CHAPTER II.

Before considering the merits of the third hypothesis for accounting for the phenomena of spiritualism, I propose to draw out at some length the church theory of magic and formal diabolic interference.

Magic, in the sense of a systematized use of and intercourse with the spiritual world by other means than authorized prayer and ritual, has been an idea familiar to all races and to all times. Its hostile or consciously diabolical character has depended upon the vividness with which it has appreciated the nature of God and his sanction of the religion which it is confronting, and upon its consequent inability to regard itself as an appendix to, rather than a contradiction of, religion. Hence, it has been peculiarly virulent when it has had to manœuvre in the face of the precise enunciations of Catholicism, as was the case in mediæval Christendom; whilst, on the other hand, in a system of tolerant eclecticism like that of pagan Rome or modern America, it has naturally adopted a milder form.

The accounts given of the origin of magic in pagan and rabbinical tradition are almost identical, and read much like a rude allegory of Christian theology. In the first, the fair and proud Lamia, beloved of Zeus, in revenge for being herself ousted and her children slain by Hera, takes general vengeance upon the subjects of Zeus. In. the second, Lilith, Adam's first wife, is ever seeking to destroy the children of her successful rival, Eve. According to the more common Catholic teaching, sundry of the angels, God's first creation, destined to be the first partners of his bliss, fell for resisting God's designs in behalf of his second creation, man, whose nature he was to espouse in the Incarnation; whence the devil's hatred of the children of men.

The fathers[94] considered that the rebel angels first taught men magic in the evil days before the Flood, and that the seeds of the black art were carried on into the new world by Cham. His grandson, Mesraim, or Zoroaster, was said to have used it extensively to give life and reality to the false worship which was his legacy to his children, the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians.

The worship of the hosts of heaven--the sun, moon, and stars--would seem to have been the earliest form of false worship, and all mythological research tends to show that this is, in fact, the core even of those cults which at first sight would seem most unlike it. The Persians were fire-worshippers, but fire was stolen from heaven; and one of the miracles recorded of Zoroaster was his drawing magic sparks from the stars. The name given him by his disciples was "the Living Star." The host of deities with which the Greek and Roman world was peopled, many of whom would at first sight suggest a purely terrestrial origin, for the most part group themselves round central figures, which, on examination, prove to be earthly reflections of astral influences--of the sun or moon gods and their supposed satellites.

According to the fathers, magic was the very life and soul of idolatry, and pagan worship was regarded as a union of conventional deception and diabolic energy, the one or other element predominating according to circumstances. Thus _diablerie_ lay beneath such orderly institutions as, for instance, the national cultus of ancient Rome, like the volcanic fires of Vesuvius under the rich vineyards which they have in part created and for a while sustain.

But whilst it is to a great extent true that paganism was substantially little better than an organized _diablerie_, and the devil, as the strong man in the Gospel, was keeping his house in comparative peace, still the very elements of man's nature, despite his fall, did in various ways protest against the enemy and impede his action. The idea of a supreme God could not be wholly withdrawn from the minds and hearts of men, and many true prayers, despite the demon's elaborate machinery to intercept them, pierced the heavens. Nay, the very forms themselves of idolatry would often suggest thoughts and acts of worship which no evil influence could control; for the world had been given to men, and not to the demon. Even the senses, for all they were so many inlets of temptation, did, by bringing men under the wholesome influence of external nature, and by their equable excitation of his mental powers, tend, in fact, to break the fascinating grasp which the fiend would hold upon his imagination. The material world at once spoke to him of God, and housed him from the pitiless storm of spiritual influence with which he was assailed. Common sense was not without its power of natural exorcism, and true affection often grew and flowered where the devil only thought to have nurtured lust.

In the cults which express the religious sentiments of the more civilized nations, we meet with much that is humane and noble, whilst, at the same time, we are often shocked by manifestations of a very different character--rites in which the fire of the pit seems to have found a direct vent.

On the whole, in pre-Christian, as compared with Christian, times, the devil reigned. When the apostle would warn the faithful of the foes with whom they would have to contend, he says: "Our warfare is not against flesh and blood"--_i.e._ these are, under the circumstances, hardly worth considering--"but against principalities and powers; against the rulers of the world of this darkness; against spiritual wickedness in high places." It was by the direct onslaught of the early church upon the citadel of paganism--her forcing the devil, by the intolerable brightness of her presence, to show himself in his true colors--and by thus enlisting on her side all the more honest elements of human nature, that she gained the victory, and the devil was fairly outlawed. In the expressive language of the Theodosian Codex (ix. tit. xvi.), sorcerers are denounced as "aliens of nature," (_peregrini naturæ_). Still, for all this, the war was by no means over, and its character remained substantially what it had always been. The devil did not lose his power of working marvels, but, as in the case of Pharaoh's magicians, he was outdone and baffled.

I think there will be little difficulty in showing that the teaching of the church on the subject of the devil's power was in the earliest times substantially what it was in the middle ages and what it is now. The contrary has been maintained by Janus, and we must do him the justice to acknowledge that even reputable writers like Maffei and Cantù have gone some lengths in the same direction. As Janus is still quoted as an authority in this country, it will not be amiss to combine his refutation with the illustration of my subject.

Janus maintains in so many words that in the Christian Church "it was long looked upon as a wicked and unchristian error, as something heretical, to attribute supernatural powers and effects to the aid of demons"; that "for many centuries ... the popular notions about diabolical agency, nocturnal meetings with demons, enchantments and witchcrafts, were viewed and treated as a folly inconsistent with Christian belief"; that this doctrine continued until gradually ousted by the "threefold authority of the popes, Aquinas, and the powerful Dominican Order."[95] Now, I of course admit that the action taken by the authorities of the church in regard to particular phenomena of witchcraft has varied extremely with circumstances; but she has always held that the devil has the power, which he is sometimes allowed to exercise, either _en rapport_ with human agents or independently of them, of working marvels which transcend the natural power of the particular nature in conjunction with which they are wrought, though not transcending the sphere of universal nature; and that these are done by rapid, imperceptible combinations of other natural powers. When theologians disputed as to whether the devil could do this or that particular marvel--for example, transport imprisoned witches through their prison-walls to the "Sabbath"--the dispute did not turn on the reality or non-reality of magic, but upon whether the marvel in question did or did not transcend the sphere of universal nature. On the other hand, theologians have always maintained that in a certain sense witchcraft is an absurdity, no craft at all, an _ars nugatoria_, as S. Thomas calls it, since it is founded upon no fixed principles, but depends for its issues on the free will of one who has been a deceiver from the beginning. The scholastics made a great point of insisting upon the essentially unscientific character of witchcraft, since the devil had taken advantage of the extraordinary thirst for learning which prevailed in the middle ages to present himself in the light of a guide to new realms of science.

Janus relies for the justification of his statement upon a document long known as a chapter of the Council of Ancyra, but generally acknowledged to be the utterance of some IXth century Frank council. I subjoin it at length, together with the kindred questions from the _Penitentiary_ of Burchard. Over and above their controversial value, they have an antiquarian interest which I hope not to neglect:

"Neither must this be passed over, that certain wicked women, turning back after Satan, and seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess that they ride by night with Diana, goddess of the pagans, or with Herodias and a countless multitude of women, upon certain beasts, and silently, and in the dead of night, traverse many lands, obeying her commands as their mistress, and were, on certain nights, summoned to do her service. And would that these only had perished in their faithlessness! for an innumerable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe these things to be true, and, so believing, deviate from the true faith, and relapse into the errors of paganism, in believing that aught divine and godlike can be besides God. Wherefore, priests in the churches under their charge should preach to the people with all earnestness, so that they may understand that these things are, in all respects, false, and that such phantasms are injected into the minds of the faithful, not by the spirit of God, but by the evil spirit.

"Verily, Satan himself, who transfigures himself into an angel of light, after seizing upon the mind of some silly woman, and subjugating her to himself by infidelity, thereupon transforms himself into the forms and semblances of various persons, and in dreams deceiving the mind which he holds in captivity, and showing it anon pleasant things, anon sad, anon known, anon unknown, leads it everywhere from the road; and whilst the spirit alone undergoes this, the unfaithful mind thinks that this is taking place, not in the soul, but in the body? But who, in dreams and visions of the night, is not carried out of himself, and does not see many things in his sleep which he had never seen awake? yet who is so silly and stupid as to think that all these things which take place in the spirit only, occur also in the body? seeing that Ezechiel the prophet saw the visions of the Lord in the spirit, and not in the body, and the Apostle John saw the mystery of the Apocalypse in the spirit, not in the body. 'At once,' he saith, 'I was in the spirit'; and Paul dared not say that he had been taken out of the body. Wherefore, all must be told that whosoever believes these things and the like loses the faith, and he who hath not the right faith in the Lord is not the Lord's, but his in whom he believes--that is, the devil's; for of our Lord it is written, 'By him all things were made.' Whoever, then, believes that it can happen that a creature should be changed into a better or a worse, or be transformed into another sort or species save by the Creator who made all things, and through whom all things were made, of a surety is an infidel, and worse than a pagan."

The following are passages from what Burchard transcribes as an ancient _Roman Penitentiary_, and are specimens of a practical application of the preceding chapter:

"Hast thou ever believed or taken part in the perfidious credence that enchanters and those that call themselves storm-senders can, by the enchantment of demons, excite storms or alter men's minds? If thou hast believed or taken part, thou shalt do penance for one year on the lawful Ferias.

"Hast thou believed or taken part in the credence that there be women who, by certain charms or incantations, can change men's minds, that is to say, from hatred to love, or from love to hatred, or can injure or abstract men's goods by their charms? If thou hast believed or been partaker, one year, etc.

"Hast thou believed that there be women who can do this, according to the saying of certain women beguiled by the devil, who maintain that they must of necessity and of precept so do--that is to say, must ride upon certain beasts, with a great multitude of fiends transformed into the semblance of women, which the foolish call _Holda_, and have been bound in fellowship with them? If thou hast been partaker in that belief, one year, etc."

The following points have to be considered in estimating the controversial value of this chapter as used by Janus: 1st. How far do its enunciations necessarily represent the theology of the universal church? 2d. Do the beliefs which the chapter condemns, or do they not, involve something more than the attribution of "supernatural powers and effects to the aid of demons"? As to the first, this chapter is no utterance of a council representing the church universal; for, even supposing it really to belong to the Council of Ancyra, this was not a general council. But, as Janus admits, the chapter is first quoted without any title by the Benedictine, Regino, Abbot of Prumium, in the diocese of Treves, who wrote about 906. It was first called a canon of Ancyra by Burchard, another Benedictine (1020), who extracted it from Regino's collection, and inadvertently headed it with the title belonging to another passage. There is no trace to be found of it in the early MSS. of either the Greek or Latin acts of the Council of Ancyra. It is not to be met with in any collection of canons previous to the XIth century. Baluze was no doubt right in suggesting that it was part of some old Frank capitulary as yet undiscovered.

Janus[96] says that Regino compiled the chapter in question from passages in the pseudo-Augustinian writing, _De Spiritu et Anima_--a sufficiently remarkable statement, if we consider that Regino wrote early in the Xth century, and that the _De Spiritu et Anima_, which contains passages from S. Bernard and Hugo of S. Victor, was certainly not composed before the XIIth century.[97]

But, it may be urged, on the strength of the passages from Burchard's _Roman Penitentiary_, the Roman Church had given its sanction to this chapter, and had embodied it in its practice, even before Burchard had assigned it its imposing title. To this I reply that the brothers Ballerini[98] produce an XIth century MS. of a _Roman Penitentiary_ (Vatican Codex, 3830) identical with Burchard's, save that it is without certain passages, and among them this very interrogatory on magic. The Ballerini remark that the expression, "were-wolf," which occurs in a passage of the interrogatory which I have not quoted, evidently marks it as belonging to some local German council. I may add that the expression, "Holda," indubitably indicates the same nationality; Holda, or Holle, being the wandering moon-goddess of the Teutons.

As to the second point, the beliefs condemned clearly involve something more than the attribution of supernatural power to the devil--viz., the acknowledgment that there is something "divine and godlike beside the one God"; whence it follows that the fiend can exercise his power independently of God; can force the wills of men to his service "by necessity and precept"; and can change one thing into another wholly different. Now, all these points have been persistently condemned by the church of all ages. That this is the one admissible interpretation of the chapter will become more and more evident as we examine the teaching of previous and contemporaneous theology.

If it be urged that, anyhow, this chapter represents a more civilized legislation, one more consonant in its wise leniency with the sentiments of to-day, than that which prevailed in the last half of the middle ages, and, indeed, for some centuries longer, I must remind my readers that I have been engaged in refuting a specific allegation of Janus, to the effect that the theology of the church had undergone a substantial change on the subject of witchcraft. I admit, of course, fully that the system which prevailed for some centuries in church and state was calculated by its extravagant severity to provoke the evil it was intended to repress. This has been often admitted by Catholic writers. Cardinal de Cusa, in the first half of the XVth century, when legate _a latere_ in the German Empire, used these weighty words: "Where men believe that these witchcrafts do produce their effect, there are found many witches; neither can they be exterminated by fire and sword; for the more diligently this sort of persecution is waged, so much the stronger grows the delusion; for the persecution argues that the devil is feared more than God, and that, in the midst of the wicked, he can work evil; and so the devil is feared and propitiated, and thus gains his end; and though, according to human law and divine sanction, they deserve to be utterly extirpated, yet we must act cautiously and with great prudence, lest worse come of it."[99] He goes on to say that he himself examined two witches, and found them to be half mad. He shut them up, and made them do penance. The name of the Westphalian Jesuit, F. Spee (A.D. 1631), is identified with the relaxation of the penalties against witches, as completely as that of Wilberforce with the abolition of slavery, or that of Howard with the reformation of prisons; although he was unable to accept the rationalist thesis, "It is impossible for one person to influence another, except through sensible mediums; and the devil is an absurdity." The rationalist text is, no doubt, the sovereignest remedy on earth for cruelty to witches; but in the same sense is the tenet, "All worship is absurd," the most effectual bar to idolatry; and there are other less costly remedies. Whatever may be said on the score of prudence, it cannot be denied that such witches as deliberately produced fatal mischief by acting upon the excited imaginations of their victims were justly put to death, and that the formal transference of allegiance from Christ to the devil was formal high treason against the constitution of Christendom. Abuses of justice had no doubt crept into local practice, such as that of putting the possessed person--that is to say, the devil within him--into the witness-box, in order to discover the witch. This arose from the delusion that the devil might, by certain formulas, be bound over to speak the truth. It is vehemently denounced by all the standard writers on the subject--_i.e._ Delrio and Carena. Pegna (_De Cffic. Inquis._, pars ii. tit. xii. §§ 26 and 27) points out that the Roman inquisition, contrary to the practice elsewhere, has always refused to submit a witch to the question on the evidence of a companion, or to accept the testimony of one witch as to another's presence at the "Sabbath," because of the great likelihood of delusion. Indeed, Rome seems to have been always comparatively just and moderate in her practice, and often singularly lenient. It was such specimens of provincial ecclesiasticism as the Spanish inquisition, in which the secular interest had the lion's share, that went furthest in active persecution; and these, again, in their cruel persecution of witches, as the learned editor of _Hudibras_, Dr. Zachary Grey, confesses, the sectaries of England and Scotland "much exceeded."[100] Perhaps this was owing to their still further separation from the centre of Christendom.

The arguments against execution for witchcraft of Spee and De Cusa come pretty much to this: 1st. The imaginations of these unhappy people are in such a condition that you cannot make out how much is reality, how much delusion, nor, again, how far they are free agents. 2d. The whole subject is one on which people's imaginations are so excitable, and imagination has so large a share in the productions of witchcraft, that fire-and-sword persecution breeds more mischief than it destroys.

If ever a belief in the substantial reality of spiritualism becomes established as of old, and--as will inevitably happen--spiritualism is used, not merely for amusement, but for mischief, the champions of civilization may be glad to avail themselves of these almost forgotten Catholic arguments against persecution.

This so-called chapter of Ancyra is so interesting an exhibition of the blending of classical and mediæval _diablerie_ that I shall make no apology for interposing a detailed examination of its mythology. It will subserve my argument against Janus, by bringing out the idolatrous, and so far unreal, element of magic as that which naturally presented itself to the early church as the object of its denunciations.

Diana (Dia Jana) was one of the deities of ancient Latium; although a Latin federal temple was erected to her by Servius Tullius on the Aventine Hill, she never took any very high rank amongst the divinities of Rome, but remained the special patron of slaves and rustics--that is to say, the immediate cultivators of the soil.[101] Livy and Strabo tell us that this goddess was identical with the Ephesian Artemis--an acquaintance with whose cult the Latins might have obtained through the Phocean colony at Marseilles. Dr. Döllinger describes the Ephesian goddess as "a kind of pantheistic deity, with more of an Asiatic than an Hellenic character. She was most analogous to Cybele as physical mother and parent of all." S. Jerome (_Proœm. ad Ephes._) says that the Ephesians worshipped Diana, "not the huntress who carries the bow and is high-girt, but that many-breasted one, which the Greeks call πολυμαστης."

The cultus of Diana in Italy, though substantially of a benignant character, seems to have been early qualified by the sterner rites of Thrace, where bloody flagellations had been accepted as a compromise for human sacrifice. Aricia, one of the oldest towns in Latium, boasted that its image of the goddess had been brought from Tauris.

Originally, Dr. Döllinger reminds us, neither the Roman Diana nor the Grecian Artemis were connected in any way with the moon. As the ancient Latin sun-god Janus' sister, Diana was the female divinity of the sun. Æschylus is generally said to be the first author who speaks of Artemis as the moon-goddess; whereas Hecate was an original goddess of the moon and of the night. Hence, when she came to be identified with Artemis, and through her with Diana, by an amalgamation of rites, Diana became undisputed goddess of the moon and of the mysterious realms of the night, the resort of ghosts and fays. Hecate was a Titan, the only one who retained power under the Zeus dynasty; hence her name, Titanis, or Titania, with which Shakespeare has familiarized us. Statius (_Thebaid_, lib. i.) applies this epithet to the moon:

"Titanis late mundo subvecta silenti Rorifera gelidum tenuaverat aëra biga."

Virgil doubtless gives this title to the stars as to the moon's supposed satellites (_Æneid_, lib. vi.):

"Lucentemque globum lunæ Titaniaque astra."

In Lucian we have frequent mention of Hecate and her dogs; in a fragment of S. Maximus of Turin the same "aerial dogs" are referred to, and S. Hippolytus speaks of Diana and her dogs appearing in the magician's cauldron.

The amalgamated worship of Hecate and Diana, the queen of ghosts and the goddess of fertility, presents precisely those apparently incongruous elements which strike us in fairy mythology, where fairies, and ghosts, and witches combine so oddly in the web of mediæval folk-lore.

It was very long before the pagan element to which the chapter witnesses--the Manicheism which holds that there is something "divine and godlike beside the one God"--had ceased to hold a prominent place in the fancy of persons professedly Christian. S. Maximus of Turin, in the fifth century, thus warns the Christian farmers of North Italy of their responsibility in the idolatry of their servants: "My brother, when you know that your farm-servant sacrifices, and you do not prevent his immolation, you sin. Though you give him not the wherewithal, yet leave is granted him. Though he do not sin by your orders, yet your will co-operates in the fault. Whilst you say nothing, you are pleased at what your servant has done, and perhaps would have been angry if he had not done it. Your subordinate sins, not only on his own score, when he sacrifices, but on his master's who forbids him not, who, if he had forbidden him, would certainly have been without sin. Grievous indeed is the mischief of idolatry; it defiles those who practise it; it defiles the neighborhood; it defiles the lookers-on; it pierces through to those who supply, who know, who keep silent. When the servant sacrifices, the master is defiled. He cannot escape pollution when partaking of bread which a sacrilegious laborer has reared, blood-stained fields have produced, a black barn has garnered. All is defiled, with the devil in house, field, and laborers. No part is free from the crime which steeps the whole. Enter his hut, you will find withered sods, dead cinders--meet sacrifice for the demon, where a dead deity is entreated with dead offerings! Go on into the field, and you will find altars of wood, images of stone--a fitting ministration, where senseless gods are served on rotting altars! When you have looked a little further, and found your servant tipsy and bleeding, you ought to know that he is, as they call it, a _dianatic_, or a soothsayer."

In the VIth century, S. Cæsarius of Arles, in an almost contemporary "Life," is said to have cast out "a devil, which the rustics call a diana."[102]

In the XIIth, XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth centuries, this idolatrous cultus was not extinct. Montfaucon quotes part of a decree, in which Auger of Montfaucon, an ancestor of his own, Bishop of Conserans, in the South of France, at the close of the XIIIth century, found it necessary to denounce _dianaticism_: "Let no woman profess that she rides by night with Diana, goddess of the pagans, or with Herodias, or Bensozia, and raise a route of women to the rank of deities; for this is a diabolical illusion."[103]

In the Bollandist _Life of S. James of Bevagna in Umbria_, who died in 1301, we are told that the saint distinguished himself "by rebuking those women who go to the chase with Diana"; and in 1317, John XXII., in his bull addressed to the Bishop of Frejus, denounces those "who wickedly intermeddle with divinations and soothsayings, sometimes using Dianas."

In the XVth century, Cardinal de Cusa speaks of examining two women who "had made vows to a certain Diana who had appeared to them, and they called her in Italian Richella, saying she was Fortune."[104]

John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres in 1136, talks of this "Sabbath" company in language which is a curious medley of classical and mediæval phraseology. He speaks of the delusion of those "who assert that a certain night-bird (_nocticulam_, or, according to the generally received emendation, _nocte lucam_, the night-shiner, a synonyme for Hecate), or Herodias, or the lady president of the night, solemnize banquets, exercise offices of diverse kinds; and now, according to their deserts, some are dragged to punishment, others gloriously exalted."[105]

William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris in 1224, tells us a good deal about this queen of the ladies of the night. They call her, he says, "Satia (_a satietate_), and the Lady Abundia, from the abundance she is said to bestow upon the houses which she frequents." He goes on to say that these ladies are seen to eat and drink, yet in the morning the things are as they were. The pots and jars, however, must be left open, or they will go off in a huff. To guard against such visitations, Alvernus thinks, it was prescribed in the Levitical law that vessels should be covered, or accounted unclean. He speaks of the "old women amongst whom this delusion abides"; but it is evidently the cultus he regards as a delusion, and the belief that there are spiritual beings independent both of God and Satan, not the belief that these are real diabolical phenomena.[106] Even in classic times, it would seem that Diana and her crew fulfilled in some measure the office of household fairies:

"Exagitant et lar et turba Diania fures";[107]

and in another passage of the same poet we find what seems to be an early indication of the connection between witches and the feline race. When worsted by the first onslaught of the Titans, the gods thus chose their hiding-places:

"Fele soror Phœbi, niveâ Saturnia vacca, Pisce Venus latult, Cyllenius ibidis alvo."[108]

But to return to the "ladies of the night." Alvernus says, "They sometimes enter stables with wax tapers, the drippings of which appear on the hairs and necks of the horses, whilst their manes are carefully plaited." May we not exclaim with Mercutio,

"This is that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elf locks in foul, sluttish hairs"?

Alvernus' expression is "_guttatos crines_," wax-clotted hairs. Shakespeare's Mab seems to have played the same trick upon human beings.

The Lady Abundia is distinctly identified with Diana's crew, nay, herself represents that goddess, in a most curious passage from an early MS. of the _Roman de la Rose_, which was a composition of this same thirteenth century:

"Et les cinq sens ainssi deçoivent Par les fantosmes qu'ils recoivent Dont maintes gens par leur folies Quident estre par nuit estries Errans avecque dame _Habonde_ Et dient que par tout le monde Le tiers enfant de nascion Sont de cette condition; Qu'ils vont trois fois en la semaine Si çon destinée les mainne, Et par tous les ostiex se boutent Ne clos ne barres ne redoutent Ains' sen entrent par les fendaces Par charnieres et par crevaces Et se partent des cors les ames, Et vont avec les bonnes dames Par lieux forains et par maisons."[109]

Bensozia, or Bezezia, as she is called in the _Glossarium Novum_ from some MSS. statutes of S. Florus, has been a great puzzle to antiquarians. Montfaucon is inclined to identify her with the _domina noctis_, or Abundia. The _Glossarium Novum_ suggests desperately that it may be a name for Herodias' daughter. Mr. Baring-Gould, following Grimm, has unwittingly furnished, I think, the true solution. He thus comments upon a remark of Tacitus in his _Germania_--"a part of the Suevi sacrifice to Isis": "This Isis has been identified by Grimm with a goddess Ziza, who was worshipped by the inhabitants of the parts about Augsburg. Kuchlen, an Augsburg poet of the XIVth century, sings:

"'They built a great temple therein To the honor of Zize, the heathen goddess.'"

This Ziza, Mr. Gould suggests, is no other than Holda, or Holle, the wandering moon-goddess of the Teutons, in other parts called Gôde, under which name she resembled Artemis as the heavenly huntress accompanied by her maidens; in Austria and Bavaria, Berchta, or Bertha (the shining); in Suabia and Thuringia, Hörsel, or Ursel; in other places, the night-bird, Tutösel. Bezezia would there be Bena Ziza--the good Ziza. Alvernus' "Satia" is, in all probability, an attempt to Latinize the sound, as "Abundia" the sense; and so the three names are reducible to one.

Although the suggestion of the _Glossarium Novum_ is inadmissible, I cannot but feel that its attempt to introduce Herodias' daughter into the "Sabbath" crew is reasonable enough.

I should myself be tempted to think that Herodias should be understood as Herodias Junior. Not only is there a propriety in this, considering the daughter's antecedents, but it is clear that fancy was early busy with her name; witness the weird story told by the Greek historian, Nicephorus, of her setting to dancing on the ice in her mother's sight, and persisting therein until she gradually broke through, and finished by dancing her head off against the sharp edge. On the other hand, this is, of course, in the teeth of what must be accepted as the authentic account given by Josephus, who calls her Salome, and allots her two husbands and three children. Moreover, Cesare Cantù is able to produce a myth accounting for the mother's presence, though he omits all reference to his authority, which I have vainly attempted to discover. It is at least _ben trovato_: "Credevasi pure che Erodiade ottenuto il teschio del Battista volle bacciarlo, ma quello si ritrasse e soffio, di che ella fu spinta in aria, e ancora si va tutte le notte."[110] There is nothing surprising in meeting with Jewish features in the rites of mediæval magic, since Jews were notoriously the leading magicians, both in Christian and Moorish states; as, indeed, they had been before the Christian era, wherever they had been known throughout the pagan world. The term "Sabbath," as applied to the magic gathering, naturally suggests itself; but I think it is not really any direct outcome of Jewish influence. The word, before its use in _diablerie_, had come to be a general expression for a feast in the Spanish Peninsula, and had thence no doubt found its way into France and Germany. The _Glossarium Novum_ gives an extract from the will of Sancho of Portugal (A.D. 1269): "Item ad unum Sabbatum faciendum mando duas libras."

The idea of Diana, Herodias, and Bezezia as a magic trinity, or, rather, as a triform manifestation of one deity, Latin, Jewish, and barbarian, was no unnatural outcome of a mixed race such as peopled Gaul and North Italy in the first centuries of the Christian era, and to such an idea the common image of the triple Hecate, "Tergeminamque Hecaten tria Virginis ora Dianæ," easily lent itself. Dr. Döllinger says: "Hecate was represented with three bodies or with three heads, as the goddess of the star of night, energizing in three spheres of action--in heaven, and earth, and sea--and at the same time in allusion to the three phases of the moon."[111] As Ben Jonson's witch sings:

"And thou three-formed star that on these nights Art only powerful, to whose triple name Thus we incline once, twice, and thrice the same."[112]

The extraordinary way in which polytheism has sought by an amalgamation of rites, and so of properties and personalities, to regain that unity of worship of which it is the formal negation, is a great distraction to antiquarians, who would fain distinguish precisely the various cults of paganism. Almost all the female deities occasionally interchange offices. Diana is especially a central figure, in which they all meet. Venus, Juno, Minerva, ordinarily representative of such opposite functions, are, under certain aspects, identified with Diana. Of Isis Dr. Döllinger says: "She often stepped into the place of Demeter, Persephone, Artemis, and Hecate, and became dispensatrix of food, mistress of the lower world and of the sea, and goddess of navigation. In some inscriptions she is pantheistically called 'the one who is all.'"[113]

"Fables," Sir Francis Palgrave says, truly enough, "have radiated from a common centre, and their universal consent does not prove their subsequent reaction upon each other, but their common derivation from a common origin."[114] None the less, however, the "subsequent reaction" is in many cases most real and important; itself testifying, doubtless, to a common origin, but at the same time productive of results of a distinctly conglomerate character. Often, too, properties which belonged to the original parent cultus, and which have been lost, or have fallen into abeyance in a derivative, have been restored to this last by amalgamation with another cult. For instance, the Ephesian Artemis, the parent, as is generally supposed, of the Latian Diana, was always associated with the practice of magic. Her garments were covered with mystic sentences, which obtained the name of "Ephesian Letters," and which were supposed to be potent charms. The deciphering and application of these sentences was a regular art in Ephesus; hence the magic books which the Ephesians burned in such numbers under the influence of S. Paul's preaching. On the other hand, the Latian Diana seems to have derived the most part of her magic properties from her amalgamation with Hecate.

Evidence is not wanting to show that the mediæval magical cultus owes its conglomerate character to something more than the accidental mingling of races, or the spontaneous action of polytheism which I have noticed.

The Gnostic heretics, and especially the disciples of Basilides, have left numerous records of their teaching and practice in the shape of engraved gems called _abraxi_, which have been discovered in great numbers throughout North Italy, Gaul, and Spain. If we look through the pages devoted to the illustration of these extraordinary relics in Montfaucon, we shall find almost all the peculiar emblems of mediæval magic, such as cocks and serpents, abracadabra, the triple Hecate, etc. But beyond this there is conspicuous the medley, so characteristic of mediæval magic, of sacred and profane, Christian and pagan, divine and diabolical; the names of God and of our Lord mixed with those of Latin and Egyptian deities, Old Testament prophets and local genii, piety and lewdness, grace and brutishness--loathsomely incongruous, one should fancy, even to unchristian eyes, as some royal banquet which harpies have defiled with blood and ordure.

Basilides himself (A.D. 125) seems hardly to have been responsible for these indecencies. He was an eclectic of the Hebrew-Alexandrian school, and, if we are to believe Neander, meant to teach a not unrefined monotheism by means of a vocabulary of symbols gathered from all quarters. But he had prepared a powerful machinery for evil, of which his unscrupulous disciples were not slow to avail themselves. The diabolical guild spread with extraordinary rapidity, and struck deep root on all sides. S. Irenæus writes against it and the kindred sect of the Valentinians in the IId century, and S. Jerome in the Vth century testifies to its influence in Gaul and Spain.

These Gnostics seem to have gradually identified themselves with another and even darker sect of the same family--the Ophites, or worshippers of the serpent; witness the vast number of serpent gems amongst the _abraxi_. With these Ophites, as with the Cainites, who closely resemble them, the demiurge, creator, or world-god, is not merely subordinate, but imperfect and evil, and hostile to the everlasting wisdom symbolized by the serpent. The malignant creator, jealous of his creature, throws about him the net of the law, restraining him from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and from out of this net, the eternal wisdom, by the serpent as its intermediary and symbol, delivers him. And so it is that, in this perverse system, man's fall becomes his triumph, and the devil his redeemer. This principle was only carried out by the Cainites when they upheld Cain and Judas as the representatives of the higher wisdom and examples of heroic resistance to the tyranny of the demiurge. It must be admitted that it would be quite in keeping with their usual manner if they are responsible for the deification of Herodias. Of the Ophites, Origen reports that they admitted none to their assemblies who did not curse Christ.[115] This systematic, detailed perversion of Christianity is so perfectly in accord with what we are told of the mediæval Sabbath, where Christ was renounced and the Blessed Trinity reviled as a three-headed Cerberus, that, loath as are such historians as Neander and Gieseler to entertain anything so _bizarre_ as devil-worship, they hardly know what else to call it. Amongst many special indications of a connection between Gnosticism and mediæval _diablerie_, I would remark the following: Alvernus speaks of the magic book in use in his day, entitled _Circulus Major_, wherein are instructions how to form the greater circle for the evocation of demons; also of a "greater" and "lesser" circle, and of other figures called "Mandal" and "Aliandet," wherein convene the four kings of the East, West, North, and South, with other demons beside.[116] Now, Origen speaks of the "greater and lesser circles" as rites of the Ophites. It is true that in Origen's description we do not hear of four kings, but of seven, who are styled the "seven princes," "lords of the seven gates"[117] "of the seven heavens"; but the number does not seem to be marked with any great precision; for Origen (cap. 31) reduced them to six, and it is the worship of the six angels that S. Boniface is said to have abolished in Germany in the VIIIth century.[118] Again, Alvernus admitted that his circles contained other demons besides the four kings.

The four kings are identified as a Gnostic subdivision of the seven spirits by Feuerardentius,[119] who says that, according to the Rabbins, Zamael was one of the four kings of evil spirits, and reigned in the East, and also one of the seven planetary spirits, and presided over Mars. He was the accuser of the Jews, as Michael was the defender. The Jews are said to pray in their synagogues, "Remember not, O Lord, the accusation of Zamael, but remember the defence of Michael." Michael is another of the seven planetary spirits, ruling, according to some, in Mercury, according to others, in the sun, and wielding the east wind. The Ophites, with their instinct for desecration, blended Michael and Zamael into one, calling them the "_Serpens projectibilis_," with two names.[120] Of Adalbert, the heretical worshipper of the six angels, who was discomfited by S. Boniface, we are told that "he pretended to hold intercourse with S. Michael."

It would seem that something very much like the ancient rites for evoking the four kings is still in use in Africa. Alvernus' account is: "The master smites the ground in front of him, toward the eastern quarter, with outstretched sword, and saith these words: 'Let the great king of the East come forth'"; and so on with the others. In the description of a modern incantation in Algiers, related in _Experiences with Home_, p. 158, we are told, "Loud thrusts and blows were heard on the ground, and several forms became visible, apparently issuing from the earth."

We can hardly avoid the conclusion that mediæval magic is a Gnostic tradition, and so additional light is thrown upon the vehement language in which the "chapter" denounces as heretical, and more than heretical--as something worse than paganism--every feature of a system which apparently aimed at nothing less than a pantheistic identification of good and evil through the deification of the devil.

I shall now proceed to show that antecedently to, and contemporaneously with, the legislation of the "chapter," there existed in the church a belief in the power of Satan and in the reality of magic differing not at all from that which prevailed in the middle ages. It is easy to make, as Maffei has done, a _catena_ of fathers who speak in contempt of magic, some going so far as to call it a "nullity." The great fact that impressed the early Christians with regard to magic was that everywhere it was shrinking back before Christianity; that simple children, armed with the cross, were more than a match for the masters of devilish lore. They were full of that triumphant disenchantment and purification of nature so gloriously expressed in the concluding stanzas of Milton's "Nativity" ode. But men do not celebrate a triumph over nothing, neither can nothing be brought to naught. The question is, Did the fathers think it "heretical to attribute superhuman effects to the aid of demons"? It will be to the purpose to collect a few examples of the way in which they talked of two of the earliest and most generally accepted relations of magic--the account of Simon Magus' magic powers and Peter-stinted flight, and the legend of Cyprian and Jovita. It is altogether beside the point to insist that one or both of these relations are mere legends; the question is, what the fathers thought it consistent with the Christian faith to believe. I shall confine myself to passages which unmistakably exclude the hypothesis of mere jugglery.

Of Simon Magus, Justin Martyr (A.D. 133, _Apol._, i. 26) says that "he did mighty acts of magic by virtue of the art of the devils acting in him."

S. Hippolytus (A.D. 220, _Refut._, bk. vi.) says that he did his sorceries partly according to the art of Thrasymedes, in the manner we have described above, and partly also by the assistance of demons perpetrating his villany, "attempted to deify himself." This testimony as to the reality of the diabolical intervention is the more remarkable, as Hippolytus was a most keen exploder of the tricks of pagan magicians, amongst whom was Thrasymedes, and gives, in the work from which I quote, detailed accounts of how they produced their effects by powders and reflectors, so that people saw Diana and her hounds, and all manner of things, in the magic cauldron. Arnobius (A.D. 303, _Advers. Gentes_, lib. ii.) says, "The Romans had seen the chariot of Simon Magus and his fiery horses blown abroad by the mouth of Peter, and utterly to vanish at the name of Christ."

S. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 350, _Cat. vi. Illum._): "After Simon had promised that he would rise up aloft into the heavens, and was borne up in a demon chariot and carried through the air, the servants of God, throwing themselves on their knees, and manifesting that agreement of which Jesus spake--'If two of you be of accord concerning whatsoever thing you shall ask, it shall be granted'--by the javelin of their concord let fly at the magician brought him headlong to the ground."

S. Maximus of Turin (_Serm. in Fest. S. Petri_): "When that Simon said he was Christ, and declared that as a son he would fly up on high to his father, and straightway, lifted up by his magic arts, began to fly, then Peter on his knees besought the Lord, and by his holy prayers overcame the magic levity." The story of Cyprian and Jovita records the repeated but fruitless attempts of the heathen magician, Cyprian, to overcome the chastity of the Christian virgin, Jovita, by means of a lascivious demon, whom he employs as his agent, and how Cyprian is finally converted.

S. Gregory Nazianzen (_Orat._ 24) does not hesitate to speak thus: "He (Cyprian) tried all the more, and employed as his procurer no ancient hag of the sort fit for such things, but one of the body-loving, pleasure-loving demons; since the envious and apostate spirits are keen for such service, seeking many partners in their fall. And the wage of such procuration was offerings and libations, and the appropriation of the fumes of blood; for such reward must be bestowed upon those that are thus gracious."

As to S. Augustine, even Janus admits that this father does furnish an awkward passage (_De Civ. Dei_, xv. 23) about the commerce of demons with women, which "the Dominican theologians seized on"; "but the saint used it in mere blind credulity," and, though he never exactly retracted it, did retract "a similar statement (_Retract._, ii. 30)."[121] Unfortunately for Janus, no two statements could be more dissimilar. The statement which S. Augustine retracts is one limiting the devil's power; the statement which he does not retract is one in which it is precisely Janus' complaint that he exaggerates it. In matter of fact, S. Augustine is the great storehouse from which the scholastics have obtained almost all they have to say on _diablerie_.

S. Augustine, in his treatise, _De Trinitate_ (lib. iii. cap. 8), having distinguished the creator of the "invisible seeds," the first elements of things, latent everywhere throughout the frame of nature, as the _Creator_, whereas all other authors are but _producers_, thus speaks (cap. 9): "What they (the evil spirits) can do by virtue of their nature, but cannot do through the prohibition of God, and what they are not suffered to do by the condition of their nature, is past man's finding out, except through the gift of God, which the apostle commemorates, saying, 'To another the discernment of spirits.' We know that man can walk, though walk he cannot unless he be permitted; so those angels can do certain things if allowed by more powerful angels at God's command, and cannot do certain other things, even if these allow them, because he suffers it not from whom their nature hath its native bounds, who, through his angels, very often prevents them doing such things as he allows them to be able to do."

_De Civ. Dei_, lib. xxi. cap. 6: "Demons are allured to dwell with men by means of creatures which not they, but God, has gifted with sweetness diverse after their kind; not as brutes are attracted by food, but as spirits by signs which are congruous to each one's pleasure--by various kinds of stones, herbs, trees, animals, charms, and rites. But in order that they should be so allured by men, they first seduce them with astutest cunning, either by breathing into their hearts a secret poison, or even by appearing in the deceitful guise of friendship, and make a few their scholars and the teachers of many. Neither would it be possible to learn, unless they first taught it, by what name they are invited, by what compelled; whence magic arts and their adepts have taken rise.... And their works are exceedingly numerous, which, the more marvellous we acknowledge them to be, the more cautiously we must avoid."

S. Isidore (_Etym._, lib. viii. cap. 9) says of magicians: "These trouble the elements, disturb men's minds, and, without any poison-draught, by the mere force of their charm, destroy life."

Venerable Bede, in the VIIth century (in _Luc._, lib. iii. cap. 8), says of the commerce of _incubi_ and _succubi_, which Janus tells us was an invention of the Dominicans, that "it is a matter as really true as it looks like a lie, and is notoriously attested by numbers." He tells us that a priest of a neighboring parish related to him that he had to exorcise a woman so beset, and to heal the ulcers which the devil had left upon her. These were all cured by blest salt, except the largest, which was not healed until the priest was told what to do by his patient. "If," said she, "you mix the oil consecrated for the sick with the same medicine (_i.e._ the salt), and so anoint me, I shall be at once restored to health; for I whilom saw in the spirit, in a certain far-off city, a girl affected with the same calamity cured in this way by the priest." He did as she suggested, and at once the ulcer consented to receive the remedy, which it had before rejected. Hincmar (_De Divort. Loth. et Tetb._, p. 654) says that certain women "a Dusiis in specie virorum quorum amore ardebant concubitum pertulisse inventa sunt"; and the context shows that he is not merely quoting S. Augustine, but bearing his own testimony; for he speaks of their exorcism. He proceeds to give an account of various kinds of witchery, with an unmistakable conviction of their reality, and clinches them with the wonderful story from the _Life of S. Basil_, by the pseudo-Amphilochius, in his time newly translated out of the Greek. It is the same story which Southey has turned to such good account in his _All for Love_; and certainly few mediæval legends surpass it in the realism of its _diablerie_. A young man obtains for his wife a girl, who is on the eve of taking the veil, by means of a charm got at the price of a compact written in his blood, surrendering his soul to the evil one. When the young man repents, and the devil insists on his bargain, S. Basil discomfits the fiend before the whole congregation, and wrings from him the fatal writing. Now, Hincmar was the leading prelate in the Gallic Church in the IXth century--that is to say, in the very church and the very century in which was almost certainly composed the "chapter" in which Janus supposes that all belief in witchcraft was condemned as heresy.

Ivo of Chartres, in the XIth century, one of the very authors whom, because they transcribe the "chapter," Janus appeals to as representatives of what he regards as the ancient tradition, speaks thus on the interpretation of Genesis vi. 2: "It is more likely that just men, under the appellation of angels or sons of God, sinned with women, than that angels, who are without flesh, could have condescended to that sin; although of certain demons who maltreat women many persons relate so many things that a determination one way or the other is not easy."[122]

When we come to the great scholastics of the XIIIth century, we find that where they have varied in aught from the teaching of their predecessors on the subject of magic, it was, on the whole, in the direction of moderation, or what would be called nowadays rationalism. For instance, in considering the question of diabolical intercourse with women, a belief in which, as we have seen, they had inherited from a line of theologians, they gave an explanation which, whatever may be said of it, at least repudiated the idea of an actual mixture of carnal and spiritual natures. Again, they were very careful to guard against the notion that there is anything that can be called with propriety an art-magic--_i.e._ that there is any other than an arbitrary connection between the charms used and the results obtained--which is more than can be said of some of their predecessors.

Janus (p. 258), with the operose mendacity which is his characteristic, pretends that the authority "of the popes, Aquinas, and the powerful Dominican Order" established the reality of the Sabbath rides; that in the XIVth and XVth centuries you might "be condemned as a heretic in Spain for affirming, and in Italy for denying, the reality of the Sabbath rides"; that some Franciscan theologians in the XVth century, amongst others Alfonso de Spina, in his _Fortalitium Fidei_, maintained the ancient doctrine asserting "belief in the reality of witchcraft to be a folly and a heresy"; that Spina "thought that the inquisitors had witches burned simply on account of that belief." "Tot verba tot mendacia"! The question of the reality or non-reality of the Sabbath rides has always been an open question. S. Thomas says nothing about them one way or the other. It is much more probable than not that he regarded those rides as fantastic, in accordance with the teaching of his masters, Albertus Magnus[123] and Alexander Hales.[124] That he never committed himself to the opposite view is pretty well assured by the fact that the great representative of "the powerful Dominican Order" in the XVth century, Cardinal Turrecremata, is an advocate of the view which makes the rides fantastic. We may add that his eminence got on very comfortably during his long residence in Italy, without being molested for his Spanish heresy.

As to Alfonso Spina, he, indeed, asserts the fantastic character of the Sabbath flights; but so little is he a disbeliever in _diablerie_ that, not contented with maintaining its reality (_Fortal._, f. 146, p. 1, col. 1),[125] he contributes a rather grotesque instance of it from his own experience (f. 151, p. 1, col. 2).

He nowhere says that inquisitors had witches burned "simply on account" of their belief in the reality of the Sabbath. He recounts the burning of certain witches in Dauphiny and Gascony, who did hold their Sabbath meetings to be real, which view, as attributing a certain divine power to the devil, Spina thought could not be persisted in without heresy. (See fol. 152, p. 2, col. 1.) But they were burned because they were witches who had done real homage to the devil, although sundry of its circumstances might be imaginary.

The following passages may be accepted as examples of the doctrine on spiritualism of the principal scholastics of the XIIIth century.

S. Thomas, _Sum._ i. qu. 110, lays down that God only can work a miracle properly so called--_i.e._ a work beyond the order of the whole of created nature; "but since not every virtue of created nature is known to us, therefore, when anything takes place by a created virtue unknown to us, it is a miracle in respect to us; and so, when the devils do something by their natural power, it is called a miracle, _quoad nos_; and in this way magicians work miracles by means of devils." (In 4 _Dist._ vii. qu. 3.) "The devils, by their own power, cannot induce upon matter any form, whether accidental or substantial, nor reduce it to act, without the instrumentality of its proper natural agent.... The devils can bring to bear activities upon particular passivities, so that the effect shall follow from natural causes indeed, but beside the accustomed course of nature, on account of the variety and vehemence of the active virtue of the active forces combined, and the aptitude of the subjects;[126] and so effects which are outside the sphere of all natural active virtues they cannot really produce--as raise the dead or the like--but only in appearance."

_De Malo_, qu. xvi. art. 9: "The devils can do what they do, 1st, Because they know better than men the virtue of natural agents. 2d. Because they can combine them with greater rapidity. 3d. Because the natural agents which they use as instruments can attain to greater effects by the power and craft of the devils than by the power and craft of men."

Alexander Hales, _Sum._, pars 2, qu. 42, art. 3, says that nothing, however wonderful, "is a miracle which takes place in accordance with the natural or seminal order, but every miracle holds of the causal ratio (creative cause) only," (L.C. qu. 43). He admits that these marvels of the seminal order are miracles _secundum modum faciendi_--a term equivalent to S. Thomas' _quoad nos_.

Albertus Magnus, _Op._, tom. xviii. tract viii. qu. 3, art. 1, points out that the miracles of Pharao's magicians are called lies, "not because they are unreal (_falsa in se_), but because the devils have always the intention of deceiving in those works which they are allowed to do."

To sum up, the doctrine of the scholastics on the subject of the devil's power comes to this: The devil is a great artist, who can present incomparable shows to the senses and the imagination, and a supreme chemist, who can combine natural agents indefinitely, and can elicit in a twinkling the virtual contents of each combination; but he can create, and, strictly speaking, originate, nothing external to himself. They knew that, in mercy to mankind, Almighty God was ever restraining the devil in the exercise of this power; but they conceived that the power itself continued unaltered. It was generally admitted that the devil could not raise a dead man to life, or restore a sense, as the sight, when really destroyed. But such acts were regarded by the scholastics as precisely instances of the creation or origination of such a mode as could not be the outcome of any mere combination of natural agents, and which, therefore, must require the fiat of the Creator. At the same time, it must be admitted that they often found it difficult to distinguish in fact between the operation of the limits of the devil's finite nature and the result of the habitual reservation of Almighty God.

And here it may not unnaturally be objected that the large allowance I have made to natural powers, and to the devil's power of manipulating them, tends to lessen the effect of the argument from miracles. No doubt it tends to reduce a considerable number of miracles from the category of logical proof to that of rhetorical argument. Where the miracle is supposed wholly above nature, it is a proof that God is with those who work it; but where it is not beyond the sphere of universal nature, it can, for the most part, only offer a greater or less persuasion dependent upon circumstances. However, such natural miracles, so to call them, approximate more or less closely to logical cogency in proportion as they manifest themselves as the victors in a war of miracles; for it cannot be supposed that in such a war God should allow himself to be worsted, or that Satan should be divided against himself. When God first presented himself as a wonder-worker before human witnesses, it was as developing and modifying in a supernatural manner the powers of nature--nay, of local, Egyptian nature--and outdoing and discomfiting the magicians "who did in like manner." A recent Catholic commentator, Dr. Smith, in his very learned work, _The Book of Moses_, points out in detail "the analogy which most of the plagues present with the annual phenomena of the country."[127] Of the prelude to the plagues, the conversion of the rod of Moses into a serpent, he says: "Even at the present day, the descendants, or at least representatives, of the Psylli ... can change the asp into a rod stiff and rigid, and at pleasure restore it to flexibility and life by seizing the tail and rolling it between their hands."

In his treatment of the first plague, he gives the following account of the annual phenomenon: "For some time before the rise, the Nile assumes a green color; it then becomes putrid and unfit to drink. Gradually, about the 25th June, a change comes on; the green color and putrid odor disappear; the water becomes clear again, then takes a yellow tinge, which passes into an ochreous red; until for ninety days before the inundation gains its greatest height, it is popularly called the _red water_. 'On the first appearance of the change,' says an eye-witness, 'the broad, turbid tide certainly has a striking resemblance to a river of blood.'[128] ... At the moment foretold by Moses, the miraculous rod is lifted up and waved over the stream; instantaneously the red attains all its intensity of color; the fish, which in ordinary years live on through the gradual habituation to a different state, now perish in numbers from the very suddenness of the change; and the putrid odor, which usually exhales from it before the rise, comes back again in consequence of this mortality. The blood-red hue is not confined to the spot where Pharao and his magicians stood. It spreads at once into the various channels into which the river divides itself, into the canals which are carried through the land for irrigation, into the lakes and ponds which served as reservoirs, into all the collections of Nile-water, and the very vessels of stone and wood which were commonly used both in town and country for private cisterns. The consequence is that at the very time the water begins to sweeten, it becomes again undrinkable; the Egyptians loathe the water, a draught of which is esteemed one of the greatest luxuries they can enjoy; and, as the inhabitants still do when anything prevents them from drinking of the river, 'they digged round about the river for water, for they could not drink of the water of the river.'"

Of the plague of frogs, the same author remarks: "Such a nuisance was not unknown in some other countries, and there are instances of the inhabitants being in consequence driven from their settlements, as Athenæus remarks of the Pœonians and Dardanians, Diodorus of the Antariats of Illyria, and Pliny of some Gaulish nation. But in Egypt they are not unfrequently equivalent to a plague. Indeed, Hasselquist believes that every year that would be the result, were it not for the species of stork, called _ardea ibis_, which in the month of September comes down in large flocks to feed upon the small frogs then beginning to swarm over the country."

As regards the third plague, that of the _ciniphs_, or Egyptian mosquito, Dr. Smith thinks that the magicians could not produce them, because at that time of the year they were not yet out of the egg. This, as we have seen, is not the doctrine of the scholastics, and is hardly consistent with the idea that the magicians were anything more than conjurers. I would suggest that the mosquitoes had to do something more than show themselves and crawl in order to vindicate their reality as plagues. Doubtless the magicians and their familiars hatched the eggs; and there the effete creatures were, with knock-knees, and flaccid trunks, and languid appetites; but they were as though they were not when the orthodox mosquitoes sounded their horns for the banquet, and put in their stings with all and more than all their native vigor. Well might the magicians exclaim in anguish, "This is the finger of God."[129] Abbot Rupert, a writer of the XIIth century, gives precisely the same _rationale_ of the magicians' failure, whilst maintaining that their successes were of the nature of phantasmagoria.

Of the remaining plagues, the fourth, that of flies, was too like the third for the magicians to hope for success; and when at the sixth plague they seem again to take heart, behold, they cannot "stand before Moses for the boils that are upon them." The dreadful sequel, closing in darkness and death, would seem to have simply swept them away in its tide of horror.

So far, then, from there being any reason for shrinking from the idea of a miraculous competition, in which the spirit of man, the demon, and Almighty God enter the lists together, we ought rather to rejoice at the recurrence of the very conditions which God is wont to choose for the scene of his most triumphant manifestations.

I have thus drawn out the Catholic idea of _diablerie_, because I believe that one of the causes most active in spiritualism--a cause necessary to the evolution of a great number of its phenomena--is the devil. In matter of fact, to this cause these phenomena have been for ages universally attributed. It may, then, fairly claim to be the hypothesis in possession. In the concluding chapter, I hope to consider the amendment which spiritualists, as a rule, suggest--viz., that the spirits whom they admit with us to be the causes of the phenomena are not devils, enemies of God and man, but the souls of the departed in varying stages of perfection.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[94] Cotelerius in lib. iv. _Recogn. S. Clementis_, p. 452.

[95] Eng. trans., p. 250.

[96] P. 250, note.

[97] Preface to Edit. Benedict. S. Augustin.

[98] _De Antiq. Collect. Can_, pars iv. cap. 12.

[99] _Vita Cardinal de Cusa._ By Hartzheim, S.J. Pars ii. cap. 8.

[100] Note to canto iii.

[101] See Döllinger's _Gentile and Jew_ (Darnell's translation), vol. ii. p. 49.

[102] _Act. Sanct._ Aug., 27.

[103] _L'Antiq. Expliq._, lib. iii.

[104] _Vita_, Hartzheim, l. i.

[105] _Polycrat._, l. ii. p. 13.

[106] _De Univ._, p. 948.

[107] Ovid, _Fasti_, lib. v. line 141.

[108] _Metam._ v. fab. 7.

[109] _Ducange_, sup. (Diana).

[110] _Storia Univ._, lib. xv. cap. 15.

[111] Vol. i. p. 101.

[112] _Masque of Queens._

[113] Vol. ii. p. 177.

[114] _Quart. Rev._, vol. xxii. p. 370.

[115] _Cont. Cels._, lib. vi. c. 28.

[116] _De Univ._, tom. i. p. 1037.

[117] _Cont. Cels._, lib. vi. c. 38.

[118] _Life_, by Mrs. Hope, p. 186.

[119] _Iren._, Ed. Ben. Var. Annot., p. 230.

[120] _Iren._, cap. xxx. p. 111.

[121] P. 252.

[122] _Decret._, pars xi. cap. 105.

[123] Tom. xviii. tract. viii. qu. 30, art. 2, memb. 2.

[124] Pars ii. qu. 166, memb. 6.

[125] Edit. Nuremberg, 1485.

[126] Cf. _Scotus Oxon_, lib. ii. dist. 18.

[127] Vol. i. p. 320 et seq.

[128] Osburn, _Israel in Egypt_.

[129] In Exod. viii.

THE FARM OF MUICERON.

BY MARIE RHEIL.

FROM THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

V.

Those who are fond of singular events in this world had here a chance to be satisfied; for, certainly, this affair surpassed anything in the ordinary run. Pierrette quickly recovered, and nursed her little one without fatigue. Far from becoming even the least pale or thin, it was remarked, even by the envious--and there are always some of the tribe around the happy--that she was rejuvenated, fresh as a cherry, and the baby in her arms made her resemble the good S. Anne, mother of our Blessed Lady, whose chapel was near our parish church.

Besides, the great esteem felt for the Ragauds, their charity, honesty, and well-known piety, caused it to be acknowledged--and it was true--that this new blessing, the choicest and most unexpected they could have desired, was the recompense of the Lord God on account of little Jean-Louis. M. le Curé said it to whoever would listen to him; and, as we have seen he was fond of repeating proverbs, he did not fail to add: "If there is one truth that each and every one of us can prove if he wishes, it is '_that a good action is never lost_.' Now, if this is always true in regard to men, judge if we should believe it when the good God, all-powerful, is our creditor!"

M. le Marquis de Val-Saint was the first and most sincere in rejoicing at the happiness of his good farmers. Mademoiselle, his daughter, asked to be godmother, and had made under her own eyes, by her maids, a complete outfit of fine Holland linen, of which all the little garments were scalloped, embroidered, and trimmed with lace; such as are only displayed in the shop-windows of the city.

M. le Marquis naturally stood godfather with mademoiselle, and, not to be behind her in presents, ordered that, on the day of the baptism, there should be feasting and village-dances on the lawn before the château.

It was a day to be remembered in the neighborhood. As for the eating, singing, and laughter, you can well think nothing was wanting; they spoke of it for months afterwards. Only one person wore a rather long face, and that was our _curé_; not that he was ever the enemy of pleasure and enjoyment, but that, contrary to his advice, M. le Marquis had three casks of old wine, reserved for his own table, tapped; and the consequence was that, out of two hundred persons present, men, women, and children, not one, towards twilight, was able to walk straight on his legs.

Apart from that, everything passed off splendidly; and, to conclude, I will tell you that they had awaited the complete recovery of Mother Pierrette, so that she might be present at the celebration with her little girl in her arms; which, to my mind, was the prettiest part of the show.

The little Ragaudine had three beautiful names--Nicole-Eveline, after M. le Marquis and mademoiselle, her god-parents; and Jeanne, in honor of our great S. John the Baptist, on whose feast she had the good fortune to be born. One fact, which would have touched devout hearts if they had known it, was that little Jean-Louis had also come into the world on S. John's day, four years before. M. le Curé, who had it from poor Catharine, but who could not breathe a word of it, was nevertheless so inspired by the thought that he made at the baptism a speech which drew all the handkerchiefs out of the pockets; and if I have one regret, it is that I cannot give a full report of his touching words. But I was not born at that time, and my father, from his great age, had forgotten them when he related this story to me.

If you fancy that this event affected in the least degree the condition of Jean-Louis, you are vastly mistaken. True, there was no longer thought of his inheriting Muiceron; but the tenderness and care of his good parents were the same afterwards as before. Pierrette would have thought it a sin to have acted otherwise; for she was always the first to say: "It was the boy's guardian angel that obtained for me my little girl from the good God." Ragaud thought the same as his wife, but was a little more anxious than she about the temporal prospects of the boy. It was evident that, between the fear of injuring his daughter, and the dread of leaving Jeannet in want, his good heart did not know which side to turn. Finally, in his embarrassment, he determined to consult M. le Curé; and the good pastor, who had always an answer ready, solved the difficulty in fifteen minutes' conversation. According to his advice, it would suffice to place aside every year a small sum, drawn from the harvest of such and such a field, and never to touch either capital or interest. In that way, before twenty years, Master Jean-Louis would find himself, without any injury to the little girl, master of a nice little treasure, and capable, in his turn, of being a land-owner. This affair settled, Ragaud returned home perfectly satisfied, and told the whole story to Pierrette, who highly approved of the step.

Thus, instead of one child at Muiceron, there were two, and that was all the difference. The little things grew up calling themselves brother and sister, there being nothing to make them doubt but that it was really so. Never were quarrelling or bad words heard between them. Ragaud often repeated to Jeannet that, as he was the eldest, he should live patiently and amicably with his young sister; and Jeannet, from his gentle heart and natural sweetness of disposition, easily put the counsel in practice.

It is commonly said that girls are more forward than boys, as much in body as in mind; and another proof of the truth of this remark was evident as the Ragaud children grew up. At six years old, the little girl was so bright, so cunning, so bold, and had such a strong constitution, you would have thought her the twin-sister of Jean-Louis; but with all that, there was no resemblance, either in face or disposition, even though they say that, by living together, people often grow to look alike. Jeanne Ragaud had very light hair, was joyous and petulant, a little quick-tempered and rough in her actions, like her father; Jean had a thoughtful look, and although he was always ready to play, his tastes were rather quiet. They both loved to lead the sheep to pasture in the field near La Range; but when it was the turn of the little boy, you would have said the sheep took care of themselves, so quiet was it around them; and the reason of this was, that the shepherd was stretched in the wood, in the shade of an old willow-tree, face to the sky, watching the clouds pass over his head. Very different was it when Jeannette, armed with a switch, left the farm, driving the flock before her in the noisiest style; she drove off the dog, ran faster than he after the sheep which tried to get away from her; and if she ever sat down, it was only because she was forced to do so from want of breath. As for the clouds, little did she care for all that Jean pretended to see in them--the beautiful and moving things that kept him lying on the grass for entire hours, silently gazing with fixed eyes on the blue sky above him. She obstinately declared that a cloudy sky pleased her more than one entirely blue, because generally clouds brought rain; and nothing, according to her taste, was more delightful than a good soaking, which obliged the shepherdess and sheep to return together at full gallop to the house, running and paddling through the pools of muddy water.

This divergence of character grew more and more perceptible every day, and led Pierrette to exclaim:

"Come next S. Martin's day, and if this continues, my little chickens, I will have you change clothes; for, in truth, I begin to see that I was mistaken, and that Jeannette is the boy, and _Louisieau_ the little girl."

These words did not fall on the ear of a deaf person; for, after that, _La Ragaudine_ became bolder and more resolute than ever. She domineered over father and mother, who were weak enough to be amused by it; and as for Jean-Louis, when he ventured to offer a little friendly advice, she replied proudly, with her chin in the air:

"Hold your tongue; mother said I was the boy."

Thereupon good Jeannet was terribly confused, and could not find words to reply.

Soon the time came when they must think of school. In those days, there were no parish schools taught by the Sisters and Christian Brothers, as now. Our good _curé_, through pure zeal, had taken charge of the boys' education, and Germaine did the same for the girls. Thus the Ragaud children did not have to accustom themselves to new faces in this little change of their everyday life. But old Germaine could not say as much; for until then, having only taught the village girls, who were very obedient, even though a little stupid, she thought the devil himself possessed the school the day that Jeannette put foot in it. What tricks and drolleries this little witch of eight years invented to distract the others would be difficult to enumerate. Threats, scolding, shameful punishments, had no effect. At the end of a fortnight, she had received all the bad marks of the class, and the fool's cap appeared to be her ordinary head-dress, so that the greatest wonder was if she by chance was seen without it.

Jean-Louis, in the adjoining room, accomplished wonders. In less than four months, he learned to read and write; as for his catechism, he knew it so well he could explain it like a priest. Never did he go to sleep without knowing his lessons for the next day; so that M. le Curé held him in high favor, and taught him many things that are found in books, but which are not generally known in the country.

Thus it turned out that all the praises and dainties fell to the lot of Jeannet as a reward for his good conduct. Every Thursday he returned to the farm, holding up with both hands the front of his blouse, filled with fruit and candies of Germaine's manufacture. Jeannette kept close to his side, not at all displeased at having nothing--you can well imagine why. The cunning monkey knew that hardly would they have turned on their heels, before Jean-Louis would open his blouse, and say, "Here, little pet, choose."

So that, without giving herself the least trouble, that imp of a Jeannette feasted at will on the choicest morsels. Our _curé_ was not long duped; without scolding Jean-Louis, who by acting in that manner only proved his good heart, he warned Germaine that she must try some other means of correcting the headstrong Jeannette, who could not be allowed to grow up with such perverse habits. Germaine, very much hurt, replied that she had used every punishment unsuccessfully, except whipping, which she had never dared.

"Well," said the _curé_, "the next time she misbehaves, whip her, Germaine. I authorize you to do it."

They had not to wait long. One very rainy day, Jeannette managed to arrive the last at school, and seeing all the children's wooden shoes and leather leggings ranged outside of the door, she gathered up the greater part of them in her skirt, and ran off to the well, that she might throw them to the bottom, running the risk of tumbling in herself at the same time. Germaine, who was still light-footed, and feared something wrong was contemplated, spied her through the window, rushed after her, and caught her just in time to prevent the act.

"This is the way," cried she, holding the young one tightly by the arm--"this is the way you, wicked good-for-nothing child, employ your time, instead of learning your lessons!"

For the first time, Jeannette, in spite of her daring spirit, was so overcome she could not say a word in defence. She saw quickly that she would be well punished, and returned to the class very downcast.

Germaine commenced by making her pupil kneel in the middle of the room, and then, seating herself in her straw arm-chair, with a severe and troubled look, related the whole affair, taking care to make it appear in its worst light.

"Now," added she, looking around at her little audience, who showed a just indignation, "if I ask you, my children, what punishment Jeanne Ragaud deserves for having attempted to enjoy herself in such a malicious and shameful manner, you will doubtless answer that I should expel her from the class; but do you think that would be a great sorrow for a girl so careless of her duties? No, no, I say that would only please her; and therefore, Jeanne Ragaud, you will immediately receive a severe chastisement, but which, nevertheless, is not equal to your great fault."

Thereupon Germaine readjusted her spectacles, drew from the bottom of her big work-bag a leather whip with several thongs, and Jeannette, more dead than alive with anger and shame, received in full view the well-deserved punishment.

She neither cried, nor wept, nor made any protestation, not even an attempt to defend herself; but she did not ask pardon either, and sat straight up on her bench, whiter than Mother Germaine's cap. It was the only day they had ever seen her quiet and good.

Towards evening, Jeannet, as usual, took his post where he could meet her, that they might return home together; but great was his surprise to see the little thing advance with measured steps, instead of running and bounding according to her custom. What astonished him still further was that she neither spoke nor laughed. Her little face was all changed; but whether from grief or anger he could not discover. It ended by making him feel very anxious, as he feared she was ill.

"What is the matter?" he asked gently. "Surely, Jeannette, something troubles you; for this is the first time in my life I have ever seen you sad."

The child turned away her head, and pretended to look at the trees.

"You will not answer me," continued Jean-Louis; "and yet I only question you from pure love, not from curiosity. When one is troubled, it is a relief to speak to a friend. Am I not strong enough to defend you by tongue and arm, in case you _need_ it?"

"Nothing is the matter," replied Jeannette. "What do you fancy ails me? Let us hurry, it is growing late; the crows are beginning to flutter around the steeple."

"I am not thinking now about the crows, nor you either, Jeannette," said he, taking in his own her little, trembling hand; "and as for going faster, that is not possible; we are already walking at such a rate we can scarcely breathe."

Jeanne stopped short, and quickly drew away her hand.

"Then, don't go any further," cried she in a rebellious tone.

"Come, now, be good; we can't think of stopping here. Why do you speak to me so roughly? Don't you know that I am your friend and your brother?"

"When you will know what has happened," replied she impatiently, "well--then--then--"

"Then I will console you as well as I can, my Jeannette."

"Oh! yes, but you can't do it, Jean-Louis; in my trouble nobody can console me."

"Let us see," said he.

"There is nothing to see," she cried. "I won't tell you anything."

"Then it will be difficult," he replied sadly. "Jeannette, if I were unhappy, I would not make such a fuss about telling you."

They continued on in silence. When they reached the top of the hill in the meadow of Fauché, from which could be seen the buildings of Muiceron, Jeannette suddenly stopped, and all the anger heaped up in her little heart melted into sobs.

"What will mother say when she sees you return with red eyes?" said good Jeannet, terribly distressed. "I beg of you, my darling, speak to me; you would never cry like this for nothing."

"O Jean-Louis! I am so unhappy," she cried, throwing herself in his arms; "and if they make me go back to school, I will certainly die."

"Now, stop; don't cry any more. You shall not go back," said he, kissing her; "for none of us wish to see you die."

Jeannette this time did not need urging, but frankly related all her wrongs and the affair of the whip. Jean-Louis for the moment was so furious he would willingly have beaten Germaine; but after a little reflection, he thought that after all the correction was not altogether unjust.

He spoke wisely to the little thing, and succeeded in calming her in a measure; but he could not make her change her mind about returning to school. On this point it was as difficult to make an impression as on a stone wall.

"What will we do?" said he. "For you see, Jeannette, father has already received so many complaints about you he will most assuredly not consent to let you remain idle at the farm. To-morrow we will leave without saying a word. Do what I tell you; say your prayers well to-night; and as, after all, you were a good deal in fault, the best thing will be to ask Germaine's pardon, which she will willingly grant."

"I would rather run off into the woods," cried the rebellious child. "I would rather be eaten up by the wolves."

"No, no, that is foolish," said he, "they would hunt for you, and the woods around Val-Saint are not so big but what they could find you; and then everybody would know your fault, and father would be so angry."

"Very well," said she resolutely. "I will go see my godmother."

"That can easily be done," replied Jeannet; "and it is a very good idea. Dry up your tears now; to-morrow morning we will go together and see mademoiselle; she will know what to do."

This agreement made, Jeanne's great sorrow was quickly dissipated. She recovered her good humor, her lively manner, and was as full of fun and frolic as ever. The grief of children is like the clouds in the sky--a mere nothing causes them, a nothing scatters them; and the sun appears more beautiful than ever after a shower. Jean and Jeannette reached the house, running together hand in hand. Neither Ragaud nor Pierrette suspected anything; and nevertheless, that night, without any one even dreaming of it, the whim of a little eight-year-old witch led to many new events which changed the life of our good friends, as you will see in the end.

VI.

It is time that I should tell you about the château of our village, and of its worthy lord, M. le Marquis de Val-Saint. The château was an imposing edifice, so high and wide, with such thick walls, and so well surrounded with deep ditches filled with running water, that my father truly said such a building had nothing to fear from either time or man. Before the great Revolution, our lords lived in great style. I have heard it said that one of them, who was a great warrior, could lead into the field more than a thousand soldiers, all of them his tenants, armed and equipped at his own expense. What makes me believe this was not false is the fact that there still remains in front of the château a great lawn, flanked on each side by buildings of such length they must surely have been used for barracks. But as to that, he that chooses may believe; I cannot positively affirm it, and, besides, it has very little bearing on the story of Jean-Louis.

As was to have been expected, our lords were driven away at the time when the masters had to fly, that their valets could take their places. Thank God! this fine condition of things did not last long. At the end of a few years, the legitimate owner of the château of Val-Saint, who was a little child at the time the family left France, was put in possession of his property. He afterwards married, and had an only daughter, the godmother of Jeannette.

Never was there seen a happier family or better Christians; from father to son, they were models. M. le Marquis always remembered the time when he was in poverty and exile, obliged to earn his bread as a simple workman. It made him kind and compassionate to the poor, and, consequently, he was adored by all around him; and I have heard that Madame la Marquise even surpassed him in excellence and charity. Frequently in the winter she was seen visiting the cottages, followed by her servants carrying bundles of wood and bowls of soup, which she loved to distribute herself to the most needy.

Contrary to many great ladies, who flock to the city for amusement and gaiety in the winter, she made her husband promise that they would remain at Val-Saint during the entire year; for, said she, "in summer nearly every one has what is necessary; but in winter there is much suffering among the poor, and if we are not at home to succor and relieve the indigent, who will replace us?" You will agree with me that she spoke as a true Christian; and you will also allow that if all our fine ladies thought and acted in like manner, they would gain in the benedictions of the poor what they might lose in pleasure, and it would certainly be for the best. Between ourselves, M. le Marquis did not give in very willingly to this proposition; it was not that the dear man was fond of foolish dissipation; but after passing through so much trouble, and having the happiness to see his true king once more on the French throne, he could not resist the temptation of going to Paris occasionally to salute him, and was very desirous that madame should appear at court. She always excused herself on account of her delicate health; and this reason, alas! was only too true. Besides, she was quick-witted, like all women, and, without saying anything, saw that a new revolution was not far off. M. le Marquis, on the contrary, boldly maintained that, as his dear masters had only returned by a miracle, they would not be off very soon again. 1830 proved that our good lady was right. After that, there was no further talk about going to Paris; but it was very sad at the château. M. le Marquis became gloomy and half sick from grief, and madame, who had not been well for a long time, felt that the blow would kill her; in fact, she died shortly afterwards, leaving a little daughter, ten years old, and poor monsieur, very lonely in his fine château.

As he feared God, he knew that a brave Christian should not sink under trials. By degrees he appeared resigned to his fate, and resumed his ordinary occupations. Besides the care of his large estate, he hunted, fished, and visited his good neighbors. He gave large sums for the restoration of our church and several chapels in the neighborhood. All this, and his great watchfulness over the peasants who were his tenants, made his time pass usefully. The evenings were rather wearisome. Our _curé_ noticed it, and frequently visited the château towards dusk, so that he could entertain him with the little news of the district, and read the public journals to him. They discussed politics. When I say discussed, it is only a way of speaking, as the _curé_ and his lord always were of the same opinion; but they could regret the past together, and build up new hopes for the future; and in that manner bedtime came before they knew it.

Little mademoiselle was brought up very seriously, without companions of her own age, or any amusements suitable to her rank. She was under the care of an old governess, named Dame Berthe, who was tall and severe in appearance, very well educated, but so soft-hearted in regard to her pupil she always said _amen_ to all her caprices, only regretting she could not guess them beforehand.

M. le Marquis exercised no control over his daughter; his great confidence in Dame Berthe made him refer everything to her. All that he asked of mademoiselle was that she should always look well and happy; and in these two respects he had every reason to thank the good God. As for the rest, he used to say it would take a very skilful person to find anything to reprimand in such a sweet, good girl; and there he was right.

All the petting in the world could not spoil such a lovely nature, and every year she became more attractive. You may tell me there was nothing very wonderful in that, since she had all she desired. I will answer that, on the contrary, many in her place would have become for that very reason wicked and disagreeable. But mademoiselle inherited from her departed mother, besides a gentle and sweet face, a soul still more gentle and sweet. She would not have hurt a fly; her temper was so equal it resembled the tranquil water of a lake; she knew that she was a rich heiress, and remained simple in her manners, never haughty to others, always ready to be of service, and succeeded wonderfully in calming monsieur, her father, who, notwithstanding his goodness, was liable sometimes to be carried away with anger. Finally, I can say, without extravagance, that this last daughter of our dear lord's had, by the grace of God, all the virtues of her race united in her. Nevertheless, as nothing on earth is absolutely perfect, I must add that she had two defects--one of body; for when she was approaching her fifteenth year, having grown too fast, it was very evident that her spine was becoming curved; and notwithstanding the greatest medical skill was employed, she became fearfully crooked. M. le Marquis was greatly afflicted; but as for her, she quickly made her decision.

"No one will want me," she said sweetly; "and so, dear father, I will always remain with you."

This idea consoled her perfectly. Being lively and gay, she laughed about her deformity so pleasantly that the people of the château ended by thinking it not the slightest misfortune, quite as an accident of the very least importance; and, far from no one seeking her hand, the suitors came in procession to ask the honor of alliance with her. She was too keen not to see that her great wealth was the principal cause of their eagerness, and consequently refused all offers of marriage firmly and decidedly; and on that point the whole world could not make her change her mind.

Her second defect was of the heart; her great good-nature made her weak, as she never knew how to refuse when any one wept before her; neither could she deny herself anything where her innocent whims and caprices were in question. It was certainly a fault; for having in her own hands wealth, power, and no superior to control her, you can imagine that her kindness of heart would make her liable to fall frequently in the pathway of life, and drag others after her.

Now we will again take up the story of the little Ragaudins at the time when we left them.

You will remember that the foolish little Jeannette was resolved not to return to school, from shame of the whipping she had received that day, and was determined to go with the willing Jean-Louis, and complain to her godmother. They left the farm the following morning at the usual hour, passed right by the priest's house, and slowly ascended the slope before the château.

Mademoiselle had just come in from Mass, and was sitting in the parlor of the grand tower that overlooked the whole country. Dame Berthe was preparing her breakfast; for although there were in the anteroom four or five big valets, who passed their time in gossiping for want of work, she thought no one but herself was capable of pouring the chocolate into the large silver cup, and presenting it to her dear mistress. Mademoiselle, as it happened, felt a little bored that morning, and gently reproached Dame Berthe for not having found something to amuse her.

"If I were not eighteen years old," said she, throwing herself in her big arm-chair, "I would willingly play with my doll. You have done well, my poor Berthe; I feel like a little girl, and mourn for my playthings. What can you invent to-day? Father went away last evening. I am too tired to walk; tell me a story...."

Dame Berthe thought a moment; but in regard to stories, she scarcely knew any but those she had told and retold a hundred times. Mercy knows, that was not astonishing; two persons who are always together, know the same things, and have never anything new to tell each other.

Mademoiselle looked at her governess laughingly, and took an innocent delight in witnessing her embarrassment. It was just at this moment that the Ragaud children emerged from the chestnut grove before the château, and advanced straight to the bridge that led to the grand entrance.

Mademoiselle, who was rather near-sighted, scarcely distinguished the little things; but she heard the wooden shoes, which went click-clack on the stone bridge, and requested Dame Berthe to see who it could be.

"It is little Jeanne of Muiceron, and her brother, Jean-Louis, who have doubtless come to make you a visit," she replied; "for they are in their Sunday clothes."

Here the good lady was mistaken; for Pierrette held the holiday clothes under lock and key, and would not let them be worn on a week-day without explanation.

Mademoiselle rose up joyfully; she dearly loved her god-daughter and all the Ragaud family, and, more than that, in her frame of mind, it was an amusement that came like a gift from heaven.

"Make them come in, poor little things," said she; "and I beg of you, Berthe, to run to the kitchen, and order cakes and hot milk, as I wish them to breakfast with me."

Jean-Louis was the first to enter the parlor. Jeannette kept behind him, much less assured than you would have imagined. Until now she had scarcely ever seen her mistress, except on Sunday, when coming out from High Mass. Twice a year, on New Year's day and the anniversary of Jeannette's baptism, all the farm came in great ceremony to present their respects to monsieur and mademoiselle. Besides this, the visits to the château were very rare; and to come alone, of their own free will, and clandestinely, was something entirely out of the usual run. Jeannette began to understand all this, and felt more like crying than talking.

Happily, mademoiselle took the thing quite naturally, and asked no questions. She kissed and caressed her god-daughter, seated her on her lap, and petted her so much that for the first half-hour the little thing had only permission to open her mouth that the bonbons could be put in.

She thus had time to regain confidence, and Jean-Louis, who feared to hear her scolded, recovered his spirits. Notwithstanding all this, both were slightly overcome when mademoiselle, after breakfast, suddenly asked them if they had not some favor to ask, promising to grant any request on account of the trouble they had taken in coming to visit her.

This was the critical moment. Jeannet became red with embarrassment, and the little girl appeared stupefied. Dame Berthe gave her a slight tap on the cheek, to encourage her not to be ashamed before such a good godmother; but that did not untie her tongue.

"Speak now," said Jeannet, pushing her with his elbow.

"Speak yourself," she replied in a whisper. "I don't know what to say."

"What is it that is so difficult to obtain?" asked mademoiselle. "Is it something beyond my power?"

"Oh! no, no," said Jean-Louis. "If mademoiselle wished, she has only to say a word...."

"I will say it, my child; but still, I must know what it is about."

"Very well, mademoiselle, this is it--Jeanette does not wish to return to school."

"She must be very learned, then," replied mademoiselle, smiling. "Come here, Jeanne; read me a page out of this big book."

Only think of the blank amazement and terror of Jeannette at that moment! She did not know A from B, and found herself caught like a mouse in a trap. One last resource was left--it was to burst into tears. This was quickly done, and she was heard sobbing behind her godmother's arm-chair, where she had hidden herself at the first mention of reading.

Mademoiselle, already very much moved, profited by this incident, and asked an explanation of the whole affair, which Jeannet related, trying his best to excuse the little thing. Mademoiselle was very much amused at the recital, and was weak enough, instead of scolding Jeannette, to praise her for her spirit. She replaced her on her lap, wiped her tears, and, without further reflection, decided the case in her favor.

"But," said she, "I do not wish my god-daughter to be as ignorant as a dairy-maid. Isn't that true, Jeanne? You will not make me blush for you? I don't want you to go any longer to Germaine's school, but it is on condition that you be a good girl, and learn to read and write. I will teach you myself; how will you like that?"

"O godmother!" cried the little one, enchanted.

"Very well," replied mademoiselle; "then it is all arranged. Jean-Louis will return to Muiceron to tell your parents, and in future I will take care of you and teach you."

