others are aggravated by the excesses to which the press—the illustrated press, above all—has given itself up, and by the incessant war it wages against religion. Ignoble caricatures are daily exposed for sale in the sight of the police, and to their knowledge, in all the Kiosques and newspaper shops, and on the walls, or are hawked around by miserable creatures in rags. The _Don Pirloncino_, a humorous paper, obsequious to the government, diffuses three times a week its abominations on the most august mysteries of the Christian faith and the ministers who dispense them. The cross itself—the cross before which Christians of all communions bow with respect—not only Catholics, but schismatics, Greeks, and Orientals, and even Protestants—is not safe from its insults. My heart swells with horror when I recall one of these pictures—a caricature of the Crucifixion. In the place of the God‐Man is Dr. Lanza, Minister of the Interior. The words put in his mouth, and on the lips of his murderers, are untranslatable. Under his feet, at the lower extremity of the tree of the cross, is fastened transversely an instrument that I dare not designate otherwise than by saying it is made a burlesque use of at the end of the first act of _M. de Pourceaugnac_. Our French revolutionists, in their senseless fury, have broken the cross in pieces, but it never occurred to them to defile it in such a manner. So revolting an idea could only spring from imaginations the country of Aretino alone is capable of producing.

“In the presence of these abominations echoed by the political press devoted to the advancement of free‐thinking, the Sovereign Pontiff, the clergy, and the Roman people who are fundamentally religious, can only veil their faces, resign themselves, and have recourse to prayer. And prayer rises unceasingly to heaven in expiation of so many horrors. It is the only consolation left to all these afflicted souls. There is a constant succession of triduos, announced by blank notices, headed _Invito sacro_, and signed by Mgr. Patrizi, the Cardinal Vicar. One of these notices, which I saw affixed to the columns at the entrance to his eminence’s palace near the Church of Sant’ Agostino, gives an idea, in the very first line, of the indignation that is fermenting in every Catholic breast: ‘The earth is full of the most horrible blasphemies. _La terra è piena della più orrende bestemmie._’ ”

IV.

We will not deny one benefit—and this time a real one!—that has sprung from the Italian Revolution: it has served to revive the fidelity and fervor of all true Italians. It can be rightly said of it, as M. Guizot says of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, It has awakened, even among its adversaries [we must correct this Protestant writer’s mistake—he should have said among its adversaries alone], religious faith and civil courage. Some natures that were formerly nonchalantes, timid, and delicate, are no longer satisfied with groaning over the evil, but take a bold stand against the inroads of impiety. Italy, somewhat inclined to the _far niente_, might of itself have yielded; sustained by the hand of a great Pope, she is roused to withstand the unloosed tempest. She no longer falters before the responsibility of a religious manifestation or an anti‐ revolutionary vote. No longer afraid of the threats of the poniard, or of conciliating, through culpable prudence, her temporary masters, she at last ventures to show herself openly, as she really is—the cherished and faithful daughter of the Church of Rome. Roused by provocations and blasphemies, her filial piety towards the Papacy has become more lively and aggressive. She protests solemnly against the schemes of the adventurers who have trampled under foot their faith, honesty, morality, and honor. At the sight of these sublime outbursts of a spirit at once Catholic and Roman, the church is consoled, and observant Christendom begins to hope the reaction will be the more salutary from the extreme violence of the crisis.

One of our co‐laborers has expressed all this much better than we can:

“If there is a country we have reason to conceive such consoling hopes of, assuredly it is Italy, in spite of all the scandals and all the infamy that now degrade it. All who have had a favorable opportunity of observing the moral condition of the country agree in declaring the greater part of the inhabitants faithful to their belief. It is merely the froth and pestilential impurities that are seething on the surface. Some day it will doubtless be with this impure froth as with the stagnant waters for which Pius IX. some years ago made an opening to the sea, giving fresh fecundity to the old Italian soil. Purified by trials, as by a new baptism, this nation, in many respects so highly gifted, will once more have acquired a beneficial discipline of mind and character, the advantages of a robust and manly training, the practice of energetic individual action, and especially of great combined efforts which she is beginning to give us the consoling spectacle of in the recently formed Catholic associations.”(268)

In France we think lightly, or rather we have an incorrect idea, of what our brethren in Italy are effecting. The very people among us who only talk of harmony and compromise reproach the Catholics of the Peninsula for being inactive and inefficient. They even make them partly responsible for the national misfortunes and the decay of moral principle beyond the Alps. We protest against such superficial judgments. We know Italy too well not to have a right to speak in favor of those who are so unjustly accused. Catholics in Italy decline public offices, _ne eletti, ne elettori_; and they do well, because the Sardinian government imposes an oath after the style of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. Tell us if it is proper for a Catholic to take a seat in a parliament established at Rome between the Vatican where the Pope is imprisoned, and the Quirinal where the Piedmontese has established himself by the aid of a false key. Does the military career offer much attraction when he might be ordered to assassinate the pontifical zouaves, open a breach in the walls of Rome, bombard Ancona or even the quarter of the Vatican? He might without any great difficulty present himself at the municipal and provincial ballot‐boxes. The faithful Neapolitans, at the invitation of their archbishop, formed a majority there, and this is not an isolated case. But do you, who are the safety of France, set the example of hastening to the polls?—No; good Christians in Italy are far from being inert, nor do the clergy inculcate inertness. Abstaining is quite a different thing from inaction. Is the public aware that the Catholic press is one of the glories of the Peninsula? There are a hundred journals and reviews on the other side of the Alps consecrated to the service of the truth, and some of these publications are of unequalled merit. It is sufficient to name the _Civiltà Cattolica_, the _Unità Cattolica_, and the _Voce della Verità_. We confess our admiration for the courageous journalists who keep their own course in spite of arrests, law‐suits, fines, imprisonment, and threats of _coltellate_. And the tone of these papers, with some insignificant exceptions, is healthier than with us, the union of sentiment stronger, and their adhesion to the apostolic constitutions more sincere and open. Associations have spread from one end of the Peninsula to the other, and everywhere produce the most beneficial results. I need only mention the Society of Catholic Youth at Bologna, celebrated on account of the generous filial stand it has taken from the first in favor of Pius IX., and the Roman Society for the promotion of Catholic interests, which, by its branches and parish committees, exercises so prodigious an influence over the city of Rome as to excite the anxiety of those in authority.

But let us once more listen to our unexceptionable witness, whom I think every one will feel indebted to us for quoting so much at length: _testimonium animæ naturaliter Christianæ_.

“The religious reaction is more and more decided, even in the middle and lower classes, owing to the zealous associations that have assumed the direction. This movement is worthy of study.... At Rome, and throughout Italy, this reaction has given rise to societies composed for the most part of men still young, whose object is to oppose all pernicious doctrines. These societies are to be found at Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Naples, Turin, Verona, Genoa, Lucca, Padua, Pisa, and Bologna.

“In January, 1871, the following statement was made in the _Riforma_, the organ of Rattazzi: ‘The clerical party is being more and more reinforced at Rome; the clerical press every day acquires more strength, its organs increase in number and boldness.’... The clerical press is really well sustained, and, in spite of the persecutions and ill‐treatment of all kinds the editors of these journals have to undergo, they do not cease their energetic efforts.

“The administering of the oath has caused wholesale resignations in all the _dicastères_ (at Rome). Many of these functionaries are left without any means of subsistence.... As early as the year 1871, there were more than four thousand resignations.

“Thousands of Romans go to the Vatican to give their plebiscites, and to the basilica of St. Peter to offer solemn prayers for hastening THE DAY OF DELIVERANCE.”(269)

The day of deliverance will arrive, and, in spite of the sneers about our wailing over disappointed hopes, it will come soon! But how will this deliverance be effected? United Italy has against it the upper and nether fires—the Catholic reaction that will never stoop to parley, and the exertions of the demagogues, which are continually increasing. At present the nether fires seem like the prelude of the Internationale.

The intermediate party, which would like to consolidate _le fait accompli_, and which recruits adepts from the very opposers of the _mezzi morali_, is not sufficiently free from all alloy of party spirit to constitute a government capable of resistance and of exacting respect from the league of destruction.

Unhappy but beloved Italy! Great and holy city of Rome! shall we have the sorrow of seeing the enemy _flamber_ your palaces, your museums, your churches?

Not long since we were asked at Florence to read the prophecy of Joel, so applicable to the future of Italy: “Hear this, ... tell ye of this to your children, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. That which the palmer worm hath left, the locust hath eaten; and that which the locust hath left, the bruchus hath eaten; and that which the bruchus hath left, the mildew hath destroyed. Awake, ye that are drunk, and weep, and mourn, all ye that take delight in drinking sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.”—Joel. i. 2‐5.

It is true too large a part of the Italian nation have grown giddy from the intoxicating draught of liberalism, and it is to be feared they may be condemned to drink the bitter cup of expiation to the dregs. The international “locusts” will devour that which the Sub‐Alpine “palmerworm” hath left. To‐day, the taxes of Sella; to‐morrow, the communism of Castellani: yesterday, a political revolution; to‐morrow, a radical revolution: yesterday and to‐day, the hypocrisy of the tribune; to‐morrow, the bloody scenes of the national Comitia. After the physicians and lawyers, after the members of the Consorteria and the friends of Rattazzi, the lowest grade of society—the “bruchus” and the “mildew”—like a barbarous horde, will overturn, and destroy, and deluge with petroleum.

Italy, more than France or Spain, has abused the divine gift. She has “the light of Rome and the sun,” but has been ungrateful, proud, impious, shameless, and reckless. The whole land is now a mere haunt for banditti, traitors, and buffoons.

Alas! it is so: but Pius IX. still prays for his beloved Italy! Following the example of its lawful ruler, the nation—at least, the better portion of the nation—have multiplied their holy prayers, which daily grow more frequent from the delay of the benefit and the example of France. It has a clearer sense of equity and justice; it already feels disposed to renew its former covenant with God, return to the path of order, and take up its national traditions of glory. It is awakening from its dreams of moral and social primacy. It will be satisfied with, and glory in, being the _patrie environnante_ of the Vicar of Christ. Would that France, once more regenerated, might speedily aid her in breaking loose from the tyranny of lodges, and shaking off the Prussian suzerainty!

In 1860, the unhappy King of Sardinia said to M. de la Tour d’Auvergne, the French minister at Turin: “I do not wish you to leave me under false impressions. I feel sure you regard me as impious—as an infidel, as people persist in saying. You are wrong.—If I number kings among my ancestry, there are likewise saints. Here, look around.—Well, do you think that in yonder world all these sainted relatives of mine have any other occupation than to pray for me?”(270)

Our Saviour prayed for those who knew not what they did! _Pater dimitte illis._ May all the saints in heaven and on earth pray for poor Italy! It has need of it.

Sonnet.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF GIOVANNI BATTISTA ZAPPI, UPON THE MOSES OF MICHAEL ANGELO IN THE CHURCH OF SAN PIETRO IN VINCOLI, AT ROME.

Whose form there, sculptured in such mass of stone, Sits like a giant, carrying art so far Beyond all works most beautiful and known? On those quick lips life’s very accents are! That man is Moses: on the awful front The double ray,(271) the glory of his beard, Reveal as much: ’tis Moses from the Mount When much of Deity in his face appeared! So looked he once when he the vasty fount Of sounding waters with his one word stayed. Such was his aspect when the sea obeyed And swallowed Egypt. O ye tribes that bent Before the calf! had you an image made Like this to worship, less were to repent.

Recollections Of Père Hermann.

France has a strange, magnetic power of attracting to herself, and absorbing into her mould, all the great talent of the world. How many men there are in Paris, who, from the ends of the earth, come together to lose their nationality in her appreciative bosom, and to gain there instead a reflected light of popularity ensured by her endorsement alone! All countries have adopted citizens, it is true, some by social, some by artistic, some by political adoption, but no country has a larger share of adopted intellect than France.

To all intents and purposes, the famous artist‐convert and artist‐monk, Père Hermann, was a Frenchman, though he was born a German Jew, in the free city of Hamburg. His biographers have told us all the striking incidents of his life; they have dwelt on his intoxicating success during youth, his mad extravagance of opinion, of expenditure, and of depravity, and, lastly, on his almost miraculous conversion and religious vocation. His death, which was a fitting crown to his life, and can be dignified by no lesser title than martyrdom, has endeared his memory still more to all those who knew him personally and had many secret reasons to admire his sanctity and feel grateful for his spiritual direction. His was a figure not easily forgotten, and perhaps a few touches of personal reminiscences will not be unacceptable to our readers, since all that links us to the saints, and brings the shadow of their sanctity nearer to our littleness, can hardly fail to be of interest.

The first time we were brought in contact with him was in the summer of 1862, when he came by special invitation to spend a few days with us in the country. The house itself had a monastic appearance and origin. It had been, so said tradition, a rural dependency, half farm, half infirmary, of a great Franciscan convent. It had been restored in 1849 and 1850, or thereabouts, and thanks to the good taste of the owner and the talent of the architects employed, had developed into a gem of Elizabethan Gothic and of domestic comfort. The little market‐town adjoining, once a centre of wealthy wool‐merchants and a great mediæval mart, contained several XIVth century buildings in a state of entire preservation, besides the later pile of the almshouses (XVIIth century), which, both as a building and an institution, was the pride of the surrounding country. Twelve old and destitute people, six men and six women, invariably widows or widowers, are generously supported on the fund left in perpetuity for this purpose by Joanna, Lady C——, wife of the great loyalist Baptist, Viscount C——, who burnt down his manor‐house (opposite the almshouses), rather than let it fall, with its treasures of plate and furniture, into the hands of Cromwell’s Roundheads.

It was the yearly custom to feast these good people at the manor, the restored Franciscan dependency, and thither they were conveyed one day during the summer in question, in a large covered cart provided with seats like a French _char‐à‐banc_. Père Hermann had been in the house since the previous evening, and had stipulated with his cordial host and hostess that he should wear his Carmelite habit while within the limits of the private grounds. The sight of this alone had in it something homely; it was a rest to the eye to see the cowled figure pacing the terrace in the early morning, Breviary in hand, and to lapse into beautiful day‐dreams of what might have been had England kept true to the faith. The Carmelite was delighted at the prospect of seeing this annual feast given to the almshouse people, and no sooner had they all assembled round the ample board spread for them on a shady part of the terrace at the back of the house, than he made his way towards them, and, saluting them, showed how much he sympathized in their enjoyment. His English was, of course, very imperfect; indeed, he never grew to any proficiency in speaking that language, but his interest in the scene was none the less vividly expressed. The old people still wear the costume appointed by the foundress of the institution: for the men, gaiters and a long coat of rough black cloth, with a silver badge or medal; for the women, a narrow, old‐fashioned dress of the same material, and a similar badge. These badges, we believe, have never been renewed since the original endowment, and are handed down from one bedesman to his successor, and so on; the clothes are renewed every two years. If we mistake not, Père Hermann said grace for these poor people, who, though all Protestants, seemed not at all shocked at the “popish” apparition. Indeed, he gained the hearts of all who ever saw him, his gentleness and recollection inspiring a respect for his person which was little short of veneration. He seemed as though he were walking with angels and listening to heavenly converse even while charitably lending his time and his bodily presence to earth. When he had enjoyed, with the simplicity of a child, the sight of the innocent sports and merriment of the old people, he left us for the chapel, where he spent a great part of his time. We cannot help adverting to a little occurrence which took place at one of these almshouse feasts (we believe this very one), and which was certainly very pathetic. A monk might well take pleasure in such unaffected simplicity and gentleness among those whose ancestors had been so intimately linked of old with monastic patrons. One of the old women, speaking to one of her host’s daughters of her little grandchild, a baby girl who was just dead, said, in the broad dialect of the county of Gloucester (which, however, we dare not imitate in print):

“When the child was born, my daughter made me notice how long the little thing’s fingers were, and said, ’Bless its little heart! they are long enough for the baby to be a waiting‐maid on the queen.’ And we agreed, laughing‐like, that a waiting‐maid the child would surely be. But when it died, I said to my daughter, said I, ‘Jane, we were mistaken about the baby’s fingers, you see. I tell you the Lord gave her those beautiful long fingers, not to attend on any great lady or queen on earth, but to play on the golden harps in his kingdom of heaven.’ ”

No truer nor more reverent poetry can be found anywhere than that simple utterance of an unlettered old woman who had not even that instinctive education which belongs to all those who learn the Catholic catechism. Such women and such poetry used to abound in the England of historic times, but error and materialism have but too well succeeded during the last three centuries in making the type rare and not easily discoverable, save in some forgotten nook of the rural districts.

Père Hermann that evening allowed us to enjoy _our_ treat, after giving him his among the bedesmen, by playing a little on a cottage piano‐forte in what we called the oak drawing‐room. The servants were all collected in the next room (the library), and this seemed to give him particular satisfaction, as he was ever most fastidiously thoughtful of the comforts and pleasures of those in inferior station. His playing, though not comparable to his triumphant successes as an artist nearly twenty years before, was still admirable, and, above all, so _sympathetic_. He played, among other things, the “Prayer of Moses” with great solemnity and expression, and also some of his own _Cantiques_, which for blending passion with religious earnestness are something unique. He never played anywhere save in private, and then only to small audiences in an informal manner, and never touched the organ save by obedience in his own church, or for the Forty Hours’ Exposition, saying that he wished to have his art ever sanctified by a religious inspiration. The fascination and temptation of artistic triumphs must still have been appreciable stumbling‐blocks in his spiritual career. Therefore, to hear him play at all was no slight favor, and, while on this visit, he repeated this favor more than once. On the last day, he said Mass in the domestic chapel, and distributed the Scapular to the household, enrolling nearly every member in the Confraternity. He gave a short address on the origin and meaning of this devotion, the distinctive one of his Order, and which was further made interesting on this occasion by the fact of the host’s having in former years rescued a picture of S. Simon Stock in the act of receiving the first miraculous Scapular. The figures were life‐size, and the painting after the manner of the later Italian school; the canvas was found riddled with holes, having been used as a target by ignorant or fanatical possessors. The restored picture was hung in the drawing‐room, where it became a great source of interest to the zealous convert Carmelite, our dear guest. During this visit was laid the foundation of a spiritual friendship between him and the writer—a friendship which proved a great benefit and guidance in our after‐life.

Meeting him again in London a few months later, we learnt a singular occurrence connected with his influence over souls. A young girl, not much over seventeen, and of a wilful and rebellious nature, who was under Père Hermann’s spiritual direction, happening to come up to town for a few days, experienced a strange phase of religious excitement. Careless as she was about all serious matters regarding the future state, she was nevertheless seized with a strong feeling of inadequacy in her religious efforts. She rose suddenly (it was a bright moonlight night), and went to the window, where the chastened beauty of the moon made even the monotonous landscape of London roofs and chimneys shine with a weird charm and take on suggestive shapes of startling vividness. Something—the grace of God, we ought no doubt reverently to say—seemed to take hold of her heart and shake her whole being. It was not the fear of punishment, the blank of unsated frivolity, that moved her; only one cry burst from her heart—“I have never loved God enough—I have never loved him at all.” If any but the saints ever feel perfect contrition, she did at that moment; for in that one sin she saw all others contained. Sobs came from the depths of her heart; she paced her room with naked feet, unmindful of discomfort, unheeding the autumn chill that is never long absent from London atmosphere, repeating again and again, like a dirge, those words, “I have never loved God enough—I have never loved him at all.” Then came a wondering feeling as to what this awakening meant; was it conversion, or the beginning of a vocation, or a sign that some special self‐devotedness would be required of her through life? She said to herself, “I will see Père Hermann, and tell him; I wonder if this will last!”

Strange to say, the blessed excitement passed away, and the next morning, though she tried to revive it, it was impossible. Not a trace of emotion was left, although the mind recalled distinctly what an ecstasy of sorrow it had been, and how it had shaken the soul to its very centre. The young girl, however, saw Père Hermann, and told him of it, and in the parlor of the nuns of the Assumption, Kensington Square, he gave her the advice of a father and a saint. She is still living, and none can tell if that prophetic call may not yet have unexpected fulfilment through the prayers of one who is now a saint in heaven. This occurrence led to a very interesting and intimate correspondence, which we have examined ourselves, and of which we would gladly give some extracts were the letters not unfortunately beyond our reach at the present moment.

Père Hermann was peculiarly fond of children, as indeed all saints are. Going one day to the Brompton Oratory, which the finest organ in London and a very perfect and numerous surpliced choir contribute to make one of the leading Catholic churches of the English capital, he was prevailed upon to play a voluntary after the Offertory. There sat a child in that choir, only a little chorus singer, but whose early dream it had ever been to become a musician and play upon an organ such as that majestic, imperial instrument which he listened to with vague awe every Sunday. He knew the story of the great artist who now sat at the organ in his Carmelite habit, and he drank in eagerly the grand strains he could but dimly understand, yet admired so intensively. Things which he never knew technically till many years after, yet seemed not unknown to his sympathetic ear, and, if he understood but little of the science that created those rolling chords and modulations, he could worship the beauty they expressed.

A few days later, the little chorister, with six or seven companions from the Oratory School, was taken to the temporary Carmelite chapel in Kensington. It was all very poor and unpretending, but the spirit of recollection and peace made an Eden of the temporary refuge of these “knights of poverty,” and the children were very much impressed. Père Hermann came to the parlor to see them, and inquired severally after each one from the Oratorian Father in whose special charge they were. Our little chorister was dumb with awe and delight, expecting the holy Carmelite to notice him particularly; but when the Oratorian was questioned about this boy, he answered laughingly:

“Oh! this fellow is going to be a tinker.”

Père Hermann looked amused but incredulous, and the child grew hot and uncomfortable under the laughing gaze of his companions. He had long made up his mind as to what he would like to be, and the tinker suggestion was peculiarly hateful to him, because systematically used by his wise instructor to “break his pride.” But the gentle monk saw the boy’s discomfiture, and came skilfully to the rescue.

“And will you really be a tinker, my little man?” he said, smiling.

“No, father,” readily answered the little one. “A musician.”

“You mean a tinker, Peter,” teasingly suggested the Oratorian, and the boy blushed with annoyance.

“No, no,” said Père Hermann; “he will be a musician, as he says, and a good one. And now,” he continued, “it is nearly time for Benediction, and I am going to play the harmonium; would you like to stay for that?”

The child was speechless with delight, and then the holy monk added:

“You shall pull out the stops for me, Peter,” which was done, and, though it seemed the acme of happiness to Peter, it probably did not improve the music.

After the service, the father called one of the lay brothers, and entrusted the children to his care, saying, with simple glee, and in the broken accent which all who knew him remember as a characteristic of his otherwise terse and appropriate language:

“Now, brother, go and feed these little ones, and mind you give them plenty of good things.”

The order was well obeyed, for the tradition of ample and eager hospitality has never been lost among religious orders, be they poor and struggling and even proscribed, or rich, powerful, and influential. Rich plum‐cake and good wine, with candies of every sort, were set before the little musician and his friends, but the child was even then thinking exultingly that Père Hermann had really said he should be an artist. In later years, when studying his art in Flanders, or earning his bread by it in England, this saying, that from such holy lips seemed a prophetic blessing and an earnest of success, often and often recurred to his mind, and encouraged him in the many dark days through which he had to pass.