And it was thus that the good young lady, without understanding the consequence of her act, in an instant changed the destiny of Jeanne Ragaud. Dame Berthe dared not object, although she saw at a glance there was much to blame in this decision. "Indeed, where the goat is tied, there he should browse," said our _curé_. Jeanne, the child of peasants, should have remained a peasant, instead of becoming the plaything of a marquise. But mademoiselle's intention was not bad; and, for the time being, to have taken away her distraction would have been cruel, and Dame Berthe, although very wise, had not the courage to do it.

VII.

In the village, every one had his own idea on the subject. The Ragauds were happy, and rather proud; M. le Curé shrugged his shoulders, keeping his remarks for a later period; Germaine was silent; Jean-Louis willingly sacrificed the company of his little sister for what he thought her greater good; and, for the rest of the people, some said it was foolish, others that the Ragauds were always lucky.

Jeannette was puffed up with joy and pride. It is justice to say that in a little while she became another child; her mind was so well occupied she lost all her wilfulness, devoted herself to her studies, and was no longer disobedient and rebellious. M. le Marquis, enchanted to see his daughter so happy in her new duties, cheerfully approved of the measure, and declared the château was a different place after this humming-bird's warbling was heard in the house.

As long as the summer lasted, the thing went on without great inconvenience, as the little one often went home to sleep, and thus did not entirely lose sight of her first destiny; but with the bad weather, mademoiselle feared she might take cold by being so much exposed, and sent word to the Ragauds that she would keep her all the time.

Henceforward Jeannette was treated like a daughter of the château. She had her own little room, well warmed, and a servant to obey her orders; her hair was braided in tresses that hung below her waist, which soon made her discover that she had the longest and thickest hair of any child in the village. Her costume was also changed. She had fine merino dresses, prunella shoes with rosettes, and the calico apron, with big pockets, was replaced by a little silk affair, which only served to look coquettish. In the morning she read with her godmother, or embroidered at her side; after dinner she drove out in an open carriage, and on Sundays assisted at Mass and Vespers, kneeling in the place reserved for the château, whilst her parents remained at the lower end of the nave, admiring her from a distance.

In the village were some sensible people, who openly condemned the whole proceeding; especially Jacques Michou, formerly a comrade in the same regiment with Ragaud, and his great friend, who one day, in virtue of his long friendship, ventured a remonstrance on the subject.

"You see," said he to Ragaud, "the preferences of great ladies never last long. Suppose mademoiselle marries, or takes another caprice, what will become of Jeanne, with the habits of a nobleman's daughter? She will not be able to wear wooden shoes or dress in serge; and her stomach will reject the pork, and cabbage, and rye bread. As for her mind, it will be pretty difficult ever to make her feel like a peasant again. Believe what I say, Ragaud, take your daughter home; later she will thank you, when her reason shall have been matured."

It was certainly wise counsel; but Ragaud had two reasons, sufficiently good in his opinion, to prevent his accepting such advice. In the first place, he thought it a great honor to see his daughter the friend and companion of M. le Marquis. This came from the heart on one side, as he was devoted body and soul to the good masters who had made his fortune; but I would not swear, on the other side, that it was not mingled with a good deal of pride. Old Ragaud was easily puffed up with vanity, and sometimes at the wrong time, as will be seen in the sequel.

The second reason was, he had long been persuaded that mademoiselle led too secluded a life.

"So many crowns, and so few amusements," he often said. "Poor, dear soul! it must be hard for her."

Therefore, he regarded as a fortunate stroke her love for Jeannette; and if it would have drawn down the lightning from heaven on the roof of Muiceron, he could not, as much from conscience as from pity, have deprived mademoiselle of the daily pleasure that gave the busy-bodies so much to talk about. And then, it must be acknowledged that even among our most intelligent farmers there prevails a pernicious mania, which pushes them to elevate their children above themselves. They thus act contrary to the designs of God, who lets the seed fall where the tree should grow; and against themselves, as they are often, in the end, humiliated by what should have been their glory. But what can you expect? A man is a man.

You cannot pour more water in a pitcher than it will hold, and in a head more truth than it can understand.

Ragaud was ill at ease when he perceived mademoiselle's splendid white horses draw up before the church door. Only fancy that before the eyes of the entire parish those fine horses were used as much for Jeannette as for the daughter of M. le Marquis! It was precisely on a Sunday, a little before High Mass, that our friend, Jacques Michou, had offered his good advice; the moment was unpropitious, and Ragaud thus replied to his old comrade:

"Friend Jacques, I thank you for your words, as they are said with good intention; but I nevertheless believe that I have not arrived at my age without knowing how to manage my own affairs; which I say without wishing to offend you. As for dressing in serge, my daughter, being my only child, will have enough money to buy silk dresses if she should desire them; and that will not diminish her wealth. As for the pork, do you think it never appears on the tables of the nobility? Who knows to the contrary better than I? Twice a year M. le Marquis has a supply from Pierrette. Thus, my daughter will not lose at the château the taste of the meals at the farm. If we speak of rye bread, which is certainly the ordinary country food, we have ours half mixed with flour, that makes the bread as fine as the best made in the city. I can tell you that mademoiselle will not refuse it to Jeannette, as she often eats it herself; in proof of which she frequently sends to Muiceron for some, without inquiring whether the flour is fresh or stale. So you may rest quiet, and let each one act as he pleases."

And so, you see, without being impolite, a man can be made to feel his advice is despised.

We will now, if you please, leave Jeannette to parade her fine dresses in the château, like the linnets that sing and hop in the sun, never caring for sportsmen or nets, and return to Muiceron and Jean-Louis.

I think the dear fellow thought pretty much as Jacques Michou in relation to the little one; but it was in the secret of his heart, and, as his friends appeared happy, he asked nothing more. His character as a child, so gentle and devoted, did not change as he grew up. Different from Jeannette, who became a young lady without learning much, he remained a peasant, but advanced in knowledge like a schoolmaster. His love of books did not interfere with his rustic labors. After one year in class, M. le Curé was obliged to teach him alone, as he knew too much to go with the others. But as Ragaud could not do without an assistant on the farm, and disliked to take a stranger, Jeannet returned to Muiceron, contented himself with one lesson on Sunday, and studied by himself the rest of the week.

After his first communion, which, at his own request, was made rather late, but with perfect comprehension and a heart filled with love, he became still better. He was at that time a fine boy of thirteen, larger than usual for his age, with a handsome face, brunette complexion, and beautiful, large, dark eyes. M. le Marquis remarked his distinguished air, which meant that he did not resemble the other young village boys. The truth was, Jeannet, who always had lived a peasant, had the manner and bearing of a gentleman dressed from caprice in a blouse; and yet I can assure you it was neither vanity nor pretension that gave him that appearance.

Who would imagine that about this time he nearly committed a fault from excessive love of study? And nevertheless, it so happened in a way which you will soon understand. One day, M. le Curé, wishing to know how far this good child's mind could follow his, amused himself by explaining to him the Latin of his Breviary. Jean-Louis caught at this novelty like a fish at a bait. He became passionately fond of the language, and, as he had no time during the day, gave up the greater part of the night to its study. Now, the young need good, sound sleep; above all, when wearied with working in the fields. Ragaud soon understood it; I do not know how. He was very angry, and was not altogether wrong; for, besides the fact that Jeannet lost flesh every day, he was afraid of fire, as his room was next to the grain-loft. Ragaud scolded Jean-Louis; M. le Curé also came in for his share of reprimand; and for the first time these three persons, who had always agreed so perfectly, were very unhappy on each other's account.

"If you wish to wear the cassock," said Ragaud to his son, "say it. Although it will be a great sacrifice for me to lose your company and assistance, I will not prevent you from following your vocation. But if not, I beg of you to give up all this reading and writing, which keeps you up so late. I think that to tend the cows and till the earth, the village language is enough. You will know one day that for you, more than for others even, the work of the hands is more useful than that of the mind."

Thereupon he turned his back, and Jeannet, who was going to ask his pardon, and assure him of his submission, could not reply. As he was very quick under his quiet manner, he pondered all the rest of the day upon his father's last phrase. What did it mean? What was he to know one day? What harm was there in becoming learned, as he would eventually be rich? The poor boy suspected nothing; and yet from that moment a secret and profound sadness entered into his heart. He bundled up his books, and took them back to M. le Curé with many thanks. Our _curé_ admired his obedience, and Jeannet profited by the opportunity to confide his grief to his dear friend.

The good pastor reflected a moment. It was, in truth, a great pain, and one which he did not expect so soon, to be obliged to confide to this child the secret of his birth; but sooner or later he must know it, and whether to-day or to-morrow mattered little.

"My son," said he, "you are good and reasonable; I hope your conduct will never change. Sit down there near me, and listen."

He related to him what we already know. He did it with gentle and holy words, fitted to pour balm into the wound that he was forced to make. He endeavored especially to show forth the mercy of God and the generosity of the Ragauds. Poor Jeannet little expected such a blow; he became pale as death and for an instant appeared overwhelmed with astonishment and grief. His head was in a whirl; he rose, threw himself on his knees, weeping and clasping his hands. Our _curé_ let this first burst of grief exhaust itself; and then, with kind remonstrance, finished by proving that, after all, grateful joy was more seasonable than this great affliction. How many in his place had been abandoned, without parents, without support, without instruction, condemned to want and suffering, and doubtless lost both for this world and paradise? Instead of such a fate, the good God had warmed the little bird without a nest, had preserved him from evil, had provided for his wants; and now to-day, thanks to all his blessings, he was, more than any other, fitted to become a man worthy to rank with those around him.

"It is true! it is true!" cried Jean-Louis. "But how can I reappear at the farm? Alas! I left it thinking myself the son of the house, and I will re-enter it a foundling!"

"There you do not speak wisely, Jeannet," said our _curé_; "you will re-enter Muiceron such as you left it, with the only difference that you are now obliged to be still more obedient, more industrious, and more devoted to your parents than ever in the past. It is not by having learned the truth that your position is changed; on the contrary, by not knowing it, you ran the risk of injuring it. When you believed yourself the son of the house, you naturally thought it allowable to follow your inclinations, and act as you wished. Now you must feel that is no longer possible. 'An honest heart must pay its debts.' I know your heart; as for the debt, you see now how important it is. Your life will not suffice to pay it, but you can greatly lessen it by taking upon yourself the interests of your benefactors; by relieving Ragaud, who is growing old, of the heaviest work in the fields; by caring for good Mother Pierrette, who is a true soul of the good God; and even by continuing to consider Jeannette as your sister; which gives you the right to offer her good advice. For remember what I tell you: 'The distaff is known by the wood'; which means that it needs a strong ash-stick to support a roll of hemp, whilst a mahogany wand is only suitable for silk. Hence, I warn you that Jeanne Ragaud, after being accustomed to display herself in the marquis' carriages, will one fine day fancy herself a silken distaff, and we will have to untwist the thread."

"Jeanne will one day know I am not related to her," said Jean-Louis, weeping. "What then can I say to her?"

"Why will she know it? It would be useless to tell her. And besides, the little thing's heart is not spoiled; she will remember that you are the friend of her childhood and her elder."

"Father Ragaud," replied Jeannet, "told me this morning, if I wished to wear the cassock, he would not hinder me."

"Well, then?"

"Well, then, M. le Curé, if I am ever sufficiently learned, can I not aspire to that great favor?"

"Before our present conversation would you have thought of it, Jeannet?"

"I believe not," replied he frankly, lowering his head.

"Then, my boy, give up the idea. To wear the cassock is, as you say, a great favor; who knows it better than I, who, after wearing it forty years, acknowledge my unworthiness? But you must not start on a road without knowing where it leads; and the cassock, taken through vexation or disappointment, carries its wearer direct to the path in which he walks with his back to heaven. You can save your soul by remaining on the farm, which I would not answer for if you followed a vocation formed in half an hour."

"Yes, I will remain a farm-laborer," said Jeannet; "that is my fate for all time."

"You are vain, God pardon me!" cried M. le Curé. "I never before noticed this monstrous fault in you, which has caused the loss of so many of the best souls. Farm-laborer! that means a tiller of the fields and shepherd. My son, it is one of the noblest positions in the world; it was the calling of Abraham, of Jacob, of the great patriarchs of the Bible, that I wished you to imitate; and they were not minor personages. If I were not a priest, I would wish to be a laborer; at least, I would gather with my own hand the wheat that I had planted, instead of receiving it as the gift of a master, often a capricious and bad Christian. Yes, yes, my Jean, take care not to be more fastidious than the good God, who took his dear David, from minding sheep, to be the ancestor of our Saviour. And then, I will ask you, how would your destiny be elevated if you were really the legitimate child of the Ragauds. Would you desire to be greater than your father? And what is he?"

Jeannet was convinced by all these good reasons, uttered in rather a firm tone, but which did not indicate displeasure. He threw himself into the _curé's_ arms, and acknowledged his fault with a contrite and penitent heart. His excellent good sense showed him that, in reality, it was only vanity that had made him speak thus. He promised to return to Muiceron, to preserve his secret, and to be the model of field laborers.

Our _curé_ gave him his blessing, and watched him, as he returned to the farm, with much emotion. Ah! if poor Catharine had known how to sacrifice her self-love as her child had just done, how different would have been his fate! "But," sighed the good pastor, "there will always be frogs who will burst with the ambition of becoming oxen; and if the ox, who thought the frog foolish, had known the elephant, undoubtedly he would have acted in the same manner. Poor human nature! poor beasts! The true Christian is the only wise man!"

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.

"We meet," said the Rev. Dr. Adams, in his address of welcome to the members of the Evangelical Alliance in New York, "to manifest and express our Christian unity. Divers are the names which we bear, both as to countries and churches--German, French, Swiss, Dutch, English, Scotch, Irish; Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Independent--but we desire and intend to show that, amid all this variety of form and circumstances, there is a real unity of faith and life; believing, according to the familiar expression of our common Christian creed, in the 'Holy Catholic Church and the communion of saints.'" Dr. Adams only gave expression to a thought which was uppermost in the minds of nearly all those five or six hundred gentlemen who assembled in this city from the four quarters of the globe in the early part of October, and filled the newspapers with hymns and speeches, and professions of love, and little disputes and quarrels. "We are living," continued Dr. Adams, "in times when, all over the world, there is a manifest longing for more of visible unity." So the first business of the conference, after the preliminary survey of the condition of Protestantism in the midst of the Catholic populations of Europe--the review and inspection, so to speak, of the army in the field--was to devote a whole day to the discussion of Christian unity, in the hope of persuading themselves and the rest of mankind that these warring sects were really one body of Christian believers, and this theological battle, in which they pass fifty-one weeks of the year, was nothing else than the communion of saints. Indeed, a day was not too long for such a task. Anglicans and Baptists, followers of John Wesley and disciples of Calvin, the clergy of Calvary and the preachers of the Greene Street meeting-house, deans of the English Establishment and dissenters who hate prelacy as an invention of the devil--they were all here together, trying to agree upon something, and to reconcile the fact of their Alliance with the fundamental doctrine confessed by Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, as the motto of the conference as well as the excuse for its existence, that "The Church of Christ is one." We say it was no easy matter to reconcile the fact of the Alliance with the confession of this truth. An alliance supposes independent forces, acting together for a special and temporary purpose, but preserving distinct organizations, and acknowledging different commanders. There can be no "alliance" between the members of the "one body in Christ," any more than there can be an alliance between the right and left eyes, or the foot and the great toe. Every one of the speakers was painfully conscious of this false position. "There is no more common reproach against Christians," said Dr. Hodge, "than that they are so much divided in their belief. There is some truth in this; but, my hearers, we are one in faith." We confess we do not fully comprehend the distinction. Matters of faith, according to Dr. Hodge's definition, seem to be those great truths which all members of the Evangelical Alliance hold in common; and matters of belief or opinion are everything else. The existence of God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the resurrection of the dead, the punishment of hell, the rewards of heaven, and a few other doctrines, more or less--these are the Evangelical articles of faith. But on what authority does Dr. Hodge restrict his creed to these few points? Every sect represented in the Alliance has a more or less extensive formulary of belief, resting upon supposed divine revelation, and including a good many other tenets besides the half-dozen or so held up by Dr. Hodge. All depend upon precisely the same sanction. All are supposed to be drawn from the same source. The Baptist has just the same ground for insisting upon immersion that he has for believing in the resurrection. The Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity has the same basis as the Calvinistic belief in a divine Saviour. The Anglican theory of an inspired but occasionally corrupt and lying church is just as well supported as the Anglican's faith in the Trinity. What right have the members of the Alliance to decide that this dogma is a matter of faith, and that other is only a matter of opinion? All the contradictory doctrines, they tell us, are found in the Bible. Who has the right to decide which are binding upon the conscience, and which are open to individual choice; which are certain, and which are only probable? Oh! these reverend gentlemen will tell us, the essential points of faith are those upon which we all agree. Very well. Whom do you mean by "we"? What right have you to restrict the company of the faithful to your eight or nine sects? You are not a majority of the Christians in the world. You are even a small minority of those who believe in the very points which you make the test of evangelical Christianity. There are more than two hundred millions of Christians who believe, just as you do, in God, in the Incarnation, in the resurrection, and in heaven and hell; but you do not pretend to be one body with them. If all who accept what you style the points of faith are fellow-members with you, why do you not include Catholics? And, besides, if you are to arrive at unity by a process of elimination--throwing out one dogma after another until you reach a condition of theological indifferentism where a certain number of sects can meet without quarrelling--why should you stop at one point rather than another? There is no logical reason why you should not eliminate the doctrine of eternal punishment, and take in the Universalists; or the Trinity, and take in the Unitarians; or Christian marriage, and take in the Latter Day Saints; or the whole Bible, and take in evolutionists, and pure theists, and the prophets and followers of free religion. Once begin to make arbitrary discriminations between faith and belief, as you now do, calling everything upon which your various denominations agree a matter of ascertained truth, and everything upon which they differ a subject of individual opinion, and it becomes impossible to say why your common creed should not be narrowed down to a single dogma--for example, to the omnipotence of God, or the existence of matter, or the atomic theory, or the nebular hypothesis. Then, at least, you would be consistent, and your Alliance would be a much more powerful body than it seems to be at present.

This difficulty seems to have been passed over by the Conference in New York; but the fact of denominational differences could not be forgotten. It stared the meeting in the face at every turn. It got into nearly all the speeches. It appeared in almost every prayer. One after another, the preachers and essayists were moved to apologize for it and explain it. Dr. Hodge laid down the rule, with great applause from his uneasy listeners, that any organization formed for the worship of Christ was a church, and every church must be recognized by every other; that churches differed so radically about the great truths of religion was no more to be wondered at, and no more to be regretted, than that men and women should be organized into different towns, and states, and nations; and, as a consequence, he held that the sacraments of one church were just as good as the sacraments of another, and the orders of one just as good as the orders of another. In fact, said he, "no church can make a minister any more than it can make a Christian." This remark was also received with applause, in which it is to be hoped that the Church of England delegates and the Episcopalians cordially joined. There were three bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Conference; and after the centuries of war which their denomination has waged for the validity of Anglican orders and the unbroken apostolic succession, it must have been an inexpressible comfort to them to be told by the Alliance that they were no more bishops than Henry Ward Beecher, and Octavius B. Frothingham, and the Rev. Phœbe Hanaford. They took it meekly, however, and did not even mind being told that their church could not make a bishop or any other minister. The Dean of Canterbury was there, as the representative of the Primate of all England, and he took the rather singular position, for a churchman, that denominational differences are rather an advantage than otherwise. God's works in nature, he said, are marked by variety. All creation, from inanimate objects up to man, is characterized by diversity. So it is also, he continues, with religions. The parallel, of course, supposes that the religions are imperfect and "natural" works, which we hardly expected an Anglican dean to admit. An imperfect religion is one that is partly true and partly false; that is to say, it is a system of human devising, and not a revelation from God. And Dean Smith confesses that all the churches embraced in the Alliance are natural rather than supernatural works when he accounts for their diversities by the limitations of human reason. "The gift of instinct," he tells us, "is perfect, and produces uniformity;" but "reason is full of diversity." It is "tentative." "It tries and fails, and tries again, and improves its methods, and succeeds partially, and so advances indefinitely onward, and, it may be, at times falls back, but never becomes perfect." All this means, if it means anything, that the cardinal points of agreement between the so-called Evangelical sects, or their faith, as Dr. Hodge terms it, are the only points of any creed which are not subject to constant change. The dogma which is professed to-day may be repudiated to-morrow, and taken up again next week. The creed for which Cranmer went to the stake may be denounced as heresy by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and preached as "moderately true" by the Archbishop of York. In fine, Anglicans get their faith in God and the resurrection by instinct, and the rest of the Thirty-nine Articles by reason; and the result, of course, is that the proportion of truth there may be in religion is regulated entirely by the intellectual capacity of the believer. Salvation, according to this view, is largely the result of a school education.

Moreover, says the dean, if we knew just what to believe, we should not take much interest in religion. "Truth and the Bible are nowhere valued, except where there is discussion, and debate, and controversy about them." It adds wonderful zest to a dogma to have to dig for it; and faith, like the biceps muscle, is developed by violent contention. But if this is so, what does the world want of Evangelical Alliances? If religious truth is only struck out in the heat of religious wranglings, like sparks from the contact of flint and steel, the more fighting the better. The Church of England must have found out pretty much everything worth knowing in the persecuting days of Edward and Elizabeth, and forgotten more than half of it in the subsequent years of peace; while the era of brotherly love, towards which the Alliance looks with longing eyes, will be a period of religious indifference or of almost universal negation.

Dean Smith is logical in one thing. "If our state," he says, "is not one of attainment, but one of progress; if, at the most, we are feelers and seekers after God," why, then, of course, we must look upon all denominations with equal favor. One is just as good as another where none has any faith. But what, then, becomes of the Anglican idea of a visible church and an apostolic succession? Where is that depository of divine truth to which churchmen comfort themselves by referring? What is the meaning of that prayer in the litany of the Anglican and Episcopal service, "From heresy and schism good Lord deliver us"? Dr. Hodge, indeed, believes that "no church can make a minister"; but the Protestant Episcopal Church is very positive and particular about its orders, and is entirely satisfied that it can make bishops, priests, and deacons; that nobody else among Protestants can make them; and that they are necessary to the legitimate administration of sacraments and the well-being of Christian society. Pray, how are these contradictions to be settled? There was a charming illustration of unity one Sunday during the sessions of the Conference, when six clergymen, representing five or six different denominations, joined in a celebration of the Lord's Supper at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church; and a very pretty row there was about it afterwards. The service was held in the afternoon, and the company of celebrants included the Dean of Canterbury (Anglican), the Rev. Dr. Adams (Presbyterian), the Rev. Matteo Prochet, of Genoa (Waldensian), Narayan Sheshadri, the Bombay convert, who has been ordained, we believe, according to the rite of the Free Church of Scotland, Bp. Schweinitz (Moravian), and Dr. Angus, of London (Baptist). So far as we can understand the ceremony, no particular liturgy or custom was followed, but the representative of each sect threw in a little of his own religion. Dr. Adams opened the exercises with a prologue. The dean followed with an apology, and then read the Apostles' Creed and a collect from the _Book of Common Prayer_. Dr. Angus "gave thanks for the bread," his prayer serving, apparently, instead of a consecration. Then the bread was handed around by the lay deacons of the church. "Bp. Schweinitz was called on to give thanks for the cup, which was afterward passed to the congregation." After some further address, the dean dismissed the assemblage with a benediction. We can understand how the various dissenting ministers might reasonably take part in such a ceremony; but the spectacle of a dignitary of the Church of England in such a situation would be incomprehensible, had not long experience taught us that all manner of amazing and inconsistent things are to be looked for in the Anglican Church as matters of course. No sooner had the story of this joint-communion service appeared in the newspapers than the bubble of Christian unity burst with a tremendous report. An ex-bishop of the Anglican Establishment, the Right Rev. Dr. Tozer, of Central Africa, who happened to be in New York, addressed a letter of remonstrance to the Protestant Episcopal bishop of this diocese. He was shocked at the dean's breach of ecclesiastical order, and terrified at the consequences which might follow his rash and insubordinate conduct. If one service is just as good as another, why naturally, says Bp. Tozer, people will run after the attractive worship of the Church of Rome; and "the promise held out by the Episcopal Church in this land, of becoming a haven of rest to men who are tossed to and fro by the multiplicity of contending creeds and systems, is nothing else than a mistake and a delusion." Dr. Tozer's letter found its way into the newspapers; and then a bitter controversy broke out among the Episcopalians, bishops, priests, and laymen berating one another in the secular press, and striving in vain to determine whether their church was a church or not. Only one thing seems to have been finally settled by the quarrel, and that was, that on two of the most important of religious questions--one relating to the very foundation of the visible church organization, the other to the most solemn of religious rites--the Anglican denomination has no fixed belief at all. That very dignified and exclusive body, which sets so much store by the apostolical succession, and has strained history and reason for so many years to establish the validity of its own orders, has practically treated ordination as a thing of no consequence whatever. It has admitted Presbyterian preachers to its benefices, and recognized the validity of priestly functions performed by men to whom it denies the priestly character; and the best explanation its defenders can give of such inconsequent conduct is that the "intrusion of unordained persons into English livings" was one of the "irregularities of the Reformation period." (See letter of "Theologicus" to the New York _Tribune_ of Oct. 20, 1873.) With regard to the Lord's Supper, the position of the Anglican and Protestant Episcopal Churches is still more curious. All the members of those two organizations believe it to be a sacrament of peculiar, if not awful, sacredness. The majority probably hold that the body and blood of our Lord, in some mysterious and indefinite way, are communicated to the devout receiver of the consecrated bread and wine, if they are not literally present with the visible elements; and some High Churchmen actually believe in the real presence. Yet, in the face of all this, we find the Episcopal Church admitting that the proper celebration of the Lord's Supper does not require the intervention of a regularly ordained minister. Any kind of a service will do, and any kind of a celebrant, even a layman. It is a great mistake to suppose, as some Episcopalians did, that there was anything novel or unbecoming in the Dean of Canterbury's participation with heretics in the performance of a mutilated and nondescript service. The Dean of Westminster (Dr. Stanley) did a similar thing at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in Berlin in 1859, and an overzealous churchman who complained of it to the Archbishop of Canterbury was rebuked for his pains. Dr. Muhlenberg, one of the leading Protestant Episcopal clergymen of this city, expressed the only logical Protestant view of the joint communion question in an address before the Alliance on the last day of its meeting. The Lord's Supper, according to Dr. Muhlenberg, is "the highest social act of religion," and the custom of restricting its celebration, each denomination to itself, is in the highest degree objectionable. As a matter of convenience, it is better, as an ordinary rule, that communicants should have their own "church homes, so to call them, where, under their own pastors, and amid their families and friends, they feel it a good and pleasant thing so to participate in the sacred feast. They have an indisposition to go for it beyond these companies of immediate brethren. Nor is this unsocial, if it be merely a preference for their own associations, for the sacramental modes and customs to which they, like their fathers before them, have been accustomed; but when they do it on religious grounds, when they make it a matter of conscience, when they would forego the communion altogether rather than partake of it outside of their own societies, then it is that unsocialness, to call it by its mildest name, which it is hard to reconcile with aught of hearty realization of membership in the one body of Christ."

Dr. Muhlenberg's position is so peculiar that we have given his statement of it in his own language, lest we may be accused of misrepresenting him. It never occurred to us to complain of heresy and schism on the ground that they are "so unsociable," and we never supposed that the most liberal of Protestant sects defended denominationalism on the plea of custom and education. The manner of taking communion, according to Dr. Muhlenberg, seems to be as much the result of habit as anything else--like the manner of dining or chewing tobacco. An Episcopalian has no better reason for kneeling reverently at the chancel-rail, and consuming the consecrated bread and wine, rather than sitting at ease in his pew while unconsecrated food and drink are passed to him by lay deacons, than the reason that he was brought up to that fashion, and feels more comfortable in the society of his own friends and neighbors. This being the case, it follows, of course, that the bread and wine are just as good without consecration as with it; just as much the body and blood of Christ in the bakery and the wine-shop as on the altar; and the most rigorous Anglican will be entirely justified in communicating according to any rite that he fancies. Indeed, Dr. Muhlenberg declares that the various sacramental rites and ceremonies are all more or less agreeable to Scripture, but not essential. The sacrament is just as good without any of them. Our Lord commanded us to celebrate the holy communion in remembrance of him. Well, then, let us go and do it, each in his own way, each after his own idea of what it means, each admitting that every other way is good, and perfectly indifferent to the tremendous question whether the elements are the body and blood of the Saviour or only common bread and wine. Nay, there is no need of an officiating ministry. The Christian eucharist is only the antitype of the Jewish Passover; and as "an officiating ministry was not required for the ancient priestly dispensation, surely none can be demanded for the antitype under the unpriestly dispensation of the Gospel." That simplifies the administration very much; but it occurs to us that a sincere Episcopalian, of less liberal views than Dr. Muhlenberg, might be embarrassed by the joint communions which he so strongly recommends. We can imagine such a man going into Dr. Adams's church, while the Dean of Canterbury, and the Presbyterian and Baptist, and other ministers, stood grouped together before the pulpit, and asking what the ceremony meant. A deacon answers, "Oh! it is nothing but the communion service; you had better join us." "But what is your communion service? Is it the participation of the body and blood of Christ?" "Not at all; it is merely the highest social act of religion." "Have the bread and wine been consecrated?" "Oh! yes--that is to say, no; well, you see, these gentlemen don't all think alike about it. One says it is the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, and another says it is nothing but a rite of hospitality; and we let every man choose for himself." "But has there been no blessing of the elements? No prayer over them?" "Yes; a plenty of prayers." "And what was the intention of the celebrant? The intention, of course, regulates the quality of the act." "Oh! there were five or six intentions; for there were five or six celebrants, and no two of them meant the same thing." Here the inquirer, if he had any sense, would probably conclude that the ceremony was nothing but a sacrilegious travesty on the holy communion, and would retire deeply scandalized; and remembering, first, that the Thirty-nine Articles of his creed forbid "any man to take upon him the office of ministering the sacraments before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same," and, secondly, that the preface to the ordination service of the Episcopal Church declares that no man shall be suffered to execute any of the functions of a minister in Christ's church except he be duly ordained by a bishop, he will doubtless be not a little puzzled to account for the presence of a dignitary like the Dean of Canterbury in such a motley assemblage.

The protests against joint communion are not confined, however, to the Episcopal denomination. The Baptists are likewise exercised in mind about it. They refuse to recognize the validity of infant baptism, or to admit to the Lord's Supper those who have not been duly baptized; and hence, with the great majority of Christians they do not feel at liberty to communicate. The Baptist clergyman from London who participated in the performance at Dr. Adams's church has exposed himself to violent criticism from his own brethren, and, like Dean Smith, is accused of forgetting ecclesiastical discipline and theological orthodoxy under the impulse of a moment of gushing enthusiasm. What a charming illustration of Christian unity this joint-communion service has afforded!

The more closely we look into the Alliance, the more preposterous appear its attempts to jumble up conflicting doctrines, mingle contradictions, and confuse intelligence. If it is right for different sects to communicate together, it must be right for them to perform all other religious services together, and doctrine and ritual become alike insignificant. Hence, we are not surprised to find among the papers presented to the Conference an essay on the _Interchange of Pulpits_, in which the Rev. Mr. Conrad, of Philadelphia, argues that it is a Christian duty for Episcopal congregations sometimes to listen to the sermons of Baptist preachers, and for Baptists to invite the ministrations of a Presbyterian, and so on--hands across, down the middle and up again; orthodox to-day, heretic next week. Is it necessary to believe anything? Is there any such thing as faith? Is there any reality in religions which have no dogmas, and which look upon truth and falsehood, worship and blasphemy, as perfectly indifferent? Surely this is reducing Protestantism to absurdity. You gentlemen have adopted the principle of individual infallibility, first, to declare that the church of God is the mother of falsehood, and then to accuse each other of error and deceit; and after multiplying your subdivisions till there is danger of universal ruin and dissension, you come together and declare that there is no such thing as religious certitude; no choice between one sect and another; no difference between God's messengers and the lying prophets of Baal. Your plan of composing controversies is to obliterate the distinction between good and evil; and if we can believe Mr. Conrad, the plan of the apostles was the same. They founded independent congregations, and gave them such lax notions of faith that, as Mr. Conrad remarks, "the primitive church was inoculated with error." Nevertheless, the apostles and their first disciples went about freely from church to church, exchanging pulpits, so to speak; and we do not read that the denomination to which Peter belonged had any objection to an occasional sermon from Paul, or that the Beloved Disciple was not welcomed as a good Christian minister when he visited the sect established by S. Luke. In those blessed days there was, we believe, a true interchange of pulpits. But Mr. Conrad neglects to explain the warning which S. Paul gave to the Christians at Rome:

"Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them who cause dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned; and to avoid them.

"For they that are such serve not Christ our Lord, but their own belly: and by pleasing speeches, and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent."[130]

What have the Episcopalians, with their fiction of a hierarchy, to say of this plan of undenominational preaching? How are we to reconcile the presence of a Presbyterian parson in one of their pulpits with the rule, already quoted, which forbids the exercise of ministerial functions by one who has not received Episcopal ordination? And what would a Baptist say to a service conducted in one of their churches by a Methodist who had been sprinkled in infancy, and therefore, according to the Baptist view, not baptized at all?

The plain truth of the whole matter is that there is no such thing as Christian unity in any of these periodical performances of the Evangelical Alliance. The sects are not drawing closer together. Denominational differences are not disappearing. The quarrelling is as angry and as noisy as ever. But Protestantism has taken alarm. It is confronted by two dangerous enemies, which are growing stronger and stronger every day, and it is anxious to keep the peace for a little while in its own family, that it may the better look after its defence. One of these dangers is the philosophical infidelity which Protestantism itself has bred. The other is the Catholic faith, against which Protestantism is a rebellion. An address, prepared by the late Merle d'Aubigné for the conference which was to have been held three years ago, was presented at the meeting in New York. The historian of the Reformation tells his brethren some plain and unwelcome truths about their condition. "The despotic and arrogant pretensions of Rome," he says, "have reached in our days their highest pitch, and we are consequently more than ever called upon to contend against that power which dares to usurp the divine attributes. But that is not all. While superstition has increased, unbelief has done so still more.... Materialism and atheism have in many minds taken the place of the true God. Science, which was Christian in the finest intellects of former days, in those to whom we owe the greatest discoveries, has become atheistic among men who now talk the loudest.... Eminent literary men continually put forward in their writings what is called positivism, rejecting everything that goes beyond the limit of the senses, and disdaining all that is supernatural.... Unbelief has reached even the ministry of the word. Pastors belonging to Protestant churches in France, Switzerland, Germany, and other Continental countries, not only reject the fundamental doctrines of the faith, but also deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and see in him nothing more than a man who, according to many among them, was even subject to errors and faults. A Synod of the Reformed Church in Holland has lately decreed that, when a minister baptizes, he need not do it in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.... At an important assembly held lately in German Switzerland, at which were present many men of position, both in the church and state, the basis of the new religion was laid down: 'No doctrines' was the watchword on that occasion; 'no new doctrines, whatever they may be, in place of the old; liberty alone.' Which means liberty to overthrow everything; and too truly _some of those ministers believe neither in a personal God nor in the immortality of the soul_." Nor was Merle d'Aubigné alone in his bitter judgment of European Protestantism. The same feeling is more or less clearly manifest in the essays of various foreign delegates. Mr. Prochet, the Waldensian minister from Genoa, in presenting a sketch of the religious condition of Italy, laid great stress upon the close union, brotherly feeling, and unflagging energy of the priesthood. "The clergy," said he, "with few exceptions, have gathered themselves more closely around the Holy See, determined to stand or fall with it." Father Hyacinthe lectured in Rome; "but the clergy left him alone, or his few adherents were such that nothing of any importance could be done by them." Among the laity there is a large proportion of devout adherents of the church. There is a great multitude which does not practise any religion, and takes more interest in politics than in faith; but this party has not renounced its allegiance to the church, and believes in Rome as far as it believes in anything. Atheists are not numerous, but their influence is constantly increasing. Protestants are the fewest and the weakest of all. There are congregations of foreign Protestants, but "their influence is of very little value." The Waldensians have a theological school at Florence; but we are puzzled to know what they can teach, for "it is open to students of every denomination; they are never asked to leave their religion to join another." Altogether, the Protestants of Italy, mere handful as they are, are divided into ten different denominations. The Rev. M. Cohen Stuart, of Rotterdam, gave a somewhat similar sketch of the situation in Holland. Nowhere, he said, has the Pope more pious devotees and more zealous adherents than in the land which gave England William of Orange and sheltered the Pilgrim Fathers. If the church is not increasing there in numbers, it is daily adding to its power and influence. "There is no rent of heresy in the solid mass of that mediæval building save the remarkable schism of the so-called Jansenists; ... but this sect, with its few thousands of adherents, is far more interesting from its history than important from actual influence." Protestantism, on the other hand, shows little but dissension, with a strong tendency towards scepticism. "There is a tide of neology, a flood of unbelief, which no dikes or moles can keep back.... A great many, a sadly increasing number, are more or less forsaking the Gospel and becoming estranged from Christian truth. Materialism and irreligion are slaying their tens of thousands in the ranks of so-called Christians." Mr. Stuart draws a fearful picture of the disputes of the different Protestant theological schools, and continues: "It is evident, indeed, that the utter confusion into which the Reformed Church of Holland has fallen cannot last very long, lest it should lead to a total disorganization and overthrow of the whole.... Nothing for this moment is left but to bear, though not without earnest protest, a state of things too abnormal and too absurd to last." Of Switzerland, again, we have almost precisely the same story. The Rev. Eugene Reichel, of Montmireil, complained of the activity of the Catholic Church in his little republic, and the great increase of infidelity among Protestants. "A deplorable unbelief has led captive the masses of the people. They have left their churches to engulf themselves in the vortex of business and worldly pleasure.... On every side infidelity is become rampant, and much more aggressive than in former years. Better organized than once, and finding an efficient support both in the indifference of the people and the countenance afforded by government, this insidious foe, closing up its ranks, is not slow to assail the truth." Of Spain Mr. Fliedner gave a vague and not over-brilliant account, and of Greece Mr. Kalopathakes could only say that Protestants had a very hard time of it there, and that there were very few of them. American missionaries have been sustained in Greece for forty years, and yet there is only one meeting-house in the kingdom. Mr. Decoppet, of Paris, declares that "the Protestant population of France is still but a feeble minority, which holds its own, but does not sensibly increase," while the church is evidently gaining every day in influence; and, moreover, Protestantism is torn by internal discords, and weakened by rationalistic tendencies, which give its enemies "a plausible pretext for their assertion that Protestantism leads necessarily to negation, and that it is on the high-road to dissolution." In Denmark, according to Dr. Kalkar, of Copenhagen, Catholicism has made rapid and extraordinary progress. In Protestant Sweden, "unbelief has spread among the people, especially among the educated classes," and "the moral condition of the people is tolerably low."

Upon the discussion of the various methods proposed in the conference to combat the enemies of Protestantism we do not know that we need linger. Infidel philosophy engaged most of the attention of the German and American delegates; but how could Protestantism do battle with its own offspring? The debate on the Darwinian theory was empty--nay, it was almost childish. The essays on the same subject were timid and inconsequential. And strange to say, when the day for demolishing the Pope of Rome came around, the fiery, aggressive spirit which animated the Alliance in former days was wanting. There were rumors of dissatisfaction among the brethren at the time-honored attitude of the Evangelical Alliance towards the Scarlet Woman of Babylon; and it was thought that while atheism was so rife, and faith so weak, and Protestantism dying, so to speak, of inanition, it was unwise to quarrel with any kind of Christianity which seemed able to arrest the downward progress. Those who judged thus instinctively felt, what they would be slow to acknowledge, that between the Catholic Church and no faith at all there is not a middle position. The whole Conference teaches the same truth. Protestantism drifts away into the darkness and the storm, but the Rock of Peter stands immovable, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for all time.

"Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Romans xvi. 17, 18.

CATHOLIC LITERATURE IN ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION.

CONCLUDED.

After the death of Alexander Pope, in 1744, it was a long time before English Catholic literature could boast of any living name. Prelates, indeed, and priests there were, whose admirable writings circulated among their co-religionists, but few who were known to the public generally as successful aspirants for literary fame. Yet the devotional and controversial writings of the time--the works, for example, of Bps. Hay, Challoner, and Milner--took no mean part in the cultivation of the intellect and taste. The influence of classical authors from without was discoverable in their style, and they kept pace in general with the enlarged experience of the age. There is no philosophy so deep as Catholic philosophy; none so comprehensive, affecting, and complete. It embraces all other philosophies so far as they are sound; and far from being at variance with any branch of human science, it incorporates all knowledge into itself as parts of a system of universal truth. It is the philosophy of life and of society; the philosophy of the soul, her joys and sorrows, her aspirations and ends. It solves all the questions which vex the inquiring spirit, so far as it is possible for them to be solved under our present conditions of being. Catholic philosophy, under this point of view, is set forth in the most touching manner by Bp. Challoner in his _Meditations for Every Day in the Year_. Apart from the edifying character of these reflections, it is impossible to read them attentively without allowing them distinct literary merit. While they evince a tenderness and pathos that are sure to win on the reader's heart, they exhibit also much art in composition. The sentences are well balanced and musical; the subject is always exposed methodically; and the appeals, however addressed to the feelings, are controlled by strict reasoning.

Take, again, Bp. Milner's _End of Controversy_--a series of letters addressed to the Protestant Bishop of St. David's. It is a complete armory. If Dr. Challoner's _Meditations_ was fitted to implant the divine philosophy of Catholicism deeply in the breast, Dr. Milner's _End of Controversy_ was no less calculated to arm the sincere Catholic with every needful weapon of defence against the assailants of his creed. If luminous arrangement, clear reasoning, and profound learning constitute claims to literary merit, that book possesses it in no ordinary degree. Edition after edition has been published, and it has been produced in so cheap a form as to be accessible to readers in the humblest circumstances. Though the face of controversy between Catholics and Protestants has much changed of late years in England, firstly by the Anglo-Catholic or Tractarian movement, and, secondly, by the wide spread of infidel opinions under the form of positivism, yet the old arguments in support of Catholicism remain unchanged, and there are few cases of heavy resistance which Dr. Milner's letters will not meet even now. Ingenious additions and variations have been made by subsequent controversialists to supply passing needs, but, after all, these grand old field-pieces, when brought fairly into line, will be found equal to the task of demolishing any bench of Protestant bishops and any assembly of Presbyterian elders.

The _Lives of the Saints_, by the Rev. Alban Butler, appeared for the first time in 1754, ten years after Pope's death. The venerable author was Principal of the English College at St. Omer, then the principal seminary for English ecclesiastics. The wide celebrity of the work, and the fact of its having been made a reference-book in every good Catholic library, render it needless to dwell on its excellences. Suffice it to say that it exhibits a profound acquaintance with the subjects of which it treats, and preserves a wise medium between credulity and disbelief. The copious notes, containing accounts of the writings of sainted fathers and doctors, are invaluable to literary men; and the _Lives_ in general shows that the author's knowledge and research extended far beyond the bounds of theology, hagiology, and church history. His nephew, Charles Butler--himself a well-known literary character--published an _Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Alban Butler_, in which he gives, as nearly as possible, a list of the principal works and sources from which the author of the _Lives of the Saints_ derived his information. He then goes on to say that literary topics were frequently the subject of his uncle's familiar conversation, and quotes from memory many of his criticisms on Herodotus, whose style he greatly admired, Cicero, Julius Cæsar, the works of Plato, and the modern Latin poems of Wallius, together with the relative merits of the sermons of Bossuet and Bourdaloue.

Charles Butler always took a laudable pride in dwelling on his uncle's merits, and in making them better known to the public. To his editorship is owing the publication of the _Notes_ of Alban Butler's travels during the years 1744-46. He informs us in a short preface that in many places they were little more than mere jottings, and not intended for publication; that their meaning, also, was frequently difficult to decipher. By his care and diligence, however, they were brought into a readable form; and the volume, published in Edinburgh in 1803, and now rarely to be met with, is valuable as showing the highest degree of knowledge of Italian ecclesiastical affairs then attainable by a cultivated and inquiring traveller. Seldom has a book of travels had more facts condensed into it. It is a monument of close observation; and at a time when handbooks were very few and very imperfect, it must have been a precious _vade mecum_ in the hands of Catholic travellers, and particularly ecclesiastics. The writer seems, in every spot he visited, to have gathered up all that could be collected respecting it either from books or individuals. The amount of statistics is enormous, and the attention to details truly laudable. Had these _Travels_ been written for the public, and graced with the flowing style and the free and copious reflections which abound in the _Lives of the Saints_, they would have been read frequently to this day, and have ranked high among compositions of a similar kind.

The writings of Charles Butler are of no mean value, in consequence of his having directed his attention to English Catholic history at a time when scarcely any other writers thought it worth their while to obtain accurate information on the subject, and still less to record it for the benefit of others. Charles Butler made it his business to preserve everything of importance which he could collect respecting the political and religious condition of his co-religionists in England since the time of the Reformation; and all subsequent historians have, in such matters, been greatly indebted to his _Historical Memoirs_ and _Reminiscences_. His style, it is true, is very sketchy, and his matter reads like notes and memoranda; but the intrinsic value of what he places on record atones in some measure for this defect. In his opinions he inclined rather to the liberal school of thought, and this fact brought him into serious collision with Bp. Milner on the subject of the veto and other matters then in debate. There can, however, be no doubt of his sincere attachment to the Catholic religion, while his love of literature and all that concerns mental progress is no less apparent in his works. Acquainted as he was with most of the distinguished men of the day, he had ample opportunities of observing their peculiar gifts and habits. The remarks which he makes in his _Reminiscences_ on the parliamentary eloquence of Chatham, North, Fox, Pitt, and their compeers, whom he had seen and heard, have this merit, that they were derived from no second-hand sources. His _Horæ Biblicæ_, _Germanic Empire_, _Horæ Juridicæ_, his numerous biographies, his _Historical Memoirs of the Church of France_ and of _English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics_, were not merely up to the standard of his time, but often beyond it, in consequence of the peculiarity of the materials that he brought together. While he was familiar with a wide range of literature, English, foreign, and ancient, he was also conversant with algebra, music and other fine arts. The motto he adopted for his _Reminiscences_ from D'Aguesseau shows his love of study: _Le changement de l'étude est toujours un délassement pour moi_--"A change of study is always a relaxation for me." If he is sometimes formal and verging on priggishness--as when he styles himself all through two volumes "the Reminiscent"--the fashion of his day, which was far more stilted than we should approve, must be his excuse. If we had enjoyed the pleasure of his acquaintance, we should, no doubt, have pronounced him "a gentleman of the old school."

The Rev. Joseph Berington was another Catholic of the last century who has embalmed his memory in a useful work. Charles Butler wrote of his _Literary History of the Middle Ages_: "It presents the best account in print of that important subject." The _Biographie Universelle_, that Pantheon of genius, contains a very imperfect but interesting monument to his memory. He was a contemporary of Charles Butler, and a link in the chain of English Catholic authors since the great overthrow of religion. Between the years 1776 and 1786, he published several controversial works directed against infidelity and Protestantism. He then published the _History of Abelard and Heloise_, with the genuine letters of those around whom Pope's poem had thrown much romantic interest. It soon reached a second edition, and was followed by a _History of Henry II. and his Two Sons_, vindicating the character of S. Thomas à Becket. But it was not till 1814 that he published the work on which his reputation mainly rests, _The Literary History of the Middle Ages_. By that time his experience had matured, and he had collected a large body of materials from numberless sources. His work, when it appeared, was the best compendium to be found; but since that period the researches of Maitland, Kenelm Digby, and many others have thrown open to our view more clearly the fair fields and wealthy mines of mediæval lore. This volume served as a stimulus to the inquiries of other students, and it was thought worthy of republication so late as 1846. What we admire in it is the taste of the writer and his genuine love of the subject on which he treats. He does not write like a dry bibliographer, but in a genial way--like one whose learning has not eaten out his individual human heart.

But the merit of Berington and Charles Butler fades into insignificance when compared with that of Lingard. Before his time, English history was almost unknown. The Catholic side of a number of questions had never been fairly presented, and the true sources of history had either not been discovered, or were very scantily resorted to. It was Dr. Lingard who first made the public sensible of the value of documents brought to light by the Record Commission; the Close and Patent Rolls extant in the Tower; the Parliamentary writs; the papers and instruments of the State Paper Office; the despatches of De la Mothe Fénelon, the French ambassador in London in the reign of Elizabeth; the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell; and the archives of the _Ministère des Affaires Etrangères_ in France. Accustomed as we now are to see history written by the lights of such incontestable evidence, we often wonder how our forefathers could have accepted with complacency the jejune records founded in too many cases on tradition and fancy. To Dr. Lingard and Miss Strickland is principally due the praise of having introduced a more respectable and reliable method.

Historians generally train themselves unconsciously for their larger works by the composition of some smaller ones. It was thus with Lingard, who published, in 1806, his _Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church_, and lived to watch over its success, and improve it in numerous editions, during a period of forty-five years. He availed himself gladly of the labors of other workers in the historic field, and saw, with singular pleasure, the laws, charters, poems, homilies, and letters of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors collected and published. But no work on the Anglo-Saxon portion of English history is more valuable and interesting than his own. He causes the church of that epoch to live before us with its laws, polity, doctrines, sacraments, services, discipline, and literature. He consults the original authorities, and, putting aside wearisome controversies on points of detail, confines himself to facts well ascertained.

It was during his residence at Pontop and Crook Hall, and before removing to Ushaw--in a neighborhood where Weremouth and Jarrow recalled the memory of Bede, and where Tynemouth, Hexham, Lindisfarne, and many other spots spoke eloquently of the past--that Lingard used, in his spare moments, to compile the several papers on the religion, laws, and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, of which his work is composed. Seated by the evening fireside, he would read them to his companions, and their interest in his theme, and surprise at the extent of his learning, increased with every reading. When, at length, the series reached its close, his friends earnestly requested him to publish them as a connected history; and thus the foundation of his future reputation and usefulness was laid. If amateur authors would more frequently try their strength in this way, without rushing unadvisedly into print, they would be spared much disappointment and expense, and the standard of current literature would be raised.

The publication of _The Anglo-Saxon Church_ naturally led to Lingard's being solicited to extend his history to a later period. Why should not he, who was evidently so competent, trace the fortunes of the church through the Norman, Plantagenet, Lancastrian, and Yorkist periods? Nay, what reason was there why he should not give the world a Catholic version of the history of the Reformation, so commonly and flagrantly misrepresented? How many old Catholic families would be delighted to peruse a faithful record of events in which their ancestors were concerned! Might not he throw a halo round many illustrious Catholic names, and tear up by the roots many Protestant historic falsehoods? Had not several of the Stuart kings shown a bias, and more than a bias, towards the ancient religion? And who could exhibit the different phases in the career and character of those kings so well as he? If Queen Mary had been unduly reviled, and Queen Elizabeth extravagantly praised, on whom could the task of rectifying these mistakes be devolved so safely as on Lingard? Such questions stirred his activity and laudable ambition; for he was not unconscious of his ability to write the history of his country. At first, indeed, he modestly shrank from so serious an undertaking, and contemplated only an abridgment for the use of schools; but a secluded mission like that of Hornby, to which he had retired, is highly favorable to the composition of important works. The _Abridgment_ was revised when he had buried Henry VII., and, after being rewritten, was thrown aside. The scaffolding was thrown down, but the house stood.

When Lingard visited Rome in 1817, he was, in the first instance, discouraged by the reception he met with. It was intimated to him by a member of the Sacred College that Dr. Milner had already sufficiently exposed and refuted the calumnies contained in Hume, and that further researches for the purposes of English history were unnecessary or of slight importance. Every writer of eminence has met with similar rebuffs. Lingard was mortified, but not deterred from the object he had in view. Before he left Rome, the archives of the Vatican had been opened to him without reserve, his admission to the libraries was facilitated, and transcripts of such unpublished documents as he might require were promised him. Unfortunately, the privilege of consulting the Vatican treasures was of little use, seeing that the French Revolution had thrown the codices into much confusion.

In the early part of 1819 the three volumes of the _History of England_, extending to the death of Henry VII., were published, having been purchased by Mawman, the publisher, for a thousand guineas; and other volumes followed at irregular intervals, till, in 1830, the whole history down to the Revolution of 1688 had appeared. For the first and second editions the author received altogether £4,133--an extraordinary amount, considering the unpopularity of Catholics at the time of its appearance, and the small number of English Catholic readers. But its fame extended beyond the English shores; translations in French and German were published; and an Italian translation was printed, by the Pope's desire, at the press of the Propaganda. His Holiness subscribed for 200 copies of this translation; and Cardinal Cristaldi, the _Trésorière Générale_, for a yet larger number. It was reproduced in America, and in Paris by Galignani, and read at Rome with enthusiastic delight. Pius VII., in August, 1821, conferred on the author the triple academical laurel, creating him at the same time doctor of divinity and of canon and civil law. Leo XII. invited him to take up his residence in Rome; but from this Lingard excused himself by saying that it was necessary he should examine original papers which could be found in England only. On his departure, the same pontiff presented him with the gold medal which is usually reserved for cardinals and princes, and he is said to have designed for him the dignity of the cardinalate.

As time went on, Lingard's knowledge of English history widened and deepened. He availed himself eagerly of the new sources of information which this century has opened so abundantly, and, by the constant revision of his work, he rendered it increasingly valuable. It would be difficult to overstate its merits, one of the highest of which is its impartiality and fearless statement of what the writer knew to be true. He avoided all appearance of controversy, and often refuted Hume without appearing to do so. His great aim was to write a history which Protestants would read, and in this he succeeded. In 1825, the President of the English College at Rome, Dr. Gradwell, wrote to him, saying: "Your _History_ is much spoken of here as one of the great causes which have wrought such a change in public sentiment in England on Catholic matters." Dr. Wiseman, writing to Lingard in July, 1835, said: "All the professors at Munich desired me, again and again, to assure you of the high esteem they entertain for you, and the high position your work is allowed, through all Germany, among historical productions. Prof. Phillips, formerly professor of history at Baden, now at Munich, requested me to inform you that he owes his conversion (which made immense sensation, on account of his well-known talents) chiefly to your _History_, which he undertook to review." A few weeks only before Cardinal Wiseman's death, he thus expressed his sense of Dr. Lingard's merits, both as an author and a man: "Be assured of my affectionate gratitude to you for much kindness in my early youth, and still more for the great, important, and noble services which you have rendered to religion through life, and which have so much contributed to overthrow error, and give a solid historical basis to all subsequent controversy with Protestantism."

In mentioning those writers who have helped to construct an English Catholic literature, it would be impossible to omit the name of Thomas Moore. Though an Irishman by birth, the English, among whom he chiefly resided, are accustomed to reckon him among their own; and though, unhappily, he ceased, at an early period of life, to observe regularly the duties of his religion, he never ceased altogether to frequent the services of the Catholic Church; and in his writings he maintained to the last the truth of Catholicism, and the immense superiority of its system over all modern forms and sections of Christianity. His _Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion_ is no less forcible in argument than humorous in style; and numberless passages in his diaries and poems prove that Catholicism retained its hold over his heart as well as his understanding, though it did not always influence duly his practice as a member of the church. Probably his passion for society, and his fondness for the great, were in some measure the causes of his conforming outwardly to Protestant observances, and allowing his children to be educated in the doctrines and usages of the Church of England. Certain it is that his own affections were never weaned from the faith of his parents; and one of his most intimate friends, Lord Russell, who was also his biographer, assures us that, when in London, it was his custom to frequent the Catholic chapel in Wardour Street.

We cannot in this place discuss as fully as it deserves the question of Moore's personal Catholicity. Suffice it to refer to a passage in his _Diary_, under the date November 2 to 9, 1834, and to the following, dated April 9, 1833: "In one of my conversations with Lord John (Russell), we talked about my forthcoming book, and I explained to him the nature of it, adding that I had not the least doubt in my own mind of the truth of the case I undertook to prove in it--namely, that Popery is in all respects the old, original Christianity, and Protestantism a departure from it." Such was the lesson which the _Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion_ was intended to teach; nor could anything less than a deep sympathy for the faith of the people of Ireland have inspired Moore with such touching lamentations over their wrongs and sufferings. The frame of his mind was essentially religious; and those who have been wont to think of him as a dissolute devotee of fashion will feel surprised to discover in the authentic records of his life a fond and faithful husband, an affectionate son, a loving parent, and, as far as his feelings were regarded, a devout Christian. His _Sacred Songs_ were not efforts of the imagination merely; they expressed the genuine emotions of his inmost heart; and how beautifully, and in numbers how inimitably melodious! There is a disposition among some critics to disparage Moore's poetry, and to treat him merely as a love-sick rhymer; but his fame is proof against such pitiful assailants; and his poems will awaken echoes in the human heart when their artificial and obscure poetizings shall

"... bind a book, or line a box, Or serve to curl a maiden's locks."

There cannot be a doubt that his writings contributed largely to the success of the movement in favor of Catholic emancipation, and that his _Irish Melodies_ in particular conspired with the speeches and addresses of O'Connell to kindle in the breasts of Irishmen and Irishwomen the determination to set their country free. The enthusiasm, even to tears, which they excited on the lake, in the grove, in the music-hall and the banqueting-room, when sung to the soft notes of the piano or harp, burst forth sooner or later in action, and produced results by which senates were moved and populations stirred. The power which poetry has over men's hearts and actions is a test of its merits that rises far above the technicalities of a pedantic school; and Moore's lyrics are not found wanting when tried by this standard. They are truly "magnetic." They have fired many a soldier on the field of battle, and excited many an orator at the hustings; they have comforted many a solitary mourner, and smoothed many a touch of sickness and pain. We have, of course, no apology to offer for some of those in which he celebrates earthly love; though it must be admitted he has not been unmindful of that higher, that divine love, which alone can crown earthly affections with true happiness. No one has sung more sweetly than Moore the truths that God is "the life and light of all this wondrous world"; that he dries the mourner's tear; that "the world is all a fleeting show"; that there is nothing bright but the soul may see in it some feature of Deity, and nothing dark but God's love may be traced therein. What hymn-book contains a spiritual lesson more true and beautiful than this?

"As morning, when her early breeze Breaks up the surface of the seas, That in their furrows, dark with night, Her hands may sow the seeds of light,

"Thy grace can send its breathings o'er The spirit, dark and lost before, And, freshening all its depths, prepare For truth divine to enter there!"

But it is in Moore's national poems that we must look for the principal gauge of his influence on public opinion. Their effect in England was no less magical than in Ireland. Wherever they were sung or read, they turned enemies into advocates; and mammas little dreamed that political treatises were entering their homes in the shape of rolls of music. By adapting modern words to ancient airs, they appealed to listeners by the twofold charm of antiquity and novelty. They surpassed the plaintive sweetness of Carolan, being addressed to more refined audiences than had ever gathered round Erin's minstrels of old. During one-and-twenty years, from 1807 to 1828, the _Irish Melodies_ transmitted the "light of song" "through the variegating prism of harmony"; and the cruel acts against minstrels in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth were atoned for by the rapturous welcome given in England under the last two of the Georges to the most tuneful expressions of patriotism that ever broke from lip and lyre since the days of "the sweet Psalmist of Israel." They laid bare the bleeding heart-strings of the Irish cotter, exile, and emigrant; they pleaded for the redress of his wrongs, centuries old; they invoked a Nemesis on his oppressor; they enlisted on his side the suffrages of the noble, the tender-hearted, and the brave. They coupled Ireland with Poland in the minds of all lovers of political justice; and they even suggested analogies between the Irish and the persecuted and outcast people of Israel. That they promoted indirectly, and still promote, the cause of Catholicism is certain; for the sequences of mental associations are governed by rules as fixed as those which attend the sequences of natural products. Under the symbol of lovers, which all can understand, they frequently set forth the relation between the Irishman and his country, including his religion. To the true Irishman, indeed, of that period, the ideas of his native land and his father's faith were inseparable, and he would have thought that which was disloyal to either to have been treason against both. Moore's Catholic education--the never-forgotten lessons of Catholic parents, whom he fondly loved--constituted a large element in the power and charm of his ever-varied and incomparable _Melodies_.

The practical importance of journalism as a branch of literature cannot be too highly rated; for, though in itself it seldom reaches the highest literary excellence, it brings it down to the level of ordinary understandings, and retails to the public what in the wholesale they would not buy. In the beginning of 1840, the Catholic field in England was sufficiently extended, and its prospects were so promising that a weekly organ of greater ability and wider scope than any which then existed was imperatively required. No one appeared better able to conduct such a journal successfully than Frederic Lucas. Born of Quaker parents, and educated at the London University, he had, at an early age, been distinguished for his ardent pursuit of literature in preference to art, science, or mathematics. Skilful as a debater, and insatiable in his historical researches, he was attracted to the subject of religion by its controversial and historic side. The works of Bentham, and the stirring events of the revolutionary period of 1830, drew him deep into politics, while the poetry of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth strewed his pathway with shells and flowers, and colored every object around him with rainbow hues. Called to the bar in 1835, he became intimately acquainted with Thomas Carlyle, personally and as an author. The writings of this eminent historian and philosopher had for him a special charm, to which the peculiarity of their style was no drawback. He took great interest in the lectures on _Heroes and Hero Worship_ when they were first delivered; and it was from his accurate notes that a full report of Lecture No. 1 was published in the _Tablet_. Though the tendency of Carlyle's works is towards anything but Catholicism, they had, strange to say, an indirect tendency that way in Lucas' case. They called up many sympathies in favor of the middle ages, and pointed to increase of faith as the grand remedy for human ills.

There was about this time a great stirring of the public mind on religious subjects, and Lucas, reflecting deeply on the chaotic state of Christendom and the ever-multiplying forms of schism, became attracted to views set forth with great ability by Oxford divines, tending to revive mediæval practices and produce a tranquil reliance on ancient ecclesiastical authority. But he felt no inclination to stop at the half-way house. To exchange Quakerism for Anglicanism would, he thought, be a loss rather than a gain; for the doctrines of the Society of Friends could, at least, be stated definitely, whereas those of the Church of England were matter of ceaseless debate between three parties--High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church. He therefore broke through every barrier, and ruptured many ties of friendship, interest, and old association. His _Reasons for becoming a Roman Catholic_ was a pamphlet remarkable for the poetic exuberance of its style, and still more from the fact of its being addressed to Friends, and its defending Catholicism from a Friend's point of view. A few articles published in the _Dublin Review_ established Lucas' literary reputation among his co-religionists, and he was soon invited to edit a new Catholic weekly journal, which he named the _Tablet_. The first number appeared on the 16th of May, 1840, and during fifteen years Lucas continued to direct the undertaking, and to take a leading part in its composition. Some of the literary and miscellaneous papers were, in the early days of the publication, contributed by non-Catholics; but it was then, and has ever since been, regarded as an exponent of Catholicism--not, indeed, absolutely authoritative, but in the highest degree weighty, and semi-official.

It can scarcely be necessary to speak of the ability which this journal displayed in Lucas' hands. One anecdote will suffice to prove the intellectual readiness and aptitude of the editor. An article which appeared in the _Dublin Review_ in 1849, on the "Campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough," at once attracted the notice of Sir William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War. Competent judge as he was, he supposed the article to be written by a soldier, and could not conceive that any other than a military man could exhibit so much familiarity with the manœuvres of armies and the tactics of generals. When he learned that it was a civilian who thus described and commented on the battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, he hastened to make his acquaintance, and offered him every species of encouragement.

But if English Catholics were fortunate in having a really literary man at the head of their most popular journal, they were still more so in possessing an archbishop who was a connoisseur in art, skilled in science, and profound in ancient and modern lore. There were few subjects with which Cardinal Wiseman was not conversant; and when weary of business and serious study, he would often refresh his own mind and entertain his friends by discussing topics altogether outside the ordinary grave circle of a prelate's discourse. He could talk of pancakes and posy-rings, of "Cymbeline" and "Peter Bell," as fluently as of general councils and the _Acts of the Martyrs_. His _Essays_, reprinted from the _Dublin Review_, his _Connection between Science and Revelation_, his _Fabiola, a Tale of the Catacombs_, and his _Lives of the Last Four Popes_, abundantly establish his literary reputation, and are equally creditable to his research, observation, and inventive faculty. The story of _Fabiola_ was composed, as he tells us, "at all sorts of times and places, early and late; in scraps and fragments of time, when the body was too fatigued or the mind too worn-out for heavier occupation; in the roadside inn, in the halt of travel, in strange houses, in every variety of situation and circumstance, sometimes trying ones." In the midst of his episcopal labors, he found time for the delivery of numerous lectures on secular subjects, which attracted public attention to many curious points in literature, art, and science. In the present age, when every field of knowledge and experiment is crowded with eager students, and when a disposition is seen everywhere to subordinate all discoveries and researches to high, if not always correct, views of religion, it seems to be of the utmost importance that Catholics in general should, as far as they are able, copy the example of Cardinal Wiseman in cultivating the happy and hallowed alliance of truth divinely revealed and truth humanly ascertained, feeling sure that, however the two may seem here and there to clash one with another, the discrepancy between them is only apparent, and will vanish on closer investigation.

Dr. Newman has adopted a perfectly unique mode of enriching the Catholic literature of his country. He is now, in his advanced age, republishing all his works from the commencement of his author-life. Many of these appeared while he was still a clergyman of the Church of England; but to these he appends qualifying or explanatory notes, thus laying before his readers both his first and second thoughts. This often gives him an opportunity of rebutting his former errors, and, by a brush of arms, laying low many a favorite Anglican defence. The series serves, also, to fill up various parts of his biography which had been sketched only in the _Apologia pro Vita Sua_. It is, therefore, welcome to the reading public in general, to whom his earlier life has never lost its interest in consequence of his conversion. The avidity with which his works are read by non-Catholics is no small proof of their merit intellectually considered. Indeed, to use the words of one writing in a hostile spirit in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of Sept. 23, 1872: "The extreme beauty of his language, the rarity of his utterances, his delicate yet forcible way of dealing with opposition when obliged to do so--all these things have invested his image with a kind of halo, to which, for our parts, we scarcely remember a parallel."

Nothing could prove more conclusively the esteem in which he is held by the English public than the reception given to his _Apologia_. Though this publication was polemical, though Dr. Newman's adversary was a Protestant clergyman and professor in the University of Cambridge, the verdict given by the leading journals and reviews of the day was emphatically on the side of the Priest of the Oratory--the convert from Anglicanism! Mr. Kingsley was universally condemned as having advanced what he could not substantiate; and the beautifully naïve account which the assailed gave of his own life, opinions, literary and ministerial career, was welcomed and hailed with praise, admiration, and delight. The _Spectator_ (than which no review in England stands higher) styled the _Apologia_: "An interior view of one of the greatest minds and greatest natures ever completely subjected to the influence of reactionary thought"; and it added: "Mr. Kingsley has grievously wronged a man utterly unintelligible to him, but as incapable of falsehood or of the advocacy of falsehood as the sincerest Protestant." The _Union Review_, a High Church organ, said of the same work: "Since the _Confessions_ of S. Augustine were given to the world, we doubt if any autobiography has appeared of such thrilling interest as the present." The _Saturday Review_ was scarcely less emphatic. "Few books," it said, "have been published, in the memory of this generation, full of so varied an interest as Dr. Newman's _Apologia_." To these extracts we must add one more from a writer in the _Times_: "So far as one can judge from the opinions of the press, it is universally acknowledged that Dr. Newman has displayed through his whole life, and never more so than at the time he was most bitterly assailed, the most transparent idea of an honorable and high-minded gentleman."

It is not so much to the theological as to the literary character of Dr. Newman's works that we wish to call attention. As a writer of sermons, he has never been surpassed. Old as the Christian religion is, he never failed in preaching to present some portion of it in a new light. The Scriptures of the Old Testament in his hands acquire new meaning and import; and the subtlety of his thought is only equalled by the limpid clearness of his style. To those who remember him only as he appeared in the pulpit of S. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford, his image is that of a seer piercing the depths of nature and redemption, and enunciating, under the influence of a divine afflatus, truths full of awe and tenderness, but often too vast for the comprehension of his hearers.

The test of any work of art is this--that it will bear the closest inspection. The fine gold of Dr. Newman's sermon-writing becomes more evident when his discourses are molten down in the crucible of severe criticism. They have nothing to fear from dissection; rather they court the anatomist's knife. Their beauty does not lie on the surface merely, though that surface is passing fair; they have that interior charm and sweetness, that plaintive and mysterious tenderness, which belongs to the notes of a Stradivarius violin when played by a master-hand. They suggest more than they say; they are replete with thoughts that often lie too deep for tears, and make us feel that we are greater than we know. They win upon our hearts like a living voice, and make us love the writer, whom we have perhaps never seen. "Eloquent" would be a poor and vulgar adjective to apply to them. They are more than eloquent; they are poetry, religion, and philosophy combined in prose, which is prose only because it is not in rhythm.

Largely as Dr. Newman is gifted with the imaginative faculty, he has not acquired, nor, indeed, deserved to acquire, the same honors as a poet as by his prose writings. His verses entitled "Lead, kindly Light," are faultlessly beautiful, and some parts of _Gerontius_ are very fine; but in his poetry in general there is a want of color and detail. His mind has not been turned sufficiently to the minuter qualities and phases of natural objects to make a consummate poet. He is too abstract, chill, and classical for the luxurious requirements of modern verse. But when, in his prose, he launches into matter highly poetical in its nature, as in _Callista_, when he describes the ravages of the locusts, or in his _Sermons_, when he dwells on the assumption of Our Lady's body into heaven, his language is equally copious and brilliant, reaching the highest form of speech without any sacrifice of simplicity, point, or color. Whatever Dr. Newman writes, be it sermon, history, or fiction, it has the air of an essay. It is a charming disquisition--the outpouring of the thoughts of a great and original mind on some point which deeply interests him, and the connection of which with other matters of high import he sees more clearly than other men. But he is not discursive; he does not straggle about from one subject to another, but keeps closely to that which is in hand. Hence, to cursory readers he often seems to be forgetting some truths, because he dwells so fully and forcibly on others. It is their minds which are at fault, not his. All parts of a large system of Christian philosophy are present to his view at all times; and for this very reason he can afford to spend himself on each in detail and labor upward from the particular to the universal. In this respect he resembles Plato, while in others he has been compared, not unjustly, to S. Augustine:

"Whene'er I con the thoughtful page My youth so dearly prized, I say, This foremost of his age Is Plato's self baptized!

"But kindling, weeping, as I read, And wondering at his pen, I cry, This Newman is indeed Augustine come again.

"The sweet, sublime 'Athenian Bee' And Hippo's seer, who ran Through every range of thought, I see Combined in this _new man_."

When Thomas Moore was visiting Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, nearly fifty years ago, they both agreed that much of the poetry then appearing in periodicals, and passing comparatively unnoticed, would, not many years before, have made the reputation of the writers. If they were alive now, with how much stronger emphasis would they make a similar remark! Magazine poetry in England now is as superior to that of 1825 as that of 1825 surpassed that of 1775. There are not a few poets at this moment, whose names are scarcely known, who would, at an earlier period of English literature, have been crowned with laurel by general consent. The great poets of this century have raised the standard of poetry, and verse nowadays is what Scott and Wordsworth, Byron and Moore, Shelley and Tennyson, have made it. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in the time of Daniel, Carew, Drummond, and Drayton, would have been a star of the first magnitude; whereas he is now, partly on account of his Catholic principles, observed and admired by the public far less than he deserves. Born of a Protestant family, and educated in the Protestant religion, he has in ripe years chosen the better part, and embraced the faith of the large majority of his countrymen. He has thrown himself into the views of Irish Catholics on political subjects, and has, without disloyalty to the existing government, reproduced in modern verse the passionate sentiments of Irish chieftains, captives, exiles, emigrants, and serfs of the soil in days long past. Residing, however, chiefly in England, and representing, as he does, the later colonists of Ireland, we may venture to class him among English authors, or, at least, to consider his poems as a contribution to English Catholic literature. Occasional obscurity and faulty rhymes are, in his case, redeemed by poetry's prime excellence--originality of thought and expression. Lines pregnant with truth and beauty are constantly recurring, and the deeply religious feeling which pervades all has the great advantage of not being expressed in hackneyed and conventional language. The _May Carols_ is a perfect conservatory of lovely images clustering round the central figure of immaculate Mary. The 21st carol, on "The Maryless Nations," is perhaps better known in the United States than in England, for it is said that this prophet is less honored in his own country than in America; yet it may fairly be quoted here as a very favorable specimen of Mr. Aubrey de Vere's reflective verse:

"As children when, with heavy tread, Men sad of face, unseen before, Have borne away their mother dead, So stand the nations thine no more.

"From room to room those children roam, Heart-stricken by the unwonted black: Their house no longer seems their home; They search, yet know not what they lack.

"Years pass: self-will and passion strike Their roots more deeply day by day; Old servants weep; and 'how unlike' Is all the tender neighbors say.

"And yet at moments, like a dream, A mother's image o'er them flits; Like hers, their eyes a moment beam, The voice grows soft, the brow unknits.

"Such, Mary, are the realms once thine That know no more thy golden reign. Hold forth from heaven thy Babe divine! Oh! make thine orphans thine again."

There is another "May Carol" which has always struck us as particularly beautiful, because so highly figurative. Metaphor and music make up the soul of poetry. It is an apostrophe to the south wind, and is headed by the motto, _Adolescentulæ amaverunt te nimis_, a text from the _Canticles_, which sufficiently explains the mysticism of the lines:

"Behold! the wintry rains are past, The airs of midnight hurt no more; The young maids love thee. Come at last: Thou lingerest at the garden door.

"'Blow over all the garden; blow, Thou wind that breathest of the South, Through all the alleys winding low, With dewy wing and honeyed mouth.

"'But wheresoe'er thou wanderest, shape Thy music ever to one Name; Thou, too, clear stream, to cave and cape Be sure to whisper of the same.

"'By every isle and bower of musk Thy crystal clasps as on its curls; We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk, We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls.'

"The stream obeyed. That Name he bore Far out above the moonlit tide. The breeze obeyed; he breathed it o'er The unforgetting pines, and died."

This is the very algebra of language, and all the terms employed are raised, as it were, to their highest powers. Such verse could proceed only from one of

"The visionary apprehensive souls Whose finer insight no dim sense controls."

There is another poem by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, which deserves to be quoted for its ingenuity; nor can we, in reading it, but be reminded of what was said of Euripides, and might, with equal truth, be said of him: "In all his pieces there is the sweet human voice, the fluttering human heart." The Irish race in these verses is compared to a great religious order, of which England is the foundress:

"There is an order by a Northern sea, Far in the west, of rule and life more strict Than that which Basil reared in Galilee, In Egypt Paul, in Umbria Benedict.

"Discalced it walks; a stony land of tombs, A strange Petræa of late days, it treads. Within its courts no high-tossed censer fumes; The night-rain beats its cells, the wind its beds.

"Before its eyes no brass-bound, blazoned tome Reflects the splendor of a lamp high hung; Knowledge is banished from her earliest home Like wealth: it whispers psalms that once it sung.

"It is not bound by the vow celibate, Lest, through its ceasing, anguish too might cease; In sorrow it brings forth, and death and fate Watch at life's gate, and tithe the unripe increase.

"It wears not the Franciscan's sheltering gown, The cord that binds it is the stranger's chain: Scarce seen for scorn, in fields of old renown It breaks the clod; another reaps the grain.

"Year after year it fasts; each third or fourth So fasts that common fasts to it are feast; Then of its brethren many in the earth Are laid unrequiem'd like the mountain beast.

"Where are its cloisters? Where the felon sleeps! Where its novitiate? Where the last wolf died! From sea to sea its vigil long it keeps-- Stern Foundress! is its rule not mortified?

"Thou that hast laid so many an order waste, A nation is thine order! It was thine Wide as a realm that order's seed to cast, And undispensed sustain its discipline!"

The Catholic press in England, which at the commencement of this century was smitten with barrenness, now teems with ceaseless productions. Few of them, however, except those we have mentioned, are destined to form part of standard literature. Even Miss Adelaide Anne Procter's verses are not as widely appreciated as they deserve to be, though, during her lifetime, they obtained for her the reputation of being one of the most tuneful moralists that ever sung or breathed. Mrs. William Pitt Byrne has earned well of the public by the lively manner in which she has described so many Catholic countries, and the diligence with which she has collected her materials. Her works on Belgium, France--Paris in particular--Spain, and Hungary have supplied amusement and instruction to a large number of subscribers to circulating libraries, and have thus accomplished a great part of the purpose for which they were written. F. Faber's numerous volumes are too well known to need much comment on this occasion. They are intensely devotional, full of fervid eloquence, and rich with the coloring of a poetic mind. Many of his _Hymns_ are popular, and will long remain so, because they are simple, forcible, and direct. Lady Georgina Fullerton has succeeded as a religious novelist, and has been the first as an English Catholic to occupy the ground which is now especially hers. Kenelm Digby's _Ages of Faith_, _Compitum_, and other works have a special charm for those who love choice quotations and pictures of mediæval piety; Mr. T. W. Allies has ably and valiantly defended the Papal supremacy; Mr. John Wallis has rendered _Heyne's Songs_ in graceful English lyrics; Mr. Charles Waterton's _Wanderings_ are deservedly prized by naturalists; Mr. Richard Simpson's _Life of Campion_ displays much historical research; F. Morris has depicted admirably the sufferings of Catholic martyrs and confessors under the Reforming sovereigns; the _Life of the Marquis of Pombal_, by the Conde da Carnota (an English work), though too favorable to the Portuguese prime minister, is highly valuable so far as it is documentary; and the papers read before the _Academia of the Catholic Religion_, and published in two volumes, supply in themselves a test of the literary proficiency of many distinguished members of the church in England at the present time. The following works also deserve to be mentioned as valuable additions to the stock of English Catholic literature: _The Evidence for the Papacy_, by the Hon. Colin Lindsay; _The Life of Cardinal Howard_, by F. Palmer; Buckley's _Life and Writings of the Rev. Father O'Leary_; _Christian Schools and Scholars_, by the author of _The Knights of S. John_; Dr. Husenbeth's _Life of Bishop Milner_; Mr. Maguire's _Rome, its Ruler and its Institutions_; and Dr. Rock's _Hierurgia_.

Among Catholic poets, we ought not to forget Mr. Coventry Patmore, whose playful, pleasing, and thoughtful octosyllabics--_The Angel of the House_ and _Faithful for Ever_--found many admirers ten or twelve years ago. There is in these fluent productions a simplicity which at first sight strikes one as namby-pamby, but which, on further consideration, is seen to be a light veil of serious thought and genuine emotion. There are minds which can never appreciate poetry of the highest order; who admire it only because they are taught that they ought to do so, but cannot love it, even though it be stamped with the approval of ages. "None ever loved _because he ought_" is true in reference to more subjects than one; and it is well that second-rate poetry should be written and preserved for second-rate appreciations. Mr. Coventry Patmore's works fulfil a purpose, and are therefore not to be despised, though they will never obtain a large reward.

It is to be hoped and expected that, as time goes on, Catholic literature in England will enlarge its borders without declining in orthodoxy. Colleges and universities yet to be founded will encourage learning in all its branches, and prove to the world by new examples that science and religion mutually support each other. The more firmly the children of the church are rooted in the faith, the more strength will their intellect acquire, and the more freedom will they be able to indulge with safety. The literary spirit, animated and guided by the true religion, will ever find new fields of useful speculation and research; and the rebuke of ignorance, so often cast on members of the church, will fall pointless when they are able to meet non-Catholic historians and professors on their own ground, and to rob them frequently of a crown in the arena of literary combat.

THE SONG OF ROLAND.