To all those who learned to love Père Hermann from personal intercourse with him, every remembrance of his words, however trifling, is now doubly treasured; his death, uniting as it did in itself the heroism of philanthropy, of patriotism, and of divine charity, has already practically canonized him in the eyes of his friends and spiritual children; and as we lay this slender wreath of praise among the more important tributes that literature, art, and religion have heaped around his memory, we are fain to exclaim, with the wise man of Israel, “Blessed are they that saw thee, and were honored with thy friendship.”(272)

A Daughter Of S. Dominic.

Concluded.

It was a singular proof, not only of respect for her character, but of confidence in her judgment and discretion, on the part of the government, to have entrusted her with this right of mercy; knowing, as no one who knew anything about her could fail to know, her extraordinary tenderness of heart and compassion for suffering, especially in the case of the soldiers. It seemed a risk to invest her with a sort of judicial right to interfere in their behalf at the hands of law and justice; but they never had reason to regret it. She showed herself to the last worthy of the trust reposed in her. In the exercise of a privilege whose application was one of the keenest joys of her life, Amélie evinced a mind singularly well balanced, a judgment always clear, and a prudence ever on the alert to guide and control the impulses of her heart. But when her judgment approved the promptings of charity, no consideration could deter her from obeying them. She was by nature very timid, and of late years, owing to her having quite broken off intercourse with the world, properly speaking, this timidity had grown to a painful shyness. Whenever there was a necessity, however, she could brave it, and face a gay crowd or a doughty magnate with as much ease and cheerfulness as if the act demanded no effort or sacrifice of natural inclination. Such sacrifices were frequently required of her. Her name had a prestige that gained entrance through doors closed to persons of infinitely higher social position and importance; and when a community, or a hospital, or a family wanted a mediator in high quarters, they turned quite naturally to Amélie. On one occasion her courage and good‐nature were put to a rather severe test. It was in the case of a poor man who had been condemned to a long term of punishment for some fraudulent act. The circumstances of the case, the hitherto excellent character of the man, the fierce pressure of want under which the fraud was committed, and certain points which threw doubts on the extent to which he had been consciously guilty, along with the misery his condemnation must entail on a wife and young family, roused strong sympathy for him, and a general impulse seized the townspeople to appeal to the emperor for his pardon. But how to do it so as to make the appeal efficacious—who to entrust with the delicate mission? Every heart turned instinctively to Amélie. Her name rose to every tongue. The most influential of the petitioners went to her, and besought her to go to Paris and obtain an audience of the emperor, and implore of his clemency a free pardon for the convict. Her first impulse was to draw back in dismay at the mere contemplation of such a feat; but the petitioners brought out an array of arguments that it was not in Amélie’s nature to resist. She called up her courage, recommended the success of her mission to the prayers of the Marseillese and the protection of N. Dame de Garde, and started off to Paris. Thanks to her previous relations with the ministerial world, she was able to obtain, after some delay, an audience of the emperor. He received her with the most flattering marks of personal consideration, and granted her at once the pardon she sued for. Amélie telegraphed the good news to Marseilles on leaving his majesty’s presence, and was met on her arrival there the following day by her protégé and his family in tears of joy and gratitude.

On another occasion, she was applied to for a rather large sum of money for a very pressing charity. She happened for the moment to have exhausted all her own and her friends’ resources, and knew not where to turn for the necessary sum. Some enterprising person proposed that she should go and beg it at the house of a banker who was giving a grand ball that night, and at which all the wealthy notabilities of the town were to be present. It was quite an unprecedented proceeding, and one that it required the humility and the courage of Amélie to undertake. She hesitated as usual at first, and as usual, seeing that the thing had to be done, and that no one else would do it, she consented. A preliminary step was to obtain the host’s permission. This he at first emphatically refused; and, seeing that it required nearly as much courage on his part to allow his guests to be waylaid as for Amélie to waylay them, it is not much to be wondered at. Courage, however, is catching. Amélie pleaded, and the banker gave way. He opened her list of contributions by a handsome sum, and consented that she should come the same evening and beg the rest at his house. It was a strange episode in the brilliant scene—the pale, dark‐eyed woman, in her homely black gown and neat little black net cap, standing at the door of the ball‐room; and stretching out her little bag to the votaries of pleasure as they passed her: “_Pour les pauvres, mesdames! Pour les pauvres, messieurs!_” The words must have struck in oddly enough through the clanging of the orchestra, and the rustling of silken robes, and the hum of laughter as the merrymakers swept round in the mazes of the dance. But the low, sweet voice of the beggar rose above the music and the din loud enough to reach many hearts that night; no one turned a deaf ear to the suppliant; the gentlemen gave money, or pledged themselves to give it; the women dropped rings and bracelets into the velvet bag that soon overflowed with its own riches; and when all the guests had arrived, and the festivity was at its height, Amélie, after admiring, as she was always ready to do, everything bright and beautiful that was not sinful—the brilliancy of the scene, the bright jewels and the pretty toilets, and the artistic decoration of the rooms—bade good‐night to it all and to her host, and went home with her heart full of love and gratitude towards her kindly fellow‐creatures.

But we should never end if we were to narrate all the acts of charity and zeal that she was never tired of performing. The following, however, are too characteristic to be omitted:

Late one evening, in her rounds through one of those dark centres of misery and crime that are to be found in all big cities, Amélie heard that a mountebank was dying in a neighboring cellar, all alone and in great pain. She made her way to the place at once. The dying man was lying on a heap of a straw, but he was not alone; a bear and a monkey shared his wretched abode; they had enabled the poor mountebank to live, and now they stood by while he was dying, watching his death‐throes in dumb sympathy. Nothing scared by the presence of his strange company, Amélie went up to the man and spoke to him gently of his soul. If he had ever heard of such a thing as an essential part of himself, he seemed to have altogether forgotten it, but he did not repulse her; he let her sit down beside him on the live, fetid straw and try to soothe him in his pains, and instruct him in the intervals, and prepare him to make his peace with God. By the time her part of the task was done, the night was far spent, but there was no time to lose. Amélie went straight to the priest’s house and woke him up. On the road, she told him what he would find on arriving.

The two went in together. Amélie knelt down in the furthest corner of the place and prayed, and the bear and the monkey looked on while the sweet and wondrous mystery between Jesus and the good thief was renewed before their blank, unintelligent eyes. The mountebank made a general confession of his whole life, and received the last sacraments. Then the priest went home, and Amélie remained alone with the dying man, who expired a few hours later with his head resting on her shoulder.

On another occasion, she heard that a woman whose life had been a public scandal in the town was at the point of death. She rose at once to go to her, and, in spite of the remonstrances of those present, she did go. The character of the woman and her associates, and the place where she lived, were indeed enough to deter a less daring spirit than Amélie, but whenever an objection was raised on prudential grounds to her visiting here or there, she would playfully point to her hump, and say:

“With a protector like that, a woman may go anywhere.”

The woman at first repulsed her fiercely and bade her begone, and refused to hear the name of God mentioned; but Amélie held her ground, pleading with all the eloquence at her command—and those who have heard it in moments when her soul was stirred by any great emotion declare that it was little less than sublime. She caressed the wretched creature, calling her by the most endearing names, till at last the obdurate heart was softened, she let Amélie stay and speak to her, and even asked her to come back the next day. “But,” she added, “you’ll find a _monsieur_ at the door, and he’s capable of beating you if you try to come in against his will.”

But Amélie was not likely to be deterred by this. She came the following morning, and found the _monsieur_. He met her with insulting defiance, and dared her to enter, and, on her attempting to do so, he raised his hand and clenched it, with a savage oath threatening to strike her.

“Hit here!” said Amélie, coolly turning her hump to him.

Confounded by the words and the action, the man let his arm drop. Before he had recovered from his surprise, she had passed into the sick room, and he stood silently looking on and listening in wonder to what was going on before him. Amélie left the house unmolested, and returned a few hours later with a priest. The unhappy woman had been a Christian in her youth. She made a general confession in the midst of abundant tears, and died the next day in admirable sentiments of contrition and hope. The example was not lost on her companion; he made a sudden and generous renunciation of his sinful life, and Amélie had to rejoice over the return of two souls instead of one.

As we have said before, her charity was essentially catholic, universal in every sense. She was ready to pity everybody’s troubles, and, with Amélie, to pity meant to help. The poor widow toiling broken‐hearted for her children in the courts and alleys of the big town; the father struggling with adversity in another sphere, trying to educate his sons and marry his daughters and pay the inexorable debt of decency that society exacts from a gentleman; the poor, lone girl battling with poverty, or perhaps writhing in agonized shame at having fallen in the battle; the rich mother weeping over the wanderings of a son; the poor orphan without bread or friends; the rich orphan pursued by designing relations, or in danger of falling into the hands of a worthless husband; high and low, rich and poor alike, all came to Amélie for sympathy and counsel, and no one was ever repulsed. Even those difficulties which are the result of culpable weakness, and which meet generally with small mercy, not to say indulgence, from pious people, found Amélie full of indulgent pity and a ready will to help. An officer on one occasion was drawn inadvertently into contracting a debt of honor which he had no means of paying. In his despair he thought of Amélie, and, half maddened with shame and remorse, he came to her to ask for pity and advice. The sum in question was two thousand francs. Amélie happened to have it at the moment, and, touched by the distress of the man of the world, she gave it to him at once. There was no spirit of criticism, no censoriousness in her piety, no fastidious condemnation of things innocent in themselves, however apt to be dangerous in their abuse. She loved to see young people happy and amused, and would listen with real interest and pleasure to an account of some fête where they had enjoyed themselves after the manner of their age. This simplicity and liberty of spirit enabled her often to take advantage of opportunities for doing good that never would occur to a person whose piety turned in a narrower groove; she was wont to exclaim regretfully against good people for being so overnice in the choice of opportunities, and thus cramping their own power and means of usefulness. With regard to the choice of tools in the same way, she would often deprecate the fastidiousness of certain pious people, urging that, when there was a work to do, an aim to accomplish, an obstacle to overcome, we should take up whatever tools Providence put in our way, not quarrelling with their shape or quality, but doing the best we can with them, profiting by a knave’s villany or a fool’s folly to further a just purpose, or a noble scheme, or a kind action, making, as far as honesty and truth can do it, evil accomplish the work of good.

Faithfully bearing in mind that we may do no evil that good may come of it, Amélie had withal an ingenious gift of turning to good account the evil that was done by others; but she was slow to see the evil, and, when it was forced upon her, she had always more pity than censure for it. Her lamp was always lighted, and she was ever ready to help the foolish ones who go about this world of ours crying out to the wise ones: “Give me of your oil!” For it is not only when the Bridegroom comes that we need to have our lamp lighted, we want it all along the road, for others as well as for ourselves; we must even adapt it to the necessities of the road by changing the color of its light. This we can do by changing the oil. We must use the oil of faith when we want a strong, bright blaze to keep our feet straight amidst the ruts and snares and pools of muddy water that abound at every step; we must burn the oil of hope to frighten away despondency and cheer us when our hearts are heavy and our courage ebbing; but we must be chiefly prodigal of the rich and salutary oil of charity, for the flame it sends out is often more helpful to others than to ourselves. Sometimes, when our lamp is so low that it hardly shows the ground clear under our own feet, it is shedding—thanks to this marvellous oil of charity—a heavenly radiance on the path of those journeying behind us; its flame is luminous as a star and soft as moonlight; people on whom we turn its roseate glow rejoice in it as in sunshine: it softens them, it heals them, it takes the sting out of their worst wounds. The lamp fed with this incomparable oil is, moreover, often brightest when we ourselves are sick at heart, and when it costs us an effort to pour in the oil and set the wick in order. We do not realize it, but we can believe it by recalling the effect of kindness on our own souls in some well‐remembered hour, when it came from one in great sorrow, and who we knew was setting aside her own grief to enter into ours. Let us be brave, then, to hold up our lamp arm‐high to the pilgrims who are toiling foot‐sore and faint up the steep and rugged path of life along with us; its flame soars on to heaven, and shines more brightly before God than the fairest and loveliest of his stars.

We mentioned already that Amélie, on her father’s death, made a vow of personal poverty. She observed this vow with the utmost rigor as far as was consistent with decorum and the absence of anything approaching to a display of holiness—a thing of which she was almost morbidly afraid. Her usual dress was a black woollen gown and a shawl of the same material; her appearance in the street was that of a respectable housekeeper, but no one who saw the outward decency of her attire suspected the sordid poverty that often lay beneath it. She limited herself to a pittance for her clothes, and she would submit to the most painful inconvenience rather than exceed it. Once she gave away her strong boots and a warm winter petticoat to a poor person at the beginning of the winter, and, though the cold set in suddenly with great severity, she bore it rather than replace either of them till her allowance fell due. How her health bore the amount of labor and austerities that she underwent it is difficult to explain without using the word miraculous.

When, under the pious auspices of Monseigneur de Mazenod, the devotion of the Perpetual Adoration was established at Marseilles, Amélie at once had herself enrolled in the confraternity; unable to spare time from her multiform works of mercy during the day, she entrenched upon her nights, and used to spend hours in adoration before the Tabernacle. Fatigue and bodily suffering were no obstacle to the ardor of her soul; her spirit seemed to thrive in proportion as her body wasted. After a day of arduous labor, constantly on her feet, going and coming amongst the poor and the sick, breathing the foul air of hospital wards, and dingy cellars, and garrets, fasting as rigorously as any Carmelite, and grudging her body all but the bare necessaries of life, she was able to pass an entire night on her knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and be apparently none the worse for it. Such wonderful things are those who love God strengthened to do for him. Yet this woman was made of the same flesh and blood as ourselves; she had the same natural shrinkings and antipathies; her body was not made of different clay from ours, or supernaturally fashioned to defy the attacks of the devil and the repugnances of nature, to endure hunger, and pain, and fatigue without feeling them; she had the same temptations to fight against, the same corrupt inclinations to overcome, and the same weapons of defence against her enemies that we have—faith and prayer and the sacraments. What, then, is the difference between us? Only this, she was generous and brave, and we are mean and cowardly. We bargain and hang back, whereas she made no reserves, but strove to serve God with all her heart and all her strength, and he did the rest. He always does it for those who trust him and hearken unconditionally to that hard saying: “Take up thy cross and follow me!” For them he changes all bitter things into sweet, all weakness into strength; for the old Adam that they cast aside he clothes them with the new, thus rendering them invincible against their enemies, and repaying a hundred‐fold, even in this life, the miserable rags that we call sacrifices; he fills the hungry with good things, and in exchange for creatures and the perishable delights which they have renounced for his sake he gives them himself and a foretaste of the bliss of Paradise.

During her solitary vigils before the altar, the thought of the ingratitude of men and their cruel neglect of our Saviour in his Eucharistic prison sank deeply into Amélie’s heart, and filled it with grief and an ardent desire to make some reparation to his outraged love. We have all read the wonderful chapter on Thanksgiving in that wonderful book, _All for Jesus_. Most of us have felt our hearts stirred to sorrowful indignation at the sad picture it reveals of our own unkindness to God, and the tender sensitiveness of the Sacred Heart to our ingratitude, and his meek acceptance of any crumb of thanksgiving that we deign once in a way to throw to him; we have felt our tepid pulses quicken to a momentary impulse of generosity and passionate desire to call after the nine ungrateful lepers, and constrain them to return and thank him; we watch them going their way unmindful, and we cast ourselves in spirit at the feet of Jesus, gazing after them in sad surprise, and we pour out our souls in apologies—so bold does the passing touch of love make the meanest of us in consolations to him for the unkindness of his creatures. Alas! with most of us it ends there. Next time he tries us we follow the nine selfish lepers, and leave him wondering and sorrowing again over our ingratitude. But with Amélie it was different. No inspiration of divine grace ever found her deaf to its voice; her love knew no such things as barren sighs and idle mystic sentimentalities. Her whole heart was stirred by that touching and powerful appeal of Father Faber’s, and she began to consider at once what she could do to respond to it. The idea occurred to her of instituting a community, to be called _Sœurs Réparatrices_, whose mission should be to give thanks and to console our divine Lord for the ingratitude of the world by perpetual adoration before the Tabernacle, and at the same time of getting up a regular service of thanksgiving among the faithful at large, to have short prayers appointed and recommended by the church to their constant use, for the sole and express purpose of thanking God for his countless mercies to us all, but more especially to those among us who never thank him on their own account. Both suggestions were warmly approved of by many pious souls to whom she mentioned them.

In order, however, to carry them out effectively, it was deemed advisable that Amélie should go to Rome and obtain the authorization and blessing of the Holy Father. She had never been to Rome, but it was the desire of her life to go there; it drew her as the magnet draws the needle; Rome, to her filial Catholic heart, was the outer gate of heaven; it held the Father of Christendom, the Vicar of Christ; it held the tombs of the martyrs, its soil was saturated with their blood, all things within its walls were stamped with the seal of Christianity, and told of the wonders that it had wrought. Amélie, glad of the necessity which compelled her to fulfil her long‐cherished desire, set out for the Eternal City. She received the most affectionate welcome from the Holy Father, who had been long acquainted with her by name, and knew the apostolic manner of life she led. With regard to the community which she desired to found, and of which she was to become a member, but not superioress, His Holiness approved of it, but beyond this, of what passed between him and Amélie on the subject, no details have transpired. She said that the Holy Father encouraged her to carry out the design and gave her his blessing on it, and promised her his fatherly countenance and protection; but whether she submitted any rule to him at this period we have not been able to ascertain. As to the scheme of general thanksgiving that she proposed to inaugurate, he gave her abundant blessings on it, and indulgenced several prayers that she submitted to his inspection. Unfortunately, we have not been able to procure a copy of the little book which contained them all; this is the more to be regretted, that some of them were drawn up by Amélie herself and full of the spirit of her own tender piety; they were also preceded by a preface in which she appealed very lovingly to the children of Mary and the members of the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart, and begged their zealous co‐operation in the service of thanksgiving. We may mention, however, that she was in the habit, during the few remaining years of her life, of constantly recommending to her friends the use of the _Gloria Patri_ and the ejaculation _Deo Gratias!_ as having been particularly commended to her devotion by the Holy Father himself.

An incident occurred to Amélie during her stay in Rome which she often narrated as a proof of the extreme need we have of a service of thanksgiving. She went one morning to an audience at the house of a cardinal, and while she was waiting for her turn she got into conversation with the Superior of the Redemptorist Fathers in France. Always on the watch to gain an ally to the cause, she told him the motive of her journey to Rome, and begged that he would use his influence in his own wide sphere to forward its success amongst souls.

“Ah! madame!” exclaimed the Redemptorist, “it was a good thought to try and stir up men’s hearts to a spirit of thanksgiving, for there is nothing more wanted in the world. The story of the nine lepers is going on just the same these eighteen hundred years. I have been forty years a priest, and during that time I have been asked to say Masses for every sort of intention, _but only once_ have I been asked _to say a Mass of thanksgiving_!”

Yes, truly the story of the nine lepers is being enacted now as in the old days when Jesus exclaimed sorrowfully, “Is there no one but this stranger found to return and give thanks?”

But for all her clear‐sighted sensitiveness to the sins and shortcomings of her day, Amélie was full of hope in it; nothing annoyed her more than to see good people lapse into that lugubrious way so common to them of always crying anathema on their age and despairing of it; she used to say that she mistrusted the love and the logic of such; that those who love God and their fellow‐creatures for his sake never despair of them, but work for them, trusting in God’s help and in the ultimate triumph of good over evil; that despair was a sign of stupidity and cowardice. And was she not right? Surely every age has in its ugliness some counterbalancing beauty, some redeeming grace of comeliness, in the tattered raiment that hangs about its ulcers and its nakedness. God never leaves himself at any time without witnesses on the earth, and it is our fault, not his, if we do not see them. There are always bright spots in humanity, and those who cannot discern them should blame their own dull vision, not their fellow‐ men. As poets who have the mystic eye see beauties of hue and color in the material world where common men see nothing but ruin and decay, so do the saints and the saint‐like, with the keen vision of faith and hope, alone penetrate the external darkness and decay of humanity, and discover in the midst of gloom and evil much that is promising and fair; they see elemental wines boiling up in the cauldron of travail and suffering, and they know that their bitterness is salutary and their fire invigorating unto life.

Amélie returned to Marseilles well satisfied with her visit to the Holy City, and resumed her labors with renewed zest. But she had left her heart behind her, and from the day she left Rome she had but one desire, and that was to return and end her days there. Her health had of late grown so feeble that it was more and more a subject of wonder to those who witnessed it how she was able to continue her life of superhuman activity without flagging for a day. Amélie felt, however, that it could not last much longer now. She had frequently expressed in the midst of her busy, active life a longing for a life of contemplation, and in proportion as the end drew near, the yearning for an interval of silence and solitude increased. She was often heard to say to her fellow‐laborers:

“It is time I left off looking after other people’s souls, and attended a little to my own; I feel the want of more prayer, of more time before the Blessed Sacrament; really, I must begin to get ready.”

In the year 1869, she determined to carry this desire into execution, and begin to get ready, as she said, by withdrawing into a more solitary life. Her love for the church had taken a new impetus from her intercourse with the Holy Father; from the first the Denier de S. Pierre counted her among its most zealous promoters, but more so than ever now. An abundant collection which she made just at this time offered a plausible pretext to her for going to Rome, in order to lay it at the feet of Pius IX. So after putting her affairs in order, and bidding good‐by to only her immediate and intimate friends, so as to avoid anything like resistance or a demonstration on the part of the multitude of people to whom she knew her departure would be painful, Amélie took leave of the hospitable old home in the Rue Grignan, and set her face once more toward the Eternal City.

But she had a last work to do for her native town on the road. The splendid military hospital of Marseilles, in which she had taken so deep and active an interest, was served by lay nurses, and both the soldiers and the civil authorities were anxious to have these replaced by Sisters of Charity. Easy as the thing seemed, up to the present all endeavors to effect the substitution had failed. It rested with the government to make the appointment and to grant a certain sum for the maintenance of the community when attached to the hospital, but, owing either to the case not being properly represented, or to the ill‐will of certain officials who put obstacles in the way, every application on the subject had been met by a refusal. The authorities, seeing all else fail them, turned to Amélie. They remembered her success on a former occasion, and requested her to take the affair in hand on arriving in Paris, and get from the minister the desired concession. The mission was repugnant to her, because she foresaw it would involve her having to come forward and put herself in the way of notabilities and magnates; but, as there seemed just a chance of being able to perform a last service to the soldiers, she accepted, and promised to do her best.

She had a military friend in Paris, who, though a practical Catholic, occupied a distinguished position in the service, and was on good terms with its chiefs. This gentleman procured an audience for her of Marshal ——, who was then in the ministry, and the person to whom she was directed to apply in the first instance.

The marshal, who had been made aware of the subject of her visit, received her, according to his custom, in shirt‐sleeves and a towering rage, asked her a dozen questions, one on top of another, without giving her time to edge in a word of protest, wondered very much what she or anybody else meant by interfering with soldiers and their hospitals and the supreme wisdom of the government, of dictating to them what they ought to do; but that was the way with women; women were always meddling with what didn’t concern them; they were the most difficult subjects to govern; for himself, he would rather have the management of ten armies than a village full of women, etc. In fact, his excellency bullied his visitor after the usual manner of his peculiar courtesy, and Amélie was obliged to take her leave after a very brief audience, during which she had been rated like a naughty schoolboy and not allowed to say three sentences in self‐defence. Clearly there was not much to be done in that quarter. Her friend then proposed getting her without further preamble an audience of the emperor. Amélie preserved a grateful recollection of the reception she had met with from his majesty some years before, and the idea of entering his presence again inspired her with less terror than the prospect of a second edition of the marshal; she thought, moreover, that there might be a speedier and better chance of success by applying directly to the emperor than by beating about the bush with his ministers, admitting even that they were not all of the same type as the one she had tried. Amélie accepted the offer, therefore, and, after a shorter delay than any one but a cabinet minister might have been obliged to undergo, she received a letter from the Lord Chamberlain notifying the day and hour when she was to present herself at the Tuileries.

She was shown into the antechamber, where generals, dignitaries of the state, bishops, and other important personages were waiting their turn to enter the imperial presence. His majesty was giving audience to an ambassador when Amélie arrived, and there was rather a long delay before the door opened. When it did, it was not his chamberlain, but the emperor himself who appeared on the threshold; he stood for a moment, and looked deliberately round the room, where he recognized many noble and influential personages, and then, perceiving an elderly lady in a rusty black gown sitting at the furthest end of it, he walked straight up to her, and held out both his hands. “Mademoiselle Lautard,” said his majesty, “I thank you for the honor you do me by this visit; I am sure I have only to mention your name for every one present to admit your right to pass before them.”

There was a general murmur of assent, though it must have puzzled most if not all of the spectators of this strange scene who this poverty‐stricken, humpbacked elderly lady was to be thus greeted by Napoleon III., and handed over their heads to the presence‐chamber. As soon as they were alone, the emperor drew a chair close to his own, and, inviting his visitor to sit down, he said:

“Now, tell me if, over and above the pleasure of seeing you, I am to have that of doing something that can give you pleasure?”

Amélie, in relating the interview to her friend, said that, when she saw his majesty bearing down upon her before the assembled multitude in the antechamber, she felt ready to sink into the ground, and wished herself at Hongkong; but the moment he spoke her terrors vanished, and she had not been two minutes with him before she felt perfectly at her ease, and talked on as fearlessly as if he had been an old friend. She told him her wishes about the hospital, and he promised unconditionally that they should be carried out. For certain formalities, however, it was necessary to refer her to his minister.

“You will call on Marshal ——,” said his majesty; “he is the person to do it.”

“Sire!” exclaimed Amélie, throwing up her hands in dismay, “anything but that; your majesty must really manage it without sending me again to Marshal ——.”

“Ah! you have been to him already,” said the emperor, with a quiet smile; “well, try him again, and this time I warrant you a better reception; he is _bon enfant au fond_, but you must not let him think that you’re afraid of him.”

Thus warned and encouraged, Amélie promised to take her courage in both hands, as the emperor said, and beard the lion once more in his den. Before letting her go, his majesty questioned her minutely about the condition of the hospitals and other charitable institutions at Marseilles, concerning all of which he appeared to be singularly well informed.

The next day, she presented herself at the _ministère_, and was ushered into the marshal’s presence. He had his coat on this time; whether the fact was due to accident, or to a desire to propitiate the lady who had complained of him to his master, history does not say; but, as soon as Amélie entered, his excellency accosted her with: “Well, so you were affronted with me, it seems! What did you say about me to the emperor?”

“Excellency,” replied Amélie, “I told his majesty that I had expected to find a minister of France, but I found instead a man in a passion.”

The marshal grunted a laugh, and told her to sit down and explain her business. She did so, this time with perfect satisfaction to both parties, and they parted the best friends in the world.

This closed her career of usefulness in France; she waited to make the needful arrangements for the departure of the nuns, their reception at Marseilles, etc., and then she started for Rome.

On setting out for the Eternal City, Amélie seemed to have had the presentiment that she had entered on the last stage of her pilgrimage. The sense of her approaching end, which betrayed itself, perhaps unconsciously, in conversing both by word and letter with her most intimate friends, was accompanied by an increase of fervor and a serenity which struck every one who approached her as something almost divine. The project which she had formed of founding and entering a community of _Sœurs Réparatrices_ was still unrealized, but she hoped now to carry it into effect, to make the remainder of her life a perpetual _Deo Gratias_! and to die in the outward livery of the religious state whose spirit her whole life had so faithfully embodied. But God had other designs upon her. Meantime, in the twilight interval of comparative leisure that she had looked forward to so long and enjoyed so thankfully, Amélie did not give up all active work; she prayed more, and lived in greater retirement; but she still gave a fair proportion of each day to her accustomed service of the poor and the sick.

These were troubled days that she had fallen upon in Rome. The sacrilegious hand of parricides had robbed the church of her possessions, and reduced Pius IX. to the nominal sovereignty of the capital of Christendom, as a prelude to making it, what it is now, his prison. Catholic hearts were sad; but, amongst all his children, the Vicar of Christ had no more faithfully sorrowing heart than Amélie’s, none who entered more keenly into his griefs or responded with more filial alacrity to their claim on her sympathy and participation and righteous anger. She beheld the persecutions of God’s church, the hatred and malice of its enemies, the cowardice of those who called themselves its friends, but stood by passive and cold while the crime perpetrated outside Jerusalem eighteen hundred years ago was renewed before their eyes on the body of that church which Christ had died to found; she saw pride and materialism everywhere at work striving to undo his work, to prevent the coming of his kingdom, and to establish the kingdom of sin upon earth; and the sight of all this filled her heart with grief, but not with despair. It was indeed an hour of unexampled grief for Christendom, but it was also an hour for activity, and zeal, and renewed courage; it was a time for each individual member to prove himself, for all to put their hand to the plough that was furrowing the bosom of the church, and to water the travailed soil with fertilizing tears, and, if need be, blood, thus preparing it for the future harvest that was inevitable. For even as God’s enemies of old had stood at the foot of Calvary, and shook their heads at the bleeding victim of their own hate and envy, and bade him come down from the cross, knowing not the dawn of the Resurrection was nigh, when the victim would arise triumphant over death, and compel his murderers to acknowledge that this man must indeed have been the Son of God—so now the enemies of his church had their hour of triumph, and clapped their hands for joy to see the church that he had built upon the Rock, and promised that the gates of hell should not prevail against, tottering and crumbling under the blows of progress and an enlightened civilization and the force of arms. But their triumph was but the hour of the powers of darkness that was not to endure, but would perish at the appointed time before the manifestation of the Sun of Justice.

Still, even faithful hearts quailed before the storm, and were scandalized at the way in which God seemed to forsake his own, not recognizing in this mysterious abandonment another trait of resemblance between his Vicar and the divine Model, who cried out in his dereliction, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”

Amélie was forced to hear and see much that was unutterably painful to hear as a true child of the church; many who called themselves such, and who were glad enough to draw upon her magnificent sacramental treasury, and to praise and serve her in the days of peace, were not stout‐hearted enough to share her tribulations or even to understand them, and stood aloof when they ought to have acted, or remained dumb when they ought to have spoken, or spoke what they had better have left unsaid. But alongside of this indifference or treachery she witnessed a great deal that was beautiful and consoling. Pilgrims were flocking from the four quarters of the globe to lay at the feet of Pius IX. the tribute of their fidelity and abundant offerings, often collected in perilous journeys at great risk and sacrifice. Then there were the Zouaves, _nos chers Zouaves_, as Amélie always called them, presenting a noble example to us all by their heroic devotion to the cause of God, their spirit of immolation, their chivalrous valor in action, and the marvellous purity of their lives. These modern crusaders replaced the suffering soldiers of Marseilles in Amélie’s solicitude during her stay in Rome. She tended them and worked for them indefatigably, and dwelt continually in letters home on the consolation the spectacle of their childlike piety afforded her.

Early in December she wrote to a friend at Marseilles: “Our dear Zouaves have made their entry into Rome. They passed under my windows. They are the flower of the French nation. They are full of that energy which nothing but the spirit of the faith gives. It is beautiful to see them receive Holy Communion before arming themselves. This morning eighteen hundred of them, bent on shedding their blood in the cause of God, marched proudly into the Eternal City with the band playing and colors flying; they reminded one of the Theban legion. I witnessed a touching sight. The Holy Father met them on their way, and they fell on their knees like one man to get his blessing. He blessed them with visible emotion. How could a father not be moved at seeing the devotion of his children? The Flemish and the Bretons are particularly conspicuous; ancient traditions have been preserved amongst them, and have come down from the fathers to the sons. This evening they accompanied His Holiness to the Vatican, where they cheered him with the enthusiasm of Christian hearts. It was impossible to withhold one’s tears as one beheld the venerable Pontiff rest his loving and gentle gaze on all this youth, so devoted to him, and burning to prove their fidelity. In these days, the position of the Zouaves amongst Christian soldiers is a noble one. Oh! if the idle youth of France knew what a happiness it is to serve God, how many families would be happy and blest even in this world as well as the next! I see here numbers of young men who had strayed away from the right path for a time, but who had the grace to return to it, and are now as happy as children, pure as angels, attached to the church and the Vicar of Christ. Their sole ambition is martyrdom; their joy is to look forward to it. Oh! I see here admirable things. Adieu, dear friend. Let us pray always.”

Sinister reports and wild alarms, sometimes the result of malice, sometimes of fear, were constantly starting up in Rome, terrifying the weak, and stimulating the brave to greater vigilance and courage, but keeping every one on the _qui vive_ from day to day. In the midst of the general excitement of expectation or terror, the serene confidence of Pius IX. remained unshaken, like the rock on which it rested. Amélie, who was admitted frequently to the honor and happiness of speaking to the Holy Father, was lost in wonder at it—at the unearthly peace that was visible in his countenance and pervaded every word of his conversation. Shortly before the date of the foregoing letter, she wrote to the same friend:

“The most contradictory stories are current here, but the peace, the calm, the _abandon_ of the Holy Father are indescribable, and go further to inspire confidence than the most sinister conjectures to create terrors. The daughters of Jerusalem followed our Redeemer to Calvary: a sort of filial sentiment holds me in Rome. I cannot go away.... Let us pray! The power of prayer obtains all things.”

Let us pray! This had been the lifelong burthen of her song, and the cry grew louder and more intense as she drew near the close. It was not the shrill cry of those who say, Lord! Lord! but the irrepressible voice of a soul whom the spirit of prayer possessed in the fulness of its availing power, and side by side with whose growth grew the spirit of sacrifice, the thirst for self‐immolation. She clung firmly to hope as the anchor of courage and resignation in the present trials of the church, but the sense of the outrages that God’s glory was enduring in the person of His Vicar increased in her soul to positive anguish. The consideration of her own nothingness and utter inability to lighten the cross that was pressing on the saintly Pontiff, pursued her day and night with the mysterious pain that is born of the love of God.

What a wonderful thing the soul of a saint or even a saintlike human being must be! How one longs to go within the veil and get a glimpse of the life that is lived there! It is so strange to us to see a creature take God’s cause to heart, and pine and suffer about it as we do about our personal cares and sorrows. It sets us wondering what sort of inner life theirs can be, and through what process of grace and correspondence and mysterious training they have grown to that state of mind when the things of God and his eternity are poignant realities, and the things of earth hollow phantoms that have lost the power to charm, or terrify, or touch. We see them hungering after justice as we hunger after bread, pining actually for the accomplishment of God’s will as eagerly as we pine for the success of our puny enterprises and the triumph of our small ambitions; and we are astonished, as it behoves our stupidity and hardness of heart to be, at the incomprehensible character of their faith and love. When life presses heavily upon us, and the cross is bruising our shoulders, and all things are dark and dreary, we catch ourselves occasionally sighing for death. This is about our nearest approach to that homesick yearning expressed in the words of the apostle: “I long to die, to be dissolved, and to be with Christ!” What an altogether different feeling it must be with these saintlike souls when they long for death! They are not impatient of life, or, like tired travellers, angry with the dust and sun of the road, and disgusted with the uncomfortable wayside inn where they put up; they are impatient of heaven and of the vision that makes the bliss and the glory of heaven. Too jealous of their Creator’s rights to rob him even in desire of one year, or day, or hour of their poor service while he sees good to employ them, they are willing to go on toiling through eternity if he wishes it; but they are homesick, they long to see him, they yearn after his possession with a sacred unrest that we who have but little kinship with their spirit cannot understand. They are saddened by their exile and by the sight of sin and of the small harvest their Lord’s glory reaps amidst the great harvest of iniquity that overruns the world. They watch the sea of humanity rolling its waves along time, moaning with conscious agonies of sin, storm‐lashed and terrible, breaking in billows of impotent rage against the Rock of redemption, and dashing headlong past it into the gulf, where it is sucked down into everlasting darkness; and seeing these things as God sees them, and as they affect his interests, they are filled with sorrow, and call out for the end, that this mighty torrent may be stayed. They call out to the stars to rise on the far‐off heights, that loom dim and gloomy through the swirl and vapor of the storm. They would fain hush the winds and the waves, and hasten the advent of the Judge before whose splendor the dark horizon will vanish, and whose glory will outshine the sunrise and fill the universe with joy. It is not their own selfish deliverance or the world’s annihilation that they long for, but its consummation in man’s happiness and the Creator’s glory.

Amélie longed with all the strength of her generous heart to do something for her Lord, to help ever so little towards hastening the coming of his kingdom before he called her away. One morning, after communion, as she was praying very fervently for the Holy Father, whose health just then was a source of great anxiety amongst the faithful, this longing came upon her with an intensity that she had never felt before; she was seized with a sudden impulse to make the sacrifice of her life in exchange for his, and to offer herself as a victim that he might be spared yet awhile to guide and sustain the church through the trials and temptations that were afflicting her. The impulse was so vehement that it was with difficulty she restrained herself from obeying it on the spot; the desire, however, to obtain the blessing of obedience in her sacrifice enabled her to do so. She quietly continued her thanksgiving, and, on leaving the church, went straight to the Vatican. There, kneeling at the feet of the suffering Vicar of Christ, she told him of the desire that had come to her, and begged him to bless it, and to permit her to offer herself up next day at Holy Communion as a victim in his place if it should please God to accept her.

Pius IX. was silent for some moments, while Amélie, with uplifted face and clasped hands, awaited his reply. Then, as if obeying a voice that had spoken to him in the silence, he laid his hand upon her head, and said, with great solemnity: “Go, my daughter, and do as the Spirit of God has prompted you.” He blessed her with emotion, and Amélie left his presence filled with gladness and renewed fervor. She spent the greater part of the day in prayer. In the afternoon she wrote two letters: one of them, of too private a character to be given at length, contained the foregoing account of the morning’s occurrences; the other we transcribe. It is a revelation beyond all comment of the state of her soul as it stood on what she believed to be the threshold of eternity.

SATURDAY, Dec. 15—ROME.

“We still continue in the greatest calm. _Nos chers Zouaves_ have the courage of lions; they draw their strength from the blood of the martyrs. Generally speaking, they are pious as angels. You see them constantly during their free hours slipping off their knapsack and their arms to go and kneel at the feet of the priest in the confessional, or to pray at the shrine of the queen of martyrs; they are truly the children of the church, and—”

Here the letter broke off.

The next morning was Sunday. Amélie repaired, as usual, to early Mass at S. Peter’s. She received Holy Communion, and then, with the Eucharistic Presence warm upon her heart, she offered up her life to him who had been its first and last and only love. The words were hardly cold upon her lips, when she was seized with sudden and violent pain, and fell with a cry to the ground. She was surrounded immediately, and carried home. Priests and religious of both sexes who were in S. Peter’s at the moment, and knew her, filled with alarm and distress, accompanied her to the Strada Ripresa dei Barberi. Medical aid was sent for, but it was soon evident that her illness was beyond the reach of human skill. All that day and the next she continued in agonizing pain, unable to speak or to thank those about her except by a smile or a pressure of the hand. Early on the following morning, Wednesday, she grew calmer, the pain subsided, and Amélie asked for the last sacraments. She received them with sentiments of ecstatic devotion, and for some time remained absorbed in prayer. Her thanksgiving terminated, she took leave tenderly of those friends who surrounded her, and then begged they would begin the prayers for the dying; they did so, and she joined in the responses with a fervor that went to every heart. When they came to those grand and solemn words with which the church speeds her children into the presence of their merciful Judge, “Depart, Christian soul, in the name of the Father who created thee, in the name of the Son who redeemed thee, in the name of the Holy Ghost who sanctified thee,” Amélie bowed her head and died.

The news was conveyed at once to the Vatican. When Pius IX. heard it, he evinced no sudden surprise, but raised his eyes to heaven, and murmured with a smile:

“_Si tosto accetato!_”(273)

The announcement of Amélie’s death was received with universal expressions of dismay and sorrow. It was not only the poor, who had been her chief and most intimate associates in Rome, that mourned her, all classes of society joined in a chorus of heartfelt regret, and proved how well they had appreciated the gentle French sister who had dwelt humbly amongst them doing good. The house where she lay in her beautiful and heroic death‐ sleep was besieged by people from every part of the city; all were anxious to gaze once more upon her face, to touch her hands with crosses and rosaries, to kneel in prayer beside the victim who had offered herself for the sins of the people, and been accepted by him who delighteth not in burnt‐offerings, but in the sacrifice of a contrite heart. To her truly it had been answered: “O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee according to thy word!”

The miraculous circumstances of her death were soon proclaimed. In the minds of those who had known her well they excited no surprise. From all they called out sentiments of admiration and praise. Tears flowed uninterruptedly round the austere court where the virgin tabernacle rested from its labors, but they were tears sweeter than the smiles and laughter of earth; prayers for the dead were suspended by common impulse, and the spectators, exchanging the _De Profundis_ for the _Te Deum_ and the _Magnificat_, broke out into canticles of triumph and hymns of rejoicing.

The Zouaves, her beloved Zouaves, hurried in consternation to the house as soon is the news reached them that the gentle, devoted friend of the soldier was no more; and it was a beautiful and stirring sight to see them sobbing like children beside her, touching her hands with their sword‐ hilts and their rosaries, and swelling in broken but enthusiastic voices the hymns of thanksgiving.

The Holy Father, wishing to pay his tribute to the general testimony of love and admiration, commanded that the child of S. Dominic should be carried to her grave with a pomp and splendor befitting the holiness of her life and the heroic character of her death. The remains were conveyed accordingly first to the Basilica of the Apostles in solemn state, escorted by a vast concourse of people, priests and religious, and exposed there throughout the morning to public veneration; a requiem Mass and the office of the dead were chanted; in the afternoon, the body, followed by all that Rome held of greatest and best, was transported to the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Cœli. The Zouaves claimed the privilege of bearing the precious remains upon their shoulders, and it was granted them. By special permission of His Holiness, Amélie was interred in Santa Maria; but her death was no sooner known at Marseilles than the townspeople spontaneously demanded that the body should be returned to them. But Pius IX. replied that Rome had now a prior claim to its guardianship; Amélie had made the sacrifice of her life at Rome and for Rome; it was fitting that the ashes should remain where the holocaust had been offered and consumed. Marseilles yielded to the decision of the Sovereign Pontiff, and the daughter of S. Dominic was left to sleep on under the august dome of the Ara Cœli, there to await the angel of the resurrection, whose trumpet shall awake the dead and bid them come forth and clothe themselves with immortality.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The following is the authentic record of this miraculous death, as copied from the original, legalized by Cardinal Patrizi, Vicar of His Holiness:

“Je soussigné, curé de la trèssainte basilique constantinienne des douze saints apôtres de Rome, certifie que dans le registre XII. des défunts, lettre N, page 283, se trouve l’acte dont l’extrait mot à mot suit:

“Le vingt‐deux décembre mil‐huit cent soixante six.—Mademoiselle Claire‐ Françoise‐Amélie Lautard de Marseille, fille de M. Jean Baptiste Lautard, vierge très pieuse, pendant quelle offrait Dimanche dernier à Dieu sa propre vie pour le salut du souverain Pontife, Pie IX. de Rome et de la sainte église, a été saisie sur le champ par la maladie, et ayant reçu très pieusement les sacraments de l’église, jouissant de la plenitude de ses facultés, en prière, entourée de plusieurs prêtres et vierges, a rendu son âme a Jésus Christ son époux, avec la plus grande sérénité, le Mercredi dix‐neuf à neuf heures et demie du matin dans la maison Rue Ripresa dei Barberi 175, l’âge de cinquante neuf ans; son corps, le lendemain vingt, après le completuum a été conduit accompagné par un grand nombre de religieuse en cette basilique et y a été exposé pendant la matinée suivant l’usage des nobles, l’office et la Messe ont été dit, dans l’après‐midi le corps a été transporté à l’église de Sainte Marie in Ara‐ Cœli, òu il a été enseveli dans le tombeau des Sœurs de St. Joseph de l’Apparition.

“Donné à Rome,” etc.(274)

The International Congress Of Prehistoric Anthropology And Archæology.

From La Revue Generale De Bruxelles

Concluded.

The sessions of August 25 began with fresh discussions concerning the troglodytes of Menton and the so‐called tertiary skull from California already spoken of. M. Desor entered into extensive details concerning the hatchets of nephrite and jade found in the Alps, and apparently of Oriental origin. “I do not believe,” said he, as he ended, “that these hatchets were utensils, but merely objects of display, like the dolmens(!)—precious memorials and relics of the first ages of humanity.” M. de Quatrefages thought these hatchets a proof of ancient commercial relations with the East. A great deal was said in this discussion of the use of stone knives by the Egyptians in embalming the dead, and among the Jews for circumcising. Only one thing was forgotten—neither the Egyptians nor the Jews ever attached any religious importance to the use of stone, and they likewise made use of bronze and iron knives in these operations. The instrument of circumcision at the present day is a steel blade.(275) M. Leemans, director of the museum at Leyden, thought these hatchets came from Java. He reminded us that there has always been constant intercourse between Switzerland and that island, and that the majority of the soldiers of the East India Company were traditionally recruited in Switzerland. The Abbé Delaunay refuted M. Desor’s opinion by merely referring to the collection at Pont‐Levoy, where there are fourteen hatchets of jade found in that vicinity. It was thought desirable to ascertain the as yet unknown source of jade. They now returned to the _hiatus_ mentioned by M. de Mortillet at the previous session, in order to oppose it by bringing forward an intermediary race, for whom M. Broca was the sponsor, though without flattering it much. He engaged in a long, subtile argument on the way tertiary flints were introduced into the valleys and caverns. They were not agreed on this question, which is one we can only regard with speculative interest.