Among the epic romances of the middle ages, the first place must be given to the _Song of Roland_. It deserves this, not only on account of its antiquity, but also for the importance of the hero, and for the _triumphant loss_, as Montaigne would have called it, which it immortalizes. It is a _chanson de geste_, supposed to have been composed by Turold or Théroulde, a troubadour who lived during the first thirty years of the XIth century, though the only place where he is mentioned is the line with which the Bodleian MS. of the _Chanson de Roland_ terminates.

This poem is a curious example of the work of popular imagination upon actual events, and shows, with remarkable unity and originality, the power of this species of transformation.

The historical narrative, as related by Eginhard, son-in-law of Charlemagne, recounts a grievous and unavenged disaster--the complete destruction of the rear-guard of the French army, which, after a succession of victories, was returning from Spain, and, being surprised by mountaineers in the gorges of Roncevaux, left no living witnesses.

But Charlemagne's nephew, Roland, with all his peers, were among the slain; it was needful, therefore, to do honor to his fall, and wash away the affront against the arms of the always victorious king. Grief and admiration combined to accomplish the task, and we have before us the legend, which not only perpetuates the memory of the catastrophe, but which makes of a death-dirge a hymn of victory.

The most ancient manuscript of this poem extant is, without doubt, the copy in the Bodleian library at Oxford, which is supposed to be of the XIIth century. Among other considerations, the brevity of this manuscript as compared with others is a proof of its greater antiquity. It has not more than four thousand lines, whereas others have six, and even eight, thousand. But whether even this is the primitive version, without alteration or addition, we have not the means of knowing.

That which, in the first place, distinguishes the _Chanson de Roland_ from all other productions of the mediæval poets anterior to Dante is its unity of composition; but there are also other noticeable differences. The first is in the subject itself, which is matter of actual history, as we have seen from the testimony of Eginhard, who adds, "This reverse poisoned in the heart of Charles the joy of all the victories which he had gained in Spain." It was not a simple skirmish, but the utter defeat of a valuable portion of his army--the only defeat he had known during the thirty-eight years of his reign. It is easy to understand how profound would be the impression produced by the catastrophe, which, moreover, was indelibly deepened, when, half a century later, the army of one of the sons of Charlemagne, by a fatal coincidence, was cut to pieces in this same defile.

The imagination of the people was not long in merging these two disasters into one, and in gradually changing nearly all the accessory circumstances of the first event. But it matters little that Charles is invested with the imperial purple more than twenty years before the time; that he is represented as a white-bearded patriarch, when, actually, he could not have been more than thirty-five years of age; that his relationship to the hero of Roncevaux is more than doubtful; that the Gascon mountaineers are transformed into Saracens; and that, instead of their chief, Lopez, Duke of Gascony, of whom the charter of Charles the Bald speaks as "a wolf in name and in nature," we have two personages--King Marsilion and the traitor Ganelon. All these transformations, which are easy to be accounted for, alter in nothing the basis of the poem, which is historic truth, while legendary truth has become its surface and superstructure.

Another point to be remarked is that in the _Chanson de Roland_ the subject is national. In other compositions of the period, the heroes are Normans, Provençals, Gascons, and so forth, animated by a patriotism either as circumscribed as their own domain, or as wide as the world which they traversed in search of adventures. In the poems recounting their acts and deeds, the name of France, when it happens to be mentioned, has merely a geographical sense, being used as simply designating the province of which Paris was the capital--"La France," "La douce France," so often invoked in the "Lay of Roland"; and the glow of true and loving patriotism which warms this poem would alone distinguish it from every other _chanson de geste_ that has been written.

The figure of Charlemagne next demands our attention. By a strange contradiction the Carlovingian poems, so called because they glorify the companions of the great emperor and the deeds performed by them during his reign, are, with scarcely any exception, nothing more than so many satires upon Charlemagne himself, who is represented either as a mute and doting imbecile, or else as a capricious despot; all the wisdom and courage of the time being monopolized by the great barons. The reason is not far to seek. At the epoch when these poems were written or "improved," royalty in France was struggling to recover the power of which the great crown vassals had possessed themselves at its expense, and the feudal league defended its acquisitions _not_ by force of arms alone. One of the most effectual means at that period of acting upon the popular mind was by the influence of minstrelsy--that is to say, by poesy and song; and the troubadours and _jongleurs_ of the time willingly gave their services to promote the interests of their more immediate protectors and patrons. Under the name of Charlemagne, it is, in fact, Louis le Gros or Louis le Jeune whom they attack, glorifying his epoch, but depreciating himself, as in "Les Quatre Fils d'Aymon" and similar sarcastic romances. Turold is almost alone in showing us the king "à la barbe grifaigne," with the authority and grandeur befitting so great a monarch, and as one who rises above his peers more by his dignity than by his lofty stature. The knights by whom he is surrounded are noble and valiant, but he surpasses them all.

In this homage rendered to the personal glory of Charlemagne, and in this sentiment of nationality, which is a remnant of the old monarchical unity, of which, in the XIIIth century, the remembrance had long been extinguished, but which, towards the close of the XIth, still existed, we have two characteristics which stamp the date of this poem more unmistakably than could be done by any peculiarities of orthography or versification.

It is marked by two other specialties: the absence of gallantry or amorous allusions, and the austerity of the religious sentiment. Scarcely a line here and there lets us know that Roland has a lady-love. It is his own affair, with which the public has nothing to do. In the whole poem two women only appear, and these only in slightly sketched outline. One is Queen Bramimonde, who appears for an instant, as she unfastens her bracelets, and lets their priceless jewels sparkle temptingly before the eyes of Ganelon; while later on we are again given a passing glimpse of her, first as captive, and then as Christian. In the other, "la belle Aude," the affianced bride of Roland, we have a momentary vision of beauty and faithful devotion even to death. She appears but to die of love and grief too deep for words. A few centuries later, could any French poet have been able to resign so excellent an opportunity for pouring forth a flood of sentimental verses? Even the poets of the XIIIth and XIVth centuries have lengthened out this tempting subject in endless variations.

As we pass on to the last consideration, we meet with other contrasts between the forefathers and their posterity. Religion, in the time of Wace and of Chrestien of Troyes, was still powerful and honored. Their heroes, even the most worldly and pugnacious, are exact in saying their prayers, kneeling devoutly, and confiding their souls to the care of the Blessed Virgin; still, in times of great solemnity or extremity, in the midst of danger, or face to face with death, we do not find the calm and serene fervor, the submission as well as faith, which fill the heart of Roland and his companions.

With regard to another point: if the "Lay of Roland," or, rather, if the popular tradition which gave it birth, makes Saracens instead of Gascons appear at Roncevaux, it is not pure fiction. After the death of Charlemagne, the Saracens had so often quitted their province of Castile to make inroads upon Aquitaine, and Western Europe had them in such terror, that the fear of present misfortune had soon effaced the remembrance of the old combats of Christian against Christian on the Spanish frontier. A fixed belief had grown that every enemy ambushed in the Pyrenees could not at any period have been other than an army of mis-believers; and to this may be added the idea, which was germinating, that a day would come when, in defence of Europe and of the faith, it would be necessary to destroy the vulture in its nest by carrying the sword into the country of Mahomet. It was not only that the slaughter of Roncevaux cried out for vengeance; the Holy War was in the spirit of the times, and naturally passed into the poems. These, without preaching a crusade, prepared the way a century beforehand, and the idea, dimly shadowed, it is true, but actually present, is expressed in the last five or six lines of the poem, which is, moreover, especially noticeable as being one which immortalizes defeat and death. It is the glorification of courage, in misfortune and in success, vain as to this world, but of eternal value for the next, where the glory of the warrior pales before the glory of the martyr.

And this thought leads us to our last consideration, namely, the meaning of the vowels A O I, with which every stanza terminates. From the moment that Roland had died fighting against the Mussulmans, he became a saint, whose name must forthwith be inscribed in the popular martyrology. It was, therefore, only fitting to consecrate to him a poem after the model of the hymns of the church, so many of which, as well as the Latin poem on S. Mildred, are terminated by the vowels e u o u a e--the modulation of _sæculorum amen_. This is the opinion of the learned Abbé Henry, although neither he nor any of the other writers whom we have consulted mention their suppositions as to the exact meaning of the vowels A O I.

The _Song of Roland_ is mentioned in numberless romances, was imitated in almost every language of Western Europe, and appears to have been made use of as a war-song by the French armies before it had developed itself to the proportions in which it has reached us. There is no reasonable doubt that it was parts of this poem that were sung by Taillefer on the advance of the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, and not the "Song of Rollo," their first duke, as several modern authors have supposed. We quote the words of Robert Wace:

"Taillefer, qui moult bien cantait, Sur un cheval qui tost allait, Devant as (eux) s'en alait cantant De Carlemanne et de Rollant, Et d'Olivier et des vassaus Qui moururent à Raincevaus."[131]

Although we are not about to give a translation of the whole poem of four thousand lines, we will present the reader with an abridgment containing not only the thread of the narrative, but also all the principal parts of the poem, without change or abbreviation; commencing with the first stanza in the original French, as a specimen of the rest:

LA CHANSON DE ROLAND.

I.

Carles li reis, nostre emperère magne, Set ans tuz pleins ad ested en Espaigne, Tresqu'en la mer cunquist la tere altaigne, Ni ad kastel ki devant lui remaigne, Mur ne citet n'i est remes à fraindre Fors Sarraguce, k'i est en une muntaigne. Li reis Marsilie la tient, ki Deu n'enaimet; Mahummet sert e Apollin recleimet Ne s'poet guarder que mals ne li ateignet, AOI.[132]

ABRIDGED TRANSLATION OF THE SONG OF ROLAND.

Charles the king, our great emperor, has been for seven full years in Spain, where he has conquered the mountainous land even to the sea. Not a castle which has held out before him, not a town which he has not forced to open its gates; Saragossa on the height of its mountain alone excepted. King Marsilion holds it, who loves not God, serves Mahomet, and invokes Apollo(!) Nor can he hinder that evil shall befal him.

King Marsilion is reclining in his orchard, on a marble terrace, in the shade of the trees, and surrounded by more than twenty thousand men. He takes counsel of his dukes and of his counts how to escape death or an affront; his army not being strong enough to give battle. He asks, What shall be done?

No one answers. One only, the subtle Blancandrin, then ventures to speak. "Feign submission," he says; "send chariots, laden with gold, to this proud emperor. Promise that, if he will return to France, you will there join him in his chapel at Aix on the great feast of S. Michael; that there you will become his vassal, and receive his Christian law. Does he demand hostages, we will give them. We will send our sons. At the risk of his life I will send mine. When the French shall have returned to their homes far away, the day will arrive, the term will pass by; Charles will have no word from us, no news of us. Should the cruel one cut off the heads of our hostages, better is it that they should lose their heads than we our fair Spain."

And the pagans answered, He is in the right.

King Marsilion has broken up his council. He commands that six beautiful white mules be brought, with saddles of silver and bridles of gold. To Blancandrin and nine others who are faithful to him he says: "Present yourselves before Charles, carrying olive branches in your hands in token of peace and submission. If by your skill you compass my deliverance from him, what gold, what silver, what lands will I not bestow upon you!"

The messengers mount their mules, and set forth upon their journey.

The scene changes. We are at Cordova. There it is that Charles holds his court. He also is in an orchard. At his side are Roland, Oliver, Geoffrey of Anjou, and many others, sons of sweet France; fifteen thousand are there. Seated upon silken stuffs, they pass their time in playing; the oldest and wisest exercise themselves in the game of chess, the young knights in fencing.

The emperor is seated in a chair of gold, in the shade of a pine-tree and an eglantine. His beard has the brightness of snow, his figure is tall and nobly formed, and his countenance majestic. Any man seeking him has no need to be told which is he.

The pagan messengers, alighting from their mules, humbly salute the emperor. Blancandrin then addresses him, showing the rich treasures which his master sends him, and saying: "Are you not weary of remaining in this land? Should you return to France, the king, our lord, promises to follow you thither." Thereupon the emperor raises his hands towards God; then, bending down his head, he begins to reflect. This was his wont, never hasting to speak. Presently raising himself, he says to the messengers, "You have spoken well; but your king is our great enemy. What shall be a pledge to me for the fulfilment of your words?"

"Hostages," replies the Saracen. "You shall have ten, fifteen, or even twenty, and among them my own son. What more noble hostage could be given? When you shall have returned to your royal palace, on the great feast of S. Michael my master will follow you thither. There, in those baths which God has made for you, he desires to become a Christian."

And Charles made answer, "He may, then, yet be saved!"

The day was bright, the sun shining in full splendor. Charles caused a large tent to be prepared in the orchard for the ten messengers. There they passed the night.

The emperor rises betimes. He hears Mass and Matins, and thence going forth, under the shadow of a tall pine-tree prepares to take counsel with his barons; for without them he will do nothing.

Soon they are all before him: the duke Oger, the archbishop Turpin, Roland, the brave Oliver, and Ganelon, the one who would betray them all.

The council opens. Charles repeats to his barons the words of Blancandrin. "Will Marsilion come to Aix," he asks. "Will he there make himself a Christian? Will he be my vassal? I know not what to deem of his words."

And the French reply, Beware of him.

Roland rises, saying: "Trust not Marsilion. Seven years have we been in Spain, and during all that time naught have you had from him but treachery. Fifteen thousand of his pagans have already been to you, bringing olive branches and the same words as to-day. Your counsellors advised you to allow a truce. What did Marsilion? Did he not behead two of your counts, Basan and his brother Basil? Continue the war. Continue it as you have begun it: lead your army to Saragossa, besiege the city, and avenge those whom the felon has caused to perish."

While listening to him, the emperor's countenance darkens. He strokes his beard, and answers nothing. All the French keep silence. Ganelon alone rises, and, advancing to the emperor with a haughty air, thus addresses him: "Heed not the headstrong! Heed not me nor any other, but your own advantage. When Marsilion declares to you with joined hands that he desires to be your liege-man, to hold Spain from your hand, to receive your sacred law, are there those who dare to counsel you to reject his offers? Such have scant regard to the sort of death they are to die. It is a counsel of pride which ought not to prevail. Let us leave fools to themselves, and hold to the wise."

After Ganelon rises the duke Naymes. In the whole court there is no braver warrior. He says to Charles: "You have heard Count Ganelon. Weigh well his words. Marsilion is conquered; you have razed his castles, overthrown his ramparts; his towns are in ashes, his soldiers scattered abroad. When he gives himself up to your mercy, offering you hostages, wholly to overwhelm him would be a sin. There ought to be an end to this terrible war."

And the French said, The duke has well spoken.

"Lords barons," resumes Charlemagne, "whom, then, shall we send to Saragossa to King Marsilion?"

"By your favor, I will go," answers Naymes. "Give me, therefore, the gauntlet and the staff."

"No," says the emperor. "No, by my beard! A sage like you go so far away? You will in nowise go. Sit down again." ... "Well, my lords barons, whom, then, shall we send?"

"Send me," says Roland.

"You!" cries Oliver. "Your courage is too fiery. You would not fail to get yourself into some difficulty. If the king permits it, I can very well go."

"Neither you nor he," answers the emperor; "both of you hold your peace. In that place not one of my twelve peers shall set his foot!"

At these words, every one keeps silence. However, Turpin rises from his seat--Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims. He, in turn, asks for the glove and staff; but Charles commands him to sit down, and not say another word. Then addressing himself once more to his barons, he says, "Free knights, will you not, then, tell me who shall carry my message to Marsilion?"

And Roland answers: "Let it be my father-in-law, Ganelon." And the French agreed, saying: "He is the man you want; for a more skilful one you could not find."

Ganelon at these words falls into a horrible anguish. He lets slip from his shoulders his great mantle of marten; his figure is imposing, and shows well under his coat of silk. His eye sparkles with anger. "Fool!" he says to Roland, "whence this madness? If God permits me to return, the gratitude I owe thee shall end but with thy life!"

"I heed not your threatenings," answers Roland. "Pride takes away your reason. A wise messenger is needed. If the emperor gives me leave, I set out in your stead."

"Nay," replies Ganelon, "I go. Charles commands me, and I must obey him; but I would fain delay my departure for a little season, were it but to calm my anger."

Whereupon Roland began to laugh. Ganelon perceived it, and his fury was redoubled, insomuch that he was well-nigh out of his senses. He darted words of wrath at his son-in-law, and then, turning towards the emperor, said: "Behold me ready to do your bidding. I see well that I must go to Saragossa; and he who goes thither returns not. Sire, forget not that I am the husband of your sister. Of her I have a son, the most beautiful that could be seen. Baldwin will one day be brave. I leave to him my fiefs and my domains. Watch over him, for never shall I see him more!"

And Charles made answer: "You have too tender a heart. When I command it, you must go. Draw near, Ganelon; receive the staff and gauntlet. You have heard that our Franks have chosen you."

"No, sire, but it is Roland's work; therefore, I hate him--him and his dear Oliver, and the twelve peers likewise, who love him so well! I defy them all before your eyes!"

The emperor silences him, and commands him to depart. Ganelon approaches to take the gauntlet from the hand of Charlemagne, but it falls to the ground. Heavens! cry the French; what may this forebode?

"My lords," says Ganelon, "you will know by the tidings." He then turns to the emperor for his dismissal, saying, "Since I must go, wherefore delay?" Charles with his right hand makes him a sign of pardon, and places in his hands a letter and the staff.

Ganelon, retiring, equips himself in preparation to depart, fastening on his heels his beautiful gold spurs; and with his good sword Murgleis at his side, he mounts his horse Tachebrun, while his uncle Guinemer holds his stirrup. The knights of his house entreat him with tears to let them accompany him. "God forbid!" he answers. "Better that I alone should perish than cause the death of so many brave knights. Go home to sweet France. Salute on my behalf my wife, and Pinabel, my friend and comrade; likewise, Baldwin, my son. Aid him, serve him, and hold him for your lord." Having said thus, he departed on his way.

He had not ridden far before he came up with the Saracen messengers; Blancandrin, in order to wait for him, having slackened his pace. Then began between them cautious words. It is Blancandrin who speaks first: "What a marvellous man is this Charles! He has conquered Apulia, Calabria, passed the sea, and acquired at St. Peter's the tribute of the English; but what comes he to seek in our land of Spain?"

And Ganelon makes answer: "Thus his courage wills it. Never will any man hold out before him!"

"The French," replies the other, "are an exceedingly brave people; but these dukes and counts who give council to overturn and desolate everything do great wrong to their lord."

"Of such I know but one," says Ganelon; "it is Roland, and he shall repent him yet." Thereupon he relates that on a certain day, before Carcassone, the emperor being seated in a shady meadow, his nephew came to him, clad in his cuirass, and holding in his hand a rosy apple, which he presented to his uncle, saying: "Behold, fair sire, of all the kings in the world I offer you the crowns!" "This mad pride will end in his ruin, seeing that every day he exposes himself to death. Welcome will be the stroke that shall slay him! What peace would then be ours!"

"But," said Blancandrin, "this Roland, who is so cruel--this Roland, who would have every king at his mercy, and take possession of their dominions--by whose aid will he accomplish his design?"

"By the aid of the French," answered Ganelon. "They so greatly love him that never will they suffer any fault to be laid at his door. All of them, even to the emperor, march but at his will. He is a man to conquer the world from hence to the far East."

By dint of talking as they rode along, they made a compact to work the death of Roland. By dint of riding, they arrived at Saragossa, and under a yew-tree they got down.

King Marsilion is in the midst of his Saracens. They keep a gloomy silence, anxious to learn what news the messengers may bring.

"You are saved!" exclaims Blancandrin, advancing to the feet of Marsilion, and holding Ganelon by the hand--"saved by Mahomet and Apollo, whose holy laws we observe. Charles has answered nothing; but he sends this noble baron, by whose mouth you shall learn whether you will have peace or war."

"Let him speak," said the king.

Ganelon, after considering a moment, thus begins: "May you be saved by the God whom we are all bound to adore! The will of the puissant Charlemagne is this: you shall receive the Christian law; the half of Spain will be given you in fief. If you refuse to accept these terms, you shall be taken and bound, led to Aix, and condemned to a shameful death."

At this discourse the king grows pale, and trembles with fury. His golden javelin quivers in his hand; he is about to cast it at Ganelon, but is held back. Ganelon grasps his sword, drawing it two fingers' length out of the scabbard, and saying, "My beautiful sword! while you gleam at my side, none shall tell our emperor that I fell alone in this strange land; with the blood of the best you shall first pay for me."

The Saracens cry out: Let us hinder the combat. At their entreaties, Marsilion, calming himself, resumed his seat. "What evil possesses you?" said his uncle, the caliph, "that you would strike this Frenchman when you ought to hear him?" And Ganelon, meanwhile, composed his countenance, but kept his right hand still on the hilt of his sword. The beholders said to themselves, "Truly, he is a noble baron!"

Gradually he draws nearer to the king, and resumes his discourse: "You are in the wrong to be angry. Our king bestows upon you the half of Spain; the other half being for his nephew Roland, an insolent companion I admit; but if you do not agree to this, you will be besieged in Saragossa, taken, bound, judged, and beheaded. Thus says the emperor himself in his message to you." So saying, he places the letter in the pagan's hands.

Marsilion, in a fresh access of rage, breaks the seal, and rapidly glances over the contents. "Charles talks to me of his resentment! He calls to mind this Basan, this Basil, whose heads flew off at my bidding! To save my life, I am to send him my uncle, the caliph; otherwise he listens to no terms!"

Upon this the king's son exclaims: "Deliver Ganelon to me, that I may do justice upon him." Ganelon hears him, and brandishes his sword, setting his back against a pine.

The scene suddenly changes. The king has descended into his garden; he is calm, and walks with his son and heir, Jurfalen, in the midst of his vassals. He sends for Ganelon, who is brought to him by Blancandrin.

"Fair Sire Ganelon," says the king, "it may be that I received you somewhat hastily, and made as if I would have stricken you just now. To make amends for this mistake, I present you with these sable furs. Their value is more than five hundred pounds of gold. Before to-morrow, still more costly ones shall also be yours."

"Sire, it is impossible that I should refuse, and may it please Heaven to recompense you!"

Marsilion continues: "Hold it for certain, Sir Count, that it is my desire to be your friend. I would speak with you of Charlemagne. He is very old, it appears to me. I give him at least two hundred years; how worn out, therefore, he needs must be! He has spent his strength in so many lands, when will he be weary of warfare?"

"Never," said Ganelon, "so long as his nephew lives. Roland has not his equal in bravery from hence to the far East. He is a most valiant man, and so, likewise, is Oliver, his companion, and these twelve peers, so dear to the emperor, who march at the head of twenty thousand knights. Can you expect that Charles should know fear? He is more powerful than any man here below!"

"Fair sire," replies Marsilion, "I, also, have my army, than which a finer cannot be found. I have four hundred thousand knights wherewith to give battle to Charles and his French."

"Trust it not at all," the other answers; "it will cost you dear, as well as your men. Lay aside this rash boldness, and try a little management instead. Give the emperor riches so great that our French will be dazzled by them, and give him twenty hostages. He will then return into the sweet land of France, leaving the rear-guard to follow, in which, I trust, may be Count Roland and the valiant Oliver. Only listen to my counsel, and, believe me, they are dead."

"Show me, fair sire (and may Heaven bless you for it!), how I may slay Roland."

"I am well able to tell you. When once the emperor shall be in the great defiles of Cisaire, he will be at a great distance from his rear-guard. He will have placed in it his beloved nephew and Oliver, in whom he so greatly confides, and with them will be twenty thousand French. Send, then, a hundred thousand of your pagans. I do not in any wise promise that in a first conflict, murderous as it will be to those of France, there will not also be great slaughter of your men; but a second engagement will follow, and, no matter in which, Roland will there remain. You will have done a deed of exceeding bravery, and through all the rest of your life you will have no more war. What could Charles do without Roland? Would he not have lost the right arm of his body? What would become of his wonderful army? He would never assemble it more. He would lose his taste for warfare, and the great empire would be restored to peace."

Scarcely has he done speaking, when Marsilion throws his arms round his neck, and embraces him; then offers, without more delay, to swear to him that he will betray Roland.

"Be it so, if so it please you," answers Ganelon; and upon the relics of his sword he swears the treason, and completes his crime.

Marsilion, on his part, causes to be brought, on an ivory throne, the book of his law, even the book of Mahomet, and swears upon it that, if he can find Roland in the rear-guard, he will not cease fighting until he has slain him.

Thereupon Valdabron, a Saracen, who was formerly the king's guardian, draws near, and, presenting his sword, the best in the world, to Ganelon, says: "I give you this for friendship's sake; only help us to get rid of Roland, the baron."

"With all my heart." And they embrace.

Another, Climorin, brings him his helmet: "I never saw its like. Take it, to aid us against Roland, the marquis."

"Most willingly," says Ganelon; and they also embrace.

Comes at last the queen, Bramimonde. She says to the count, "Sire, I love you well, seeing that you are very dear to my lord and to all his subjects. Take these bracelets to your wife. See what gold, what amethysts and jacinths! Your emperor has none like these; they are worth all the treasures of Rome!"

And Ganelon takes the jewels.

Marsilion then summons Mauduit, his treasurer. "Are the gifts prepared for Charlemagne?"

"Sire, they are in readiness. Seven hundred camels laden with gold and silver, and twenty hostages of the noblest under heaven."

Then, with his hand on Ganelon's shoulder, the king says to him: "You speak fair and fine; but, by this law which you hold to be the best, beware of changing purpose towards us." After this, he promises that every year he will send him, as rent, ten mules laden with gold of Arabia; he gives him the keys of Saragossa to be carried to Charlemagne. "But, above all, see that Roland be in the rear-guard, that we may surprise him, and give him mortal combat."

Ganelon replies, "It seems to me that I have already tarried here too long." And he mounts his steed and departs.

At daybreak he reaches the emperor's quarters. "Sire," says he, "I bring you the keys of Saragossa, twenty hostages, and great treasure; let them be guarded well. It is Marsilion who sends them. As to the caliph, marvel not because he does not come. With my own eyes I saw him embark on the sea with three hundred thousand armed men; they were all weary of the rule of Marsilion, and were going forth to dwell in the midst of Christians; but at four leagues from the coast a furious tempest overwhelmed them, so that all were drowned. If the caliph had been living, I would have brought him hither. Believe me, sire, before a month is over, Marsilion will have joined you in France; he will receive the Christian law, and will, as your vassal, do you homage for the kingdom of Spain."

"Then God be praised!" said Charles. "You have well delivered your message, and it shall profit you well."

The clarions sound. Charles proclaims the war at an end. The soldiers raise the camp; they load the sumpter horses; the army is in motion, and on its way towards the sweet land of France. Nevertheless, the day closes; the night is dark. Charlemagne sleeps. In a dream he sees himself in the great defiles of Cisaire, with his lance of ash-wood in his hand. Ganelon seizes hold of it, shaking it so violently that it flies in pieces, and the splinters are scattered in the air.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

FOOTNOTES:

[131] "Taillefer, who excellently sang, Mounted upon a charger swift, Before them went forth singing Of Charlemagne and Roland, Of Oliver and of the vassals Who died at Roncevaux."

[132] The ancient MS. of Versailles, now in the possession of M. Bourdillon, begins,

"Challes li rois à la barbe grifaigne Sis ans toz plens a este en Espaigne," etc.,

the thirteen lines of the stanza all ending with the same rhyme.

LAUS PERENNIS.[133]

In the early days of emigration, before the industry of the Old World had cut down the forests and muddied the streams of the New, a young man sat at noontide by the banks of a river, an insignificant tributary of one of those mighty veins that intersect the continent from Canada to Florida. His face was a study. He had the features of the North, with thick, fair hair and glittering blue eyes, but his form was slighter, though not less sinewy, than a Saxon's. Nerves of steel and a will of iron, generosity and self-sacrifice, the bravery of an Indian and the fidelity of a dog--such was the tale revealed by his exterior. His history was simple. He was the son of a petty farmer in Normandy, and the foster-brother of the Baron de Villeneuve. He had been brought up with the young baron, an only child, and had been his companion in his studies as well as his sports. Every one noticed how refined his manner was, how noble his bearing; and yet his village friends never had reason to complain of any superciliousness in his deportment towards them. His mother, feeling that his superiority would be wasted if he remained in the groove in which it seemed his natural destiny to travel, earnestly wished for a different career for her favorite, and urged him to enter the priesthood. This he was too conscientious to do, feeling no call to so high an office; and his foster-brother, in his turn, warmly recommended the army. Napoleon was then in the full blaze of his military glory, and merit might win the metaphorical spurs of what remained as the substitute of knighthood, without the weary delays of official routine. But the young Norman was insensible to military glory. There was no fair damsel, with high cap and ancestral gold necklace, with spinning-wheel and a dowry of snowy, homespun linen, who had made his heart beat one second faster than it had in childhood. If his foster-brother had had a sister, Robert Maillard would have been the very man to have loved her as the knights of old loved the lady of their dreams, hoping for no reward save a knot of ribbon and a pitying glance of faint approval. He had read of such love, and of fairies, elves, and witches, of impossible quests, and of princely donations; but he felt that the world had changed, and that these things could never be again. Strong and brave as he was, he began life with a secret hopelessness, knowing that it could never give him the only things he longed for. One day, in the midst of his irresolution as to what work he should undertake, knowing all work to be but a _passe-temps_ until eternity gave him the life he coveted, an old sea captain made his appearance in the inland village, and electrified the inhabitants by tales of discovery and adventure, of which curious proofs were not wanting in the shape of carved idols two inches long, mineral lumps of diminutive size, a string of wampum, etc., etc., and, above all, a tame monkey. Robert listened to the "ancient mariner" with delight, and, never having seen the ocean, was suddenly fired by a wild wish to try his fortune across the Atlantic. Here was a land as wild as the Armorican forests in the old tales of chivalry and legends of monasticism--a virgin land of practical freedom, where new empires might be carved by the strong and willing hand, and new mines of knowledge laid open by the daring intellect. It was not money that the simple Norman thought of; it was excitement, adventure, vague possibilities, limitless solitudes where hermits and hunters might live and dream. To leave Normandy was not exile to him; to leave all those he loved was not separation; but do not think he was heartless. He only lived in a shadow-world of high, heroic deeds, and the commonplaces of bucolic life palled upon him. Instinct bade him seek something beyond home, with its petty interests; and never slow to execute his resolutions, once they were formed, he bargained with the old sailor to take him to America as soon as he recrossed the ocean. From his father he received his portion of the scanty inheritance due to him, and left home as the prodigal--so said his weeping mother. His foster-brother loaded him with weapons of all kinds, and forced upon him clothes enough to last a lifetime in a country where fashion seldom changed. The first sight of the ocean was a poem to Robert. He thought of the galleys of the Crusaders, as they sailed to the Land of Promise; of Columbus and his unbelieving crew on their perilous way to the land of faith. The glorious western sunsets awoke a new feeling in the heart of the adventurer; he felt that this new "Ultima Thule" was the land of the poet as well as of the warrior, and that its majesty, its serene massiveness, should be, not the prey of murderous passion, but the field of a new-born art. Here was a land whose history, if it had any, had been blotted out, but whose immortal beauty was a picture of the lost Eden--the true home of enthusiasm, the virgin parchment on which to write a new hymn to the God whom its beauty revealed almost in a new light. Such were not the thoughts of most pilgrims to the New World; if they had been, people would have said that the millennium had come.

A Sir Galahad walks the earth but once in a century, and he has no compeers. Such was our Robert. Why does the world call those men _dreamers_ whose ideal is the only true reality, while the life of the world around them is one long nightmare?

Robert's life, after he had landed in one of the old sea-coast cities, was a checkered one. He fled from the civilization that had stifled him at home, and which he saw with dismay roughly reproduced in the communities of the sea-board; he found few men whose talk did not jar upon him; even in the wilderness, when he came to a log-cabin, he heard the oaths of low city haunts; in pastoral settlements, he found no pastoral innocence; and even among the friendly Indians they asked him for spirits, when he would have spoken of God. Discouraged and oppressed, he persisted in setting his face ever westward, till at last he came to a river, as it seemed to him; a brook, as it would figure on the map. He wondered if man had ever been here before, but smiled to himself the moment after, knowing that the red man, the natural possessor of this princely inheritance, must have often breathed his prayer to the Great Spirit by the banks of this stream. He began to think how useless the discovery of this new continent had been, since hitherto the country had been but a new field for the white man's sins, a new theatre for the red man's sorrows. He fell to thinking of his own far-off ancestors, roaming morass and forest, like these sturdy men of bronze, hunting the deer, and wolf, and bear, like them, painting their bodies like them, worshipping bloody gods of war, rearing children indefatigable on sea and land--Scandinavian vikings, fair, and ruddy, and golden-haired, each man a chief in stature, and their chiefs giants. How like the race that still lorded it over these new realms! But God's messengers had come among the Norsemen and daunted their fierceness, turned their vices into virtues, and leavened, with a true and manly, a Christian, civilization, their hardy, freedom-loving tribes. Robert knew of the many efforts of the missionaries among the Indians; but he knew, also, that it was the evildoing of the whites that made these efforts so fruitless. It seemed as if wherever the human race set foot it must disturb God's working; and in sudden disgust at his kind, he vowed never willingly to enter again any community of whites. Commerce was imposition, respectability was hypocrisy, civilization was cruelty. "God and my dreams alone remain," he cried; "with them I will walk, and forget that any other building exists save a church; that there is any language save prayer; any human beings save God's worthy ministers!" Before long, the scent of the pines and cedars lulled him to sleep, and, happy in his isolation, he did not resist the drowsiness that, by the banks of Norman streamlets, had often preceded the sweetest moments of his life.

Soon the pines began to sing in the strong wind that rocked them, and the song shaped itself into a hymn of praise, the words seeming to echo the form of David's psalm: "Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the face of the Lord, for he cometh.... Praise him, ye strong winds that fulfil his word; ... fruitful trees and all cedars."

A voice came out of the rocks, as if wafted over miles of space, and, mingling with the song of the pines, chanted with it, "The treasure-house of the Lord is in the stones of the earth; from my bosom flow the rivers of life-giving waters"; and gently the sound of tinkling rivulets was added to the deep song of praise. It seemed as if all creation, bent upon doing the task respectively allotted to each of its parts, had met in conclave round that obscure Western river, before the tribunal of a sleeping mortal. As the shadows grew darker, the howl of wild beasts was heard, inexplicably free from the impression of terror, and strangely fitting in with the hymn of inanimate nature. At twilight, a concert of sweet scents rose from the earth, and vaporous clouds bore up the prayer of the fruitful soil, a gentle sound, as of crystal bells, accompanying the sacrifice.

"Let your prayer arise before me as an evening offering," came faintly from somewhere, and the cry of myriads of insects rose to greet the echo. Nothing seemed discordant. Robert, as it were, heard the world-pulse beat, and yet was neither appalled nor astonished; it was the same voice, whose whispers he knew, which was speaking to him now, only it spoke aloud. A moaning sound, muffled and sad, but grave as the voice of a teacher, now rose above the others, and the sleeper knew that it was that of the ocean:

"The floods have lifted up their waves with the voices of many waters. Wonderful are the surges of the sea; wonderful is the Lord on high."

Robert thought how true and how grand was this remorseless servant of the Almighty will. It does its work though fleets brave its decrees, and science peers into its secrets like a child feebly grasping a two-edged sword. It obeys God, and its work, not its voice, is its hymn of praise. But there is another mighty angel at work in the heavens, and the trumpet-tones of his voice ring in the thunder behind those fast-coming clouds. Tawny gold and ashen gray, like the shroud of a fallen world, those clouds sweep up on the horizon; blades of light rend them for a moment, and a livid radiance darts into every crevice of the forest; the song of the pines is hushed, and the hymn of the storm peals out:

"Holy and terrible is thy name.... Fire shall go forth before thee; ... thy lightnings shine upon the world; ... for thou art fearfully magnified!"

A cathedral of ice seems to grow suddenly out of the pine forest; the trees are turned to crystal pinnacles, a world of untrodden snow lies all around, and within the silence of the grave. Rose-colored lights play on the fairy turrets, and turn the ice-pillars to amber and topaz. More sublime than any dream of mediæval enchantment, Robert gazes spellbound on this crowning marvel, and, though no articulate words strike his ear, he is conscious of a life permeating this realm of silence; of a link with all other creatures of God, which, if it spoke, would utter the words that well spontaneously from his own heart:

"Thy knowledge is become too wonderful for me.... Whither shall I go from thy spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face?"

But he is no idle gazer, treating the world as a show; he is a disciple--the Dante of Nature, led by her to the song-halls of her everlasting concert, taught by her that all things have a voice to glorify God and a mission to execute for him. He may not stay in the heart of the pole, for other lessons are all around him, and the time to learn them is so short--never more than a hundred years, seldom even the third of that time!

The silent world melts from sight, and the earth seems to recede; the blue vault of heaven is nearer; a rushing sound, so awful that his humanity shudders at it, yet so beautiful that it deadens the remembrance of the gentle sounds of the pine-trees, the crystal flower-bells, the wind, and even the rolling of the sea, wraps his being into itself, and holds him in its mighty spell. Worlds of light flash by him; of their size he knows naught, of their qualities less; but their radiance seems to him the face of God, "which no man can look upon and live," while their voice is as that of a thousand cataracts, each ringing forth a separate and harmonious note. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaimeth the works of his hands." Did these words come out of the sound, or were they in his own heart, and did the sound draw them into itself, as the great ocean would draw back to its bosom some lonely fragment of its realm, stranded for a moment by the last wave that kissed the shore? Robert could not tell. He scarcely breathed. He would fain have kept this vision for ever; he trembled at the idea of leaving a world after which his own would look like a hive of bees, and whose sounds were so potent that all the sounds of earth, massed together in one, would barely seem a whisper in comparison. But his pilgrimage was not a reward, not even a trial; it was only an apprenticeship. Hardly a transition, save the coming of dawn and a consciousness of some void, and again Robert gazed upon familiar scenes of earth. The sun's forerunner was flushing the sky, and a wall of living water stood before him. He watched intently; no sound came to his ears. Yet he could see the coronal of rainbow-tinted foam rising at the feet of the cataract, and felt as if this must be the very passage through which God's people of old had come dry-shod in the bed of the sea. As he stood below, breathlessly waiting, the crown of the waterfall quivered with a new light, and the sun a crimson disk, rose slowly into sight. It seemed as though a bleeding Host were lifted up to heaven in a chalice of living jewels. A murmur began to rise from the clouds of spray; it grew louder and stronger, and Robert knew that the voice of the cataract had reached his ears at last. It was but a faint echo of that ineffable hymn of the spheres which rang yet in his memory, but it was none the less the sublimest sound he had heard on earth. Vaguely came to his understanding a fragment of its meaning:

"Glory to the Power whose breath has built us into a wall, and whose breath could hurl us like a flood over the corn-fields of man."

When Adam disobeyed God in Eden, this cataract was already thousands of years old, and for ages had done God's bidding, calm as eternity, regular as the course of the planets. Robert pondered on this sublime obedience of all strong things to the law of the Creator, while man, the weakest of creation, thought it a shame to follow any will but his own. But even as he stood thinking, the earth seemed to tremble beneath him, and he sank gently into its heaving bosom. A darkness that bred more awe than terror encompassed him, and he felt that he was in the presence of one of God's most dreaded ministers. Strange thunders echoed around him, and a bewildered consciousness of some mysterious agency being about him came to his wondering spirit. Out of the darkness grew a twilight, in which objects began to be distinguishable; precious ore glistened on the face of the rocks; metals and jewels, heaped in confusion, met his eye; silver daggers hung within reach of his hand, like bosses from a Gothic roof; columns of sparkling minerals shot up like enchanted trees by his side; while the plashing of fountains, the rushing of lava-rivers, and the dull, perpetual thunder of ascending flames reached his ear--a dusky kingdom, awful in the force it suggested, but hushed and chained by a power greater still; a silent kingdom, the workshop of nature, where our dreamer feared but to tread, lest a volcano might be set in motion on the earth, or an earthquake overwhelm a score of cities. But not before hearing the _credo_ of this mighty world could he leave its regions; it smote upon him from out the roar of a furnace, whence a stream of blinding light ran slowly into a rocky channel. Molten iron flowed at his feet, and a voice sang in his ear:

"The earth is the Lord's; the compass of the world, and all that dwell therein."

Like hammer-blows came the dread words; no spirit in living shape was near, yet a living presence seemed to glow in each fiery stream or glittering rock: the guidance of a will that, millions of ages ago, spoke one creative word, was enough to lead the revolutions and point the unerring road of this grim realm till time should be no more.

Slowly the walls of darkness dissolved, and the hard floor of metals turned to a fine white powder, soft yet firm; trees grew up, but they were white as with hoar-frost; and a marvellous vegetation sprang into being, the mosses swaying to and fro, the flowers moving from rock to rock, the fields of greenest grass swaying as if with animal life. Jewels hung from the fairy rocks, but they closed a strong grip on the finger that touched them; pearls lay scattered on the sandy floor, and back and forth fled swift creatures all lace and film, like animated cobwebs. Robert felt, by instinct, that as he had visited the bowels of the earth, so now he was roaming the garden of the ocean. In reverent wonder he paused, looking upward as if to the sky; and in the liquid firmament wandering stars of fitful radiance shone out upon him. They came now singly, now in strings like the milky way, or again in fields, as if a flag had been studded with glow-worms. As he could not tell why in the heart of volcanic fires he had been neither stifled nor consumed, so now he knew not why he was not drowned; but with the water veiling everything around, dripping in the coral caves, beating against the rocks, stirring the living petals of millions of sea-flowers, he stood upright, waiting for the voice that must swell the everlasting song. It rose at first, as though muffled by the water, grew stronger and clearer, till, in a tone of triumph, it gave forth its glad pæan:

"Bless the Lord, all ye seas and floods; ... all that move in the waters; ... ye dragons of the deep."

"Is man, then, the only rebel in creation," Robert thought sadly, "the only ungrateful one, who thinks it a loss of time to sing the praises of God?" And an answer seemed to knock at his heart, saying:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

Again the sea-walls broke, the jewel-flowers disappeared, and a change came over the dreamer. Snowy mountains; fleecy peaks, purple-shadowed where the sunset light caught their sides; level horizons of gold, suggesting far lands of miraculous radiance; banks of crimson by dun oceans, seeming the grave of a thousand worlds; a solitude oppressive and sublime; a silence which not even the riving asunder of the gray mountain or dissolving of the tawny shore into the ocean of blue can break--such was the new scene on which Robert gazed. Entranced with its beauty, he told himself that this was lovelier than even the ice-cathedral amid the soundless world of snow; and here would he fain build him a home, and wander out his pilgrimage; for "this is the threshold of heaven." Now the sun came from behind the translucent masses, and left streaks of opal and amethyst where his footprints had pressed the fleecy snow; and the dreamer started as the device of this world of amazing beauty and absolute obedience flashed into his eyes from out the great, golden heart of the sun. Here there was no voice, as elsewhere; but the words were burned into Robert's mind as he gazed at the mighty orb:

"He has set his tabernacle in the sun; hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven."

No sooner had the dreamer gathered this new verse of the world-song into his memory, than the mountains and plains, the valleys and the sea, began to dissolve in mist. He stretched out his hands imploringly, as if to stay the wondrous vision in its flight; but he struck at empty air, and sank gently towards the earth. An echo from afar wafted him an answer, which seemed a promise that the cloud-land would receive him once more at some distant day, but the words were rather a command than an encouragement:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

And now a scene broke upon his sight, which made him think he was back among the apple-orchards and smiling farms of Normandy--a fair and tranquil scene: wide meadows, with flocks of kine grazing, fields of corn ripe for the sickle, and orchards, round which girls and boys were frolicking in holiday costume. Beyond that was a village of white huts and a church all of wood, its porch hung with evergreens, and a wedding-party grouped beneath; and through the landscape the same river on whose banks Robert thought he had fallen asleep once years ago, when it flowed through the heart of the primeval forest. Higher up in the distance were still the old pine-woods; but there was much timber felled, and great rafts were paddled down the stream, laden with the wealth of the forest. Robert knew that civilization had come to this spot with a cross in its hand instead of a sword, and baptismal dews instead of "fire-water." He saw the bronzed, athletic men of the New World working like brothers side by side with the stalwart, golden-haired pilgrims from the Old; and he looked around to see who had thus brought about that which his former experience had sadly told him was an impossibility. Just then there rose a chant from the village church:

"Sing to the Lord a new song. Offer up the sacrifice of justice and hope in the Lord, ... who showeth us good things.... By the fruit of their corn, and wine, and oil are they multiplied"; while from the fields where the red man and the white toiled together rose an answering chorus: "Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Then from the church came a long file of dark-robed men, with cowls of ancient make, like those that the Norman boy had seen carved on the monuments of the abbots in his own land--nay, his own village (for Villeneuve had once belonged to the Benedictines)--and they marched in slow procession to a spot of ground a mile beyond the gathering of white huts.

Here a large area was marked out in the shape of a cross, the outline being drawn in wreaths of gaily-colored autumn leaves. Many Indians stood round the enclosure, and one old chief kept in his hands a quantity of wampum belts. Opposite him was a man of athletic build, nearly seventy years old, in whom Robert thought he saw a great likeness to himself as he might become in a happy and prosperous old age. The chief of the dark-robed men lifted up his voice, and addressed this figure:

"Robert Maillard"--and the dreamer started to hear his own name--"this day you end a noble work; you crown a life worthy to be held in remembrance for ever. You came to this spot a wanderer without an aim, at war with man, almost despairing of God. You stand here, after half a century has gone over your head, the father of your people, the benefactor of two races, the founder, so to speak, of a new kingdom. You crown the sacrifice of a lifetime used in God's service by a free gift of your choicest possession to his everlasting majesty. To all ages will a school of holy discipline and of sacred song plead for you at the throne of God, and the _laus perennis_ of holy lives shall represent the ceaseless hymn of inanimate creation to its Lord."

Then the old man turned to the Indian chief, and called him. "My brother," he said, "I have only given to God what you gave me; without a fair title to your land, I durst not have offered it to the God whose eldest child on this side of the sea is the red man; and half the blessing which this reverend minister of our Lord has promised me falls to your share."

"My pale-faced brother speaks words of justice and of wisdom," answered the chief; "his God shall be my God, and his people my people, because his faith has taught him truth and honesty towards his red brother. The black-robe hath spoken well, and Great Eagle is glad to hear him praise the friend of his people, and he who hath taught the Indian maidens to sing the song of the stars and the clouds."

So saying, he laid at the priest's feet a wampum belt; and as each ceremony of the laying of a first stone was completed, he laid down another, as if ratifying the compact after the manner of his people. The dreamer stood apart in silent wonder; the dark-robed choir intoned the psalm _Lauda Jerusalem_:

"Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Sion!"

"For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.

"He hath made peace within thy borders, and filleth thee with the fatness of corn."

At last the procession turned back towards the white church, and all the people, Indians as well as white men, joined its ranks. Robert followed last of all, and an echo to the song of joy and praise rose from his enlightened heart, whispering:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

He looked around; he knew the spot well; a little higher up the stream was the place where he had rested at noontide, before his eyes were opened to the true mission allotted him in life. He knew that this was the warning, which, if he neglected it, would make of him no longer an innocent dreamer, but a useless vagabond, a rebellious creature of God. If poetry and beauty, truth and honesty, were things of the past, it was at least the duty of every Christian to do what he could to make them once more things of the present. No man who owed allegiance to the great Maker of all things could go idly through life, a vain mourner over an impossible ideal; he must bear his share of work, and do his utmost to build up anew the spiritual temple of truth. And he, above all, who had been led through the secret treasure-houses of nature, and had listened to the ceaseless hymn of praise which the creatures of God sang as they followed the immutable laws set down for them by their Lord--he, above all, dared not stand still nor refuse the tribute of his voice. He would not be an alien among his brethren, the children of God. With these thoughts, he slowly followed the crowd as it filled the little church, and broke out again into strains of solemn gladness, singing:

"Now dost thou dismiss thy servant in peace, O Lord, according to thy word; for my eyes have seen thy salvation."

The song grew fainter, and the multitude seemed to dissolve before his eyes, as Robert, standing up, gazed around him. Everywhere the primeval forest hemmed him in; the river flowed at his feet, clogged with mossy boulders, and fringed with delicate fern; the squirrels rattled in the trees with a sound like castanets; and the silvery disk of the moon was just visible over the tree-tops. The young wanderer knew that he had slept for many hours; but he awoke a new being. Reverently he gazed upon the silent landscape, to which a fellowship beyond the expression of human tongues now bound him; and, as he repeated slowly the prayers that he had said at his mother's knee in the old Norman homestead, he felt that at last his life's work had been pointed out to him. He had read the pages of a book more wonderful than the romances of troubadours, the tales of the Minnesingers, and even the chronicles of olden abbeys; he had heard how the world was bound by a chain of song, never ceasing, never wearying; and henceforth his frail human life must not mar this awe-inspiring harmony; his heart must throb with the world's heart, his voice sing in unison with the great voice of creation. Night passed, and he scarcely slept; morning came, and found him still in his holy rapture. Before long, an Indian approached him--a tall and stately son of the forest, one still uncorrupted by the thinly veiled heathenism of the white "children of the sun." He had never seen a white man, though he had often heard of them. Robert knew a little of some of the Indian tongues, but not that of the new-comer. What with signs and a few words akin to those which the Indian spoke, they gradually made friends; but the red man still gazed upon Robert with an awe not unmixed with terror. He handled his weapons and his garments, touched reverentially his fair and tangled locks, and at intervals drew long breaths of astonishment and admiration. He then led him to the assembly of his tribe, and Robert soon learnt enough of their language to be able to speak fluently with them. He told them how he came there, and spoke to them of the true God; and, though at first they listened quietly, they soon grew grave. They had heard of the cruelty and treachery of white men, who all professed to believe in this true God, and they dared not trust to this teaching.

Then Robert had a happy inspiration. He told them of his dream, and they brightened up at once; this was language such as they loved to hear; these were parables such as they instinctively understood. He told them of his life in Normandy, of his journey across the great salt water, of his longings after a beautiful land of brotherly love, such as had been shown to him in his dream. He asked them to help him in his work for God.

We cannot dwell longer on the details of the story of this settlement in the wilderness, but some things must be briefly touched upon. In due time, the Indian tribe gave Robert a grant of many miles of land, and he, in return, promised them protection, justice, equality, and peace. One priest at first, then gradually others, came to preach the Gospel; and the path of truth was exceptionally smooth in this strange oasis. Robert called his settlement by a name which few at first could understand--Perpetual Praise. Parts of the forest were cleared; a thriving lumber trade was established; cottages sprang up; many emigrants from fair Normandy flocked in, yet settlers of other lands were all welcomed as brothers; a civilization that was rather that of the monastery than of the factory sprang up, and Indians and whites worshipped God side by side in joy and peace.

As years went by, Robert took an Indian wife, and loved her as faithfully as though she had been the princess of some chivalric romance: he had found his ideal at last. Sometimes--it was impossible that it should be otherwise--there would be a ripple of adversity over the smooth waters of this pastoral life; crime might throw a shadow on the settlement; but peace was promptly restored, and Robert became known as the justest and most merciful judge for hundreds of miles around. He was the arbiter and referee of every feud, the father of his colony, the terror of evil-doers. Over his house-door--a wide, open-armed porch where his Indian sons, with locks of bronze, played the games of infant Samsons at his feet--was carved in crimson letters this brave motto:

"Work is prayer, work is song."

As his years advanced, he grew more thoughtful yet. One idea remained unrealized; and now that the settlement had had a life almost as long as the third of a century, he felt that it was time to begin the new and crowning work. He negotiated with the Benedictine abbeys of France, and held out hopes to them of the free gift of at least five hundred acres of land for the foundation of a priory of their order, together with a school of missionaries for the Indians, and for the revival of sacred chant--a study Robert had greatly at heart. He received very favorable answers and, before he died, he saw the wish of his heart in a fair way to be accomplished.

The day of the arrival of the first Benedictine monks was a festival throughout the settlement. Indian and European decorations vied with each other; beads, feathers, flags, lanterns of painted birch-bark, flowers strewn on the paths, wreaths hung from tree to tree, all represented but poorly the heartfelt enthusiasm of the people. In a few months, the old chant of the church in the early ages echoed through the woods and corn-fields of the New World; the Divine Office was sung in the intervals of agricultural labor; seven times a day did the bells utter their summons to prayer, yet the fields and flocks thrived none the less for this continuous intercession. The boys of red and white race mingled their locks of black and gold, poring over the books of church psalmody; the maidens and matrons joined in from their seats in the body of the church. The wilderness became populous, great artists came to sketch the stately figures of the monks and the innocent faces of the choristers as they moved from choir to ploughed field, from school to pasture; curious folks came to visit the little spot of land where a great experiment had been tried and had not failed; musicians came to seek rest for their minds and inspiration for their art; poets came to describe the new Arcadia, and holy men to praise God in the temple where such great graces had been conferred.

Robert Maillard began to fear that such publicity would endanger the very perfection which was the theme of admiration, and with redoubled fervor did he pray for his beloved work. As last came a day when he knew that his earthly task was over; like a patriarch among his people, he gathered the heads of the little community around him, and blessed them, exhorting them to persevere in the happy and innocent life of "Perpetual Praise." His wife knelt at his feet, his sons stood around him, and one of them led by the hand a young child, whose eyes were Indian eyes, but whose skin was nearly as fair as that of her grandfather.

The Benedictine monks stood around Robert's bedside, chanting the Divine Office; but suddenly the dying man raised his hands to heaven, and, mingling his voice with the song of Compline, called out clearly and joyously, as if in answer to some interior voice: "I come, O Lord! Work has been prayer; be it now song."

FOOTNOTES:

[133] It was the custom in many of the monasteries of the VIth and VIIth centuries, especially those of the rule of S. Columba, for the monks to be divided into choirs, alternately officiating in the church, and by means of which the divine praises were uninterruptedly sung during the whole twenty-four hours. The "Perpetual Adoration" is the only similar institution in our day, and the small number of communities accounts for the discontinuance of the custom.

ENGLISH SKETCHES.

II.

RUINS OF AN OLD ABBEY.

In the year of grace 1121, Henry I. was reigning in England. On the sudden death of his brother, William Rufus, he had seized the crown, which devolved by right on the next elder brother, Robert of Normandy, Robert being just then absent in the Holy Land, where, by military exploits of high renown and sweet courtesy of manner, he was winning the hearts of his soldiers and of Christendom. Hearing how things were going in England, he set sail in haste for Normandy; and there calling a fleet together, he steered towards Dover, where the usurper, apprised of his arrival, stood with an army drawn up upon the shore awaiting him. For three days and nights the brothers stood at bay, like two tigers ready to fly at one another's throats, but neither daring to strike the first blow in their fratricidal war. Presently we see gliding high up along the cliffs a venerable figure, clad in priestly garb, and bearing an olive branch in his hand. His name is Anselm. He has been roughly handled by Rufus, and has little kindness to expect from his successor. But Anselm heeds not his own interest or his life; he goes boldly forward, and with outstretched hand entreats the brothers to desist from their bloody intent, to exchange the kiss of peace, and settle their quarrel as became men and Christians. They hearkened to the voice of the saintly primate. This was his first service to Henry, and it was quickly followed by others so numerous and so important that the scholarly king, moved partly by gratitude, and partly by a desire to atone for certain of his own and his predecessor's misdemeanors towards the church, resolved, in 1121, to build a monastery which should be one of the glories of his reign, and bear witness to the end of time to his devout allegiance to the faith. With this view he built the Benedictine Abbey of Reading. It was on so royal a scale, both of magnitude and architectural splendor, that even now, in their utter dilapidation, the fragments of the cyclopean ruins give us no inadequate idea of what it must have been in the days of its strength and glory. The gigantic skeleton walls, as they stand out gaunt and ragged against the sky, resemble rather rocks than the remains of the work of puny human hands. The style was in the massive and lofty Norman Gothic of the period, as may be seen from the few bold arches that have withstood alike the ravages of time, the artillery of Cromwell, and modern depredations. The abbey was one of the wealthiest in the kingdom, and the mitred abbot was counted among the notable authorities of the land. He not only took rank with the highest nobles, but he enjoyed, likewise, many of the supreme prerogatives of royalty; he was privileged to coin money, and to confer the honor of knighthood. He exercised hospitality to kings and princes, and that right royally. King Henry, the founder, was a frequent guest at the monastery with his court, who were entertained there for weeks at a time with regal magnificence. The king was extremely fond of the abbey and the monks, and made it his custom to spend Holy Week there every year. After performing his Paschal duties in company with his family and his court, and passing the solemn week in fasting and prayer, he celebrated the joyful Easter dawn with a festive merriment, in which all the town was invited to join. Bonfires blazed on every surrounding hill, ale ran in the gutters, the poor were clad and fed, and all within reach of the royal bounty felt the joy of the Paschal alleluia. Queen Adeliza shared her husband's partiality for this lordly monastic retreat, and at various festivals through the year repaired to it, sometimes with her son, sometimes only with her women-in-waiting. When Henry died of overindulgence in his favorite dish of lampreys, at Rouen, he directed that his heart should remain there, but that his body should rest under the roof of his beloved Benedictine abbey. After his demise, it still continued to be a royal residence, and was often frequented by Henry II., who held a parliament there for the first time in 1184--an example which was followed repeatedly in the course of the succeeding reigns; the calm of the cloister offering a fitter atmosphere for grave deliberation to the law-makers than the hall of Westminster, disturbed as it was by courtly intrigues and political agitations. In 1452, Parliament was adjourned to Reading Abbey from Westminster, on account of the sudden outbreak of the plague, and later, in 1466, for the same reason. It was the scene of other meetings not devoid of historical importance. Here the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius, visited Henry II., and presented him with the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the royal banners of the city, in hopes of luring him to undertake another crusade for the deliverance of the holy places.

Henry III. passed more of his time at Reading Abbey than at any of his own palaces; here he convoked assemblies of the nobles, and received brother princes and European guests of distinction. It was in the west hall of the monastery that Edward IV. received his fair young queen, Elizabeth Widville. In this same hall Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who had the regency in the absence of Richard Cœur de Lion in Palestine, was put upon his trial. Two other ecclesiastical councils were held here in the reign of John. When Richard II., through the intervention of John of Gaunt, was reconciled to his nobles, he chose Reading Abbey as the ground of meeting. So it continued, up to the reign of Henry VIII., the resort of kings, and nobles, and prelates, until that ruthless despoiler passed an act for the suppression of monasteries, and converted the sacred precincts into a palace for his own sole use. The monks were scattered, and their brave and loyal abbot, Hugh Farringdon, having dared to denounce the iniquitous edict and defy the king, was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. With him closes the line of the Benedictine abbots. It is curious to see Henry VIII., after thus uprooting the church in his dominions, plundering her treasure, and persecuting her in every way, leaving a large sum of money in his will for "Masses to be said for the deliverance of his soul." He had made it high treason to hold the doctrine of purgatory, or to pray for the dead; and the act of saying Mass was punishable with death. He had overturned altars and banished priests; yet, when he came to die himself, he turned, in abject and cowardly fear, towards the church that he had so outraged, and besought her help in his extremity. Speaking of this act of Henry's, which throws such a sinister light on his fanatical hatred to Catholicism, and his violent enforcement of the "reformed religion," as it was styled, Hume, whose statements are as accurate as his views are false, remarks naïvely that it is a proof of the tenacity of superstition on the human mind, and says that it was one amongst so many of "the strange contrarieties of his conduct and temper," that he who had "destroyed those foundations made by his ancestors for the deliverance of _their_ souls," should when it came to be the hour of death "take care to be on the safer side of the question himself." At the time of the dissolution, the revenues in money of this royal abbey did not exceed the small sum of £675 a year. Its wealth consisted not in accumulated riches, but in lands, and fisheries, and flocks, and herds. Many English sovereigns had bequeathed their dust to the consecrated shelter of Reading Abbey; amongst others, the Empress Matilda, wife of Henry I., and mother of Henry II., had been interred in its vaults. Their ashes found no mercy at the hands of the infuriated fanatics, who seemed bent on erasing from the face of the country every vestige of its ancient faith. The majestic pile, which had witnessed so many royal marriages, and echoed to the dirges of so many sovereigns, fell before the cannon of Cromwell, planted on Caversham hill. The beautiful church of S. Thomas à Becket, where the unfortunate Charles I., with a little band of his trusty cavaliers, had halted and knelt in prayer for protection against the mad soldiery before whom they fled, fared no better than the rest. The walls that still exist bear traces at every point of this savage act of vandalism. What the fury of the Roundheads left unfinished the more recent vandals have completed. The ruins have been plundered of every vestige of stone-facing; and those immense blocks that gave the old pile, even in its decay, such an air of imperishable strength and grandeur were, at great cost of labor and money, torn away and carried to Windsor, to serve in building the Poor Knights' Hospital. Some were condemned to the more ignoble use of erecting a bridge over the Wargrave Road. It is difficult to go beyond mere speculation in fixing the spots illustrated by so many memorable associations in the history of the old abbey. There can be no mistake, however, about the Chapter Hall, where the parliaments were held, and where kings and prelates feasted. There is a tradition that after the battle of Newbury, Charles I. and all his troops were daily fed for a considerable time in the refectory of the monks, one wall alone of which is now standing, but which quite justifies the supposition of this wholesale hospitality when we see the area formerly occupied by the apartment. The site of the church is also discernible, but the relative positions of the altars, transepts, and nave are but dimly suggested by the broken bases of the four enormous pillars that supported the towering dome. The present beautiful little Catholic church, with its adjoining presbytery, is built entirely from the ruins, so cruelly dismantled by successive goths. But all their efforts have failed to obliterate the royal aspect of the wreck, or to rob it of its air of immortality. The walls are built of sharp, small flint, imbedded in mortar that has now become as hard as iron--a circumstance which we may hope will put an end to any further devastation, as the tools of the workmen break like glass in the effort to penetrate it and dislodge the flint.

A fact that added to Reading Abbey a higher kind of interest than any earthly privilege can convey was that it possessed the hand of S. James the Apostle--a relic which had been brought from Germany to France by the Empress Matilda, and given by her to her father, Henry I., who presented it to the Benedictine monks encased in a rich shrine of gold, where devout worshippers came from great distances to venerate it. When the dissolution of monastic orders was decreed, the sacred relics which each community possessed were secreted in secure places, and often defended from outrage at the peril and sacrifice of life; but no mention is anywhere to be found of similar precautions being employed in the case of the famous Benedictine treasure. The Roundheads desecrated the tombs of the kings, and threw to the winds the bones of the monks who slept in the vaults around them; but we find no trace of insult offered to the hand of S. James, nor is any notice taken of it in the local chronicles of Reading from this time forth. There was a vague rumor of its having been conveyed to a convent in Spain; but no evidence of the slightest description supports this notion. About seventy years ago, some workmen, employed in breaking down a portion of the walls, came upon a small wooden box containing a human hand; it was bought as a curiosity for a mere trifle by a physician of the town, and after a while, we know not how or wherefore, it found its way to the Museum of the Polytechnic, where it remained until that institution was broken up; then the hand was transferred to the Athenæum, in Friar Street. Meantime, the circumstance of the discovery had travelled far beyond Berks, and some devout persons, believing this could be none other than the lost relic of S. James, offered considerable sums for it; but, for some reason that we can neither discover nor surmise, these offers were declined, and the hand remained "amongst other nick-nacks" to which some interest, historical or otherwise, was attached. Finally, the vicissitudes of fortune carried it to a shop-window, where it was long to be seen under a glass case so insecurely guarded that any expert thief might easily have purloined it. A Scotch Catholic gentleman saw it here, and offered fifty pounds for it. It was sold to him for this sum, and he placed it in the care of Canon B----, the dean of the church which is built on the original resting-place of the real relic, and dedicated to S. James. It was with the understanding, however, that he would claim the hand as soon as he had a suitable place for it in his own house. Canon B----himself was strongly inclined to disbelieve in the genuineness of the relic. In the first place, the box in which it was found bore no sign or symbol of its being a reliquary, and there was no mark or seal attached to the contents indicating their character; then, again, the hand was small and the fingers tapering, much more like the hand of a woman than of a rude-limbed fisherman like the Apostle of Spain. There was one way of ascertaining with certainty that it was _not_ the real hand, and this was by learning whether the body of S. James, which is preserved in the Cathedral of Compostela, wanted one hand. If the two were there, there was an end of the controversy, and it would be clearly proved that the hand found at Reading Abbey had been, at some unknown date, returned to its place. If one hand was missing, and if that corresponded to the one in his possession, it was at least a strong argument on the side of its genuineness, which other steps should be thenceforth taken to prove. At the canon's request, Dr. Grant, the late saintly Bishop of Southwark, wrote to the Archbishop of Compostela, asking him to allow the shrine to be opened and the necessary inspection of the relics made; but the archbishop replied that he could on no pretext, however laudable, consent to such an act, which, in his eyes, appeared like a desecration of their venerated patron. The question fell back, therefore, into impenetrable doubt as before. The hand remained at Reading, until at last the purchaser arrived and claimed it. He was persuaded that it was the real hand of S. James, and as such claimed to have it in his possession and under his roof. Canon B---- gave it up at once; but it was remarked by a pious Catholic at the time that if it was the real relic, the act of _purchasing_ it for private possession, and removing it from a church dedicated to the apostle to whom it was supposed to belong, to a private house, could bring no blessing on those connected with it. These warnings were laughed at as superstitious by the owner of the relic; but they were strangely and fearfully fulfilled before long. He and three clerical friends were one day seized at dinner with agonizing pains, and, after a few hours' suffering, expired. One of the dishes had, by some unaccountable accident, been poisoned by the cook, who had employed some venomous root in mistake for horse-radish. We do not attach for a moment any supernatural significance to the incident, but merely give it as a strange coincidence. After this violent and sudden death of its owner, the hand passed into the possession of a relative, to whom he bequeathed it. Perhaps this short record of its recent history may meet the eye of some one who may be induced to search out the missing limb, and clear away the mystery that still hangs over the supposed relic of the apostle who warned us so solemnly against the iniquity of idle words. Who knows? Perhaps we may yet live to see a Benedictine monastery rise on the site of the ancient one where his hand was so devoutly venerated; monks, wearing the dark cowl of the inspired author of the _Regula Monachorum_, may again tread the hallowed ground of the old abbey, where in bygone days their fathers lived grand and awful lives under the serene and solemn shadow of their mighty cloisters, adjusting the strife of nations and of kings, teaching Christendom, feeding the poor, and taking the kingdom of heaven by violence amidst long vigils, and fasting, and humiliation, and the heroic practice of Christian sanctity; the old stones may yet echo to the chant of psalms as in the days of our forefathers, and the song of praise resound again in the desert--the same words, with other voices; for God changes not, neither does his church; for, like her Founder, she is immutable, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

THE COURT OF FRANCE IN 1830.[134]

BY M. MENNECHET.

FROM PARIS, OU LE LIVRE DES CENT-ET-UN.

You think, my dear friend and editor, that the place occupied by the Tuileries in the panorama of Paris is so prominent a one that you desire to include a variety of accounts of it in the rich gallery of description you are now giving to the world, and you ask me, unskilful artist though I am, to draw you a faithful picture of its interior as I once knew it. You say that, having for fifteen years inhabited this palace, I must necessarily be well acquainted with all the details of it, and you wish me to take upon myself the office of introducing your numerous readers, and of giving them a nearer view of the chief personages of this royal domain. I may, you add, imagine myself once more at my bureau, distributing to curiosity or to attachment tickets of admission for some _fête_ or ceremony, and that this will perhaps prove, for the time being, a pleasant illusion for me. Dreams like these, however, would possess no attraction for me. I have been too near a spectator of the court for it to have any illusions for my mind. In this respect, I may compare myself to an actor at the theatre, over-familiar with the scenes of the green-room. I need realities now to awaken my interest; and since the course of events has plunged me again into my original obscurity, I can no longer abandon myself to reveries of pride or of ambition. Nor had I risen so high that there was any danger that my fall would distract my reason or shake my philosophy. I had reached only that elevation which gives to objects their due proportions. I was neither too near nor too far, neither too high nor too low, not to be able to see and to judge calmly; and it is in my former observatory that I am now about to replace myself, in order to comply, as far as it may lie in my power, with your request. Perhaps I ought to fear that it may be said of me, He served the exiled family for fifteen years; he was indebted to them for his maintenance and that of others connected with him; he is biassed by feelings of gratitude; we cannot but distrust what he is about to tell us. God forbid that the reproach of fidelity and gratitude should ever offend me: these are virtues too rare for any one who is conscious in his own heart of possessing them to be ashamed of the fact. If, therefore, I should be accused of flattery, I shall not feel much grieved at the charge; for at least I shall have flattered only the unfortunate. Had not the sanguinary events of July shattered at one blow the crown of Charlemagne, the sceptre of S. Louis, and the sword of Henri IV.; did the family of Charles X. now reign at the Tuileries, I might be silent, lest my encomiums should be deemed interested; or were I to take up my pen, it would only be to demonstrate that the liberal ideas of the youth of the present day were even then admitted to the court; there was no exclusion, excepting for revolutionary principles.

Here might be a fine opportunity for me to enter upon a chapter of politics. I might prove to the partisans of the sovereignty of the people that they alone invoke the divine right, since the voice of the people passes for the voice of God--_Vox populi, vox Dei_; or, on the other hand, that their adversaries do well to range themselves on the side of hereditary right, which is a principle of order and security, as well for governments as for families--a right sacred and inviolable, and which has existed unquestioned from the days of Adam until the present time.

But I should find myself quite out of my sphere in the domain of politics, having always withheld myself from its complications. I therefore give your readers notice that I shall not introduce them into the great cabinet in which the councils of the ministers were held. I was not admitted there myself; and as I never listened at the doors, it would be impossible for me to relate anything that took place. All I know is that under the last ministry they used three sheets of paper too much, since the latter kindled so deplorable a conflagration.

The exterior aspect of the Tuileries is doubtless well known to my readers, at least from description, or through pictures or engravings. But those who have never had the opportunity of penetrating further I now invite to follow me into the interior, while I endeavor to bring before them some of the _fêtes_ and ceremonies of the court of Charles X. Unless you are in full dress, let us not enter by the great staircase. There we should find a man, who is called a _Suisse_, although he is a Frenchman, who would tell you that etiquette does not permit you to enter the palace of the king wearing boots. You might exclaim against etiquette, forgetting, however, that, at least, it imposes upon vanity the obligation of enriching labor. The staircase by which I shall introduce you is free from such restrictions. You will find the steps much worn. They lead to the treasury of charities--a treasury quite the opposite of the cask of the Danaïdes; for although it be constantly drawn from, it is never empty.

Let us ascend another flight, and cross the _black gallery_, where, on the right and left sides, are lodged, in narrow and inconvenient rooms, the great lord and the _valet de chambre_, the _maître d'hotel_ and the physician, the _aide-de-camp_ and the chaplain, the gentleman and the plebeian. Here all ranks, all grades, all dignities, are confounded. When we shall repair to the final judgment, I suppose we shall all pass through a black gallery, in which, like that of the Tuileries, will be mingled all social ranks. We will now descend a flight, and enter the apartment of the first gentleman of the chamber, one of the great officers of the household. Let us request of him tickets of admission to the ceremony of the Supper; and, when we shall have obtained them from his habitual complaisance, let us hope that there may not have been, the night before, between him, the captain of the guards, and the grand-master of ceremonies, any dispute regarding the rights, privileges, and attributes of their respective offices. In that case it is by no means certain that the life-guardsman would permit us to enter, the password being frequently regulated by some petty revenge of the chief. This time, however, all is harmonious; the life-guardsman has made no objection, the usher has taken our tickets, and the _valet de chambre_ has indicated our places behind the ladies. What an interesting tableau is presented by this religious solemnity! The chapel of the château being too small for the occasion, the gallery of Diana has been arranged for the ceremony. I see you smile as you raise your eyes to gaze upon the rich paintings which decorate the ceiling of this gallery. Cupid and Psyche, Diana and Endymion, Hercules and Omphale--all these gods and goddesses of paganism appear, little in keeping with the scene of a Christian celebration. But lower your eyes; look at this simple altar, at this pulpit, from which the minister of God will shortly speak, and you will no longer be tempted to smile, for you will have realized the distance which separates truth from error.

At one of the extremities of the gallery is laid an immense table, on which thirteen dishes of different kinds are thirteen times repeated. Each one of them is decorated with fragrant flowers, which exhale a delicious perfume. Along the entire length of the gallery are placed, right and left, three rows of benches. On one side are seated the ladies, whose elegant costumes are, it is true, somewhat worldly; but the books they hold in their hands attest, at least, their pious intentions.

Facing the pews reserved for the royal family, and on more elevated benches, are ranged thirteen poor young children, representing the thirteen apostles; for, at the time of the Supper, Judas had not denied his Master. Behind these are placed the musicians of the king, at their head Cherubini and Lesueur, and directed by Plantade; this combination of talent exhibiting a taste and power of execution unrivalled at that period, and which will still be remembered by many who have had the privilege of listening to them.

But suddenly a voice is heard--"The king." All advance, lean forward, and endeavor to obtain a view of him. He salutes all with the grace so natural to him; and respect alone represses the demonstration which his kindness seems to encourage. The divine office begins; at its conclusion comes the sermon; and finally, carrying out the pious custom of the kings of France, he himself washes the feet of the thirteen apostles as a token of Christian humility. The impious may smile at these touching solemnities of the worship of their forefathers; had they once assisted at a ceremony like this, they would smile no more. Afterwards, the officers of the household advance in a procession, holding in their hands the insignia of their office and bouquets. After them marches the dauphin of France, followed by the high officers. Thirteen times in succession they approach the table to seek the bread, the wine, the different dishes intended for the representatives of the apostles. They carry them to the king, who deposits them in baskets at the feet of each child. To these gifts he adds a purse for each, containing thirteen five-franc pieces. Then the ceremony is over, and the king may say to himself, "I have not only fulfilled an act of devotion and humility; I have also made thirteen families happy."

Having beheld the Most Christian King stooping from his royal majesty to those whom Père Bridaine called the best friends of God, let us now view him in that ceremony which alone, until lately, recalled the ancient traditions of chivalry. Here he is not only King of France; he is Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Ghost. This order, founded by Henri III., and which all the sovereigns of Europe were proud and happy to wear; this order, which decorated the breast of Henri IV., of Louis XIV., and of all the great warriors and statesmen of the last two centuries; this order, the most glorious recompense, and the one most coveted by the celebrated personages of the beginning of the present epoch, is at an end--the late revolution did not choose that it should survive the monarchy.

The last ceremony of the Order of the Holy Ghost took place on May 30, 1830, at Whitsuntide. The most perfect taste and the greatest luxury were displayed in the hangings which decorated the great vestibule and the stone gallery that lead to the chapel; the ingenious and varied talents of Hittorf, Lecointe, and Ciceri being brought into requisition on this occasion. The chapter of the order was held at eleven o'clock in the grand cabinet. There were assembled, in their rich costumes of black velvet, embroidered with gold and faced with green silk, the knights already received into the number, wearing crosswise the collar of the order, and on their cloaks the silver plates--the brilliant insignia of their dignity. The king, the natural nobility of whose appearance was enhanced by this picturesque costume, opened the assembled chapter; then the cortége took up their march to the chapel, where the knights lately promoted were to be received. They marched in double-file through rows, on either hand, of ladies elegantly dressed; the bystanders gazed eagerly on the knights as they advanced, and many satirical remarks were made upon the singular junction of the new celebrities with the members of the old aristocracy.

There walked together the Duc la Tremouille and M. Lainè, M. Ravez and the Duc de Montmorency.

To show how ambition may attain its ends by different paths, the Duc de Décaze and the Comte de Villete, the Comte de Peyronnet and the Duc de Dalmatie; and as if to demonstrate how differently two gentlemen may comprehend the duties of their position, the Duc de Mortemart and the Vicomte de Châteaubriand.

An especial circumstance added the attraction of curiosity while it lent a more touching interest to this scene; the king received as Chevalier of the Order of the Holy Ghost the young Duc de Nemours, in the presence of all his family. All those who were present on this occasion cannot fail to remember the noble and gracious air of the young prince, and the deep emotion perceptible in the voice of the august old man as he defined the duties of a true knight. One might have supposed him a father, happy and proud to find in his son a heart in which the seeds of honor and loyalty must necessarily germinate. All the spectators were moved. A mother wept. Would that these had been the last tears she was destined to shed!

Let us now pass from this grave and imposing ceremonial to those animated and joyous _fêtes_ which took place every year at Saint-Cloud on the day of S. Henri. Shall I show you the _Trocadere_, filled with games of every description, shops of all kinds, in which the most famous actors of the capital, transformed into foreign merchants, distributed to all comers songs, toys, bonbons, and flowers, all for the trifling remuneration of thanks? Will you assist with the whole court at that brilliant representation of the heroic drama of _Bissen_, in which Franconi and his actors, men and horses, give proofs of such rare intelligence and address? At the conclusion of this spectacle, the Duc de Bordeaux[135] assembles his little army of children, and before the eyes of the astonished crowd causes them to manœuvre with all the coolness and experience of a veteran captain; then he leads them to the gymnastic games, in which he surpasses them all in strength, daring, and skill. Then, mingling with the soldiers of a neighboring post, he plays at quoits with the latter as if with comrades; but he takes care to lose the game just as he is on the point of winning it, so as to be generous without the appearance of it. Perhaps you might be interested to know that this promising child likewise ardently devotes himself to his studies under the care of his admirable instructors, MM. de Barande and Colart, and more especially to the history of his country; he obstinately refuses to call the Constable of Bourbon anything but the _bad Constable_, asserting that he has forfeited his right even to his name, having borne arms against his sovereign.

But whither have my reminiscences carried me? Here we are at Saint-Cloud; the games of a child have made me forget the pomps of a court, and, besides, I was only to speak to you of the Tuileries.

This court was not wanting in brilliancy; its luxury, however, was by no means extreme. These three hundred gentlemen of the chamber, these equerries, these officers of ceremony for the household and hunting service, richly dressed in vestments embroidered in gold, were tributaries to industry, and willingly paid the tax of vanity. We too often forget that the bread of the poor is in the hands of the rich, and that it is better for the former that this bread should be the price of labor than the gift of charity.

In order to reconcile ourselves with this luxury, which many unthinkingly condemned, let us assist at those _jeux du roi_, to which all the social notabilities were invited.

A week before the invitations had been issued, it would be known in all the workshops of Paris that a reception was to take place at the court, and more orders would be received than could be executed. Tailors, dressmakers, embroiderers, _modistes_, hair-dressers, jewellers, etc., all rejoiced; and the happiness of the invited guest, who repaired to the _fête_ in a showy equipage, was shared by the workman who saw him pass.

Let us hasten to follow the line of those thousand carriages which advance in order towards the Tuileries some time before the hour indicated by the card of invitation; for here it is quite different from those balls of society where the fashion is to arrive late in order to produce a sensation; on the contrary, every one desires to be among the first to obtain a glance from the king. Already crowds are pressing into these vast drawing-rooms, where innumerable wax candles shed so favorable a light over the beauty of the women and their superb dresses. It is impossible to imagine, without having seen it, the magnificent spectacle presented by the throne-room and the Gallery of Diana; on entering these, the dazzling _ensemble_ could be taken in at a glance, and each one stops for a moment, lost in admiration, to contemplate it.

Here are assembled the late minister, thinking how he may seize again the reins of power; the present minister, absorbed in the fear of losing them; and the future minister, musing over the chances he may possess of obtaining them. All three salute each other, press each other's hands affectionately: one might mistake them for friends. Here are grouped peers of France, proud of their hereditary rights, and confident in the stability of them, calculating how much the son of a lord may be worth, and by what dowry the daughter of a banker may purchase the title of countess and the _entrée_ to the court. Here we behold the former senators of Napoleon, who have not, perhaps, renounced their own ideas and illusions; see beside them old generals, who, from the epoch of the Republic down to Charles X., have served all the different governments. The banner has changed, but what does that matter? Military honor has not suffered; that is to be placed only in courage.

These officers, with their large epaulettes, appear to cast disdainful glances on the crowd of men in blue coats, the collars of which, embroidered in _fleur-de-lis_, designate civic functions. The supporters of the ministry are surprised that so many members of the opposition should have been invited; the latter complain that there are so few of their own party present compared with the number of their adversaries. There is, however, for the time being, neither Right side, Left side, nor Centre--all appear harmonious; and should a vote now be taken, the urn would be filled with white balls, so great in those days was the influence of an invitation from the king--almost equal to that of a ministerial dinner at the present time.

But to the hum of conversation suddenly succeeds a profound silence; the king appears, followed by all the royal family. He circulates slowly through the apartments, and his kindness of heart suggests to him what to say, so as to please each one in turn. None are forgotten; and in addressing himself to the ladies, he perfectly understands the art of complimenting so as to flatter without embarrassing them. I must not omit, in my description of these brilliant assemblies, to speak of the members of the diplomatic corps, the richness and variety of whose costumes enhanced the magnificence of the scene; nor can I conclude without some mention of the courtiers of Charles X. I know it is a usual thing on the stage, and perhaps elsewhere, to depict a gentleman of the court as a low-minded, grasping, insolent imbecile. Those who view them all in this light resemble the traveller who, passing rapidly through a town, and seeing at a window a woman with red hair, came to the conclusion, and wrote, that all the women of the place were red-haired.

The gentleman of the court, such as I have usually known him, since the Restoration, is proud of his birth and of his name; but he knows that he has no more reason to pride himself upon their possession than a singer has to boast of the voice with which nature has gifted him, or a rich man of the fortune left him by his father. Devoted to the king, he does not consider himself the humble servant of the ministers; and when his conscience prescribes it, he places himself in the ranks of the opposition. He is extremely polite, knowing that this is the surest means of securing the recognition of his social superiority. He does justice to merit, and admires it frankly and without envy; but should this merit exist in a man of equal rank with himself, he would be tempted to dispute it. He is generous, for he knows that generosity is a great and noble virtue; and even should it not be a pleasure, it is a duty, for him to exercise it. Without being learned, he is not ignorant of any of the sciences, and he has a tact which enables him to appear a connoisseur in art even when such is not the case; but he no longer takes upon himself to be the protector of artists; he is their friend. He understands that the empire of the white plume and of the red heel is at an end, and that, in order to be respected, he must deserve to be so.

Finally, his morals are good, and this is, perhaps, the greatest change effected by the revolution.

Such, as a general rule, were the courtiers of my time, and amongst them were men full of talent, courage, and energy, sincerely devoted to the true interests of the people, who hated without knowing them; men of noble and loyal souls, filled with devotion to their country, and possessed of that strong, real, and passionate eloquence which astonishes, moves, and persuades those who are resolved to oppose them; men, in short, who, finding it impossible to do the good they desire, and unwilling to participate in the evil which may be done, retire into private life, carrying with them the regrets and the admiration of their fellow-citizens. I do not need to name them. The days devoted to _jeux du roi_ were not the only ones on which persons of various stations were invited to the court. The birthday of the king was the _fête_ of the people; on that day, every cottage was made happy, every family was supplied with bread. But as this _fête_ was not celebrated in the year of grace 1830, I will speak only of New Year's day, on which, according to custom, all the different state corporations come to renew to their sovereign, whoever he may be, their pledges of fidelity and attachment, to pay their homage and proffer their good wishes. To these uniform speeches, prescribed by etiquette, expressive of sentiments more or less real, and couched in phrases more or less high-sounding, according to the taste or ability of the orator, Charles X. had the faculty of returning answers marked by kindness and good sense, rendered with a grace and facility of execution which no one has ever thought of disputing.

The custom which obliged the king to dine in public on New Year's day was not an unpleasant one to Charles X. He had no reason to fear that he might be compared to those Oriental monarchs who, when they have dined well themselves, think that none of their subjects ought to feel hungry. He knew that the wish of Henri IV. had been realized, and that the chicken in the pot was wanting neither to the industrious artisan nor to the hard-working laborers.

If, however, these state dinners were not destitute of charm for him, how much more did he enjoy that family reunion on the _jour des rois_, which, with its simple pleasures, is an inheritance of past generations! The customs attending this festival, on which royalty is freed from all cares or regrets, are of long standing. The ancients, when they desired to render a feast an especially gay one, always appointed a king, who was elected for the time. Neither is the use of beans, as a distinctive mark of power, a modern idea. The Greeks employed them in the nomination of their magistrates; and when Pythagoras told his disciples to _abstain from beans_, he gave them a wise counsel, of which every one does not comprehend the enigmatical and mysterious meaning.

Amongst us, however, the bean is attended by none of the dangers dreaded by Pythagoras. How happy is the king of the bean! He has neither courtiers who flatter him nor ministers who betray him; his subjects are his friends; he chooses his queen without regard to political considerations; he eats, he drinks, and, fortunate man, his reign is but for a moment!

The delights of this passing royalty were never more keenly experienced than at the Tuileries on the 6th of January, 1830. All appeared prosperous in the kingdom, and the descendants of Henri IV., assembled at a family dinner, were united in opinion and in affection. It was a _fête_ day for all, and especially for the children, who rejoiced at the unwonted freedom from the restraints of etiquette. Around the royal table were seated, first the august old man, whose goodness of heart ever shone through the dignity of his character. On one side of him was placed the Duchess of Orléans, the happy mother of a numerous and handsome family; on the other the dauphiness, who endeavored to console herself for the want of the same happiness by adopting all the unfortunate--a woman sublime in misfortune, heroic in danger, and who, passing through every stage of affliction, at length reached that height of virtue before which all human glory must bow. Beside her was the Duc d'Orléans,[136] who, when exiled in foreign lands at the same period with Charles X., had given proofs of fidelity, affection, and devotion; he had shared the same trials, and conceived the same hopes. Then came the Duchess de Berri, handsome, happy, proud of her son, imparting gaiety and vivacity to all around her, little dreaming of the future which awaited her, and certainly very far from imagining that, ere long, the poor and afflicted of her asylum at Poissy would be obliged to petition for the charity of the public. We must not forget to mention, in this family group, the dauphin, Mlle. d'Orléans, the Ducs de Chartres, de Nemours, d'Aumale, the Prince de Joinville, the two young and pretty Princesses of Orléans. The Duc de Bourbon is not able to be present; his infirmities confine him to his château of Saint-Leu, where he had, at least, expected to die in peace. But let us reserve our attention for this child who is about to play so important a part among the guests.

By this time, the first two courses have exhausted the patience of these young hearts, but respect restrains any expression of this feeling in them. At length, however, the wished-for moment has arrived, and all eyes are turned towards an officer of the table, who carries on a silver salver, covered with a napkin, fifteen cakes, one of which contains the coveted bean. It falls to the lot of the Duc d'Aumale, as being the youngest, to distribute them among the guests, taking care to keep one for himself. Each one makes haste to ascertain his fate, and exclamations of disappointed ambition are heard on all sides. One child alone blushes and is silent; not that he is embarrassed by the rank about to devolve upon him, but he does not wish to mortify his competitors by giving vent to his innocent delight. His new majesty cannot, however, long remain incognito, and the Duc de Bordeaux is proclaimed king of the bean by universal acclamation. Then, following the example of their new sovereign, the children all give way to an extreme of gaiety, which the king encourages and partakes, and which the dauphiness does not seek to restrain. Soon the choice of the queen is made; it is the Duchess of Orléans, who willingly lends herself to receive an honor which, perhaps, she might not have coveted; and the dinner is concluded amidst shouts of laughter and cries of _The king drinks! The queen drinks!_ frequently re-echoed.

The august personages seated around the royal table are not the only ones who share the cakes of the king. Pieces of these cakes are profusely distributed throughout France. Poets, authors, artists, actors, artisans, old and infirm servants of the Republic and of the Empire, destitute widows and orphans partake of the cake of the king and the bounty of Charles X. on this occasion.

But the time has come to rise from table, and Charles X. requests a moment of silence, which he succeeds with difficulty in obtaining.

"Sire," he says to his grandson, "your reign will be at an end in about five minutes; has your majesty no orders to give me?"

"Yes, grandpapa. I wish...."

"You wish! Take care; in France the king always says _we wish_."

"Well, then, we wish that our governor would advance us three months of our allowance."

"What will you do with so much money?"

"Grandpapa, the mother of a brave soldier of your guard has had her cottage burned down, and this will not be too much to build it up again...."

"Very well. I will undertake it...."

"No, grandpapa; because, if you do it, it will not be I."

"And how will you do without money for three months?"

"I shall try to gain some by the good marks I get from my teachers, and for which you always pay me."

"Ah! you depend upon that?"

"Certainly; for I must dress my poor people. I have my poor people, like you, like mamma, like my aunt.... Oh! I have made my calculations, and I am quite satisfied. When I shall have given ten francs to the poor woman in the Bois de Boulogne, who has a sick child, I shall still have twenty sous left for the prince."

At these words Charles X. tenderly embraced his grandson, and exclaimed, "Happy France, if ever he should be king!"

FOOTNOTES:

[134] We translate the following chapter from a work published in Paris many years ago, on account of its historical interest, containing, as it does, reminiscences of the youth of Comte de Chambord and other characters since become prominent.--ED. C. W.

[135] Afterwards Comte de Chambord.

[136] Afterwards Louis Philippe.

THE FUR TRADER.

A TALE OF THE NORTHWEST.

Few men are now living who remember Montreal as it was in the beginning of this century, when the Northwest Fur Company had reached the summit of its prosperity, and the Frobishers, McGillivrays, McTavishes, and McKenzies, with a host of their associates, were "names to conjure withal"; so potent had they been made by a long and uninterrupted series of successful adventures in the fur trade of the northwestern wilds.

The princely hospitality exercised by the partners in their Montreal homes, and the fitful deeds of profuse generosity with which they delighted to surprise the people on both sides of the border, served to spread their fame far and wide, and to keep their "memory green" by many a sequestered hearthstone long after the Northwest Fur Company had ceased to exist, and its members had all passed away.

For many years the fireside legends of rural hamlets on the frontier were made up in a great measure from narratives of startling adventures, hazards, fatigues, and privations encountered by the clerks, agents, _voyageurs_, and _coureurs des bois_ employed by this most energetic and enterprising, if at the same time most unscrupulous, corporation. Its schemes were devised with masterly skill, and executed with reckless daring. Not content to limit its transactions within the extensive regions allotted to its sway, it extended them north into territories over which the Hudson's Bay Company had long held control, and south into a large domain belonging to the United States, and occupied to some extent by traders under the protection of our government.

These invasions of the rights of others brought the servants of the company into frequent collision with its rivals; but the men appointed to such posts were selected from a large band of trained and tried veterans in the service, and the dashing promptitude with which they met or evaded opposition and obstacles seemed like magic to the opposing parties of trappers, free-traders, and half-breeds thus encountered, and gained them the reputation, among that superstitious class, of being in league with the father of all evil.

These collisions and outbreaks among the disciples of Mammon, as well as the pernicious influence gained and exercised by them over the savage tribes with whom they were engaged in traffic, were the occasion of great grief and anxiety to a widely different class of men, who had long occupied those territories, and braved the difficulties, dangers, and hardships of those bleak and desolate regions, on a widely different errand. Dauntless sons of Loyola, they had steadfastly pursued their vocation, "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of the wilderness, in labor and painfulness, in much watching, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness," proving their allegiance to the Prince of Peace and their claim to his apostolic mission, while proclaiming the Gospel of salvation to the native children of those boundless deserts.

And so it befell that the servants of lucre, who traversed the same districts, at later periods, in pursuance of their vocation, not unfrequently took advantage of the openings thus prepared, and pitched their outposts side by side with the humble chapel and lodge of the missionary. Then the conflict between good and evil, between avarice and generosity, selfishness and benevolence, which had always agitated the Old World, was renewed in the wilderness, and carried on as earnestly as if rival crowns were striving for the mastery. An unequal strife it must always prove, so long as poor human nature prefers to be the victim of evil rather than the servant of virtue.

Many years ago--and long before Catholic missions interested us further than to excite a certain vague admiration for the self-sacrificing zeal with which they were prosecuted--we listened to the following recital from the lips of an old clerk of the Northwest Company, which we repeat as it was told to us, to set forth some of the difficulties that encompassed the missionaries among the Indians of the Northwest, tending to impede, if not frustrate, the object of their efforts.

On a fine day in the month of September, 18--, a fleet of canoes was sweeping down one of the large rivers which flow through the northwestern portion of our country. They were manned by Canadian _voyageurs_, the plash of whose paddles kept time with the gay _chansons_, which were borne in such unison upon their blended voices as to seem, except for the volume of sound, the utterance of but one.

In the leading vessel of the little squadron, well enveloped in the folds of a magnificent fur mantle, to shield from autumnal chills, which settle early upon those regions, their commander reclined at his ease. He was a person of imposing presence and stately manners, whose face, grave and thoughtful for one from which the flush of youth had scarcely passed, presented that fine type of manly beauty peculiar to the Highland Scotch.

He seemed too entirely absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the songs of his light-hearted companions, the merry chat with which they were interspersed, or even the sly jokes that, with the freedom produced by the lawless habits of the wilderness, were occasionally levelled at himself and, the confidential clerk who was his inseparable attendant. Nor did his reflections seem to be of an agreeable nature; for at times his dark eye would flash fiercely, and his brow contract to an ominous frown, and again his countenance would subside into its habitual and somewhat pensive expression.

Twilight was closing around them as they approached a trading-post of the Northwest Company, which had been recently opened near a long-established missionary station, the spire of whose humble chapel was lifted above the numerous huts that formed an Indian village of considerable extent along the bank of the river.

Here their commander ordered them to land, and, after securing the canoes for the night, to transfer their cargoes to the storehouse of the company. He directed in person the removal of the most valuable merchandise, and, entrusting the remainder to the care of his clerk, proceeded with haughty strides toward the lodge of the resident missionary.

He was met at the entrance by a reverend father in the habit of the Society of Jesus, and saluted with a distant politeness which quite unsettled his accustomed expression of composure and easy indifference. An embarrassing silence followed his admission within the lodge--a silence which the good father seemed in no haste to break--when the gentleman began with a hesitating manner, as if his proud spirit disdained what he was about to say in opening the conversation:

"I regret to hear, reverend father, that we have been so unhappy as to incur your displeasure in the course of our transactions with the natives; and I frankly confess that this regret is greatly increased by our knowledge of your influence over them, the exercise of which we would gladly have secured to promote the interests of our trade."

"It is not a question of my displeasure," the priest replied sadly. "To my Master you must answer for the crying injustice you have practised towards his children of the wilderness, and for the sinful courses into which they have been beguiled. You have betrayed his cause with those who trusted you on account of the name of Christian, which you so unworthily bear, and to him you must answer for it. As to my influence, it would have been easily secured, if your dealings with these untutored natives had been governed by justice and integrity. But I warn you, that unless you repent the wrongs you have inflicted yourself, and by the hands of your agents, upon them, making such requital as remains within your power, a fearful retribution awaits you in this world, and eternal despair in the next. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay.'"

"Pardon me, good father; but I think you greatly exaggerate the wrongs of which you speak. It is not possible for men of your calling to estimate or understand the scope of vast commercial enterprises and the course of great mercantile operations. Your imagination has brooded over the transactions which you so sternly condemn, until it has given them a false magnitude. They transpired in the ordinary course of business, and though followed by results which I deplore as deeply as yourself, I do not feel disposed to take blame to myself or our company for them."

"You will not plead 'commercial enterprise' or 'mercantile transactions' before the bar of the great Judge in excuse for eternal interests which have been sacrificed to your greed for gain; for confiding and innocent souls that have been betrayed and lost by your fault. Through your iniquities and those of your servants in dealing with these children, once so willing to be taught and to practise the duties of our holy religion, they have been transformed into demons of revenge; and, disregarding our remonstrances, have committed, and will continue to commit, deeds of bloody vengeance at which the world will stand aghast. Alas! the world will never know the provocations that goaded them to madness; for who will tell the story for the poor Indian? Merciless slaughter and extermination is all they have to look for at the hands of men calling themselves Christians."

"Good father, your imagination or ambition, or both, have led you astray in these matters, and hoodwinked your reason. You wish to be the sole power among these people, and are jealous of intruders who may endanger your sway. Your order, if it has not been greatly belied, has more than once mistaken worldly ambition for zeal in the service of God."

"One would think," the priest replied, smiling and casting his eyes around the comfortless apartment and its meagre furniture--"one would think that the scattered sons of a suppressed and persecuted order, who must toil diligently with their own hands to procure their sustenance, while they break the bread of life to these poor savages, might have escaped such accusation, if any servant of their Master might; but I thank him that he thus permits our enemies to set the seal of sacred verity upon the bleakest altars of our sacrifice!"

"All this is foreign to the purpose of my visit. I do not wish to dispute the glories of your exalted mission or to interfere with its dominion, but simply to inquire if we may not in some way propitiate your favor in the interests of our business. I am a man of few words, more accustomed to command than to entreat, and go directly towards the object at which I aim, instead of seeking out crooked paths. We will furnish money, if that will gain your patronage, to build and decorate temples and houses for your missions in these deserts that shall dazzle the senses of their savage tribes, and allure their souls to Christianity; for a master of the craft needs not to be told how easily they are impressed by external splendor. You would be wise to accept our proposal, were it only to promote the great ends for which you are striving."

"Sell the flock to the wolf, for the purpose of building and embellishing the fold! But in what direction do you wish our influence with this people to be exercised?"

"To draw back to us the trade which they withheld at first through dislike of our agents, and are now preparing to transfer to our rivals, these newly established American companies, greatly to our disadvantage. We have incurred enormous expense and labor to organize and provide our trading-posts at points accessible to them on the northern rivers, for their convenience as well as our own, to prevent the necessity for frequent and tedious journeys to Montreal; and it is unjust to deny us the benefit of them, and transfer it to rival associations. Then, these Americans have interests opposed to ours in every respect. I should think that you, who are a Canadian citizen, from Montreal like myself, would naturally take our part against our Protestant rivals."

"As befits my calling, I shall most approve those who deal most justly with my flock, of whatever name or nation. As to religion, I greatly fear it holds but feeble sway, by any name, among those who are fighting the fierce battles of Mammon! The officers and agents of the new establishments, like those of the Hudson's Bay Company, have, however, given an example, which you would do well to follow, by treating the missionaries and their cause with great respect, and refraining from defrauding the natives or seducing them into evil practices by the unlimited sale of liquors, by which they are changed to demons. The persuasions and example of your _coureurs des bois_ have done much to demoralize the Indians; but your own conduct has done more, as your conscience must testify. Though you renounced the name of Catholic when you turned your back upon the obligations it imposes, your apostasy will not shield you from the consequences of your acts."

The gentleman started suddenly to his feet, as if stung by the words, his voice trembling with agitation as he said: "I see I but waste time and words in this parley, since you are resolved to magnify trifling faults into enormous crimes. But remember, should these natives persevere in their present savage schemes, and, from refusing to trade with us, proceed in their senseless anger to deeds of blood, it will be easy to fasten the odium of instigating their crimes upon you and your fraternity, who have stubbornly refused our proffered friendship."

As he gathered his mantle about him to depart, the priest replied meekly: "Your threats are vain; we have planted the grain of mustard-seed in these wilds, and it will grow and flourish. It matters not whether our hands or those of others shall carry on the work we have begun. Our times are in the hands of God, and not of men."

As his visitor withdrew, the reverend father opened his Breviary, and, pacing the apartment with measured steps, soon forgot the griefs, annoyances, and discouragements of his position in the consoling occupation of reading his Office, which now entirely absorbed him.

While he was thus engaged, the door was opened quietly, and a singular-looking stranger entered without hesitation or ceremony, depositing his rifle at the door. After peering inquisitively around the room, and casting sundry furtive glances towards the deeply abstracted priest from keen, gray eyes, which were deeply set under shaggy eyebrows, he proceeded to divest himself of a large package of furs and a miscellaneous assortment of traps that had been thrown over his shoulder, and, taking the place lately occupied by the lordly commander of the post, seated himself on one of the rude settles which served as chairs in the simple furniture of the lodge, with the careless ease of one accustomed to make himself quite at home wherever he might chance to halt.

The appearance and dress of this free-and-easy guest were so peculiar as to merit description. He was very tall, of lean and bony but muscular frame. He wore a hunting-frock, made from the dressed skin of the antelope, and confined at the waist by a leathern girdle buckled firmly; from which depended, on his right side, a sheath, into which a large hunting-knife was thrust, and on his left a shorter one for another knife of smaller size, used in skinning the animals taken. By the side of the latter hung a powder-horn and a large leathern pouch for other ammunition. His nether gear was a compromise between civilized and savage attire, as it served the united purposes of trowsers, leggings, and hose, being laced on one side with thongs of deer's tendons from the knees to his huge feet, which were encased in stout moccasins made of buffalo-hide.

He sat very composedly, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his clasped hands in a musing attitude, his battered, sunburnt, and hardened face wearing an expression curiously compounded of shrewd intelligence, simplicity, inquisitiveness, and good-humor, over which a slight dash of veneration cast an unwonted gleam of bashful timidity as he threw occasional sidelong glances towards the good father, who, when he had finished his Office and closed the Breviary, noticed the presence of his guest for the first time, and, approaching to greet him, asked whom he had the pleasure to address.

"Wa'al," he replied in a voice cracked, as it were, by the northern blasts to which he had long been exposed, and marked by the sharp nasal twang of his native State--"wa'al, I'm Hezekiah Hulburt, at your sarvice. I hail from Conneticut, and follow trappin' for a livin'. The Injins call me Big Foot, and they've told me 'bout you and your dewins. Though I haint no great 'pinion of 'em, wild or tame, and don't put much faith in what they say, I conclude, from all I've seen and heard, that you're a preachin' the Christian religion among 'em under consid'able many difficulties. An Injin needs more'n a double load of Gospil truth to overbalance the evil that's in him, and then's, like's not, the fust you know, his Christianity'll kick the beam when opportewnity sarves. I know the critters well; and here, a while ago when our Methodist preachers undertook 'em, I told 'em 'twas no go, the Christian religion wouldn't fit an Injin no how; and they found t'was so. Mebbe you'll come eout better; and I guess likely you will, for you seem to know better how to go to work with 'em and keep the right side on 'em, which is everything with Injins. And then, you've got more things to 'tract their attention, and help to 'splain and 'spound Scripter truths to an Injin's idees. But this an't what brought me here neow. I come to have a little talk with you 'bout the doins of these here fur companies that are kickin' up such a shine among themselves and the trappers. It's gittin' to be a plaguy risky bizness to trade with any on 'em, they're so 'tarnal jealous of one another, and each one's so mad if a fellow trades with any but themselves. Nat'rally enough, I take to my own folks, and would ruther trade with the new company, bein's they're Americans and my own flesh and blood, as a body might say. Now, in this awfully spread-out country, for one who's only a pilgrim and sojourner, as 'twere, like myself, and who has nothin' but his own broad shoulders to depend on for carrying his marchandise, it makes a sight of odds whether he can trade it off near by, or has to foot it across the plains, and as like's not clean to the big lakes, 'fore he can onshoulder it. I'm a man of peace, and haint no notion of goin' in for a fight with 'em, du what they will. But they better look out for them Injins! These Nor'westers haint seen the airthquake yet that's to foller that are bizness of the Big Feather; but when it comes, it'll shake 'em in their shoes for all their big feelin's, and swaller their proud and scornful leader quicker'n a feller could wink. I wash _my_ hands of the whole consarn, but I've hearn the rumblin' on't, and it's a-comin' as sure's my name is Hezekiah, if suthin' an't done, an' pretty quick time, too! Revinge is an Injin's religion; and be he Christian or be he pagan, what's bred in the bone stays long in the flesh."

The attention of the reverend father was now thoroughly awakened. He had heard from the Indians of the friendly Big Foot and the frequent assistance he had given to protect them from the dishonesty of the traders. He proceeded at once to draw from the trapper further particulars of an affair, the rumor of which had reached him and been alluded to by him in his interview with his preceding guest, but of which he could gain but little information from the natives.

The facts communicated were, that as soon as the new company was formed, the Northwest traders had scattered their spies among the Indians to watch any symptoms of an intention to transfer the trade, withheld from them on account of their dishonest conduct, into the hands of their rivals. These scouts had reported a general movement of all those tribes to whom the American stations were accessible, indicating their intention to unite among themselves, and open a friendly traffic with the new traders.

The "Northwesters," as those connected with the old company were called, took the alarm at the prospect of seeing a large and very lucrative branch of their business pass to the benefit of rivals, who were the more formidable from being on their own territory and under the protection of the United States government.

Their leader in that department, who visited the lodge of the missionary, was a man of unlimited resources; clever and crafty in scheming, unscrupulous in executing his devices. He entered without delay upon a systematic course of harassing and perplexing measures to clog the machinery and impede the operations of his competitors. There is reason to believe he found efficient aid in these from former partners and clerks of the Northwest Company, who, in accordance with the terms of agreement between the two companies at the time the American association was organized, had unfortunately been retained in its service.

He also enlisted a motley crew of _voyageurs_, _coureurs des bois_, half-breeds, free trappers, and renegades from civilization, to carry out his well-concerted plans for embarrassing the enterprises of his rivals by land and water, and discouraging their officers and agents in every department. All these designs were accomplished with such silent adroitness as not only to baffle detection, but to avoid awakening any suspicion in the minds of his victims, who found themselves thwarted and defeated at every point without being able to discover the cause.

As part of his general policy, he dispersed a large body of hirelings among the tribes who had formerly been hostile to those embraced in the newly contemplated alliance (but whose animosity had been quelled, and mutual friendly relations between the factions established, by the diligent exertions of the missionaries), representing to them that their ancient enemies were about to unite, under the approbation of the missionaries, with the American companies, to destroy them and take possession of their hunting-grounds; that the missionaries had been insincere in their professions and instructions, aiming only to keep them quiet until measures were perfected for their ruin. These emissaries were also instructed to offer them arms and ammunition, if they would waylay the different parties on their course to the American trading-posts, and prevent their reaching them; and the highest price for any peltries thus obtained.

The most considerable body of Indians, bound for one of these posts with a large amount of valuable furs, was under command of the great chief, Big Feather. Against this band the hostile force was directed. It was surprised, completely routed, and the chief, with many of his followers, killed. All the goods were conveyed by the victors without delay to the nearest station of the Northwest Company.

Their operations were equally successful in other quarters, and the trade entirely secured for that season.

The free trapper whom the Indians called Big Foot had held himself neutral, but had noted, with the keen shrewdness of his race, the course affairs were taking, and had traced the disturbing cause to his own satisfaction. He exerted all his influence to pacify the outraged Indians, so cruelly betrayed and plundered, and used his best efforts to convince the victors of the stratagems and falsehoods by which they had been deceived.

Both parties listened with cool decorum to his arguments, but would make no reply. This silence was deemed an ill omen by the priest and the hunter.

Now, this chief, Big Feather, had a young daughter, who was the delight of his heart and the glory of the whole tribe. She was beautiful, graceful, and modest; with a quiet stateliness of manner that distinguished her among the daughters of her people, and was attributed by them to the power of the Christian faith, which she was the first of her nation to profess, and soon led her father and brother also to receive.

She had been so unfortunate as to captivate the unprincipled commander of the Northwestern trading-posts, who had used every artifice to gain her young heart, and, it was well known, had long sought an opportunity to get her within his power. On the night of the ambush and attack by which her father lost his life, the quarters where she was left were also attacked, some of the women and children cruelly massacred, but her body and that of her nurse, or attendant--with whom she was provided, as daughter of the chief, according to the custom of the natives--were not to be found among the slain. Her people suspected they had been carried captive to the headquarters of the company.

The trapper was convinced that her brother, who escaped from the fatal affray, and was now chief in the place of his father, was preparing to make a vigorous effort to recapture her and avenge the death of the old chief. It would need little persuasion to bring all the natives friendly to his tribe to make common cause with him in such a conflict, and scenes of frightful bloodshed must ensue, the end of which could hardly be conjectured.

The question discussed with painful anxiety between the missionary and the trapper was, whether anything could be done to prevent this shocking result. To this end, a Christian brave of the village was summoned, and the subject of their conference explained to him.

"And now," said the reverend father, "if you know of any plans of this kind, or of any means by which their execution can be prevented, it is your duty, and I conjure you, to reveal them."

"The voice of our father is good," replied the Indian with great respect, "and, when he speaks for the Great Spirit, his words are strong; but would he make of his son a babbling woman? Who drew the knife? Was it the hand of thy children that dug up the hatchet? And shall they talk of peace when the blood of their chief and his men cries to them for vengeance. When the daughter of our nation is seized for the wigwam of him whose words filled the coverts with creeping foes to drink our blood, shall we give him our Bird of Heaven and say 'it is well'?"

"But if she could be recovered without the shedding of blood; if a council of the Indians on both sides could be called, that the truth of this matter might be fully revealed and understood, would it not be better than useless strife? The traders care not for your race. They care not if you fight until there is no one left of your tribes to tell the tale; and will you give them that satisfaction? They have set you against each other. They have deceived your brothers with lying words; and will you crown their lies with success? Above all, shall it be said that we have delivered the message of peace and the commands of the Great Spirit to his children of the wilderness in vain?"

"If he loves his children, why did he not smite their foes? The tongue of the pale-face is long; its words reach afar. They are sweet as honey, while his heart is full of poison. His arm is strong, and the knives in his camp are sharp. His coverts in the wilds are many, and past finding out. Who shall find and bring back our daughter, if we take not the war-path to the strong house of the pale chief?"

"I'll warrant ye I will!" exclaimed the trapper, unable to remain silent any longer. "I haven't wandered through this awfully mixed-up part of God's creation, where the woods and the waters, the mountains and the valleys, lay round in a permiscus jumble that'd puzzle a Philadelphy lawyer, for these twenty years, without sarchin' out as many hidin'-places as there's quills on a hedgehog. And to say that I've sojourned all that time among Injins of all sorts, on the freendliest tarms, and 'thout a hard word with any on 'em, drunk or sober, heathen or Christian, to be carcumvented by a pesky Britisher at last, is an idee that'd raise a Yankee's dander if anything would. No, no! Just you jine hands with me, and he'll find he's no match for Injins and a Yankee, or my name an't Hezekiah! We'll be too much for the 'tarnal sarpent!" And he fell into a series of low chuckles expressive of his foregone persuasion of victory.

"Enough!" said the Indian gravely. "The ear of the young chief shall be filled with the words of our father and the Big Foot, and his voice make reply." And he departed. The missionary requested the trapper to remain with him through the night and until the answer of the young chief should be made known.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

S. CATHARINE OF RICCI.[137]

[The following sketch of a great Dominican saint is from the pen of a member of the same order who escaped in an extraordinary manner from the massacre of Paris. We are pleased to learn that a colony from the French province so auspiciously restored by F. Lacordaire is about to be established in St. Hyacinthe, Canada.--ED. C. W.]

"All the mysteries of Jesus Christ gleam with the same brightness," says Bossuet; they are stamped with the mark of that divine folly which is the summit of wisdom, and of which S. Paul spoke when he confessed that he knew nothing but Jesus Christ crucified, and wished no other glory than his sublime ignominy. Now, this scandal of the cross is especially manifested in the lives of the saints; for the saints are the most faithful images of Jesus Christ crucified. The world does not understand these magnanimous souls, all of whose desires tend to the things above; it is offended by this scandal, and sympathizes only with those lives in which the mysteries of divine love are closely concealed. It does not understand the Gospel, and is, as it were, blinded by these words of Jesus Christ. "Father, I thank thee that these things have been concealed from the proud, and revealed to the humble of heart."

"Whenever," again says Bossuet, "we attempt to fathom the depths of divine wisdom by our own strength, we are lost and confounded by our pride; whereas the humble of heart may enter therein undisturbed." Such are the maxims to be kept in view whilst reading the lives of the saints, and especially the admirable life of S. Catharine of Ricci, wherein God pleased to manifest to the world all the riches and all the folly of his love.

S. Catharine of Ricci was born at Florence on the 23d of April, 1522. On the day following, she was baptized in the church of S. John the Baptist, and received the name of Lucretia Alexandrina Romola. Her father was the head of the family of Ricci, one of the most illustrious in Florence, and her mother was the last offspring of the noble house of Ricasoli. From her earliest years Alexandrina gave evidence of the eminent sanctity to which God had predestined her. When only three years old, she began to devote herself to prayer. She sought solitude and silence, that she might more freely converse with God, who wished to draw to himself the earliest affections of this chosen soul. When God predestines a soul to heroic sanctity, he generally bestows on her many special graces, even before the development of free will gives to the creature the full possession of herself. True, there are many exceptions; God calls to himself some, who, having allowed themselves to be deceived by the artful smiles of the world, bring to the foot of the altar only the shattered fragments of their hearts; but in general, he comes before the dawn, knocks at the door of the heart, and cries out, as in the Canticle: "Open to me, my sister, my spouse; for my head is covered with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night."

It was at once evident that Alexandrina was not made for the empty and turbulent pleasures of worldly life. God could not permit so pure a chalice to be profaned; so sweet a flower could blossom only under the quiet shelter of the cloister. It was in the convent of the Benedictine nuns of S. Peter de Monticelli that the daughter of Pier Francesco de Ricci was initiated into the monastic life. It was a house of education, and Alexandrina entered there as a pupil. The religious, seeing the angelic piety of the child, doubted not that she would one day take the habit of their order. Unfortunately, the primitive fervor, charity, self-abnegation, and humility ceased to dwell within these cloisters; and Alexandrina, perceiving that she could not there make her permanent abode, at the age of nine years returned to her father's house. There she continued, as well as she could, the customs of the convent, without objection from her father, who, considering them as innocent plays of a puerile piety, allowed her full liberty to exercise her devotions.

But Alexandrina had higher views. Already had she decided, in her own mind, to become a religious. One day, two lay Sisters of the Monastery of S. Vincent de Prato came to Pier Francesco to beg alms. Alexandrina was so edified by their piety, their modesty and recollection, that she decided at once that the convent of Prato was the one to which God called her. She acquainted her father with her determination; but he, unwilling to be separated from a child who was all his joy, replied by a formal refusal. He knew not that when God calls a soul to himself, even the heart of a father must yield to the irresistible attraction of that love in comparison with which all other affections, even the most holy, are incapable of enchaining a soul which listens to the voice of Jesus Christ. Therefore, rather than see his daughter wither like a plant kept from its native soil, he permitted Alexandrina to receive the veil in the convent of Prato. She received the habit of S. Dominic on Whitmonday, May 18, 1535, having completed her thirteenth year. She took the name of Catharine, in memory of her mother, who had been dead several years. The fervor of the young novice can be easily imagined; but God, who had destined her to the most sublime revelations, wished to cast into the depth of her soul the foundation of all solid virtue--humility; therefore, he permitted that this precious treasure should not be appreciated by the community during her year of novitiate. The supernatural gifts which had already been bestowed upon her rendered more difficult the obligations of common life. Meanwhile, she was admitted to profession on the 24th of June, 1536. From that day the order of S. Dominic received a new and most pure glory. This glory had been foretold by Savonarola, who, one day pointing to a place in his neighborhood, said to some religious of S. Dominic: "There a fervent community of pious sisters will be soon established." As soon as the soul of Catharine, like an altar prepared for a long sacrifice, was consecrated by her religious vows, Jesus Christ surrounded her with his sweetest favors, and illumined her with his most brilliant lights.

But lest the sublimity of these revelations might weaken the profound humility of this soul, God permitted that the Sisters of Prato, far from admiring in her the wonders of the divine operations, understood nothing of these ecstasies, which they attributed to the most common causes; and, in fine, she was afflicted by two terrible diseases, which lasted two years, after which she was miraculously cured by blessed Jerome Savonarola. At this time the Sisters of Prato began to judge more rightly their holy companion, and her confessor commanded her to tell him faithfully all that God deigned to reveal to her in these intimate communications.

It is here begins that wonderful succession of extraordinary favors bestowed on S. Catharine de Ricci. Her life seemed one continual ecstasy; her visions participated more and more in the divine light; her union with Jesus Christ, consecrated by a nuptial love and the stigmata, became more intimate; the report of her sanctity spread itself abroad; the most important personages of Italy came to Prato to consult and venerate the humble religious, whose whole life is an eloquent teaching and living representation of Jesus Christ crucified. This part of the saint's life contains facts of too elevated a character to be completely treated of in a synopsis; it is necessary to read those chapters in which the author has so well treated of the most difficult questions of mystical theology. But it is easier to follow S. Catharine in the government of her monastery and her salutary influence abroad.

She was elected prioress in the first month of the year 1552. Her immediate duty was to instruct her sisters, and to inspire them with an appreciation of their sublime vocation. Often she called her community to the chapter-room, and, addressing to them a doctrine which came from God himself, she taught her spiritual daughters the way they were to follow in order to reach the summit of religious perfection. She has left us an abridgment of her mystical teaching in a letter which she addressed to a religious. "At first," says she, "we must endeavor to be disengaged from every earthly affection, loving no creature but for God's sake; then, advancing a degree, we must love God, not only from self-interest, but purely for himself and because of his supreme excellence.

"Secondly, all our thoughts, words, and actions should tend towards God; and by our prayers, exhortations, and good example, we should aim only at procuring his glory in ourselves and in others.

"Thirdly, and lastly, we should rise still higher in the fulfilment of God's will, to such a degree as to have no longer any desire in regard to the misfortunes or joys which happen to us in this miserable life.

"But we shall never arrive at this height of perfection unless by a firm and courageous denial of our own will. To acquire such self-abnegation, it is absolutely necessary to lay the foundation of profound humility, that, by a perfect knowledge of our own misery and fragility, we may ascend to the knowledge of the greatness and goodness of our God."

It appears that the whole spiritual doctrine of S. Catharine is contained in these two fundamental points--self-abnegation and humility, in order to deserve the enjoyment of divine contemplation: this is the true and the only way to sanctity.

Although the first duty of a superior is to guide those confided to his care, he has, however, a more painful task--he must govern them; and it is here that the superior meets the most serious obstacles in the exercise of his charge. It is always difficult to govern others; for government is the application of laws with firmness, yet without too much severity. Now, human nature shrinks from submission, which, nevertheless, the superior is obliged to require, unless he be a prevaricator; on the other side, he must often adopt measures of government which can be discerned only by the most consummate prudence and a profound knowledge of the weakness of human nature.

In a religious community the difficulty is still greater; for the law is supported by conscience only, and it tends to guide those who have accepted it to that ideal perfection in which the soul is no longer attached to the earth. During forty years S. Catharine governed the convent of Prato with a prudence, a sweetness, and a firmness that made it the perfect type of a religious community. She combated most energetically all abusive exemptions from common life, and showed herself a faithful guardian of holy observances. But if she was the enemy of relaxation of the rule, she also censured severely the proud zeal of those souls whose whole perfection consisted in repeating the prayer of the Pharisee: "O God, I thank you that I am not as the rest of men. I fast twice a week."

Under the direction of a prioress so holy and so wise, the Sisters of Prato walked with rapid strides in the way of perfection; and how could it be otherwise, when they beheld their superioress tender towards them as a mother, and discharging her offices sometimes even in the raptures produced by the divine revelations?

The influence of S. Catharine was not confined to the monastery of Prato. God would not permit that this community should be the only witness of such elevated sanctity. The religious of her order--her brethren in S. Dominic--were the first witnesses of the extraordinary graces which she had received from heaven, and, on her side, S. Catharine had for them the greatest esteem, the most lively affection, regarding them as laborers chosen by God to cultivate his choicest vineyard. Every time the fathers came to Prato to exercise the functions of prior, confessor, or preacher, they seemed to her as "so many angels descended from heaven, whose presence alone was sufficient to inspire the sisters with sentiments of respect, and whose coming was to infuse fresh zeal for a more perfect life."

By degrees the influence of S. Catharine, and the renown of her sanctity, were spread throughout Italy. Persons from all parts came to consult her and beg her prayers. Joan of Austria, Archduchess of Tuscany, was bound to her by a tender friendship; she went often to the convent of Prato to confide to the holy prioress all the vexations and sorrows of her life. She profited so well by the counsels of her holy friend that she was no longer called by other name than the good archduchess. As if Germany envied Italy the treasure she possessed in the monastery of Prato, the King of Bavaria sent his son there to convince himself of that which the renown had spread concerning this servant of God, and to recommend himself and his kingdom to her prayers. The influence of S. Catharine in the world had been deepest on those whom the author of her life so justly calls her spiritual sons: Antonio de Gondi, Philippo Salviati, Giovanni-Batisti de Servi, Lorenzo Strozzi, and many others.

The first and most celebrated of all was of the illustrious house of Gondi. A branch of this family established itself in France at the commencement of the XVIth century, and from it descended the famous Cardinal de Retz.

The author, in devoting a short and interesting biography to some of the spiritual sons of S. Catharine, shows us what salutary influence she exercised over the chief persons of her country, and to what degree of eminent sanctity she conducted those souls who sought her direction. Faithful to all the suggestions of gratitude, she did not forget that the great Apostle of Tuscany had prophesied the glory of the monastery of Prato, and that twice she had been cured by his supernatural intervention; therefore, she forwarded in every way devotion to Savonarola. She charged Brother Nicholas Fabiani to revise the writings of that celebrated Dominican, and she addressed herself to Count Luis Capponi to procure a beautiful portrait of Savonarola. She had for that illustrious character the tenderness of a daughter and the admiration which a great life inspires in a soul capable of comprehending it.

The last years of the life of S. Catharine was a union the most intimate with God, a continual succession of ecstasies; her body was on earth, but her soul was in heaven.

Towards the month of January, she fell sick, and died on Friday, the 2d of February, in the same year. Numerous miracles attested the eminent sanctity of her life. She was beatified by Pope Clement XII. on the 30th of April, 1732, and was canonized by Benedict XIV. on the 20th of June, 1746.

This is an incomplete synopsis of the two volumes published by R. P. Bayonne. This work, destined to make known one of the greatest glories of the order, recommends itself to us by the grandeur of the subject itself, and unites a solid doctrine to a brilliant style, and all the charms of a perfect narration. We hope it will soon be translated into English, that the American public may become more fully acquainted with a book which takes an honorable place in modern literature.

FOOTNOTES:

[137] _Life of S. Catharine of Ricci_, Religious of the Third Order of S. Dominic. By R. P. Hyacinth Bayonne, O.S.D.

THE GREATEST GRIEF.

FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE JENNA.

Yes, Father! on the altar of the past We may lay down a joy, too sweet to last; See the flowers wither that our pathway strewed, Incline our brows beneath the tempest rude, Behold the rainbow glory fade away That made fair promise for our opening day: And yet, like that poor stricken plant, survive, Blighted by frost, half dead and half alive, Give to the desert winds our morning dream, And _still_ support our agony supreme! We may behold, stretched on a bed of pain, The form to which we minister in vain-- The last, the dearest, the _consoling_ friend-- Count every moment of his weary end, Kiss the pale brow, and watch each wavering breath; Close the cold eyelids, murmur, "This is death!" And still _once more_ to life and hope belong. O God! _thou_ knowest through faith the heart grows strong But, ah! another human soul to love So fondly that we tremble as above Its purity and beauty we incline, Then suddenly to mark its depths divine Shadowed and chilled, and from our Paradise Perceive an icy, vaporous breath arise, Whence blew sweet zephyrs, odorous with grace! To seek in vain religion's luminous trace Amid the ashes of her ruined shrine, To pray, to weep, to doubt, to hope, divine All _but_ the truth; and at the last to dare The long, deep look that tells us our despair, Revealing vacancy, a faith withdrawn Without a glance towards the retreating dawn, Without a cry of grief, a sigh, a prayer-- O God! that loss is more than we can bear!

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CATHOLICITY AND PANTHEISM--ALL TRUTH OR NO TRUTH. An Essay by the Rev. J. De Concilio, etc., etc. New York: Sadliers. 1874.

This essay was first published in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and we are glad to see it published in a separate volume. It is not a complete treatise, but only one complete part of a treatise, the _prima primæ_ of a more extensive work, which we hope the author may be able to write and publish. F. De Concilio is one of our most learned and acute philosophers and theologians, a disciple of no modern clique or innovating system, a vender of no patent contrivance of his own for reconciling contraries, but a modest yet intrepid advocate and defender of the old time honored scholastic wisdom of S. Thomas. In its own line, his essay is superior to anything ever before produced in this country, and we trust that due attention and a just meed of praise will be awarded to it by the few who will be able to understand it, in Europe as well as in America. If the author, who has for a long time struggled to bring his work into the light, is left in the lurch by everybody, as the learned Dr. Smith has been in England with his splendid unfinished work on the Pentateuch, it will be a sad proof of our intellectual degeneracy.

We will not make a critical review of F. De Concilio's argument in the present short notice, but we think a few words in reply to some criticisms which have been made, and may be repeated, either publicly or in private, are almost imperatively called for.

The only one of these criticisms really worth any attention relates to the argument from reason for the Trinity. It has been objected by some very respectable theologians that the rational argument for the Trinity professes to demonstrate from purely rational principles of natural human intelligence the entire revealed mystery of the Trinity. We admit frankly that, if the supposition is correct, the censure founded on it, that the author has undertaken something pronounced by Catholic doctrine impossible and unlawful, is just and inevitable. We have never, however, understood the author in this sense. We understand him to profess to argue in part from premises given by revelation, and thus merely to explicate a theological doctrine, and in part to furnish proofs from pure reason, first, that the rational objections against the dogma are invalid; and, second, that the dogma as disclosed by revelation taken as a philosophical hypothesis, and it alone, satisfactorily solves certain difficult problems respecting the divine nature, which otherwise would be insoluble. So far as any direct proof of the distinction and proprieties of the three persons in God is concerned, we understand that such proof is put forward as inadequate and only probable, but by no means either a complete or strictly demonstrative argument.

We think, therefore, with due submission to higher authority, that the author escapes the censures of the Syllabus and the Vatican Council, and attempts no more than has been done by Bossuet, Lacordaire, and other great thinkers, who have never been thought to have gone beyond the bounds of allowed liberty. We leave the author, however, to defend and advocate his own cause, if it requires to be further vindicated, and merely give this statement as an explanation of our own reason for admitting his admirable articles into this magazine without any alteration.

Another criticism, which the author himself has sufficiently answered, imputed to him the doctrine of a necessary creation and of _optimism_. It is only necessary to read his book carefully to see how unfounded is this imputation.

Still more futile is an objection, urged by the author of the criticism just now noticed, that F. De Concilio's opinion of the precedence of the decree of the incarnation to the decree of the redemption of fallen man is contrary to the opinion of S. Thomas and the _schola_ generally. Be it so! But what then? Must we follow the common opinion, or that which is extrinsically more probable, if the contrary opinion has a real intrinsic and extrinsic probability? _Minime gentium!_ F. De Concilio but follows S. Athanasius, Suarez, and other authors whose works have passed the Roman censorship, against S. Thomas; and he gives good intrinsic reasons for doing so. Let any one who wishes to attack him do so by refuting his arguments; but it is most untheological to find fault with his opinion as any less sound and orthodox than the contrary. Let us be rigorous in censuring opinions which are really unsound and untenable, but let us beware of that carping and unfriendly spirit which has always been the bane of theological discussions, and which throws out the imputation of unsoundness without a certain and sufficient warrant of authority. We do not concur in all the opinions which are held in the school which F. De Concilio follows, and which must inevitably come out with greater distinctness in the second part of his essay; but we shall look forward with pleasure to see him develop and defend them with his usual masterly ability, and we express our great desire that he should write as much as his pastoral duties will permit on philosophical and theological topics.

THE CHRISTIAN TRUMPET; or, Previsions and Predictions about Impending General Calamities, the Universal Triumph of the Church, the Coming of Antichrist, the Last Judgment, and the End of the World. Divided into three parts. Compiled by Pellegrino. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," Apoc. xix. 10. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1873.

It is beyond question among learned and devout Catholics that many saints and pious servants of God in all ages have received private revelations in which are contained predictions of events in a near or remote future time to the recipients of this supernatural light. It is, moreover, certain that a number of supernatural and miraculous events of a most extraordinary character, and evidently intended as warnings to the good as well as to the wicked, and some very credible revelations respecting great judgments and great mercies of God which are impending, have occurred in our own time. It must be, therefore, not only interesting, but useful, to have authentic and judicious accounts of grave and sacred matters of this kind published and circulated among the faithful. A collection of this sort has been published in France by a learned priest, the Abbé Curicque, with the approbation of several bishops, entitled _Voix Prophétiques_; and several other critical and judicious writers in Europe have published books or articles relating to different persons and events of this extraordinary class, which are truly valuable, instructive, and edifying. The end and object of the compiler of the book before us is, therefore, one which we must approve, although we are sorry not to be able to give an unqualified commendation to the manner in which he has executed his task. That he is a very pious and zealous priest is evident at first sight. That he has laid down in general terms the sound theological doctrine about the credibility of private revelations, and made some very just reflections and timely exhortations about the times in which we live, and the sentiments we ought to cherish and put in practice in view of the certain approach of the consummation of this world, is also obvious to any reader of his book. The research and painstaking which he has used in collecting his materials are very great, and the greatest part of them are undoubtedly derived from respectable and trustworthy sources of information, and therefore entitled to credit.

Nevertheless, as a whole, the compilation lacks the sobriety, discretion, and authority which a book of this kind ought to have, in order to give it proper credibility and weight with the general class of readers, who cannot judge for themselves or discriminate properly, and who need, therefore, that evidence should be given them by reference to standard authorities, and by the guarantee of names which are known to them and sufficient to warrant their belief in the genuineness and credibility of such remarkable documents as those contained in this compilation. An anonymous author, whose work appears without any ecclesiastical approbation or recommendation of persons known to the Catholic public, is entitled to no credit on his own mere assertion. He must cite his authorities and witnesses, and must exact no assent without giving a sufficient motive. A translation of the work of the Abbé Curicque would, in our opinion, have been much more likely to accomplish the end of the pious author than a compilation like the one he has made. Moreover, there are some things in this book, and these the very matters which make the most exorbitant demand on the credulity of the reader, for which no evidence whatever is furnished but the _on dit_ of certain unknown parties. Other things are very doubtful; some are contradictory to one another. The author mixes up with the citations he makes his own favorite view of the course of present and coming events, especially about the schism and the anti-popes, whose coming he forebodes; and a haze of the visionary, the wondrous, and the improbable is thus thrown over the whole, which envelopes even that which is really entitled to credence and pious veneration, and tends to bring the whole into suspicion and discredit. The hint thrown out that a certain cardinal, whose name might as well have been given, since every one will know who is meant, may become an anti-pope, is contrary to Christian charity and prudence; and, in general, we must notice with regret that the author's zeal is sadly lacking in discretion, and devoid of that delicate tact and discernment, more necessary in one who handles such difficult and perilous themes than in any other sort of writer or teacher of the people.

It is not the fault of the author, who is a foreigner, that he has fallen into many inaccuracies of language; but we think the publisher might have secured a revision of the text by some competent person, and that it would have been in better taste, as well as more befitting the reserve and sobriety due to matters which are so very serious, if he had made a less sensational announcement of the book. It is, however, notwithstanding these drawbacks, certainly a very curious collection of documents and pieces of information which are interesting to know about, and contains so much that is truly valuable and edifying that we hope it will not only gratify curiosity, but also do good to a great many of its readers, by turning their attention to the great subjects which it presents in such vivid colors, and in a startling proximity to the present and coming events of our own age.

In order to assist those of our readers who may wish to have some direction to guide them in perusing this book with discrimination and understanding, we will specify in part which are the most valuable and trustworthy portions, which are less so, and which are altogether without sufficient grounds of probability to entitle them to any regard.

First, there are the prophecies of canonized or beatified saints, whose authenticity is well established and their interpretation more or less clear. These are the prophecies of S. Remigius, S. Cesarius, S. Edward, S. John of the Cross, and the B. Andrew Bobola, S.J. In regard to those of S. Bridget of Sweden and S. Francis of Paul, they would be entitled to equal respect, if clearer evidence were furnished of their authenticity than that given by the author--a matter in regard to which we are not able to pronounce any judgment. The prophecy of S. Malachy is one in respect to which there is great difference of opinion. We give our own for what it is worth, after some reading on the subject, in its favor. After these come the prophecies of persons of recognized sanctity, which have gained credit with judicious and well-informed persons competent to form an enlightened opinion. The most valuable and trustworthy of these are from the V. Holzhauser, the V. Anna Maria Taigi, the V. Curé of Ars, F. Necktou, S.J., Jane le Royer, Sœur de la Nativité, and Mary Lataste. The prophecies of the Solitary of Orval and of the Nun of Blois have their warm partisans and opponents, the Abbé Curicque being among their defenders. The Signora Palma d'Orio is a person whose ecstatic state seems to be beyond reasonable doubt, yet it is difficult to ascertain with certainty what she has really predicted; so that what is reported from her, although interesting, is scarcely to be considered as having evidence enough to be classed among authentic predictions. The revelations made to Maximin and Melanie appear to us to belong to a similar category, as worthy of the greatest respect in themselves if we had an ample guarantee of their genuineness and authenticity, but as not yet placed in a sufficiently clear light to warrant a prudent assent. The remainder of the contents we pass over without any special remark, with the exception of those few matters which we have noted above as making an exorbitant demand on the reader's credulity without any evidence to warrant it. One of these points is the story of David Lazzaretti, another about Zoe Tonari, "destined soon to be a second Joan of Arc," and the most censurable of all is what is said about Antichrist having been born in 1860, and other things connected with the same. (Pp. 265-268.)

In connection with the wonderful narrative of David Lazzaretti the author has woven a very flimsy texture of conjectures out of the materials furnished by some of the curious documents which he cites for his hypothesis of a schism and two anti-popes to come immediately after the death of Pius IX. It is with regret that we are compelled to touch on these subjects in such a superficial manner; they require careful handling. Excessive and imprudent credulity in those who have faith and piety is certainly unreasonable, and may be blamable and hurtful.

But the utter incredulity and dogged refusal to admit anything miraculous and supernatural which is exhibited by our modern illuminati is the very _ne plus ultra_ of unreason, and the acme of wilful, despicable, and wicked folly. The most sensible, as well as the most pious rule is, to follow the church without reservation in all that she teaches and sanctions, and in those things concerning which she is silent to follow her saints and doctors, who are the most enlightened of all men.

SPAIN AND CHARLES VII.; or, "Who is the Legitimate Sovereign?" By General Kirkpatrick. Published under the sanction of the Carlist Committee. London: Burns, Oates & Co. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This timely and clearly-written plea for Don Carlos places beyond a question his right to the Spanish throne. The Bourbons succeeded to the Spanish throne through the marriage of Louis XIV. with the Infanta of Spain, eldest daughter of Philip IV. Her grandson, Philip V., became king on the failure of direct issue from his grand-uncle, Charles II., the son of Philip IV. The Salic law, confirming the succession to the heirs male of the royal house, was established by Philip V. and his cortes, with the consent of all the great powers, in order to prevent the union of the French and Spanish crowns, the King of Spain relinquishing all his rights as a French prince. This law has never been validly repealed. Christina of Naples, the queen of Ferdinand VII., a most ambitious and unprincipled princess, had this law violently and illegally set aside in order to make way for her daughter Isabella to ascend the throne. The base and illegal nature of the intrigues by which Don Carlos and his family were exiled from Spain and deprived of their just rights is fully exposed by Gen. Kirkpatrick. Charles V., the brother of Ferdinand VII., was succeeded in his claim to the throne by his son, Charles VI., in 1845, who, dying in 1861 without issue, was succeeded by his brother, Don Juan, who abdicated October, 1868, in favor of his son, the present Don Carlos, who is now twenty-five years of age, and married to the niece of the Comte de Chambord. Charles V. would undoubtedly have succeeded in regaining his throne but for the shameful interference of Louis Philippe of France, and the English crown. The party of Christina was composed of all the liberals, communists, and enemies of the church, and Isabella was merely tolerated by the sound and Catholic majority of the nation from necessity.

The clergy, the ancient nobility, the peasantry, and most of the friends of order and religion in all classes, desire the restoration of Don Carlos to the throne, which belongs to him by the laws of the Spanish constitution. It is very true that a mere restitution of legitimate monarchy is not a certain guarantee for good government, and that many of the Bourbons have been bad rulers. It is, nevertheless, the only hope for Spain; and the character and principles of Don Carlos give reason to hope that, taught by adversity and trained by experience to value the sound Catholic traditions of Spain, he will prove to be a good sovereign. We wish him, therefore, most cordially, a speedy and complete triumph, which we believe he is in the way to win.

ESSAYS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. By His Eminence Cardinal Wiseman. In Six Volumes. Vols. V., VI. New York: P. O'Shea. 1873.

These two volumes complete the series of the famous cardinal's _Essays_. The Catholic reader is under great obligations to Mr. O'Shea for the reprint of these splendid compositions, the London edition being out of print. It is to be regretted, however, that the references adapted to that edition should not have been changed to suit the present issue. Having indicated one fault, we might as well inquire of the publisher why he _will_ use perfumed paper in his books? Though not a serious objection, it is an annoying one to reasonably fastidious readers, as we happen to know.

Vol. V. opens with an article on Spain, which takes up more than half the book. It is superfluous to remark that this essay is of peculiar interest at the present hour. Next we have a vindication of Pope Boniface VIII.--a very important subject. Then a review of Montalembert's _S. Elizabeth of Hungary_. The three remaining articles are specimens of the writer's scholarship as an antiquarian. Vol. VI. contains ten essays. The first treats learnedly of S. Peter's chair at Rome. A plate accompanies the article. The fifth administers flagellation to Charles Dickens for certain things in his _American Notes_; and also to Mrs. Trollope, for her _Visit to Italy_. Then follow four other essays on the subject of Italy: "Italian Guides and Tourists," "Religion in Italy," "Italian Gesticulation," and "Early Italian Academies." The volume concludes with "Sense _vs._ Science."

We are reminded, while noticing the completion of this work, of an article on the Donatist schism, "Catholic and Anglican Churches" (p. 199, v. iii.), which "caused in no slight degree" the doubt which first crossed the mind of Dr. John Henry Newman "of the tenableness of the theological theory on which Anglicanism is based," and which we cannot, therefore, do better than commend to the serious attention of all honest and conscientious Episcopalians.

BIBLE HISTORY, with Maps, Illustrations, Examination Questions, Scriptural Tables, and Glossary. For the use of Colleges, Schools, Families, and Biblical Students. By the Rev. James O'Leary, D.D. _Permissu Superiorum_. ✠ John, Archbishop of New York. New York: Sadliers. 1873.

We cordially recommend this excellent and beautifully printed manual to all those for whom the title states it has been prepared by its learned author. It will be a favorite, especially with young people and children, whether used as a class or a reading book, particularly on account of its pictures, which are generally good, and many of which are remarkably fine. Such a book, which, so far as we know, is much the best of the kind, must do incalculable good; and we hope it will be appreciated by parents and teachers, so as to find its way into every family and school throughout our country and elsewhere, wherever Catholics are found who use the English language. The author has done well by taking into account those generally received facts and hypotheses of natural science which have a bearing on topics handled, in their connection with the facts and truths of revelation, by the sacred writers. His statement, however, that the surface of the earth bears on it the marks of perturbations caused by the Deluge, and otherwise not capable of scientific explanation, is not one which geologists would admit, and we doubt very much its correctness.

On page 16 the author observes that, "as the divinity of Christ was doubted before the Council of Nice, so these [deutero-canonical] books and passages might have been doubted before the decision of the church."

The cases are not parallel. The divinity of Christ was an article of faith before the definition of the Council of Nice, and no good Catholic could doubt it. But the canonical authority of certain books was not an article of faith before it was defined, and might have been, as it indeed was, doubted by good Catholics.

We think the author would improve his work by inserting a good, succinct historical account of the events which occurred between the period of the Books of the Machabees and that of the Evangelists. Moreover, we do not like the termination "eth" in the index, which is unnecessarily quaint and old-fashioned, or approve all the rhymes which precede the chapters, although some of them are not without a quaint poetic vigor, and most of them are terse and ingenious, likely, therefore, to strike the fancy and stick in the memory of children.

It is seldom that we take the trouble to make so many criticisms on a book. This one, however, is so good and so very important that we would like to see the author continue to improve it in every new edition, and therefore offer our suggestions in the most kindly and respectful spirit to the reverend and learned author, adding to what we have already said in commendation of the _Bible History_ that it is not merely a good school-book, but a work of really sound and solid scholarship. We are very glad to see that the author has sought and obtained the approbation of the ecclesiastical authority before publishing his work, and we trust that his good example will be generally followed, and, moreover, that the law of the church will be enforced in every diocese and in all cases, requiring this approbation for all books treating _de rebus sacris_.

MEDITATIONS FOR THE USE OF THE CLERGY, for every day in the year. On the Gospels for the Sundays. From the Italian of Mgr. Scotti, Abp. of Thessalonica. Revised and edited by the Oblates of S. Charles. Vol. II. From Septuagesima Sunday to the Fourth Sunday after Easter. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

We have already noticed the first volume of these invaluable _Meditations_, and need not repeat what we then said. The present volume fully sustains the promise of the first, and makes us look eagerly for the completion of the work.

THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC FOR THE UNITED STATES FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1874. Calculated for different Parallels of Latitude, and adapted for use throughout the Country. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

The season does not bring a brighter, pleasanter, or more useful and necessary book than this cleverly executed little work. From cover to cover the reader finds something to catch the eye and attract him in every page. For a wonder, the title is an exact index of the book; it is illustrated, and remarkably well illustrated; it is Catholic, and it is a _family_ almanac, which the children will pore over for hours, delighted with the pictures of famous Catholic men, women, and places, and the short but well-written sketches accompanying them; which their parents will consult in order to find all the information concerning feasts, fasts, and the like necessary for the coming year; which all will read who wish to obtain accurate information on matters relating to the spread and progress of the church, particularly in the United States. When this has been said, there is really nothing more to say, as far as recommending this almanac to Catholics goes; but there is a great deal to be said concerning this present number, which in many respects is an improvement even on its predecessors. For instance, in the matter of filling in a page with short but pithy notices of Catholic works, in the excellent but necessarily incomplete tables of statistics of the Catholic Church in the United States, and in the fulness of the Catholic chronology for the past year, which forms, as it were, the headlines of Catholic history in this country--all this displays enterprise, and the excellence of the whole speaks tact and care on the part of the editor.

Glancing at the illustrations, we find portraits and sketches of Abp. Odin; Rt. Rev. Michael O'Connor, first bishop of Pittsburgh and of Erie; Bishop Fitzpatrick, of Boston; Father Southwell, S.J., whose poems and writings are now being collected and given to the public; Father Lacordaire, Father De Smet, and others. Here is a head of Manzoni, in another place the Comte de Montalembert; here John Banim's well-known face looks out, and here is genial Thomas D'Arcy McGee smiling at us. In another place is a portrait of S. Ignatius in armor, and a sunny picture of his birth-place. Miss Honora Nagle, foundress of the Ursuline Order in Ireland, Mother Mary of the Incarnation, Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque, Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, of S. Stephen of the Mount, Abbey of Cluny, and others, form subjects for illustrations and sketches, all careful, accurate, and finished. Looking again at the _Almanac_, and then considering its price, the publishers may congratulate themselves on having accomplished that miracle of presenting to a Catholic public something which is _cheap and excellent_ throughout.

SONGS FROM THE SOUTHERN SEAS, AND OTHER POEMS. By John Boyle O'Reilly. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1873.

These _Songs_ have a rare charm of novelty about them. Australia is a land yet unconquered to the muse, but evidently as fruitful in poetic themes as any of "the shores of old romance."

Our author is peculiarly at home, perhaps, in the scenes from which his book is named. Yet some of the "other poems" are of considerable merit; such as "A Wail of Two Cities" (Chicago and Boston), "The Wreck of the Atlantic," and "The Fishermen of Wexford."

We thank him for his modest volume, and hope to hear from him again.

RECENT MUSIC AND MUSICIANS, as described in the Diaries and Correspondence of Ignaz Moscheles. Edited by his wife, and adapted from the original German by A. D. Coleridge. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1873.

Born in 1794, and living to the advanced age of seventy-six, this distinguished musician had the opportunity of cultivating an intimate acquaintance, or of holding more or less correspondence, with all the composers, artists, singers, and patrons of music who flourished during his long life. Reference is made in this exceedingly interesting memoir to the names of over five hundred of these, furnishing to the reader a vast amount of information concerning musicians and their works in this century. The book is written in an agreeable, vivacious style, and is altogether the best of the several memoirs of the kind which have appeared.

THE STORY OF WANDERING WILLIE. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

We have been attracted by the beauty and pathos of this simple tale, and by its high moral tone, in which it contrasts favorably with many more pretentious works.

THE LIFE OF THE MOST REV. M. J. SPALDING, D.D., ARCHBISHOP OF BALTIMORE. By Rev. J. L. Spalding, S.T.L. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.

We had contemplated an extended notice of this very interesting biography, but were unable to finish it in time for the present number. We fancy, however, that few intelligent Catholics who are made aware of the subject, author, and superior mechanical execution of the volume, will delay securing possession of a copy.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From BURNS & OATES, London (through "The Catholic Publication Society," New York): Meditations for the Use of the Clergy. From the Italian of Mgr. Scotti. Vol. ii., 1873. 12mo, pp. viii. 280.

From WEED, PARSONS & CO., Albany: Fourteenth Annual Report of the Superintendent of Insurance, Fire and Marine, pp. lviii.-463. Life and Casualty, pp. lvii.-249. 8vo, 1873.

From SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO., New York: Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market. By Walter Bagehot. 12mo, pp. viii. 359.

From KELLY, PIET & CO., Baltimore: Little Manual of the Holy Angels' Sodality. 1873, 24mo, pp. 68.

From P. O'SHEA, New York: Mrs. Herbert and the Villagers. By the Comtesse E. M. De Bondenham. 2 vols, in 1, 18mo, pp. xii. 341, vii. 318.

From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: The Irish on the Prairies, and other Poems. By Rev. Thos. Ambrose Butler. 12mo, pp. 161.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVIII., No. 106.--JANUARY, 1874.[138]

THE PRINCIPLES OF REAL BEING.

All knowledge which is truly scientific rests on demonstration, and all demonstration depends on principles or axiomatic truths. But, besides the principles of demonstration, there are other principles on which not only the knowledge, but the very existence of things, and their origin and constitution, essentially depend. These latter principles are nowadays less known than the former, as we may argue from the fact that they are scarcely ever alluded to in modern speculations; and yet they undoubtedly have the best claim to the attention of philosophical minds, for it is in such principles that the real germs of all true science are hidden. For this reason, we have determined to offer our readers a short but accurate summary of the philosophical doctrine on principles; which, if presented, as we shall try to do, with becoming perspicuity, will prove to be a kind of popular introduction to metaphysical studies.

I. NOTION OF PRINCIPLE.

By the name of _principle_ philosophers designate that whence anything originally proceeds in any manner whatever: _Id, unde aliquid quomodocumque procedit_. This definition implies that there are many different manners of proceeding, and consequently many different kinds of principles. And so it is. Aristotle, however, shows that principles of all kinds can be reduced to three classes; that is, to those principles of which a thing consists, those through which or out of which a thing is made, and those by which a thing is known: _Primum, unde aliquid est, aut fit, aut cognoscitur_.[139]--Arist. _Metaph._ 5.

The first class comprises the principles through which a thing is, viz., by which the thing is intrinsically constituted. These principles are called _constituent_ or _intrinsic_ principles, and are always present _by their own entity_ in the thing principiated; as the matter in the body, and the soul in the animal.

The second class contains the principles through which a thing _is made_. These principles serve to account for the origin of the thing, and are called _extrinsic_ principles, because they are not present by _their own entity_ in the thing principiated. Thus, the motive power of the sun is not, by its own entity, in the planets to which it imparts movement, but in the sun only; and the medical art is not in the person who has been cured through it, but in the doctor. There is, however, in the planets something proceeding from the motive power of the sun, and in the person cured something proceeding from the medical art, as every one will acknowledge. Whence it is obvious that the extrinsic principles by their very principiation must leave some mark or vestige of themselves in the thing principiated.

The third class consists of those principles through which any conclusion is _made known_. These principles are general truths, which are made to serve for the demonstration of some other truth, and are called principles _of science_.

Among the principles of this third class we do not reckon the principles from which the first apprehension and immediate intuition of things proceeds; to wit, either the power through which the object makes an impression on the cognoscitive faculty, or the faculty itself through which the object is apprehended. Our reason is that these principles, thus considered, do not form a class apart. The power of the object to make its impression on the subject is an _extrinsic_ principle of knowledge, and ranks with the principles of the second class above mentioned; whilst the power of the subject to perceive through the intelligible species is an _intrinsic_ principle of knowledge, as well as the species which it expresses within itself, and, therefore, is to be ranked among the principles of the first class. Accordingly, the third class is exclusively made up of those principles which serve for the scientific demonstration of truth; and this is what Aristotle himself insinuates, at least negatively, as he gives no instance of principles of this third class but the premises by which any conclusion is made known.

Before we advance further, we have to remark that, in metaphysics, the first principles of science are assumed, not as a subject of investigation, but as the fundamental base of scientific demonstration. Thus, the principles, _Idem non potest simul esse et non esse_,[140] _Non datur effectus sine causa_,[141] _Quæ sunt eadem uni tertio sunt eadem inter se_,[142] and such like, though usually styled "metaphysical" principles, are not the subject of metaphysical investigation, but are simply presupposed and admitted on the strength of their immediate and incontrovertible evidence. Such principles are perfectly known before all metaphysical disquisition, and need not be traced to other principles. On the other hand, metaphysics, which is the science of reality, deals only with the principles of _real_ beings; whence it follows that the principles of demonstration, which, like the conclusion deduced therefrom, exist in the intellect alone (and therefore are _beings of reason_, and principiate nothing but other beings of reason), are not comprised in the object of metaphysical inquiry. Hence, the only principles which metaphysics is bound to investigate are those that belong to the first and second class above mentioned; that is, the intrinsic and the extrinsic principles of things: _Primum unde aliquid est_, and _primum unde aliquid fit_.[143]

Principles and causes are often confounded, although it is well known that they are not identical. Hence, our next question is: In what does a cause differ from a principle?

It is commonly admitted that all causes are principles, but not all principles causes; which evidently implies that a cause is something more than a principle. In fact, when we use the word "cause," we wish to designate a being in which we know that there is a principle of causation; whence it is evident that the common notion of cause implies the notion of principle, _and something else besides_--that is, the notion of a subject to which the principle belongs. Thus, we say that the moon causes the tides by its attractive power; the moon is the _cause_, and the attractive power is its _principle_ of causation. In like manner, we say that an orator causes great popular emotion by his eloquence; the orator is the _cause_, and his eloquence is his _principle_ of causation.

From these instances it would be easy to conclude that the difference between a cause and a principle lies in this, that the cause is a complete being, whilst the principle is only an appurtenance of the cause. But as we know from theology that there are principles which cannot be thus related to causes, we cannot consider the above as an adequate and final answer to the question proposed.

Some of the best modern scholastics account for the difference between cause and principle in the following manner: A principle, they say, is conceived to differ from a cause in two things: first, in this, that a cause always precedes its effect by priority of nature,[144] whereas a principle does not require such a priority; secondly, in this, that the cause does not communicate its own identical nature to its effect, whereas the principle can communicate its own identical nature to that which it principiates.[145] From these two differences a third one might be gathered, viz., that the effect has always a real dependence _from_[146] its cause, whilst the thing principiated does not always really depend _from_ its principles.[147] These grounds of distinction between principles and causes have been thought of, with the avowed object of paving the way to explain how the Eternal Father can be the principle, without being the cause, of his Eternal Son, and how the Father and the Son can be the principle, without being the cause, of the Holy Ghost.

But we must observe that there are four genera of causes and of principles: the _efficient_, the _material_, the _formal_, and the _final_; and that the two differences alleged by these writers between principle and cause do not apply to principles and causes of the same genus, but are applicable only when some principle belonging to one genus is wrongly compared with some cause pertaining to another genus.

That there are four genera of causes we will take for granted, as it is the universal doctrine of philosophers. That there are also four genera of principles corresponding to the four genera of causes is evident; for every cause must contain within itself the principle of its causality; and, in fact, Aristotle himself clearly affirms that there are as many causes as principles, and that all causes are also principles,[148] in the sense which we have already explained. Lastly, that the two aforesaid differences between principle and cause do not apply to principles and causes of the same genus can be easily verified by a glance at each genus. Let the reader take notice of the following statements, and then judge for himself.

The efficient cause (the agent) and the efficient principle (its active power) are _both_, by priority of nature, prior to the thing produced or principiated, and _both_ have a nature numerically distinct from that of the thing produced or principiated.

In the same manner the final cause (the object willed) and the finalizing principle (the known goodness and desirability of the object) _both_ are, by priority of nature, prior to the act caused or principiated, and _both_ have a nature numerically distinct from that of the act caused or principiated.

Thus, also, the material cause (actual matter) and the material principle (the passiveness of matter) are _both_, by priority of nature, prior to the thing effected or principiated, and _both_ identify themselves with the thing effected or principiated.

Accordingly, with regard to these three kinds of causation and principiation, it is quite impossible to admit that the difference between a cause and a principle is to be accounted for by a recourse to the two aforementioned grounds of distinction, so long as the causes and principles, which are compared, belong to one and the same genus.

As to the formal cause and the formal principle, we shall presently see that they are not distinct things; but, even if we were disposed to consider them as distinct, such a distinction could not possibly rest on the two grounds of which we have been speaking; for the formal cause and the formal principle have no priority of nature[149] with respect to the thing caused or principiated, and _both_ identify themselves with the same. We are, therefore, satisfied that the opinion which we have criticised has no foundation in truth.

Let us, then, resume our previous explanation, and see how the difficulty above proposed against its completeness can be solved. We have shown that the notion of cause implies the notion of principle, together with that of a subject to which the principle belongs. We must, therefore, admit that a principle differs from a cause of the same genus, as an incomplete or _metaphysical_ entity differs from a complete or _physical_ being; or, in other terms, that a real cause, rigorously speaking, is a complete being, _which_ gives origin to an effect; whilst a real principle, properly speaking, is only that _through which_ the cause gives origin to its effect. The cause is _id quod causat_;[150] the principle is _id quo causa causat_.[151]

The formal principle, however, is an exception to this general doctrine, as formal principles do not differ from formal causes. The form, in fact, not only _has_ within itself something through which it is fit to cause its effect, but also _is_ itself that very something, and _through itself_ brings its effect into existence. Thus the soul, which is the form of the body, _through itself_, and not through any of its faculties, actuates the body and vivifies it. On this account, then, any form might be indifferently called either a formal _cause_ or a formal _principle_. But we must further consider that a form, as such, is an incomplete entity, since no formal act can exist apart from its essential term;[152] and on this ground we maintain that the name of _principle_ suits it better than the name of _cause_.

And this conclusion will be approved even by those philosophers whose opinion concerning the distinction between cause and principle we have just refuted; for the two differences which they allege as characteristic of cause in opposition to principle have no room in formal causation or principiation, since we have seen that the formal act has no priority of nature with respect to its essential term, and identifies itself with the thing of which it is the act. Consequently, the form, even in the opinion of said philosophers, is not a cause, but a principle.

We hope to give a fuller explanation of this point on a later occasion; but what we have just said suffices to show what we at present intend, viz., that the doctrine which considers principles as appurtenances of causes admits of a remarkable exception in the case of formal principles, and by such an exception is competent to account for the existence of other principles importing real principiation without real causation. Now, this is exactly what the theological doctrine on divine processions requires. The fact, therefore, that the procession of one of the divine Persons from another involves no causation, but only principiation, can be accounted for by a simple reference to the nature of formal principiation. The Eternal Father is certainly not the efficient, but the _formal_, principle of His Eternal Son; and this already suffices to explain how the being of the Son is not _a new being made_ by the Father, but is the very same being of the Father communicated identically to the Son. Thus, also, the Holy Ghost not efficiently, but _formally_, proceeds from the Father and the Son, through their conspiration into a simple actuality of love; and this suffices to explain how the Holy Ghost is not _made_ by the Father and the Son, but is the very actuality of the one in the other.

To sum up: Formal principiation is not causation; hence, that which immediately proceeds from a formal principle is not caused by it, but only principiated; it is not its effect, but its connatural term; it has not a distinct nature, but the very nature of its formal principle identically communicated; lastly, it has no real dependence _from_ its formal principle, but only real relative opposition; for real dependence has no place where there is identity of nature. This is eminently true of God, and, by imitation, of every primitive contingent being, which is strictly one in its entity, and consequently also of all the ultimate elements into which a physical compound can be resolved; for the ultimate elements of things cannot but be primitive beings.

The preceding remarks regard those formal acts which enter in the essential constitution of being as such, and which are called strictly _substantial acts_. Of accidental forms we have nothing to say in particular, as it is too evident to need explanation that they are not causes, but mere principles. It is, therefore, to be concluded that the distinction between cause and principle applies only to _efficient_, _material_, and _final_ causality and principiativity. Thus, as we have said, _the sun_ is the efficient cause of certain movements, and _its attractive power_ is the efficient principle of those movements; _the object_ is the final cause that moves the will, and _the goodness_, through which the object moves the will, is the finalizing principle of the volition: _the steel_ is the material cause of the sword, but the material principle of the sword is _the passive potency_ of the steel, which allows it to receive the form of a sword or any other form.

We must not forget, however, that the words _cause_ and _principle_ have been, and are, very frequently used without discrimination by philosophical writers, even of the highest merit. It is by no means uncommon to find, for instance, the premises described as the _cause_ of the conclusion, the rules of the art as the _cause_ of an artificial work, the exemplar as the _cause_ of that in which it is reproduced or imitated. In these examples, the word _cause_ stands for _principle_. The old Greek theologians even said that God the Father is the _cause_ of his Eternal Son; the word _cause_ being undoubtedly used by them in the sense of _principle_. We should not be astonished at this. Indeed, while we ourselves persist in giving the name of cause to the formal principle, we should be the last to be surprised at the Greek fathers doing the same.

And now, let us come to another part of our subject. Philosophers, when wishing to give a full account of things, besides principles and causes, point out _metaphysical reasons_ too. We think it our duty to show in what such reasons consist, and in what they differ from principles.

A reason, in general, may be defined as _that from which anything immediately results_; and since a formal result is not made, but simply follows as a consequence from a conspiration of principles, we can see at once that a reason, or the formal ground of a given result, must consist in a conspiration of given principles. There are logical reasons, which give rise to logical results; and there are metaphysical reasons, which give rise to metaphysical results. We will give an example of each.