The excursions to the _ateliers_ of Spiennes and Mesvin were not as pleasant as the one to the Lesse. For that, the country around Mons should be as charming as that of the Meuse—and the people likewise. There is a very complete work by M. Dupont concerning these excavations, in which have been found millions of rough flints, to which he does not hesitate to assign a quaternary origin of the mammoth period. When one has a taste of the mammoth, he cannot get too much of it. I know of sceptics and controversialists who through speculations of another kind are plunged into foolish incredulity. Here is an instance: from time immemorial our forefathers made use of flints for striking fire, and many of us can still remember the custom, which may not have wholly disappeared. For centuries, households had to be supplied with flints for the tinder‐box, and in abundance, for this stone is soon worn out by iron; it becomes furred and smooth, and is soon unfit for use. If we compare the considerable traffic in flints that must have been carried on with the enormous consumption that supports the fabrication of chemical matches, we can easily see that the sites of the workshops where flints for striking fire were cut must have been heaped with millions of rough ones—nodules, chips, and _débris_ of all kinds; that excavations must have been made by pits, which necessarily extended to considerable depth, and crossed very old geologic strata, for silex is found imbedded in chalk at a depth of thirty or forty metres in some places; that to argue from the stratification of surrounding formations, in order to decide on the synchronism of the excavations, would expose us to conclude _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_. And I have not mentioned all the common uses made of flints in a household. For many years they were used for firearms, and silex is still used in ceramic manufactures, the origin of which is lost in the darkness of ages. A great many of the flints that appear cut are only fragments that may have been owing to spontaneous fracture. Now, whence came all the flints used for striking fire during the historic periods that go back from our time to the middle ages and to antiquity? Has it been proved that these remains, so‐called prehistoric, do not come within the domain of history; nay, even of modern history? At all events, the age of the quaternary deposits is by no means established, and it is on the mere presence of human remains, or of the productions of human labor among these deposits, that certain anthropologists found the millions of ages they attribute to our species. These remains do not indicate the site of ancient settlements; they have been washed away from those settlements by currents of water, and the question is, What epoch produced these changes?—a question not solved, and perhaps never will be.

Besides, the primary defect of the whole prehistoric system is the indissolubly confounding of two orders of very evident facts, but which may by no means have any correlation as to time. Wrought flints show evident traces of human labor, and there is no unprejudiced person who cherishes the least doubt about it. The evidence of design shown by the examination of two or three specimens is in itself a proof of some value, but this proof makes an irresistible impression on the mind when, in addition, we see an accumulation of specimens. It is, then, no longer possible to attribute the uniform shape of the flints to a mere accident. But were they fashioned at the time of the formation of the _terrains_ in which they are embedded? That is another problem, the solution of which is liable to controversy. Mr. Taylor, who is very respectable authority in such matters, declares, after much conscientious research, that the gravel‐beds of St. Acheul were deposited in the earlier part of the Christian era. People of the historic period, such as the first inhabitants of Umbria and the Egyptians, made flints precisely like those of St. Acheul. The prodigious antiquity of man must be greatly shaken by these observations. At Sinai, flint has been used to effect immense excavations in the rock; it is again utilized under the form of hammers and chisels in the ancient copper mines of the Aztecs, in Canada, Spain, Wady‐Maghara, and Bethlehem, as well as on Lake Superior, in Tuscany, and in Brittany. The Bedouins of Africa and the Indians of Texas still make use of them; and M. Reboux, who gave the Congress a practical demonstration of the mounting and use of the utensils of the stone age, received his inspiration from those savages. They make the handles out of the sinews of the bison, covered with a wide strip of the animal’s skin recently taken off. This band is wound around grooves made in the middle of the hammer. The skin, as it dries, contracts, and the stone, the extremities of which alone are uncovered, is enclosed in a sheath so tight that it cannot be drawn out.(276) It must be acknowledged, then, that the authenticity of these beds at Spiennes, as prehistoric _ateliers_, appears exceedingly doubtful, and there is a tinge of similar incredulity in the behavior of the people around the _Camp des Cayaux_: “Countrymen, and even little peasant girls,” says a reporter of one of our principal journals, “were selling the finest stones to the travellers, making superhuman efforts to repress smiles that threatened to explode into loud laughter. A singularly ironic expression was legible in the large eyes of these _fillettes_ and broke through their pretended seriousness. It was very evident that the benighted villagers in the vicinity of Mons were not sufficiently initiated into the new gospel of science, and by no means had implicit faith in it. The irreverence of the population was still more evident at the entrance of the hamlet, where a group of young women manifested quite an uncivil merriment at the sight of some of the princes of science who were toiling along under the heavy burden of quaternary flint.” As an example of moral contrasts, I will merely allude to Hennuyer and the peasant of Furfooz, one sceptical and contemptuous of everything, and the other with genuine respect for the traditions of his beloved valleys.

The morning of the twenty‐seventh was mostly taken up with a report from General Faid’herbe on the dolmens of Algeria. A burst of applause greeted the illustrious and genial hero of Lille. Popular sentiment seemed an embodiment of the

“_Placuit victrix causa diis, sed victa Catoni_”

in the very teeth of the Borussians.(277)

General Faid’herbe assigned a historic epoch to the origin of the dolmens. These monuments, which are tombs, were the work of one race found on every shore from Pomerania to Tunis, and which, according to him, proceeded from the north to the south. The dolmens of Africa are like those of Europe. But what race was this? A blonde race from the shores of the Baltic, as the speaker proved by three facts: 1. Blondes are still to be found in Barbary. 2. Ancient historians speak of the blonde people who lived there before the Christian era. 3. Fifteen centuries before Christ the blonde inhabitants of that country attacked Lower Egypt. M. Faid’herbe stated that when he lived in Senegal there were two powerful negro tribes in the countries on the upper Niger having a political organization of relative advancement. The complexion of the royal family was somewhat clear, and they prided themselves on their descent from white ancestors. Etymological indices lead us to believe that this dynasty descended from the blonde race of the dolmens.

M. Worsaae opposed the general’s opinion, and maintained that the builders of the dolmens, on the contrary, proceeded from the south to the north, where they attained the height of their civilization. M. Cartailhac, however, stated an important fact that weakens this objection: the dolmens of the South of France contain metallic objects whose place of fabrication could not have been far off; those of the interior and the North only contained articles of polished stone.

A small man now sprang into the tribune, fierce as Orestes tormented by the Eumenides, with black eyes, long streaming hair, and a person of incessant mobility. It is one of the princes of oriental philology—M. Oppert, who began a demonstration of the chronology of remote historical times, which he continued in the afternoon session. He assured us, as he began, that he did not intend to offend any one’s religious convictions, or to discuss the chronology of the Bible, which, in his eyes, is eminently respectable. In his opinion, the difference of the dates pointed out in different chronological tables can be explained without any difficulty. M. Oppert showed us how the chronologies of Egypt and Chaldea, which were calculated by cycles of unequal length, begin with the same date—the 19th of January, Gregorian (the 27th of April, Julian), of the year 11542 B.C.!

He therefore concluded that the people of those regions must have observed the important astronomical phenomena of that time, the risings of Sirius perhaps, which would indicate a degree of civilization somewhat advanced for a period _still ante‐historic_. I like to recall the very words he used; they are full of meaning.

M. Ribeiro had made researches in Portugal that appeared to him conclusive as to the existence of pliocene man, and he produced tertiary flints which he believed to be cut. The Abbé Bourgeois, who could not remain indifferent to any proof of tertiary man, allowed an unexpected declaration to escape his lips. “I should like,” said he, “to consider these fragments as authentic proofs of the truth of my theory, but the truth obliges me to declare that I cannot discover any evidence of human labor in them.” M. Ribeiro sank into his seat under this _coup de hache‐ polie_, and tertiary man was properly buried, after a later correction from M. Bourgeois, who admitted that one of M. Ribeiro’s flints bore marks of human labor, but he had doubts as to its bed.

Anthropology and ethnography had the honors during the greater part of this session.

M. Lagneau said the researches made in Belgium showed there were three perfectly distinct species of men in this country, and he opposed M. Dupont’s opinion that the skulls of Furfooz belong to the Mongoloid race. M. Hamy demonstrated anatomically that a particular race, the Australioid, is spread throughout Europe. The jaw from Naulette appears to belong to this race; the skull from Engis belongs to another. M. Hamy thought he discovered some of the characteristics of the Australioid race in certain inferior types in Belgium and France. These primitive races are not extinct. They still peep out in isolated cases of atavism, and he exhibited a curious instance—the hideous portrait of a boat‐woman of the neighborhood of Mons, with all the characteristics of the Australioid race of the mammoth period. In this selection of a Montois type there was a spice of revenge evident to every one. M. Virchow found a manifest difference between the skulls at the British Museum and those of criminals in the collection at the university. The Flemish skulls present the same prognathism as those of Furfooz, and certain types have characteristics that might cause them to be classed with the Mongoloid race.

As to the size of the skull, it is not owing to the development of the psychical faculties, and we should be cautious about drawing premature conclusions concerning the primitive races of this country. M. Virchow cited the example of the two skulls found in a Greek tomb of the Macedonian epoch, the form and size of which induced him to class them unhesitatingly with the Mongoloids of the caverns of the Lesse. Now, one of these skulls was that of a Greek woman of great distinction, both as to her social condition and intellectual culture. The learned professor from Berlin expressed a doubt as to the Germanic origin of the Flemings. M. Lagneau also thought we should not decide too hastily about the races that first inhabited Belgium. He could not see why the Flemings and Germans should have the same origin. In Germany, Belgium, and France the races are excessively mixed up. Germany was repeatedly invaded by people from Gaul. Prognathism alone is not typical any more than the temperament, color of the hair, etc.

M. Vanderkindere thought the Flemish of Germanic origin, and the Walloon of Celtic. Blondes do not belong to the Aryan races. Prognathism is more common in them than in the dark people of the country, in which the speaker finds Ligurian traces, as in the basin of the Loire (Liger‐ Liguria). Now, the blonde race, has always thought itself superior, and this belief was so strong in Flanders in the heart of the middle ages that the mother of Berthulphe de Ghistelles, displeased at the alliance her son had contracted with the beautiful Godelive, a native of Boulonnais, whom her contemporaries reproached solely on account of her black hair and eyebrows, expressed her contempt in these significant terms: “_Cur, inquit, cornicem de terra aliena eduxisti?_” She thought it disgraceful to defile the pure blood of her antique Germanic race (_alti tui sanguinis_) by such an alliance.

In a subsequent session, this question of races came on the carpet again. M. Dupont, combining the observations made in the three excursions (that to Namur had taken place the day before), established a filiation between the different peoples who inhabited Belgium in different periods of the stone age. The people of Mesvin, the Somme, the Tamise, and the Seine were contemporaries. The race of Mesvin inhabited Hainault at the same time as the troglodytes, whom they did not know. It might have been the people of Mesvin and the Somme, who, gradually attaining to polished stone, invaded the country occupied by the less advanced people of the caverns. M. Virchow could not recommend too much prudence to those who are investigating the science of anthropology. In prehistoric times, as in our day, there were variations of the same race, but that is not accounted for by atavism. It must be concluded that men were simultaneously created or born in several places, and different types sprang from the commingling of the actual races. We take pleasure in collecting these indirect acknowledgments from the lips that dared say, “There is no place in the universe for a God, nor in man for a soul.” M. de Quatrefages thought, like M. Virchow, that all the various races cannot be owing to atavism. Crossing has a good deal to do with it. It is allowable to refer the variety of types to the more or less commingling of the ancient races, as they are everywhere mingled now. We can hardly deny, however, that the present population partly descended from the troglodytes. The people of Furfooz must still have some representatives in Belgium, especially among the women. Science proves that woman retains the type of the race to which she belongs longer than man. At a later day we shall doubtless succeed in deciphering the origin of the human races. In these researches we must also consider the action of _les milieux_. Mlle. Royer expressed a disbelief in the unity of the human species. Unfortunately, the inevitable crossing is always obstructing her observations. She absolutely refuses to admit that the white man is Aryan, or at least Asiatic. She hopes, however, some day to obtain a solution of these great problems. How far, madame, your knowledge extends, and how astonishingly you have retained the persistent type of _madame la guenon_ from whom you flatter yourself to have descended! After other discussions concerning the bronze utensils found in various parts of Europe, and the influence of Etruscan art, which extended even to the North, M. Baudre undertook the demonstration of a point singular enough. Primitive man, he said, doubtless possessed the musical faculty, and it is impossible with his knowledge of the flint he daily used that it should not have occurred to him to apply the sonorousness of that stone to some practical use. No one can positively declare this was so, but who can deny it? M. Baudre has constructed an instrument composed of accordant flints—a prehistoric piano—on which he executed a _brabançonne_ that would have excited the envy of the _Moncrabeaux_. It is neither more nor less insupportable than the modern instrument of torture of which some unideal creature, with bent body and a prey to convulsive jerks, strikes the senseless ivory with his skinny phalanges till it shrieks under the touch.

Of the excursion to Namur we will only allude to what bore on the scientific labors of the Congress; that is, the visit to the Camp of Hastedon. The delightful, cordial reception given us in that pleasant town, the banquet and concert which followed, will not soon be effaced from the memory of the excursionists. The plateau of Hastedon, close to Namur, rests on a solid mass of dolomite, and is surrounded by a bastion composed of fagots calcined—it is not known how, huge boulders, and a thick layer of earth and stones. The Romans occupied it for a certain time, but the parapets that surround it are much more ancient. It is an immense plain, eleven hectares in extent, strewed with flints, both wrought and polished, that came from Spiennes, while those of the caverns of the Lesse came from Champagne. The troglodytes of the Lesse and the people of Spiennes were contemporaries in the age of cut stone, but there was no intercourse between them. During the age of polished stone, on the contrary, the importation of flints from Champagne ceased in the region of the caverns, and the flint of Spiennes was diffused among the plateaux of upper Belgium. The inhabitants of Spiennes extended their former bounds, penetrated to that region, and fortified it. According to M. Dupont, the Camp of Hastedon must have been one of their fortresses.

The final _séance_ of the Congress opened with a very interesting and animated discussion as to the first use of bronze and iron. Where did the bronze come from? M. Oppert thought it of European origin. The Phœnicians went to England for tin rather than to the East. M. Worsaae was convinced it came from Asia, and that a bronze age will be discovered in Egypt. M. Leemans was of the opinion that the iron age preceded the bronze in India and Ceylon. M. Conestabile was inclined to think the Phœnicians obtained their tin from the Caucasus rather than England. M. Franks said they might have found it in Spain and Portugal, and M. Waldemar‐Schmidt thought the Egyptians obtained theirs from Africa.

M. de Quatrefages afterwards summed up the character of the Congress of Brussels: it appears from scientific evidence in every direction that certain existing types have an incontestable resemblance to the people of the quaternary period. In the second place, it now seems established that man of the stone age travelled much more than has been supposed.

The close of the session was marked by two occurrences that produced a strong impression on the assembly. The two workmen who so ably assisted M. Dupont in the exploration of the caverns had, at the solicitation of the committee, the _décoration ouvrière_ conferred on them by Messrs. de Quatrefages and Capellini. Then a letter from M. G. Geefs was read, stating that he had made a bust of M. d’Omalius unbeknown to the latter, which he offered as a mark of homage to the Congress. This bust, concealed at the end of the apartment, was uncovered and presented to the venerable president, old in years but youthful in feeling, whose fine noble career M. de Quatrefages retraced in an address sparkling with wit. Then, after some isolated communications, the Congress passed a resolution to hold its seventh meeting at Stockholm, in 1874, under the effective presidency of Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the Congress was declared adjourned.

We cannot better end this report, which I should have liked to make more complete, than by quoting M. Dupont’s _résumé_ (a little indefinite, in my opinion) of the labor of the Sixth International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archæology:

“After the weighty discussions that have taken place at the Congress of Brussels,” says M. le Secrétaire Général, “it is proper to lay before the public the chief problems discussed by the learned assembly. These problems have not all been definitely solved. That was not to be expected, for the result of such scientific meetings is seldom the decision of questions, but rather stating them with clearness and precision. The discussions at such meetings lead to the opening of new paths, and preparing the way, by throwing new light on it, for calm and persevering labor in the study. There alone is it possible to weigh the value of arguments, elucidate obscure points, and arrive at conclusions. In this spirit six principal points have been drawn up:

“1. Did man really exist in the middle of the tertiary period? Several of the specialists present at the Congress declared in the affirmative. But it appeared, especially from the flints discovered by the Abbé Bourgeois, that further researches should be undertaken before science can decide on a point so important in the history of mankind. The bed of the flints in question was ultimately regarded as incontestable.

“2. The formation of the valleys and the filling of the caverns were regarded as the result of fluvial action. The study of these phenomena may be considered as the fundamental point of research respecting man of the quaternary epoch.

“3. The bones of goats, sheep, and oxen, discovered in the deposits of the mammoth age in the Belgian caverns, were acknowledged to be similar to our goats, sheep, and certain species of our domestic cattle. An opinion was advanced that perhaps they originated these domestic species, whose origin has often been sought in vain.

“4. Communications between different tribes of the stone age in Western Europe were for the first time distinctly stated. The people of the quaternary epoch were divided into two classes, one of which, by the regular development of its industrial pursuits, arrived at such a degree of progress that it was thought they must have invaded the region of the Belgian caverns in the age of polished stone, and subjugated our troglodytes.

“5. The discovery at Eygenbilsen gave occasion for recognizing the Etruscan influence in our region previous to the Roman conquest. There was a disposition to admit that the intercourse between Italy and the Scandinavian countries must have been much later.

“6. The opinion that the anthropological types of the quaternary epoch have survived, and constitute an essential element of existing European nations, was admitted in principle by all the anthropologists who expressed any opinion on the subject. The problem of the origin of European races is thus placed in an entirely new light.”

Atlantic Drift—Gathered In The Steerage.

By An Emigrant.

Concluded.

The generally fortunate voyage of our vessel was varied by two or three days of very rough weather, and the miseries of our first night at sea were intensified by a violent gale. The fast steamer, built with lines calculated for excessive speed, cut through rather than breasted the waves. Tons of clear water washed over the whaleback, knocking over one or two hapless wights, and drenching many others. Her wind‐ward side was incessantly swept by blinding showers of heavy spray. To pass from the shelter of the main deck to the entrance of our steerage was a veritable running the gauntlet. You watched till the ship rose, and then ran at full speed for the shelter of the whaleback, happy if you reached it without being rolled by a sudden lurch into the scuppers, or losing your balance and clinging to the nearest rope or stanchion, being soused by the spray from the next wave that struck her.

The storm raged more fiercely as the evening advanced, and from timid lips came stories of the lost _City of Boston_ and the hapless _London_, while more experienced hands regretted their precipitancy in selecting a vessel of a line in which every other quality was said to have been sacrificed to that of excessive speed, and indulged in uncomfortable surmises as to the consequences of the shaft snapping or the engines breaking down. When the damp and chill of the advancing night drove us to our bunks, we clambered down‐stairs, and, staggering away into our respective streets, crawled in. To realize my first impression of the steerage of our vessel at night, when its cavernous space was lit, or rather its grim darkness made visible, by a single lantern, would require the pen of Dickens or the graphic pencil of Gustave Doré. Crouching between those bunks and the roof grotesque forms, dimly seen in the obscure light, threw weird shadows on the cabin sides. Here one busily engaged, under innumerable difficulties, in making up a neat bed of sheets and blankets, into which he afterwards burrows by an ingenious backward movement, like a shore crab hiding himself in the sand left uncovered by the receding tide; while his next neighbor retires to rest by the simple process of kicking off his boots, pulling his battered night‐cap over his eyes, and stretching himself on the bare boards, with a muttered string of curses on the ship, the weather, and the world in general, for his evening orisons. At a corner of one of the tables appear a group of players poring over their cards in a _chiaro‐oscuro_ that recalls a scene of Teniers or Van Ostade, while at another a group are gathered round a young vocalist who quavers out in a dull monotone a curious medley of sentimental ditties and music‐hall vulgarities. Gradually all drop away into their bunks, and everything is still, save the deep breathing of some hundred souls, and the groans of the sufferers from the malady of the sea. Occasionally the heavy plunge of the ship, as she dashes into some mountainous wave, extinguishes the lamp with the shock, and buries the little windows under water, leaving the cabin for a few seconds in profound darkness. In the gale during the first night of our voyage, one tremendous billow struck the ship, burying us in black night, and rolling trunks, tins, and clothes cluttering to leeward with the lurch of the vessel, and awakening all in a moment from their slumbers. A general consternation prevailed, and while some called in angry tones for the lamp to be relighted, others could be heard muttering the unfamiliar words of a half‐forgotten prayer. As the great ship shook in her conflict with the raging sea, and we heard overhead the rush of many feet and the swash on deck of a heavy mass of water, I felt nervous enough till she rose again and, creeping to the little window, I could see the cold moon throwing a silvery track across the waste of raging, wind‐ lashed surges.

I thought of the great ships that had gone down, crowded with hundreds of unprepared and unthinking souls, into the cruel bosom of the great ocean; perhaps their unknown fate was to sink in the darkness of the night, crushed in a moment by an iceberg, or, maimed and helpless, battered to pieces and submerged by the angry waves. What a horrible death‐agony must be that of the doomed, who, after the sudden crash of a collision, or battened down in their dark prison in a raging storm, heard the cataract of water roar down the hatchway, greedy to engulf them! For a few moments what fearful struggles would take place in the crowded cabin to mount the bunks and gain the last mouthful of the retiring air, until the flood buried all in the bosom of the deep, in a silence to be broken only by the trumpet of the Judgment Day! Should I, I pondered, in such a dark hour, have the strength of mind or grace of God to lie still on my bed and let the rising water cut short the prayer on my lips, or, hoping against hope, with angrily raging heart die fighting to breathe a few seconds longer the vital air? Of a truth, to die suffocated in the darkness, without a last look at the great vault of heaven, a last breath of the pure air, seemed to me to be to doubly die.

If I suffered some discomfort and perhaps a little anxiety from the occasional anger of the mighty main, it was far more than compensated for by its aspect in its calmer and more peaceful moods. I cannot understand how in a few days voyagers can learn to complain of the monotony of the sea; to me, its different moods in calm and storm, the snowy crests of the dancing waves, the foaming and often phosphorescent wake of the great steamer, and the ever‐changing aspects of the cloud‐laden heavens, were objects of untiring interest. If I had the magic pen of the author of the _Queen of the Air_, I would write a book on the cloud‐scenery of the Atlantic. Never, even in the purest Italian sky or the cloudless heavens above the vast expanse of a Western prairie, have I seen Diana so purely fair, Lucifer so bright, or Aurora clad in such varied garments of purple and rose; such a wonderful vault lined with innumerable flakes of spotless wool left by the dying wind; such masses of cumulus, sometimes as solidly white as Alpine summits, sometimes before the rain‐storm luridly gray‐ black with the gathered water, like the massive bulk of Snowdon seen through a driving rain; and, once or twice, the pall of the thunder‐storm rising over the leeward heaven and advancing towards us, its ragged edge momentarily lit up with the blazing tongues of the lightning, until it rolled over, deafening with its dread artillery and hiding all around in mist and blinding rain. The grandeur of sunset and of sunrise, when not obscured by the mistiness of a moist atmosphere, was indescribable. Every night, with renewed pleasure, we watched the god of day sink beneath the western horizon. Turner, in his wildest dreams of those gorgeous heaven‐ pictures that he had not seen on earth but felt that he would love to see, imagined no greater luxury of gold, carmine, purple, crimson, rose, and rose‐tinged snow, than was afforded by some of the spectacles of the setting sun. One evening still holds my memory entranced: the heavy curtain of dull gray mist that all day had lain low over the sea rolled eastward before the evening breeze; the emerging sun, low on the horizon, dyed the receding masses of cloud with a thousand shades of livid purple; the peaks and shoulders of the eastern range of mountains of dark vapor caught the light, while between them sank valleys and depths more sombre by the contrast. Westward, below the rosy, almost blood‐red sun, ran two long narrow filaments of purple cloud, dark across the glow of the heavens, like bars across a furnace. A few moments, and the shining orb sinks beneath them, fringing their edges with refulgent gold, then falls into a sea of liquid fire. A little longer the crimson hues linger on the eastern curtain of clouds, then grow fainter and fainter, and die away into the gray hues of a moonless night.