In a syllogism, the consequence is the result of a conspiration of two propositions, called premises. The propositions themselves are the _principles_ from which the conclusion is to follow; but the actual following of the conclusion depends on the actual comparison of the two propositions, and on the actual perception of the agreement of two extreme terms with a middle one. It is, in fact, through the middle term that the two premises conspire into a definite conclusion. Hence, when we are asked the reason why a conclusion follows from two premises, we point out not only the fact that the two premises are true, but especially the fact that the extreme terms, which are to be directly united in the conclusion, are already both linked, in the premises, with the same middle term. For it is evident that the whole strength of a legitimate conclusion lies in the universality of the axiom, _Quæ sunt eadem uni tertio, sunt eadem inter se_. The words, _sunt eadem uni tertio_,[153] express the formal reason, and the words _sunt eadem inter se_[154] express the formal result. In scholastic language, the premises would be called the _principium formale quod_[155] of the conclusion, and the suitable connection of their terms would be called the _principium formale quo_,[156] or the _ratio formalis_[157] of the conclusion; whilst the conclusion itself would be called the _rationatum_.[158]

For an example of the metaphysical order, we will take a known subject, _animal life_, and ascertain its formal reason. Every one knows that the soul is a principle of life; but animal life, besides the vivifying soul, requires also an organic body as its other principle. These two principles, however, are, with respect to animal life, in the same relation as the two premises with respect to their conclusion. For as the conclusion proximately results from the connection of the premises and their bearing on one another, as we have just explained, so, also, animal life results from the connection of soul and body--that is, from the actuation of the latter by the former, and consequently by the completion of the former in the latter. Hence, the formal reason, or the _principium formale quo_, of animal life is the very information of the body by the soul, while the soul and the body themselves, taken together, constitute the _principium formale quod_.

From these two examples, to which it would be easy to add many more, it is manifest that what we call _formal reason_ is _a conspiration of correlative principles towards a common actual result_. All results are relations between terms, or principles, communicating with one another, either through themselves or through something which is common to them. In the first case, the result, or relation, is transcendental, and is nothing else than the _actuality_ of one principle in the other--of the soul in the body, for instance. In the second case, the result, or relation, is either predicamental or logical (according as its principles and its formal reason are real or not), and is nothing else than the _actuality_ of the terms as correlated.

Let the reader remark that we have pointed out three kinds of so-called formal principles, viz., the form, or act, which is a _principium formale_ properly, and without qualification; then the _principium_, _formale quod_ of a resultation, consisting of correlated principles conspiring together into a common result; lastly, the _principium formale quo_, or the proximate reason of the resultation, consisting in the very conspiration of the correlated principles. In English, the better to distinguish the one from the other, it would be well to retain the name of _formal principle_ for the first alone; the second might be called the _formal origin_, and the third the _formal reason_, of a resultation. Thus the name of _formal principle_ would be preserved to its rightful owner, without danger of mistaking it for a formal reason, or _vice versa_.

Before we conclude, we beg to add, though it may appear unnecessary, that the _conditions_ of causation are not principles. We make this remark because nothing, perhaps, is more common in ordinary speech than to confound conditions with principles and causes. It is not uninstructed persons only, but educated people and men of science too, that express themselves as if they believed that conditions have their own active part in producing effects. If a weight be suspended by a thread, the cutting of the thread is popularly said _to cause_ the fall of the weight. He who throws a piece of paper into the fire is said _to burn_ the paper. He who rubs a match is said _to light_ the match. A change of distance between the sun and a planet is said _to cause_ a change of intensity in the central forces. Now, it is scarcely necessary to show that _cutting_ the thread, _throwing_ the paper, _rubbing_ the match, etc., are only conditions of the falling, the burning, the lighting, etc., respectively; and conditions are neither causes nor principles of causation. A _condition_ of causation may be defined to be _an accidental relation between principles or causes, inasmuch as they are concerned in the production of an effect_. Causes and principles cause and principiate in a different manner, according to the difference of their mutual relations, but do not cause or principiate _through_ such relations, as is evident.

A weight suspended by a thread falls when the thread is cut. But he who cuts the thread is not the real _cause_ of the falling. The true _cause_ is, on the one hand, the earth by its attractive power, and, on the other, the body itself by its receptive potency. Cutting the thread is only to put a condition of the falling. The fall, in fact, depends on the condition that the body be free to obey the action of gravity; and this condition is fulfilled when the thread is cut. In like manner, he who throws a piece of paper into the fire does not burn it, but only puts it in the necessary relation with the fire, that it may be burnt; and he who rubs the match does not light it, but only rubs it, the rubbing being a condition, not a cause, of the lighting. In fact, the lighting of the match is caused by the actions and reactions which take place between the molecules of certain substances on the end of the match; and such actions and reactions depend on the rubbing only inasmuch as the rubbing alters the relations of distance between molecules, disturbs their equilibrium, and places them in a new condition with respect to their acting on one another. Of course, the rubbing is an effect, and he who does the rubbing is a cause; but he causes the rubbing only. So, also, the change of distance between the sun and a planet is neither the cause nor the principle of a change of intensity in the mutual attraction. The action of celestial bodies follows a law. With such or such relation of distance between them, they act with such or such intensity; but distance is evidently not an active principle, and therefore a change of distance is only the change of a condition of causation.

As we have just mentioned the fact that celestial bodies are subject to _a law of action_, it might be asked whether _law_ itself be a real principle. We must answer in the negative; for _law_ is nothing but _the necessity for every agent or patient of conforming to its own nature in the exertion of its powers, and in the subjection of its potency_. Such a necessity is permanent, since it arises from the determination of nature itself, and may be divided into _moral_, _physical_, and _logical_, according as it is viewed in connection with different beings or powers; but it is certainly neither an active power nor a passive potency, but only a natural ordination of the same, and accordingly is not a cause nor a principle, but an exponent of the constant manner in which causes and principles bring about the various changes we witness throughout the world.

These few notions may suffice as an introduction to what we intend to say about the principles of things. We have seen that a principle is less than a cause, a reason less than a principle, and a condition less than a reason; and we have determined as exactly as we could the general character of each of them, by ascertaining the grounds of their several distinctions. This was our only object in the present article; and therefore we will stop here, and reserve particulars for future investigation.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[138] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

[139] The principle whence anything exists, is made, or is known.

[140] The same thing cannot at the same time be and not be.

[141] There is no effect without a cause.

[142] Things which are equal to a third thing are equal to each other.

[143] The principle whence anything is, and the principle whence anything is made.

[144] Philosophers teach that one thing can precede another in three ways, to wit, by priority of _time_, by priority of _nature_, and by priority of _reason_. A thing existing while another thing is not yet in existence has, with regard to this latter, a priority of time. A thing, on the existence of which the existence of another depends, has, with regard to this latter, a priority of nature. A thing, the conception of which is needed to form the conception of another, has, with regard to this latter, a priority of reason. The priority of _origin_, by which one of the divine Persons is prior to another, is a priority of reason, not of nature, and implies no real dependence of one Person from another.

[145] See Liberatore, _Metaph. Gen._, n. 125.

[146] We advisedly employ the preposition _from_. There is a vast difference between depending _on_ and depending _from_. To depend _from_ is properly to be hanging from, as a lamp from the ceiling; but nothing forbids the use of the phrase in a metaphorical sense in order to translate the Latin phrase, _pendere ab_, for which we have no other equivalent. The usual English phrase, _to depend on_, corresponds to the Latin _pendere ex_. Were we to employ it also for _pendere ab_, a confusion would arise of the two different meanings. Certainly, the two phrases, _Homo pendet a Deo_, and _Exitus pendet ex adjunctis_ express different kinds of dependence; and we cannot translate them into English in the same manner without setting their differences at naught. We would, therefore, say, that _Man depends from God_, and that _Success depends on circumstances_. In philosophy, both prepositions are needed, and, if used with proper discrimination, they will save us the trouble of many useless disputes.

[147] A being and its constituent principles may be said to have a certain dependence _on_ one another, inasmuch as they have such an essential connection with one another that the one cannot be conceived apart from the other. But this so-called "dependence" means only correlation and "mutual exigency"; and therefore does not entail a priority of nature of the one with respect to the other. In a being, which is strictly _one in its entity_, there are three principles: an act, its term, and the actuality of the one in the other. The act has only a priority of origin with respect to its essential term, and both have only a priority of origin with regard to their formal actuality. They depend _on_ one another in the sense explained, but not _from_ one another. We shall treat of them in a future article.

[148] _Toties autem causæ quoque dicuntur (qucties principia); omnes namque causæ principia sunt._--Aristotle, _Metaph._ 5.

[149] Priority of nature implies in that which is prior an existence independent of that which is posterior; but a mere formal act has no existence independent of the being of which it is a constituent; therefore, the formal act is not prior, by priority of nature, to such a being.

[150] That which causes.

[151] That by which the cause causes.

[152] To say that the human soul can exist apart from the body, is no objection. Our soul is not merely a formal act; it is a _subsistent_ being--that is, an act having its own intrinsic term, and therefore possessing an independent existence; which cannot be said of other forms. And on this account the soul is the only form which without impropriety might be called a formal cause as well as a formal _principle_.

[153] Are equal to a third.

[154] Are equal to each other.

[155] The formal principle _which_.

[156] The formal principle by which or through which.

[157] The formal reason.

[158] The product of reasoning.

THE SERIOUS "VIVE LA BAGATELLE."

Bright world! you may write on my heart what you will, But write it with pencil, not pen; Your hand hath its skill: but a hand finer still What you write soon erases again.

To the moment its laugh, and its smile to the flower! Not niggard we give them; but why? Old Time must devour the year as the hour: Remains but Eternity.

AUBREY DE VERE.

THE FARM OF MUICERON.

BY MARIE RHEIL.

FROM THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

VIII.

Jean-Louis, on leaving the _curé_, went to pray in the church, which remained open all day for the consolation of devout souls. In the presence of God he reviewed the sad history of his life, shed many tears, but soon felt wonderfully strengthened. This fourteen-year-old boy had a more resolute heart than many a man of thirty. What he swore before the altar of God and the statue of Our Blessed Lady was the oath of a Christian, who knows the value of an engagement made in the face of heaven. It was the contract of his whole life that he then signed, and it will be seen if he knew how to keep it. His first weakness on learning the secret of his birth had passed; he determined to be courageous, humble, and docile, should it cost him his heart's blood; and full of these brave resolutions, he retook the road to Muiceron.

Nevertheless, he failed in one, and you as well as I will excuse him for it.

As he had remained rather long in the village, Pierrette, who had heard him reprimanded, and had seen him depart with his books under his arm, became very anxious, fearing that he had been more hurt than he had shown. She was standing on the threshold of the door, watching the path by which he would return; and when she perceived him, she could not conceal her joy, for the child's face was bright and animated, and seemed the mirror of a happy heart.

"Oh! I am so happy to see you, my Jeannet," cried the good woman in a burst of joy.

"Were you alarmed at my absence?" asked Jean-Louis, running to her.

"Alarmed?" said she. "No ... that is to say, yes, I was a little.... Your father sometimes conceals his great kindness under rather too quick a manner. A child like you, who never deserves to be scolded, will be easily hurt at a severe word; and I thought, on seeing you go away so quickly, you were unhappy. But now you are at home again, are you neither hot, nor hungry, nor troubled? Where do you come from? What do you think of doing? Tell all to your mamma, who loves you so dearly."

These gentle questions pierced the soul of the poor child more than the severest words would have done. Gratitude and grief choked him and prevented him from replying, and made his emotion the greater, as these two sentiments seldom go together. He looked at his dear mother, with his great, black eyes filled with tears, and could only take her hand and press it to his bosom.

Thus they entered the house together, and Ragaud, whom they thought in the fields, but who had returned by the door that opened on the bleaching yard, was standing before the hearth, as if awaiting them. You doubtless know, as you must have many times experienced it, that when one suddenly sees somebody, thought to be half a league away, without wishing it, he looks rather taken aback, as we say. You can well believe that Pierrette and the child so looked, as they remained dumb as fish, like poachers hiding from the forest-guard.

"Well," said the good man in a loud voice, "what is the matter with you both? It seems I was not expected. And the supper, wife?"

"Here it is," Pierrette hastened to reply; "only move a little to one side, that I may take off the pot."

And in the twinkling of an eye, the excellent green-cabbage soup was smoking on the table; but Jeannet, who stood like one petrified, did not move.

"You are not hungry, then?" asked Ragaud. "What is the matter? You look as if you had been crying."

"Excuse me," replied Jeannet. "I do not feel like eating this evening."

"None of that," answered Ragaud; "to punish his stomach is the act of a spoiled child. Sit down and eat; be quick about it, do you hear?"

Jeannet obeyed, but only to sit down; eat, he could not.

"See here," said Ragaud in a joking manner, looking at him, "you are of the true modern style. Formerly, my boy, when parents reproved their children, they did it oftener with the hand than the voice, and things were not the worse for it. My father used to give us blows with his cudgel without counting them; in his opinion, it was a language easily understood, and which he preferred to reasoning, as it saved his time. We rubbed our backs, and it was over; none of us thought of losing our appetites, still less of crying. But nowadays children must be handled with gloves; and even with that they think themselves martyrs. The parents must endure everything without a murmur, even to see the house catch fire. Ha! ha!--is what I say true?"

"Oh! yes," said Jean-Louis, "you have always been good and kind to me; and believe me, believe me when I say that I am truly grateful, that I thank you with my whole soul. I was guilty without knowing it; but I am penitent and sorry for having offended you. I have carried back my books, which, in reality, I did not need, and never again will you have to reproach me about them."

"That is right, that is right," said Ragaud. "You are a good child, Jeannet, and now it is ended. What I said, you see, was to your own interest; so now eat and be cheerful. I don't like tears, above all in a boy who will soon be a man; give me your hand without any bad feeling."

"No, no! embrace him," said Pierrette. "His heart is full; isn't it so, my son?"

"Kiss me, if you wish," said Ragaud, extending his honest, bearded face. "Generally I don't like these baby-kisses; but if it is necessary, in order that you may eat your soup, make yourself happy, boy."

Just at this time it was too much for Jean-Louis; nearly fainting, he fell on his knees by the side of Ragaud; he threw his arms around him, pressed him to his breast, and kissed him in the tenderest manner, to the great astonishment of the good farmer, who could not understand such a wonderful display of affection.

"Good, good," said he; "but be easy, Jeannet. Don't I tell you I am no longer angry?"

"O my father! my dear father!" cried the child, "how can I ever repay you?"

And seeing that Ragaud looked at him in amazement, he added, sobbing,

"Father, mother, I know all...."

"Explain yourself," said Ragaud, beginning to understand what he meant. "What do you know, my child?"

"_All_" he repeated in a tone which expressed everything.

"There," cried good Pierrette, her heart melting with pity, "I understand. I know now what he means. But after fourteen years that the secret has been so well kept, where has the creature been found wicked enough to make this poor child so unhappy?"

"Dear mother," exclaimed Jean-Louis, "he who told it to me did it from true kindness of heart; you must not be displeased with him. It is to him I owe my life, after God and you. Do not mistake my tears; they do not come from grief, but from the gratitude which will last through all eternity."

"My dear, dear child," said Pierrette, "you have already well repaid us by your tender affection and good conduct. Isn't it true, Ragaud?"

"Yes," replied he; "and I will add, my boy, that the Lord God, through love of whom we received you, made joy and prosperity enter into the house at the same time with you. Thus, although I like the gratitude which comes from a truly filial heart, in good conscience I think we are quits."

"Oh! never, never," cried Jeannet. "At the moment of my death I will still thank you."

"On condition that you die before us, which is scarcely probable," said Ragaud, smiling. "Come, child, get up, and let it all be over. Since, from what I can make out, no other than our _curé_ has told you the story, I am happy to think we are all 'big John, as before'--that is to say, that nothing is changed. You will remain our child, the elder brother of Jeannette, and the prop of my old age."

"Your servant and your slave for ever!" cried Jean-Louis.

"Bah! bah! No slave, Jeannet; that is an accursed word to fall from your lips. Let it all remain in the _curé's_ library, which it never should have left. As for me, I am not learned; but, to my mind, a slave is a man changed into a beast of burden. I ask you if I have brought you up in that way? No, my son, you will serve me--it is my wish--but in working as a free man by my side, according to your strength. Is it well understood?"

"I have no other desire but to please you; and I pray to God, my father, that I may prove it to you every day."

"I hope so, my boy. The past, they say, is the guarantee of the future; and never have you caused me serious displeasure. As for the little affair of this morning, I tell you it was nothing. Don't regret it; the only result will be that we will love each other still more."

"I think so, too," said Pierrette, "if it is possible."

"O my dear parents!" cried Jeannet, kissing them both, "if ever the history of your kindness could be written, who would believe it true?"

"Don't let that trouble you," said Ragaud, laughing heartily, "there is no chance of its being written; and, besides, things do not improve by being known to men, as evil is more easily believed than good."

"It is very well," said Pierrette, "that mademoiselle kept Jeannette at the château this evening; she would have been in the way, dear little thing!"

"As regards that," replied Ragaud, "I request you, Jean-Louis, never to breathe a word to Jeannette of what has just been said. Do you understand me? I have my own idea about it."

"I promise you, my father," answered Jeannet.

The name of the little girl, thus pronounced by chance, led to further conversation about the two children. They remembered the infant plays, where she was so lively and wilful, her great romps with the shepherd's dog, and many other little details, which recalled the innocent pleasures of her infancy and gave such zest to their tranquil country life. Jeannet, well consoled, and with lightened heart, told his parents a crowd of little events, which he loved to relate in praise of Jeannette, and which proved the goodness of her heart and mind, to the great delight of the Ragauds. From that to remarking that the little girl had nearly disappeared from the family was but a step, and which, in my opinion, was a leap easily made. In the meantime, Ragaud, who appeared half asleep--I rather think so as not to talk upon the subject--suddenly awakened, and ended by acknowledging that if Jeannet were not at Muiceron, the house would be as destitute of children as it was fifteen years before.

"My dear husband," said Pierrette, "it is not to-day that we are to learn that parents must sacrifice everything to the happiness of their children."

"For their happiness, yes," replied Ragaud; "but it remains to be seen if Jeannette will always be as happy as she is now."

And as he was clear-sighted, when the momentary vanity had passed, he related with earnestness the conversation with Jacques Michou, which he had so unwillingly heard at the time.

"There," said Pierrette, "is something which does not please me. If people already commence to talk about our daughter, it is a sign that we should think about our course in regard to her, and perhaps change it."

"Think about it we should," replied Ragaud; "but to change it is another question. For then we would have to take Jeannette from mademoiselle; and as her regard for our little girl is a great honor for us and a great happiness for her, never will I behave in that manner to the daughter of our lords, seeing that I owe them everything."

"It is very embarrassing," said Pierrette, who spoke rather from the feelings of the heart than of the head.

"Not so very much," replied Ragaud. "By acting with gentleness and respect, without causing pain to mademoiselle, we can, in the end, make her wishes accord with ours."

"Oh! if Jeannette could return," cried Jean-Louis, "what happiness for us all, dear father!"

"You!" said Ragaud. "You may boast of being very brave in her absence; but I can remember seeing you many and many a time racing together over the meadows; the girl would torment you to her heart's content, and you, like a big simpleton, never once stumbled so as to humbug her in return. Thus you accustomed her to think herself the mistress, which she did not hesitate to show."

"She is so sweet," said Jeannet, "and so good-natured; if she had half killed me, I would not have minded it."

"If you only wished to know Latin that you might talk such nonsense," replied Ragaud, "you did very well to give up the study. You, too," added he, turning towards Pierrette, forgetting he should be the first to accuse himself--"you, too, have so completely spoiled Jeannette, I will be obliged to undertake the difficult task of repairing your work. But patience; to-morrow I will take the shovel and the spade. I will do it."

"What are you going to do?" asked Pierrette, alarmed.

"I am going to see," said Ragaud, "if my daughter is of the good and true blood of her father. I will ask mademoiselle to give her to me for the octave of S. Martin; and during that time I will make her resume her peasant-life as though she should never quit it again. If she becomes sullen and cross, I won't say what I will do; but if, as I believe, she will appear happy and contented, we will know that the château does not injure her, and then we will sleep in peace. How do you like that?"

"Oh! that is a capital idea I never would have dreamt of," said Pierrette, clasping her hands in admiration.

Ragaud appeared pleased at being thought so brilliant; he resettled himself in his big linen collar, drank a glass of good cider, and knelt down to say the Our Father and Hail Mary, which he always did before retiring.

Jeannet made no remark; he had too much sense to think that this little trial would be sufficient and satisfy every one; but he would see Jeannette for a whole week, and he decided to amuse her in such a way that she would not regret her life at the château.

Ragaud's plans were fully carried out. Mademoiselle willingly gave up Jeannette, thinking by that means she would have still stronger claims for keeping her afterwards; and the little one, led by her father, returned to Muiceron the eve of S. Martin's day, which is, among us, the feast of the vine-dressers.

If you are anxious to know how she behaved, I will inform you that the very next day, and without any one having to tell her, she tumbled over the things in the chest to find her woollen skirts and coarse linen apron. She had grown so much, she was obliged to rip and remake for a full hour before she could put them on, which caused much talk and laughter that rang through the house. Her wooden shoes, which had remained in a corner during the past fifteen months, were likewise too small; and as that could not be remedied by the needle and thread, it was a real difficulty; but Jeannette, who had not lost her habit of having an answer for everything, declared she would wear Pierrette's. You can imagine the amusement this caused; and, in fact, at her first step she stumbled, and nearly fell down.

Thereupon Jeannet darted off like an arrow, and brought a new pair from the harness-maker at Ordonniers.

Jeannette was equally well pleased with the eating, sleeping, and all the old habits of her country life. Never had she appeared happier, more active, and better disposed to assist her mother in her household labors. It could be well imagined that, having heard of the gossiping about her, she wished to prove by every means the good people were wrong; and Ragaud had only one wish, which was that the busy-bodies of the village could look through the key-hole and see her at work.

This was scarcely possible; but he could, at least, satisfy Jacques Michou, the first grumbler, whom he had so well repulsed, as you may remember.

For that purpose, without mentioning the return of Jeannette to the farm, with a frank and simple air, he asked his old comrade to come and break bread with him on S. Martin's day. M. le Curé was also invited, and on the morning of the feast Ragaud gave Pierrette her lesson:

"Understand well this day I wish you to be quiet. You can tell the child all that must be done, not only for the cooking, but for the table and the serving of it. I don't wish to have the shame of seeing the children seated at table, whilst the mother is going around the hearth, skirts pinned up, doing the servant's work; which is not proper. It is very well to be a good woman, always ready to sacrifice herself; but it is also well every one should know there is but one mistress of Muiceron."

"Jeannette is too little," Pierrette gently objected; "she could not reach up to the stove, and I am afraid the dishes will be too heavy for her arms to carry, little darling!"

"You will make Marion, the dairy-maid, aid her in the heavy work," said Ragaud. "I don't ask impossibilities, and I would be the first to fear if our little girl ran the risk of burning herself. What I wish is that she, and not you, should have all the trouble."

Pierrette yielded to this good argument, although a little afraid that Jeannette would have too much trouble. As for the little girl, she was very proud to give orders to Marion, and commenced immediately to play her part of mistress of the farm.

Then could be seen how bright she was. She came and went, passing from the barn-yard to the wood-house, from the wood-house to the linen-chests; bravely looking on when they bled the chickens and cut up the meat; selecting the beautiful, white table-cloths; superintending, polishing the glasses, dusting, flying about like a will-o'-the-wisp. Big Marion trotted after her on her heels, scarcely able to follow her, stifled half with heat and half with laughter at the sight of such an active young mistress.

Who would have thought, on seeing her thus occupied, that the very evening before she had been seated at the right of mademoiselle in her beautiful carriage, driving around the country? It was really wonderful to see her so quick at everything, young as she was; and you would have been as much surprised as the Ragauds, who gazed at her in astonished admiration--parental vanity easily forgiven in this case--and asked each other where Jeannette could have learned so much that even housekeepers of thirty hardly knew.

The truth was, she had never learned anything from anybody or anywhere; but she was precocious in every respect. It was enough for her to hear or see a thing once always to remember it; so she had only to think an instant to put in practice what she had observed. Add to this she was as sly as a fox, and ardently loved to give satisfaction, and you will easily understand there was nothing very astonishing in her performance.

About twilight, Jacques Michou made his appearance, accompanied by the _curé_, whom he had overtaken on the road. Jeannette came forward to meet them, and made a low reverence in true peasant style, totally unlike the bows made in M. le Marquis' _salon_. It was a great surprise for these honest souls, who had been conversing along the way about the blindness of Ragaud in regard to his daughter, and they were both too frank not to show their satisfaction.

"So you have come back, my child?" said the _curé_, patting her kindly on the head.

"To wait upon you, M. le Curé," she sweetly replied.

"And your beautiful dresses?" asked Jacques Michou.

"They are hanging up in the wardrobe," said Jeannette, laughing.

"Indeed! And do you like to have them there as much as on your back, my little girl?"

"Why not?" she replied. "I am happy here with my father, my mother, and Jeannet."

"It is your best place," said the _curé_. "I am delighted, Mme. Ragaud, to see your daughter at home. Is it for some time?"

"If mademoiselle does not reclaim her," said Pierrette, blushing, for she never would speak falsely, "it will be for ever."

"Well, I hope it will be so," said he. "And you, Jeannette, do you desire it also?"

"I am always happy with my dear parents," replied the little one; "but mademoiselle is so kind and good, I am always happy with her also. If my mother sends me to the château, I will go; and if she commands me to return, I will come back."

They could not help being pleased with this speech of the good, obedient little girl, and they took their places at table without any further questions or raillery. Jeannette, during the supper, rose more than twenty times to see that all was right; and Ragaud, you can well imagine, did not fail to inform his guests that everything had been prepared under his daughter's eye. It was strictly true, as they clearly saw; and, consequently, the compliments were freely bestowed. Nevertheless, when the dessert was brought on, Ragaud could not resist saying to Michou, with a significant look, as he held up his glass:

"Well, my old fellow, will you now give me credit for knowing how to bring up my children?"

Jacques nodded his head, and, holding up his glass, replied, "I will come to see you eight years from now, comrade, and then I will answer your question."

"Very good," said Ragaud. "M. le Curé, you will be witness. I promise to give a cow to Jacques Michou, if, at that time, Jeannette is not the best housekeeper in the country."

"I take the bet," replied Jacques, laughing; "and I add that I hope to lose it as surely as the good God has no master."

"Come, come," said the _curé_ gravely, "it is not worth such an oath. Between good men, my friends, it is enough to say yes or no. I consent to be witness, and I also say I hope that Jacques will lose the bet."

They stopped as they saw Jeannette, who returned to the table, crimson with pleasure. Behind her came big Marion, carrying, with great care, a large dish, upon which stood, erect on his claws, a beautiful pheasant that seemed ready to crow. As it was at the end of the meal, every one looked at it with amazement, especially Pierrette, who had not been let into the secret. It was a surprise invented by Jeannette, who clapped her hands and laughed heartily, and then wished them to guess what it was. After she had thoroughly enjoyed their astonishment, she rapidly took out the feathers, and then they saw it was a delicious pudding, stuffed with plums, which she had manufactured, with Marion and Jeannet's assistance, after the style of M. le Marquis' cook. Pierrette, it must be acknowledged, wept tears of admiration; for this was a wonder that surpassed her imagination.

This magnificent performance increased Ragaud's good humor; and I verily believe, but for the presence of M. le Curé, he would have emptied more than one bottle in honor of Jeannette and the pheasant. But our good pastor, without being the least in the world opposed to innocent enjoyment, did not like the gaiety which comes from drinking, as we already know. Consequently, they soon rose from the entertainment, and wished each other a cordial good-night. The little pet was so worn out with her extraordinary efforts, she soon after fell asleep in her chair, and they had to carry her off to bed. She was thoroughly tired, and Pierrette observed it was not surprising, after such a day's work, which, perhaps, she herself could not have stood.

IX.

That night something occurred which appeared of small importance at the time, but that had great results, which many persons never understood, and that I will reveal to you at the proper time and place. For many years it was a great mystery; and I remember, when I was young, my honest and pious father was conversing in a whisper one evening, in the dim twilight, with an old friend, and I hid myself under a chair to find out what he was saying; but not one word of the secret could I make out. Nevertheless, one fearful expression I remembered for a long while. When my father was tired with talking, he dismissed his chum, saying:

"Now we will stop; and be silent as the grave. You know you might lose your head!"

And at these terrible words, the friend replied by placing the finger of his left hand on his lips, and with his right pulled down his cap over his ears, as if to make sure that his head was still safe on his shoulders. It was really a gesture which froze one with terror; and as for me, I shook so I thought I would overturn the chair which served me for a hiding-place.

And now, I beg of you not to be as curious as I was, for you would gain nothing by it. I am only going to tell you what happened the night after the dinner on S. Martin's day.

No matter how late it might be, Ragaud, excellent manager as he was, never went to bed without having carefully made the tour of all his buildings with a dark lantern. He remained seated by the fire, while Pierrette carried off the little girl to bed, and Jean-Louis retired to his room. When all was still, he rose and went out softly to commence his round.

It was a beautiful night, rather dark, but mild for November. Ragaud walked through his little orchard, from whence could be seen the stables and barns, behind which rose the tall fir-trees, unruffled by a breath of wind. He passed into the barn-yard, silent likewise; chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys slept soundly, heads under their wings, on the perches appropriated to them by Pierrette. All was quiet and in good order, and Ragaud, content with himself and the world, prepared to re-enter, when, accidentally raising his head, he saw in the distance something so astonishing he remained as though nailed to the spot, and nearly dropped his lantern in the excitement of the moment.

The château of Val-Saint, which could be seen from a certain point in the garden, like a great, black mass in the horizon, appeared as though lighted up with sparks of fire. A light would be seen first at one window, then at another, and then disappear as quickly as it came. Good Ragaud could not believe his eyes. Surely something extraordinary was taking place at the château; for M. le Marquis and mademoiselle, with all due respect, went to bed with the chickens, and the servants were not allowed to remain up.

"What the devil is the matter with me to-night?" thought Ragaud. "Am I dreaming on my feet, or must I fancy the two or three glasses of white wine more than usual at dessert have turned my brain?"

Not a bit of it; he saw perfectly clear. The light danced about the windows, as though to mock him, and finally went out entirely. But now comes the crowning mystery. A great, blue star appeared on the summit of the high tower, and rose upward until it was hidden by a cloud.

At the same instant, Ragaud felt two heavy hands resting on his shoulders and something breathe heavily on his neck.

Indeed, only put yourself in his place. There was something to fear; and so the brave fellow, who in his youth had fought in our great battles, was all over goose-flesh. But it was only momentary; for, quickly turning, he saw that he had on his back the soft paws of his dog Pataud, who, making the rounds at his side, took this means of caressing him.

"Down, Pataud, old fellow!" said he gently; "it is not daybreak. Go lie down! Be quick! Be off to your kennel! Do you hear me?"

Pataud heard very well, but obedience was not to his taste that night. He wagged his tail, and appeared in splendid humor; one would think he suspected something was going on at the château.

"So you think there is something in the wind up there, do you?" asked Ragaud, snapping his fingers in the air. "Will you come with me, and see what it is all about?"

At these words, he started as though to leave the garden, and Pataud this time seemed to consent.

"This comes from having an animal well brought up," thought Ragaud. "If you could speak, my cunning old fellow, doubtless you would tell me what I wish to know; but as that can't be expected, I must remain very anxious until the morning."

He re-entered the house after this reflection, having obliged Pataud to remain quiet by giving him a friendly kick over the threshold of the kennel.

To sleep was difficult; he had the faithful heart of an old servant, who could not repose when he feared evil was impending over his masters. He remembered that ten years before, on a similar night in November, lights appeared in every window the whole length of the façade of the château, and on the next day, alas! it was known they had been lighted during the agony of our beloved mistress, Mme. la Marquise de Val-Saint. Was it not enough to make him apprehend some misfortune for his dear lord?

Poor mademoiselle's health was not very robust, and she frequently said, in such a mournful tone, that the country air was not good for her.

"To-morrow," said Ragaud to himself, "I will take back Jeannette the first thing in the morning; if mademoiselle is sick, it will do her good to see her again; and perhaps I would have done better if I had let her remain. Who knows but the dear soul was so fondly attached to the child, she has become ill in consequence?"

You must know Ragaud listened to the voice of his conscience as a devotee hears a sermon; and once persuaded that it was his duty to take back to mademoiselle her favorite plaything, twenty-five notaries could not have shaken his decision. Consequently, at the first break of day, he took from the chest his Sunday clothes, and was in holiday trim when Pierrette came down to go out and milk the cows. You can well imagine her astonishment.

"Wife," said Ragaud, "go and make Jeannette get up quickly, and tell her to put on her château dress."

"Is it possible the child will leave us so soon?" replied Pierrette, deeply grieved.

"I wish it," said the good man, "for reasons, Pierrette, that you will know later."

She obeyed without answering. Jean-Louis, meanwhile, entered the room.

"Light the fire, boy," said Ragaud, "and warm us up something. I must go to the château with your sister, and I will not take her out in the cold, fasting."

"Father," said Jean-Louis, while rapidly breaking up the fagots, "did you see a bright light last night around the big tower of the château?"

"Did you?" asked Ragaud.

"I saw something like a rocket go up from the château," the boy replied.

"Yes, I saw it also," answered Ragaud; "and Pataud did, too. What do you think it could have been, Jeannet?"

"I think," said Jean-Louis, "they illuminated the château and fired off rockets in honor of S. Martin."

"Very probable, child; that is a good idea," said Ragaud laughing. "Perhaps, after all, it is the whole secret; but, any how, I would rather go and find out."

"Shall I go with you, father?" asked Jeannet.

"No, stay and help your mother; if I want you, I will tell you. It is enough that I must carry off the little girl."

Jeannette all this time was dressing as fast as possible, without asking why or wherefore. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, not having had her full sleep; but I think the idea of returning to her godmother was not very disagreeable.

However, she was sufficiently wide awake to swallow down a big bowl of sweetened milk; after which, Pierrette wrapped her up in a warm shawl, and kissed her good-by with a full heart.

All this had taken two hours; and Ragaud not wishing to hurry her, the village clock struck eight when they reached the door of the château.

The first person they saw, contrary to the usual custom, was Master Jean Riponin, who was M. le Marquis' man of business. From his imposing manner and the great fuss he was making--ordering every one here and there with a voice as rough as the captain of a fire-brigade--it was difficult to fancy there was any one above him in the château; Ragaud, sharp fellow that he was, took it in at a glance, and, instead of approaching the steward, as he had always done, without ceremony and a good shake of the hand, he remained at a slight distance, and touched his hat.

"It is you, Master Ragaud?" said Jean Riponin with a patronizing air. "Wait a moment; I will speak to you after I have given my orders to these stupid things."

"Don't disturb yourself," replied Ragaud. "I have not come on business to-day; I only wish to see mademoiselle."

"It is I who have received full power from M. le Marquis at his departure," replied Riponin, a little provoked. "Mademoiselle is not up yet; and, if she were, be assured, Ragaud, she would send you back to me. So let me know what you want without further delay, as I am in a hurry."

"Did you not say M. le Marquis had left?" asked the farmer, as much from interest as to cut short the puffed-up superintendent.

"Yes, this morning before the day-dawn," said he; "and it seems it was something very hurried, for he had only time to hand me all the keys of the house, except those of his desk and safe, which were forgotten in his great haste. But he must have already perceived it, and I expect to receive those two keys by express."

"Indeed," thought Ragaud, "it will be time enough to see them when they come--that is to say, if they will ever come." For he knew Master Riponin was not a man who regarded the marquis' crowns as relics once that he saw the heap. Fortunately, M. le Marquis was of the same opinion; therefore, he kept Riponin in his service on account of many other good qualities that he possessed; but as for the desk and safe, he never saw anything but the key-holes.

While Riponin and Ragaud were conversing, mademoiselle, who had just risen, drew aside her curtains to see what caused such a noise in the court; and the cunning little Jeannette, as soon as she perceived her godmother, kissed her hand to her. In less than a minute, Dame Berthe appeared at the door.

"M. Ragaud," said she, "I am sent by mademoiselle to beg that you will go to her immediately; and you, Jeannette, run and kiss your godmother."

"M. Riponin, I wish you good-morning," said Ragaud, carelessly turning his back on the steward.

The steward watched him enter the château with anything but a pleased expression; but he dared not show his displeasure before Dame Berthe, whom he knew was not friendly to him.

Dear mademoiselle's eyes filled with tears when she saw her darling pet. The little one was tender-hearted, and was deeply moved by this proof of affection. Ragaud, likewise, showed great emotion, and Dame Berthe said it would have been a cruel shame to have longer deprived the château of its chief delight.

"Ragaud," said mademoiselle, "my dear Ragaud, if you had not come to-day, I was going myself to bring back Jeannette. You see, I am so unhappy."

"I did not think you loved the child so much," replied Ragaud; "it is a great honor for Jeannette and for us all, dear mademoiselle, and I desire nothing so much as to contribute to your happiness."

"Only think," said mademoiselle, sighing, "I am always alone; and now that my father has left home, ... and perhaps for such a long time!"

"Will M. le Marquis go far?... Excuse my curiosity," said Ragaud; "but you know, mademoiselle, I only ask the question from the great interest I feel in your dear family."

Mademoiselle was about to reply; but Dame Berthe stopped her short by glancing at Jeannette, who was listening with profound attention.

"I will take her with me," said she in a low tone to her governess, "and then tell everything to Ragaud; our family never keeps a secret from this old servant."

When mademoiselle had withdrawn, under the pretext of showing some new article of the toilet to Jeannette, Dame Berthe carefully closed the door, and approached Ragaud.

"Can I rely on your devotion?" she asked in such a solemn manner Ragaud could only bow his head in assent. "And even on your life?" continued Dame Berthe with a still more serious air.

"If I must give it in exchange for that of my master, yes, certainly," replied the faithful old fellow without any hesitation.

"Very well. Sit down, Ragaud; you are going to learn a secret--the greatest secret a Christian can keep."

Ragaud sat down, rather astonished, his heart beating in spite of himself. However, strictly speaking, the words of Dame Berthe appeared a little exaggerated, and he felt so without being able to account for it, except from his own good sense.

"Master Ragaud," said the governess, who was a devoted reader of newspapers, and had learned to talk in their style, "great events are preparing, and, before long, the face of the world will be changed."

"Ah!" said Ragaud. "Excuse me, my good lady, but the face of the world, ... I don't know what that means."

"When I speak of the world," resumed Dame Berthe, "I mean France--_France_--Ragaud, our country."

"Now I understand better; yes, I know that France is our country. Well, then, what is going to be changed in France?"

"Everything," said she, rising in a frantic manner. "France, my good Ragaud, is tired of the odious yoke that has weighed her down for ten years."

"My oxen are also sometimes tired of the yoke," said Ragaud dryly; "but that does not pay them while the whip is around."

"Yes, but a nation can't be whipped like a beast of burden," replied Dame Berthe. "Come, Ragaud, I see you do not understand what I am aiming at."

"No, not at all," said he. "I am not learned, my good lady; sometimes I hear such expressions as you use when M. le Curé reads aloud from some public journal; but, between ourselves, it always puts me to sleep. You see, the useful things in the newspapers, for a farmer, are the price of grain and the announcement of the fairs; the rest is all twaddle for me."

"So it appears," answered Dame Berthe, a little hurt. "I am now going to talk in a way that you can understand. Well, then, Ragaud, M. le Marquis left home last night. Where do you think he has gone?"

"It is not my custom to inquire into the private affairs of my masters," replied Ragaud. "By chance I walked through my garden late last night, and I saw the château lighted up. I was afraid mademoiselle was ill; so this morning I brought back Jeannette to amuse her. In the court, M. Riponin told me of the departure of M. le Marquis; and now I do not wish to hear anything further, unless you judge it necessary."

"It will certainly be useful," said Dame Berthe, who was longing to tell all she knew, "you will agree with me, M. Ragaud, when you know that M. le Marquis was called off by a letter, which assured him that they were only waiting for him...."

"To change _the face of the world_," said Ragaud with dry humor.

"Precisely," replied Berthe seriously. "It appears that the insurrection has broken out near Angers, where there are thousands of armed men. Monsieur, who fought with the Chouans in his youth, will be appointed general, and they will advance to the capture of Paris, where nothing is suspected. The usurper will be driven out, M. Ragaud, and our dear young legitimate prince will ascend the throne. Won't it be magnificent? Dear Eveline will go to court. Poor child! she has been so long tired of the country."

"Hum!" said Ragaud, not the least bit excited. "Are they very sure of all that?"

"Sure? How can it be doubted, when the friend of M. le Marquis in that province declares, do you understand--declares positively--that it only needs a spark to set fire to the powder?"

"To the powder!" cried Ragaud, this time very much frightened. "Are they dreaming of blowing up the magazine at Angers? That would be a terrible misfortune, my dear lady."

"Be easy," replied Dame Berthe, shrugging her shoulders. "I always forget that you don't read the papers. 'Setting fire to the powder' means to kindle the insurrection, to inflame the minds and hearts of the people; and it is expected that, at the first word, the country will rise as one man."

"They are going to fight?" said Ragaud. "Battles are not gay, and the poor fare badly in time of war."

"Fight? Oh! you are blind, my dear M. Ragaud," replied Dame Berthe, laughing with the most charming simplicity. "Do you expect a few little regiments to withstand millions of men? Before a week, the insurgents will be counted by millions. And now, if you wish to know the real truth, ... well, ... the army itself is with us."

"Ah! indeed," said Ragaud. "This is great news."

"Do you think those gentlemen would be so silly as to commence the work without being assured of this support?" replied the governess, clasping her hands. "My God! Ragaud, for whom do you take M. le Marquis and his friends?"

"For brave men, most assuredly," said the farmer, unable to repress a smile; "and since all is so well arranged, Dame Berthe, allow me, with all due respect, to ask you two questions. In the first place, when will the marriage come off? In the second, what does my dear master wish me to do under the circumstances?"

"When will the marriage take place? You mean, when will the king enter Paris?"

"Just so, my good lady."

"I don't think this great event could possibly take place before a month, or three weeks at soonest. Although this revolution, inspired by God, must, I am fully convinced, spread like lightning, time flies rapidly; and then, we must always think of unforeseen accidents."

"Doubtless, doubtless; it is always more prudent," said Ragaud.

"As for what M. le Marquis expects of you, my good Ragaud, it is very easy. It would be shameful, you know, when all France is rising in arms for her true sovereign, to see Val-Saint and the neighborhood sleeping in carelessness and indolence. You are, then, designated--you, Jacques Michou, who for forty years has been the head-keeper of the estate, Master Perdreau, the notary of the family, and some other old servants--you are expected to prepare the people for the change about to take place, and make them cry 'Long live the King!' throughout the commune."

"And if they won't do it?" asked Ragaud innocently; "for, in truth, that is to be well considered."

"They will do it; they will _all_ do it," cried Dame Berthe. "France is burning with the desire of uttering this cry of love and gratitude," she added, remembering that she had just read this expression in her morning paper.

"So much the better," said Ragaud; "and it only remains to thank you for your confidence, my dear lady, and I will do my best to fulfil the wishes of M. le Marquis."

The entrance of mademoiselle, who thought there had been time enough for the secret to be told and retold, cut short the conversation, as she brought Jeannette with her. Ragaud bowed politely to the ladies of the château, kissed his daughter, told her to be good and obedient, and closed the door behind him, his head full of all he had just heard.

Dame Berthe overtook him at the head of the staircase.

"Ragaud," said she, "you told me you were up late last night. Did you not see, about midnight, a blue light go up from the summit of the tower?"

"Yes," replied Ragaud, "and I was dumb with astonishment; I do not conceal it."

"It was the given signal to warn several châteaux of the neighborhood of the departure of M. le Marquis. Watch all these nights, for we expect a messenger, who will come to announce the triumph of the holy cause, and then a second light will go up at the same hour. This one will be red, and, when you see it, you will instantly march, with the armed bands you will have assembled, to join the grand army."

"All right," said Ragaud; "we will do our best."

And he descended the staircase slowly, without appearing the least excited.

"Eveline," said Dame Berthe, pressing mademoiselle to her breast, "thank God, my dear child. I have had the happiness of completely winning over good Ragaud to the holy cause. He is even more ardent than myself, and as well disposed as we could wish. Before long, we will see Val-Saint and Ordonniers rise and march to victory under the command of this brave peasant. Jacques Cathelineau and M. Stofflet should be of the same stamp. What I admire in Ragaud is that cold determination, which would make one fancy he was not enthusiastic; but I am not deceived by appearances."

"Perhaps," said mademoiselle, "all will be over in time for us to go and finish the winter in Paris."

"I have no doubt of it," replied Dame Berthe; "and thus, my dear child, as I have thought the dressmakers might be half crazy with the quantity of court-dresses that would be ordered, I have already decided what your costume is to be on the entrance of the king into Paris; for I expect the daughter of the commander-in-chief to be the first to salute her sovereign; and I will immediately commence to embroider the satin train, so as to be ready."

"How good you are! You think of everything!" said mademoiselle, very much overcome. "I wish I was there now!..."

"Oh!" cried Dame Berthe, "only be patient."

After leaving the château, Ragaud, with his hands in his pockets, went off in search of his old comrade, Jacques Michou, that he might consult with him over Dame Berthe's revelations. Jacques lived alone--being a widower and childless--in a little house close to the edge of the woods that bordered La Range. He had no one about him but a niece of his late wife, whom he fed and clothed; in return for which, she cooked for him and cleaned his hunting-gun. The girl was little trouble to him; she was idiotic and half dumb, and, among other little eccentricities, liked to sleep with the sheep. So, in the summer she camped out on the meadow with the flock, and in winter slept in the sheepfold, which certainly had the advantage of keeping her very warm, but could have had no other charm. From this habit she had acquired the name of _Barbette_ throughout the country; and it was not badly given, as with us a great many shepherd-dogs are called Barbets, on account of the race; and since the poor girl shared their office, she had at least a claim to the name if she so pleased.

Jacques Michou, on his side, had his particular fancies. First of all was the idea (which he would only give up with his life) that, in virtue of his badge and his gun, he was the head-keeper of M. le Marquis de Val-Saint. Now, we must acknowledge it was mere show, there was nothing in it; for our good lord never wished to displease any one, not even the poachers. He said there was always some good in those men; and as in everything he pursued one aim--which was, as you know, to enrol one day or other all our boys in a regiment for the benefit of the king--he preferred to be kind to these bold and cunning rascals, who were not easily hoodwinked. After a while, Jacques Michou became weary of carrying the delinquents before M. le Marquis only to see them graciously dismissed, so it ended by his letting them alone; and at the end of a few years, his principal occupation was to carefully keep to the right of the estate in making his rounds when he knew the poachers were at work on the left. However, he took pride in letting them know that each and every one could be caught at any moment he wished; he knew every path in the woods as well as the bottom of his sauce-pan, and all the thieves as though they belonged to his family. When he met the rascals, he threatened them with loud voice and gesture, and swore tremendous oaths that made heaven and earth tremble. "But," he would shout, "what can I do? Robbers and vagabonds that you are, if M. le Marquis allows himself to be plundered, the servant must obey the master's orders; but for that, you would see!" And the end of the story was--nothing was seen.

You can understand very well that the brave old fellow, having only the title of keeper, and nothing to show for it but the fine silver badge, engraved with the arms of the family of Val-Saint, which he wore on the shoulder-strap of his game-bag, clung all the closer to the empty honor, and allowed no joking on the subject.

When Ragaud entered his friend's house, he found him carving playthings out of cocoanut-shells--something which he did wonderfully well--and in a few words related what had taken place at the château.

"We will find ourselves floundering in the mire," said Ragaud. "As for me, I am ready to promise before the good God that I will give my life to fulfil the commands of our dear master; but it remains to be seen if many around here are of my opinion."

"Many?" exclaimed Jacques, shrugging his shoulders. "Bah! I am very sure you will not find one out of a dozen!"

"If it is true," replied Ragaud, with hesitation; "I wonder if it is really true about the insurrection in Anjou?"

"Nonsense," said Jacques Michou. "That poor M. le Marquis is crazy on one point, which takes him out of the country every five or six years for change of air, and that is good for his health; for every man needs hope to keep him well. That is the truth of the business."

"Do you think, then, we had better not attempt to fulfil his orders?" asked Ragaud.

"As for that, a good master must always be obeyed, old fellow; we can say a few words here and there quietly. You will find the people as stupid as owls, and they will understand you as well as though you spoke Prussian. We shall have done our duty. As to monsieur, he will return before long, a little cross for the moment, but not at all discouraged--take my word for it."

"It is a great pity," said Ragaud, "that a man of such great good sense couldn't listen to reason!"

"Why so?" replied Jacques. "A great lord like him is bound in honor to be devoted, body and soul, to his king; for you see, Ragaud, the king who is not on the throne is the real one--no doubt about that. But often one tumbles over in running too fast; and since it appears not to be the will of the good God that things should return to the old style, it would have been much better not to have sent off letters, gone off at night, and fired off signals. It is just as if they had played the flute. Men stop a moment, listen, and then, the music ended, each one returns to his plough."

"You speak capitally," said Ragaud; "it is just what I think also; so I will do as you say--neither more nor less. But we will agree on one point, old fellow, which is, to have an eye on the château, so that we can defend the doors if the women are threatened."

"Bah! bah! No fear about that," said Michou, shaking him by the hand. "I will give my life for all that belong to the house of Val-Saint, comrade. I would as willingly fire a pistol in defence of monsieur, mademoiselle, and the old fool of a governess, as for the hares and rabbits on the estate. But for these it would be powder thrown away, as monsieur, we must believe, only likes butcher's meat, and prefers to leave his game for those devils of thieves!"

Thereupon the worthy old souls refreshed themselves with a jug of cider, and conversed together for some time longer, principally repeating the same ideas on the same subject, which was the one we have just related--something which often happens to wiser men than they, and, therefore, I consider it useless to tell you any more of their honest gossip.

They separated about mid-day, and I will inform you what was the result of the great insurrection. At Angers, as with us, it was as Michou had predicted. M. le Marquis returned from his trip rather fatigued and thoroughly disgusted with France, which he called a ruined country. Mademoiselle wept for a week that she could not go to Paris. Dame Berthe commenced Novenas to the Blessed Queen Jeanne, in order that the next enterprise, which would not be long delayed, might succeed better than the last; and the result of all was that Jeannette remained more than ever at the château, as she was the greatest consolation to her dear godmother.

X.

I think we will do well, at this period of our story, to pass over several years, during which time nothing of great importance occurred. In the country, days succeed each other in undisturbed tranquillity, unmarked by many great events. According as the spring is rainy or dry, the villagers commence the season by making predictions about the summer, which, twenty times out of twenty-two, are never fulfilled. It must be acknowledged that we peasants seem afraid to appear too well pleased with the good God; and, though it is a great fault, unfortunately it is not rare. Men grumble and swear, first at the sun, and then at the wind, for burning and parching their fields; and when the rain commences, there is another cause for displeasure; and most of all, at the end of summer, when, after these doleful repinings, the harvests have been plentiful, far from thanking the Lord God, who, instead of punishing them, has sent blessings, they instantly commence to worry about the approaching vintage. And so S. Sylvester's day finds them with well-stacked barns and cellars filled with barrels of wine, but not to make them wiser the year after from such experience, which should teach them faith in divine Providence.

Whence I conclude that men are only incorrigible, gabbling children, and that the good God must have great patience and mercy to tolerate them. Much more could be said on this subject; but, not being a priest, I prefer to leave off moralizing, and return to our friends.

Therefore, we will, if you please, resume our narrative about seven years from where we left off, at which time Jeannette Ragaud had nearly completed her sixteenth year and Jean-Louis his twentieth.

Weeks and months, rapidly passing, had brought them from childhood to youth without their knowing it, and they had each followed their inclinations, as might easily have been foreseen. Jeannette, well educated, coquettish, and extremely pretty, was the most charming little blonde in the province. She scarcely ever came to Muiceron, except on Sundays and festivals, between Mass and Vespers; and if you ask me how this could have happened, so contrary, as you know, to the wishes of father and mother Ragaud, I will reply that I know nothing, unless there is a special wind which blows sometimes over men's desires, and prevents their ripening into facts. To be convinced of this truth needs only a little unreserved frankness. See, now, you who listen to me, you may be more learned than a schoolmaster, and more malicious than a hump-back--that I will not dispute; but if you will swear to me that everything in this life has happened as you desired, without change or contradiction, I will not hesitate to think you, but for the charity which should reign among Christians, the greatest liar in your parish.

If any one spoke to Ragaud about the dangerous road in which he had placed his daughter, and that there was no longer chance to retrace his steps, he did not show displeasure or excuse himself, as heretofore. His serious and rather sorrowful air, joined to a very convenient little cough, showed more than by words that he did not know how to reply, and the poor man was truly sensible of his weakness and error; but what could he do? Something always happened to prevent him from carrying out his intention of taking Jeannette from the château.

Sometimes mademoiselle was sick; sometimes it was a festival of the church that needed a reinforcement of skilled embroiderers to make vestments and flowers for the altars; another day Dame Berthe had gone off for a month's vacation. In winter the pretext was that Jeannette's health would be endangered if she resumed her peasant life, as she could not bear the exposure; and when that was over, the summer days were so long, mademoiselle would have died of _ennui_ without her darling Jeannette; and all this mademoiselle explained with such a gentle, winning air, old Ragaud never could refuse her; so that at last he was so accustomed to ask and be refused each time that he went for Jeannette, he finally abandoned the attempt; and seeing that his visits to the château were mere matters of form, he submitted with good grace, by making none at all, at least with that intention.

As for good Pierrette, she remained quiet; but accustomed to submit, and filled besides with admiration for the great good sense of her husband, she told all her troubles to the good God, and awaited, without complaint, the time when he would decree a change. But yet I must say things were not so bad as you might fancy. Life at the château had not spoiled Jeannette's heart. She was rather light-hearted, and the vanity of fine clothes had more effect on her than that of position; but as for her parents, she adored them, and overwhelmed them with embraces and kisses on her visits to the farm, which gave her undisguised pleasure. Our _curé_, who watched her closely, and who never liked to see country girls quit the stable for the drawing-room, was forced to acknowledge that the affair had not turned out so badly as he apprehended; and although he did not hesitate to scold mademoiselle for spoiling Jeannette--which he had the right to do, as he had known her from her birth, and had also baptized her--it was easy to see, by his fond, paternal air, that he loved the child as much as at the time when Germaine whipped her.

I will also tell you that this good pastor was beginning to feel the weight of years. He lost strength daily, and, like all holy men, his character softened as he drew nearer to the good God. Besides, fearing that soon he would be unable to visit his beloved flock, he thought rightly it was better not to be too severe, as it might wean them from him.

"For," said he, "if it is true that flies are not caught by vinegar, it is still more evident that men are never won by scolding and threats."

It was a sound argument, and, consequently, who was more venerated than the _curé_ of Val-Saint? I will give only one proof. His parishioners, seeing that walking fatigued him, consulted among themselves at a fair, and resolved to buy him a steady animal, with a sheep-skin saddle and leather reins, embroidered in red, according to the country fashion.

It so happened that just at that moment a pedlar, owning a good mule, wished to barter it for a draught-horse, put up for sale by a farmer from Charbonnière. The bargain was made after a short parley, and our good friends returned home joyfully, and, without saying a word, tied their present to the tree before the priest's house. It was too good an act to be kept silent; the next day the _curé_ and all the parish knew it. I need not ask who was deeply moved. The following Sunday our dear _curé_ thanked his flock with words that repaid them a hundred-fold; and really, if you know anything about country people, you must say, without meaning any wrong by it, they are not accustomed to be generous; therefore, a little praise was fully their due.

As for the mule, it was a famous beast. She was black, and sniffed the air at such a rate, she always seemed eager to start off at full gallop; but, fortunately for our dear old _curé_, it was only a little coquetry she still practised in remembrance of her youthful days, and never went further. After making six or seven paces, she became calmer, dropped her head, and trotted along as quietly as a lady taking up a collection in the church. Otherwise she was gentle and easily managed, except at the sight of water, into which she never could be induced to put her foot.

"But who has not his faults?" as the beadle of Val-Saint was accustomed to say to his wife, when she scolded him for returning home rather the worse for having raised his elbow too often.

In speaking a little here and there about each and every one, don't think that I have forgotten Jean-Louis; on the contrary, I have kept the dear boy as the choicest morsel.

You must not expect me to relate in detail all his acts and gestures. In the first place, he spoke little, and what he said was so kind and gentle that, if he was forced to deal with the noisiest brawler in the neighborhood, he soon conquered him by his mildness. One reason of this was that, having learned so young the painful circumstances of his birth, and being proud by nature, he controlled himself before people, in order not to provoke any insolence. I must also add that the greater part of our young men get into trouble over their wine; and for Jeannet there was nothing to fear in that respect. Why, you can easily guess: because he knew nothing of the tavern, but the entrance and the sign--just what could be seen in passing along the street.

The good fellows, his companions, loved him dearly; the wicked were forced to respect him, and feared him also, as Jeannet had grown up tall, and had arms strong enough to stop a mad bull; and as for work, no one could compete with him. Only one thing on earth he feared, and that was to commit a sin. And do you know, that those who have only this fear can overcome, with a sign, a raging madman? It daily happens, as much in the city, among the black coats, as in the village, among the blouses. Try it, and you will be convinced, and then you will acknowledge I speak the truth.

The Ragauds, as they watched this pearl of a boy grow up, learned to love him more than many parents do their legitimate sons. He was worth five hired men, and Ragaud, with his strict sense of justice, had calculated the value to the last cent, and for the past ten years had placed to his credit in the savings-bank, every 1st of January, one thousand francs, upon which the interest was accruing. Jean-Louis knew nothing of the secret, and never did he dream his labor was worth remuneration. The boy's mind and heart were so thoroughly at ease that, knowing he had not a cent, and nothing to expect on the death of his parents, as they had a daughter, he never troubled himself about the present or the future, believing firmly that the good God, who had given him a family, would provide for his daily wants; for this second blessing was nothing, in his eyes, in comparison with the first.

Pierrette was careful that her Benjamin's pocket was never empty. At Easter and on S. John's day she always gave him a five-franc piece; and even this was often too much, as Jeannet's clothes and linen were always kept in perfect order by his devoted mother, and, consequently, as he never indulged in dissipation, and seldom joined in the village games, he did not know how to spend it. He would have liked sometimes to treat himself to a book when the pedlar--the same who had sold the mule to the farmers for M. le Curé--came around, and Ragaud, sure now of his good conduct, would certainly not have objected; but one day, after having searched over the package, he bought for thirty sous what he thought was a good and entertaining work, as it bore the seal placed by the government on all publications peddled through the country; but, to his horror, he found it filled with villanous sentiments. This saddened and disgusted him for several days; these thirty sous laid heavy on his mind, not from the avaricious thought that he had thrown his money to the wind, but from the idea that he had wronged the poor; for thirty sous was the exact price of a six-pound loaf of bread of the best quality. Between ourselves, I verily believe he accused himself of it in confession, as what I ever heard of the good boy makes me think it most likely he would do so.

Perhaps you would like to know if Jean-Louis had grown up handsome or ugly. Well, he was ugly, at least according to common opinion; we villagers admire red faces and those who look well fed, and dress showily. Jeannet's face was long and pale; his features delicate; teeth white and beautiful, in a large mouth that seldom smiled; and his deep, dark eyes were brilliant as stars; and when those eyes looked in displeasure at any one, they were fearful. Besides, Jean-Louis, who was tall, appeared so thin you would have thought him a young gray-beard, ready to break in two at the first breath of wind. With us, thin people who have not a pound of flesh on their bones are not admired, and it is quite an insult to be called thin. I think that is all nonsense, for vigor does not come from fat, but from good health, flesh strengthened by exercise and good habits; and as Jeannet was acknowledged to be the strongest boy in the neighborhood, he was only called thin from jealousy, as he certainly could thank God for being a sound young man, as strong as the foundation of a barn.

The only amusement he allowed himself was sometimes, on great festivals, to assist at the pigeon-shooting which M. le Marquis had established on the lawn before the château. It was a difficult game, which demanded good sight, coolness, and, above all, great strength of wrist. Jeannet, on two successive years, carried off the prize; the first was a silver goblet, the second a beautiful knife, fork, and spoon of the same metal. On these occasions his pale face became red with pleasure; do you think it was from vanity? Not at all. If his heart beat quickly, it was at the thought of the splendid presents he would make his good mother Pierrette; and, in reality, he made her promise she would never drink a drop or eat a mouthful but out of the goblet or with the knife and fork. We must say, in spite of the crowns heaped up at Muiceron, the earthen pipe and tin cups were alone used. At first Pierrette was ill at ease with her silver service, but she nevertheless accustomed herself to the use of it, so as to please Jeannet; and at last, to make her feel more comfortable, Ragaud, on his next trip to the city, bought himself a similar set, very fine, for eighty-four francs, which he constantly said was rather dear; but at heart he thought it very suitable, as it was not proper for his wife to eat with silver and he with tin; and to Jeannet's mind, who regretted that he had not drawn four prizes instead of two, so as to delight both his dear parents, a brighter idea had never entered his good father's head.

If I relate all these little anecdotes at length, it is to show you Jeannet's good heart; and without speaking ill of little Jeannette, who had also her fine points, I think her brother surpassed her in delicate attention to their parents, which I attribute to the difference in their education. Believe me, it is always better to let a cabbage remain a cabbage, and never attempt to graft a melon upon it. You will make nothing worth eating; for the good God, who created the cabbage on one side, and the melon on the other, likes each to remain in its place, without which you will have a hybrid vegetable, which will not really be of either species.

Pierrette, like a true woman, knowing Jeannet's excellence, often thought he could make some woman very happy, and that it was her duty to speak to him of marriage, since he was twenty years old, and they knew he would never have to enter the army, even though he should draw the fatal number. One evening, when she was spinning beside the hearth, with Jean-Louis near her, making a net for catching birds, she commenced to speak of the happiness of her married life, the blessings she had received from heaven, and her perfect contentment on all points. Jean-Louis listened with pleasure, and acknowledged that a happy marriage was something to be envied, but, according to his custom, never thinking of himself, he did not dream of wishing this fine destiny might one day be his.

"And you, my Jean, would you not like to marry?"

Jean-Louis dropped his shuttle, and looked at Pierrette with astonishment.

"What an idea!" said he. "I have never even thought of it, dear mother."

"It is nevertheless very simple, my son. Ragaud was your age when he married me, and, when his parents asked him the same question, he thought it right, and instantly replied, yes!"

"Doubtless he knew you, and even loved you; then I could easily understand it."

"That is true," replied Pierrette, slightly blushing; "for a year before, the dear man had cast glances at me on Sundays at High Mass; at least, he told me so after we were engaged. Why don't you do likewise?"

"For that, I should be obliged to think of some of the girls around us, and I have never troubled myself about them yet."

"That is queer," said Pierrette innocently. "You are not like other men; for without showing particular attention, it is allowable to look at the girls around when one wishes to be established."

"Bah!" said Jeannet; "but I don't care about anything of the kind. When I am in the village on Sunday, I have something else to think about."

"About what, dear boy?"

"Well, then, I think that we will all be quiet at Muiceron until evening, and I hasten to return, so as to sit down near you, as I am now, and laugh and talk to amuse you; and I don't wish any other pleasure. Besides, it is the only time in the week when we can see Jeannette; and, to speak the truth, dear mother, I would not give that up for all the marriages in the world."

"All very well," replied Pierrette; "but without giving up those pleasures, you can take a wife."

"Oh!" said Jeannet, "I see that you are tired of me, or else you would not speak thus."

"What do you say?" replied Pierrette, kissing him on the forehead. "It is not right to speak so, and surely you do not mean it. On the contrary, whether you marry or remain single, I never wish you to leave me. There is room enough for another woman, and even for children. What I proposed, my Jean, was for your happiness, and nothing else."

"Well, then, dear mother, let me remain as I am; I never can be happier than now."

"But when we come to die, it will be so sad to leave you alone!"

Jeannet started up, and leaned against the mantel. A clap of thunder at the time would not have astonished him more than such a speech. He to be left alone in the world, no longer to have his father and mother beside him! And nevertheless it was something to be anticipated; but his life flowed on so smoothly and happily, the thought of such a misfortune had never before struck terror to his heart.

He remained silent a moment, looking fixedly at the bright wood fire that burned upon the hearth; and suddenly, as it often happens when some remark has penetrated the very soul, he saw, as in a picture, his dear good mother Pierrette and father Ragaud stretched on their biers, and laid in the cold ground, in the dread repose of death that never awakens. But, no! it was not possible; and yet it happens any day, sometimes for one, sometimes for another. Muiceron, where they all lived in tranquil happiness, was truly a paradise on earth, but most assuredly not the celestial paradise where immortality alone exists.

For the first time since the memorable day when he had suffered so cruelly on learning the secret of his birth, Jeannet felt his poor heart ache with a similar grief. Pierrette, who thought it perfectly natural to have opened his eyes to such a desirable event, continued her spinning. Seeing Jean-Louis in deep thought, and receiving no answer, she simply fancied her argument had been conclusive, and that he felt the necessity of establishing himself, and so was debating in his own mind the relative attractions of the girls in the neighborhood. Besides, Jeannet's back was to her, and she did not see the change in his face.

"Think a little," said she, pursuing her idea; "there is no greater pleasure for parents who feel themselves growing old than to see their children well married. Then they can die in peace, thinking that, after they are gone, nothing will be changed; only, instead of the old people, young ones will take their place, the work will go on, all hearts will be happy, and kind prayers and fond recollections will follow them to the tomb."

"Oh!" cried Jean-Louis, covering his face with his hands, "if you say another word, I will die!"

"What!" said Pierrette, "die--of what? Are you ill?"

Jeannet, in spite of his twenty years, burst into tears like a little child; he clasped Pierrette in his arms, fondly embraced her, and said in a tone melting with tenderness:

"My mother, my dear, dear mother, I shall never marry--never, do you hear? And I beg of you never to mention the subject again. I have but one heart, and that I have given you undivided; nothing remains for another. When you speak of marriage, it makes us think of death and the grave; and that is beyond my strength--I cannot speak of it. If the good God calls you before me, my dearest mother, it will not be long before I rejoin you; and thus it will be better for me to die single than to leave a family after me. And now, as I do not wish to marry, and you only desire my happiness, do not urge me further."

"Your heart is too gentle for a man," said Pierrette, feeling the tears of her dear child on her brow; "you make me happy, even while opposing me, and I see that I have made you unhappy without wishing it. Be consoled, my Jeannet; we will never speak of it again. If you change your mind, you will tell me. Meanwhile, we will live as before. Don't be worried; it will be a long time yet before we leave you. I am in good health, and your father also; and so Muiceron will not change masters soon."

"No, no, thank God!" cried Jean-Louis; "the Blessed Virgin will watch over us. We have not lived together for twenty years now to separate, my darling mother!"

Truth to say, this was not very sound argument, for, whether twenty years together, or thirty, or forty, friends must separate, all the same, at the appointed hour; but Jeannet spoke with his heart torn with sorrow, and Pierrette was perfectly willing to acknowledge, in her turn, that she really desired things should happen as he wished.

From that time the question of marriage was put in her pocket, and never taken out again. God and his holy angels looked down with delight upon this innocent household, full of tenderness and kindness, and did not allow evil to overshadow it. However, the child Jeannette deserved to be cured of her little sins of vanity, and you will see the means taken by the Heavenly Father to make her a Christian according to his will.

XI.

About this time came a year which is still remembered, although a good long time has since elapsed. Swarms of locusts devoured the young wheat before it ripened, while the field-mice, moles, and other villanous pests, gnawed and destroyed it at the roots. Corn especially suffered in this unlucky season; not a plant escaped. Before it had grown ten feet in height, it was blighted, and then withered and died. It would take too long to enumerate all the difficulties that overwhelmed the peasants. Hailstorms beat down the meadows at haymaking time; splendid cows died of the pest; sheep were suddenly attacked and perished; and as for the horses, decimated by the glanders, which became epidemic, and was very dangerous, as it often passed from animals to men, it would be impossible to count the victims.

This year, at least, those who had begun the season by prophesying evil had their predictions fully accomplished; but, thank God! such an unfortunate season rarely happens. The poor people were fearfully discouraged; and, in sooth, it was not strange that men dreaded the future, in face of such a present.

Nevertheless, greater activity was never seen in the fields. To save the little that remained, each one did his best, even down to the little children, in reaping, gathering the harvest, piling the carts, in spite of the locusts, the hail, and the devil, who was said to have a great deal to do with the affair, and which I am very much inclined to believe. The people even worked until late in the night. It was a devouring fever, which made every one half crazy, and it was a miracle that no one died of it; for, in our province, we are accustomed to work slowly, without hurry or excitement, and it is commonly believed everything happens when and how it is decreed, but none the worse on that account; but I wish to prove that they could hurry up when occasion required.

Our friend, Jean-Louis, did wonders in these sad circumstances. He seemed to be everywhere at once--in the fields, the stables, at the head of the reapers, at the barn when the carts were unloaded; encouraging some, urging on others, in a friendly way; hurrying up the cattle; when necessary, giving a helping hand to the veterinary surgeon; and, withal, gentle and kind to everybody.

You think that, with order, energy, and intelligence, work will always be rewarded with success. He who first said, "Help yourself, and Heaven will aid you," did not speak falsely. God does not work miracles for those who fold their arms in idleness, but he always gives to humble and persevering labor such abundant reward that, for many centuries, no matter what may be the suffering, the truth of the Holy Scriptures has always been verified, that "never has any one seen the just man die of hunger, or his seed begging their bread."

In virtue of this rule, it came to pass that, at Muiceron, the harvest of hay, as well as of wheat, rye, and corn, was far better than could have been expected by the most sanguine. The unfortunate ones, who lost nearly all their crops, said that Ragaud had dealt in witchcraft to protect himself from the prevailing bad luck. This nonsense made every one laugh, but did not stop their envy and jealousy; and so unjust do men become, when their hearts are envenomed by rage and disappointment, that some of the worst--the laziest, undoubtedly--went so far as to declare openly, in the village inn, that it would be for the good of the public if some of the splendid hay-stacks at Muiceron were burned, as the contrast was too great between the well-kept farm and the ruined fields around.

Fortunately, our friend, Jacques Michou, was drinking in a corner while this delightful conversation took place; he rose from his seat, and, placing his hand on the shoulder of him who had been the loudest in threats, declared he would instantly complain of him to the police; and that, merely for speaking in such a manner, he could be sent to prison for a month. No further grumbling was heard after this speech, and it can be easily understood no wicked attempt was made. So true is it that a little courage will easily defeat the most wicked plans; for vice is very cowardly in its nature.

While all the country around Val-Saint, Ordonniers, and many other neighborhoods, were thus afflicted, M. le Marquis had been busy with some of his grand affairs, of which we have already heard, and started on a journey for some unknown place. He returned this time a little happier than usual, as it was near the beginning of 1847; and it is not necessary to remind you that it preceded 1848. At this time even the stupidest felt that a revolution was approaching, and our good lord and all his friends were doubly certain of the impending storm. He was therefore excusable in having neglected the care of his large estate, so as to devote himself to that which was the first desire of his heart. But he who should have watched over his interests in his absence, the superintendent Riponin, he it was that was every way blamable; for, whether intentionally, that he might continue his orgies in the midst of disorder, or through idleness and negligence, he had allowed the place to fall into a fearful state of ruin. Nothing was to be seen but fields devastated by the ruin, or grain rotting as it stood; the animals that died had not been replaced; and even the vegetable garden of the château presented a most lamentable picture of disorder and neglect. Ragaud and Michou, had seen all this; but they were too insignificant to dare say a word, and too proud, besides, to venture a remonstrance, which certainly would not have been received.

M. le Marquis, on his return, was anything but agreeably surprised. He summoned Riponin before him, and reprimanded him in a manner which he long remembered. Our master was goodness itself, but he could not be unreasonably imposed upon; his old noble blood would fire up, and he could show men that for more than five hundred years his ancestors, as well as he, had been accustomed to command and obey only the laws of the Lord God.

Riponin was a coward; he trembled and asked pardon, promised to do better, and gave a hundred poor excuses. M. le Marquis would not receive any such explanation; he ordered Riponin out of his presence, and seasoned the command with several big military words, which I will not repeat. It was a sign that he was terribly angry. Thus the unfaithful steward was obliged to retire without further reply; and, between ourselves, it was the best he could do.

Thereupon M. le Marquis, still in a fury, sent off for Ragaud, who came in great haste, easily divining what had happened.

"Ragaud," said the master, "you are no better than the rest. I will lose forty thousand francs on my crops; and if you had seen to it, this would not have happened."

"Forty thousand francs!" quietly replied Ragaud. "I beg your pardon, M. le Marquis; but you mean sixty thousand francs, and that, I think, is the lowest calculation."

M. le Marquis was naturally cheerful; this unexpected answer made him smile, instead of increasing his anger. He looked at his old servant, whom he highly esteemed, and, folding his arms, said:

"Is that your opinion? Come, now, let us say fifty thousand; I think that is enough."

"No, no, sixty," replied Ragaud. "I will not take off a crown; but there is yet time to save half."

"Is that so? What can I give you, if you do that much?"

"Nothing, M. le Marquis, but permission to be master here for a week, and the honor of serving you."

"Old fool!" said the marquis. "And your own work, what will become of it?"

"It is all finished," replied the good farmer; "don't be uneasy, my dear master, only give me, as I said before, full power."

"Be off, then. I know your devotion, and I have full confidence in you; but you will not object to my making a present to your children?"

"Presents!" said Ragaud, much moved. "What else have you done for the past twenty years, M. le Marquis? Is it not the least you can do to let me be of some use to you for once in my life? I owe everything to you, down to the roof that shelters me, my wife, and the children. Presents! No, no, if you do not wish to pain me."

"Proud and obstinate man that you are," said the marquis, smiling, "have everything your own way. I am not so proud as you; you offer to save me thirty thousand francs, and I don't make such a fuss about accepting it. Isn't that a present?"

"It is thirty thousand francs that I will prevent you from losing," said the obstinate Ragaud.

"Yes, as though one would say grape-juice was not the juice of the grape," replied the marquis, who was highly amused at the replies of his old servant. "Well, if I ask you to drink a glass of old Bordeaux with me, will you take that as the offer of a present you must refuse?"

"Certainly not," said Ragaud, "but it is too great an honor for me to drink with my lord."

M. le Marquis made them bring refreshments on a silver waiter, and kept Ragaud in close conversation for a full hour, knowing well that this friendly manner of treating him was the greatest reward he could give the good, honest soul, to whom God had given sentiments far above his condition. Afterwards, he dismissed him with such a warm shake of the hand that Ragaud was nearly overcome and could scarcely restrain his tears.

"Well," said he, returning to Muiceron, where he found Jean-Louis occupied with arranging the wood-pile, "what do you think we are going to do, my boy, after having worked like ten men to get in our crops and fill the barns?"

"I was thinking about that," replied Jeannet; "and, meanwhile, I have put the fagots in order, so that mother can easily get at them, when I am not at hand, to make the fire."

"You have never thought to take a little rest?" asked Ragaud, who knew well beforehand what would be the reply.

"Why, yes," said Jean-Louis, "an hour's rest now and then is very pleasant; but after that, my dear father," he continued, laughing, "I like to stretch my legs."

"Well, then, let us imagine nothing was done at Muiceron, and that, at this very moment, we should be obliged to begin; what would you say?"

"All right; and I would instantly begin the work. I hope you don't doubt me?" he replied, with his usual air of quiet resolution.

"No, I do not doubt you, my good boy," resumed Ragaud; "and to prove my confidence in your courage and good-will, I have to-day promised to undertake an enterprise which, in honor, we are bound to accomplish."

And he related to him what we already know.

"Hum!" said Jean-Louis, after having listened attentively; "it will be pretty hard work, but with the help of God nothing is impossible."

"That is just what I think," replied Ragaud; "but for that, I would not have undertaken such a task. Now, Jeannet, we must begin to put the place in order to-morrow at the latest."

"That will be time enough, father, and we will do our best," said Jean-Louis.

The subject was dropped for the rest of the evening. Ragaud did not trouble his head about the means his son would employ; and Jeannet, without being otherwise sure of himself, remained tranquil, like all those who ask the assistance of divine Providence in the management of their affairs. Nevertheless, it was a difficult task, not only on account of the severe manual labor, but also from the certainty of incurring the deadly hatred of Riponin, who was a very wicked man. The thought of it somewhat disquieted Ragaud, and Jean-Louis from the first understood the full danger; but what could be done? Duty before everything.

The next morning Jean-Louis was up before sunrise. During the night, he thought over his plan, like the general of an army; he remembered having read somewhere that a troop can do nothing, unless conducted by able chiefs. He would need one hundred hands, and, for one all alone, that would be a great many. His first care was to knock at the window of a fine young man of his own age, who, from infancy, had been his most intimate friend. He was called Pierre Luguet, and lived in the hamlet of Luchonières, which is a small cluster of twelve or fifteen houses a little lower down than Ordonniers, but on the other side of La Range. By good fortune, the stream at this place is so choked up with a big heap of gravel and old stumps of willow-trees, which serve as stepping-stones across the water, that any one who is light-footed can cross as easily as on a narrow bridge.

This name of Luguet, I suppose, strikes your ear oddly. He was really the nephew of poor Catharine, and thus first cousin of Jean-Louis, who undoubtedly knew it, as you can imagine. Perhaps it was the reason these two young men were so much attached. They say the voice of blood cannot be smothered; and although it is not always true, in this case it was very evident that, whether for that reason or simply from similarity of character and pursuits, good conduct and age, Pierre Luguet was the only one of the neighborhood whom Jeannet ever sought, and that Pierre was never happier than when he could detain Jean-Louis for several hours in conversation or some innocent amusement.

Jean-Louis went straight to the house of his friend, who, recognizing his voice behind the shutter, quickly opened it and let him in. He lived in a little room in front of the farm-buildings, and, consequently, the noise did not awaken his parents. Jeannet entered by the window, and, without losing any time, explained his plans to Pierre, while he rapidly dressed.

"You," said he, "must be my lieutenant. We must get together one hundred young men, each one resolved to do his part. M. le Marquis will not begrudge the crowns; we will promise them good wages, and they must work all night, if necessary; and, to encourage every one, we will keep a roaring fire in Michou's house, so that Barbette will always have the soup warm and a tun of cider ready for tapping. In this manner the laborers will be contented, and not obliged to return home twice a-day for their meals. As for you, Pierre, be assured that M. le Marquis will reward you most generously for your work; and, besides, you will be doing a good action, for it is a great sin to see the estate of the master worse cared for than that of his servants."

"I am not thinking about the price," said Pierre Luguet, putting on his blouse. "I ask no more than you will have."

"That is good; we will see about it," replied Jeannet, laughing in his sleeve; for he knew well that he was going to work for the honor of it, and he did not wish to make Pierre go by the same rule, knowing that he supported his old parents.

They decided upon the places where they would expect to find the best men, and separated, one to the left, the other to the right, promising to meet again at twelve o'clock.

There was really great rejoicing when the young men of Val-Saint and Ordonniers learned that they were required to work for M. le Marquis under the lead of the two best men of the neighborhood. They had nothing to fear from brutality and injustice, as in the time of Riponin; and the news of his disgrace put all the brave fellows in the best humor.

Riponin was cordially detested, and for double the pay not one would have volunteered to serve under him, or have undertaken such a disagreeable and bungled affair; but with Jeannet it was another thing, and although he warned them beforehand that he would allow neither idleness nor bad language, and that they must work long and steadily, they followed him, singing as joyously as though they were going to a wedding.

Before noon, the two bands met on the edge of the wood, where dwelt our old friend, the game-keeper. Pierre Luguet, after leaving home, had taken care to pass by, so as to forewarn him. Jacques Michou threw up his cap at the news; he also despised Riponin, and, more than any other, he had good reason for hating him. He therefore laid his plans, and borrowed from the château a huge kettle, such as is used during the vintage for pressing the grapes, which he put up, for their service, in his little barn. Everything was ready at the appointed hour, and I can assure you the delightful surprise was fully appreciated by our young friends. The two leaders had taken the precaution to tell each one of the boys to bring half a loaf of bread, a piece of goat's cheese, and a slice of pork; so the soup was doubly welcome, as it was not expected, and the cider still more so, as they had counted only on the river-water. This good beginning put them in splendid humor; and when, after being fully refreshed, they marched up to the château to pay their respects to M. le Marquis before beginning their work, one would have said, from the noise and singing, that it was a band of conscripts who had drawn the lucky number.