Among the five hundred emigrants our good ship carried there were, it is needless to say, many men of different speech, and almost every diversity of occupation and character. Besides the four nations of Great Britain, we had Germans, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians in considerable numbers, a few French, Poles, and Russians, a Levantine Jewess and her children, and a solitary American. With the Teutons my ignorance of their language prevented me holding further converse than to learn their nationality and their destination—generally Illinois, Minnesota, or Wisconsin. Unlike the Irish, with whom New York seemed to fulfil all their notions of America, the Germans and Scandinavians appeared all westward bound, in large parties, organized for agricultural life; and while they were in a considerable minority on the vessel, they formed much the larger proportion of the passengers in the emigrant cars. The amount of their baggage was something prodigious. Nearly all apparently peasants in their native land, they seemed on leaving it to transport everything they possessed except the roof over their heads to their adopted country. What would not break they enclosed in immense bags of ticking and rough canvas, and the residue of their property in arklike chests, the immense weight and sharp iron‐bound corners of which moved the sailors to multiform blasphemy. For my part, I had read so much of the contented prosperity of the peasantry in Norway and Sweden that I speculated not a little as to what cause could lead them to make the long and expensive migration from Christiania or Gottenburg to the so far off shores of the Mississippi.

With the Germans, who came principally from the neighborhood of Mannheim, the case was different. Several of them could speak a little French, nor were they reticent as to the principal cause that led them to desert their fatherland: it was the man tax, levied by the empire of blood and iron on their youth and manhood, that drove them from their farms in the sweet Rhine valley to seek abodes in the new and freer world. Several of them had followed the Bavarian standard under Von Tannen through the hardships and carnage of the Franco‐German war; but to the shrewd sense of the peasant the halo of military glory and the pomp of wide empire meant but conscription and taxation, fields untilled, and wife and children starving, while the blood of father and son was poured out to indite a new page in the gory annals of warlike fame.

By the way, one of them assured us that never in the fiercest time of that deadly strife, even when, in long forced marches, driving Bourbaki’s broken bands through the snows of Jura, had they fared so badly as he did then, to which I may add the experience of an Englishman—whose sinister countenance and shabby attire gave increased weight to his testimony—who averred that we fared little better than in a workhouse and worse than in a jail.

Amongst us there were many mechanics, principally Irish, who were returning from visits to their friends; nor can I omit to chronicle their uniform and emphatic testimony as to the benefit they had received from their emigration. In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago, they were sure of work, could live and dress comfortably, and lay by a large proportion of their earnings, while in England, and still more in Ireland, they were happy when their earnings kept them in lodging, food, and clothing, and saving was neither thought of nor possible. From what I could learn, the position of the unskilled laborer appeared by no means so bright. The different system of hiring in America made the nominally higher wages more precarious than in the old country; and I suspect that everywhere the untaught man, who, ignorant of any distinct branch of industry, brings only his thews and sinews to market, is, and will ever be, but “a hewer of wood and drawer of water”—an ill‐paid and little valued drudge.

For one class of the Irish emigrants, of whom we had a certain number on board, their countrymen entertained a profound and not unfounded contempt. Youths from Cork or Dublin shops or offices, whom dissipation or misconduct had thrown out of place, or the desire of novelty or adventure had attracted to the New World—unfit for manual labor, and without any special qualification for commerce—their heads were turned with tales of the giddy whirl of New York life, in their notions of which gallantry, whiskey, politics, calico balls, and rowdy patriotism made a curious medley. Their general ambition was to be bar‐tenders, and with some exceptions their usual behavior showed them to be little fitted for any better avocation.

One of the characters that most attracted my attention, though I elicited but little response to my advances from his taciturn nature, was a miner from Montana—a man of short stature but powerful build, with, a determined, weather‐beaten face, and a decidedly sinister squint, who had rambled over the greater part of California, Nevada, Utah, Washington, and Montana, and apparently returned no richer from his wanderings. Having been a seaman before he took to a mountain life, his gait had acquired an indescribably curious mixture of the out‐kneed walk of a man constantly on horseback with the roll of a sailor, while he had, too, a curious habit of involuntarily working the fingers of his right hand as if they held a six‐ shooter. He usually restricted himself to the bachelor society under the whaleback, and, chary of his words, amused himself with an amateur surveillance of the operations of the men, or occasionally exchanged reminiscences in brief sentences with two or three other returned Californians: how he and his mates had killed a grizzly at the foot of Mount Helena; how he had made £1,200 in eight months from a claim in Siskiyou County, and lost it all in working another in El Dorado County, at which he persevered fruitlessly for three years, while the claims on each side brought heavy piles to their workers; how he had seen twenty‐six “road agents” hanged together in Montana; and other tales of far West mining, murder, and debauchery. Once only his hard face relaxed into a laugh at a story he told of two men who quarrelled in a California saloon, and, dodging round the table, while the rest of the company made for the door or skulked behind the beer barrels, emptied their revolvers at each other with no worse effect than one slight scratch. That twelve barrels should go off and no one be killed seemed to be too ridiculous, and his risible faculties overcame him accordingly. Strangely enough, while he spoke with the most hearty enthusiasm as to the pleasures of a mountaineering life, which he declared, with a good horse, a trusty rifle, and staunch mates, was the finest in the world, and to judge from appearances had certainly not made his pile, he never intended to return westward, but was bound for some city of the South. Possibly some episodes in his checkered existence had caused him to bear in mind the shortened career of the twenty‐six road agents with a distinctness that determined his preference for this side of the Rocky Mountains.

The most lively time of the day was the evening after the five o’clock tea; the sailors during the dog‐watches—from four to eight—do not turn in, but remain on deck, and they amused or persecuted the female passengers with a coarse gallantry that generally made the more modest women remain below; the cooks, engineers, and firemen stood at their doors in the deck‐ house and greeted with horse‐banter the passers‐by; while on the open space before the wheel‐house a few couples danced to the music of an accordion, or tried to tire each other out to the whistled tune of an Irish jig. A pair of professional singers, husband and wife, to whose retinue I usually attached myself, used to sit at the door of the saloon and favor us with selections from their repertory, often with a success that brought metallic appreciation from the gentlemen in the neighboring smoking‐room; till after sunset—generally interpreted with extreme liberality—one of the stewards of the after‐steerage literally hunted the women down‐stairs; and then often on fine nights the sailors would cluster round the open hatchway and sing for or banter with their favorites below.

The behavior of the sailors towards the women was the subject of constant complaint by the more respectable of the passengers throughout the voyage; in the evening, no woman without her husband was safe from their persecution, and not always with him at her side; as they stood by each other, and always had the sheath‐knife at their side, the men were not very ready to commence a quarrel with them; if their advances were resented, they were apt to change from coarse good‐humor to the most revolting and obscene abuse. Hence, as I have mentioned, many of the women would not return to the deck after the evening meal. In short, if other steamers are like the one in which we made the passage, no young woman could cross in the steerage without her modesty being daily shocked, and, if she was unprotected, running great risk of actual insult. I have mentioned that the deck bar was at the head of our staircase and consequently near the sailors’ cabin; one night it was broken open and cleared of its contents; whether the culprits were either sought for or detected, I never heard; but certainly the seamen next day were in a state of extreme conviviality: and, under the emboldening influence of liquor, one lively young mariner put his arm round the waist of a very handsome young Englishwoman, whose ladylike dress and appearance had so far prevented her from being molested in this way. A fight between her husband and the delinquent was with difficulty prevented by the bystanders, and the former went to complain to the chief officer; he mustered the watch and read them a lecture on their not interfering with the female passengers, and told the culprit he would hand him over to the authorities at Castle Garden on his arrival at New York, who would certainly send him for six months to prison. The latter did not seem much discomposed at the intimation, and the day I landed in the Empire City he appeared at our boardinghouse on Washington Street in a state of great hilarity and beer, and informed us with much blasphemy that he had cut his connection with the ship.

The emigrant passengers on board our ship suffered much annoyance and discomfort; but I do not hesitate to say that most of our troubles arose from the crew and attendants rather than the arrangements of the ship itself. Much of the accommodation provided—for instance, in the case of the wash‐houses and fresh‐water pumps—was made useless by the negligence or surliness of the men by whom they were controlled; the victuals seemed generally to be of good quality, and, except in the case of the fresh bread and sugar, were provided with lavish if not wasteful abundance, but they were usually carelessly cooked, if not actually uneatable, and served in the roughest and most heedless manner. The crew were a most disorderly set—quarrels were of constant occurrence. I saw two fights—one between the interpreter attached to the after‐steerage and one of the stewards; and another, which took place between the head‐cook and the butcher in the saloon galley; and I heard of several others. The cooks and bakers in the steerage galley were changed once or twice during the voyage, but no change for the better resulted. I attribute this want of anything like discipline or attentiveness to their duties to the constant change of the men on board these steamers; they only sign articles for the run out and home, rarely remaining more than one or two voyages in the ship, and many go the westward voyage merely to get to New York and desert the ship the moment they arrive there. I was told the chief officer called the _milors_ together and promised them, as the ship was short‐handed (she had seven less than her complement of 28 seamen), they should receive £5 10_s._ per month instead of the £4 10_s._ for which they had shipped; but in spite of this, nearly half of them would desert when the ship came to her moorings. The cooks, bakers, and stewards are engaged in the same way, and the consequence is, before they can all be got to understand their positions and work well together, they are paid off and a new set come on board. If the companies could form a permanent staff for their vessels, and go to the same care and expense over their organization as they give to the material equipment of their splendid vessels, an immense change for the better would be effected in the comfort and convenience of the emigrant. As to the distribution of provisions, the passengers might be arranged in messes of ten or twenty, some of whose number would fetch their food from the galley for allotment among themselves, and thus give them an opportunity of eating their meals at table in a more Christianlike and less piggish manner than the majority are at present compelled to do. Nor do I see any great difficulty or additional expense in a different arrangement of the bunks, by which, at the sacrifice of the wide space in the middle of the steerage, they could be grouped on each side of a central table, so that each twenty or thereabouts would form a partially separated room, with its own table and its own mess.

At last, early on the second Sunday morning, the thunderlike roll of the cable paid out over our heads awoke us as the ship came to anchor off Staten Island, and later in the day she moored alongside the company’s wharf in New Jersey. In sight of the promised land, the fatigue and annoyance of the voyage were soon forgotten. A liberal meal of fresh and unusually well‐cooked beef and plum‐duff, eaten undisturbed by the vessel’s motion, made the memory of the disgusting messes we had endured or revolted at less poignant. The entire passengers went on shore in the forenoon, but none of the emigrants were allowed to leave, or any one to come on board the ship. Boatfuls of friends of the passengers came alongside, and the word passed along the deck that Mrs. Brady’s husband or Mary Cahill’s brother was seeking her. Numberless inquiries were shouted as to Mike, or Mary, or the children, until the gray twilight hid the spires and streets of the great city across the river. The chief officer came round early with a lantern, and summarily dismissed all the women below, and all went quietly to rest. Often, I believe, the last night on board the emigrant ship is a scene of wild revelry, if not actual debauchery; but the want of liquor—none was sold after the vessel came to her moorings—and the absence of the fairer sex, effectually quenched any convivial tendencies.

At an early hour next morning the luggage was run out of the hold, and tumbled pell‐mell on deck; and the youth of either sex, hitherto contented with the shabbiest and most negligent of attire, watched eagerly for their boxes, dragged them to a convenient corner, and made an elaborate toilette, either for the benefit of their American friends or to give the _coup de grâce_ to the sweethearts they had encountered on the voyage. It was like the transformation scene in a pantomime, and I could hardly recognize my lady acquaintances in their gay bonnets and neat dresses. Much of their finery, however, suffered serious damage before they emerged on the Bowery. In the afternoon, the custom‐house officer came on board and took his place near the gangway, alongside of which lay a tender for the passengers and a barge for the luggage. The boxes were scattered all over the deck, and to get them examined one had to drag them to the officer, open them and close them, obtain a Castle Garden check from an official at the head of the gangway, and then they went over the side on to the barge, and the passenger on to the tender. Every one was anxious to be off, and all scrambled at once towards the gangway, dragging boxes and bundles with them. Never did we see such a scene of tumult and confusion. Such a babel of tongues; such despair at boxes that either would not open, or more frequently, being opened, would not shut; such lamentations over their often hopelessly shattered contents—the married women imploring some one to mind their children while they dragged their boxes to the gangway; the single ones begging quondam admirers to help them to move their heavy trunks—appeals to which the latter, sufficiently engrossed with their own struggle to be off, generally turned a deaf and unkind ear. The custom‐ house officer seemed to discharge his duty with as much good‐humor as the necessity of examining some thousand boxes in a limited time would allow. We got off with the first tenderful, and after waiting an hour or two in Castle Garden, where we at once cleared the refreshment stall of what we then thought delicious coffee and pies, we were told to fetch our luggage on the following day, and then passed out into Broadway to seek our various fortunes.

In the boarding‐house where I spent the night in New York, I met passengers from most of the other lines. All complained of their accommodations, and affected to believe that they had unfortunately selected the most uncomfortable service. For my own part, I believe that on the whole there is but little to choose between the accommodations and provisions supplied by the different companies, and that the description I have given of the arrangements of one line would generally apply to the rest.

Martyrs And Confessors In Christ.

Nor let any of you be sad, on the ground that he is less than those who, before you having suffered torments, have come by the glorious journey to the Lord, the world being conquered and trodden down. The Lord is the searcher of the reins and heart, he sees the secret things, and looks into things hidden. The testimony of him alone, who is to guide, is sufficient for earning the crown from him. Therefore each thing, O dearest brethren, is equally sublime and illustrious. The former, namely, to hasten to the Lord by the consummation of victory, is the more secure; the latter is more joyful, to flourish in the praises of the church, having received a furlough after the gaining of glory. O blessed church of ours, which the honor of divine condescension thus illumines, which in our own time the glorious blood of martyrs thus makes illustrious! Before, it was white in the works of the brethren; now, it is made purple in the blood of martyrs. Neither lilies nor roses are wanting to its flowers. Let all now contend for the most ample dignity of both honors. Let them receive crowns, either white from their works, or purple from their martyrdom. In the heavenly camp peace and war have their respective flowers, by which the soldier of Christ is crowned for glory. I pray, bravest and most blessed brethren, that you be always well in the Lord, and mindful of us. Farewell.—_S. Cyprian._

The Roman Empire And The Mission Of The Barbarians.

Third Article.

So the great Roman world sinned on to the last. Christianity, with a cry of fear and alarm, pointed to the stormful North, and exhorted to repentance; but her voice was drowned in the mad shouts of revelry and the wild din of reckless passion. The mistress of nations would not consent to show signs of fear or alarm. She cast her far‐seeing eye over her wide, rich provinces towards the frowning horizon, and she had some knowledge of what sort of elements were hidden behind the black cloud‐wall there. Never yet had the whole terrible ferocity of latent wrath burst forth; but still, from time to time, as she had watched for some centuries back, the storm‐cloud had opened for a moment, and the low thunder‐peal had been heard, and the lightning‐fires had scathed her frontiers, and sometimes even had touched the very heart of some of her outlying provinces. But the fiery sword had been sheathed. The rent seemed to close again, and the thunder‐murmurs died away. Still no brightness tinged the angry North. But darker, wilder, more fiercely threatening the storm‐cloud grew. There was an angry God behind it, with his warrior hosts, hidden, and biding the solemn, predetermined moment. If the queen of empire felt, at times, a thrill of alarm, she tried to shake it off again. For proudly she gazed around on her widespreading dominions, and counted her almost countless monuments of conquest and glory, and appealed to the long past for her claim to live on immortally; and then took consolation and confidence to herself that the pillars of the firmament would crumble to dust, and the heavens fall, before she could be moved from her everlasting foundations. But still there were hearts that trembled for fear, conscious that something terrible was coming upon the world. The cry of the rapt seer of Patmos seemed still to be rising from the bosom of the Ægean Sea, and ringing in the ears of those who had faith in a God of justice. All those terrible woes foretold in the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of the Apocalypse seemed about to be accomplished. With strange wailing sound, as of a warning archangel’s trumpet, the prophetic voice appeared to repeat: “Thou art just, O Lord, who art, and who wast, the holy one, because thou hast judged these things: for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink.... And great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the indignation of his wrath.” Louder still that voice seemed to rise in tones of merciful warning: “Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and the Lord hath remembered her iniquities.... She saith in her heart: I sit a queen, and am no widow; and sorrow I shall not see. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be burned with fire; because God is strong, who shall judge her.” So appeared to sound out clear the sad, wailing voice of the prophet in these sorrowful days. And the people of God took warning. Full of fear and dread, they fled from the “great Babylon” and the other principal cities of the empire, and hid themselves from the wrath that was to come. Those who remained behind laughed with mocking incredulity at their fears, and, as if in defiance of a mighty God, drained the sparkling goblet with an intenser relish, and the din of revelry waxed louder, and the Circensian games were applauded with a wilder joy. Countless numbers of Christians, who still had faith in God’s Word and fear of his justice, hurried with rapid steps from these scenes of reckless dissipation and pleasure. They went to kneel with uplifted hands amid the sands of the Libyan Desert, or the wooded mountains of Lebanon; to implore mercy on a wicked world, amid the islets of the Tyrrhenian Sea, or in the rocky caves of the Thebaid.

At intervals another warning voice is heard, sounding, with the vehemence of the Baptist’s cry, from the holy precincts of Bethlehem. S. Jerome is meditating and commenting, in his convent cell, on the prophecy of Ezekiel. As he ponders on the judgments of God on Jerusalem of old, he cannot but think of Rome in his own day. As the images of ruin and destruction grow before his mind, and his great heart burns with compassion for sinful, sinning man, he pauses in his reading, and lifts his voice in warning of the vials of wrath that are about to be poured out upon the empire. Through the voluptuous palaces of Rome which he once knew so well, the loud warning voice of the holy anchoret of Bethlehem pierces with an awakening sound, and helps to persuade many a patrician beauty “to exchange the dream of pleasure, so soon to be interrupted by the clangor of the Gothic trumpet, for the sacred vigils and austerities of the Holy Land.” “Read,” he cries out, “the Apocalypse of S. John: mark what is written of the woman clothed in scarlet, with the mystic inscription on her forehead, and seated upon seven hills, and of the destruction of Babylon. ‘Go out of her, my people,’ saith the Lord; ‘that you be not made partakers of her crimes, and partners in the plagues that shall afflict her.’ Leave the proud city to exult in everlasting uproar and dissipation, satiating her bloodthirstiness in the arena, and her insane passion in the circus. Leave it to her to trample under foot every sense of shame in her lascivious theatres.” After these words of startling vehemence, he attunes his voice to gentler accents. And pours out his enthusiastic soul in language of sweetest music, winning and captivating both ear and heart. He throws a ravishing fascination and sweetness around his life at Bethlehem that must have been irresistible to souls in which yet lingered any purity of sentiment or love for the holy and beautiful. “How different,” he exclaims, “the scenes that invite you hither! The most rustic simplicity is characteristic of the natal village of our Redeemer, and sacred hymns and psalmody are the only interruptions of the heavenly stillness and serenity which reign on every side. Walk forth into the fields: you startle with mingled astonishment and delight to find that ‘Alleluia’ is the burden of the ploughman’s song; that it is with some inspired canticle the reaper recreates himself, in reposing at noontide from his overpowering toil; and that it is the royal Psalmist’s inspiration that attunes the voice of the vine‐dresser, as, scroll in hand, he plies his task all day.” Thus does he paint in charming colors the immediate neighborhood in which he lived so happily. His words take us back to the days of Eden, and make us realize what unfallen and sinless mankind would have been. Then he passes on to those scenes and names which are interwoven into the history of our Lord’s life, and round these again he casts the fascination of his poetical outpourings. We are carried on as by a magic spell, and we feel ourselves drawn captives after the mighty heart that glows with such a fiery heat of love in that grotto of Bethlehem. We cannot wonder that many souls felt the wondrous spell of that clear, sweet voice, as it broke with its music‐tones of penetrating power into the palaces of Rome. The loud‐wailing trumpet‐tones of the Apocalyptic seer, as they rose with terrific warning from the bosom of the Ægean, and the melodious music of the anchoret of Bethlehem, as it was carried westward on the breeze, both conveyed a message from a merciful God to the children whom he yet loved. But we will listen again to that winning voice from Bethlehem, as it pleads on, trying to draw Christians from the perils that were so near: “Oh! when shall that blessed day arrive,” it continues, “when it shall be our own delight to conduct you to the cave of the Nativity; together to mingle our tears with those of Mary and of the Virgin Mother in the sepulchre of our Lord; to press the wood on which he redeemed us to our throbbing lips; and, in ardent desire, to ascend with him from Mount Olivet?” We will hasten thence to Bethany to see Lazarus come forth in his winding‐sheet, and to the banks of that blessed stream sanctified by the baptism of the Word made flesh. Thence to the huts of the shepherds who heard the canticle of “Glory to God on high” and “Tidings of great joy,” as they were keeping their night‐watch over their flocks. We will pray at the tomb of David, and meditate under the steep precipice where inspiration used to come on the prophet Amos, until we hear again the living clangor of his shepherd‐horn. In Mambre, we shall commune in spirit with the great patriarchs and their consorts who were buried there; visit the fountain where the eunuch was baptized by Philip; and in Samaria honor the relics of S. John the Baptist, of Abdias and Eliseus, and devoutly explore the caverns where the choirs of the prophets were miraculously fed, in the days of famine and persecution. We will extend our pilgrimage to Nazareth, and, as the name implies, behold the _flower_ of Galilee. Hard by is Cana, where he changed water into wine. Thence to Mount Tabor, where our prayer shall be that our rest may not be with Moses and Elias, but in the eternal tabernacle, where we shall enjoy the beatific vision of the Father and the Holy Ghost. Thence returning, we shall see the Lake Genesareth, and the wilderness where the merciful Jesus feasted the multitudes; and Naim shall not be passed by unheeded, where he gave back to the disconsolate mother “her only son.” Hermon shall be pointed out, and the torrent of Endor where Sisera was overcome; and Capharnaum, the theatre of so many miracles. Thence going up to Jerusalem, as it were in the retinue of our Lord, as the disciples were wont to do, we will pass through Silo and Bethel; and having made the circuit of so many scenes, consecrated by the presence, the preaching, and the miracles of the Son of God, to that grotto where he was born to us a Saviour, we shall at last return; perpetually to hymn his praises, to deplore our trespasses with frequent tears; to give our days and nights to holy orisons, as if smitten with the same love which exclaimed, “Him whom my soul hath yearned for, have I found. I will hold him, and will not let him go.”(278) Such wondrous music did the spiritual enchanter pour forth from his lonely grotto. In such words as these, throbbing with love and holy zeal, did the great heart of the worn ascetic of Bethlehem gush forth. And they depicted in such vivid colors the sweet peace and purity and happiness of a new earthly paradise far away in the Eastern land, that many souls were lured away by the charmer’s voice out of the great Western Babylon in time to escape the tempest that was just about to descend upon it. Many illustrious names appear among the fugitives. Paula forgot her lofty pedigree and her more than princely fortune, and fled eastward, and S. Melania and many others of patrician rank hurried away to Bethlehem to escape the impending doom. And there, whilst the mighty God thundered, and hurled his flaming arrows of vengeance, and the great sinful empire tottered and crashed under the awful blows of his wrath, did those favored Christians tremble and pray amid holy scenes and sweet associations, round the grand spiritual figure of S. Jerome.