They instantly put their shoulders to the plough. Jeannet wisely made them commence with the worst fields, so that, when the first excitement was over, and they would be rather fatigued, they could find that they had not eaten the white bread first. Thus, having been well selected, well fed, well paid, and, above all, well led, our boys did wonders, not only that afternoon, but on the following days. The weather, however, was decidedly against them; rain drenched the laborers, and strong winds prevented them from building up the hay-stacks; but their ardor was so great that nothing discouraged them; and often, when Jeannet, moved by sympathy, put it to vote whether they should continue or not, he saw with pleasure that not one man deserted his post.

At the end of a week, half the work was so well under way it could easily be seen that, in spite of the bad season and worse management, M. le Marquis would not lose all his crops this time, but that, on the contrary, his barns would make a very good show, if not in quality, at least in quantity. The worthy gentleman came several times himself to visit the laborers and distribute extra pay. On these occasions it was admirable to see the modesty of Jean-Louis, who always managed to disappear, leaving to Pierre Luguet the honor of showing the progress of the work to M. le Marquis; and as workmen are generally just when they are not found fault with, brow-beaten, or ill-treated, they rendered to Jean-Louis greater honor and respect the more he concealed himself from their applause. In short, everything went on well to the end without interruption.

The given fortnight was not over when the last cart-load, ornamented on top with a huge bouquet of flowers and sheaves of wheat tied with ribbons, was conducted in triumph, accompanied with songs of joy, under the windows of mademoiselle, who appeared on the balcony, with Jeannette Ragaud on her right and Dame Berthe on the left. M. le Marquis was in the court of honor, enchanted with the success of the measure; and Ragaud and Michou could not remain quiet, but clapped their hands, and cried "Bravo!" to the brave young men.

Jean-Louis tried to escape this time also, but was not allowed. His friends raised him in their arms, and placed him on top of the cart with his good comrade, Pierre Luguet; and thus they made their appearance, both standing alongside of the bouquet, Jeannet crimson with shame and vexation, whilst Pierre sang loud enough to crack his throat.

You can imagine that this cart, upon which had been heaped the last gleanings of the harvest, was piled up immensely high, so that the top was on a level with the first floor of the château, and mademoiselle could thus converse at her ease with the young men.

She spoke most graciously to Jean-Louis, and congratulated him with words so complimentary that the poor fellow wished himself under the grain, rather than on top. What embarrassed him still further was to see his sister Jeannette playing the part of great lady as much as her mistress. With his usual good sense, he considered it out of place, and would have been much better pleased if she had appeared ill at ease in her false position; but, far from that, she leaned over the balcony, laughing and talking like a vain little parrot, and even rallied Jean-Louis on his subdued manner.

He did not wish to spoil the affair by looking severe and discontented, but he was grieved at heart, and hastened to put an end to the scene.

Mademoiselle, at the close of her complimentary remarks, presented each of the two friends with a little box of the same size, wrapped in beautiful paper, and tied with pink ribbon.

"They are filled with bonbons," said she in her sweet, gentle voice; "and you will not refuse to eat them in remembrance of me?"

Then she made them a most friendly bow, which they returned with great respect, and the big cart was driven off to the barn to be unloaded.

"Bon-bons!" said Pierre to Jeannet, taking out his box after they had descended from their high post of honor. "What do you think, Jean-Louis? It seems to me this plaything is too heavy only to contain candies."

"At any rate," replied Jean-Louis, "they can't do us any harm, as the boxes are not very large."

They quickly untied the pretty pink ribbon, and found in Pierre's box fifteen bright twenty-franc pieces, while Jeannet's contained a beautiful gold watch, with a chain of equal value.

To add to the general happiness, the sky, which until then had been cloudy as though threatening rain, suddenly cleared, and the sun went down in the full splendor of August, and shed a brilliant light over the bare fields, as Jean-Louis was carried in triumph by his comrades, who cried out that surely he controlled the weather, as the very winds seemed to obey him; and, strange as it may appear, the season continued so fine that never was there a more delightful autumn than after the unfortunate spring and summer.

If I dared express my opinion, I would tell you that, without calling it miraculous, the good God scarcely ever fails to send joy after sorrow, peace after war, heat after cold, as much to the visible things of the earth as to the secret ones of the heart. It is, therefore, well not to throw the handle too quickly after the axe; and, to prove this, I will tell you a short and true story, which I just happen to remember.

It relates to Michel Levrot, of the commune of Saint-Ouaire, who, against everybody's advice, married a woman from near Bichérieux. She was a bad Christian and totally unworthy of the good little man, who was rather too gentle and weak in character. For a year they got along so-so, without any great disturbance; but gradually the wicked creature grew to despise her poor husband, for no other reason but that he was too good for her, and let her have her own way completely. She wasted money at fairs, bought more fine clothes and silver jewelry than she knew what to do with, kept up a row in the house from morning until night, and ended by being nearly always drunk; all which made Michel Levrot so unhappy that one sad day in a moment of despair, without stopping to think of his eternal salvation, he threw himself headlong into the river Coussiau, which, fortunately, was not so deep as La Range, although nearly as wide.

As he was out of his head, and acted without thinking, his good angel most assuredly took care of him; for, if he had been drowned, he certainly would have lost his soul; but, although he did not know how to swim, he floated on his back, and the current carried him to the bank of the stream, where he was picked up, half-dead and in a swoon, by some of the neighbors, who rubbed and warmed him, and managed to bring him back to life. Those who had saved him were good, pious men, who spoke to him in such a Christian manner, they made him feel ashamed of his cowardice and want of confidence in the Heavenly Father; so he promised to go and see our _curé_, who lifted him upon his beast--that is to say, made peace enter his soul; after which he explained to him that, having no children, he had the right to leave this wicked and perverse woman, who deserved a severe lesson, and not return home until she should be converted or dead.

He left that part of the country, entirely cured of his desire to kill himself, and made the tour of France, honestly earning his bread by working at his trade, which was that of an upholsterer. From time to time the neighbors sent him news of his abominable wife, who led such a scandalous life it was easy to predict she would not make old bones; for, if strong drink and vice soon kill the most robust men, they are still more fatal to women. After a few years, he received the welcome intelligence that his house was rid of its baneful mistress. He then returned to Saint-Ouaire, and was charitable enough to give fifty francs for Masses for the unfortunate soul. Some time after, he married the daughter of Pierre Rufin, a good worker and housekeeper, who, besides other excellent qualities, never drank anything stronger than honey and water that she took for a weak stomach, which she had from childhood. They lived most happily, and had a family of five handsome children. I knew him when he was very old, and he always loved to relate this story of his youth, never failing to return thanks to the good God, who had saved him from drowning.

"For," said he, "my dear children, if I had been drowned that day from want of a little patience, I should have lost my soul, besides the good wife you see here and all my present happiness."

TO BE CONTINUED.

ORDINANDUS.

The goal--and yet my heart is low, When rather should it brim with glee! They tell me this is ever so. Ah! well, I cling to one I know: Sweet Virgin, keep thou me.

O thou for whom I venture all-- The fragile bark, the treacherous sea (I needs must serve my Lady's call, Her captive knight, her helpless thrall)-- My pilot, keep thou me.

From tyranny of idle fears, And subtle frauds to make me flee-- Distorting unto eyes and ears The burden of the coming years-- My mercy, keep thou me.

From shirking the accepted cross For all the galling yet to be; From seeing gold in what is dross, And seeking gain in what is loss, My wisdom, keep thou me.

From lures too strong for flesh and blood-- With show of ripe philosophy, That points the fallen, who had stood, Contented with the lesser good-- My victory, keep thou me.

O Lady dear, in weal, in woe, Till Heaven reveal thy Son and thee, Thy true love's mantle round me throw; And tenderly, calmly, sweetly so, My glory, keep thou me.

NOVEMBER, 1870.

ONE CHAPTER FROM HESTER HALLAM'S LIFE.

"Ah! Hester, Hester, keep back your tears. Be the brave little wife and woman now. Have faith, hope, and courage; the year will soon speed by, and, lo! here shall I find you again! God grant it! And good-by, my wife, my children--my all and only treasures."

They are engraven on my memory--these last words of Henry Hallam, my husband, my beloved. They were spoken hopefully, cheerfully, though I knew they were intended to cover the sorrow of a heart that ached, even as did mine, at our final parting.

Henry Hallam was to go to South America as chief engineer of a proposed road from some inland city to the Pacific. After a marriage of eight years, this was our first separation. I never did consent to it. Better poverty and the humblest life together than that mountains and seas should divide us, I argued.

But Henry was proud, as he was tender and loving; he could not bear to see his wife, delicately reared, doing menial service; nor his little girls deprived of waxen dolls, because they would usurp the ragged dollar that must go for bread.

Our situation had fallen from bad to worse; an expensive lawsuit had been decided against us, to liquidate the cost of which an out-West piece of land, that was to have been our children's fortune, had to be sold at a sacrifice; and when all was paid, except our scanty furniture, we had but three hundred dollars in the world. We lived in a rented house in the beautiful suburbs of Brooklyn; three months' rent would consume our all. Meantime, upon what should we live, and wherewithal should we be clothed? This was a serious question, which vexed my husband for many days. He suddenly answered it by accepting with alacrity this lucrative position in South America. My only living relative in all America was one sister, widowed and childless. She came from the West to abide with me during my husband's absence. She, too, had comparative poverty for her dowry, her only income arising from the interest of less than a thousand dollars.

No thought of poverty haunted us, however; heretofore all our wants had been supplied, and we had lived almost luxuriously, counting upon the fortune which had been for six years dwindling to less and less in courts of law.

It was with no dread of poverty, I repeat, that I saw my husband take his departure. I thought only how the light had gone from our house, and joy from existence. I am distressed whenever I read of the ever-recurring matrimonial quarrels and divorces which appear now the order of the day. I could have lived with Henry Hallam through the countless eternal years, and--God forgive me!--desired no other heaven.

We had no particular creed or faith. The Hallams had been Methodists; the Griffeths, my father's family over in Wales, had been members of the Church of England.

Henry and I, reading here and there indifferently, had become somewhat inclined to Swedenborg's theories. We read Dr. Bushnell and his colleagues with some faith and more interest. But we fashioned the great hereafter--the heaven we all talk of and dream so much of--after our own ideals. Those may have been in the right, thought we, from whom Shelley and many another poetical dreamer imbibed the idea that the Godhead was but the universal spirit pervading and animating nature; that man was immortal, and was to arise from the dead, clothed in purity and beauty, and was to wander endlessly in some limitless, enchanting paradise, where should be all things lovely to charm the eye, all sounds to entrance the ear, all spirits gentle, and wise, and good for communion of intellect and heart. In this heaven stood no stately throne upon which sat a God of justice, receiving one unto life, banishing another unto everlasting perdition. It was the same here as upon earth; the beauty, bloom, fragrance, and glory were permeated with an essence subtle, invisible, intangible, but present, the life and source of all--and this was God! The ancients had a heaven and a hell, which Christianity had adopted; but we lived in the XIXth century, and we need not pin our faith to such notions borrowed from the heathen. Were youth and health on earth immortal, we would prefer never to pass through the iron gate of death and the pearly gate of life; since, however, all must yield to the inexorable fiat, and _all men must die_, we would make a virtue of necessity, and be willing to go to that sensual heaven, which wore all the beauty of earth, with naught of its thorns and blight. Ah! we, Henry and I, were still in the glow of youth and hope; life seemed a beautiful vista, and the end far off! Of the great beyond we but carelessly dreamed--as carelessly as if our feet were never there to stand, nor our souls to tremble upon its awful brink.

With Henry gone, I was like a child bereft of its mother. I wept and would not be comforted. I counted the hours of every day; they seemed so inconsiderable, deducted from the almost nine thousand which the three hundred and sixty-five days yielded. I see now how foolish, weak, and wicked I was!

I was seized with a slow fever, which lasted me through the summer. In my weakness and wakefulness I saw visions and dreamed dreams which haunted me constantly. I began to fancy that I was to die. I would have been satisfied to have fallen in a sleep that should have known no waking until the dread year was over.

Early in September I heard from my room an unusual bustle in the house--the feet of men, and the unwonted sound of boxes or trunks laid heavily upon the floor. But why need I go into details?

Henry Hallam had died of yellow fever, and his trunks had been sent home!

In my despair, one thought overpowered me. I had made myself wretched counting over the hours until Henry should return. Now he would never, never come back, no matter how many hours; I might count for an eternity, and he would not come at the end. Oh! could he but some time come, even in the distant years, when his step was feeble and his hair was gray, how patient I would be, how hopeful, cheerful, in the waiting for that certain time!

_Why_ had I not been happy when I knew that he still lived; when the fond hope was mine that, after a few months, I should again behold him?

We never know--alas! we never know! With my beloved gone, I fancied myself sunk in the lowest depth of desolation.

More than two years elapsed. My sister struggled bravely to keep a roof above our heads and the wolf of hunger from our door. Notwithstanding her closest economy, untiring industry, and fertile ingenuity, her small principal had become reduced one-half. Her zeal and energy were a reproach to me, and I had already commenced heroic endeavors to imitate and assist her. We might still have done well, educated my two little girls, and taken comfort in each other, now that my hopeless grief had become partially assuaged, and I had begun to take an interest in the management of our affairs. A fresh grief, however, was in store for me. Maria, my sister, upon whom alone I had come to depend, was stricken with an incurable disease, and, after lingering through months of pain, which often amounted to torture, died, and was buried.

I was not allowed to remain in my stupor of grief after I had beheld the cruel grave close over my only sister. The fact that but a trifle remained after all expenses had been paid aroused me to most painful apprehensions for the fate of my children. But for them I fully believe I should have adopted the advice of his friends to Job, the patient--curse God, and die!

The dear little children, however, who had no friends but their unhappy mother, and who clung to me as if they had in me all that was sufficient and all the world, were an incentive to further endurance and fresh exertion.

In a moment of discouragement and gloom I wrote an unaccustomed letter of six pages to a lady who had been my friend while sojourning in the West. I had spent a year with my husband in a growing village upon the banks of the Mississippi where this lady resided. She had a delightful home in the midst of charming grounds, an indulgent, devoted husband, three lovely children, with wealth enough to command the desirable and good things of this world. We had corresponded for a time, but since my great affliction I had written no letters.

Without delay came Mrs. Bell's reply. In my selfish grief I had not thought that upon others also might be falling showers of the self-same woe. The thought of Mrs. Bell, with her happy surroundings, had formed a pleasant picture, comforting to dwell upon. Ah! how my eyes filled and my heart throbbed as I read her letter!

The beautiful home, with its pictures, books, its nameless household gods, was in ashes; the husband, really the handsomest, most elegant gentleman I have ever met, full of health, vigor, and cheerfulness, a year after the fatal fire had died suddenly, leaving his large property in an involved and unavailable condition; and my friend was living in a small cottage amidst the ashes and blackened trunks of trees--which stood like weird spectres about her former home. The letter, half read, fell from my nerveless grasp, and I clasped tightly my trembling hands, bowing down upon them my throbbing head, murmuring:

"Doth _all_ of beauty fade to blight, and all of joy to gloom? Are _all_ human loves so vain and transient? Are all hopes and dreams fleeting and unsubstantial as the goodly shadow of a summer cloud? Is it true of _all_ beneath the sun, 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'?" Gathering courage to finish the letter, another surprise awaited me. My friend had become a Roman Catholic. After giving brief details of her conversion, she thus addressed me:

"At this moment I feel more sorrow for you than for myself. My dearest earthly loves and hopes lie, like yours, in ashes. But out of _my_ desolation hath sprung the green branches of heavenly peace. I weep not unavailing tears at the loss of what so charmed my heart as to separate my soul from God. Arise out of the ashes watered with your tears. Go to the nearest Catholic priest; ask him for books, counsel, and prayer that shall lead you upward and onward toward the kingdom of rest. Make the effort, I entreat you, in the name of God. If you find no peace to your soul, what will you have lost? If you find comfort and rest, will not all have been gained?"

Had I learned, in the midst of my happiness, that Miriam Bell had become a Catholic, I might have wondered, thought strange of it, but set it down as one of the unaccountable things, and not puzzled my brain by studying into it. But now it was different. Her afflictions, so similar to my own, brought her very near to me in sympathy. I would have as soon thought of myself becoming deluded by the snares of Popery as my friend, Mrs. Bell. Yea, sooner; she was more matter-of-fact, calm, philosophical, more highly educated, with a mind more thoroughly disciplined, and naturally more inquiring and comprehensive than my own. And she had heartily embraced this religious faith which, without ever having bestowed much thought upon, I had naturally regarded as one of superstitions and lies.

The sun went down, the twilight fell. Charlotte and Cora helped themselves to a slice of bread, and lay down to rest. The sewing-machine had for hours been idle, and the unfinished white shirt, suspended by the needle, looked like a ghost in the gathering gloom; and still I held my hands and deeply thought, or walked the floor with stilly tread.

And so Miriam Bell had found a balm for her sorrow, a light amid her darkness. How? By becoming a Catholic. And what was it to become a Catholic? To believe impossibilities, and to worship idols; to behold, in a tiny wafer of human manufacture, the body and blood, soul and divinity, of an incarnate God? Does Miriam Bell believe this? If she can believe it with all her heart and soul, then might she well be comforted! To fall upon one's knees before the relics of a saint, and beg his prayers, as if he could see and hear? To implore the Blessed Virgin to succor and defend, as if she were not a creature, but omnipotent and divine? To reverence the priest as a being immaculate, an angel with hidden wings walking upon earth, unto whose feet you must kneel, and unveil, as unto God, all the thoughts and interests of your heart? I pondered over this last suggestion. Standing in the white moonlight that silvered a space of the floor, I lifted up both weary heart and waiting hands, and, with eyes toward the unknown and infinite, I cried:

"Unto God would I pour forth the sins and sorrows of my soul; but I am all unworthy. He whom I have disregarded and failed to acknowledge is shut out from my vision and approach. Between him and me is the thick wall of my offences. Oh! if, in his infinite mercy, he could send forth one little less than an angel--who should have something of the human, that he might compassionate and pity; of the divine, that he might comprehend, guide, and assist--to that one I might yield in reverence. All the sins, and follies, and rebellions of my life should be poured into his ear; perhaps, oh! perhaps the hand of such an one might lift me into the light, if light there be indeed for soul so dyed as mine."

How this fancied being, uniting the human and angelic, became gradually, and by slow degrees, associated in my mind with the Catholic priest, I know not. Certain only I am that, after a few days of mental struggle, of resolve and counter-resolution, I complied with my friend's entreaty, and, accompanied by my little girls, sought the nearest priest.

I took this step not with faith, nor yet altogether with doubt. I went, not willingly, but as if irresistibly impelled. I was like one shipwrecked--floating in maddened waters, threatened death below, an angry sky above, and darkness everywhere. A friend in whom I trusted had pointed out to me a life-preserver.

"Stretch forth thy hand, hold it fast; it will save thee," she had said.

"It is but a straw," I murmured, clutching at it, drowning.

The priest entered the parlor a few moments after our admission by a domestic.

I scanned him narrowly as he walked straight up to us, rubbing one hand against the other, slightly elevating his shoulders. He was a middle-aged man, whose benevolent countenance wore the reflection of a happy, cheerful soul at peace with God and man.

My first thought on viewing him was of the woman who wished but to "touch the hem of our Saviour's garment"; and, when he uttered his first salutation: "And what can I do for you, my child?" I said involuntarily: "Oh! that I may be made whole."

"Ah! you would go to confession. Go into the church, and pray before the altar; I will be there presently." And he turned to leave the room.

I did not speak nor move. At the door he said:

"You are a stranger in the city?"

"No--yes--that is, I have lived here several years, but I have no friends; I am indeed a stranger."

"You understand and attend to your religious duties?"

"I have no religious duties; I have no particular religion. I am beginning to think myself a heathen."

"And have you not been brought up a Catholic?" he questioned in surprise, returning to where I still sat.

"The furthest from it. If you have time to listen, I will tell you what has brought me to you." And I went on to tell him of the advice of my friend, received in the depth of my afflictions and despair. If my conversion to the Catholic faith, entire, absolute, blessed, thanks be to God! was not instantaneous; if, being blind, I received not sight, being deaf, I received not hearing, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, as did those whom Christ himself touched and healed, still do I believe it to have been the work of Almighty God, and marvellous unto my own eyes. If God commissioned Miriam Bell, instead of his own holy angel, to direct me to the priest of his own anointing, I believe myself no less to have been sent to pious F. Corrigan than was Paul sent to Annanias, or Cornelius to Simon.

From regrets and lamentations, from dulness and despair, my heart bowed low unto God in rejoicing and thanksgiving.

Aside from this, the Catholic religion and the history of the church became to me an attractive, fascinating study. I seemed philosophizing with sages, praying with religious, meditating with saints. The whole world seemed newly peopled, unnumbered voices joining in that grand chant that the church for almost nineteen centuries hath sung: "Glory be unto God, and on earth peace to men of good-will."

F. Corrigan had sent a young priest to a new town in the interior, made by the opening up of new railroads. Here F. McDevitt had built a small church, and, in his report to his superior, spoke of having need of a teacher for a parish school. F. Corrigan offered me the situation, and in one week I was at Dillon's Station.

On the first day of our arrival, F. McDevitt asked my eldest little girl her name.

"Charlotte Griffeth Hallam," she replied promptly.

"Charlotte Griffeth?" he repeated; then turning to me:

"And for whom was she named?"

"For my mother," I replied.

"And is your mother living?"

"She died in my infancy."

"She must have been the person advertised." And taking a slip of paper from his memorandum-book, handed it me.

It was an advertisement for Charlotte Griffeth or her heirs in America, to whom an estate in Wales had descended, valued at one hundred thousand pounds! And what interest had this possessed for F. McDevitt? His brother had a short time previously married a Miss Griffeth, and it was to send in a letter to his brother that he had extracted from the paper this brief paragraph. Was not this too much? I closed my eyes to keep back the tears, and pressed my hand against my side, to still the tumultuous throbbings of my heart.

God! my God! so long time from me hidden, giving me now the true faith, and then this unexpected fortune! What should I do with it? A few months before, I would have purchased a splendid house, perfect in all its appointments. I would have gathered about me all that would have pleased the taste and gratified the senses.

Now was it thrown in my way as a temptation? Before the sun had set upon this wondrous change of fortune, my decision was formed. I would go on in the way I had intended. It had evidently been God's way chosen for me, and I would follow in it. I would go into a temporary cabin, and teach the children of the Irish laborers.

The fortune should be divided into three shares. My children should have two; the third, which was mine, should go to build a home for widows and orphans.

And I? Every morning, with my troop of little girls and boys, I go to the holy sacrifice of the Mass, where adoration is perpetually blended with thanksgiving--the latter one of the deepest emotions of my heart. I never expected to be so content and happy in this world.

Through thee I have found, O God! that "thou art the fountain of all good, the height of life, and the depth of wisdom. Unto thee do I lift up mine eyes; in thee, O my God! Father of mercies, do I put my trust.

"Bless and sanctify my soul with heavenly benediction, that it may be made thy holy habitation and the seat of thy eternal glory; and let nothing be found in the temple of thy divinity that may offend the eyes of thy majesty!"

AN ENGLISH CHRISTMAS STORY.

I.

The winter wind is howling over the bleak moor, and Christmas is ushered in with a sore famine that has already made many a hearth desolate. The stout-hearted folk of Yorkshire have borne it well up to this, but the recurrence of the especial festival of good cheer makes their lot seem harder in December than it did two months before. On these Northern moors are scattered many Catholics, whose family traditions point to unknown martyrs as their ancestors, and whose honest pride in their forefathers is as strong as that of the descendants of the cavalier families. But though there may be famine and wretchedness on the moor, there is a worse squalor in the town. There no helping hand comes from the "Hall," bearing relief and consolation; the hovels and tall, crazy tenements are full to the brim of unknown human misery; and, for the poor, Christmas this year means little less than starvation. Those were not the days of subscription-lists, benefit societies, soup-kitchens, and clothing-clubs; spiritual and temporal relief were both scarcer than they are now, and the wars of the previous twenty years had made people button their pockets tight and repeat the axiom that "charity begins at home."

Through the manufacturing town of Weston, on a chill Christmas eve in the early part of this century, walked a thoughtful, almost middle-aged man, wrapped in a rich furred cloak, and preceded by a youth bearing a lantern. He had first left the town-hall, where he had assisted at a political meeting, and heard a few pompous speeches hung upon the scantiest may-pole of facts. While these worthies had been declaiming, thought he, how many poor men, out of employment, uncared for by their pastors, must have been murmuring or swearing at their ill-luck and the apathy of their superiors! How many might be driven to crime or suicide by their wretched circumstances! He had heard that the Dissenters helped their poor rather more effectually than the "church" people did; and, luckily, in a manufacturing population there were always plenty of Dissenters! The Catholics, too, about whose "emancipation" there had been so much said lately in the Whig meetings, were generally a charitable set, and there were more of them in the North than anywhere else in the kingdom; but they were mostly country people, and the great houses had enough to do to support their own village poor. Could not something be done on a generous scale by the talkative municipality of the town? Should he suggest something to that effect? But he was only a visitor and traveller, and had but little interest with the magnates of Weston. General knowledge there was none at that time; and it mattered nothing to the local authorities here that he had travelled in the East, was a professor of ancient history in a French university, and corresponded with half the _savants_ of Europe. To the insular mind of a trading community, he was a mere nameless atom of humanity, whose doings only concerned Weston as far as the paying of his reckoning at the inn, and his consumption of the most costly items that the scarcity of the times rendered a fair source of profit to the landlord.

As he was sunk in these half-derisive thoughts, he was suddenly accosted by a man, whose figure, as far as the light of the lantern revealed it, was the very reverse of a highwayman. He had a pistol, however, and held it threateningly to the gentleman's heart. In a hollow, unsteady voice he quickly asked:

"Sir, hand me your money; you know what I can do, if you refuse, and I see you are unarmed."

The man's manner contrasted strangely with his present occupation. He was no experienced robber, that was evident; and his eyes rolled from side to side like those of a hunted animal. Our friend, who called himself Prof. John Stamyn, very quietly replied:

"My good friend, you have come to the wrong man. You will have no great booty from me. I have only three guineas about me, which are not worth a scuffle; so much good may you do with them. But you are in a bad way."

The man did not answer or recriminate. Hanging his head and lowering his pistol (an useless weapon enough, since the trigger was broken off and the barrel was cracked), he took the money offered him, and moved quickly away. Mr. Stamyn stood looking thoughtfully after him, then he said to the youth:

"Mind, James, and watch that man carefully, that he may not be aware of you; but be careful to see him housed, and bring me word of everything." And shaking his head, as if in pity, he walked back alone to his hotel.

Meanwhile, the boy, proud of his mission, cautiously started on his pursuit of the seeming robber. Many a time he had to darken his lantern with his cloak, or flatten himself against doors, as the man he pursued turned round, glancing fearfully behind, and then, mending his pace, hurried on again with unsteady footsteps. Once he paused before a large, brightly lighted shop. Loaves and cakes of all shapes were piled in the window; but behind the counter sat two resolute-looking men, whose expression, as they gazed on the hungry face outside, was certainly the reverse of encouraging. The poor wayfarer turned away with a sigh, and dived down a side street. Squalid little booths alternated with equally squalid dwelling-houses along the sides of the alley, and grim, fierce, animal faces gathered in evil-looking clusters round the doors. The poor wretch hastened on; apparently none knew him, as the boy, who followed him, noticed that no one paid any attention to him. At last he stopped at a baker's shop--a dirty place, very different from the respectable one he had looked into so wistfully before. The boy waited at a convenient distance, and, by skilfully shading his lantern, remained there unperceived. There was no light, save what came from the shop--a dull flare at best. After a few minutes, the man came out, carrying a large brown loaf of the cheapest kind that was then sold in Weston. He now entered another street, and turned various corners, so that it was like threading a labyrinth to follow him. The youth then saw him disappear in the door-way of a tall, dilapidated house. The door was open, and hung awry from one rusty hinge; a nauseous smell greeted the nostrils, and shrill, disagreeable voices were heard in some up-stairs roost. The man began to scale the rickety steps, one or two of which were missing here and there, and made a break-neck gap for the undoing of careless climbers. Each landing-place seemed more disreputable than the last, until the fourth was reached. It required a good deal of ingenuity in Mr. Stamyn's messenger to creep unperceived up these dangerous ladders, never startling the man he followed, and, above all, never helping himself along by the tell-tale light, whose radiance might have betrayed him. At last the poor "robber" entered a room, bare of any apology for furniture, and unlighted, save by the frosty rays of the moon. The wind whistled through it, crevices in the wall there were plenty, and not one pane of glass in the grimy window was whole. The boy crouched outside, and listened. A crevice allowed him to see a woman and four children coiled up in a heap, trying to keep each other warm. The man threw the loaf on the floor, and a sort of gurgle rose to welcome him. Bursting into tears, he cried, in a voice half-defiant, half-choked with grief:

"There, eat your fill; that's the dearest loaf I ever bought. I have robbed a gentleman of three guineas; so let us husband them well, and let me have no more teasings; for sooner or later these doings must bring me to the gallows, and all to satisfy your clamors!"

Here the wife mingled her lamentations with his, and the hungry children set up a howl of sympathy, all the while eying the loaf impatiently. The poor woman, whimpering faintly, broke off four large portions, and distributed them among the starving little ones, reserving smaller pieces for herself and her wretched husband, who was leaning despairingly on the window-sill.

When hunger was a little appeased, the group sat together as before, trying to keep each other warm by the contact of their frozen limbs, and drawing over their feet the few rags of clothing they possessed. At last the man broke out into sobs:

"God forgive me! wife, this cannot go on. This money weighs like lead in my pocket."

"Dear," said the woman timidly, "I heard a priest say once that a starving man might take a loaf out of a baker's shop to stay his hunger, and do no sin."

"Ay," said the man gloomily, "if the baker would let him take it. But he would have put me in jail if I'd done it. I'd as lief go to jail as not, if it wasn't for you here; but I thought that would not do, and I know a gentleman is less likely to make a fuss, and Jim's pistol did the business; but hang me if I'll do it again, if we do have to starve for it."

The listener outside took up his lantern. "So the man's a Catholic," he wondered. "I heard master say the Catholics helped each other; anyhow, I'll go home, and report about what I've seen."

Cautiously he got down the dangerous stairs, and looked well about him, that he might know the landmarks of the region again. He reached the inn about an hour after Mr. Stamyn, who was sitting in his room, waiting anxiously for him. He told his tale, not forgetting to make much of his own dexterity in following the poor "robber." His master listened attentively, then gave orders to the boy to call him at six the next morning, when he would follow him to the man's dwelling. The morning was clear, frosty, and bright. The dawn was just breaking, and, if the town could look peaceful at any time, it did then. On the way, or, rather, in the immediate neighborhood of the poor man's abode, Mr. Stamyn stopped to inquire what the man was who lived in such a chamber with a wife and four children. He was told that he was a shoemaker, a very good kind of a man, very industrious, and a neat workman; but being burdened with a family, and the times being so bad, he had fallen out of work, and had a hard struggle to live.

The two then climbed the stairs, Which were hardly safer in the morning's uncertain light than they had seemed in the dark the night before, and stopped before the shoemaker's door.

They knocked, and the crazy door was opened by the unfortunate man himself. He no sooner perceived who his visitor was, than he dreaded to learn the motive of the visit, which must surely be the speedy punishment of last night's robbery. He threw himself at the feet of Mr. Stamyn, saying in a broken voice:

"O sir! indeed it was the first time, as it will be the last, that ever I touch what does not belong to me; but I was drove to it by my poor children here. Two days had they been without bread, sir, and they cried that pitiful I couldn't stand it no longer. I was ashamed to beg, sir, and folk mostly say no to a story as looks so like a ready-made one. Surely, sir, you won't go to punish me, ... and these poor things dependin' on me? I swear I'll die sooner than do such a thing again. It was against the grain I did it, sir; indeed it was."

Mr. Stamyn had taken up the youngest child in his arms, and was hushing its cries.

"No, my poor fellow, it was not to reproach or punish you I came. I have not the least intention of doing you any harm. You have a good character among your neighbors; but you must expect to be quickly cut short in such freedoms as you took with me. Hold your hand; here's thirty guineas for you to buy leather. Live close, and set your children a commendable example; and to put you further out of temptation with such unbecoming doings, as you are a neat workman (they tell me) and I am not particularly hurried, make for me and this boy two pairs of shoes each, which he shall call upon you for."

The poor man, dumfounded and almost in tears, stood before his benefactor, gazing at him and at the shining coins in his own open hand. The wife cried softly to herself, and the children, growing accustomed to the stranger, began swarming about his legs. Mr. Stamyn's servant then laid down a good-sized basket, and took off the lid. The children rushed to this new attraction, and began diving into the recesses of the basket with their poor, skinny little hands. The woman went up to Mr. Stamyn:

"Oh! sir, we'll bless you to our dying day. And never fear; my husband is a good workman, and he will work night and day with a will to make you the finest pair of shoes that ever was.... And, oh! sir, the children shall pray for you, that God may reward what you've done for a poor, starving family. No; my husband, he never stole before in his life, sir."

Here the husband, recovering his powers of speech, joined in, and rained blessings on his kind patron, who left the miserable place in a far more cheerful frame of mind than he had enjoyed at the great meeting last night. Just before he left Weston, the shoes were brought to him by the wife and her eldest child, who loaded him again with the most grateful blessings, and promised to pray that, if he were not a Catholic, still God would "grant him grace to save his soul."

Mr. Stamyn smiled sadly, and bade his new friends good-by, having learnt their name, and promised in return never to forget it, should he happen to be in Weston again. Christmas had been a happy season with him this year; and though, by his present to the poor shoemaker, he had curtailed his own pleasure-jaunt, he felt that, after all, he had chosen the better part....

II.

It was Christmas once more. Forty years had come and gone, and prosperity reigned in the North of England. A famine worse than that early one had swept over the land--a famine of work and cotton--but even the traces of that dire misfortune had gone now, and mills and factories were as busy as they could be.

In the neighboring county of Cumberland, in a retired little town, agricultural and pacific, stood a pretty, old-fashioned house, half-mansion, half-cottage. One side, with its dignified portal of granite, faced the street; but its garden, with bow-windows and porches jutting out among the flowers, almost leaned on the mountain. The family room looked into the snow-covered garden; the deep windows were embowered in ivy, bearing a fringe of tiny icicles, while inside wreaths of holly hung festooned over the dark curtains. Over the large and very high mantel-piece, where a fox's brush and head mingled with the branching antlers of the red deer, there hung a framed device, illuminated in mediæval letters: "Peace on earth to men of good will"; above the door was a large bunch of mistletoe.

The window was partly open, the huge fire warming the room quite enough to allow of this; on the sill was scattered a feast of bread-crumbs steeped in milk, at which two or three robins were pecking industriously.

This was the mayor's house. He was an old man of seventy-five, universally respected for his incorruptible honesty and his steady, reliable character. He had been born in the town, but had left it while yet a baby in arms, had then returned a grown man and father of a family, gone into trade, become a successful business man, and seven years ago retired honorably into private life. Of his sons, one was a mill-owner near Manchester, one had succeeded to his father's local business and factory, and one, his youngest, had died at sea, leaving a little girl, his only child, to the care of its grandparents. The old man's only daughter was a nun in a Carmelite convent in the South of France.

No one but the mayor, his wife, and grandchild lived in this cosey house, and a very happy household it was. The girl had been partly brought up abroad, and had acquired many graceful foreign traits as a set-off to her English complexion and somewhat hoidenish manners. She was the apple of their eye to the old couple, who let her rule them and the house like a young empress. The mayor was nothing but a great baby in her hands, and people knew that the surest way to his heart or his purse was through that saucy little beauty, Philippa Mason. Strangers passing through the town used to marvel how it was that a Catholic had been elected mayor; but they were assailed by such a torrent of eulogies on "the best, most generous, most public-spirited, most conscientious of our citizens" that they were glad to take all for granted, and applaud the choice of the freemen of Carthwaite without further explanation.

One other inmate of the mayor's house will be found worthy of notice--old Armstrong, or Uncle Jim, as he was mostly called. Verging upon sixty, he was still tall, slight, and erect in stature; his manners had some degree of refinement, and he was wont at times to hint mysteriously at his former connection with the gentlefolk of the land. Everybody liked him and laughed at him. He was the most good-humored and the most unlucky of mortals. He spoke loftily of the fortune he lost in his youth through cards and wine; and every one knew that when Mr. Mason, twenty years before, had kindly set him up in a small business of his own, he had not waited six months before he owned himself a bankrupt. Not a stain was on his character, but everything he touched seemed doomed. Money oozed through his fingers like water, while there was no visible cause for it; and the poorer he became, the merrier he was. At last, he had taken refuge with Mr. Mason, and become a part of his establishment. No one knew or inquired about his origin; people were glad enough to let the character of his patron vouch for the respectability of the harmless, amusing, kind-hearted old oddity.

As these four sat in the study (for so Philippa would have her favorite room called), they discussed their plans for the ensuing festival week.

"Uncle Jim has been invaluable," said the girl; "he has been my head-carpenter for the stage in the school, and has made such a grotto for the crib, and, above all, he has carved two wonderful alms-dishes for the collection to-morrow morning."

"Thank God! the church is to be opened to-morrow, wife," said the mayor, seeking his wife's hand. "I may not live to see another Christmas nor hear another midnight Mass. In our young days, we little thought we should see such things--when priests would ride forty miles to a dying bed, booted and spurred, with pistols to fight the highwaymen. Why, even in town, it was as much as we could do to get to our duty at Easter every year."

"Grandpapa," said Philippa, "by next summer the spire will be finished, and we can have the banner of the cross floating there, as of old the city standard used to fly over the cathedrals."

"Child," answered Mr. Mason, "by next summer your bridal train may set the bells of the church a-ringing; and if I live to see that, I'll ask no more of Heaven."

"Nobody knows where to look for the bridegroom yet," said Philippa saucily.

"Hush!" put in the grandmother. "On the day when God gave his own Son to the world, and gave to your grandfather and me such a great blessing--years ago--no one must speak lightly of the gifts he may yet please to send or no." After a pause, Uncle Jim said hesitatingly:

"The good Lord certainly feeds the sparrows, as the Bible says, and I suppose that's why Miss Mason, _she_ must feed the robins, just to follow the path we're told to; but it seems to me, if I'd waited for Him to feed _me_ one day that I well remember, I'd have gone hungrier than you ever did, master, in the days of your trouble."

Philippa looked up with an expectant smile; she always anticipated fun when the old man adopted the mock-serious tone.

"Yes," continued the narrator, pleased to have at least the encouragement of an indulgent silence extended to him; "and I was prancing in the best blue broadcloth and the most shining buttons you ever saw, and had on beautiful new boots that I never paid for ..."

"You rascal!" softly said the mayor.

"And a hat with such a curly brim," continued Jim imperturbably. "Well, it was in the summer, the only time I really _was_ hungry--I don't mean the summer, but that _that_ occasion was the only one when I was nigh starving--and I and two friends, who had helped me to empty my purse, were at Bath. None of us had any money left; in fact, _they_ never had of their own, but were of those whose tongue is their fortune; but hungry we all were, and must have something to eat. 'I have it!' I cried, for I was not a bad hand at imagination, 'Follow me to the White Hart;' and on the way I explained my plan. You will hear later what it was. Now, you will say, Mr. Mayor, that I had better have laid myself down by a haystack, and slept there on an empty stomach; and indeed, after a good supper, such as we had to-night, it would be easy enough for _me_ to say so; but just then it wasn't likely to be my opinion. So we walked into the hotel, as bold as kings, and ordered a private room and dinner for three--French soups and oyster patties, fish and game, and foreign sauces and ale, just as _I_ knew it should be, and Madeira and champagne, of course. When we had done (and, in the intervals when the waiter had gone for the next course, we pocketed as much as our pockets would stand of anything that was solid), we called for the bill, and the waiter brought it, as pompous as you will, on a silver salver. I put my hand in my pocket, whereupon one of my friends, _he_ says: 'Come, come, I'll stand this; it was I who proposed it and chose the wines.' And he puts his hand in his pocket. 'Bless me!' cries the other. 'Gentlemen, I protest; it was I who ordered the dinner, and I request, as a favor, you let me pay; the cost is but a trifle." And _he_ put his hand in his pocket. The waiter stood grinning and smirking, and thinking this great fun. "'An idea strikes me,' I then said. 'Waiter, we'll blindfold you and shut the door, and whoever you catch first will settle the bill.' At this my friends clapped their hands, and the waiter, as proud as a peacock at the condescension of such fine young gentlemen, gives us a napkin to tie over his eyes, and lets us spin him round two or three times, that he may begin fair. 'Now!' I cried, and he began feeling about, afraid to upset the table; but he knew the room well, and went first to a closet beside the further door. While he made a noise opening it and feeling inside, I slid to another door, and gently pushed it ajar. In a twinkling we were all three walking leisurely out of the White Hart, looking like independent gentlemen, who did the host the great honor of approving of his cook! That afternoon, we drew lots which should sell his fine suit to pay travelling expenses, and it fell on me; so good-by to my gay plumage, says I, and never dropt a tear, but got the money and played valet to the other two till we got to London, where I made them pay me what they owed through a lucky stroke at cards. And then we parted company, nothing loath on my side. So that is how I read the saying, 'The Lord helps them as helps themselves.'"

Every one smiled at the privileged old man, though Philippa held up a warning forefinger and whispered: "Grandpapa told me once that you were not half so bad as you make yourself out to be. Why did you not put on ladies' clothes, and go and beg for a dinner? They could not have said no to a pretty face, and it would have been better than stealing."

"Hark at that!" said Uncle Jim aloud. "You women are born to fool us. If I had my life to begin again, I should take advantage of that suggestion. The truth was, high society ruined me; and here I am, a destitute waif without a home. It is the first chapter of the Prodigal Son; but I shall never get into the second."

He looked with comical gravity at Mr. Mason, whose glance of affectionate amusement perfectly satisfied him in return; and then the old man, drawing Philippa towards him, said gently to her:

"On your next birthday, as you know, child, you will become entitled to all my fortune, and with this present will enter, too, into great responsibilities. Now, to give you an idea of what wealth is, what it can do, and how grave a trust it is, I will tell you a story too, but more humbly than good Uncle Jim, because my fault was more reckless, and because God has been more merciful to me in making it bring forth real good. Your father and your uncles were all little things then, and do not remember it, except very dimly; and since that Christmas, forty years ago, I have never repeated the tale."

And in simple, forcible language the Mayor of Carthwaite told his grandchild the story of the distress in Weston in the year 18--, the famine and the wretchedness, the temptations of starving men, and finally the incident in which Mr. Stamyn and the poor shoemaker had figured side by side forty years ago. "And your grandmother and I have prayed for that good man every night without ever missing," added the old man, "and taught your father to do so; you yourself, child, have prayed for the kind friend, whose conversion to the true faith was our greatest wish. But his name and what his kindness was I never told a soul till now."

Philippa was silent. Uncle Jim hid his face, and sobbed. The old couple clasped hands by the fireside, and looked into each other's faces, as they remembered the bare attic where they had shivered and starved, and been nearly driven to become criminals by the sheer force of hunger. Nearly two generations had passed, and they were still together, thanking God that he had put it into the heart of man to relieve his fellow-man that night, when a life of crime and disgrace had so nearly begun to drag them down to the level of a "jail-bird." Philippa crept up to them softly, and kissed them both.

"I understand your life and your charities so much better now," she said; "and when I have the same responsibility thrust upon me, believe me, I will do as you have done."

The bells began to chime, and the party bestirred themselves to go over to the chapel, where the midnight Mass was to be said for the last time. To-morrow the church was to be opened, and dedicated to "Our Lady and S. Crispin," and the chapel was to become a school. Uncle Jim was Philippa's special escort, for the old couple would never separate.

"Did you know that story?" she whispered to him as they crossed the silent streets.

"Ay, but he told me never to speak of it till he gave me leave. He did not tell you who the lad was that spied upon him that night; it was poor Uncle Jim."

Philippa looked aghast.

"Yes," he went on, "and I left Mr. Stamyn some years after, and tried to live as a gentleman on my earnings; but, as I told you in jest, a heap of rascals helped me to empty my purse, and it was soon drained of all. I remembered your grandfather, had taken a fancy to him in Weston, went back, and found him. He took me in, and was very good to me, useless as I was. I was always a shiftless fellow, and never could keep what money I got. So he thought it better just to keep me at home, and I tried to be useful, and could be, too, when there was no question of money; and so it has been for nigh a score of years. Here we are at the chapel. That's one thing I never saw--your religion; but then, Mr. Mason is the best man I ever saw, and he's a Catholic. Anyways, there's no other religion I like better."

And Uncle Jim went in and decorously assisted at the service, just as if it was quite familiar to him and he liked it. I suspect he did, as far as he understood it. What the Masons believed could not be very far wrong.

The next morning there was a grand ceremony at the new church, and an unlimited amount of beef and pudding distributed by tickets among the poorer inhabitants of Carthwaite. After service, a carriage drove up to Mr. Mason's door.

A very old gentleman, followed by a much younger one, stepped out, and inquired for the mayor. They were shown into the study, where all the Masons--cousins, uncles, etc.--had now assembled. The servant announced "Mr. Stamyn."

Uncle Jim, recovering the instincts of his youth, suddenly stood up respectfully before his former master, who, however, did not seem to have the slightest recollection of him.

Mr. Stamyn went up to Mrs. Mason. "My dear friends," he said, "you both told me not to forget your name; it was five years ago that I returned to Weston, and I did not fail to make inquiries, but hardly hoping that I should find you. They told me you had left, and I was lucky enough to find a clue to your subsequent career. I need not say how happy I am to redeem my promise to visit you again; I should certainly have been so, had I found you still in smoky old Weston, but here doubly."

Every one, especially Philippa, was struck by the old-time courtesy, precise, formal, yet most cordial, with which Mr. Stamyn spoke; his young companion glanced admiringly at the girl, instinctively distinguishing her from the more buxom damsels assembled round the family hearth--her cousins of Manchester and Carthwaite. Mr. Mason asked his friend and patron to stay with them, and sit at his board as the chief Christmas guest; he gladly complied, and said laughingly that he had expected to be asked. It was not until after the family meal that Uncle Jim revealed himself to his former master. His awkward self-consciousness and hurried glances had amused Mr. Stamyn in secret all the time, though his own perfectly controlled manner had given no sign of surprise or amusement; but when Jim, mysteriously bending over Mr. Stamyn's chair, feelingly asked what had become of the boy James, the old gentleman's eyes began to twinkle with premonitory signal-fire.

"He left me a few years after our Weston adventure, and, I very much fear, went to the devil!" was the answer.

"No, sir; Mr. Stamyn," said Jim, shaking with excitement, "he went to Mason."

"James," said his master seriously, "you could not possibly have done better; I congratulate you."

Uncle Jim looked triumphantly at Philippa, who was talking to the young man, Mr. Stamyn's companion. By her next birthday she was married to him--he was Mr. Stamyn's great-nephew and heir--but the two old men did not live to see another Christmas. Mrs. Mason and Uncle Jim remain yet, and tell the story to the rising generation.

THE SONG OF ROLAND.

CONCLUDED.

The night flies away, and the white dawn appears. Charles, the majestic emperor, mounts his charger, and casts his eye over the army. "My lords barons," he says, "behold these dark defiles, these narrow gorges. To whom do you counsel me to give the command of the rear-guard?"

"To whom?" replies Ganelon. "To whom but to my son-in-law Roland? Is he not a baron of great valor?"

At these words the emperor looks at him, saying, "You are a very devil! What deadly rage has entered into you?"

Roland approaches; he has heard the words of Ganelon. "Sire father-in-law," he says, "what thanks do I not owe you for having asked for me the command of the rear-guard! Our emperor, be assured, shall lose nothing; neither steed nor palfrey, cart-horse nor sumpter-mule, shall be taken, or our swords shall make more than the price."

"I believe it well," rejoins Ganelon.

"Ah! son of an accursed race!" cries Roland, who can no longer contain his anger, "thou thoughtest that the glove would fall from my hands as it did from thine." Then, turning to the emperor, he prays him to give into his hand the bow which he grasps with his own.

The emperor's countenance darkens; he hesitates to place his nephew in the rear-guard. But the Duke de Naymes says to him, "Give the bow to Count Roland; the rear-guard belongs to him of right, since none other could conduct it so well as he."

And the emperor gives Roland the bow, saying, "My fair nephew, know you what I desire? I would leave with you the half of my army. Take it, I pray you; it shall be for your safety."

"Nay," cries Roland, "I will have no such thing. God forbid that I should belie my race! Leave me twenty thousand valiant Frenchmen, and set out with all the rest. Pass at ease through the defiles, and, while I am alive, fear no man in the world."

Roland mounts his charger. He is joined by his faithful Oliver, then Gérer, then Berenger, and the aged Anséis, Gérard of Roussillon, and the Duke Gaifier. "I, too, will be there," says the Archbishop Turpin, "for I ought in duty to follow my chief."

"And I also," says Count Gauthier. "Roland is my liege-lord, and I must not fail him."

The vanguard begins its march.

How lofty are these peaks! What sombre valleys! How black the rocks; the defiles how profound! The French, in these dark gorges, seem oppressed with sadness. The sound of their footsteps may be heard full fifteen leagues away.

When they draw near to their mother-country, within sight of the land of Gascony, they call to mind their fiefs and their possessions, their tender children and their noble wives. The tears start into their eyes--those of Charles most of all; for his heart is heavy at the thought that he has left Roland among the mountains of Spain.

He hides his face with his mantle. "What ails you, sire?" asks the Duke Naymes, riding by his side.

"Is there any need to ask?" he answers. "In the grief that I am in, how can I refrain from groaning? France will be undone by Ganelon. In a dream this night an angel has made this known to me. He broke my lance in my hands--he who caused me to give the rear-guard to Roland, leaving him in this ungentle land. Heavens! were I to lose Roland, I should never see his like again!"

Charles wept; and a hundred thousand Frenchmen, touched by his tears, shuddered as they thought upon Roland. Ganelon, the felon, has sold him for gold and silver, and shining stuffs; for horses, and camels, and lions.

King Marsilion has sent for all the barons of Spain: dukes, counts, and viscounts, emirs and sons of the senators. He assembles four thousand of them in three days.

The drums beat in Saragossa; the image of Mahomet is set on its highest tower; and there is no pagan who does not feel himself inflamed at the sight. Then, behold, all the Saracens set forth, riding at double speed into the depths of these long valleys. By dint of haste, they have come in sight of the gonfalons of France and of the rear-guard of the twelve brave peers. By evening they lie in ambush in a wood of fir-trees on the sides of the rocks. Four hundred thousand men are hidden there, awaiting the return of the sun. O heavens! what woe! for the French knew naught of this.

The day appears. Now it is the question in the Saracen army who shall strike the first blow. The nephew of Marsilion caracoles before his uncle. "Fair my lord the king," he says, with a joyful countenance, "in severe and numerous combats I have served you so greatly that I ask as a reward the honor of conquering Roland."

Twenty others follow in turn to boast before Marsilion. One says: "At Roncevaux I am going to play the man. If I find Roland, all is over with him. What shame and sorrow for the French! Their emperor is so old that he is imbecile. He will not pass another day without weeping." "Never fear," says another. "Mahomet is stronger than S. Peter! I will meet Roland at Roncevaux; he cannot escape death. Look at my sword; I will measure it against his Durandal, and you will then soon hear which is the longest." "Come, sire," says a third, "come and see all these Frenchmen slain. We will take Charlemagne, and make a present of him to you, and will give you the lands of the rest. Before a year is over, we shall have fixed ourselves in the town of St. Denis."

While they thus excite each other to the combat, they contrive, behind the fir-wood, to put on their Saracen coats of mail, lace on their Saragossa helmets, gird on their swords of Viennese steel, seize their shields and their Valencian lances, surmounted by white, blue, and scarlet gonfalons. They mount neither mules nor palfreys, but strong steeds, and ride in close ranks. The sun shines; the gold of their vestments sparkles and gleams; a thousand clarions begin to sound.

The French listen. "Sire companion," says Oliver, "we may soon have battle with the Saracens."

"God grant it!" replies Roland. "Let us think of our king. We ought to know how to suffer for our lord, bear heat and cold, let our skin be slashed, and risk our heads. Let every one be ready to strike hard blows. We must take heed to what sort of songs may be sung of us. You have the right, Christians, and the pagans the wrong. Never shall bad example be given you by me."

Oliver climbs a tall pine-tree, looks to the right in the wooded valley, and beholds the Saracen horde approaching. "Comrade," he cries to Roland, "what a din and tumult is there on the Spanish side! Heavens! how many white halberds and gleaming helmets! What a rough meeting for our French! Ganelon knew it--the felon! the traitor!"

"Peace, Oliver," answers Roland. "He is my father-in-law; speak not of him."

Oliver dismounts. "Lords barons," he says, "I have seen even now so great a multitude of these pagans that no man here below has ever beheld the like. We shall have a battle such as there has never been before. Ask God for courage!" And the French reply: "Woe to him that flees! To die for you, not one of us all will be found wanting."

"Roland, my comrade," says the prudent Oliver, "these pagans are a multitude, and we are very few. Heed me, and sound your horn; the emperor will hear, and will lead back the army."

"Do you take me for a madman?" answers Roland. "Would you have me lose my honor in sweet France? Let Durandal do its work--strike its heavy blows, and steep itself in blood to the haft; all these pagans are as good as dead, I warrant you!"

"Roland, my comrade, sound your _olifant_, that the emperor may hear and come to your aid."

"Heaven keep me from such cowardice! Count upon Durandal; you will see how it will slay the pagans."

"Roland, my comrade, sound your _olifant_, that the emperor may hear it and return."

"Please God, then, no!" replies Roland once more. "No man here below shall ever say I sounded my horn because of the pagans. Never shall like reproach be brought against my race!"

"What reproach? What would you have people say? These Saracens cover the valleys, the mountain, the high-lands, and the plains. I have just beheld it, this innumerable host; and we are but a feeble company."

"My courage grows at the thought," says Roland. "Neither God nor his angels will suffer it that by me our France shall lose her renown. Sire comrade, and my friend, speak no more to me thus. We will stand our ground. For us will be the blows; our emperor wills it. Among the soldiers he has confided to us there is not a single coward; he knows it. Our emperor loves us because we strike well. Strike, then, thou with thy lance, and I with my good sword Durandal--Charles' gift to me. If I die, he who gets it shall be able to say, this was a brave man's sword!"

At this moment, the Archbishop Turpin put spurs to his horse, gained an eminence, and, calling the French around him, said to them, "Lords barons, our emperor has left us here, and for him we ought to die well. Remember that you are Christians. The battle draws on; you see it. The Saracens are there. Call to mind your sins; cry God's mercy. I will absolve you for the health of your souls. If you die, you will all be martyrs, and will find good place in the heights of Paradise!" The French dismount from their horses, and kneel on the ground, while the archbishop blesses them on the part of God, and for their penance bids them strike hard blows. Absolved and rid of their sins, they rise and remount their horses.

Roland, in his shining armor, is beautiful to behold, mounted on his good charger, Vaillantif. The golden reins ring in his hand, and on the top of his lance, which he holds with its point to heaven, floats a white gonfalon. The brave knight advances with a clear and serene countenance, followed by his companion, and then by all these noble French, whose courage he makes strong. He casts his lofty glance upon the Saracens, and, gently turning his head to those about him, says, "March, my lords barons, without haste. These pagans are hastening to their destruction." While he speaks, the two armies approach, and are about to accost each other.

"No more words," cries Oliver. "You have not deigned to sound your _olifant_. There is nothing to expect from the emperor; nothing for which to reproach him. The brave one, he knows not a word of that which is befalling us; the fault is none of his. Now, my lords barons, hold firm, and for the love of God, I pray you, let us not fear blows; let us know how to give and take. Above all, let us not forget the cry of Charlemagne." Whereupon the French all shouted, _Montjoie!_ Whoso had heard them would never all his life lose the remembrance of that shout.

Then they advance--heavens! with what boldness. To be brief, the horsemen have charged. What better could they do?

The pagans do not draw back; the _mêlée_ begins. They provoke each other by word and gesture. The nephew of Marsilion, with insult in his mouth, flies upon Roland. Roland with one stroke of his lance lays him dead at his feet. The king's brother, Falsaron, desires to revenge his nephew's death; but Oliver forestalls him by planting his lance in his body. A certain Corsablix, one of these barbarian kings, vomits forth slanders and bravadoes. Abp. Turpin hearing him, bears down upon him in full force, and with his lance stretches him dead upon the ground. Each time that a Saracen falls the French cry, _Montjoie!_--the shout of Charlemagne.

Defiances and combats succeed each other fast on every side; everywhere the French are the conquerors; there is not a pagan who is not overthrown. Roland advances, thrusting with his lance as long as there remains a fragment of its wood in his hand. But at the fifteenth stroke the lance breaks; then he draws his good sword Durandal, which carves and slices the Saracens right valiantly, so that the dead lie heaped around him. Blood flows in torrents around the spot, and over his horse and his arms. He perceives in the _mêlée_ his faithful Oliver breaking with the but-end of his lance the skull of the pagan Fauseron. "Comrade," cries Roland, "what do you? Of what use is a stick in such a fight? Iron and steel are what you need. Where is your Hauteclaire--your sword hafted with crystal and gold?"

"I cannot draw it," said the other. "I have to strike the blows so thick and fast, they give me too much to do."

Nevertheless, with knightly skill he snatches it from its scabbard, and holds it up to Roland, the next moment striking with it a pagan, who falls dead, and cutting also through his gold-enamelled saddle and his horse to the chine. "I hold you for my brother," cries Roland. "Such are the blows which our emperor loves so much." And on all sides they cry, _Montjoie!_

How the fight rages! What blows fall on every side! How many broken lances covered with blood! How many gonfalons torn to shreds! And, ah! how many brave Frenchmen there lose their youth! Never more will they see again their mothers, their wives, or their friends in France, who wait for them beyond the mountains!

During this time, Charles groans and laments: to what purpose? Can he succor them by weeping? Woe worth the day that Ganelon did him the sorry service of journeying to Saragossa! The traitor will pay the penalty; the scaffold awaits him. But death, meanwhile, spares not our French. The Saracens fall by thousands, and so, also, do our own; they fall, and of the best!

In France, at this very hour, arise tremendous storms. The winds are unchained, the thunder roars, the lightning glares; hail and rain fall in torrents, and the earth trembles. From S. Michael of Paris to Sens, from Besançon to the port of Wissant, not a place of shelter whose walls do not crack. At mid-day there is a black darkness, lit up only by the fire of the lightnings; there is not a man who does not tremble; and some say that, with the end of the century, the end of the world is coming. They are mistaken; it is the great mourning for the death of Roland.

Marsilion, who until then had kept himself apart, has beheld from afar the slaughter of his men; he commands the horns and clarions to sound, and puts in motion the main body of his army.

When the French behold on every side fresh floods of the enemy let loose upon them, they look to see where is Roland, where is Oliver, where are the twelve peers? Every one would seek shelter behind them. The archbishop encourages them all. "For God's sake, barons, fly not! Better a thousand times die fighting! All is over with us. When this day closes, not one of us will be left in this world; but paradise, I promise you, is yours." At these words their ardor rekindles, and again they raise the cry, _Montjoie!_

But, see there Climorin, the Saracen who at Marsilion's palace embraced Ganelon and gave him his sword. He is mounted on a horse more swift than the swallow, and has even now driven his lance into the body of Angélier de Bordeaux. This is the first Frenchman of mark that has fallen in the _mêlée_, and quickly has Oliver avenged him; with one blow of his Hauteclaire the Saracen is struck down, and the demons bear away his ugly soul. Then this other pagan, Valdabron, strikes to the heart the noble Duke Sanche, who falls dead from the saddle. What grief for Roland! He rushes on Valdabron, dealing him a blow which cleaves his skull, in sight of the terrified pagans. In his turn, Abp. Turpin rolls in the dust the African Mancuidant, who has just slain Anséis. Roland overthrows and kills the son of the King of Cappadocia; but what mischief has not this pagan done us before he died? Gérin and Gérer, his comrade, Berenger, Austore, and Guy de Saint Antoine, all died by his hand.

How thin our ranks are growing! The battle is stormy and terrible. Never saw you such heaps of dead, so many wounds, and so much blood flowing in streams on the green grass. Our men strike desperate blows. Four times they sustain the shock, but at the fifth they fall, saving sixty only, whom may God spare! for dearly they will sell their lives.

When Roland sees this disaster, "Dear comrade," he says to Oliver, "how many brave hearts lying on the ground! What grievous loss for our sweet France! Charles, our emperor, why are you not here? Oliver, my brother, what shall be done, and how shall we give him of our tidings?"

"There is no means," answers Oliver; "it is better to die than shamefully to flee."

"I will sound my _olifant_," says Roland. "Charles will hear it in the depths of the defiles, and, be assured, he will return."

"Ah! but what shame! And of your race, my friend, do you then think no more? When I spoke of this anon, nothing would you do, nor will you now, at least not by my counsel. Your arms are bleeding; you have not now the strength to sound it well."

"Sooth, but what hard blows I have been giving! Nevertheless, we have to do with too strong a force. I will blow my _olifant_, and Charles will hear."

"Nay, then, by no means shall you do this thing, and by my beard I swear it. Should I ever see again my noble sister, my dear Aude, never shall you be in her arms!"

"Wherefore this anger?" Roland asks.

"Comrade," the other answers, "you have lost us! Rashness is not courage. These French are dead through your imprudence. Had you believed me, the emperor would have been here, the battle would be gained, and we should have taken Marsilion, alive or dead. Roland, your prowess has cost us this mishap. Charles, our great Charles, we never shall serve more."

The Archbishop Turpin hears the two friends, and runs to them, exclaiming, "For God's sake, let alone your quarrels! True, there is no longer time for you to sound your horn; but it is good, notwithstanding, that the emperor should return. Charles will avenge us, and these pagans shall not return into their Spain. Our French will find us here, dead and cut to pieces, but they will put us into coffins, and with tears and mourning carry us to be laid in the burial-grounds of our monasteries; at least, we shall not be devoured by dogs, or wolves, or wild boars."

"It is well spoken," answers Roland; and forthwith he puts the _olifant_ to his lips, and blows with all the strength of his lungs. The sound penetrates and prolongs itself in the depths of these far-reaching valleys. Thirty long leagues away the echo is repeating itself still!

Charles hears it; the army hears it also. "They are giving battle to our people," cries the emperor. "Never does Roland sound his _olifant_ but in the heart of a battle."

"A battle, indeed!" says Ganelon. "In another mouth one would have called it a lie! Know you not Roland? For a single hare he goes horning a whole day. Come, let us march on. Why should we delay? The lands of our France are still far away."

But Roland continues to blow his _olifant_. He makes such great efforts that the blood leaps from his mouth and from the veins of his forehead.

"This horn has a long breath," says the emperor; and the Duke de Naymes replies, "It is a brave man who blows it; there is battle around him. By my faith, he who has betrayed him so well seeks to deceive you likewise. Believe me; march to the succor of your noble nephew. Do you not hear him? Roland is at bay."

The emperor gives the signal. Before setting out, he causes Ganelon to be seized, abandoning the traitor to his scullions. Hair by hair they pull out his moustache and beard, striking him with stick and fist, and passing a chain round his neck, as they would round that of a bear, and then, for the extreme of ignominy, setting him on a beast of burden.

On a signal from the emperor, all the French have turned their horses' heads, and throw themselves eagerly back into the dark defiles and by the rapid streams. Charles rides on in haste. There is not one who, as he runs, does not sigh and say to his neighbor, "If we could only find Roland, and at least see him before he dies! How many blows have we not struck together!"

Alas! to what purpose are these vain efforts! They are too far off, and cannot reach him in time.

Yet Roland glances anxiously around him. On the heights, in the plain, he sees nothing but Frenchmen slain. The noble knight weeps and prays for them. "Lords barons, may God have you in his grace, and may he open to your souls the gate of his paradise, making them lie down upon its holy flowers! Better warriors than you I have never seen; you have served us so long, you have conquered for us so many lands! O land of France! my so sweet country, behold, thou art widowed of many brave hearts! Barons of France, you died by my fault. I have not been able to save you or guard you; may God be your helper--God, who is always true! If the sword slay me not, yet shall I die of grief. Oliver, my brother, let us return to the fight."

Roland appears again in the _mêlée_. As the stag before the hounds, so do the pagans flee before Roland. Behold, however, Marsilion, coming forth as a warrior, and overthrowing on his way Gérard de Roussillon and other brave Frenchmen. "Perdition be your portion," cries Roland, "for thus striking down my comrades!" And with one back-stroke of Durandal he cuts off his hand, seizing at the same time the fair hair of Jurfalen, the king's son. At this sight the Saracens cry out, "Save us, Mahomet! Avenge us of these accursed ones: they will never give way. Let us flee! let us flee!" So saying, a hundred thousand of them took flight, nor is there fear that they will ever return.

But what avails it that Marsilion has fled? His uncle, Marganice, remains in the field with his black-visaged Ethiopians. He steals behind Oliver, and strikes him a mortal blow in the middle of the back. "There is one," he cries, "whose destruction avenges us for all we have lost!" Oliver, stricken to death, raises his arm, lets fall Hauteclaire on the head of Marganice, makes the diamonds sparkling on it fly around in shivers, and splits his head down to the teeth. "Accursed pagan," he says, "neither to thy wife nor to any lady of thy land shalt thou boast that thou hast slain me!" Then he calls Roland to his aid.

Roland sees Oliver livid and colorless, with the blood streaming down. At this sight he feels himself fainting, and swoons upon his horse. Oliver perceives it not; he has lost so much blood that his eyes fail; he sees neither things far-off nor near. His arm, which goes on wishing to strike, raises Hauteclaire, and it is on the helmet of Roland that the blow falls, cutting it through down to the nasal, but without touching his head. At this blow, Roland looks at him, and asks gently, "My comrade, did you purpose to do this? It is I, Roland, your dearest friend. I know not that you have defied me."

And Oliver answers, "I hear you; it is your voice, but I see you not at all. If I have struck you, pardon me, my friend!"

"You have done me no hurt, my brother," answers Roland, "and I forgive you here and before God." At these words they bend towards one another, and are separated during this tender adieu!

Roland cannot tear himself away from the body of his friend, stretched lifeless on the earth; he contemplates him, weeps over him, and aloud reminds him of so many days passed together in perfect friendship. Oliver being dead, what a burden to him is life!

During this time, without his having perceived it, all our French had perished, excepting only the archbishop and Gauthier. Wounded, but still standing, they call to Roland. He hears and joins them. The pagans cry out, "These are terrible men; let us take heed not to leave one of them alive." And from all sides they throw themselves upon them. Gauthier falls; Turpin has his helmet cloven, his hauberk torn, four wounds in his body, and his horse killed under him. Roland, thinking of the emperor, again seizes his _olifant_, but he can only draw from it a feeble and plaintive note.

Charles hears it notwithstanding. "Woe betide us!" he cries. "Roland, my dear nephew, we come too late! I know it by the sound of his horn. March! Sound clarions!" And all the clarions of the host sounded together. The noise reached the ears of the pagans. "Alas!" they say to each other, "it is Charles returning! It is the great emperor. O fatal day for us! All our chiefs are in the dust. If Roland lives, the war will begin again, and our Spain is lost to us. Never will he be vanquished by any man of flesh and blood. Let us not go near, but from afar off cast at him our darts." Thereupon they withdraw, and rain upon him, from a distance, darts and arrows, lances and spears. Roland's shield is pierced, his hauberk broken and unfastened; his body is untouched, but Vaillantif, wounded in twenty places, falls dead beneath his master. This blow given, all the pagans flee at full speed further into Spain.

Roland, without horse, is unable to follow the fugitives. He goes to the succor of the archbishop, unlaces his helmet, binds up his gaping wounds, presses him to his heart, and gently lays him on the grass. Then he says to him softly, "Shall we leave without prayers our companions who lie dead around us, and whom we loved so well? I will fetch their bodies, and bring them before you."

"Go," answers the archbishop, "we are masters of the field; go, and return again."

Roland leaves him, and advances alone into the field of carnage, seeking on the mountain, seeking in the valley. He finds them--his brave comrades and the Duke Sanche, the aged Anséis, and Gérard, and Berenger. One by one he brings them, laying them at the knees of the priest, who weeps while he blesses them. But when it comes to the turn of Oliver; when Roland would carry the body of this dear comrade, closely pressed against his heart, his face grows pale, his strength forsakes him, and he falls fainting on the ground.

The archbishop at this sight feels himself seized with a deathlike grief. There is, in this valley of Roncevaux, a running stream; if only he could give some water to Roland! He seizes the _olifant_, and tries, with slow steps, to drag himself tremblingly along. But he is too feeble to advance. His strength fails, and he falls, with his face to the earth, in the pangs of death.

Roland revives, and sees the prostrate warrior. With his eyes raised to heaven, and with joined hands, he makes his confession to God, and prays him to open to the good soldier of Charlemagne the gate of his paradise. Then he approaches the bleeding body of the holy prelate, raises his beautiful white hands, and lays them crosswise on his breast, bidding him a tender adieu.

But Roland in his turn now feels that the hand of death is upon him. He prays to God for his peers, supplicating him to call them to himself, and invokes the holy angel Gabriel. Taking in one hand the _olifant_, and Durandal in the other, he climbs an eminence looking towards Spain, and there, in the green corn, underneath a tree, he lets himself sink upon the ground.

Near at hand, behind a marble rock, a Saracen, lying in the midst of the corpses, his face stained with blood, the better to counterfeit death, was watching him. He sees him fall, and, suddenly springing up, he runs to him, trying out, "Conquered! the nephew of Charles! His sword is mine; I will carry it to Arabia!" He tries to draw it, but Roland has felt something, opens his eyes, and says, "You are not one of our people, it seems to me;" and with a blow of his _olifant_ lays him dead at his feet. "Miscreant," he says, "thou art very bold--some would say very mad--thus to lay hands on me. However, I have split my _olifant_; the gold and precious stones are shaken from it by the blow."

Little by little Roland finds that his sight is failing him. He raises himself on his feet, trying to support himself as best he may; but his countenance is colorless and livid. On a rock hard by he strikes ten blows with Durandal. He would fain break it, his valiant sword. What grief and mourning would it not be to leave it to the pagans! May this shame be spared to France! But the steel cuts into the rock, and does not break. Roland strikes anew upon a rock of sardonyx. Not the least flaw in the steel! He strikes again. The rock flies in pieces, but the steel resists. "Ah!" he cries, "Holy Mary help me! My Durandal, thou who didst so brightly gleam in this resplendent sun; thou, so beautiful and sacred, who wast given to me by Charles at the command of God himself; thou by whom I have conquered Brittany and Normandy, Maine and Poitou, Aquitaine and Romagna, Flanders, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, Constantinople, Saxony, Iceland, and England, long hast thou been in the hands of a valiant man; shalt thou fall now into a coward's power? Ah! sacred Durandal, in thy golden guard how many precious relics are enshrined!--a tooth of S. Peter, the blood of S. Basil, some hair of S. Denis, a portion of Our Lady's robe--and shall ever any pagan possess thee? A brave man and a Christian has alone the right to use thee."

Even as he utters these words, death is stealing over him, until it reaches his heart. He stretches himself at length upon the green grass, laying under him his sword and his dear _olifant_; then, turning his face towards the Saracens, that Charles and his men should say, on finding him thus, that he died victorious, he smites on his breast, and cries to God for mercy. The memory of many things then comes back to him--the memory of so many brave fights; of his sweet country; of the people of his lineage; of Charles, his lord, who nourished him; and then his thoughts turn also to himself: "My God, our true Father, who never canst deceive, who didst bring Lazarus back from the dead, and Daniel from the teeth of the lions, save my soul! Snatch it from the peril of the sins which I have committed during my life!" And so saying, with his head supported on his arm, with his right hand he reaches out his gauntlet towards God. S. Gabriel takes it, and God sends his angel cherubim and S. Michael, called "_du Péril_." By them and by Gabriel the soul of the count is borne into paradise.

Charlemagne has returned into this valley of Roncevaux. Not a rood, not an inch of earth, which is not covered by a corpse. With a loud voice Charles calls the name of his nephew; he calls the archbishop, and Gérin, and Berenger, and the Duke Sanche, and Angélier, and all his peers. To what purpose? There are none to answer. "Wherefore was I not in this fight?" he cries, tearing his long beard and fainting with grief; and the whole army laments with him. These weep for their sons, those for their brothers, their nephews, their friends, their lords.

In the midst of all this mourning, the Duke Naymes, a sagacious man, approaches the emperor. "Look in front," he says. "See these dusty roads. It is the pagan horde in flight. To horse! We must be avenged!"

Charles, before setting forth, commands four barons and a thousand knights to guard the field of battle. "Leave the dead there as they are," he says. "Keep away the wild beasts, and let no man touch them, neither squires nor varlets, until the hour, please God, of our return." Then he bade them sound the charge, and pursued the Saracens.

The sun is low in the heavens; the night is near, and the pagans are on the point of escaping in the evening shadows; but an angel descends from heaven. "March," he says to Charles. "Continue marching; the light shall not fail you."

And the sun stays in the sky. The pagans flee, but the French overtake and slay them. In the swift-flowing Ebro the fugitives are drowned. Charles dismounts from his charger, and prostrates himself, giving thanks to God. When he rises, the sun is set. It is too late to return to Roncevaux; the army is exhausted with fatigue. Charles, with a mourning heart, weeps for Roland and his companions until he sinks to sleep. All his warriors sleep also, lying on the ground; and even the horses cannot remain standing. Those which want to feed graze as they lie upon the fresh grass.

In the night, Charles, guarded by his holy angel, who watches by his side, sees the future in a vision; he sees the rude combat in which shortly he will need to engage.

During this time, Marsilion, exhausted, mutilated, has managed to reach Saragossa. The queen utters a cry at the sight of her husband, cursing the evil gods who have betrayed him. One hope alone remains. The old Baligant, Emir of Babylon, will not leave them without succor. He will come to avenge them. Long ago Marsilion sent letters to him; but Babylon is very far away, and the delay is great.

The emir, on receiving the letters, sends for the governors of his forty kingdoms; he causes galleys to be equipped and assembled in his port of Alexandria, and, when the month of May arrives, on the first day of summer he launches them into the sea.

This fleet of the enemy is immense; and how obedient to the sail, to the oar, to the helm! At the top of these masts and lofty yards how many fires are lighted! The waves glitter afar off in the darkness of the night, and, as they draw near the shores of Spain, the whole of the coast is illuminated by them. The news soon flies to Saragossa.

Marsilion, in his distress, resigns himself to do homage for Spain to the Emir Baligant. With his left hand, which alone remains to him, he presents his glove, saying, "Prince Emir, I place all my possessions in your hands; defend them, and, avenge me." The emir receives his glove, and engages to bring him the head of the old Charles; then he throws himself on his horse, as he cries out to the Saracens, "Come, let us march; or the French will escape us."

At daybreak Charles sets out for Roncevaux. As they draw near, he says to those about him, "Slacken your pace somewhat, my lords; I would go on before alone to seek my nephew. I remember that, on a certain festival at Aix, he said that, should it be his hap to die in a foreign land, his body would be found in front of his men and of his peers, with his face turned towards the land of the enemy, in token that he died a conqueror--brave heart!" So saying, he advances alone, and mounts the hill. He recognizes on three blocks of rock the strokes of Durandal, and on the grass hard by the body of his nephew. "Friend Roland," he cries out in extreme anguish, as he raises the corpse with his own hands,-"friend Roland, may God place thy soul among the flowers of his paradise, in the midst of his glorious saints! Alas! what hast thou come to do in Spain! Not a day will there be henceforth in which I shall not weep for thee. Relations still I have, but yet not one like thee! Roland, my friend, I return to France; and when I shall be in my palace at Laon, people will come to me from every quarter, saying, Where is the captain? And I shall make answer, He is dead in Spain! My nephew is dead, by whom I gained so many lands. And now, who shall command my armies? Who shall sustain my empire? France, my sweet country, they who have caused his death have destroyed thee!"

When he had thus given free course to his grief, his barons requested that the last duties should be performed for their companions. They collect the dead, and burn sweet perfumes around them; then are they blessed and incensed, and buried with great pomp, excepting Roland, Oliver, and Abp. Turpin, whose bodies are laid apart to be carried into France.

They were preparing for departure when in the distance appeared the Saracen vanguard. The emperor tears himself away from his grief, turns his fiery glance upon his people, and cries aloud with his strong and clear voice, "Barons and Frenchmen, to horse and to arms!"

The army is forthwith put in readiness for the combat. Charles disposes the order of battle. He forms ten cohorts, giving to each a brave and skilful chief, and placing himself at the head. By his side Geoffrey of Anjou bears the oriflamme, and Guinenant the _olifant_.

Charles alights and prostrates himself, with an ardent prayer, before God, then mounts his horse, seizes his spear and shield, and with a serene countenance throws himself forward. The clarions sound, but above the clarions there rings the clear note of the _olifant_. The soldiers weep as they hear it, thinking upon Roland.

The emir, on his part, has passed his soldiers in review. He also disposes his army in cohorts, of which there are thirty, as powerful as they are brave; then calling on Mahomet, and displaying his standard, he rushes with mad pride to meet the French.

Terrible is the shock. On both sides the blood flows in streams. The fight and slaughter continue without ceasing until the day closes, and then, in the twilight, Charles and the emir encounter each other. They fight so fiercely that soon the girths of their horses break, the saddles turn round, and both find themselves on the ground. Full of rage, they draw their swords, and the deadly combat begins anew between them.

Charles is well-nigh spent. Stunned by a blow which has cloven his helmet, he staggers, and is on the point of falling; but he hears passing by his ear the holy voice of the angel Gabriel, who cries out to him, "Great king, what doest thou?" At this voice, his vigor returns, and the emir falls beneath the sword of France.

The pagan host flees; our French pursue them into Saragossa; the town is taken, and King Marsilion dies of despair. The conquerors make war against the false gods, and with great blows of their battle-axes break the idols in pieces. They baptize more than a hundred thousand Saracens, and those who resist they hang or burn, except the Queen Bramimonde, who is to be taken as a captive into France, Charles desiring to convert her by gentle means.

Vengeance is satisfied. They put a garrison into the town, and return to France. In passing through Bordeaux, Charles places upon the altar of S. Severin his nephew's _olifant_; there pilgrims may see it even to this day. Then in great barks they traverse the Gironde, and in S. Romain-de-Blaye they bury the noble Roland, the faithful Oliver, and the brave archbishop.

Charles will not again halt on his way, nor take any repose, until he reaches his great city of Aix. Behold him arrived thither. He sends messengers through all his kingdoms and provinces, commanding the presence of the peers of his court of justice to take proceedings against Ganelon.

On entering his palace, he sees coming to him the young and gentle lady, the fair Aude. "Where," she asks, "is Roland--Roland the Captain, who promised to take me for his wife?" Charles, upon hearing these words, feels his deadly grief awaken, and weeps burning tears. "My sister and dear friend, he of whom you speak is now no more! I will give you in his place a spouse worthy of you--Louis, my son, who will inherit all my kingdoms; more I cannot say."

"These are strange words," she answers; "God forbid, and the angels and saints likewise, that, Roland being dead, Aude should live!" So saying, she grew pale, and, falling at the feet of Charlemagne, she died. God show to her his mercy!