But it was not only among the believers in God’s Word, and those who observed the signs of the times from their watch‐towers in the heart of the empire, that the belief in the imminent catastrophe had taken a strong hold. The idea that vengeance was close at hand was agitating with fierce intensity the barbaric nations themselves. Whence that idea came, they themselves could not have told. It had long been working in their minds like a living fire; it had gone on inflaming their souls till they felt their whole being on fire with an ungovernable passion for destruction and vengeance. They had been kept for long centuries by an overruling power in their northern forests, waiting for an unknown moment in the future. But that moment, they felt, was now at hand. They were ready for it, for they knew they were the scourges of wrath in the hands of a mighty God.

But before that fierce, black storm‐cloud up yonder in the North pours out its fiery wrath upon the doomed empire, we will try to get a glimpse behind it to see what elements are hidden there.

Let the reader open his historical atlas, and follow with his eye the boundaries of the Roman Empire in the West. He will see that the east, west, and south of Europe are lying at the feet of Rome, the heart and centre of the world. As he casts his glance over his chart, he will be struck by the countless names that cover the face of Italy and Gaul and Spain, and all those countries that are comprehended within the rule and civilization of the great capital of the empire. But as he raises his eye northwards, he marks the outlines of Roman power. He might say that the Rhine and the Danube are the boundaries in that direction of imperial dominion. And what does he see beyond? Nothing that denotes that civilization has ever set a firm foot there. The great Hercynian forest begins at the Rhine, and stretches far away, with its dense, impenetrable blackness, as far as the Vistula. It looks like a long, broad line of fortification thrown up by nature to guard the North from Roman ambition. Beyond this, again, is a wild unknown land. The student becomes bewildered as he tries to gain an accurate knowledge of it. It is a dreary wilderness of forest, and swamp, and vast tracts of land that have known no tillage. He finds no name of city or town, but only the hard names of countless barbaric tribes. These seem to fill, without order or defined limit of dominion, the vast area from the borders of the Rhine and Danube to the Baltic Sea, and the mainland and innumerable islets of Scandinavia. If he cast his eye towards the North‐east, the prospect is of a land still less known, and, at the same time, less thickly peopled. But the barbaric names are there, though few in number, and the wild waste seems to stretch away interminably into the darkness. The map calls it Scythia, and that is almost all the student can gather from looking at it; but it seems to him that it is the high‐road by which the countless barbarian tribes have come into Europe. We may well believe Gibbon when he tells us that this vast, unknown northern land, cut off from the Roman Empire by the Rhine and the Danube, and shrouded in gloom and darkness by its widespreading forests, extended itself over a third part of Europe.(279) Tacitus describes it as a country under a gloomy sky, rude, dismal in aspect and cultivation; more humid than Gaul, more stormy than Noricum and Pannonia.(280) It was a country where the waters were often covered with thick ice, and the mountains with snow, where the air was cold and sharp, and the storms blew fierce and strong. It was, in a word, a country where no delicate, soft races could have lived, but where only men of stalwart frame and hardy natures could have their home; men who could bound up the snowy mountain heights with a feeling of luxury, could hunt with delight among the frozen swamps, and run in the teeth of the sharp blast through thick forests where the warm sun‐rays never penetrated. And what was this strange, unknown land, so dark and impenetrable, so vast in its extent, so defended by rivers and ocean and far‐reaching fortification of Hercynian forest, so wild and uncultivated, so dismal and cold, and overhanging with its savage, frowning aspect the empire of Rome? It was the camp of the God of battles. With a divine purpose of his own, he had kept it free from Roman conquest. He had marked it off for himself by those wide rivers and stormy seas, and planted that thick long line of forest trees on its frontier, and shrouded its vast area in secrecy and mystery by widespreading woods. And under the shadow of these thick forests he had, for long generations, been gathering his warrior‐bands. The great empire had been growing for centuries in power and riches, and had piled up her monuments to tell the ages of her glories, and had come to think herself everlasting; but whilst she thus developed her power so mightily, her destroyers were being gathered together in secret in that Northern land. It was not by chance that the Roman Empire had built herself up in such glory and imposing magnitude on the ruins of the great empires that had preceded her, and not for a barren purpose. God had marked with his finger the boundary‐line of her dominions long before she extended her power so far, and he had appointed her the work which she was to do for him. But he had marked out, also, the term in the future whereunto she should endure, and had chosen beforehand the instruments which he would use for her destruction. As she was to be the most mighty of all empires which the world had ever seen, so would her destroyers have to be mighty and terrible in their powers of destruction. And those destroyers God will have ready at the right moment. No human eye could see what was going on under that dense darkness in the North; its mysterious depth was impenetrable to mortal kin. It was the secret laboratory of God, where he was fashioning his instruments of wrath. He had long been there amidst the terror and gloom beckoning the wild races of the earth to come to him, and they had obeyed his call, though they knew not why. Far back in the ages of time, before history had taken up her pen, there was a great breaking up of the Aryan family in the Eastern land, and they divided themselves into two great sections. They moved in opposite directions, one towards the East, the other towards the West. Though that breaking up seems, at first sight, to have nothing providential about it, yet it was no accidental separation. Bringing our Catholic principles to bear upon it, we soon see that it was the work of God. The wild tribes wandered on, they knew not whither. But they had a guide as real and definite as the Israelites in after‐times. It was, perhaps, no pillar of fire nor mysterious moving cloud, but yet as unerring in its leading. The Eastern Aryans took possession of Persia, and, invading India, gradually made themselves masters of the country as far as the Ganges. In this rich and fertile region they soon advanced, with rapid steps, to a high state of civilization. When we first meet them in history, they are a powerful nation, with well‐disciplined armies, and arts and sciences highly cultivated. Of those who took the westerly course, some settled down in the southern parts of Europe, and at the opening of history are found in a state of civilization. One section of them, wild, bold, and free, remain in a nomadic state. They wander on towards the Northwest, never settling down, ever restless. They feel themselves drawn ever onward, as by some mysterious power which they cannot resist. That strange, unseen power is he who dwells amid the darkness of the Scandinavian and Suabian forests. And as they pour into that weird gloom, band after band, they are lost to view. God wants them there for a time. They are one day to rush forth again, at his bidding, wild and fierce as ever, to do their appointed work.

Of these multitudinous tribes, hidden under the dark covering of those Northern forests, we cannot undertake to give any detailed account. The student who has ever pored over his historical chart representing the home of the barbarians, knows well how impossible it is to obtain accurate ideas about them. He is simply bewildered with the number of tribes, and the hard names by which they are designated. He is content to let Dr. Latham and Mr. Kingsley dispute at their pleasure as to whether the Goths were Teutons or a separate tribe. Some authors, with Gibbon, would make the Teutons the great tribe which included and absorbed almost all the rest, whilst Dr. Latham insists that they were far less in numbers than is commonly supposed. It is not now our purpose to enter on a question of this nature. Our view of them is simply as a _fourmillement des nations_, confused, indistinguishable, undefinable. We cannot pretend to speak with accuracy as to what territory was occupied by each tribe. What they do we can only guess at. They do not regard themselves as in their settled home. They wander about restless, and unsatisfied in their wild forest lands. They have only an indistinct idea whence they came, but they have a mysterious instinct whither they are to go when the appointed day comes. At one time they are on the Baltic shore, at another on the Danube bank. They never think of marching back Eastward, whence they came; their faces are turned towards the South, and they dream of a rich, golden city in which they are one day to revel and feast to their heart’s content.

It is something bewildering to pause over and think upon, in our historical studies, is this Northern land of darkness, with its hidden millions of wild savages silently wandering about in their gloomy forest, under the eye of God, and waiting for the signal to rush forth upon the sin‐laden empire of Rome! There never was anything more mysterious in history. They hang for long years, like a suspended curse, over a sinful world. They would have come down thundering like a crushing avalanche long before they did, if God had not held them back. It is wonderful to think how really they were in the hand of the great Over‐ruler. Suddenly it had entered into their minds, as we have seen, to break up their home in the far East, in prehistoric times, and they had obeyed the instinct. They moved away from their native land, and set out upon their wanderings. They knew no land beyond their own, nor had they reason to expect that they would discover anything better than what they enjoyed in the country of their birth. But still they wandered on. Whither they were journeying they had no knowledge, but they were obeying an overmastering power. They found themselves, at last, gathered together in a mysterious land of darkness, and there they paused. They felt they were at the rendezvous to which they had been called. They were at the feet of him who had beckoned to them to leave their homes in the Eastern land. Their instinct now was to remain hidden there for a time behind the great fortification of the Hercynian forest. From beginning to end all through their history these barbarians are in the hand of God, under his generalship, and used to execute his designs. Such teaching as this will, no doubt, appear puerile to the sneering atheism of men like Herbert Spencer. He and those of his school have discovered that God has nothing to do with the course of human events or the government of the universe.(281) Social Science has led them far beyond the old‐world ideas of God and divine government; but, thanks to the sound and safe teaching of Catholic principles, there are yet men in these days who refuse to run after the _ignis fatuus_ of Spencerian philosophy.

But when we consider how the great civilized world of the Roman Empire and this world of the barbarian tribes bordered so close on one another for so long a time, and when we think what conquests Christianity had made wherever civilization had set its foot, we wonder how that dark Northern land could remain still heathen. Were not the citadels of the Christian religion planted all along the borders of the Roman Empire? Did no gleams, then, of Christian light shoot forth into the darkness beyond? We know that such certainly was the case in the Northwestern portion, where the Goths dwelt, for we read of Ulphilas and his apostolic labors among that tribe. But for the most part, the darkness was unpenetrated, and we are struck by the sight of two worlds running so close up to one another and yet remaining so isolated in a religious point of view. The fact was, the time for the conversion of the Northmen had not yet come. Their apostles were to be a race of heroes born on the mountain‐heights, and nourished in the pure, bracing air of monastic solitude. The barbarians were waiting for the monks. It is true that these wild tribes had already a worship of their own, and deeply religious in their way they certainly were. It was a religion quite in keeping with their wild, free character. Men who were so restless and active in their disposition, who delighted in storm and mountain and roaring torrents, would have no temple of wood or stone for their place of worship. Their temple was out in the open air, under the driving clouds, within hearing of the tumbling waterfalls, in sight of nature’s face; for nature to them was God. They saw him in the great mountain towering up on high, in the rocking forest‐trees, in the wide‐ stretching plain, in the flowing river, in the gushing fountain. He was in every object around them; in every speck of light in the overarching heavens; in the glistening streamlet; in the variegated flowers bedecking nature’s face; in the rock that stood out to break the power of the rushing sea‐waves; in the very stones scattered around them on the plain. There was a divinity of some kind in everything they saw.(282) It would, perhaps, be more true to say that their religion was polytheism rather than pantheism. We find, moreover, that the tendency of their religious belief was to keep alive in their souls the warlike spirit. The greatest and highest of their gods were beings of mighty power and terrible violence. “Woden, or Odin, as he was called in Scandinavia, was the omnipresent, the almighty creator, the father of gods and men; who ruled the universe, riding on the clouds, and sending rain and sunshine; in whom were centred all godlike attributes, of which he imparted a share to the other gods; and from whom proceeded all beauty, wisdom, strength, and fruitfulness, the knowledge of agriculture and the arts, the inspirations of music and song, and all good gifts. He was the giant hunter, who in the darkest nights rushed through the air on his white charger, clad in a brown mantle, his white locks streaming from beneath his slouching hat, followed by a train of wild huntsmen, the horses snorting fire, the bloodhounds baying, announcing war and carnage, danger and distress, as he passed along with lightning speed. But he was in a more special way the god of war, revelling in blood and slaughter, giving courage and victory to his votaries, and admitting to his Valhalla, or hall of bliss, none but those who died by the sword.

“Next to him was his son Thor, who rode on the thunder‐cloud and whirlwind, whose hammer was the thunderbolt, whose arrows were the lightning flashes, and whose wagon dashed through the heavens with crashing noise and ungovernable fury.”(283)

Then there was Saxnôt, another son of Woden, who occupied the third place among the gods. His name is afterwards associated with those of Woden and Thor in the abjuration of paganism made by those who were converted to Christianity. He is designated under many different names. He is Eor, or Are, or Ere, or Cheru, Tyr, Zio, Tuisco, or Tuis. He was the god of war, fierce and terrible, rushing to battle, at Woden’s side, and bearing down whole hosts with his mighty sword of iron or stone.

War, blood, and violence, then, were ever, in the minds of the barbarians, associated with the greatest of those beings whom they worshipped and admired. The character and the deeds of these gods were the highest and the noblest they could conceive. To be mighty in battle like them; to wield their war‐weapon as Thor wielded his huge hammer; to mow down enemies as Tuisco did with his terrible sword, would be the grand object of their soul’s desire. We may judge how little there was in their religious worship to tone down their fierce natures. Everything symbolized war; their deities were almost all warlike. Even Freyja, the Northern Venus, was pictured to their imagination as delighting in war. She was believed to be ever present in the battle‐field, wielding her flaming sword, with frantic joy, over the heads of their enemies, and ready to bear off the souls of the slain to Odin’s Valhalla. In that imaginary Elysium the joys of their fallen heroes were also of a warlike and savage character. They revelled there in “constantly massacring visionary foes, and drinking without satiety, out of the skulls of the slain, brimming ale‐cups presented by lovely Valkyrja.” What shall we expect, then, when these wild warriors are turned loose upon the Roman Empire?

But is it possible to obtain a further glimpse behind that vast, dark line of pine‐trees? Can we, by any means, get a glance at the wild indwellers of the mysterious land beyond? What are those men like whom God has so long kept hidden there? From time to time they have come forth from their forest homes and stood on the boundaries of the civilized world, and rolled their glaring eyes around over the rich empire that was to be their booty. But that has been, as it were, only for a moment. They have plunged again into their native darkness. Yet such writers as Apollinaris and Ammianus Marcellinus have told us something of them. By their aid we can picture to ourselves what those terrible hosts of avengers will be like, who will presently come down with such a headlong sweep upon the doomed empire of Rome.

All that we can imagine savage and terrible and extraordinary in figure and habit is found in real fact among those barbaric hordes. There are among them tribes who are small of stature, and thin and brawny, but quick and fierce as the wild‐cat. There are, too, men of giant height and strength, who can wield their huge clubs like playthings, and shiver the hard rock like glass. They have blue, flashing eyes, and bathe their flaxen hair in lime‐water, and anoint it with the unsavory unguent of rancid butter. Some of them roam about nude and uncovered as the wild animals of the forest, proud of their iron necklaces and golden bracelets; others are partially clothed with the skins of savage beasts, cut and shaped after the most odd and fantastic fashions. Some give additional terror to their appearance by wearing helmets made to imitate the muzzles of ferocious beasts. Plutarch tells us that all the Cimbrian horsemen wore helmets made in the form of the open jaws and muzzles of all kinds of strange and savage animals, and surmounted these by plumes shaped like wings, and of a prodigious height. This gave them the appearance of monstrous giants. They were armed with cuirasses of most brilliant metal, and covered with bucklers of uniform whiteness. Some shaved their chins, and, what must have added much to their hideousness, the back of their heads, whilst their hair was drawn to the front and hung down over their eyes like the forelock of a horse. So says Apollinaris,

“Ad front em coma tracta jacet, nudata cervix Setarum per summa nitet.”(284)

Others, again, allowed their hair to grow, and wore long mustachios and beard. Their weapons of war were various and strange as their own appearance. Some fought on foot, wielding with savage fury the huge club, or crushing mallet, or heavy‐headed hammer; or they did fierce work with their rude sword, or long javelin with its two points, or double‐edged hatchet; or they were skilful in the use of the sling or the arrow pointed with sharp pieces of bone. Others rushed to battle on high war‐steeds barded with steel, or on small horses, ugly and wretched to look at, but swift as eagles in their course. If they fought on the level plain, these barbarians were sometimes scattered over a large space, or they formed themselves into cuneiform bodies, or they pressed together into compact, impenetrable masses. If the contest was waged in the forests, they clomb the trees, which they worshipped, with the agility of monkeys, and there combated their enemies with wild ferocity, thus borne on the shoulders and in the arms of their gods. If they were conquerors in the battle, they abandoned themselves to acts of the most savage cruelty. To illustrate this we need only think of the tragic deeds that were done amid the swamps and the wooded hills of the Teutoberger Wald in the latter days of Augustus. It is sad, indeed, to read in Tacitus and the pages of Dio of the fate of that noble Roman army over which Varus held command. Yet we cannot regret to see the well‐concerted rising of the German tribes, under the splendid military genius of Arnim, to throw off the Roman yoke. We hold in deepest horror the wrongs, the oppressions of the Romans from the first ravages of Cæsar to the judicial murders of Varus. We think with feelings of indignation of the treachery and the bloody cruelty of Cæsar when the Usipetes and the Teuchteri were all but annihilated on the banks of the Rhine, and the Roman general rejoiced at his own unprovoked atrocity. We recall with sorrow all that the barbarians had had to suffer from their Roman conquerors through succeeding years, and our souls are on fire at the recollection of it. When, then, we see that the day of deliverance is at hand, we carrot but rejoice with Arnim and his brother Adelings at the prospect of future freedom. Our sympathies are with the Germans, not with their Roman oppressors. Whilst the Romans, then, are hungry and starved in the long, boggy valley between the sources of the Ems and the Lippe, and the rain falls in torrents through the cold night, and the soldiers’ spirits sink as they find themselves hemmed in by the enemy on all sides, we are, meantime, in imagination and feeling with the barbarian chiefs holding high festival as they recall the memory of ancient freedom and the deeds of former days, and we join in the war songs as they echo among the wild, dreary hills, and swell above the howlings of the storm. And when the morning breaks ominously and darkly over the Teutoberger Wald, and the tempest rises higher, and the heavy‐armed Romans cannot advance, and find it difficult, even, to keep their footing in the wet and slippery swamp; when we see their bows now useless from the wet, and their spears and shields no longer glittering in military pride, and their entire armor and clothing drenched and made too heavy for the poor benumbed and hunger‐stricken soldiers to bear, we can scarcely feel one pang of sorrow. On the contrary, our heart leaps with gladness when Arnim from his watch‐eminence gives the signal, and the trumpets ring out and the war‐weapons clang, and the terrible Barritum described by Tacitus(285) is heard rising above the howlings of the storm. We know how that tragic day ended, and how the evening saw the Roman host covering, with their dead bodies, the length and breadth of the battle‐field. Never had there been, in the annals of military warfare, such a terrible massacre of Roman legions. The news of it seized upon Augustus like a madness, and the old man, during the short remainder of his life, wandered sad and disconsolate through the apartments of his palace, sometimes dashing his white head against the walls, and murmuring, _Quintili Vare, legiones redde!_(286) But the barbarians were not content with such terrific slaughter as nearly annihilated the Roman army; their wild ferocity and cruelty showed themselves in their treatment of the captives. Tacitus in his _Annals_ tells us(287) that in the neighboring woods the barbarians had altars erected to their gods, and there the surviving Roman tribunes and the centurions of the first class were offered in sacrifice. Around Varus’s camp Roman heads were fixed, in cruel mockery, on the trunks and branches of trees, and in the midst arose a huge mound of Roman bones, left to be stripped of their flesh by the wild birds of prey, and then to whiten under that northern sky into a long enduring monument of a great barbarian victory.

If, on the contrary they were conquered, their fury was boundless, and was even turned against each other. When Marius overcame the first Cimbrian league, those who composed it were found on the field of battle bound fast to each other, so that they could not fall back before the enemy, and thus were compelled to conquer or die. Their wives were armed with swords or hatchets, and, shrieking and gnashing their teeth with rage and grief, they struck both Cimbrians and Romans. They rushed into the thickest of the fight, snatching with their naked hands at the sharp‐cutting Roman sabres; they sprang upon the legionaries like tigers, tearing from them their bucklers, and thus purposely drawing upon themselves their own destruction. It was a dreadful sight also to witness some of them when the fortune of the day had turned against them, rushing to and fro with dishevelled hair, their black dresses all torn and bloody, or to see them mounted like mad fiends on the chariots, killing their husbands and brothers, fathers and sons, strangling their new‐born infants and casting them under the horses’ hoofs, and then plunging the dagger into their own bosoms.(288)

Some of the barbarians delighted in eating human flesh. Ammianus Marcellinus gives us a picture in his history which freezes our blood and haunts us with its horrid memory. He tells us that, after the defeat of Valens under the walls of Constantinople, a barbarian was seen rushing among the imperial troops, naked down to his waist, sword in hand, and uttering a hoarse, lugubrious cry. He sprang with savage fury upon an enemy whom he had slain, and, applying his lips to his throat, sucked out his life‐blood with a wild beast’s relish. The Scythians of Europe were amongst those who showed this same instinct of the weasel and the hyena. We have the authority of S. Jerome for believing that the Atticoti also were accustomed to feed on human flesh. When they were wandering about in the woods of Gaul, and happened to meet herds of swine or other cattle, they cut off the breasts of the shepherdesses, and large pieces from the bodies of the shepherds, and ate them as dainty bits.(289) The Alans tore off the heads of their enemies, and caparisoned their horses with the skins of their bodies. The Budini and Geloni were accustomed to do much the same, being particular in reserving their enemies’ heads for themselves. The appearance of the Geloni was a sickening sight to look upon. They were accustomed to have their cheeks cut and gashed; and their proudest distinction was a face all covered with wounds that were scaly, and livid and crowned with blood‐red crests.

But if there is something terrible in the appearance and customs of the barbarians whom we have mentioned, it is surpassed by what we are told of the Huns. We shall not be able to form a true idea of the dreadful avengers who are to come down out of that Northern gloom, unless we look for a moment at this most terrible of the barbaric tribes. The Goths themselves, the stalwart giants of the Scandinavian forests, who knew no fear of men, could not but be terrified when they first fixed eyes on the hideous forms of the Huns. Jornandes, the Gothic historian, tells us that “the livid color of their skin had in it something shocking to the sight; theirs was not a face, but a deformed mass of flesh, provided, instead of eyes, with two black sinister spots. Their cruelty wreaked itself even upon their own new‐born offspring, whose cheeks they lacerated with iron before they had tasted their mother’s milk; and from this cause no down graced their chin in youth, no beard gave dignity to their old age.” We are told by Ammianus that “they looked not like men, but like wild beasts standing on two legs, as if in mockery of the human species.” They were, in truth, the wildest and most savage of all the barbarian hordes. They loved to be free and unrestrained as the wandering blasts of their native solitudes. They ate and slept on the ground under the open sky. They took their food raw and uncooked, like the tigers of the forest. No temples of worship had they; their God was a naked sword fixed in the ground. They were devoured by an insatiable thirst for gold, which they were ever ready to procure through blood, and smoke, and wholesale ruin. But the characteristic of their race was a ferocious delight in cruel massacre, and they gloried in pillaging, burning, and levelling down to the ground every monument of civilization that came in their path, till the regions over which they swept bore a resemblance to their native deserts. The rest of the barbarians were amazed at their inhumanity, and looked upon them as fiends under the likeness of men.