The emperor will not believe but that she has fainted: he takes her hands, lifts her up; but alas, her head falls down upon her shoulder; her death is only too true. Four countesses are commanded to watch by her all the night, and to cause her to be nobly buried in a convent of nuns.

While they are weeping for the fair Aude, and Charlemagne renders to her the last honors, Ganelon, beaten with rods and laden with chains, awaits his sentence.

The peers are assembled. Ganelon appears before them, and defends himself with subtlety. "I am avenged," he says, "but I have betrayed no one." The judges look at each other, and are inclined to be lenient. "Sire," they say to the emperor, "let him live; he is a good nobleman. His death will not restore to you Roland, your nephew, whom we shall never see more." And Charles exclaims: "You all betray me!"

Upon this, one of them, Thierry, brother to Geoffrey of Anjou, says to the emperor: "Sire, be not disquieted; I condemn Ganelon. I say that he is a perjurer and a traitor, and I condemn him to death. If he has any kin who dares to say that I lie, I have this sword wherewith to answer him."

Forthwith Pinabel, the friend of Ganelon, brave, alert, vigorous, accepts the challenge. At the gates of Aix, in the meadow, the two champions, well-confessed, well-absolved and blessed, their Mass heard, and their swords drawn, prepare themselves for the combat. God only knows how it will end.

Pinabel is vanquished, and all the barons bow before the decision of God. All say to the emperor, "He ought to die."

Ganelon dies the death of a traitor--he is quartered.

Then the emperor assembles his bishops. "In my house," he says to them, "a noble captive has learnt so much by sermons and examples that she desires to believe in God. Let her be baptized; it is the Queen of Spain." They baptize her, therefore, under the name of Julienne. She has become a Christian from the depths of her heart.

The day departs; night covers the earth. The emperor sleeps in his vaulted chamber. The angel known to Charles, S. Gabriel, descends to his bedside, and says to him on the part of God: "To the city which the pagans are besieging, Charles, it is needful that thou march. The Christians cry aloud for thee."

"God!" cries the king, "how painful is my life." And, weeping, he tears his long white beard.

Here ends the song which Turoldus has sung.

* * * * *

We will conclude, as we began, with the words of the original, giving the last stanza of the poem (ccxcvi)

"Quant l'emperère ad faite sa justise, E esclargie est sue grant ire, En Bramidonie (Bramimonde) ad chrestientet mise, Passet li jurz, la nuit est ascrie, Culcez s'est li rei en sa cambre voltice. Seint Gabriel de part Deu li vint dire, 'Carles, semun les oz de tun empire, Par force iras en tere de Bire; Reis Vivien si sucuras en Imphe A la citet que paien unt asize, Li chrestien te recleiment e crient.' Li emperère n'i volsist aler mie: 'Deus!' dist li reis, 'si penuse est ma vie! Pluret des oilz, sa barbe blanche tiret.' --Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet.

A O I."

VENITE, ADOREMUS.[159]

God an infant--born to-day! Born to live, to die for me! Bow, my soul: adoring say, "Lord, I live, I die, for thee." Humble then, but fearless, rise: Seek the manger where he lies.

Tread with awe the solemn ground; Though a stable, mean and rude, Wondering angels all around Throng the seeming solitude: Swelling anthems, as on high, Hail a second Trinity.[160]

'Neath the cavern's[161] dim-lit shade Meekly sleeps a tender form: God on bed of straw is laid! Breaths of cattle keep him warm! King of glory, can it be Thou art thus for love of me?

Hail, my Jesus, Lord of might-- Here in tiny, helpless hand Thy creation's infinite Holding like a grain of sand! Hail, _my_ Jesus--all my own: Mine as if but mine alone!

Hail, my Lady, full of grace! Maiden-Mother, hail to thee! Poring on the radiant face, Thine a voiceless ecstasy; Yet, sweet Mother, let me dare Join the homage of thy prayer.

Mother of God, O wondrous name! Bending seraphs own thee Queen. Mother of God, yet still the same Mary thou hast ever been: Still so lowly, though so great; Mortal, yet immaculate!

Joseph, hail--of gentlest power! Shadow of the Father[162] thou. Thine to shield in danger's hour Whom thy presence comforts now. Mary trusts to thee her child; He his Mother undefiled.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, hail! Saddest year its Christmas brings. Comes the faith that cannot fail, With the shepherds and the kings: Gold, and myrrh, and incense sweet Come to worship at your feet.

FOOTNOTES:

[159] This is a second edition of a lyric that appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD four years ago. The alterations are so considerable as to make it a new poem.

[160] Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are called "The Earthly Trinity."

[161] It was a cavern used for a stable.

[162] See Faber's _Bethlehem_.

THE FUR TRADER.

A TALE OF THE NORTHWEST.

CONCLUDED.

The next morning, at a very early hour, it was apparent that an assemblage of Indians at the council lodge had been summoned, to consider the proposal of the missionary. His hopes were encouraged when he noted that many of the old men and earliest converts were mingling with the fierce warriors and young men of the vicinity, on their way to the place of meeting.

After some time, a delegation, with the brave who had borne the message of the priest to his chief at their head, proceeded with measured and stately steps from the council lodge to that of the missionary, where they were received with the silent and ceremonious solemnity so dear to Indians.

The result of the debate, which they communicated, was, that their foes should be requested to meet them--under guaranty of the missionary for their good faith, and the assurance that the injured party would meet them unarmed, if they also would leave their arms behind--that the proposed council should be solemnly held. Should its decision be for peace, all should join in the pursuit and recapture of the maiden; if otherwise, time should be allowed for the foe to regain their camps before her people should take the war-path.

The trapper departed immediately to proclaim these decisions in the nearest camps of the hostile party, and to secure their general diffusion among those tribes. The missionary soon set out to notify the residents of other missions, after seeing that the young chief had despatched runners to summon a full attendance of his own people and friends.

There is wonderful despatch in the simple machinery set in motion by the aborigines of our country upon such occasions, executing their purpose with a speed which proves their ignorance of the wise "circumlocution offices" of civilization.

Immediate preparations were set on foot at the appointed rendezvous for entertaining a multitude. Large parties were sent out in quest of game. The women of the vicinity assembled to prepare the meats, the _camash_, the _wappato_, and the bitter root, for a great feast.

During the three days succeeding the transactions related above, multitudes were to be seen gathering from all quarters, and taking their course to the village where they were to meet, in profound silence, and with the grave composure befitting an assembly before which the tremendous issues of life and death were to be discussed.

The trapper came with a large party of the fiercest warriors whom the wiles of the "Northwester" had deceived. Several priests from scattered missions, more or less remote, with their converted Indians, arrived. Numerous savages of both sides advanced in parties by themselves, caring for nothing but blood and plunder should war be the word, or feasting and revelry should it be peace. French creoles, half-breeds, Canadian _voyageurs_, _coureurs des bois_, and free trappers, completed the list of this wild and miscellaneous assemblage.

Arrangements were made with great precision for the opening of the council. When the council lodge was in readiness, notice for the assembling of the various delegates was proclaimed from its roof by an Indian crier.

The missionaries passed in first, followed by the chiefs, and seated themselves on a semicircular platform slightly elevated from the earthen floor at the further end of the lodge, the priests sitting in the centre, between the two parties, as umpires. Then the elders, the delegates, and the warriors took their seats upon the floor along each side of the lodge.

The oldest chief of the injured confederates arose, and proceeded with calm dignity to explain the relations which the two parties, although ancient enemies even unto blood, had maintained with each other since they had been mutually moved by the message of peace, delivered by the holy Black Gowns, to bury the hatchet and live, as Christian brethren should, in peace and amity. He showed how faithfully those of his side, on their part, had kept the compact, depicting in vivid colors their grief and horror at the perfidy of their brothers, and the cruel slaughter of their innocent and unsuspecting friends. When he described the ambush, the sudden attack, the death of the old chief, and the murder of his followers; the plunder of their goods, the massacre of the women and children, and the capture of the cherished daughter of her race, it was fearful to see among the warriors the kindling passion for revenge flashing from fiery eyes which glared like those of the tiger thirsting for blood, though their manner remained otherwise cool, collected, and subdued.

At the close of this harangue, he called upon his brother,[163] the oldest chief of the opposite party, to reply, and state what he could in justification of their conduct.

With the same lofty composure, the respondent recapitulated and confirmed all that had been stated as to the former enmity and the friendly relations promoted and established between them by the labors and influence of the Black Gowns.

He then set forth in glowing language the dismay with which his people and their allies had heard that these their pretended friends were joining among themselves and with the new American companies--under the sanction of the missionaries--for their destruction and the possession of their hunting-grounds. That their good friends of the Northwest Company had warned them of their impending ruin, and furnished arms and ammunition, that they might avert the calamity by making the first attack themselves. That this was their sole motive for the act, and in self-defence, for self-preservation, they were ready to pursue the war-path as long as a man was left of their tribes to fight. But as to the massacre at the encampment, and abduction of the maiden, he indignantly denied for himself, his people, and their allies, all knowledge of any such place, or aid in its fulfilment, or of the instruments by which it had been executed.

Convictions of the crafty fabrications by which the Northwest Company, through its wily commander, had beguiled them, fastened gradually upon the minds of both parties, as their history was thus opened.

The missionaries now proceeded to re-establish peace, in which they were so successful that the calumet was duly passed from one to another through the whole assembly. Before the close of the council the terms of a new alliance were fully settled, and all parties pledged to fidelity in maintaining it, and diligence in seeking the lost maiden.

Muttered threats were breathed against the Northwest Company, and especially its false commander, and a determination to take his life vehemently expressed. The missionaries reproved these threats so sternly that they were accused of befriending him, and the trapper was again obliged to exert all his influence in quelling the rising distrust.

Meanwhile, preparations for a grand banquet, after the most approved and bountiful mode of savage magnificence, had been going on, and the village was redolent of savory odors from every variety of meat and vegetables in process of cooking according to the Indian fashions.

The great assemblage regaled themselves plentifully, but with staid decorum. The mirth, the dancing, and the songs, customary upon such occasions, were omitted, out of respect for the memory of the departed chief and the sorrows of his son.

At the close of the feast, the Rosary was recited by the missionaries and their converts; after which the parties who were to set out in quest of the maiden were duly organized and equipped with arms and ammunition, procured for the purpose from the nearest American station. These were so dispersed as to surround by a long circuit the principal trading post of the Northwest Company--at which the commander made his headquarters--and draw towards it by narrowing circles, to intercept any party which might be sent to convey the object of their search to some other place should news of their expedition reach the post before their arrival. A runner accompanied each party to notify the next of any important incident touching the interests of their expedition.

As they were patiently and gradually converging toward their destination, one detachment met a party of traders from the Hudson's Bay Company, who informed them that the "Northwester" whom they sought was absent.

He had failed to meet them, as he had agreed, to arrange terms of requital with them for plunder committed upon their territory by his agents; and had departed a day or two before, with a fleet of canoes and a large party of _voyageurs_, down the river to an American station which was commanded by a former partner in his company, with whom he was on terms of suspicious intimacy, considering their rival interests.

There were a number of women in the canoes, supposed to be the wives of the _voyageurs_.

This intelligence changed the course of the expedition. The several bands were notified, and united as speedily as possible, to make their way to the station indicated.

When they reached its vicinity, they found a great carousal was on foot there. The boisterous mirth and revelry that prevailed made it easy to reconnoitre without detection. They soon discovered the quarters where the women were assembled. It was a large tent or camp, guarded from intruders by a detachment of _voyageurs_ and their wives. The Connecticut trapper sauntered carelessly up to one of the sentinels, and began playing off some rough jokes of the wilderness upon him, in the mingled jargon of Indian dialects and Canadian _patois_ used among that class.

He found the fellow sulky and silent; not too well pleased with the duty assigned him, and impatient to join the revellers. He very kindly offered--"bein' a man of sobriety and havin' no hankerin' for such doin's"--to relieve the watcher, and take his place for a time. As he was a Yankee, who, as the Canadian stranger supposed, might belong to the station, he did not hesitate to accept the offer.

From this tent, on the west side, a patch of very high grass extended to a dense clump of bushes at some distance. After the new guardian had surveyed the premises for some time, with his habitual air of careless indifference, he caught a glimpse through the door, over which a buffalo robe had been hung to close it, of the woman who attended the daughter of the chief. All doubt of the maiden's presence vanished before that vision. But how to give notice that friends were near? Pacing slowly back and forth close beside the tent, he uttered distinctly, in a low voice, the sacred name given the maiden in baptism, and known to none here but her attendant--"Josephine!" and was delighted to receive a quick reply, "S. Joseph!" He continued pacing, and humming carelessly, in her native dialect, a short of chant, as if for his own amusement, the words of which conveyed a distinct idea of the grass and the bushes west of the tent, and a hint that she could creep through the one unobserved, and find friends concealed in the covert of the other.

Another sentinel accosted him, in derision, as a "merry singer," when he complained of this tedious business of watching the women, and wished the fellow he had relieved would finish his frolic, and come back.

"He will be in no haste to do that," his companion replied. "Gabriel is a sad gossip, and too fond of the drinking-cup to quit it without compulsion."

Our trapper, favoring the impression this man also had received that he belonged to the station, said he must be released to meet an engagement at this hour, or break the rules of the post; when Gabriel's daughter was called to go and summon her father. An interval elapsed which seemed an age to the trapper, whose wonted coolness almost forsook him before the truant appeared, highly elated with liquor, and loth to resume his irksome duty.

The relieved sentinel vanished to meet his "engagement," the result of which was that the ground in the high grass was speedily filled on both sides with armed and prostrate Indians, listening for the rustle which would betray the presence of their coveted prize.

Nor did they wait long; and, when the maiden with her attendant crept stealthily by them, she was informed that a swift-footed pony was concealed in the covert of the bushes for her use. Her friends soon had the satisfaction of seeing them mounted, and flying, with the speed of the wind, in the direction of their distant home; for the trapper had found a moment in which to direct her as to the course she was to take, and the maiden was no stranger to the use of the noble animal, in the management of which her people are trained from their infancy.

Scarcely were they out of sight over the vast plain before their escape was discovered. A wild sortie of the revellers ensued.

The commander, with the friend whom he was visiting, and his favorite clerk, who was always with him, mounted on swift horses, started in pursuit of the fugitive, while his followers engaged in a bloody combat with her friends. The "Northwester" was the first to descry her in the distance, and his horse was gaining rapidly upon her frantic flight, when she suddenly changed her course toward the river, which here rushed through a gorge bounded by a precipice on each side. Putting his horse to its utmost speed, and shouting his entreaties that she would refrain from fulfilling the intention he too clearly divined, he plunged madly on, reaching the bank only in time to see the pony struggling in the wild waters; but the maiden had disappeared from his sight for ever!

While he was still lamenting, with frenzied exclamations, his own folly, and the dire calamity in which it had resulted, a pursuing party of her friends arrived. It was terrific to mark the fierce flash of eyes that fixed their blazing regard upon him from all sides, as his savage foes encircled him!

He seemed too completely lost in the tumult of his own grief, disappointment, and passion to heed their approach, or the imminent peril in which he stood, as one after another of the band drew up his rifle and prepared to fire upon him at a word from their leader, when the tall form of the trapper stalked into the circle, and his ringing voice gave the command that was instinctively obeyed.

"Down with your rifles, ye bloody-minded sarpints"--suiting a gesture to the word, that was understood in a twinkling. Then, addressing them in their own tongue: "Are the red men wolves, that they would drink the blood of the pale chief without hearing what he has to say? How will they answer to the holy Black Gown for the deed, or how will they face the pestilence and famine which will surely follow every life-drop that flows from the veins of the great medicine-man of the palefaces?" he added, appealing to the faith of the converted Indians, and to the superstitions of the unconverted, and whispering a brief sentence in the ear of the young chief, who had been maddened at the loss of his sister, but was subdued by the presence and words of the trapper. Then resuming his own language, he said to himself as if musing--indulging a habit formed during his long and lonely wanderings--"I'm willin' to own the chap has many ways that a man of peace and justice like myself can't approve by any manner of means, for they don't square with my notions of what's right. But it may be more the misfortune of the critter than his fault, seein' he comes of them Britishers, whose blood, I conclude, carries its pesky pizin down from father to son to the third and fourth generation, as the holy commandments say both good and evil is carried. But there's two sides to every story, and I an't agoin' to stand by and see the life of a feller-critter taken, if he _is_ a son of Satan, without hearin' both. Them Injins an't sich angils of innocence either as to have the right to cast the first stone at the wicked. I'm not a prejudiced man, I hope, but 'cordin' to my notion there an't a truer thing in natur 'cept the Holy Bible--which I take to be the truest of all--than that they're a tarnal pack, take 'em by and large, and 'ud ruther drink blood than water any day, every mother's son on' em, savin' and exceptin' always--as lawyer Smith used to say--the Flat-heads and the Pendorays, who're 'bout the likeliest folks I've met this side of the univarsal world, and have as nat'ral a twist towards Gospil light as the sunflower has to the sun. But all this is neither here nor there"--he said, rousing himself from his soliloquy, which the natives had heard to a close with quiet gravity, being accustomed to his manner; and, striding up to the "Northwester," who remained sitting motionless on his horse, with his back to his pursuers and his eyes fixed upon the rushing flood, as if so petrified by the shocking event he had witnessed as to have eyes or ears for nothing else--"Are you crazy, or a fool?" exclaimed the trapper in a low voice as he approached--"to sit here as unconsarned as if you was in a lady's parlor, with a hundred rifles raised to draw your heart's blood, and your long account with etarnity all unsettled! What on airth is the critter thinkin' of! Speak quick! or I wouldn't give the glim of a lightnin'-bug for all they'll leave of the vital spark in your carkiss in less'n the twinklin' of its wings; they'll put daylight in its place, and your scalp'll be danglin' from the belt of the young chief in less time than it takes to speak the words--a sight I should greatly mislike, bein' a man of peace, though no great admirator of your race, any more'n I be of the Injuns."

Suddenly assuming the careless manner natural to him, and turning towards the maddened throng with the scornful indifference which seldom forsook him, and was the best weapon he could have opposed to the fury of his savage foes at this critical juncture, the young man related in a few words what had happened.

With a sneer of contempt, the Indian appointed to speak for the band replied: "Did the Great Spirit give his bird wings that she might fly from the white chief to the home where his falsehood has sent her father? or is she a fish that she may cleave the waters of that flood and escape from him? No, no, our daughter lives! When the white chief says she went over the rock, his words are to deceive; and when he bewails the fate of the maiden, he is making a false face. He sent the horse over the rock to blind the eyes of her people. He has a long arm and a strong voice, and can call his braves from every covert. He knows where he has hidden our daughter. But we will follow him even unto the homes of the palefaces, and lie in wait until more moons are counted than the hairs on his scalp would number, to drink his blood at last. Our feet will be swift to pursue and our knives to find his heart, even to the piercing of stone walls!"

"Lord give us patience with their Injin nonsense!" the trapper ejaculated. Then, speaking in their language: "Will my red brethren waste time in idle words like prattling women? The white chief will go with us to the lodge of the holy Black Gown, whose words are truth, and whose counsels are wise and just. That's as true's you're alive, Hezekiah," he proceeded, resuming his own tongue; and, as if moved by an irresistible impulse--"Talk about your Methodist preachers, your Presbyterers, your Baptists, and all sorts, who deny that these missionaries hold to Gospel truth! But let 'em obsarve how they follow out Gospel rules by layin' aside all critter comforts, forsakin' father and mother, brother and sister, housen and lands, and, comin' into these howlin' deserts, without scrip or staff, wives or children, labor with their own hands for a livin', sharin' and puttin' up with all the poverty and hardships of the shiftless critters they come to teach--whose souls, I make no dispute, are of as much value for the next world, and in the sight of their Maker, as if they belonged to thoroughgoin', giniwine Yankees--though their works don't amount to much in this, even in the line of their callin' in furs and sich, at which a Connecticut trapper 'ill beat 'em all hollow any day." Then, suddenly recollecting himself, he again addressed his wild companions: "The Big Foot will pledge his own life to his red brothers, against that of the white chief, that he prove not false in this matter; and they will let the Black Gown say what his children shall do."

After some consultation the proposal was accepted, and without any great delay they all departed in the direction of the mission.

When the missionary had examined the matter after their arrival, he became convinced that the life of the young commander would be in danger while he remained within reach of his exasperated foes, and would hardly be safe in his Montreal home from their revengeful pursuit. He therefore advised him to leave without delay.

The advice was scornfully rejected at first, but soon perceiving that it would be folly to provoke a fate which flight only could evade, he joined a party who were leaving for Lake Superior, to proceed thence by the usual route to Montreal, and was seen no more in those Northwestern regions.

* * * * *

Many years had elapsed since these events took place. A dark and rainy night had succeeded a tempestuous autumnal day, and settled down like a wet mantle over Montreal, wrapping the city in its chilling folds.

The street-lamps with which it was dimly lighted in the early evenings of yore--when oil furnished an obscure foreshadowing of this era of gas, that served only to make "darkness visible"--had gone out one by one, leaving the narrow streets, with their high stone houses overhanging on either side, in utter gloom.

The twinkling of a lantern borne by an invisible pilgrim might be seen--like the transient dancing gleam of a will-o'-the-wisp--revealing occasional glimpses of a tall form by his side clad in the habit of the Society of Jesus. They were threading the narrow course of old St. Paul Street, which they followed until they reached a road that turned and ascended a rising ground to the west, in the direction of a district where there had formerly been a beaver meadow of considerable extent, through which flowed a sluggish brook, but which was rapidly assuming the features now presented by that part of the city lying in the neighborhood of Beaver Hall Block.

Into this road they turned, and, passing the district mentioned, took a path to the left, which led them to the base of the hill on the summit of which the city water-works and reservoir are now situated.

In those days the ascent was by no means easy, and the aged father had to pause frequently to take breath during the course of it. Having reached the height, and rested for a brief space, they turned again to the left into spacious, neglected grounds, surrounding a very large stone mansion which stood unfinished on the side of the mountain, as entirely isolated on that lonely height as if in the midst of vast solitudes, instead of the suburb of a populous and thriving city. So chilling, gloomy, and repulsive were all the features of the lofty edifice and its bleak environs, which had been an open common for many years, that even the reverend father, long accustomed to encounter such varied forms of desolation as the missionary in savage regions must continually meet, recoiled unconsciously as he passed the dismal portal, which no door had ever closed, into the damp atmosphere within. Here the mouldy walls appeared to give shelter only to a multitude of owls and bats, whose wings flapped indignantly at the unwonted gleam of light in their dark dominion, and equally rare intrusion of a guest upon the silence of their retreat.

The man with the lantern passed on in advance, followed slowly and cautiously by his venerable companion, over a narrow platform constructed by laying planks on the timber of the framework, until they came to a remote corner of the building, in which a small room had been awkwardly prepared, and arranged in a manner to render it barely habitable. A more comfortless abode could hardly be imagined. Before the door of this rude apartment they paused, the guide inserted a key in the huge lock, the bolt of which yielded slowly as if fearing to betray its trust, the door creaked harshly on its rusty hinges and gave admittance to the reverend guest.

Guided by the faint glimmer of a taper--standing on a rough block beside a bed on which the form of a man tossing in restless agony was dimly visible, the priest approached the sufferer, addressing some soothing words to him.

"Ah, reverend father! is it you?" he faintly gasped. "It was kind of you to come through the storm this dismal night, and, after your long journey, to seek the lost sheep so utterly unworthy of your care! I am near the close of a misspent and wasted life! Will the worthless wreck offered at the eleventh hour in penitence and tears be accepted? O father! how true were the words you uttered when reproving my sinful course: 'Unless you repent the wrongs you have inflicted, making such requital as remains within your power, a fearful retribution awaits you in this world, and eternal despair in the next.' The first part has been fulfilled--wife, children, family, and friends have fallen from me one by one, and for long years the victim of his own folly and iniquity has lingered on desolate and alone--haunted by visions of retribution and despair. But I have tried to be contrite, and to offer such contrition as I could gain, in anguish and tears at the foot of my Redeemer's cross. May I not hope it will be accepted? How I have longed, reverend father, for your return to Montreal! The first emotion of joy my heart has known for years was imparted when I heard from my attendant that you had at length arrived--just in time to hear my last confession and console my dying hour, if there is indeed comfort for such a sinner. The blood of that Indian chief--singled first of all from his followers for death by my command (because he set his authority against my designs)--and that of his innocent daughter and her nurse, who perished by my means, have set a burning seal upon my guilty soul; while the phantom of my injured wife, taken from me while I was pursuing my unhallowed passion, joins with theirs to reproach and haunt me. I am lost, lost in the horrors of remorse for the triple murder, added to an endless list of misdeeds!

"Peace, my son!" the reverend father said tenderly and firmly--"though your sins are as scarlet, their guilt has not surpassed the bounds of Infinite mercy! Nor has it reached so far as you suppose. The Indian maiden lives. A holy nun in an American convent, she has never ceased her supplications for the salvation of your soul, and for the pardon of her own weakness and disobedience to her father, in yielding her young heart's affections to your importunities before she learned, as she did on the voyage down the river, that you were already married, and sought only to make her your dishonored dupe.

"She urged her horse over the precipice according to instructions from the trapper, who told her to fly with all speed in that direction, and at what point to turn to the river, if pursued and in danger of being overtaken. He also warned her to make no resistance to the current, only to avoid being drawn into whirlpools, but to let it carry her through the gorge to a place where the waters spread into a small lake, on the shore of which, near the foot of the gorge, she would find a singular cave opening toward the water, and easily seen, where she must secrete herself until he should bring her brother to her. In all this she succeeded by the skill in swimming which seems to be part of an Indian's nature. When the trapper and her brother sought the hiding-place--with but faint hope indeed of finding her--so great was her dread of your power and of her own weakness, that she entreated them to keep the fact of her escape concealed, and arrange for her departure with a company of traders belonging to the American stations, who were intending to leave with their wives and pass the winter in a distant city of the United States. They therefore left her, first providing means by which her servant could obtain their food; and after the return of the party to me, those arrangements were made. Upon her arrival in that city, and delivery of a letter from me to the superior of a convent there, she was received into the house, and soon after entered upon her novitiate as one of its members."

"And now, my son," he continued, "it only remains for you to prepare for the solemnities of the approaching hour, with deep humility and contrition. I am sent by my Divine Master to call, 'not the just, but sinners to repentance.'"

The holy man remained with his dying penitent through the night, and, while the morning bells of the city were proclaiming the story of our salvation on the wings of the _Angelus_, the spirit, so long perturbed with agonizing throes of remorse, but at length reconciled and refreshed by the healing dews of divine grace, passed to the tribunal before which it had so dreaded to appear, trusting solely in the merits of that Redeemer born of a Virgin for us, and who was now to be its Judge.

He was the first and last occupant of the gloomy mansion that had been designed for the abode of almost regal magnificence. The phantoms of horror with which his distorted imagination had filled the vacant spaces within those extensive walls, and even the surrounding premises, led him to confine himself entirely to his room. And thus he lived for years, a prisoner in that dimly lighted and cheerless apartment, attended only by the faithful servant who provided his food, and haunted by dark remembrances of the past.

The shadows of those visions still linger around the empty walls, and pervade the silent precincts, nourishing a firm belief in the minds of many that they are peopled by unearthly forms, and investing them with a mysterious influence that keeps all intruders at a distance.

The Canadian driver, as he conveys the stranger in his cab or cariole to different points of interest about the city, pauses a moment on the height opposite the frowning mansion, and points it out--standing in dismal grandeur among the brambles of its neglected grounds--with the half-whispered explanation, "Yonder is the Haunted House of Montreal."

We questioned the narrator as to the fate of the Big Foot, and learned that he made profession of the Catholic faith soon after the departure of the "Northwester" for Montreal; and from that time until his death, a few years later, attached himself to the service of the missionary whom he so venerated.

"And the confidential clerk of the fur trader?" we inquired.

Rising to his feet, and drawing his tall form to its full height, our narrator replied, with a proud self-assertion of which none but a Scotch Highlander is fully capable, and which no pen can describe--"I am myself that clerk. His grandfather was chief of the clan to which my family belonged. When his father came to Canada, mine came with him. I was but little younger than this oldest son, and we were brought up together. When he was sent to the Northwest, I was permitted to go with him, and never left him until the grave closed its inexorable door between us."

He turned away to hide his emotion, and left us pondering upon the strange things that happen in this world of ours!

FOOTNOTES:

[163] Indians always address their equals as "brothers."

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING.[164]

The late Archbishop of Baltimore was an admirable type of a class of Catholics, hitherto containing but a small number of individuals, though not without considerable influence and importance in the history of the American Church. Those of our faith who have risen to the highest distinction in this country, either in the sacred ministry or in literature, have rarely been what we may call indigenous Catholics. By birth or by race they have either not been Catholics or not been Americans. Immigration and conquest are still the main dependence of the young church of the United States. What sort of fruit its own will be, when it comes into full bearing, the world has hardly had a chance to judge. Abp. Spalding may be taken, however, as a specimen. His ancestors for several generations were American, and, so far as the record goes, they were never anything but Catholics. They came from England to America in the early days of the Maryland colony, and were possibly among the two hundred families brought over by Lord Baltimore in 1634. They lived for nearly a century and a half in St. Mary's County, and thence Benedict Spalding, the grandfather of the Archbishop, moved to Kentucky in 1790. Benedict was the leader of a little colony of Catholics who left their native state to seek their fortunes together in the wilds of what was then the far West.

They settled in the valley of the Rolling Fork River, in Central Kentucky, not far from Bardstown, where another offshoot from the Maryland church had established itself a few years before. There Martin John Spalding was born, May 23, 1810.

"Kentucky," says his biographer, "was in that day covered with dense forests and tangled woods. There was scarcely a place in its whole territory that might be dignified with the name of village, and the only roads were the almost untrodden paths of the forest, on either side of which lines of blazed trees showed the traveller the route from point to point.

"The forests were filled with a luxuriant undergrowth, thickly interspersed with cane and briers, which the intertwining wild pea-vine wove into an almost impenetrable network; so that, in certain parts, the only way of getting from place to place was to follow the paths worn by the migrating buffalo and other wild beasts. The Indian still hunted on the 'Dark and Bloody Ground,' or prowled about the new settlements, ready to attack them whenever an opportunity was offered. It has been stated on good authority that, from 1783 to 1790, fifteen hundred persons were killed or made captive by the Indians in Kentucky, or in migrating thither.

"In 1794, the Indians appeared on the Rolling Fork, and killed a Catholic by the name of Buckman. This produced a panic in the little settlement, which caused many Catholics to move for a time to Bardstown, where the population was more dense. But Benedict Spalding remained at home, and the Indians disappeared without committing further outrage.

"The early emigrants to Kentucky had to endure all the hardships incident to pioneer life. Even the ordinary comforts were not to be had in the wilderness in which they had taken up their abode, and they not unfrequently suffered the want of the most indispensable necessaries. To obtain salt, they had to go to the Licks, travelling often many miles through a country infested by savages. They dwelt in rudely constructed log-cabins, the windows of which were without glass, whilst the floors were of dirt, or, in the better sort of dwellings, of rough hewn boards. After the clothing which they had brought from Virginia and Maryland became unfit for use, the men, for the most part, wore buckskin and the women homespun gowns. The furniture of the cabins was of an equally simple kind. Stools did the office of chairs, the tables were made of rough boards, whilst wooden vessels served instead of plates and chinaware. A tin cup was an article of luxury. The chase supplied abundance of food. All kinds of game abounded, and, when the hunter had his rifle and a goodly supply of ammunition, he was rich as a prince. This was the school in which was trained the Kentucky rifleman, whose aim on the battle-field was certain death. The game was plainly dressed and served up on wooden platters, and, with cornbread and hominy, it made a feast which the keen appetite of honest labor and free-heartedness thought good enough for kings."

Martin was sent to a school kept by a Mr. Merrywether in a log-cabin near the Rolling Fork, and soon distinguished himself by his proficiency in mathematics. He learned the whole multiplication table in a single day when he was eight years old. At the age of eleven, he entered S. Mary's College, near Lebanon, Kentucky, being one of the first students enrolled in that institution; and by the time he was fourteen, he was acting as teacher of mathematics, and was famous throughout the country as the boy-professor. From S. Mary's he went, at the age of sixteen, to the theological seminary at Bardstown, then under the personal direction of Bp. Flaget and his coadjutor, Bp. David. Francis Patrick Kenrick was one of the professors in this home of learning and piety, and soon became Mr. Spalding's intimate friend. F. Reynolds, afterwards Bishop of Charleston, was there, and the Rev. George Elder, founder of S. Joseph's College, was another of the little company. Mr. Spalding remained at Bardstown four years, dividing his time, according to the system pursued in several of our American seminaries, between the study of theology and the instruction of boys in the college which formed a part of the institution. He paid no more attention to his favorite science of mathematics, and never developed the extraordinary powers in that branch of learning of which he had given such evidences in boyhood; but his aptitude for theology was so marked, and his personal character so amiable, that Bp. Flaget determined to send him to Rome to complete his studies at the Propaganda. It was a long and rather difficult journey in those days. He set out in April, 1830, and did not reach Rome until August. On the way, he visited Washington and Baltimore, and made the acquaintance of some notable persons, of whom he makes interesting mention in his letters of travel. He seems to have been strongly impressed by the Rev. John Hughes, afterward Archbishop of New York, whom he met in Baltimore; and he writes with patriotic ardor of the venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, whose "good-will and benediction" it was his fortune to receive on the eve of departure from his native land. Our young Kentuckian, as might have been supposed from his ancestry and education, was an enthusiastic lover of his country. "I am sure," he wrote some time afterwards from Rome, "that my attachment to the institutions of my country has been increased by my absence from it." Nothing could exceed the warmth of his enthusiasm for the sacred city and all its religious associations; but he never forgot his home, and, like most of his countrymen who have been educated under the shadow of the Vatican, he came back as ardent an American as he went away.

After completing his studies with brilliant success, and sustaining a public defence of two hundred and fifty-six propositions in theology, church history, and canon law against the most formidable adversaries Rome could send to the encounter (a highly interesting description of which intellectual tilt is given by Bp. England), he returned to Kentucky with the title of doctor, and was made pastor of the Cathedral at Bardstown and professor of philosophy in the seminary. His keen appreciation of the peculiar needs of the American Church is illustrated by the zeal with which he immediately entered into the scheme of his associates in the seminary for the establishment of a Catholic periodical. The _S. Joseph's College Minerva_, to which he became the principal contributor, was a monthly magazine, which lived for about a year, and was then succeeded, in 1835, by the weekly _Catholic Advocate_, of which Dr. Spalding was chief editor, with Fathers Elder, Deluynes, and Clark for his assistants.

"With Americans, Dr. Spalding used to say, newspaper reading is a passion which amounts to a national characteristic. In the Propaganda the American students were proverbial for their eagerness to get hold of journals, whether religious or secular. Now, he argued, this craving must be satisfied. If we do not furnish our people with wholesome food, they will devour that which is noxious. He believed the American people to be frank, honest, and open to conviction. Their dislike or hatred of the church he ascribed to misapprehension or ignorance of her history and teachings. Hence he believed that if the truth were placed before them plainly, simply, and fearlessly, it could not fail to make a favorable impression upon them. He therefore thought that to the Catholic press in the United States had been given a providential mission of the greatest importance.

"Americans have not time, or will not take the trouble, as a general thing, to read heavy books of controversy. Comparatively few Protestants ever enter our churches, and, even when there, everything seems strange, and the sermon intended for Catholics most frequently fails to tell upon those who have not faith. And yet we must reach the non-Catholic mind. 'The charity of Christ urges us.' Apathy means want of faith, want of hope, want of love. Besides, the church must act intellectually as well as morally. If it is her duty to wrestle ever with the corrupt tendencies of the human heart, to point to heaven when men seek to see only this earth, to utter the indignant protest of the outraged soul when they would fain believe themselves only animals, it is not less a part of her divine mission to combat the intellectual errors of the world. We observe in the history of the church that periods of intellectual activity are almost invariably characterized by moral earnestness and religious zeal. On the other hand, when ignorance invades even the sanctuary, and priests forget to love knowledge, the blood of Christ flows sluggishly through the veins of his spouse, and to the eyes of men she seems to lose something of her divine comeliness. Indeed, there is an essential connection between the thoughts of a people and their actions, especially in an age like ours; and, if we suffer a sectarian and infidel press to control the intellect of the country, our words will fall dead and meaningless upon the hearts of our countrymen."

The Catholic press of America was then in its infancy, yet Catholic controversies were assuming a great importance. The Hughes and Breckinridge discussion was raging in Philadelphia. Protestantism, alarmed apparently at the rapid progress of the American Church, was everywhere assuming an attitude of aggression, and the country was on the eve of one of those periodical outbursts of anti-Catholic bigotry which seem fated to disturb every now and then the course of national politics. Dr. Spalding was fully sensible of the wants of the day. He wrote frequently to the Propaganda of the condition of the American Catholic press and his efforts to extend its influence and direct its attacks. His pen was incessantly busy. Though he was personally one of the most amiable and peaceful of men, he allowed no assault upon the faith to pass unnoticed; and his life for some years was almost an incessant battle. The _Advocate_, the _United States Catholic Magazine_, the _Catholic Cabinet_, the _Metropolitan_, were all enriched by his contributions. He was one of the editors of the _Metropolitan_ for several years, and, after the death of the _Advocate_, he founded the Louisville _Guardian_, for which he continued to write until it was suspended in consequence of the troubles of the civil war. Dr. Spalding well knew that, next to a newspaper, his countrymen loved a speech. He resolved that this passion also should be turned to the advantage of the church. Bp. Flaget had removed his cathedral from Bardstown to Louisville, and Dr. Spalding, being called thither as vicar-general in 1844, began a series of popular evening lectures with the co-operation of the Rev. John McGill, afterward Bishop of Richmond. So great was the interest aroused by these discourses, and so great the crowd of Protestants who flocked to hear them, that the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist preachers of the city united in a "Protestant League," to counteract the influence of the priests by a series of lectures on the abominations of Popery. The result, of course, was exactly the reverse of what they expected. The weekly throng at the cathedral became greater than ever. The lectures assumed a more distinctly controversial character. The Catholics were roused to greater ambition. For three years Dr. Spalding continued his lectures every Sunday evening during the winter months, composing thus the essays which he afterwards revised and published under the title of _Evidences of Catholicity_. In a very short time he was recognized as one of the foremost Catholic apologists of the day, holding very nearly the same position which Bp. England had occupied before him, and in which the late Abp. Hughes was so highly distinguished in Philadelphia and during the earlier part of his career in New York. Dr. Spalding, however, was less of a polemic than either of those great men. His comprehension of the popular wants amounted almost to an instinct, and he felt that the objections to the church which were then commonest rested rather upon historical and political than doctrinal prejudices, and that the great work of the Catholic apologist was to dispel the ignorance of Protestants respecting the faith of the middle ages, the alliance of church and state, the influence of the Papacy upon civilization, and the harmony between Catholicity and republicanism.

"An American, he knew his countrymen, and admired them; a Catholic, he loved his religion, and was convinced of its truth. That, in his person, between faith and patriotism there was no conflict, was manifest. He loved his country all the more because he was a Catholic, and he was all the sincerer Catholic because no mere human authority was brought to influence the free offering of his soul to God's service. He accepted with cheerful courage the position in which God had placed his church in this young republic, and he asked for her, not privilege or protection, but justice, common rights under the common law; and such was his confidence in God, and in the truth of his cause, that he had no doubt as to the final issue of the struggle of religion, free and untrammelled, with the prejudices of a people who, however erroneous and mistaken their views might be, were still fair-minded and generous. Admiring much in the past, he still did not think that all was lost because that past was gone. Let the old, he thought, the feeble, the impotent complain; those to whom God gives youth and strength must act; and the church is ever young and ever strong. God is infinite strength, and of this attribute, as of his others, his spouse participates. If the latest word of philosophy, both in metaphysics and natural science, is force; if the old theory of inertia has been dropped, since the power of analysis has shown that everywhere there is action, motion, force, let it be so. The church, too, is strength. She has a force and an energy of her own. Daughter of heaven, she has brought on earth some of that divine efficacy by which all things were made. Christ is the strength of God, and from his cross he poured into the heart of his spouse, together with his life-blood, his godlike power....

"Without entering into the complex and delicate question of the proper relations of the church and state, he accepted the actual position of the church in this country with thankfulness and without mental reservation. In this matter, he neither blamed the past nor sought to dictate to the future, but put his hand to the work which God had placed before him. He saw all that was to be done, and, without stopping to reflect how little he could do, he began at once to do what he could. Taking a moderate, and possibly a just, estimate of his own ability, he considered that his mission as a writer and public teacher demanded that he should be useful and practical rather than original or profound. Hence he neither wrote nor spoke for posterity, but for the generation in which he lived. His first aim was to remove the prejudices which false history and a perverted literature had created in the minds of his countrymen. The influence of the church on society, on civilization, and on civil liberty was wholly misunderstood; her services in the cause of learning, of art, and of commerce were ignored; her undying love for the poor and the oppressed were forgotten."

During the Know-Nothing excitement, which culminated after his elevation to the episcopate (he had been consecrated coadjutor to the Bishop of Louisville in 1848, and succeeded to the see in 1850), Bp. Spalding's course was remarkable alike for prudence, charity, and courage. He used all his influence during the riots in Louisville to restrain the pardonable anger of the Catholic population; and it is the testimony of one who knew him intimately that during those trying days, when Catholics were murdered or driven from the city, and houses were burned, and the mob was threatening to destroy the cathedral, "he manifested a more than usual peace of mind. He spent the greater part of his moments of leisure in the sanctuary in prayer, and seemed through communion with God to grow unconscious of the trouble which men were seeking to bring upon the church, and which he could not but feel most keenly." His only great share in the published controversies of the period was a discussion with the late Prof. Morse as to the authenticity of an anti-Catholic phrase attributed to Lafayette--a dispute which attracted a great deal of notice while it lasted, although, of course, the subject was not of permanent interest. This, we say, was his only direct share in the polemical literature of that day; but his collection of _Miscellanea_, which appeared in 1855, answered all the purposes of a formal discussion without assuming a controversial tone. The essays and reviews comprised in this book were written, says the biographer, in "a free, off-hand, straight-forward style, peculiarly suited to the American taste. They covered the whole ground of what was then the Catholic controversy in the United States, and, by facts resting upon unexceptionable testimony, by arguments which appeal at once to the good sense and fair-mindedness of the reader, and by the whole spirit and temper in which they are written, furnish a defence of the church, as against the attacks of her accusers, the strength of which could not be easily broken." Bp. Spalding had none of the ambition of a scholar or a man of letters. He cared nothing for literary reputation. He set no store by the graces of a polished style. He wrote for present effect, and not for future fame; and if his essays could be read and discussed while they were wet from the press, he had no particular desire that they should hold a place on the library shelves of posterity. Whatever he wrote had an occasional--we might almost say an evanescent--appearance, because his sole impulse in writing was some immediate want of the American church. His pen was powerful, because it was always employed on timely themes, and he had a wonderfully happy art of suiting his style to the tastes and capacities of his readers. With all his scholarship and culture, he spent no great pains upon learned research, simply because he knew that, under the circumstances in which he was placed, such pains would be wasted. His books, however, will long survive the generation for which they were written; and his _History of the Protestant Reformation_ especially, though it is ostensibly nothing more than a caustic review of D'Aubigné and other Protestant writers, is universally esteemed as one of the most valuable works in American Catholic literature.

If Dr. Spalding's single-hearted devotion to the church was conspicuous in his literary labors, it was still more remarkable in the other incidents of his busy career. The story of his life is one long record of untiring effort to advance the glory of the church and extend her conquests. The question of education always engrossed a great deal of his care. Soon after his consecration, he went to Europe to obtain the services of some teaching brotherhood, and succeeded in securing a community of Xaverians; and in the pastoral address which, as promoter of the First Provincial Council of Cincinnati, he was deputed to write to the clergy and laity of the province (1855), he spoke with great earnestness of the need of parochial schools; and time after time he returned to the subject, denouncing the system of godless education, and urging the faithful to fresh exertions and more generous expenditure for the religious instruction of their children. One result of his opposition to the common-school system was a vigorous controversy with George D. Prentice, of the Louisville _Journal_, in the course of which the bishop reviewed not only the Catholic position on the school question, but the whole dispute as to the bearing of Catholic principles upon the social and political conditions of the country. The foundation of the American College at Louvain was almost entirely his work. The American College at Rome found in him a firm and active friend. In the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore he proposed the establishment of a Catholic university in this country; and we certainly can never forget the affectionate interest which he manifested in the Catholic Publication Society, aiding it by his advice, his encouragement, and his earnest recommendation to the bishops and pastors of the country, and writing the first tract which appeared from its press.

After what we have said of his devotion to the church, and the enthusiasm with which he bent every energy to her service, it can hardly be necessary to explain with what dispositions he took his place in the Vatican Council. Strangely enough, however, his relations with that venerable assemblage have been somewhat misunderstood, and his biographer has been at commendable pains to remove all mistake and obscurity.

"Archbishop Spalding had always believed in the infallibility of the Pope. This belief was a tradition with the Maryland Catholics, fostered and rendered stronger by the Jesuit fathers, who for so many years were their only religious teachers. His fathers had taken this faith with them to Kentucky. It was the doctrine which he had received from Flaget and David. Neither the Catholics of Maryland nor their descendants in Kentucky were tainted with even a tinge of Gallicanism. Indeed, it may be affirmed that, as far as we have a tradition in this country, it is thoroughly orthodox. It is the special pride of the American Church that it has not only been faithful to the Vicar of Christ, but has ever had for him the tenderest devotion.

"'Thank God,' wrote Archbishop Spalding to Cardinal Cullen in 1866, just after the close of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore--'thank God, we are Roman to the heart.' The confession of faith of both the Plenary Councils of Baltimore is as full and complete on this point as it was then possible to make it. When, after the convocation of the Vatican Council, the question, whether or not it would be opportune to define the infallibility of the Pope, first began to be discussed, Archbishop Spalding inclined to the opinion that a formal definition would be unnecessary and possibly inexpedient. He thought that Gallicanism was dead, and that Catholics everywhere believed in the infallibility of the Holy See. Hence, he argued, there could be no necessity for a formal definition. He believed, too, that much time would be consumed in conciliary debate, in case the question of fixing the precise limits of Papal infallibility should be submitted to the fathers.

"These considerations led him to think that the most proper way of proclaiming the dogma of Papal infallibility would be to condemn all errors opposed to it; and this was his opinion when he went to the council. It was, however, merely an opinion, formed, as he himself felt, without a perfect knowledge of all the circumstances in the case, and one which, upon fuller information, he might see cause to change. He was not a partisan. He had in him none of the stuff out of which partisans are made. He was simply a Catholic bishop, who had never belonged to a party either in the church or out of it.

"On the 27th of March, 1869, eight months before the assembling of the council, he wrote as follows to a distinguished theologian who was at that time in Rome:

"'I believe _firmly_ the infallibility of the Pope, but incline to think its formal definition unnecessary and perhaps inexpedient, not only for the reasons which you allege, but also on account of the difficulty of fixing the precise limits of doctrinal decisions. Where they are formal, as in the case of the Immaculate Conception, there is no difficulty. But are all the declarations of encyclicals, allocutions, and similar documents to be received as doctrinal definitions? And what about the decisions of congregations, confirmed by the Pope?'

"And again, in August, he wrote:

"'While maintaining the high _Roman_ ground of orthodoxy, I caution much prudence in framing constitutions.'

"In both these letters, Archbishop Spalding seems to take for granted that a definition will be made; and he simply indicates his preference for an implicit rather than a formal definition.

"In August, 1869, two months before leaving for the council, he wrote to Cardinal Barnabo, giving his views on various subjects which he supposed would be brought before the fathers. One of these he designates as 'The Infallibility of the Sovereign Pontiff teaching _ex cathedra_.' 'I have not,' he says, 'the least doubt of this infallibility, and there are very few bishops who do doubt of it. The only question which may, perhaps, arise will relate to the utility, advisability, and necessity of making an _explicit_ definition in the council. It will have to be considered whether a definition of this kind would not be likely to excite controversies now slumbering and almost extinct; whether an _implicit_ definition--an amplification of that of the Council of Florence--which would define the dogma without using the word, would not be more opportune and of greater service to the cause of the church.

"'Should the fathers deem it expedient to make a formal definition, its limits should be accurately marked, and, in the accompanying doctrinal exposition, statement should be made whether and how far, in the intention of the fathers, this infallibility should be extended to pontifical letters, allocutions, encyclicals, bulls, and other documents of this nature.'

"This letter affords sufficient evidence that Archbishop Spalding had all along contemplated the contingency of an explicit definition, and that he did not look upon it with any alarm. In fact, he held that a definition, either implicit or explicit, was necessary. If he did not, in the beginning, advocate a formal definition, he was still less in favor of abstaining from the unmistakable affirmation of the faith of the church on this point."

He expressed his views more fully in a _postulatum_ drawn up after his arrival in Rome--a document asserting the infallibility of the Pope in the most unmistakable manner, but suggesting an implicit and indirect instead of an explicit and direct definition, because such a course would be likely to command "the approval of almost all the fathers, and would be confirmed by their quasi-unanimous suffrage." Soon after this memorial was drawn up, Abp. Spalding was made a member of the committee of twelve cardinals and fourteen prelates appointed by the Holy Father to consider all _postulata_ before they were brought before the council, and he consequently refrained through delicacy from pressing the consideration of his own scheme; but it was energetically discussed in various quarters, and Abp. Spalding came to be looked upon as a leader of the so-called "third party," which was supposed to hold a position between the opportunists and the non-opportunists in the council. Meanwhile, it became evident to the archbishop that, to quote his own language, but two courses lay before the fathers--either to place themselves openly on the side of the Pope, or on that of the opposition; and he wrote a letter to Bp. Dupanloup, repudiating the false construction which had been placed upon his _postulatum_, and the false inferences drawn from it, and declaring himself emphatically in favor of the plainest possible definition of the doctrine. "When the history of the Vatican Council comes to be written," says an English author, "not many names will be written with more honor than that of the wise and prudent Archbishop of Baltimore; nor will any extra-conciliary document be recorded in future generations with deeper satisfaction or warmer gratitude than the letter in which Mgr. Spalding vindicated himself and his colleagues from all complicity with Gallican doctrines and intrigues." In a pastoral address to his flock, written immediately after the definition, the archbishop made a very clear statement of the doctrine, and pointed out some of its consequences. He answered the objection that it was in conflict with civil and political liberty, which he believed could flourish only under the shadow of the altar and the cross, and he reminded his people that the same theories of government upon which the American republic is founded were taught by the Catholic schoolmen three hundred years before Washington was born.

We have not attempted, in this brief survey of the character of the late Archbishop of Baltimore, to sketch the incidents of his episcopate--and, indeed, they were very few--or even to enumerate the most important works which occupied his busy brain. Our purpose has rather been to select from the valuable pages before us a few indications of those peculiar qualities of mind which made him pre-eminently a representative of the young and vigorous American Church, so strong in the faith, so ardent in attachment to the Holy See, so reverent of Catholic tradition, and withal so quick to adapt itself to the special wants of a free and growing country. We would gladly have paused for a little while over the attractive story of Bp. Spalding's early pastoral peregrinations through the primitive settlements of Kentucky, his charity, his gentleness, his love for children, the touching scenes when he visited the orphan asylums, in which he took such a tender interest, or the beautiful picture of the great preacher and prelate sitting humbly in the school-room with the little ones about his knees. All this would draw us too far away from our proper subject; but we must allow ourselves one extract from the few scattered passages in which the biographer has told us of his private life:

"I shall never forget the pleasant journeys which, when quite a small boy, I had the happiness to make with him. His merry laugh, that might have been that of a child who had never known a sorrow or a care, the simple and naïve way he had of listening to the prattle of children, the whole expression of the countenance showing a soul at rest and happy in the work which he was doing, are still present to my mind, like the remembrance of flowers and sunshine. And I remember, too, with what warmth, and reverence, and love he was received everywhere, and how his presence was never connected in my mind with anything morose or severe. Eyes that seemed to have looked for his coming grew brighter when he had come; and when he was gone, it was like the ceasing of sweet music which one would wish to hear always, but which, even when hushed, keeps playing on in the soul, attuning it to gentler moods and higher thoughts. He was full of human sympathies and human ways. The purple of the bishop never hid the man; nor did he, because he belonged to the supernatural order, cease to be natural. There was, indeed, a certain elegance and refinement about him which no one could fail to perceive, the true breeding of a gentleman; but withal he was as plain as the simplest Kentucky farmer. He rarely talked about learned things; and when he did, he did not talk in a learned way. He possessed naturally remarkable powers of adaptation, which enabled him to feel perfectly at ease in circumstances and companies the most dissimilar. There was not a poor negro in his whole diocese with whom he was not willing to talk about anything that could be of advantage to him. I remember particularly how kindly he used to speak to the old servants of his father, who had known him as a child. He had a special sympathy with this whole race, and I have known him, whilst Archbishop of Baltimore, to take the trouble to write a long letter to an old negro in Kentucky who had consulted him concerning his own little affairs.

"He frequently wrote to children ten or twelve years old, from whom he had received letters. In company where there were children, he never failed to devote himself to their amusement, even to the forgetfulness of the claims of more important persons. When at home, he usually passed the forenoon in writing, or in receiving those who called to see him on matters of business. After dinner, he spent some time in conversation, which he always enjoyed, then withdrew to his room to say vespers, with matins and lauds for the following day. In summer, he kept up an old Roman habit of taking a short repose in the afternoon. He would then walk out, calling in here and there to visit some school or convent, or to spend a few moments with some Catholic family. On the street, he would stop to greet, with a few pleasant words, almost every acquaintance he chanced to meet. Frequently he would remain to tea at the house of a friend, after which he returned to his room to write or read until the hour for retiring for the night arrived. The rule in his house was, that every one should be in at ten o'clock, when the door was locked. Apart from this regulation, he never interfered with the tastes or hours of the priests of his household. In the cathedral, he had his own confessional, and, when at home, he was generally found there on Saturday afternoon; and it was his custom to preach at the late Mass on Sunday."

The Rev. F. Spalding, to whom the task of writing this biography was committed by the archbishop's literary executor, had the advantage of a somewhat intimate knowledge of his distinguished uncle, and of free access to manuscript sources of information. He has done his work ably and conscientiously, with an accurate judgment of the salient points in the story, and no slight skill in the arrangement of his abundant materials. His style is simple and unaffected, and his whole book, from the first chapter to the last, is thoroughly readable; while, as a contribution to the ecclesiastical history of the United States, its value is of course very considerable.

As a biography of an able and successful prelate, whose career was most honorable and useful--of a man who was virtuous and holy from his childhood to his grave, and who has left a bright example of loyalty to God and the holy faith of Christ in a corrupt age--it is of greater value than any similar work which has hitherto been published in this country. This great and holy prelate is worthy to be classed among those noble and illustrious rulers of the church in past ages and the present whose history is an ornament to ecclesiastical annals. Apart from his career as a bishop in the administration of the important churches committed to his care, his share in the successful issue of the first session of the Vatican Council and in that most auspicious event, the definition of the infallibility of the Pope, entitles him to the perpetual remembrance, not only of the American Church, on which he reflected so much lustre, but of the Catholics of the world. The history of his pure and holy life, so highly marked by devotion, integrity, fidelity, and singleness of high purpose, and closing with a death so beautiful, ought to produce, as we hope it will, a powerful and stimulating effect upon the studious Catholic youth of our country.

It is a great good fortune to a man whose life is worth writing to find an affectionate, just, and skilful biographer. In this respect Abp. Spalding has been more fortunate than those other great ornaments of the American hierarchy, England and Kenrick; though we hope the lack may yet be supplied in the case of these two prelates. We have all along expected that this biography would become very soon one of the most popular, widely circulated, and useful books which has ever issued from the American Catholic press; and we feel confident that our expectation will not be unfulfilled.

FOOTNOTES:

[164] _The Life of the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore._ By J. L. Spalding, S.T.L. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 8vo, p. 468.

TRAVELS WITH A VALETUDINARIAN.

I.

The summer solstice again, and the metropolis an oven! Why should I remain in it and be baked? There was just one reason that detained me: I could not make up my mind to what point of the compass to peregrinate. On my return from last year's ramble, I had determined to join an Alpine club on my next holiday, and wander in search of the grand in mountainous districts. It only wants lungs and muscle, I thought, and I considered myself equal to the undertaking. The smaller the quantity of luggage the better, was my next reflection. But I was completely put out of conceit of Alpine climbing on visiting my friend Mount. I saw Mount six weeks ago, and all my calculations of enjoyment were upset. Mount was already in training for his journey, as if for a boat-race; he was eating, drinking, taking exercise, gymnastic and pedestrian, and sleeping just so many hours, to a minute, on the most approved system. Then, he had such a collection of what he termed indispensable companions for his travels--such optical instruments, theodolites, grappling-irons and sharp-pointed staves, that I was persuaded that his peace of mind would be endangered in looking after them, to say nothing of wanting a dromedary to carry them. I, who never make pleasure a toil, wished my friend an agreeable time of it, and respectfully declined participating. I am fully aware that I shall be told by-and-by that I have missed a great deal; and I am equally sure that I shall uncomplainingly submit to my loss; but if ever I ascend mountains in quest of the sublime, rather than prepare so laboriously, I will charter a balloon.

I was still negativing suggestions that thronged upon me from many estimable friends, and was still far from determining my particular destination, when I stumbled on an agreeable, middle-aged bachelor acquaintance, Mr. Stowell.

"I am rejoiced to see you looking so well," I began.

"Appearances are deceptive, my dear Lovejoy," he replied. "But I am better, thank you. Ah! what a blessing is health."

"It is, indeed."

"And yet how men squander it away; yes, Mr. Lovejoy, squander it just as they do money; and of the two it is the more precious! It should be an object of unceasing care--to be husbanded with wise frugality."

"Well, it is, sir, as you instituted the comparison, to be treated like money in certain respects. There is an old saying that, if we look to the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves; and in like manner, if a few simple regulations patent to every one are attended to, health is to be attained by the bulk of mankind."

"There, sir, excuse me, you are wrong. I have made the subject my study, and my conclusion is that the matter is much more complex than the care of pence. Consider its conditions." And the worthy gentleman told them off on his fingers very deliberately. "There is," said he, "proper nourishment, temperance, exercise, repose, suitable raiment, salubrious locality, cleanliness, ventilation. And where is the man who is mindful of the harmonious working of all these agencies; for the neglect of one of them is mostly fatal to the rest?"

"Then, there are such a number of complications in the constitution of health, I think we must withdraw the charge of squandering; for the mass of men could never be hemmed in by a series of sanitary rules only partially understood and only partially practicable, though they might be like children throwing away treasures without a knowledge of their value. Squandering implies, to my mind, wilful waste."

"No, sir; I maintain that squander is the right word, and I accept your meaning of it. I say it is every man's duty to study health, and, if he does, he will find the complications I have spoken of exceedingly easy of comprehension. But, sir, men will not learn; they will put themselves to no trouble at all; and they squander their days away, because they heed not the value of them. Their daily conviction makes them conscious of that value, but they stifle it--yes, sir, they squander!"

"I will not argue the question further. I perceive you have given it more attention than I have."

"I own it, and I am proud of it. And now, if you will add a favor to the concession you have just made, you will join me, be my _compagnon de voyage_ out of this furnace, which, we shall both agree, is only suited to the constitution of a salamander."

"You flatter me by your invitation; but I have not settled in my mind what direction to take."

"Leave that to me, sir. If you will gratify me by giving me the pleasure of your company, I would propose to change about from place to place--now inland scenery, then seaside, different parts of the coast, a last view of the country rich in autumnal tints, and then home before Boreas is too rough for us."

"That will do admirably. You speak like one who had well considered his plans."

"I have, sir; it all comes under the study of health."

"Really, you will make a convert of me."

"All in good time. We will get off first; let us start to-morrow, if not too soon for you."

"With all my heart. I love promptitude in action. But by land or water? And whither?"

"We will take the Great Slaughterton Railroad, in the first instance. That's imperative!"

"My dear sir, there was a fearful accident on that line only yesterday--a hundred and sixteen persons killed, besides loss of limbs, dislocations, contusions innumerable!"

"The very thing for us! A nine days' wonder! That line will be particularly careful for a whole week to come while the public eye is on it. We shall be quite safe, sir; but the earlier, the better. To-morrow, then?"

Assent was given, and I was booked for the Great Slaughterton. I was a little startled at my friend's precipitation, which seemed at variance with his usual deliberation; but he had given a reason for expedition on the route he had selected, and, on accompanying him home, I found that his preparations had been made. He showed me all the latest contrivances for comfortable travelling, in a variety of valises, portmanteaus, leather bags, satchels, baths, and a mahogany box which reminded me of a liquor case or cabinet of choice revolvers.

"You see I am all but ready," he said.

"Indeed you are," I replied. "But I shall overtake you, though I have not begun to pack; for I travel in a more primitive style. I leave behind me all I can do without, and trust to civilization to supply wants that may come upon me. A purse and the least possible encumbrances are what I look to. You are not, I suppose, going to burden yourself with that mahogany case, though I perceive it is labelled."

"My life-preserver, sir!"

"Oh! I thought it might be a strong box for your valuables, and I was about to suggest your entrusting it to your bankers. We are not, however, going into any dangerous quarters where firearms...."

"No dangers, sir, while I have the honor to be your guide! It is my medicine-chest--an indispensable part of my equipment!"

"Ha! You cannot trust country apothecaries; and you, of course, understand something of physic."

"A person at my time of life, sir, is usually said to be a fool or a physician. Not that I despise the faculty--we may have to call in their aid before we return."

"I hope not, Mr. Stowell; and present appearances are not in their favor, I am happy to say."

"You have not, I see, made health a study."

"You have the advantage of me there," I rejoined, as speedily as I could relieve myself of the sentiment, fearing another dissertation; and the occurrence of the topic impressed my mind with some alarm that our difference of mental organism might compromise our good-fellowship before we came to the end of our journey. Dwelling for a moment on this idea, I thought I would venture to insinuate terms of concord; so I followed up my hasty remark by a suggestion of mutual forbearance while we were birds of passage.

"It may not be thought out of place," I said, "if I take this early opportunity of pointing out that our minds do not work in the same groove; and that we may find it necessary to give and take, as the saying is, while we shall be together. For my part, I may claim a little indulgence for some hobby of my own, possibly; and I trust you will bear in mind how completely I give in to you on all that appertains to the laws of health."

Mr. Stowell fidgetted about in his chair, and seemed scarcely to take in the scope of my observation.

"All I would recommend," I added, "is that we should endeavor to 'play fair'--in our intellectual conflicts, I mean. Let 'Put yourself in his Place' be a lesson to each of us, and I have no doubt that nothing will occur to ruffle our temper or lessen our enjoyment."

"Temper, sir!" replied my friend. "I am glad you spoke of it. You will only find me too much of a lamb. I detest bickerings and disagreements. No, sir, you will have an easy time of it with me. A little humoring of some whim of mine might be judicious, not to say friendly; but, beyond that, you will not find anywhere a less quarrelsome and more conciliatory being than Benjamin Stowell."

"Then there is every prospect, I rejoice to say for both our sakes, of a lasting understanding between us."

"As firm and durable as adamant!" exclaimed Mr. Stowell energetically, emphasizing the remark by a smart blow on the arm of his chair.

II.

We started on the Great Slaughterton Railroad next day, and it duly consigned us to our destination--a romantically situated town on a fine table-land. The main street in the town, at its extremity, commanded an extensive view of a beautiful country, which promised us some refreshing breezes as they swept over the expansive plains, and many shady retreats from the fiery sun under the umbrageous arms of lofty trees that relieved the prospect from monotony. We took lodgings, Mr. Stowell undertaking to suit our tastes and pockets in this important matter, and claiming from the landlord several extra indulgences without additional cost, on the score of infirm health. Our journey had been very enjoyable, and it had sharpened our appetites; for the prospect of a repast after a good bath in a capacious washstand, which seemed to cool the atmosphere of each of our bed-chambers, put us both in good humor. Everything was well arranged, and, in an incredibly short space of time, we sat down to an excellent table tempting us with its burnished silver and its covering of whitest damask. We both, as it seemed to me, did justice to our meal, and I was a little surprised, therefore, when my friend exclaimed:

"Very provoking, is it not? Travelling has a most peculiar effect on me: it creates the semblance of an appetite; but the moment I sit down to eat, I have no relish for anything."

"Then have I made all this havoc?" I inquired, with something, perhaps, of a dubious air, pointing to the reduced state of the viands.

"I don't wish to be rude, sir, but I have been envying your enjoyment."

"I was sharp-set, I confess; and I must have been too busy to observe your inactivity," I replied, feeling sure that Mr. Stowell's incisors had been no more idle than my own, and wondering what they would go through when their owner gave them their allotted amount of work on a more favorable occasion.

"Always a small eater, sir!" remarked my friend, speaking of himself in a tone of regret.

"Little and often, perhaps?" I asked.

"Not at all, sir; loss of appetite is one of my troubles. Weak digestion! If you should be afflicted in that way, I possess an excellent specific, and I have with me one or two valuable treatises on the stomachic functions."

"But have they not failed in your own case?"

"They have lost some of their efficacy, I allow; but they had a marvellous effect at first. I take it, all remedies wear themselves out, so that we need continual change."

"Of diet?"

"Of regimen, sir! You will find it so, if you will make health your study."

"I won't dispute your conclusions, but I am in the habit of leaving matters to nature, and she has served me hitherto excellently well."

"Very true; but she wants renovating perpetually. It is fatal to rely upon her unassisted efforts. The artificial life we lead is too much for her. Cooks have done for nature, and doctors are called in to restore her powers."

"But you would not physic a man in health merely because he lives, as is contended, artificially?"

"Certainly, most certainly! Prevention is better than cure."

"I prefer to wait until a cure is needed."

"Contrary to all sound system when prevention is possible!"

"Your theory will make the fortune of the doctors."

"A noble profession!"

Mr. Stowell now suggested a walk, which had my advocacy, and we sallied out.

"We will allow ourselves exactly one hour," said my friend, taking out his watch. "I go on system, as you will see. Now, which way is the wind? Westerly. Ay, that will do!"

"A very fine evening! We shall be able to proceed down the chief thoroughfare, and go a little distance on the high-road beyond."

"No, sir, we shall have the wind in our teeth!"

"It is too balmy to hurt us!"

"I am not sure of that. I never face the wind if I can help it. I have known numberless evils result from a little want of attention to such an apparently insignificant point."

Accordingly, we took a northerly direction, and we were rewarded with a sight of some beautiful scenery on that side of the town, so that the caprices of my friend caused me no disappointment.

We returned to our lodgings after a most delightful stroll of an hour and a quarter. Mr. Stowell looked at his watch with a dissatisfied air.

"I must be aware of you," he said, "a second time; you have beguiled me into a transgression. I am not angry, sir, not angry, but I shall feel the effect of it."

"Pray, what have I done?"

"Sir, you have talked me into at least fifteen minutes' excess beyond my regular exercise. I shall suffer for it."

"Do not blame me. Say, rather, that the freshness and novelty of the scenery have led us astray. You are not tired?"

"Not at all. But I ought to be!"

"Then I will prophesy that you will not come to harm."

"Were you not to give in to me in all matters appertaining to health? Don't contradict me again, I beg. I know my own constitution so thoroughly. I shall not be able to sleep without an opiate!"

"I am sorry to hear that; but let me suggest your first trying the effect of the change of air?"

"Really, sir, you are ignorantly striving to undermine the study of my life. Don't suppose for an instant that any scenery would keep me on my legs five minutes past my time, or that air has anything to do with provoking sleep. In primitive times, such might have been the case, and it may be so even now with juveniles; but too much artificiality surrounds adults. I shall be obliged to have recourse to my chest, and I shall give you a treat when I open it for inspection. It _is_ a _multum in parvo_! Make your mind quite easy that, come what will, I have almost every remedy, not merely within call, but within reach. There's consolation for you!"

I bowed my acknowledgment, which I could not find words, I own, to express.

Presently my friend proposed that we should have half an hour's reading; and, on his asking me if I had any skill in elocution, I replied that, having some taste for it, I should be happy to read aloud to him, if it would afford him any pleasure.

"Well, you won't be offended," he said, "if I ask you to stop, should I not like your style?"

"Certainly not--the moment I fatigue you," I replied.

"And on no account exceed half an hour. Never mind breaking off in a fine passage--we can have that another time; but I could not endure a book more than thirty minutes, not even a newspaper, which, for diversity of contents, perhaps is the best kind of reading."

I accepted the conditions, and, finding a volume of _Montaigne's Essays_ on a shelf, I took it down, and raised the question whether the old Gascon would be to my companion's taste. He replied in the affirmative, and declared his conviction that the art of essay-writing was lost, and that no essayist was comparable to Montaigne. So lively an author he could hear, he continued, with a good deal of enthusiasm, for the allotted time, with the greatest pleasure and without a yawn.

Fortunate in the selection of my author, I opened the volume without looking for any particular subject--for we both agreed that it was impossible to alight on a dull place--and commenced reading.

"Capital!" exclaimed my friend, in less than five minutes. "Capital! What a marvellous digestion that man must have had! You can see it in the clearness of his ideas! Let's see, he was before Galen, wasn't he? Go on, don't let me interrupt you; we will settle these points afterwards. Don't forget what just occurred to me about his digestion--it's important. You may not think so, ha! ha! but I know. Don't stop." And he composed himself as if for attentive listening, with his head thrown back in his chair, and his arms folded across his broad chest.

I had paused during this slight interruption, but, at the bidding of my companion, resumed our essay. Mr. Stowell seemed deep in thought as I occasionally caught sight of him, but, becoming more and more interested in my author, I glanced at him less frequently. Mr. Stowell's watch lay on the table before me, probably with a view of confining the lecture within the stipulated limits. My eye noted the hour as I progressed. I had been reading exactly twenty minutes--two-thirds of my prescribed time. I proceeded a few minutes longer, forgetful of everything but the book, which was enchaining my attention. A hoarse noise came from my friend's chair on the opposite side of the table. I was too busy to look up, and the noise grew louder and thicker. Was it possible? Was that the heavy breathing of my friend, yielding to the influence of the air and our lively Gascon? Another volume, not of print, but of sound, and it was an unmistakable snore! I raised my eyes, and there was my friend fast asleep.

I read on until my time was up, lest the cessation of my voice should disturb his slumbers. When my half-hour had fairly expired, I satisfied myself that neither the stoppage of any accustomed sound nor the raising of an uncommon one had any effect on the sleeper, so securely was he locked in the arms of Morpheus.

III.

For the next two hours I read to myself, but there was no change in the attitude of my friend, unless he had become more musical in the double bass of his nasal intonations. A reflection crossed my mind. Was I not in a dilemma? Mr. Stowell had fallen to sleep without his opiate! He would be very testy at finding his theory at fault, and an ignoramus like myself right! It was dangerous to awake him; and, if I allowed him to sleep on, he would be angry when he awoke to discover that he was not in bed.

Twelve o'clock struck. I continued reading. One o'clock struck, two, three--no change! Four o'clock! Montaigne had deeply interested me, but at last I was tired and inclined to rest. Should I retire? Was my freedom of action gone? I did not wish to be thought inconsiderate, but was I shackled by the companionship of a middle-aged bore? Again I took refuge in my book. Five o'clock--broad daylight again! Seven hours' sleep for Mr. Stowell, and not a wink for me! I could put up with it no longer. I called to him by name, shouted, whistled, walked about, treading heavily on the floor. To no purpose. I opened the window, and let in the streaming sun and the refreshing morning breeze. An extra snort from Mr. Stowell, nothing more! At length I repaired to my chamber, which adjoined our sitting apartment. I had just undressed, when my friend was evidently on his legs.

"What a bore!" I overheard him exclaim. "I told him not to read more than half an hour, and he must have prosed on till dawn. I must be rid of him!"

"Thank heaven!" was on my lips, when he slammed the door of his chamber with great violence. Here is a recompense, I thought, for obliging a friend.

We were late at breakfast. I was taking my seat at the breakfast-table, when Mr. Stowell savagely accosted me.

"I am a lamb in temper, but I can't stand this, Mr. Lovejoy! I will thank you to read to yourself another evening. A pretty thing to keep me up, and then leave me exposed to the chill dews!"

I restrained myself as a man does with right on his side.

"I read at your request," I calmly replied, "and not a moment longer than you desired. I remained up with you until five, not liking to disturb you. It is I, sir, who have reason to complain."

"I don't care. I won't have it. If there is one thing I detest, it is being up all night! Young men can do without sleep; my constitution requires full seven--"

"Hours' sleep, and, to my positive knowledge, it had it; while I have not had three."

"A dog sleep, sir--an unnatural sleep, sir--no sleep at all, sir. I shall feel the want of rest for days to come. Ha! I know why it was: you thought to deprive me of my opiate! But I understand my constitution. I will have my opiate in spite of you. You compel me to have recourse to my chest. I should but for you have made up my morning's prescription overnight. It must be taken fasting."

Patiently I listened to this tirade, and did not condescend to answer. Mr. Stowell brought out his medicine-chest, and busied himself for some time in weighing and pounding. At length he gulped down some kind of mixture. I occupied myself meanwhile with the morning paper. The mixture or its preparation had one good effect--it restored my friend's good humor.

"There, I will not be angry; I never am; I cannot be. I wish you would let me recommend you a dose. I will mix it directly; I will, indeed. It will do you a wonderful amount of good."

The offer I politely declined.

"I see," he continued, "you have lost your temper. Now, what can I do to recover it?" His eye then caught a programme of a morning concert on the table. "The very thing!" he added. "This very day! We'll go! Let me persuade you. 'Music hath charms, etc.' Say yes, and oblige me."

Not wishing to appear churlish, I assented, simply pointing out that the thermometer would range high in a concert-room. My objection was overruled, and we both sat down to breakfast. I was glad to see my friend enjoy his meal with what I thought a decided relish, for he had been very actively employed; and I was on the point of asking whether his mixture had not produced an excellent appetite, when he amused me by saying:

"Positively, I never _can_ take a breakfast! Everything very tempting, though. But then, want of sleep! Ah! I can't get over that."

By this time, I knew better than to contradict my friend, and I suffered his remarks, therefore, to pass unchallenged. In due time, we went to the concert. Several songs by distinguished artists were sung, the chief burden of them being the pleasures of summer, bright, sunny days, golden dawns, and glorious eves. These appropriate subjects and the heat of the room made me sigh for some shady retreat under a leafy canopy, such as had charmed my eye during our saunter of the previous evening. The concert came to an end.

"Do you know," said my friend, when we found ourselves in the open air, "I don't much care for music?"

"Not on a hot day, perhaps," I replied.

"No, sir, it is not that; but I have turned the occasion to some profit."

"I am glad of it."

"Yes, sir; I shall write an article for the _Medico-Chirurgical Observer_. I am convinced that vocalization injures the larynx. I can prove it. The demonstration became quite painful at last, but I sat it out."

"Then we may bless our stars that we are not singers?"

"We may, indeed! A fatal gift."

"I will wait to see you in type," I remarked, in the expectation of closing a discussion which began to appal me.

On our return, we encountered a strange-looking individual habited in a very long coat, and wearing a hat with a brim of extraordinary breadth. Mr. Stowell let this oddity pass, then stopped and looked after him. A youth approached us as we tarried. Mr. Stowell beckoned to him.

"Pray, who is that gentleman?" he asked the boy.

"Dr. Brambleton, if he be a doctor," said the boy.

"Thank you," said my friend to his informant; then, turning to me, he added, "A most remarkable man, I am sure!"

"An empiric," I suggested. "I saw his gout specifics, and a column of his testimonials in to-day's paper." I laughed slightly, then exclaimed, "Only one more infallible cure for gout!"

Mr. Stowell looked very grave, and the boy, who lingered to hear our remarks, ran off, cackling a good imitation of "quack, quack" as he went along.

"That's all prejudice," said Stowell. "He, Dr. B., may be a benefactor of his race. I say he _may_ be; but I am certain of this--I felt some singular twinges in my big toe while we were on the Great Slaughterton, and I have not been entirely free from them since."

"You are not a gouty subject?"

"I can't say what I may come to. I should very much like some talk with Dr. Brambleton."

"Nonsense, my dear sir."

"I am only curious to hear what he would say. I could tell in a minute whether he was a pretender."

Mr. Stowell now labored under an itching desire to call in Dr. Brambleton, and I continued to combat his folly, as I conceived it. Nothing else for the remainder of the day was talked about except various human ailments, their propagation, and the means of their eradication. It was impossible to turn the conversation into any other channel. I was so worn out at last that my replies became shorter and less courteous. I grew dogmatic in my turn, and backed my objections with more force as I plunged into topics out of my depth. Mr. Stowell was now frantic, and abused my ignorance. I retorted by ridiculing his credulity. We got so personal in our remarks that it was a relief when bedtime came; and we retired to our respective chambers in no very pleasant mood.

That night, a thunder-storm broke over the town. The storm was succeeded by a sudden fall in the temperature, and the air became as cold as it is sometimes in the early spring. A sharp easterly wind was blowing when I arose the following morning. Before I left my chamber, I heard Mr. Stowell in altercation with our landlord.

"I told you I was in infirm health," said Stowell.

"You did, sir," replied the landlord.

"Then, how could you put me in a room with an easterly aspect?"

"Why did you not choose the other room?"

"Because some people know how to take care of themselves."

At this I opened my door, and rushed into our sitting-room.

"Mr. Stowell," I exclaimed, "I am not accustomed to have ungenerous reflections cast upon me. The choice was your own; but you have before expressed a wish to be rid of me, and I reciprocate the sentiment. My room is at your service; I shall not inflict my society on you any longer, and I shall seek more genial companionship than I have found in a confirmed valetudinarian."

Without waiting for an answer, I hurried out of the house, breakfasted at a hotel, conned the newspaper, and proceeded to the railroad depot, partly for a walk, and partly to make sure of the time of arrival of the "up" train. I did not return to my lodgings until just in time to take away my luggage.

In the sitting-room, I found Mr. Stowell and Dr. Brambleton. Mr. Stowell was sitting on a chair, with his bare feet on what I took to be an electric battery, but which resembled a coal-scuttle. He held a wire in his hands, and on his head he wore a cap encircled, as I supposed, with magnets.

"Good-day," I said, in a conciliating tone, as I was on the wing, and my fancy was tickled at the ridiculous appearance of my friend.

"Don't think any more of it," replied Mr. Stowell. "My temper emanated from gout! My first attack, I assure you."

"A most decided case!" chimed in Dr. Brambleton. "But he bears it like a Job."

"A speedy recovery!" I answered. "You are in good hands, I hope?"

"Excellent," said Mr. Stowell. "I have the fullest confidence."

"He knows where he is, sir," put in the doctor slyly. "But I will stake my reputation on a cure."

And wishing the patient and doctor a final adieu, I departed, rejoicing in my deliverance from both quacks and quacked. I should distinguish myself in Alpine climbing while under the stimulus imparted by freedom regained; but experience will make me wary of a travelling companion until I have tested his congeniality of disposition.

THE CHILD RESTORED.

FROM THE FRENCH OF MARIE JENNA.

So long had wept this mother, so implored, So pressed against her heart the head adored, The livid forehead of her dying child, That to the frozen breast the marble brow, As by a miracle, returned the glow Of life and light; and, with a fervent joy, She thanked the God who gave her back her boy; But from that hour the infant never smiled!

Three months had passed since then, and still the gloom That seemed to linger from his unfilled tomb Remained unbroken; one might almost think That, when the spirit trembled on the brink Of death, some pitying angel made a change To soothe maternal grief. So sad and strange Was the young, drooping head, the silent mood, His mother dared not, in her gratitude, Missing his joyous laugh, his happy voice And glance, even in embracing him, rejoice.