But we need say no more. We have caught some few glimpses of what is behind the dark storm‐cloud, and we can form some idea of the horrors that are hidden there. Well may men tremble as they look northwards in the Vth century. Well may Christians think they hear now again, ringing out more clearly than ever, the warning voice of S. John, and flee to far‐off hiding‐places. The sinful empire herself feels, at times, as if under the horrors of a nightmare; in her frightful dreams she thinks she is trampled upon, and crushed under the feet of fierce, wild men of terrible aspect, and torn and hacked by their strange weapons of war. As the tempest lowers over her darker and darker, and threatens to become all‐enveloping in its wrath, a deep shudder runs through her mighty frame. And well may she stagger and quake for fear. The reckoning‐day is close at hand, so long waited for by the holy martyrs of foregone centuries. And a day of dreadful destruction it will be.

But lo! the hour has already struck. God has given the signal to his warrior‐hosts. The Goth has given a ringing blast on his horn, and the German has shouted the first notes of his terrible war‐song, and the pine‐ trees of the Hercynian forest are trembling at the sound. The avengers of the martyrs and the Christian name are coming, and the whole North is shaking under their tread. At last the storm‐cloud bursts, and fiery destruction sweeps down upon the doomed empire of Rome.

New Publications.

IRELAND’S CASE STATED: IN REPLY TO MR. FROUDE. By the Very Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P. New York: P. M. Haverty. 1873.

Ireland’s case has been stated, argued, vindicated, and, so far as the verdict of the American people is concerned, adjudicated. Mr. Froude has given his last scowl and his last growl, and gone back to his own country—which he has damaged by his foolish escapade—the most badly beaten man of the present decade. It is rather late in the day to revert to the topic of F. Burke’s combat with this obstinate champion of bad characters and bad causes, and we will, therefore, let it pass with these few words. We are hoping to see soon issued Mr. Haverty’s promised second volume of F. Burke’s _Discourses and Lectures_, and we once more express our regret that any should be found so unmindful of propriety and courtesy, to say the least, as to interfere with F. Burke’s control of the publication of his own works. The eloquent Dominican preacher may be assured that the respect and sympathy not only of all Catholic Irishmen, but of all other Catholics of the United States, will be his while he remains here as our honored guest, and will follow him when he returns to his native land, or to his own beloved and imperial Rome.

KEEL AND SADDLE: A RETROSPECT OF FORTY YEARS OF MILITARY AND NAVAL SERVICE. By Joseph W. Revere. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1872.

We are so often disgusted, in reading books of entertainment, with a revelation of positive rascality and impiety, or at least of a want of high moral and religious principle in the author, that it is a relief to meet sometimes with a happy disappointment. This is a lively, entertaining book of varied adventures on field and flood. Yet we always find the author, when his personality comes into view, not only a bold and brave soldier, but a gentleman, an honorable man, and a frank, staunch Catholic Christian, who never obtrudes yet never hides his faith and his principles of virtue. His views of Spanish affairs strike us as rather defective, and occasionally there is a narrative concerning persons of depraved morals which would have been better omitted for the sake of his youthful readers. The “Golondina” episode in chapter xxiv. relates an adventure whose lawfulness, we suspect, though perhaps admitted by quarter‐deck theology, would not stand the test of a strict examination. Sometimes we are at a loss to discover whether the author intends us to understand his narrative as historical, or is merely relating a _conte_ for our amusement. In his own personal adventures and the descriptions he gives of what he has seen, we discover at once that his narrative is real as well as picturesque. And it is certainly most interesting. The off‐hand, unstudied, and unaffected style reveal the character of the true, genuine, frank sailor and soldier; while at the same time, the refinement of taste and the cultivation of mind which are manifest throughout give these sketches from the diary of a long and adventurous life the literary finish which belongs to the work of a scholar. Notwithstanding certain exceptions we have made, we reiterate our commendation of the high tone of moral principle, the unaffected religious reverence, and the generally healthful and invigorating spirit which pervades the book which the gallant General Revere has given to the public as the retrospect of his forty years of naval and military service.

HYMNS AND POEMS: ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED. By Edward Caswall, of the Oratory. Second Edition. London: Burns, Oates & Co.; Pickering. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Father Caswall’s hymns are as well known as Father Faber’s. Indeed, if we mistake not, many of them are popularly attributed to the departed writer. In the present volume we have a complete collection of the Breviary hymns, in the first place. This is especially valuable as the only one in the language (as far, at least, as we are aware). And the author deserves the more praise for this labor of love, because of the great difficulty of rendering the terse, stiff Latin. Then, secondly, we have “Hymns and Sequences of the Roman Missal”; followed by “Hymns from Various Offices and other Sources.” Thus the translated portion of the volume is quite sufficient to make it worth possessing. The execution, too, is very happy, on the whole. No one who has attempted to translate these hymns himself will insist overmuch on the absence of phrases commonplace or prosaic.

The second portion of the volume, “Original Hymns and Meditative Pieces,” also contains much that entitles it to a place in every household. The devout Catholic, and more especially the convert, will find many things said for him which have come into his mind, but without his being able to express them. Moreover, several pieces turn on topics which are generally supposed themes for the dryest meditation. They are here proved suggestive of true poetry.

The only fault we have to find with Father Caswall’s verse is the same that we find with Wordsworth’s: the too frequent sacrifice of poetic diction and the use of too many long Latin words. But this defect is unimportant compared with the value of the thoughts and teachings conveyed, and we fervently thank Father Caswall for his contribution to our scanty Catholic poetry.

THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST‐TABLE. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. 1872.

“Once I wrote because my mind was full; But now I write because I feel it growing dull,”

or,

“I have lived long enough,”

or,

“Poor old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree That cannot so much as a blossom yield In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry,”

or some such saw, this Poet at the Breakfast‐table should have affixed to these four hundred pages of incomparable drivelling.

“I talk half the time,” says the poet, in his opening paragraph, “to find out my own thoughts, as a schoolboy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them.”

And what does the schoolboy find there?

Rusty nails, old shoe‐strings, copper pennies, dead bugs, crumbs of bread, broken knives, and other trash neither beautiful nor useful. The similitude is just. The contents of the Poet’s brain are as precious as those of the boy’s pocket; and if we wish to push the comparison further, the wares of both are often of doubtful ownership. The only serious thing in the book is its humor.

“I don’t suppose my comic pieces are very laughable,” writes this poet, philosopher, sage; “at any rate, the man who makes a business of writing me down says the last one I wrote is very melancholy reading; and that if it was only a little better, perhaps some bereaved person might pick out a line or two that would do to put on a gravestone.” He has a most infallible instinct for the right comparison; as, for instance: “I love to talk, as a goose loves to swim. Sometimes I think it is because I _am_ a goose.” This is the first evidence of intelligent thought in the whole book. “My book and I,” he informs us, “are pretty much the same thing. Sometimes I steal from my book in my talk, without mentioning it, and then I say to myself: ‘Oh! that won’t do; everybody has read my book, and knows it by heart.’ And then the other _I_ says: You know there are two of us, right and left, like a pair of shoes! The other _I_ says: ‘You’re a—something or other—fool.’ ” The other _I_ is evidently a sensible fellow. “They haven’t read,” continues the other _I_, “your confounded old book; besides, if they have, they have forgotten all about it.”

Again, the other _I_ says: “What a Balaam’s quadruped you are to tell ’em it’s in your book; they don’t care whether it is or not, if it’s anything worth saying; and if it isn’t worth saying, what are you braying for?” This is the question the reader asks himself all along, as the evidence that the poet has nothing to say worth the saying becomes more and more overwhelming. This kind of criticism, we know, is little better than trifling; but the performance deserves no other treatment, for we candidly think that a sorrier book could not proceed from a mind untouched.

Why did this Poet, when he meant to write a book, seat himself at the breakfast‐table? Did he not know that a full stomach does not argue a mind replete? Had not Shakespeare said long ago that fat paunches have lean pates, or was he not physician enough to know that the _mens divinior_ is not to be found in hot rolls and coffee?

We shall conclude with one other brief quotation from the Poet:

“What do you do when you receive a book you don’t want from the author? said I: ‘Give him a good‐natured adjective or two if I can, and thank him, and tell him I am lying under a sense of obligation to him. This is as good an excuse for lying as any, I said.’ ”

As we do not believe there can be an excuse for lying, and as we are certain that in this case there is no obligation under which to lie, we cannot give the author “a good‐natured adjective or two”; but we shall thank him to give us no more such nonsense.

YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD. Second Series: Cross and Crescent; or, Young America in Turkey and Greece. A Story of Travel and Adventure. By William T. Adams (Oliver Optic), author of “Outward Bound,” “Shamrock and Thistle,” “Red Cross,” “Down the Rhine,” etc. Boston: Lee & Shepard, Publishers. New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1873.

This is the third volume of the second series of _Young America Abroad_, and, like all the rest of the series, is most instructive and entertaining.

THE TREASURE OF THE SEAS. By Prof. James De Mille, author of “The B. O. W. C.,” “The Boys of Grand Pre School,” “Lost in the Fog,” “Fire in the Woods,” “Among the Brigands,” etc. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard, publishers; New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1872.

This is one of the best of the “B. O. W. C. Series,” and will certainly be a favorite with the boys.

THE POLYTECHNIC: A Collection of Music for Schools, Classes, and Clubs. Compiled and written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.

THE ATHENÆUM: A Collection of Part‐Songs for Ladies’ Voices. Arranged and written by U. C. Burnap and Dr. W. J. Wetmore. New York: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co.

The best criticism of both these musical publications is found in the preface to the first one cited:

“Collections of school music are already sufficiently numerous and bulky, but too often they are found to contain very little that is available for the ordinary or the extraordinary occasions of school life.”

HART’S MANUAL OF AMERICAN LITERATURE—A MISTAKE CORRECTED.—Since writing the brief notice of this really valuable work which appeared in our December number, we have observed a very serious misstatement in it respecting a distinguished convert to the Catholic faith, the late Dr. Ives, formerly Protestant Bishop of North Carolina. Prof. Hart states that he _returned to the Episcopal Church_. He never dreamed of such an act of superlative folly. He died, as he had lived, a most fervent and devout Catholic, we might almost say—a _saint_, and was buried with all the rites and all the honors of solemn obsequies in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York. Prof. Hart, who always endeavors to be fair, and whose notices of Catholic writers are marked by their courtesy, would never have made this incorrect statement unless he had been misled by some false information, and we rely on his rectifying it in his next edition.

The following circular has been sent to us, and we publish it because we think there is nothing more hostile to such nefarious projects than free and early ventilation. Why does not Mr. _Abbot_ renounce his popish name, in his zeal to abolish every vestige of Christianity? Our readers will not fail to see how apposite an illustration this document furnishes of some of the remarks in our first article. We have also received an article from the _Cincinnati Gazette_ advocating the persecution of Catholics in this country, with a trenchant reply by F. Callaghan.

(_From_ THE INDEX, _January 4, 1873_.)

Organize!

Liberals Of America,

The hour for action has arrived. The cause of freedom calls upon us to combine our strength, our zeal, our efforts. These are

The Demands Of Liberalism.

1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempted from just taxation.

2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in state legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other institutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued.

3. We demand that all public appropriations for sectarian, educational, and charitable institutions shall cease.

4. We demand that all religious services now sustained by the government shall be abolished; and especially that the use of the Bible in the public schools, whether ostensibly as a textbook or avowedly as a book of religious worship, shall be prohibited.

5. We demand that the appointment, by the President of the United States or by the Governors of the various states, of all religious festivals and feasts, shall wholly cease.

6. We demand that the judicial oath in the courts and in all other departments of the government shall be abolished, and that simple affirmation under pains and penalties of perjury shall be established in its stead.

7. We demand that all laws directly or indirectly enforcing the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath shall be repealed.

8. We demand that all laws looking to the enforcement of “Christian” morality shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty.

9. We demand that not only in the constitutions of the United States and of the several States, but also in the practical administration of the same, no privileges or advantage shall be conceded to Christianity or any other special religion; that our entire political system shall be founded and administered on a purely secular basis; and that whatever changes shall prove necessary to this end shall be consistently, unflinchingly, and promptly made.

Liberals! I pledge to you my undivided sympathies and most vigorous co‐operation, both in _The Index_ and out of it, in this work of local and national organization. Let us begin at once to lay the foundations of a great national party of freedom, which shall demand the entire secularization of our municipal, state, and national government.

Let us boldly and with high purpose meet the duty of the hour. Rouse, then, to the great work of freeing America from the usurpations of the church! Make this continent from ocean to ocean sacred to human liberty! Prove that you are worthy descendants of those whose wisdom and patriotism gave us a constitution untainted with superstition! Shake off your slumbers, and break the chains to which you have too long tamely submitted.

FRANCIS E. ABBOT.

TOLEDO, OHIO, Jan. 1, 1873.

Liberals Of New York,

Shall the coming “National Association to secure a Religious Amendment to the United States Constitution,” to be held in New York in February, find us unorganized for resistance? Let us at once form a “Liberal League,” in which we may arrange a campaign offensive and defensive for our liberties. Send me at once the addresses of those who sympathize with us, that a meeting may be called at an early day: remember that “he who is not for me is against me,” and that our liberties are threatened.

E. F. DINSMORE, 36 Dey Street, New York, Agent of _The Index_.

[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]

FOOTNOTES

1 Alfred de Musset.

2 _The Life and Labors of S. Thomas of Aquin._ By the Very Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, O.S.B., Cathedral‐Prior of S. Michael’s, Hereford. 2 vols. London: Longmans; Hereford: James Hull. 1871‐2.

3 Proverbs vi., vii.

4 _Adv. Prax._, c. 2.

5 Bishop Wilson, _Sacra Privata_.

6 _Homil._, in S. Ignat., vii. p. 593.

7 Οὐχ ὡς Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος διατάσσομαι ὑμῖν· ἐκεῖνοι Ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἐγὼ δὲ ἐλάχιστος.

8 Κλήμης ἐν ἕκτῳ των Ὑποτυπώσεων παρατέθειται την ἱστορίαν· συνεπιμαρτυρει δὲ αυτῷ καὶ ὁ ἱεραπολίτης ἐπίσκοπος ὀνόματι Παπίας. Τοῦ δὲ Μάρκου μνημονεύειν τὸν Πέτρον ἐν τῇ προτέρᾳ ἐπιστολῇ, ἦν καὶ συντάξαι φασὶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῆςς Ῥώμης· σημαίνειν τε τοῦτο αὐτὸν τὴν πόλιν τροπεκώτερον Β βυλῶνα προσειπόντα, διὰ τούτων· Λοπαζεται ὑμᾶς, κ.τ.λ.

9 Eusebius’ _Eccl. Hist._, l. 2, c. 25.

10 Τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ τοῦ Παύλου εν Ρώμηλ εὐαγγελιζομένων καὶ θεμελιούντων τὴν ἑκκλησιαν.—_Eusebius_, l. 5, c. 8; also, S. Irenæus, _Adv. Hæreses_, l. 3, c. 3.

11 Ἐγω δε τα τρόπαια των Ἀποστόλων ἔχω δεῖζαι, κ.τ.λ.—_Eusebius_, l. 2, c. 25.

12 _Eusebius_, l. 3, c. 1.

13 “Edant ergo origines ecclesiarum suarum; evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum, ita per successiones ab initio decurrentem, ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis, vel apostolicis viris, qui tamen cum apostolis perseveraverit, habuerit auctorem et antecessorem. Hoc enim modo ecclesiæ apostolicæ census suos deferunt: sicut Smyrnæorum Ecclesia Polycarpum ab Joanne collocatum refert; sicut Romanorum, Clementum a Petro ordinatum itidem.”—_Tertulliani_, _De Præscriptione Hæreticorum_, c. 32.

14 “Si autem Italiæ adjaces, habes Romam, unde nobis quoque auctoritas præsto est. Ista quam felix ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam apostoli cum sanguine quo profuderunt! ubi Petrus passioni Dominicæ adæquatur; ubi Paulus Joannis exitu coronatur.”—_Tertulliani_, _De Præscriptione Hæreticorum_, c. 36.

15 “Videamus quod lac a Paulo Corinthii hauserint; ad quam regulam Galatæ sint recorrecti; quid legant Philippenses, Thessalonicenses, Ephesii; quid etiam Romani de proximo sonent, quibus evangelium et Petrus et Paulus sanguine quoque suo signatum reliquerunt.”—_Tertulliani_, _Adv. Marcionem_, l. 4, c. 5.

16 1 _S. Peter_ v. 13: “The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus, my son.”

17 _S. John_ xxi. 18: “Verily, verily I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not.” Also, 2 _S. Peter_ i. 14: “Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me.”

18 “Seven Roman cities strove for Homer dead Through which the living Homer begged his bread.”

19 “Veteres omnes in errorem abrepti sunt.”

20 _Instit._, l. 4, c. 6, n. 15.

21 “De Babylone dissident veteres et novi interpretes. Veteres Romam interpretantur, ubi Petrum fuisse nemo verus Christianus dubitavit: novi, Babylonem in Chaldea. Ego veteribus assentior.”

22 Prof. Stuart, Andover _Biblical Repository_, Jan., 1833, vol. iii. p. 153.

23 _Lectures on Ecclesiastical History._

24 _Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures_, vol. ii. p. 361.

25 _A New Literal Translation, from the Original Greek, of all the Apostolic Epistles; with a Commentary and Notes._

26 Prior Vaughan, _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 464.

27 _S. Thomas of Aquin_, Introduction.

28 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 20, 21.

29 _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 369.

30 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 325.

31 _Ibid._

32 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i. 9‐11.

33 _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 134.

34 Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, i. Edin. ed.

35 _Monks of the West._

36 _Ibid._

37 _Monks of the West._

38 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 426.

39 _Monks of the West_, ii.

40 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i.

41 _Ibid._

42 _Ibid._

43 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

44 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i.

45 Montalembert’s _Monks of the West_, iii. 195, 197.

46 _Monks of the West._

47 _Monks of the West._

48 _Monks of the West._

49 _Monks of the West._

50 _Ibid._

51 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

52 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

53 _Ibid._

54 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

55 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

56 _Ibid._

57 _Ibid._

58 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

59 _Monks of the West._

60 _Gladstone._

61 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

62 _Monks of the West._

63 _Monks of the West._

64 _S. Thomas of Aquin._

65 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

66 “All the more reason.”

67 Term for the peasants and workingmen.

68 “Go, my son, there are now no Pyrenees.”

69 The queen’s bed‐chamber.

70 The king’s bed‐chamber.

71 “I am the state!”

72 “An instant more, and I should have had to wait!”

73 “The king is dead, long live the king.”

74 The Duchesse de Polignac.

75 Louis only knew how to love and to forgive; had he known how to punish, he would have known how to reign.

76 Bancroft.

77 Bancroft.

78 Shea.

79 Lake George.

80 Caughnawaga.

81 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, i. 327.

82 _Ibid._

83 _Ibid._

84 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

85 _Life of S. Thomas of Aquin._

86 _S. Thomas of Aquin._

87 _Ibid._

88 _S. Thomas of Aquin._

89 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

90 _Ibid._

91 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

92 _Ibid._

93 _Christian Schools and Scholars_, ii. 370.

94 See _S. Thomas of Aquin_, i. 42.

95 Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, v. 159.

96 _Ibid._, v. 97.

97 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

98 _Ibid._

99 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

100 For all these and the following details, see _Christian Schools and Scholars_.

101 _Christian Schools and Scholars._

102 _Ibid._

103 _The Condition of the Catholics under James I. Father Gerard’s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot._ Edited, with his Life, by John Morris, Priest of the Society of Jesus. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1871. New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.

_Her Majesty’s Tower._ By William Hepworth Dixon. Second series. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1869. Reprinted.

104 “The great house then rising at Charing Cross was said, in reference to these gifts, to be plated with King Philip’s gold. Much of Don Juan’s money passed in Cecil’s pocket.... Northampton and Suffolk also obtained the most princely sums.”—_Her Majesty’s Tower_, pp. 59, 60.

105 _History of England_, ix. 36.

106 _Statutes of Elizabeth_, chap. i., v., xiii., xxi., xxiii., xxvii., xxviii., xxix., xxxv.

107 _The Life of Father John Gerard_, xcvii.‐ix.

108 Fifth Examination of Fawkes, November 9th and 10th, _State Paper Office_, No. 54.

109 _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clxxviii.

110 Page 221.

111 _A Narrative, etc._, pp. 76‐77.

112 Told to the writer as a fact.

113 This incident is authentic, and occurred at No. 13 Rue Royale.

114 _The Life and Labors of S. Thomas of Aquin._ By the Very Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, O.S.B. 2 vols. London: Longmans; Hereford: James Hull. 1871‐2.

115 xiv. 15, 16.

116 “Stop, traveller.”

117 “Behold, traveller.”

118 “Farewell,” or “Hail, for ever.”

119 _Sit tibi terra levis._

120 _Locus_, _loculus_.

121 Matt. xii. 32.

122 1 Cor. iii. 13, 15.

123 1 Pet.

124 Apocalypse xxi. 27.

125 2 Mach. xii. 43‐46.

126 xvi. 14.

127 xxxv. 19, 20.

128 2 Chron. xxi. 19.

129 “_Les morts ne sont pas les oubliés: ils ne sont que les absents._”

130 Sismondi, _His. Ital. Rep._

131 See CATHOLIC WORLD, vol. xiii., No. 73, April, 1871, p. 1.

132 _The Following of Christ_, b. iii. chap. v.

133 _Following of Christ_, b. iii. chap. v.

134 The Marquisate or March of Ancona was then governed by Charles of Valois, who held Naples.

135 That is, in the territory of Padua, founded, as the student will remember, by the Trojan Antenor, whose tomb is shown in Padua to this day.

136 That is to say, the hermitage of the Camaldolites in Milton’s Vall’ombrosa.

137 _Oriental and Linguistic Studies. The Veda; The Avesta; The Science of Language_. By William Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Yale College. One vol. 8vo, 416 pp. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

138 _Oriental and Linguistic Studies. The Veda; The Avesta; The Science of Language_. By William Dwight Whitney, Prof. of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Yale College. One vol. 8vo, 416 pp. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

139 Title of the work given at head of this article.

140 Still stronger in the original: “Vielleicht ist noch kein Europäer so tief in diese Sprache eingedrungen als er.”—_Mithridates_, vol. i. p. 134.

141 Sidnarubam seu Grammatica Samscrdamica, cui accedit dissertatio historico‐critica in linguam Samscrdamicam, vulgo Samscret dictam, in qua hujus linguæ existentia, origo, exarati critice recensentur, et simul aliquæ antiquissimæ gentilium orationes liturgicæ paucis attinguntur et explicantur autore Paulino a S. Bartolomæo. Romæ, 1790.

142 _Catalogo de las Lenguas de las Naciones conocidas._ Madrid, 1800‐1805. Six large 8vo volumes.

143 These lectures, printed in book‐form at London, were soon after first published in the United States by the Presbyterian College of Andover.

144 “Wouldst thou the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of its decline, And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed, Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine? I name thee, O Sakuntula, and all at once is said.”

145 _L’Aryanisme, et de la trop grande part qu’on a faite à son influence, etc._

146 How such information could have been had from the _Fasti Consulares_ is difficult to say; the suppression was probably a _lapsus memoriæ_ for Josephus Flavius. The date of S. Paul’s coming to Rome is too uncertain to be fixed at 61, yet we accept this year on the authority of those who put it forward in the discussion.

147 See _Op. S. Irenæi_, Ed. Cong. S. Mauri, Ven. an. 1734.

148 _De Viris Illustribus_, c. i.

149 _Ap. Eusebium_, H. E. lib. iii. c. i.

150 _Via Appia da Porta Capena a Boville._ Descritta dal Commendatore L. Canina. 2 vols. Roma. 1853.

151 _La Roma Sotterranea Christiana._ Descritta ed illustrat dal Cav. G. B. de Rossi. Roma. 1864.

152 _Defense de l’Esprit des Lois_, 3e partie.

153 Aringhi, _Roma Subterr._ lib. iii. c. 2.

154 _Ner._ 48.

155 _Pro Cluent._ 13.

156 _I cimeteri sotteranei di Roma sono stati scavati dai cristiani fossari tranne pochissime eccezioni, le quali importanti per la storia, nell’ampiezza però della sotteranea escavazione scompajono; e possono veramente dirsi quello, che i matematici appellano una quantitià infinitesima e da non essere tenuta a calcolo._—App. p. 39.

157 Psalm xxiii.

158 S. John x. 14‐16.

159 _O præclarum diem, cum ad illud divinum animorum concilium cœtumque proficiscar, cumque ex hac turba et colluvione discedam! Proficiscar enim, non ad eos solum viros, de quibus ante dixi, sed etiam ad Catonem meum._—_De Senectute_, 25.

160 Coleridge’s _Piccolomini_, scene iv.

161 xii. 40.

162 Newman’s _Church of the Fathers_, Introduction.

163 Jonas iv. 2.

164 S. Augustine says:—“Love the men, destroy the errors: be bold without pride in the maintenance of truth; strive for the truth without harshness; pray for those whom you rebuke and confound.”—_Contra lit. Petiliani_, l. i.

165 xx. 23.

166 Romans vi. 3, 4.

167 S. Augustine, _Serm._ 296, p. 1195, tom. v.

168 Tertullian, _Scorpiace_, p. 628.

169 1 Epist. iii. 2.

170 Am. ed. p. 82.

171 _An Eirenicon_, Eng. ed., p. 101.

172 “If there be one writer in the Anglican Church who has discovered a deep, tender, loyal devotion to the Blessed Mary, it is the author of _The Christian Year_. The image of the Virgin and Child seems to be the one vision upon which both his heart and intellect have been formed; and those who knew Oxford twenty or thirty years ago say that, while other college rooms were ornamented with pictures of Napoleon on horseback, or Apollo and the Graces, or Heads of Houses lounging in their easy‐chairs, there was one man—a young and rising one—in whose rooms, instead of these, might be seen the Madonna di Sisto or Domenichino’s S. John—fit augury of him who was in the event to do so much for the revival of Catholicism.”—Newman’s _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 453.

173 _Memoir of Keble._ By Sir J. T. Coleridge, Eng. ed., p. 305.

174 Dr. Nevin, one of the leaders of religious thought in the German Reformed communion, of which the _Mercersburg Review_ is the organ, has said: “The man cannot be right at heart in regard to the faith of the Incarnation, whose tongue falters in pronouncing Mary Mother of God!”

175 _A Letter to Dr. Pusey on his recent Eirenicon_, p. 59.

176 The late Dr. Faber, when an Anglican, said: “Thus I hold it pious to believe that in pagan times many a wandering beam, many a pitying angel, many a rent in heaven, many a significant portent, many an overflow of the appointed channels of grace, were vouchsafed, whereon a poor glimmering faith might feed, and grow, not wholly of itself, into a feeble yet steady light, acceptable for his sake who sent such faith its food.”—_Foreign Churches and Peoples_, p. 535.

177 Horace, _De Arte Poetica_, 391.

178 Keble’s _Christian Year_—Easter Eve.

179 Lib. iv. c. 4.

180 _A Hist. de l’Art._

181 Page 36.

182 Page 30.

183 The scourge used by one of the executioners at the pillar was amongst the number, and is now to be seen in the cathedral of Aachen. It is composed of narrow leathern thongs, terminated by an iron point, the whitish color of the leather bearing manifest stains of the precious blood that bespattered it. Constantine’s signet, the eagle and ciphers, is distinctly visible on the time‐worn, faded seal, that looks like a sort of hard chalk. The reliquary is a crystal vase, encased in gold and gems.

184 It is not within the limits of this sketch to follow the “Saint Suaire” through its subsequent translations, but it may interest such of our readers as are not acquainted with the fact, that it is now at Aix‐la‐Chapelle, where _every seven years_ it is opened by the chief prelates of Catholic Germany, and in the presence of princes and bishops exposed to the veneration of the faithful for three days, the church bells ringing all the time, and the cathedral crowded day and night.

185 _The Russian Clergy._ Translated from the French of Father Gagarin, S.J. By Ch. Du Gard Makepeace, M.A. London: Burns & Oates. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

186 “L’ouvrage s’ouvre par une introduction majestueuse sur le treizième siècle.”

187 _Memoir of Count De Montalembert, Peer of France, Deputy for the Department of Doubs._ A Chapter of recent French History. By Mrs. Oliphant, author of _The Life of Edward Irving_, _S. Francis of Assisi_, etc. In two volumes. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1872.

188 The Anitchkoff Palace, on the Nevskoi Prospekt.

189 In 1859, _Le Second Empire_; in 1860, _La France, l’Autriche et l’Angleterre_; in 1865, _France et l’Allemagne_.

190 _Particularism_ here means the tendency and policy on the part of Bavaria and the Southern States of Germany to resist absorption of their autonomy in certain matters by Prussia.—_Translator._

191 The town where Henry IV., of Germany, performed a penance imposed by Pope Gregory VII.—_Trans._

192 In the work, published in 1865, which procured me the honor of being made the subject of a parliamentary debate, I had dwelt upon the two‐fold danger to be feared, whether from an alliance which might reopen the Belgian question, or from a war on our frontiers, it might be, on our invaded territory. I advised appeasing our political discords, the better to resist this double peril. This sums up in a few words the purport of my pamphlet.

My adversaries in the tribune and in the press denied the existence of these dangers which they asserted were merely imaginary; they charged me with having got up a sham Belgian question, and with having, in that way, spread the knowledge of it abroad.

“With what have I charged the Honorable M. de Champs?” said M. Dolez. “It is with having pretended that our nationality was environed by perils, and that a Belgian question was on foot in which our independence might be taken away from us.”

M. Frère‐Orban ridiculed in a pleasant way my forebodings. He said that I was “a lookout man who, in his tower, descries that which no one else can possibly see, ... who imagines that he has discovered that which nobody had seen before. To‐day,” he added, “when there is _nothing, absolutely nothing_, of a nature to cause uneasiness to the country, we are told, in consequence of a party scheme: Let us hold our tongues and appease our discords. The liberal party must, in order to save Belgium from a _danger which does not exist_, cease resisting the pretensions of the clerical party.”

Well, what does M. Frère‐Orban think now? While he, as minister, was uttering in the tribune the above quieting and optimist statements, M. Benedetti had entered with M. von Bismarck into a parley, the subject of which was the Belgian question. This was the diplomatic peril. The other peril has been clearly revealed to us after Sedan. General de Wimpfen has stated to General Chazal that the question of invading or not the territory of Belgium had been earnestly discussed at Sedan. This would have been bringing the war on our violated soil.

193 Priests and religious, men and women, numbering together 1,909, have given corporeal and spiritual attendance to 21,000 sick and wounded, and this only out of love for God and their neighbor.

194 Referring to the very bitter attack on the definition of infallibility and the doings of the council which appeared about that time in pamphlet form from a writer under the _nom de plume_ of Janus.—_Translator._

195 The bien‐aimé of the Almanac is no more the bien‐aimé of France, He does everything ab hoc and ab hac, puts all in the same sack, Justice and finance, this bien‐aimé of the Almanac, etc., etc.

196 Zamore was a negro who repaid by the basest treachery the favors lavished on him by Madame du Barry; he was the immediate cause of her execution, having betrayed her hiding‐place to the convention. She is the only woman of that period who died like a coward, struggling to the last.

197 “Let our hearts be light and gay, Glory’s hour is here to‐day; The blood‐red blade is raised on high, We conquer when we die— Rally to victory. ’Neath the flag of a dying God! We tread the path he trod; We run, we fly To glory nigh. Behold our ardor rise, Our hearts are in the skies, Arise, arise! The scaffold mount—and God’s the victory.”

198 Blue is the color of knowledge.

199 _Der liebe Gott_, the received formula in Germany, as the “good God,” _le bon Dieu_, in French, and Almighty God in English.

200 Exod. xv. 11.

201 Matt. vi. 33.

202 Eccl. xx. 9.

203 Lam. iii. 31.

204 Is. xxix. 18.

205 Matt. v. 10.

206 Rom. xi. 33.

207 Ps. xlii. 1.

208 Baruch v. 6.

209 The Arno, Chiana, and Mugnone.

210 London _Times_, Feb. 3.

211 As was shown in THE CATHOLIC WORLD last month, excommunication is not only recognized by the law in the case of Protestant excommunicators, but has been sanctioned and confirmed by law, on an actual case being brought into court. Of course we shall be met by the objection that the formal declaration of Papal Infallibility has altered the connection between the Catholic Church and the state. Unfortunately for this easy method of explaining away difficult matters, excommunication has not been a whit altered in force, relation, or form from the days of the Apostles to Pius IX.

212 In proof of which read the declaration of Count Andrássy to the Austrian Parliament that, notwithstanding the friendly assurances with which the three emperors parted at the breaking up of their recent conference at Berlin, he could not guarantee peace even up to Christmas. Observe also the significant rearming of all the great European powers and the recent order from Berlin of 3,000,000 rifles of a new pattern.

213 Witness Bavaria’s remonstrance, which was disregarded, at the sudden imposition of the severe military code of Prussian service without allowing it time to recover. As a more recent comment on that, read the very able and interesting letters which appeared in the _New York Herald_, Nov. 22, on the European situation, a short extract from which, of a Bavarian view on German unity, we give: “Germany accepts it, because it in some respects realizes the German dream of unity. That, of course, every German wants. But no one wants a united despotism, a military code that turns the whole nation into a camp, and takes half a million able‐bodied men away from the farms and industrious callings. We want a Germany for the good of the fatherland, not for the glory of a little upstart Prussian prince whose name is not much older than the Bonapartes’ crown.”

214 “Desine fata deûm flecti sperare precando.”—_Virg. Æn._ vi. 376.

215 In Germany.

216 “Divorce Legislation in Connecticut,” and “The Indissolubility of Christian Marriage.”

217 For this and the following references, see Rohrbacher’s _Histoire Universelle de l’Eglise Catholique_. This work is so comprehensive, and so full of the most learned and accurate researches, that we have relied entirely upon its lengthened narratives for the facts mentioned in this article. The work is excessively voluminous (28 vols 8vo), and to verify personally each separate reference given by the author would be almost impossible, besides being a very tedious undertaking. We have preferred, therefore, to rely upon the single authority of one who is confessedly the best modern church historian.

218 _History of the Reformation._

219 E. Dally.

220 “It is an error to suppose that the Catholic faith limits the existence of man to about six thousand years. The church has never decided this delicate question, and this abstention is full of wisdom. Nothing positive, in fact, has been revealed to us on this point. The various chronological systems are the work of man; they rest on bases often hypothetical. Nevertheless, we cannot admit even the possibility of the arbitrary theories of several distinguished geologists who date the appearance of man on the earth twenty and even thirty millions of years back. Good‐sense alone should incline one to be moderate on this point.”—Mgr. Meignan, _Le Monde et l’Homme primitif_, chap. vi.

221 _L’Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre dans les Environs de Dinant‐ sur‐Meuse._ 2e édition. Bruxelles: Muquardt. 1872.

222 This is true, at most, of the formations previous to the quaternary deposits; in the latter, the synchronism of the fauna becomes wholly uncertain, and only founds the emigration or disappearance of certain species of animals on inductions that have a hypothetical basis. As to their emigration, we have had too many instances in the historic period, as M. Chabas justly observes, to make us regard that necessarily the index of vast chronological intervals. Where are the elephants that abounded in Mauretania Tingitana, according to Solinus’ _Polyhistor_; the hippopotami of Lower Egypt, the boas of Calabria, the lions, aurochs, and bears of Macedonia, the beaver, etc.? In the XVIIth century of our era, the stag, roebuck, wild boar, wolf, and bear still formed a part of the fauna of the Cevennes. The reindeer lived in the Black Forest in the time of Cæsar, who describes this animal from hearsay, but characterizes it sufficiently by the peculiarity of the male and female having the same kind of horns. M. Lartet is also inclined to the opinion that _the age of the reindeer is perhaps not so ancient as was once supposed_. The mammoth is no longer found alive, but has been discovered with its flesh and skin still remaining, embedded in ice, and affording nourishment to dogs and other animals. Struck with this preservation, M. d’Orbigny expresses a doubt as to the antiquity of the mammoth. He thinks it may have existed five or six thousand years ago, and believes it may still live in some unexplored locality. At least, it lived in America till a comparatively recent period. Its remains, and those of the mastodon, have been found in the auriferous deposits of California, among remarkable traces of human labor. At the Congress of Copenhagen, M. Schaffhausen expressed the opinion that the lost species should rather be regarded of a more recent date than that the antiquity of man should be extended to hundreds of thousands of years. As to the wretchedness and inferiority evident from the primitive pursuits of man and the conformity of his organs, the enemies of Christianity triumph over the discovery. We believe with Mgr. Meignan that “a proof of the authenticity of the Bible has been lightly transformed into an objection against it. The revolt and disobedience of man explain the wretched state in which he at first lived; and the hardships he underwent during the period he inhabited caverns and lacustrine dwellings prove to all who believe in the goodness of God that a great crime must have armed His justice.”

223 “In the year of the Nativity of our Lord 710, the sixth day of the month of December, under the reign of Eudes, most pious King of the French, during the ravages of the perfidious Saracen nation, the body of the most dear and venerable Marie Madeleine was secretly and by night transferred from its alabaster sepulchre into the present one, which is of marble, and whence the body of Sidonius has been withdrawn, in order that the other may be better concealed and be beyond the reach of the above‐named perfidious nation.”

224 Seven years later, when the head was taken to Rome by Charles, Boniface VIII. sent to S. John of Lateran for a relic which had long been venerated there as the maxillar bone of Magdalen; on adjusting it to the broken part, it fitted in so exactly as to leave no doubt as to where it had originally been taken from.

225 Shea.

226 See the narrative and map in Shea’s _History of the Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi_.

227 Pronounced Ac‐o‐ma—the accent on the first syllable.

228 “This way, gentlemen.”

229 Red pepper; _chile verde_, green pepper.

230 This estimate, which was considered as too high by some of the clergymen present, is given only as conjectural. It is based on the census of 1870, according to which there are in the state, in round numbers, 203,000 persons of foreign parentage at least on one side, of whom 113,000 are foreign‐born. It would seem probable that we might allow out of this number 83,000 foreign‐born and 67,000 native‐born Catholics. It is certain, from other evidence, that the number is over 100,000, and, whatever the correct number may be, nine‐twentieths is very near the proportion of the native‐born to the whole number. The entire population of the state is 537,000. Nearly two‐fifths of the whole are, therefore, of foreign parentage.

231 Eugénie de la Ferronnays.

232 “The Church the Champion of Marriage,” CATHOLIC WORLD, February, 1873.

233 Deut. xxi 16, 17.

234 Gen. xxiv. 39, 57, 58.

235 Numb. xxvii. 8; xxxvi. 3, 8.

236 S. John i. 13.

237 Jeremy Taylor’s “On the Marriage Ring,” besides many modern ones, especially by the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, New York.

238 Matt. vii. 21.

239 Matt. xxii. 29, 30; Mark xii. 24, 25.

240 _Considérations sur la France_, chapter x. _et alibi passim_.

241 M. de Maistre is sometimes quoted as taking a different view; for example, in an article in the _Correspondant_ for Nov. 10, Joseph de Maistre declared revolution an epoch and not an event. But this by no means signifies that the illustrious publicist meant that revolution was about to prevail. He says: “The French Revolution is an important epoch, and its manifold consequences will be felt far beyond the time of its outbreak and the limits of its original sphere.... If there is not a moral revolution throughout Europe, if the religious spirit is not strengthened in this part of the world, the bonds of society will dissolve.” The clergy of France, in particular, are called to “the essential work” of reacting against the influence of the _Goddess of Reason_. See _Considérations sur la France_, chap. ii.

242 _Etudes sur l’Italie contemporaine_, and _Notes d’un Voyageur_. _Première Etude_, June, 1871; _Seconde Etude_, July, 1872. Paris: Amyot.

243 _Première Etude_, p. 3.

244 “Except the _Univers_, which has a correspondent at Rome, and keeps up constant communications with that city in other ways, and, on the other side, the _Journal des Débats_, which is supplied with information by the Italian government, and, as we have been assured, receives a handsome subsidy for the patronage accorded, most of the French papers have no other source of supplying their readers with news than the conjectures, more or less unreliable, of the Havas agency, a _succursale_, as to what concerns Italy, of the Stefani agency at Florence. It is supposed, however, that nothing is easier than to obtain information about a country at our very doors.”—M. Ed. Dulaurier, member of the Institute, “Impressions et Souvenirs de Rome,” in the _Gazette du Languedoc_ for Sept. 19. I take the liberty of recommending to M. Dulaurier, and all who wish to know the state of affairs in Italy, the valuable _Correspondance de Genève_. The _Journal_ of Florence, recently combined with the _Cattolica_ of Rome, affords instructive reading. Besides information peculiar to itself, this paper reproduces in each number interesting extracts from various Italian journals.

245 “The French, under Napoleon I., introduced the idea of centralization into Italy and the code of the Revolution which the restored princes had the want of foresight to retain. The old municipalities were destroyed, and never recovered their former independence even in the States of the Church. Piedmont, of all the states of the Peninsula, was the longest under the poisonous influence of foreign ideas. Hence it became the centre of the Revolution.”—_Quel est l’Avenir de l’Europe?_ pages 40‐41. Geneva: Grosset, 1871. The author of this remarkable work is of the school of the Count de Maistre, and worthy of his master.

246 _Première Etude_, pp. 6, 12, 13, 15; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 4, 10, 11.

247 _Première Etude_, p. 10.

248 _Journal d’un Diplomate en Italie._—See the _Etudes_ for July, 1872.

249 _Journal d’un Diplomate en Italie_, pp. 305, 306.

250 _Journal d’un Diplomate en Italie_, pp. 116, 117.

251 _Les Diplomates Français sous Napoléon III._, by B. d’Agreval. Paris: Dentu. 1872. A work we recommend to all publicists who wish to add to their knowledge.

252 _Première Etude_, p. 10.

253 _Première Etude_, pp. 5, 10, 11; _Seconde Etude_, p. 4.

254 _Première Etude_, p. 7.

255 The minister has laid before the Parliament the account of the expense of opening the breach in the walls of Rome. This crime cost nearly forty‐eight millions.

256 _Première Etude_, p. 11; _Seconde Etude_, p. 12.

257 Cf. _Première Etude_, p. 10.

258 See a forcible and eloquent article in the _Civiltà Cattolica_ on the _Caresses de la Providence_. Sér. viii. vol. v., No. 519, Feb., 1872.

259 (_Première Etude_, pp. 7, 8, 27; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 11, 12.) “The invaders take the stand of masters, but the people have not joined them. They remain isolated in their midst in the position of a military and administrative colony, about as favorably regarded and received as the Prussians in those departments of our country where they are still encamped. The Romans, it cannot be denied, love their Pope.”—M. Ed. Dulaurier, _loc. cit._

260 _Union_, Nov. 26.

261 “We continue to be regarded at Berlin with the most favorable dispositions, as the demonstrations of which our princes were the object prove.”—_Speech of M. Visconti‐Venosta_ in the Chamber of Deputies, Nov. 27, 1872.

262 _Seconde Etude_, p. 13.

263 _Address_, April 28, 1872.

264 _Correspondance Diplomatique_ in the year 1815.

265 _Première Etude_, p. 17; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 4, 14, 15, 16, 17.

266 _Première Etude_, pp. 25, 26; _Seconde Etude_, pp. 15, 16, 26.

267 See, in the _Etudes_ for Oct., 1871, the article by Fr. Ch. Clair, who, in an address to the government of M. Thiers, carries on a vigorous argument _ad hominem_ respecting the “necessary liberties” of the Pope.

268 P. Toulement, _La Providence et les Chàtiments de la France_, ch. xvii.

269 _Première Etude_, pp. 24, 25, 26: _Seconde Etude_, pp. 17, 22, 34.

270 _Journal d’un Diplomate en Italie_, pp. 17, 18.

271 This alludes to the indication of superhuman power by the budding horns which Michael Angelo has represented upon the head of Moses, adopting the Jewish symbol of strength so frequent in Scripture.

272 Ecclus. xlviii. II.

273 So soon accepted!

274 “I, the undersigned, parish priest of the most holy Constantinian Basilica of the Twelve Apostles of Rome, certify that in Register XII. of the dead, letter N, page 283, is to be found the deed of which the following is the copy, word for word.

“The twenty‐second of December, eighteen hundred and sixty‐six, Mademoiselle Claire‐Françoise‐Amélie Lautard, of Marseilles, daughter of M. Jean Baptiste Lautard, a most pious virgin, while offering last Sunday her life to God for the Holy Father, Rome, and the church, was seized on the spot by illness, and having received most piously the sacraments of the church, in the full possession of her faculties, in prayer, and surrounded by several priests and virgins, gave up her soul to Jesus Christ, her spouse, with the greatest serenity, Wednesday the 19th, at half‐past nine in the morning, in the house Rue Ripresa‐dei‐Barberi 175, at the age of fifty‐nine years. The following day, the 20th, her body was carried, after the completuum, accompanied by a great number of religious, to this basilica, and was here exposed during the morning after the manner of nobles, the office of the dead and a solemn Mass being performed; in the afternoon it was conveyed to the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Cœli, and there interred in the tomb of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition.

“Given at Rome,” etc.

275 This mistake is awing to a wrong meaning given to a word in the Book of Joshua in the Septuagint; where the word _tsorim_ is translated _knife of stone_, when it also means _a sharp knife_; _tsor_ only means _stone_ in the sense of _rock_ or _block_.

276 Simonin, _La Vie Souterraine_.

277 Ancient name of the Prussians.—Trans.

278 S. Jerome’s _Epist._ 44, 45.

279 _Hist. of Decline and Fall of Rom. Emp._, vol. iv. ch. ix. p. 262, 1st ed.

280 _Germania_, i. 5.

281 “The Study of Sociology,” by H. Spencer, in the May No. of _The Contemporary Review_, 1872.

282 See Mrs. Hope’s _Conversion of the Teutonic Race_, ch. i.

283 _Conv. of Teut. Race_, p. 20.

284 Apollin., _Paneg. Major_.

285 _Germania_, iii.

286 Suet., _in Oct._ xxiii.

287 I. 61.

288 Plutarch, _Vita Marii_.

289 S. Jer. _adv. Jovin._ ii.