From open casements song and laughter ring, From turrets high the chimes their carols fling. "Listen, my Louis. 'Tis the happy day When the New Year bids little children play With their new gifts, all merry for his sake! What playthings will my little Louis take? Wilt have this snow-white sheep, with silken string, That thou canst lead to pasture in the spring? Not this? Well, then, these paints, these brushes, made To color paper flowers that will not fade? Or, see! this gay, rebounding woollen ball, That falls and springs from earth, again to fall? Thou dost not love to play? Thou canst not run? What shall I give thee, then, my cherished son?

"Tell me thy secret in one little word; Thy mother fails to guess thy baby need. Say, wilt thou have this pretty, gilded sword To make thee a great captain? No, indeed! Then this thatched cottage, with its drooping eaves, This open book, with all its pictured leaves? No! still the little, mournful, waving hand. _Would_ that thy mother had a fairy wand To bear thee something that would make thee smile! Might not these singing birds thy thoughts beguile, These blooming flowers? Whisper me, tell me, love, While I embrace thee--I who love thee so-- Louis, what wantest thou? My darling, say!" He murmured--"Only wings to flee away."

MADAME DE STAËL.

Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Holstein-Staël, the most remarkable female writer of our century, was born at Paris on the 22d April, 1766. At that time her father was very far removed from the high position he was one day to occupy, being simply a clerk in Thelluson's bank. Mme. Necker herself undertook the education of her daughter--a task for which she was singularly unfitted, being cold and stern by nature, and a pedant to boot.

M. Necker was much more loved by his child, and he understood her disposition better. He liked to draw her out and make her talk, and for that purpose he used playfully to tease her: she invariably met him with that mixture of gaiety and tenderness which characterized their intercourse. Deeply grateful for his affection, Anne put the utmost good-will in the execution of his slightest wish. When only ten years old, she was so struck by the admiration he showed for Gibbon the historian, that the idea occurred to her to marry him, and thereby secure to her father the constant presence of one whose conversation he so much appreciated. Undismayed by Gibbon's repulsive ugliness, the child actually made the proposal to him herself. What makes the comical incident more curious is the fact that her mother had been, when little more than a child, Gibbon's first love. It was said of Anne Necker that she had always been young, and yet had never been a child. Her favorite pastime was fashioning doll kings and queens, and making them act tragedies of which she improvised the various parts. This innocent amusement was at last forbidden by her Calvinistic mother, but Anne used to hide herself and carry on her dramatic little games in secret.

In her mother's _salon_, Anne early made the acquaintance of some of the clever men of the day--amongst others, Grimm, Marmontel, and the Abbé Raynal. At the age of nineteen her intellectual faculties had become developed in the highest degree, but so much to the detriment of her health as to cause the greatest alarm to her parents. The famous Dr. Tronchin was called in, and ordered the young invalid to be taken to the country, where the mind should lie fallow, and the time hitherto devoted to study be spent in the open air. No prescription could have been more unwelcome to Mme. Necker, for it involved a relaxation, or rather a complete abandonment, of the severe _régime_ she had adopted for her daughter. As it turned out, this was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of hardening into a learned prodigy, Anne's moral nature was allowed to put forth its full luxuriance. Her father came constantly to St. Ouen, and in the charms of his daughter's society he sought rest from the cares of the ministry. In this pleasant retreat he and Anne learned, if possible, to love each other better. M. Necker was not, however, a foolishly fond parent; his tenderness never obscured his judgment; and Anne declared herself that his eye, so far from being blinded by affection, was quicker to detect her faults than her merits. "He unmasked all affectation in me," she writes; "from living with him, I came to believe that people could see clearly into my heart."

Anne made her _entrée_ into society at an early age, and immediately assumed there the position her talents merited. As the daughter of a powerful minister, and a future heiress, it was supposed she would marry at once, but it was not so. Mlle. Necker attained the in those days comparatively mature age of twenty before she gave her hand to the Baron de Staël-Holstein, ambassador from the court of Sweden.

Immediately after her marriage, the Baronne de Staël was presented at court. On this occasion she acquired a character for eccentricity by omitting one of the innumerable court courtesies; but what stamped her irrevocably as an oddity was that, going a few days later to visit the Duchesse de Polignac, the young baroness walked into the room without her head-dress--she had dropped it in the carriage. Those who were inclined to laugh at her, however, soon desisted, seeing that she was herself the first to relate her misdemeanors, and to laugh at them.

But a great event was at hand which was to turn the current of Mme. de Staël's thoughts into other channels: the French Revolution broke out. The daughter of the minister who was the immediate cause of that volcanic eruption was not likely to remain a cool spectator of the national upheaving. Misled by her own enthusiasm for the laws and constitution of England, and still more by the ephemeral homage paid to Necker, who had made his cause triumphant in the king's cabinet, Mme. de Staël honestly believed that the dawn of true political liberty was at hand; but this short-lived chimera was changed to horror when she realized the true motives, the aim and object, of the demagogues. The arrest of Louis XVI. and the queen at Varennes filled her with regret, the sincerity of which it is impossible to doubt when we read her account of this event in the _Considérations sur la Révolution Française_.

Her knowledge of the men who were the prime motors of these momentous changes enabled her to foresee the terrible catastrophe of the 10th of August. With great courage and clear-sightedness, Mme. de Staël drew up a plan of escape for the royal captives. M. Bertrand de Moleville, one of the king's ministers, gives the details of this scheme, which its author forwarded with a letter to M. de Montmorin, one of his colleagues in the ministry. Her idea was to convey the royal family to the coast of Normandy, whence they were to sail for England. Whether the plan was practicable or not, was never tested; M. de Montmorin knew too well that it was utterly useless to place it before the king.

The murder of the king and queen filled the heart of Mme. de Staël with indignation and dismay. Such was the effect that this crime had upon her, that for a long time she was quite broken-hearted, all her faculties were absorbed and, as it were, paralyzed by the deeds of blood that were being perpetrated around her. When at last she roused herself to resume her pen, it was on behalf of the unfortunate Marie-Antoinette; she addressed to the monsters who then ruled France an article entitled "Défense de la Reine." We can easily imagine what consummate skill and prudence were necessary at such a moment in dealing with the tigers she was striving to disarm. But not even at this crisis would Mme. de Staël descend to flattery; her talent and her spirit were alike above such arts. While scorning to propitiate them by insulting the queen, or using any of those invectives against royalty then in vogue, she tried to merge the sovereign in the woman, the mother, and the devoted and courageous wife. Strong and deep reverence, joined to a delicate and ingenuous pity, breathe throughout this noble appeal.

If Mme. de Staël had written nothing else, this article alone would have sufficed to ensure her fame.

Shortly after the fall of Robespierre, she published two pamphlets, one entitled _Reflections on Peace at Home_, the other _Reflections on Peace_, _addressed to Pitt and to the French_. This latter work received a tribute of praise from Fox in the House of Commons.

Mme. de Staël took a deep interest in the government formed under the new constitution of 1795, but in her desire to become acquainted with the men who were likely to be chosen members of it, she formed intimacies with some who were unworthy of her; even her literary reputation suffered from these so-called friendships. The public rarely discriminates wisely between the character of an author and that of his or her surroundings.

Just at this time Mme. de Staël became the centre of a circle of politicians, who used to meet at the Hôtel de Salm under the title of the Constitutional Club: this society had been formed to counterbalance the doctrines of the Clichy Club, which were ultra-revolutionary. Benjamin Constant was one of the principal speakers at the "Constitutional."

Thibaudeau, in his memoirs, lately published, declares that Mme. de Staël secretly favored the Directory, and even attributes to her influence the reappearance on the political stage of one who had long forfeited the position he formerly held there. "M. de Talleyrand," says Thibaudeau, "had just returned from the United States without any money, when, through the influence of a woman famous for her wit and her spirit of intrigue, he was introduced into the intimacy of Barras."

But enthusiastic as this famous woman was for glory and talent, she was far too shrewd to be deceived by the fine talk of the young conqueror, who came with the spoils of Egypt in his knapsack to dictate to France, promising to replace the "ignoble Directory by a splendid and solid government." Her knowledge of human nature enabled her to foresee with certainty what the result would be when the despot was raised to power; it would be war to the knife against liberty in every shape and form, and against all its supporters. One of Bonaparte's panegyrists has attempted by a base and monstrous calumny to exonerate his petty persecution of a woman by attributing to her a woman's vindictive spite as the motive of her resistance to him and his policy. This worthy servant of his master declares, on the word of the latter, that Mme. de Staël was in love with Bonaparte, and that his coldness to the _femme savante_ was the real motive of her opposition. The story is as worthy of the husband of the loving and divorced Josephine as it is unworthy of Mme. de Staël. Her real crime in his eyes was her unyielding integrity of principle, and the preternatural insight of her genius, which made it impossible for him to dupe her. He verified all her previsions to the full. No sooner had he seized the reins of power than he used it to paralyze liberty in every form; most, above all, when it was handled by talent. Mme. de Staël was imprudent enough to boast of her prophetic instinct on this score to Joseph Bonaparte, who was her friend, but who was also the brother of the First Consul. He entreated her to be more guarded in her words, and soon after warned her that the conversations of her _salon_ found their echo in the Tuileries. When she laughed at his friendly information, he tried to convince her by a more powerful argument. Necker had deposited two millions in the royal treasury, and this sum should be restored to his daughter if she would so far condescend to recognize the First Consul as to ask him for it. Mme. de Staël replied that she would never sue where she had a right to exact, and instead of conciliating the great man, she urged Benjamin Constant to pronounce immediately his famous speech denouncing the covert tyranny of the First Consul, which so roused the wrath of the latter against him and her that from this time forth Mme. de Staël was to know no peace. The daring act sealed her doom. Friends, terrified at her boldness and its consequences, deserted her _salon_. Fouché, the minister of police, summoned her to his presence, and informed her in his master's name what she already knew, that no one might brave his anger with impunity.

A few days after this official interview she went to a _fête_ given by Gen. Berthier, having accepted the invitation in hopes that some violent outburst from Bonaparte would give her the opportunity of taking a woman's vengeance, and sharpening her wit on him. She actually tells us that she rehearsed an imaginary scene between them, and wrote down her own answers, polishing them off till they were sharp as steel. It was time and wit wasted, however; Bonaparte only accosted her with some vulgar platitude that afforded no opening for pert reprisals. Not long after this disappointment she met the enemy again, this time by chance, and fortune served her better. Mme. de Staël was discussing some political question with great animation when the First Consul came up to the group of admiring listeners, and said brusquely:

"Madame, I hate women who talk politics."

"So do I, General," replied his adversary, looking him coolly in the face; "but in a country where men persecute them and cut their heads off, it is well to know why." On another occasion, when he accosted her in a gracious mood, she made bold to ask him what woman in France he was proudest of. "The woman who has most children," was the coarse rejoinder.

Mme. de Staël made frequent journeys to Coppet, her father's residence. This was another crime in the eyes of the First Consul, as Necker was supposed to have been helped by his talented daughter in his work, _Politics and Finance_--a book which Bonaparte resented furiously as an attack on his own policy and system of finance.

On Mme. de Staël's return to Paris after the appearance of the work, she was warned that her personal liberty was in danger. Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angély, who was her friend though in Napoleon's service, got her safe out of Paris, and secured her the hospitality of a relative of his in the country, where, she tells us, she used often to sit at her window of a night watching for the arrival of the _gendarmes_ to seize her. She soon left this kindly shelter for the home of her friend Mme. Récamier, at Saint Brice. In the security of this quiet retreat the fugitive fancied herself forgotten by Napoleon, and decided to settle down at a small country-house about ten leagues from Paris. Scarcely had she done so when the happy illusion was dispelled. A commandant of _gendarmerie_ presented himself at her door with an order signed by the First Consul, bidding her withdraw forty leagues from the capital within twenty-four hours.

Joseph Bonaparte and General Tunat had interceded for her, but in vain. Mme. de Staël, exasperated, refused the privilege of remaining in France on such conditions, and decided to seek refuge in Germany, where she could "confront the courtesy of the ancient dynasty with the impertinence of the new one that was striving to crush France."

Her first resting-place was Weimar, the German Athens of that day. Here she learned German under such professors as Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland. In 1804, she visited Berlin, where she met with the kindest reception from the king and queen; but her stay there was short; she was summoned hence to her father's death-bed, and arrived too late to embrace him. This was a fearful blow; she strove to assuage her grief by collecting his MSS., with a view to publishing them, but her health, shaken by so many vicissitudes, gave way, and she was obliged to seek change and rest in Italy. The sight of Rome and of Naples awoke a new life within her, and restored to her the power of writing, which for a time she had lost.

But nothing could long console her for her absence from her own beloved country. The longing to see France at last so far subdued her proud spirit that she determined to avail herself of the privilege of approaching within forty leagues of Paris; she returned accordingly, and settled at Rouen. This was indeed a violation of the permitted limits, but Fouché shut his eyes to it, and the exile remained undisturbed at the residence of her friend M. de Castellane, where she finished _Corinne_, and corrected the proof-sheets. The work appeared in 1807, and awoke a very trumpet-blast of applause all over Europe. But fame was a crime in one who had incurred the tyrant's displeasure, and the author received a peremptory order to quit France. Broken-hearted and despairing, she returned to Coppet, where she was accompanied by a few faithful friends, who braved all to share her solitude. Here she continued to occupy herself with her great work, _Germany_. Feeling, however, that a more perfect knowledge of the country was necessary before completing it, she resolved to spend the winter of 1807 at Vienna. She met with a flattering reception there from the Prince de Ligne, the Princesse Lubomirska, and most of the distinguished personages of the court, and returned in the spring to Coppet.

As soon as her book on Germany was ready for the press, Mme. de Staël set out for France, and placed herself at the distance prescribed--forty leagues. She took up her abode at the old castle of Chaumont, formerly the residence of the Cardinal d'Amboise, Diana of Poitiers, and Catherine de' Medicis.

While passing a few days with her dear and valiant friend, M. de Montmorency, the persecuted author received the terrible tidings that 10,000 copies of her new work just issued had been seized by the minister, although she had taken the precaution of submitting the proofs for approval to the censorship. This tyrannical measure was followed by an order to leave France within three days. She begged for a short delay, hoping, by means of a German passport, to land in England; but to this request the Duc de Rovigo sent a positive refusal. Mme. de Staël revenged herself later by placing the duke's letter in her second edition of _Germany_.

From Fossé she fled to Coppet. Here she found that the prefect of Geneva had received orders to destroy any proofs or copies of her work that he could discover. At the same time, he hinted to Mme. de Staël that she might soften the tyrant by seizing the opportunity to write an ode on the new-born "King of Rome." "My best wish for his infant majesty," she replied, "is, that he may have a good nurse." This impertinence came to Napoleon's ears, and Mme. de Staël expiated it by a prohibition to move two leagues from Coppet. Her friends were finally included in her disgrace. M. Schlegel, her son's tutor, was ordered to resign his position in her family, and M. de Montmorency was exiled for daring to give her the protection of his presence in return for the courageous hospitality he had received from her during the Terror. Mme. Récamier was similarly punished for her boldness in befriending the woman who defied Bonaparte. Hunted to earth while she remained on French soil, Mme. de Staël felt that nothing remained to her but to seek peace and security in flight. But whither should she fly? Bonaparte's spies were spread like a network over the Continent. They would vie with each other in setting traps for her. Russia alone offered some chance of rest; so, one bright spring morning, Mme. de Staël went out for a drive, and, instead of returning home, posted on through Switzerland and the Tyrol to Vienna. She quickly discovered that it was not possible for her to tarry here; the tyrant's tools were on her track. "March! march!" was still the cry of fate; and, like the Wandering Jew, she sallied forth once more on her wanderings. Moscow seemed like a promised land where she might rest awhile; but, scarcely had she drawn breath amidst the unmelted snows of the northern city, when the hunter was down upon her. The _Grande Armée_ was advancing rapidly on the Russian capital. "March! march!" And again the fugitive was on the road, flying to St. Petersburg. Here at last came a respite. The emperor and empress received her like a dethroned sovereign; the nobility followed suit, partly out of admiration for the gifted exile, partly in hatred to her foe, who was theirs also. She was entertained at public banquets, and became the lion of the hour. At one of these magnificent _fêtes_ given in her honor, the toast, "Success to the Russian arms against France!" was proposed. Mme. de Staël seized her glass, and, with a sudden inspiration of patriotism, cried out: "No, not against France! against her oppressor!" The amendment was adopted with applause. But St. Petersburg was no safe retreat for the baroness while the French legions were at Moscow. She was advised by friends to fly, and, once more folding her tent, she carried it to Stockholm. Here she was allowed to recruit her wearied limbs and more wearied spirit for some months. She employed the interval of quiet in writing the recollections called _Ten Years in Exile_. On leaving Sweden she set sail for England, with a view to publishing her famous _Allemagne_--the work which had been the immediate cause of her recent persecutions, having exasperated Bonaparte beyond all powers of endurance. It was not until the fall of her enemy that Mme. de Staël ventured to return to France. Her joy, however, at this twofold event was of short duration. The despot who knew no mercy to the weak was not to be bound by the chains of honor. He broke his plighted word, fled from Elba, and landed one morning on the shores of France. It was the signal for Mme. de Staël to fly from them. Filled with patriotic grief and personal dismay, she started immediately for Coppet. She had barely arrived there when a letter followed her with the unexpected order to return to Paris, "where the emperor considered her presence would be useful in establishing constitutional ideas." But she, whom threats and exile had not daunted, was not to be beguiled by flattery. "Tell your master," she replied to the writer of the singular invitation,--"tell your master that since he has got on for twelve years without me or the constitution, he can do without us a little longer, and that at this moment he hates one about as much as the other."

What wonder if the health of this intrepid woman gave way, in spite of her indomitable spirit, under this long spell of mental and physical fatigue, and ceaseless vexation and disappointment. Her declining years were consumed in intense suffering, borne with the utmost courage and resignation. She returned finally to France after the Restoration, and was treated with every mark of esteem by Louis XVIII. He delighted in her conversation, and gave her a more substantial proof of good-will by restoring to her the two millions that her father had deposited in the treasury before his fall. This act of justice bound her by ties of enduring gratitude to the king and his dynasty.

But she was not spared long to enjoy the honors that now surrounded her. Sorrow, and the despondency consequent on great bodily exhaustion, had tempted Mme. de Staël into the deadly habit of using opium, and when once contracted she had not strength to relinquish it, even after the cause that made the stimulant a necessity of existence to her had disappeared. Her friends used every argument and every stratagem to cure her, but in vain. She fell into a state of lethargy, or rather into a succession of lethargic slumbers, broken by sudden gleams of her old brightness. Her patience was very touching, and many evidences are preserved to show that she drew it from her unshaken faith in Christianity, however imperfect the form in which she had been reared, and to which she was outwardly attached. Once, on awaking from her slumbrous state, she exclaimed to those who surrounded her bed: "It seems to me that I know now what the passage from life to death is; and I feel how God in his mercy softens it to us." She expired on the 14th of July, 1817, the anniversary of the very day on which her father's false theories and blind self-confidence had put the match to the powder and kindled that terrific conflagration which enveloped France in flames. Her remains were deposited at Coppet, in the tomb she had raised to the memory of the great financier.

Those who were present at the reading of her will, heard for the first time of her marriage with M. de Rocca. In that document she bade her children proclaim the fact, as also the birth of a boy by this union. A relative and intimate friend of Mme. de Staël's gives us an account of her first meeting with her second husband:

"A young man of good birth excited much interest at Geneva by the stories current about his bravery, and by the contrast between his age and his fragile appearance and shattered health; the result of wounds received in Spain, where he had served in a French hussar regiment. A few words of sympathy addressed to him by Mme. de Staël produced a most wonderful effect; his head and heart took fire. 'I will love her so well,' he vowed, 'that she will end by marrying me!' and he was right. Their affection for each other was of the deepest and tenderest kind. She lived in perpetual fear of losing him, owing to his delicate health; and yet it was he who survived her, but only a year; he died at Hyères, more from grief than from his infirmities, in his thirty-first year."

We have said nothing of the person of this singularly gifted woman. "She was," to quote the words of a contemporary, "graceful in all her movements; her face, without being handsome, attracted your attention, and then fixed it; a sort of intellectual beauty radiated from her countenance, which seemed the reflex of her soul. Genius was visible in her eyes, which were of a rare splendor; her glance had a fire and strength that resembled the flash of the lightning, and was the forerunner of the thunder-roll of her language; her large and well-proportioned figure gave a kind of energy and weight to her discourse. To this was added a certain dramatic effect. Though free from all exaggeration in her dress, she studied what was picturesque more than what was the fashion. Her arms and hands were beautiful, and singularly white."

This picture is an attractive one, and paints Mme. de Staël in very different colors from those generally used by her portrayers. It is only natural that a woman who had all her life been before the world, should be variously judged by various people. A celebrated writer of her own day, who knew the author of _Corinne_ both as an author and a woman, said that she would not be impartially judged until a century had gone by. Napoleon raised her to a pedestal of martyrdom by his unmanly and cruel persecution, and the _éclat_ of her genius hid her individual faults and errors in a haze of glory. She was hated by the flatterers who fawned on the tyrant because she dared to defy him. Some considered her a cold, masculine woman, who had none of the charm of womanhood about her; while others, dazzled by her talent, idealized her as a sort of demigod. Distance enables us to estimate her more justly. She was a woman of unrivalled energy of character, of incomparably brilliant parts, and endowed with a heart equal in tenderness to the power of her genius. Her written style gives but a faint idea of the lustre of her conversation. She was, perhaps, quite unparalleled in this last sphere. The play of wit, logic, and grace never flagged for an instant, but kept her hearers spellbound as long as her voice was heard. Once, at a _soirée_ at Mme. Récamier's, she got into a discussion with the Archbishop of Sens, as to whether it was an advantage or a misfortune for a nation to be in debt; the archbishop took the latter view of the question, and they kept up the ball for two hours, until the excitement among the guests became so great that they stood upon chairs in the adjoining _salon_ to enjoy the brilliancy of the intellectual combat. She was, as her death attests, a devout believer in Christianity. On one occasion, after listening to some metaphysicians crossing lances over their pet theories, she remarked: "The Lord's prayer says more to me than all that."

From the repetition of this divine prayer during her long nights of sleeplessness she drew patience and resignation. By birth and education a Protestant, she never allowed her lofty mind to be prejudiced against Catholics, and often spoke with enthusiasm of the heroic courage of the martyred priests and bishops of the memorable 2d of September, 1792. _The Imitation of Christ_ was her constant companion and solace during her long illness. This woman of genius was a devoted mother. Her literary pursuits did not interfere with her maternal duties: she superintended the education of her children herself, and often impressed upon them that, "if they fell away from the path of honor and duty it would be not alone an irreparable sorrow, but a remorse" to her, as she would accuse herself of being the cause of it.

She was not happy in her first marriage, which was purely one of "arrangement." There was no sympathy of taste or ideas between her and the Baron de Staël; her separation from him was nevertheless a deep source of pain to her, and she never would have consented to it but for the ruinous state into which his imprudence and extravagance had thrown her financial affairs, and which must have led to the utter ruin of his family if they had been left longer in his hands. When his increasing years and illness demanded the consolation of her companionship, she returned to her husband with affectionate alacrity, and devoted herself to him until his death.

The multiplicity of Mme. de Staël's writings earned for her the _sobriquet_ of "the female Voltaire." She began to write when most girls of her age are still in pinafores; her early works are like the flights of a young eagle, betraying the fearless temerity of conscious power, combined with the inexperience of youth--she plunges into depths, and soars to heights of metaphysics and philosophy with all the audacity of untaught genius. _The Influence of the Passions on the Happiness of Nations and Individuals_ is one of the most striking of those juvenile feats, and was quickly followed by others in the same field. Her novels are undoubtedly the first of her claims on enduring fame. _Delphine_ is supposed to be Mme. de Staël as she was, and _Corinne_ as she wished to be. They are both masterpieces of the romantic school prevalent in that day, and they both inaugurated a new reign in fiction. The closing years of the author's agitated life were devoted to the compilation of the volumes entitled _Considerations on the French Revolution_--a work of great magnitude, and which was intended to embrace the full exposition and justification of her father's policy and life, and a philosophical analysis of the theories of all known forms of government, as well as an elaborate history of the causes and effects of the Revolutionary crisis. The plan was colossal in scope, and almost infinite in the variety of subjects it included; but death did not wait for her to finish it. Amongst her earliest literary productions we must not refuse a passing mention to her dramatic efforts. She was not twenty when _Sophie_ and _Jane Grey_ earned for her a place amongst the most mature and brilliant writers of the period. There is no doubt, if she had had leisure to pursue this vein, Mme. de Staël would have enriched the French language with some remarkable comedies and tragedies. Her works were collected after her death by the Baron de Staël, her son, and form a series of eighteen large volumes.

The interest of the subject has led us into a somewhat lengthy sketch of the life of this distinguished lady. French annals furnish a study, almost unique, of women who were models of all womanly virtues, and yet by their brilliancy, wit, and conversance with public affairs were fitted to be the advisers of rulers and statesmen. We are very far from wishing to see the sex drawn out of their proper sphere, but when by natural and acquired talents they evince a vocation for affairs of state, we think that governments may wisely accept their counsel, and that their services are worthy of permanent record.

FATHER SEBASTIAN RALE, S.J.

The rivalries of the French and English for dominion in the northwestern corner of our republic have deeply impressed themselves upon the pages of our history. The element of religious controversy was not the least of the exciting causes which made that frontier the scene of angry strife. The French carried the Catholic faith wherever they erected the arms of their kings, and the natives flocked with ardor and conviction around the standard of the cross. Whatever may have been the merits of the respective parties in the contest for dominion, it is now the settled voice of history that the Catholic missionaries were actuated by motives far above all earthly considerations, and that their cause was that of no earthly king, but was the sacred cause of the King of Heaven.

Sebastian Rale was born of a good family in Franche-Comté, in the year 1658. At an early age he entered the Society of Jesus. After passing through the novitiate, he was engaged in teaching at the College of Nismes. To fine natural abilities he added great industry, and thus became an accomplished scholar. A foreign mission was the object of his holy aspirations; and, after his ordination, he received directions from his superior to embark for Canada. He sailed from Rochelle on the 23d of July, 1689, and, after a voyage without accidents, arrived at Quebec on the 13th of October following. As his destination was the mission among the Abnakis, the Men-of-the-East, he employed his time at Quebec in studying their language.

It was not long, however, before he was sent on the mission to St. Francis, an Abnaki village, containing about two hundred inhabitants, most of whom were Catholics. Among these, the gentlest of the Indian tribes in the North, his first essays at his favorite vocation were made by this illustrious missionary.

He had commenced the study of the Abnaki dialect at Quebec; surrounded, as he now was, by the Abnakis themselves, he prosecuted that study with great industry. While acquiring their language, he was also engaged in writing his Abnaki catechism and dictionary. Every day he spent some time in their wigwams, in order to catch from the lips of the Indians the idioms of their language; and he often subjected himself to their merry laugh by uttering some sentence for the proposed catechism in his broken Abnaki, which, as they rendered in the pure idiom, the patient student copied in his book. After two years' labor at St. Francis, he was selected by the superior to succeed the missionary of the Illinois, who had recently died, because that mission required a father who had already acquired some one of the Algonquin dialects.

Before setting out for his Illinois missions, he spent three months at Quebec, studying the Algonquin language. On the 13th of August, 1691, he launched his little bark canoe, for his long and arduous voyage to the West. Slowly they moved onward; he and his companions landed night after night to build their fire and erect their tent, which consisted of their little canoe turned up, as their only shelter from the storms. After those long days of labor and fasting, their slender meals were made upon a vegetable, called by the French _tripe de roche_.[165] His companions were so exhausted on reaching Michilimackinac that he was obliged to stop and winter there. Well may the historian remark of these expeditions of the Catholic missionaries to the West that "all must feel that their fearless devotedness, their severe labors, their meek but heroic self-sacrifice, have thrown a peculiar charm over the early history of a region in which the restless spirit of American enterprise is going forth to such majestic results."[166]

F. Rale wintered at Michilimackinac with the two missionaries stationed there, one of them having the care of the Hurons, and the other of the Ottawas. Here, with the aid of F. Chaumonot's grammar, he learned sufficient of the Huron tongue--the key to most of those spoken in Canada--to assist the Huron missionary. Scarcely had the spring opened, when F. Rale was urging his canoe along the western coast of Lake Michigan. He passed by the villages of the Mascoutens, Sacs, Outagamis or Winnebagoes, Foxes, and others, till he came to the bottom of the lake. Having reached the Illinois partly by river and partly by portage, he launched his canoe on that river, and glided down its stream one hundred and fifty miles, till he came to the great town of the Illinois Indians. This town contained about two thousand five hundred families, and the rest of the nation were scattered through eleven other villages. F. Rale was welcomed to their country by the greatest of Illinois feasts, "the Feast of the Chiefs," at which the appetite was penanced by feeding on dogs, which were esteemed the greatest of delicacies among the Indians, and of which a large number had been served up on this occasion in honor of their distinguished guest. To every two persons an entire dish was allotted. The father manifests no great relish for the food he received, but he expresses the greatest admiration and astonishment at the powerful eloquence and wild beauty of the oration with which he was regaled on this occasion.

F. Rale devoted himself with zeal to the care of his new flock. His principal difficulty consisted in overcoming in them the practice of polygamy. "There would have been," he writes, "less difficulty in converting the Illinois did the Prayer permit polygamy among them. They acknowledged that the Prayer was good, and were delighted to have their wives and children instructed; but when we spoke on the subject to the braves, we found how hard it was to fix their natural fickleness, and induce them to take but one wife, and her for life." Again, the father writes: "When the hour arrives for morning and evening prayers, all repair to the chapel. Not one, even the great medicine-men--that is to say, our worst enemies--but sends his children to be instructed, and, if possible, baptized." The good missionary had the consolation of baptizing numbers of sick infants before death carried them off, and there were among the adults many devout Christians, to whom the faith was dearer than their lives.

After two years thus spent among the Illinois, his superior recalled F. Rale for other duties about the year 1695. During the return to Quebec, he instructed fully in the faith, and baptized, a young Indian girl, whose edifying death afterwards this zealous father esteemed an ample consolation and recompense for all the trials and hardships of his life. On arriving at Quebec, he was assigned to the mission in the heart of the Abnaki country, which F. Bigot had re-established.

But this field, which F. Rale now entered as a minister of the gospel of peace, had become, during his absence, the scene of war. While he had been laboring on the distant banks of the Illinois, the Abnakis had sustained injuries from their English neighbors which provoked them to take up the hatchet in defence and retaliation. Maj. Waldron, of Dover, had, in 1675, seized four hundred Indians of their tribe, and sold them into slavery in the West Indies. Though deeply incensed at this revolting crime, the Indians remained quiet till 1688, when, upon a breach of the peace of 1678 on the part of the English, they could no longer restrain their fury. The war-cry was sounded through the land, bands of infuriated and injured braves rushed upon the English frontier, Dover was taken, and Waldron himself fell a captive into their hands, and suffered a death most shocking, it is true, but one which all must admit he had deserved as many times over, if that were possible, as there had been victims of his rapacious inhumanity. Pemaquid was next taken, and destruction was visited upon the entire line of frontier settlements. The colonists now proposed a peace, but the Indians had already suffered too much from the violation of treaties. They exclaimed: "Nor we, nor our children, nor our children's children will ever make a peace or truce with a nation that kills us in their halls."

But the Abnakis, unsupported in the war by the French, were finally constrained to accept the offer of peace--a peace as deceptive as former ones had proved.

The following year the great and brave chief Taxus went to Pemaquid, with some others, to propose an exchange of prisoners: admitted into the fort for this purpose, they were treacherously fired upon, two of them were killed, and Taxus killed two of the garrison in cutting his way through to make his escape.

This being the condition of the country at the time that F. Rale was sent there by his superior as missionary to the Catholic Abnakis, it may be easily judged how far that state of things is justly attributable to what Mather calls "the charms of the French friar." From what has already been related, it is quite certain that there existed sufficient causes for war on the part of the Indians without any influence from F. Rale, had he been there to exert it.

So far from instigating or countenancing acts of cruelty or blood on the part of his flock, his office and his labors were those of peace and charity. His mission was to announce the glad tidings of the Gospel: "Glory to God on high, and peace on earth to men of good-will." And we have authority, not prejudiced in favor of his cause, for the assertion that he was not faithless to his sacred duty. Thus Gov. Lincoln says: "His followers were not only the bravest, but _the most sparing_, of the fierce race to which they belonged; and though spoil and havoc were their element, they could sometimes be generous and forbearing. But when the old man expired by the side of the altar he had reared, the barbarism he had only in a measure controlled, broke loose with a ferocity not softened by the dogmas he had taught."[167]

The village of Narrantsouac, on the Kennebec, still called Indian Old Point, became the residence of F. Rale. Here he found, on his arrival, a little church and a flock of converted Indians remarkable for their devotion and sincerity. They entertained a profound attachment to the Prayer, and great veneration for him who was its minister. Besides this, they soon learned to love and esteem F. Rale as their best friend; he was their arbitrator in all disputes, their physician in sickness, and their consoler in all their distresses. Religion was the reigning sentiment in this truly Christian community, and the little chapel, erected by the hands of the neophytes, became at once the object of their love and the scene of their unalloyed devotion.

As game was scarce, the Abnakis bestowed much care and labor in the cultivation of their fields. After planting the seed in the spring, they sallied forth on fishing parties to the sea-shore, accompanied by F. Rale. In these expeditions, a rustic altar, covered with an ornamental cloth, was carried along, and the chapel-tent was pitched every evening for prayer, and struck in the morning after Mass. On reaching the sea-shore a large bark cabin was erected for the church, and the wigwams of the Indians were arranged around it. Thus arose, as by the magic power of religion, a beautiful village on the distant sea-shore, with its chapel, priest, and flock, and there were heard the pious chant and fervent prayer, there the mysteries of the faith were taught to docile hearers, there devout confessions heard, and there the bread of life distributed. The priest was truly the father of the faithful. He was also their companion and sympathetic friend. Hunger, thirst, and fatigue he bore with them, and their sorrows, as their joys, were common. Yet in this rude and simple mode of life the faithful Jesuit conformed himself to the strictest rules of his order. His hours of rising and retiring, his Office, meditations, and all his spiritual exercises were as regular as those of his brethren in the colleges of Europe. In order to avoid interruptions while saying his Office or performing his other devotions, he would refrain from all conversation, except in cases of necessity, from evening prayers till after Mass. His annual retreat was observed at the beginning of Lent with the same scrupulous exactness. The pension which he was allowed by the French government he distributed among the more needy of his spiritual children.

In 1697, F. Rale heard, with solicitude for his flock, that a strange and unconverted tribe--the Amalingans--were coming to settle near to Narrantsouac. He feared for the faith and morals of his neophytes when exposed to the tricks of the medicine-men and the seductive games and dances of such superstitious neighbors. He was engaged in the confessional all the evening before Corpus Christi and during the morning of the festival till near noon. In the meantime, deputies from the newly arrived Amalingans came, bearing presents, according to the Indian custom, for the relatives of some Abnakis recently destroyed by the English. Towards noon the procession of the blessed sacrament began to move with a degree of magnificence that astonished those natives of the wilderness. Struck as were the Amalingan deputies with the solemnity, the earnestness, and the majesty of the scene, they listened with conviction to the fervent and eloquent words of the father, who seized upon so favorable an occasion to acquaint them with the existence and attributes of the Deity, whose worship they then beheld. How sublime and beautiful must have been the appeal which the zealous missionary made to those astonished warriors! The deputies were convinced, but they could not accept the prayer before laying the words of the Black Gown before the assembled sachems of their tribe, who were expected to arrive in the autumn. During the summer, the father sent them a message, reminding them of his words and their promise. In due time the answer was returned, that they desired to embrace the Prayer, and they invited the Black Gown chief to come among them, and bring the wampum of the faith. It happened that Narrantsouac was then deserted by its inhabitants, who were on one of their excursions; and F. Rale set out in his canoe for the village of the Amalingans, who received him with every honor, and welcomed him with a salute of musketry. Soon a cross was raised in the centre of the village and a bark chapel was erected. The missionary visited the cabins and instructed the catechumens. After Mass every day, three public instructions were given; between these they received private instructions in their cabins. Four chiefs and two matrons were first baptized; then followed two bands of twenty each, and finally the entire tribe publicly received the Prayer and were baptized. A public assembly was then held, and the missionary received the simple but touching tokens of their gratitude and love, and then he returned in his canoe to Narrantsouac, while the Christian Amalingans departed for the sea-shore. F. Rale found no difficulty afterwards in uniting in one nation the two tribes that were now members of the one fold of Christ.

In 1698, F. Rale, by the aid of means and skilful labor sent from Quebec, succeeded in erecting a neat but simple chapel at his village of Narrantsouac, or Norridgewock. In this their new chapel the Abnaki Christians assembled to unite with the universal church in the solemn rites of the Catholic worship. It was there in their own native wilderness that those Men-of-the-East were contented to worship God in security and peace. But, strange as it may appear, the New England settlers, themselves professing Christianity, saw with jealousy and dislike a Christian temple erected by the Abnakis for Christian worship, while all the heathen tribes of New England were left free and uncared for in their horrid superstitions and brutal sacrifices. This feeling on their part appears the more extraordinary, since at that time Acadia had been restored to France by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; that the Catholic faith had been professed by the Abnakis for half a century; and the Jesuit missionaries had been their pastors during all that period.

The interval of peace now enjoyed seems not to have resulted in strengthening the friendship nor in conciliating the good-will and confidence of the Indians. Fresh aggressions were from time to time committed upon them by their white neighbors. But a blow was struck at their chosen and beloved pastors which exhibits the true sentiments entertained on the one side and the grievances endured on the other. On the 15th of June, 1700, a law was passed, which recited: "Whereas, divers Jesuit priests and Popish missionaries, by their subtile insinuations, industriously labor to debauch, seduce, and withdraw the Indians from their due obedience unto his majesty, and to excite and stir them up to sedition, rebellion, and open hostility against his majesty's government," and then proceeded to enact, in reference to the same priests and missionaries, that "they shall depart from and out of the same province on or before the 10th day of September, 1700." In case any one of them should be found in the province after that time, it was provided that he "shall be deemed and accounted an incendiary and disturber of the public peace and safety, and an enemy to the Christian religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment. And if any person, being so sentenced and actually imprisoned, shall break prison and actually escape, and be afterwards retaken, he shall be punished with death."[168] Gov. Bellamont, by his influence, secured in New York also the passage of a law "for hanging every Popish priest that came voluntarily into the province, which was occasioned by the great number of French Jesuits who were continually practising upon our Indians."[169]

Upon the accession of Gov. Dudley to office, in 1692, he solicited a conference with the Abnakis, and accordingly a conference was held on an island in Casco Bay. The object of the governor was to secure the neutrality of the Indians, in case the French and English went to war. Penhallow and such as follow him contend that the governor succeeded in his purpose, and secured a promise from the Indians not to join their allies, the French, in case of war. But treaties had been imposed upon those unlettered warriors which they never understood, and, consequently, never entered into. Besides, F. Rale, who had the advantage over Penhallow of having been present at the conference, gives quite a different statement of the affair. F. Rale, at the request of the Indians, accompanied them to the conference. "Thus," he relates himself, "I found myself where neither I nor the governor wished me to be." The governor and the missionary exchanged the usual civilities, and then the former, stepping back among his people, made his propositions to the Indians in an address, which he concluded with an offer to supply their wants, take their furs, and supply them with merchandise in return "at a moderate price." An English minister accompanied the governor, whose presence could have had no other object in view than a tender of his services to the Abnakis in lieu of those of F. Rale; but the latter supposes that his own presence disconcerted that portion of the plan. When the Indians retired to consult together, Gov. Dudley approached F. Rale, and said: "I beg you, sir, not to induce your Indians to make war upon us." "No, sir, my religion and my sacred calling require me to give them only counsels of peace," was the prompt and appropriate reply. The Indians soon returned and gave the following answer through their orator: "Great chief, you have told us not to unite with the Frenchman if you declare war against him. Know that the Frenchman is my brother; we have but the same Prayer, we dwell in the same cabin--he at one fire, I at the other. If I see you enter towards the fire where my brother, the Frenchman, is seated, I watch you from my mat at the other. If I see a tomahawk in your hand, I say, What will the Englishman do with that hatchet? and I would rise to see. If he raise it to strike my brother, I grasp mine, and rush upon him. Could I sit still and see my brother struck? No! no! I love my brother, the Frenchman, too well not to defend him. I therefore tell thee, great chief, do no harm to my brother, and I will do none to thee. Remain quiet on thy mat; I will remain so on mine." "Thus," says F. Rale, "the conference ended."

Peace was soon interrupted. War broke out between England and France in 1703, and involved their respective colonies on this continent in the contest. The Abnakis of Maine joined their French allies, and both sides felt the ravages of war to a fearful degree. The Indians, who had long been impatient under the encroaching policy of their white neighbors, carried on the war with destructive fury. Casco was taken, the New England villages, forts, and farms were pillaged, and six hundred of the inhabitants led away captives. As a minister of peace and mercy, F. Rale endeavored to subdue the wild passions of his injured and infuriated Indians, as has been seen above by the testimony of Gov. Lincoln; but the people of New England visited upon him all the blame for the calamities which their own wrong policy had occasioned.

Among the hostile movements of the English during the war was an expedition against Norridgewock, the residence of F. Rale. In the winter of 1705, "when the snow lay four feet deep," and "the country looked like a frozen field," Col. Hilton led an expedition of two hundred and seventy men against Norridgewock. The village, all deserted as it was by its inhabitants, was easily taken. The intended victim, however, was not there; for the missionary was absent with the tribe, as it was his habit to accompany them to the sea-shore. But the cabins and the chapel were there; the torch was applied, and soon one blaze enveloped the church and the village. When the missionary returned, he shuddered at the sacrilege he saw, and wept over the calamities of his people. A bark chapel soon rose from the ashes of the church which had been destroyed, and in it he dispensed the consolations of religion to his flock for several years.

During this year, F. Rale had the misfortune to sustain a fall of such violence as to break his right thigh and left leg, and in this condition he was compelled to make the painful journey to Quebec for surgical aid. The fractured parts were so imperfectly cemented together that he had to submit to the severe operation of having his leg broken again and reset. During his sufferings, not a groan escaped him; and the surgeon who attended him has expressed his wonder at such an exhibition of Christian patience and love of suffering. As soon as his wounds permitted him to return, he was again at his post in his little sanctuary in the wilderness, where, amid personal dangers the most appalling, he continued calmly and without fear the discharge of his sacred duties.

In the meantime, the English were determined to get rid of him, and the General Court of Massachusetts, in November, 1720, passed a resolution for that purpose. John Leighton, Sheriff of York, was commissioned to arrest him. If not found, he was to demand him of the Indians; upon their refusal, the Indians themselves were to be taken and carried to Boston. Every effort was made to induce the Indians to betray their pastor into the hands of his enemies, or at least to send him away from the country. They made many attempts to seize him by force or take him by surprise, and an offer of £1,000 was made for his head. Such was their horror of Jesuit sorcery! "I should be too happy," says the object of their hatred, "were I to become their victim, or did God deem me worthy to be loaded with chains, and shed my blood for the salvation of my dear Indians." This was said in no spirit of bravado or vain display; for the sequel will show how firmly, yet how meekly, he laid down his life for his altar and his flock.

In the midst of the wars that desolated the country, it was his mild spirit and humane counsels that served to moderate the natural ferocity of the Indian character. Instead of urging the infliction of cruelty upon those who had so long sought his life, he endeavored to secure for his enemies every mildness consistent with the laws of war. "I exhorted them," says F. Rale, "to maintain the same interest in their religion as if they were at home; to observe carefully the laws of war; to practise no cruelty; to kill no one except in the heat of battle; and to treat the prisoners humanely." His solicitude for peace during the period of which we have been speaking, at the very moment that his enemies accused him as an instigator of mischief, and his kind sentiments towards them, may be seen from the following letter addressed to the authorities at Boston:

NARRANTSOAK, Nov. 18, 1712.

SIR: The Governor-General of Canada advises me by a letter, which reached here some days ago, that the last royal vessel, arrived at Quebec Sept. 30, announces that peace is not yet concluded between the two crowns of France and England; that, however, it was much talked of. Such are his words.

Other letters, which I have received, inform me that the Intendant, just come out in that vessel, says that when on the point of embarking at Rochelle, a letter was received from M. de Tallard, assuring them that peace was made, and would be published in the latter part of October.

Now, this cannot be known in Canada, but you may know it at Boston, where vessels come at all seasons. If you know anything, I beseech you to let me know, that I may send instantly to Quebec, over the ice, to inform the Governor-General, so that he may prevent the Indians from any act of hostility. I am, sir, perfectly your very humble and obedient servant,

SEB. RALE, S.J.[170]

At length the tidings of the peace of Utrecht, 30th March, 1713, arrived, and restored quiet to New France and New England. Gov. Dudley called the Indians together in conference at Portsmouth in July, 1713, and announced to them that peace had been made, and proposed to them: "If you are willing, you and we will live in peace." He then informed them that the French had ceded Placentia and Port Royal to the English. The Indians, through their orator, replied that they had taken up the hatchet because their allies, the French, had taken it up, and they were willing now to cast it away, since the French had laid it down, and to live in peace. Then the orator added: "But you say that the Frenchman has given you Placentia and Port Royal, which is in my neighborhood, with all the land adjacent. He may give you what he pleases. As for me, I have my land, which the Great Spirit has given me to live upon. While there shall be one child of my nation upon it, he will fight to keep it." Penhallow gives a somewhat different account of this conference; but that of F. Rale is more in keeping with the previous history of the Indians, and more consonant with their character. If they acknowledged themselves subjects of Great Britain, they knew no better in this than in previous similar instances what they were doing, for they understood not the language attributed to them.

It may be judged how welcome peace must have been to F. Rale from the alacrity with which he availed himself of it to attend to the religious interests of his people. To rebuild his church was the first object of his solicitude. As Boston was so much nearer than Quebec, the chiefs sent deputies to the former place, in order to procure workmen for rebuilding the church, for whose services they offered to pay liberally. The governor gave them a most friendly reception, and, to their astonishment, offered to rebuild their church at his own expense, "since the French governor had abandoned them." Their astonishment, however, was soon changed into indignation when they heard the condition annexed to this apparently generous offer, which was that they should dismiss their own pastor, and receive in his place an English minister. "When you first came here," replied the indignant deputies by their orator, "you saw me a long time before the French governors, but neither your predecessors nor your ministers ever spoke to me of Prayer or of the Great Spirit. They saw my furs, my beaver and moose skins, and of these alone they thought; these alone they sought, and so eagerly that I have not been able to supply them enough. When I had much, they were my friends; but only then. One day my canoe missed the route; I lost my way, and wandered a long time at random, until at last I landed near Quebec, in a great village of the Algonquins,[171] where the Black Gowns were teaching. Scarcely had I arrived, when one of them came to see me. I was loaded with furs, but the Black Gown of France disdained to look at them. He spoke to me of the Great Spirit, of heaven, of hell, of the Prayer, which is the only way to reach heaven. I heard him with joy, and was so pleased with his words that I remained in the village to hear him. At last the Prayer pleased me, and I asked to be instructed. I solicited baptism, and received it. Then I returned to the lodges of my tribe, and related all that had happened. All envied my happiness, and wished to partake of it. They, too, went to the Black Gown to be baptized. Thus have the French acted. Had you spoken to me of the Prayer as soon as we met, I should now be so unhappy as to pray like you; for I could not have told whether your Prayer was good or bad. Now I hold to the Prayer of the French; I agree to it; I shall be faithful to it, even until the earth is burnt and destroyed. Keep your men, your gold, and your minister. I will go to my French father."

The required aid was obtained from the French governor; workmen were sent from Quebec, and the church was built soon after the peace. "It possesses a beauty," says the missionary, "which would cause it to be admired even in Europe, and nothing has been spared to adorn it." Subsequently two little chapels were erected, about three hundred paces from the chapel, by workmen obtained probably from Boston; and these chapels are probably what Hutchinson in 1724 alludes to as having been "built a few years before by carpenters from New England." One of them was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the other to their guardian angel. There, in his new church and chapels, with the aid of rich vestments and sacred vessels given by some of his friends, and with the seraphic music of forty innocent Indian boys, all dressed in cassocks and surplices, F. Rale conducted the solemn offices of the church in the wilderness with a splendor and beauty not unworthy of more favored lands. The processions on Corpus Christi were quite unique and beautiful. On these occasions the church and chapels were ornamented with the trinkets and fine work of the squaws, and burning tapers made by the Indians from the wax berries growing on their own native shores, and were thronged with ardent and sincere worshippers--the simple children of the forest gathering around the Holy of Holies, and presenting a scene in which angels themselves might love to mingle.

The following account of F. Rale's daily life cannot but prove interesting: "He rose at four, and, after meditation, said Mass at daybreak, which all the Indians heard, and during it chanted their prayers aloud; at its close he generally, on week-days, made a short exhortation, to inspire them with good thoughts, then dismissing them to the labors of the day. He then began to catechise the children and the young; the aged, too, were there, all answering with the docility of children. Then, after a slight meal, he sat in his chamber to despatch the various matters laid before him--their plans, their troubles, domestic disquiets, or intended marriages--in a word, to direct them all. Towards noon he would go to work in his garden, and then split his wood to cook his little mess of hominy; for this may be said to have been his only food. Wine he never tasted, even when among the French.

"After this frugal repast, he visited the sick, and went to particular cabins to give instruction where it was more needed; and if a public council or feast was to take place, he must be present; for they never proceeded to the one without first hearing his advice, nor to the other without his blessing on the food, which was ready to be placed on the bark plates, which each one brought, and with which he immediately retired to his cabin.

"The evening was left him to say his Breviary and give some time to prayer and reading; but this was so often intrenched upon that at last he made it a rule never to speak from before evening prayer till after Mass on the following day, unless he was called to a sick-bed."[172]

In the course of a few years, the free spirit of the Indians began to grow impatient under the encroachments of the whites. Not only their hunting-grounds, but even their fields for cultivation, were circumscribed. A conference with Gov. Shute was held at Georgetown in August, 1717, but it was evident that redress for the Indians formed no part of the governor's designs. He refused to treat with them otherwise than as subjects; he would not acknowledge their natural liberty nor their hereditary title to their hunting-grounds; nor would he fix a boundary beyond which the encroachments of the white men should not extend. They were told, however, that the English wished them to become of one religion with themselves; an English Bible was given to them, and the governor told them that the Rev. Mr. Baxter, who accompanied him, would become their teacher and pastor. Thus it seems that the governor with one hand presented them a Bible, and with the other grasped their lands. When a letter from F. Rale, pleading in behalf of his children, was handed to the governor, he treated it with great contempt. "He let them know," says Hutchinson, "that he highly resented the insolence of the Jesuit."[173] Another mock treaty was now entered into by the aid of interpreters. F. Rale always protested against it as fraudulent, and announced to the New Englanders that the Norridgewocks did not recognize it. He never ceased his paternal efforts in behalf of his Indians, and repeatedly addressed letters to the governor and other leading men of New England, demanding justice for them.[174]

Having tried every means of gaining over the Indians to their cause in vain, the New Englanders next attacked them in the point which seemed to attach them more than any other to the French; this was their religion. The Rev. Mr. Baxter, a minister of ability and education, as well as of an ardent zeal against Popery, undertook to evangelize the Abnakis. "Thus," says Bancroft, "Calvin and Loyola met in the woods of Maine." The Protestant minister established at Georgetown a school, which was supported by the government, and, by means of every attraction and inducement which he could present to them, endeavored first to gain the children. But their hearts had already been too deeply impressed with religion by the Catholic missionaries to receive the Prayer from any person other than the Black Gown. He then endeavored, but with the same result, to gain his point by addresses and harangues to the parents, the chiefs, and braves of the tribe. "He next assailed the religion of the Indians. He put various questions concerning their faith, and, as they answered, he turned into ridicule the sacraments, purgatory, the invocation of saints, beads, Masses, images, and the other parts of the Catholic creed and ritual."[175]

F. Rale saw at once that he must meet the danger thus threatened to the faith of his flock. He addressed a respectful letter to Mr. Baxter, covering an essay of one hundred pages, in which he undertook to defend and prove, "by Scripture, by tradition, and by theological arguments," those tenets and practices of the Catholic Church which the minister had endeavored to ridicule. In the letter enclosing the essay he remarked that the Indians knew how to believe, but not how to dispute, and the missionary felt it to be his duty to take up the controversy in behalf of his neophytes. Mr. Baxter's reply treated F. Rale's arguments as puerile and ridiculous. Finding, however, that his mission was a fruitless one, Mr. Baxter returned to Boston. The correspondence did not cease here; but, after Mr. Baxter's return to Boston, the letters turned upon the purity of their Latinity, rather than the theology of the respective controversialists. F. Rale remained at his post, the faithful guardian of his flock.

The grievances of which the Indians had been long complaining still remained unredressed. In 1719 another conference was held, but with no better result than the previous one at Georgetown. Fresh causes of resentment were added. Some Indians entered an English house to trade, when suddenly they found themselves surrounded by a force ten times stronger than their own. When about to cut their way through, their arms were arrested by a request on the part of the English for a parley, and they were told that the English only wished to invite some of their number to visit the governor at Boston. Four chiefs consented to go, and, when they arrived, they were detained as hostages, to secure the payment of a large ransom demanded by the English for damages sustained by them from depredations committed by the tribe. The prisoners appealed to their countrymen for relief, and the ransom was accordingly paid; but even then the English refused to release them. A conference was invited by the governor, but this was done merely to prevent an immediate rupture. At the designated time, July, 1721, the chiefs, accompanied by F. Rale; La Chasse, the superior of the missions; Croisel, and the young Castine, repaired to Georgetown, but the governor did not meet them there. La Chasse then drew up a letter in Indian, French, and English, setting forth the claims of the Indians, and sent it to Gov. Shute. No notice was ever taken of it.

In December, 1721, the English seized the young Castine, son of the Baron de Castine by an Indian wife, and a great favorite with the Abnakis. "The ungenerous and unjust arrest of this young man," says Dr. Francis, "incensed to the highest degree the countrymen of his mother, among whom he had always lived."

Still, the Indians refrained from retaliation. Another act of aggression soon followed; a detachment of two hundred and thirty men, towards the end of 1721, or early in 1722, were sent to seize the Catholic missionary. As this party entered the Kennebec, two young braves, hunting near the shore, saw them, and, after following them for some distance unobserved, struck into the woods and gave the alarm at Norridgewock, which was then nearly deserted. Scarcely had F. Rale time to consume the consecrated host on the altar to save it from sacrilege, and secure the sacred vessels. He fled precipitately to the woods, impeded as he was by the painful condition of the wounds received in the severe fall he had received as related above. The English arrived in the evening, and, having waited till morning, pursued him to the woods. They carefully scoured every place, and at one time came within eight steps of their intended victim, and yet passed away without seeing him, though only half concealed behind a small tree. The pursuers then returned disappointed to Norridgewock, where they pillaged the house of God and the missionary's residence, and then retired, carrying away with them everything belonging to F. Rale--his desk, papers, inkstand, and the Abnaki _Dictionary_, which he had commenced at St. Francis in 1691. He suffered the extremes of hunger while thus in the woods, flying from the pursuit of his enemies; yet his courage and resolution remained firm and cheerful. So great were the dangers that threatened him at every moment that his affectionate neophytes, and even his superior, advised him to retire for the present to Quebec. He always answered: "God has committed this flock to my care, and I will share its lot, being too happy, if permitted, to sacrifice my life for it." In a letter to his nephew he asks: "What will become of the flock, if it be deprived of its shepherd? I do not in the least fear the threats of those who hate me without cause. 'I count not my life dear unto myself, so that I may finish my course with joy,' and the ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus."

While thus the object of deadly pursuit on the part of the English colonists, F. Rale enjoyed the purest consolation in the love and affection of his devoted flock. On one occasion, while he was accompanying them on a hunting party, they suddenly perceived that he was missing, and the report was started that the English had broken into his cabin and carried him off. Their grief was only equalled by their fury, and at once the braves began to prepare for an effort to rescue their pastor at the hazard of their lives. Two of their number, however, afterwards went to his cabin, and there they found him, writing the life of a saint in their own language. Transported with joy, they exclaimed: "We were told that the English had carried you off, and our warriors were going to attack the fort, where we thought they had doubtlessly imprisoned you!" "You see, my children," replied the father, "that your fears were unfounded; but your affectionate care of me fills my heart with joy; it shows you love the Prayer." But as some of the warriors were starting, he added: "Set out, immediately after Mass, to overtake the others, and undeceive them."

On another occasion he was with them at a great distance from home, when the alarm was given that the English were within a few hours' march of the encampment. All insisted on his flying back to the village. At daybreak he started with two Indians as his escort. The journey was long, the provisions were out, and the father had for his only food a species of wood, which he softened by boiling. In crossing a lake, which had begun to thaw, he narrowly escaped being drowned himself in his effort to assist another. Saved from this danger, he was not the less exposed to death from cold. On the following day they crossed the river on broken pieces of ice, and were soon at the village. He was welcomed back by a sumptuous feast, consisting of corn and bear's meat; and when he expressed his astonishment and thanks for such a banquet, the Indians replied: "What, father! you have been fasting for two days; can we do less? Oh! would to God we could always regale you so!" But while he was thus feasting, his children elsewhere were mourning over his supposed death. His deserted cabin on the shore led some, who knew nothing of his flight, to believe that he had been killed. One of these erected a stake on the banks of a river, and to it attached a piece of paper-birch bark, on which he had drawn with charcoal a picture of some English surrounding F. Rale, and one was represented cutting off the Black Gown's head. When the main body of the Indians came that way, and saw the pictorial writing, its meaning sank deep into their hearts, and they were overwhelmed with grief. They tore out the long scalp-locks from their heads, and then sat on the ground around the stake, where they remained motionless and without uttering a word till the next day. Such was their mode of manifesting the most intense grief. But what must have been their joy, when, on returning to the village, they saw their beloved father reciting his Office on the banks of the river!

It would appear, from a letter in the _Massachusetts Historical Collections_, attributed to F. Rale, that he accompanied the expedition that destroyed Berwick. It is quite evident, from what has been related of the determination of the English to destroy him, and of the repeated efforts they made to accomplish that deadly purpose, that F. Rale would not have been safe at Norridgewock or anywhere apart from the main body of his people. It is not likely that his devoted children, who saw his danger, and were solicitous for his safety, would permit him to remain behind, exposed to the constant attempts of his enemies upon his life. His presence in the expedition against Berwick was enough, with his enemies, to confirm their charge that he led them on to war against the English. The truth is, their own pursuit of him rendered his presence there justifiable, as necessary for his own safety, if it were not justifiable on the ground that he was their chaplain in war as in peace, and that his presence among them was more necessary for the religious consolation of the dying, as well as for moderating, by the counsels we have already seen him giving them, the usual cruelties of war. It does not become his accusers, however, to dwell upon this charge, who themselves have boasted of the warlike feats of the Rev. Mr. Fry, who scalped and killed his Indian in Lovell's expedition, and was killed fighting in the thickest of the engagement.

It has already been seen how the Indians were, by repeated injuries, driven at last to take up the hatchet. When once at war, they prosecuted it with terrible energy and destructive fury. And though their humanity on several occasions contrasted with the cruelty of their civilized antagonists, the young settlements of New England suffered much at their hands during this contest.

In the summer of 1724, hostilities on the part of the Indians had begun to moderate, and peace was already spoken of between the respective parties. But this did not restrain the fury of the English. On the 23d of August an expedition of little over two hundred, consisting of English and their Mohawk allies, rushed suddenly from the thickets upon the unconscious village of Norridgewock. The first notice the Indians received was the rattling of the volleys of their assailants among their bark cabins. Consternation seized upon the inhabitants; the women and children fled, but the few braves who were then at the village rushed to arms to defend their altar and their homes. The struggle was indeed a desperate one. F. Rale, when he perceived the cause of the excitement in the village, knew that himself was the chief object of the enemy's pursuit. Hoping, too, to draw off the fury of the assailants from his neophytes upon himself, he went forth. No sooner had he reached the Mission Cross, where the fight was raging, than a shout of exultation arose from two hundred hostile voices, and, though a non-combatant, a discharge of musketry was immediately levelled at his venerable form. Pierced with balls, he fell lifeless at the foot of the cross. Seven principal chiefs lay dead around their saintly pastor and devoted father. The battle was now over, but the victory seemed too easy for the victors; they approached to wreak further vengeance upon the lifeless form of F. Rale. They hacked and mutilated the corpse, split open the head, broke the legs, and otherwise brutally disfigured it. Then proceeding to the house of God, the assailants rifled the altar, desecrated the sacred vessels and the adorable Host, and then committed the church to the devouring flames. After the English had retired, some of the orphaned flock of Norridgewock returned to their desolated home; they first sought for the body of their good father, and, having found it, they piously interred it beneath the spot where the altar stood.

After reading the incidents of the life of F. Rale, the reader would be astonished to peruse the accounts given by New England writers. But the latter bear on their face the evidence that they were the result, not of candid investigation, but of the bitterest partisan prejudice. There may be some explanation of their tone, though no voucher for their accuracy, in the fact that Penhallow derived his accounts from interpreters, who were known not to be faithful. Charlevoix and De la Chasse knew F. Rale personally, and they give us the strongest assurances of his innocence, his sanctity, and his many heroic virtues. M. de Bellemont, Superior of the Sulpician Seminary at Montreal, entertained so exalted an opinion of his merits that he did not hesitate to apply to him the words of S. Augustine: "Injuriam facit martyri, qui orat pro eo."

The accounts hostile to F. Rale have been derived chiefly from Penhallow, who was actuated by the strongest party feeling. A single specimen from his pen will show how he felt towards the person, as well as the religion, of F. Rale; it contains a repetition of the old calumny about the merit of destroying heretics, which no educated person would in our day repeat: "We scalped twenty-six besides M. Rale, the Jesuit, a most bloody incendiary, and instrumental to most of the mischiefs done us by preaching up the doctrine of meriting salvation by the destruction of heretics. He even made the offices of devotion serve as incentives to their ferocity, and kept a flag on which was depicted a cross surrounded by bows and arrows, which he used to hoist on a pole at the door of his church when he gave them absolution previous to their engaging in any warlike enterprise." Now, the flag that awakened so much horror in the breast of the New England chronicler was a simple Indian Sunday-school banner, than which nothing could have been more innocent. F. Rale, artist as well as priest, had decorated his Indian church with pious paintings executed by himself, to excite the piety and zeal of his neophytes. Amongst other similar representations, suitable for pleasing the simple tastes of the natives, was the flag in question, ornamented with the cross and the arrow, emblems of the faith and of the country. A glance would have convinced any passer-by that it was the banner of an Indian church, and no sensible person in our day could object to see such an one used by the Indians of Florida, Oregon, or other hostile Indian country within our territory or bordering on our frontier.

Dr. Francis, who in his life of Rale follows by preference the New England accounts, sums up his estimate of our missionary's character as follows: "But whatever abatements from indiscriminate praise his faults or frailties may require, I cannot review his history without receiving a deep impression that he was a pious, devoted, and extraordinary man. Here was a scholar, nurtured amid European learning, and accustomed to the refinements of one of the most intellectual nations of the Old World, who banished himself from the pleasures of home and from the attractions of his native land, and passed thirty-five years of his life in the forests of an unbroken wilderness, on a distant shore, amidst the squalid rudeness of savage life, and with no companions during those long years but the wild men of the woods. With them he lived as a friend, as a benefactor, as a brother; sharing their coarse fare, their disgusting modes of life, their perils, their exposures under the stern inclemency of a hard climate; always holding his life cheap in the toil of duty, and at last yielding himself a victim to dangers which he disdained to escape. And all this that he might gather these rude men, as he believed, into the fold of the church; that he might bring them to what he sincerely held to be the truth of God and the light of heaven."

Mr. Bancroft thus describes the life and character of the subject of this memoir: "At Norridgewock, on the banks of the Kennebec, the venerable Sebastian Rale, for more than a quarter of a century the companion and instructor of savages, had gathered a flourishing village round a church, which, rising in the desert, made some pretensions to magnificence. Severely ascetic--using no wine, and little food except pounded maize, a rigorous observer of the days of Lent--he built his own cabin, tilled his own garden, drew for himself wood and water, prepared his own hominy, and, distributing all that he received, gave an example of religious poverty. And yet he was laborious in garnishing up his forest sanctuary, believing the faith of the savage must be quickened by striking appeals to the senses. Himself a painter, he adorned the humble walls of his church with pictures. There he gave instruction almost daily. Following his pupils to their wigwams, he tempered the spirit of devotion with familiar conversation and innocent gaiety, winning the mastery over their souls by his powers of persuasion. He had trained a little band of forty young savages, arrayed in cassock and surplice, to assist in the service and chant the hymns of the church; and their public processions attracted a great concourse of red men. Two chapels were built near the village, one dedicated to the Virgin and adorned with her statue in relief, another to the guardian angel; and before them the hunter muttered his prayer on his way to the river or the woods. When the tribe descended to the seaside in the season of wild fowl, they were followed by Rale; and on some islet a little chapel of bark was quickly consecrated."

The scene so peaceful, so happy, so beautiful, in the days of F. Rale, that it has been appropriately called one of "nature's sweet retirements," is described by the poet Whittier after the rude hand of war had blasted its beauty and destroyed its altar and its priest, as it appeared to some Indian warriors who revisited the field after the battle, in the following lines:

"No wigwam smoke is curling there, The very earth is scorched and bare; And they pause and listen to catch a sound Of breathing life, but there comes not one, Save the fox's bark and the rabbit's bound; And here and there on the blackened ground White bones are glistening in the sun. And where the house of prayer arose, And the holy hymn at daylight's close, And the aged priest stood up to bless The children of the wilderness, There is naught but ashes sodden and dank, And the birchen boats of the Norridgewock, Tethered to tree, and stump, and rock, Rotting along the river-bank!"

FOOTNOTES:

[165] Indian name Kanghéssanak; botanical, Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii.

[166] Francis' _Life of Rale_, in Sparks.

[167] _Maine Hist. Soc. Collections_, v. i. p. 339, and _Shea_.

[168] Francis' _Life of Father Rale_.

[169] Smith's _History of New York_.

[170] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections_, v. viii. p. 258.

[171] _Sillery._

[172] _Shea._

[173] Francis's _Life of Rale_.

[174] _Chalmers._

[175] Francis's _Life of Rale_.

FROM EGYPT TO CHANAAN.

My God, while journeying to Chanaan's land, For peace I do not pray; Nor seek beneath thy sheltering sweetness, Lord, To rest each circling day. I cry to thee for strength to struggle on, But do not ask that smooth the way may be; Sufficient for thy servant 'tis to know That earth's bleak desert ends at last with thee.

When heavenly sweetness floods my heart, dear Lord, I magnify thy name; When desolations weigh my spirit down, I bless thee still the same. Keep me, O God! I cry with streaming eyes, From love of earth and creatures ever free: Far sweeter are than Eden's fairest blooms The blood-stained blossoms of Gethsemani.

I do not ask of thee that loving friends Should wander by my side, Or that my hand should feel an angel's touch, A guardian and a guide. But, Israel's God, do thou go on before, An ever-present beacon in the way; A fiery pillar in dark sorrow's night, A cloudy column in my prosperous day.

I do not ask, O Master dear! to lean My head upon thy breast; Nor seek within thy circling arms to find An ever-present rest. I beg from thee that crown of prickly thorn That once thy sacred forehead rudely tore; And I will press those crimsoned brambles close To my poor heart, and ask from thee no more.

But when, at length, my scorched and weary feet Shall reach their journey's end, And I have gained the longed-for promised land Where milk and honey blend; Then give me rest, and food, and drink, dear Lord; For then another pilgrim will have past, As thou didst, o'er the wastes of barren sand From Egypt into Chanaan, safe at last.

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1873.

Will a new year ever dawn? is the question that must present itself in some shape or form to the one who glances at the records of the years as they go by. Eighteen hundred and seventy-three of them have passed since that song was heard at midnight on the mountains of Judea, "Glory in the highest, and on earth peace"; yet to-day the chant is as new and strange as it then was. There is no pagan Rome, but there is a Christian Germany; the dead ashes of the divine Emperor Tiberius were long ago blown about the world, but the divine Emperor William lives; there is no Herod, but there is an Emanuel, whose name is as characteristic of the man as the word _Eumenides_ of what it was intended to represent. Who shall say that there are no Pilates still, who would fain wash their minds of conviction and their hands of the blood of Christ with a little water? Are none living who cast lots for his seamless garment? Every person, everything existing at the birth and death of Christ, has its living counterpart to-day; which is to say that human nature is still human nature; that the last chapter of the world's history has not yet been written; and that, beautiful and sublime as parts of it may be, "the trail of the serpent is over it all."

The year now closing is bigger with portent than event, as far, at least, as events touch humanity at large. A glance at the principal states of the world, east as well as west, though with a drowsier movement in the Orient, will bring before the eye many of the same symptoms throughout; more or less of transition, of rapid and often violent national change, which naturally shows itself among peoples of a thousand creeds in the relation of the governed to the governing, of the individual to the state. On this subject there are two extremes--personal absolutism, on the one hand, and communism, on the other. Both are equally disastrous to humanity, both are opposed to the law of Christ; hence the believer in the law of Christ, the individual who founds and builds his life and that of his family on the law of Christ--the Christian, the Catholic--is equally objectionable to both, and alike an object of hatred to Prussian imperialism and French liberalism. We are living in dangerous times; the world seems at the crisis of a fever. God in his mercy grant that it pass safely, and that the patient awake from the long delirium to its senses and the road to recovery, however slow and toilsome!

In American history the year of our Lord 1873 will probably be known as, thus far at least, pre-eminently the year of scandals. Early in this year, the Congress of the United States, as if in emulation of the example set by some of our state legislatures and municipal corporations, did, in the now famous Crédit Mobilier transaction, furnish a chapter apart in the annals of political malfeasance and corruption. It shocked and shook the confidence of the nation. The out-going Vice-President escaped impeachment by a vote so narrow as to imply a conviction of his guilt; his successor entered with the shadow of the same offence on his character. The rank-and-file were worthy of their leaders. Men stared blankly in each other's faces, and asked whether such a thing as honor existed in political life. The result showed itself in general apathy at the elections, while the tide, such as it was, turned again to the opposite party.

Corruption, fraud, embezzlement--embezzlement, corruption, fraud! Such are the chief headlines which the future historian will find in the national annals during this year of grace. The same story is as true of private individuals as of our public and representative men. The fashionable crimes of the year--always after murder and suicide, of course--have been embezzlement and defalcation on the part of gentlemanly and well-educated bank and insurance officers. A batch of American citizens gave us a world-wide celebrity by their long trial, ending in conviction and severe punishment, for astounding forgeries on the Bank of England; so that it is doubtful, as matters stand, which epithet would convey the severest imputation on character--"As honest as a cashier," or "As honest as a member of Congress."

The early spring was signalized by, perhaps, one of the last efforts of the Indians against the whites. A small band of Modocs, under the leadership of their chieftain, "Captain Jack," who seemed to have had serious causes of complaint, after considerable negotiation, resolved to die in harness rather than wait for what, to them, was a lingering death on a narrow reservation. They commenced operations by treacherously murdering Gen. Canby, a brave officer, and a peace commissioner, during a peace parley. Retiring to their caves, which afforded them an admirable shelter, they for a long time maintained a successful resistance to the United States forces despatched to destroy them, inflicting severe loss on the troops. So successful was Captain Jack's battle that at one time it was feared the other tribes would rise and join him. Run to earth at last, he surrendered with one or two companions who remained faithful. After due trial, they were taken and hanged. A poor issue for a Christian government!

Troubles loomed in Louisiana. Faction contended with faction for the government at a sacrifice of many lives. When blood once flows in civil strife, it is hard to tell where or when it will stop. As civil war threatened, and as Congress was not sitting, President Grant was compelled to resort to the expedient of ordering in the United States troops, not only to preserve the peace, but to sustain one of the parties in power. The country looked with a natural jealousy on this, at the time, apparently necessary movement; for if all civil quarrels are to be decided by federal bayonets, centralization and consequent personal government must sooner or later ensue. At the same time, it is impossible to allow local contests to be fought out _vi et armis_. If the states cannot conduct their internal affairs in a civil fashion and in the spirit of the constitution, there is apparently no medium between centralization and disruption.

The South was making rapid strides towards commercial recovery; the cotton crop for the year was excellent, as, indeed, were the crops generally; but the recent financial disasters have crippled trade as well as commerce. People will neither buy nor sell. Stock lies idle in the market; large business firms close or suspend, and the farmers cannot forward their products; so that the country is faced by a long winter with nothing to do, aggravated by a bad business season, for which the strikers of the preceding year have themselves partially to blame; and all ostensibly because one large banking firm suspended payment!

The only remedy for everything is a restoration of confidence among all; but that is the precise thing that is slow to come. The money market has been in the hands of commercial gamblers and tricksters so long that, with our paper money, which in itself is demoralizing, commercial gambling seems to be the acknowledged and legitimate line of business. Honest men cannot contend with a world of rogues. American credit has suffered terribly. If in political affairs it be true, as Prince Bismarck assured the world no later than last March, that "confidence is a tender plant, which, once destroyed, comes never more," it is doubly true in matters affecting a man's pocket.

There is something ominous as well as startling in this sudden collapse of all business, all commercial transactions, in a young, wealthy, powerful country such as this, in consequence of the failure of one or two men. It could not be unless the roots of the evil that wrought their failure had taken wide and deep hold of the national heart. There are dangers more immediate and more fatal than Cæsars or centralization threatening our republic. There is something like a rotting away of the national virtue, purity, and honor which in themselves constitute the life of a nation. When we find dishonesty accepted as a fact, or a state of affairs rather, against which it is hopeless to contend; when we find money accepted as the lever which Archimedes sought in vain, and that money itself based on nothing--paper--taken on trust, which does not exist, we have arrived at a state very nearly approaching to national decay, and it is high time to look to our salvation. This can be brought about only by an adherence to the doctrines of Christianity, an education of our children in the laws of Christianity, so as to save at least the coming generation. Only one thought will save a nation from dishonesty: the consciousness that a dishonest action is a sin and a crime against Almighty God. When that doctrine is taught and enforced in our public schools, and impressed indelibly on the plastic mind of innocence, the generation will grow up honest, true, and manly. While perfectly aware that reasoning of this kind will scarcely be appreciated "on the street," nay, would not even be understood, that is no reason why prominence should not be given it by those who have the future of their country at heart. The generation that grows up without a Christian education will not know the meaning of such words as private or commercial morality.

The history of the year in Europe is told in a sentence written long before Rome was founded: "The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against his Christ." In Germany, the work of the construction and consolidation of the new empire is advancing bravely. The new German Empire is founded on a military code strengthened by penal statutes, executed with all the promptness, vigor, and rigor of military law. The great feature of the year has been the passing of the ecclesiastical bills, into the particulars of which question it is unnecessary to enter now, as it has already been dealt with at length in THE CATHOLIC WORLD.[176] The present aspect of affairs may be summed up in a sentence: To be a Catholic is to be a criminal in the eyes of the state.

Every Catholic society of men, and women even, living in community together, have been expelled from Prussian territory within the year, for the simple reason that they were Catholics. As an excuse in the eyes of this keen, honest, liberal world of the XIXth century for such an outrage on human liberty, the government which boasts as its head Prince Bismarck, whose very name has become a byword for sagacity and foresight, contents itself with no better reason than that these quiet men and women, whose lives are passed out of the world, are a danger to the nation that conquered Austria and France; and the keen, honest, liberal world finds that reasoning sufficient. To be logical, the government should expel all the 8,000,000 Catholics in Prussia, or the 14,000,000 in the Empire, who are left behind; for there is not one shade of difference in the Catholicity of the societies expelled and that of the vast body remaining. But as it would be a difficult undertaking bodily to expel 14,000,000 of human beings from an empire, and as it would be a costly proceeding in the end, the half a dozen or more men who legislate for this vast empire of 40,000,000 do the best they can under the circumstances, and strain their ingenuity to devise means for purging Catholicity out of the souls of this vast body, as though the religion of Jesus Christ were a fatal disease and a poison.

Consequently, the first thing to do was to change the Prussian constitution, which guaranteed religious freedom independent of state control. By an alteration in Articles XV. and XVIII., religion was brought under complete subjection to the state: Prince Bismarck being compelled to pack the Upper House with his creatures in order to secure a majority for the measure. It passed, and its result, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, is easily told.

Catholic bishops, the successors of the apostles, may no longer exercise apostolic jurisdiction without permission from a Protestant government. A Catholic bishop may not excommunicate a rebellious Catholic without permission from a Protestant government, under the severest penalties.

A Catholic bishop must, under pain of the severest penalties, acknowledge a schismatic as a priest; retain him in his parish, pay him a salary, and allow him to say Mass and preach false doctrine to his Catholic congregation.

A Catholic bishop may not, under the severest penalties, ordain a Catholic priest, unless the candidate for holy orders receive the approval of Protestant government officials.

Catholic seminaries, where students for the Catholic priesthood are trained, must accept the supervision of a Protestant official and the programme of education prescribed by a Protestant government, which has declared war against their religion. If the bishop does not accept these conditions, the seminary is closed.

Catholic candidates for holy orders cannot be exempted from military service; the term of military service embraces a period of twelve years.

Catholic candidates for orders may not be admitted to holy orders before passing three years at a state university under the lectures of Protestant or infidel professors. On their entrance to the university they must matriculate to the satisfaction of those professors, and on leaving it they must pass a rigorous examination, also to the satisfaction of those professors.

A Catholic bishop may not appoint to or remove a Catholic priest from any parish without the permission of the Protestant government. If he does so, the marriages celebrated by such a priest are not recognized by law, and the children are consequently illegitimate in the eyes of the law! This too under a government which recognizes and encourages by every means in its power civil marriages, without the form of any religious ceremony whatsoever. Surely this is an _Evangelical_ power!

Such, in brief, is a sketch of what these ecclesiastical bills mean. The sketch, hasty and incomplete as it is, requires no comment. A running comment is kept up every day, as readers may see for themselves, by cable despatches announcing penalties inflicted upon this bishop and that for refusing to obey laws that not only the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostolic writings forbid him, under pain of losing his soul, to obey, but against which the heart of any man with an ounce of freedom and honesty in his nature must revolt as from a foul offence. But the cable tells not a tithe of the story. Every penalty of the law in all the cases mentioned above has been and is being rigorously, nay bitterly, enforced; and a milder mode of treatment is scarcely to be looked for from the recent return of Prince Bismarck to the Prussian premiership, with full control this time over the cabinet.

It is difficult, in these days and in this country of all others, to write or speak with calmness of this cool assumption of absolute power over soul and body--the souls and bodies of 40,000,000 of human beings whom God created--by one or two men, and of its hypocritical justification by appeals to the Deity himself.[177] It is still more difficult to speak or write with calmness of the undisguised or ill disguised approval which such barbarous enactments have evoked in free America in the columns of Protestant religious or quasi-religious journals. Is religious freedom one thing here and another thing in Germany? Or is this country indeed, as some allege, ripe for absolutism?

The spirit that would wipe out the church of Christ if it could, that stifles every breath of religious freedom, naturally and as a matter of course laughs at such a thing as pretensions to political freedom in any sense. Consequently, it was no surprise to see, in the face of the protest of the majority, the civil as well as foreign polity of the states that compose this German Empire, scarce yet two years old, transferred to the bureau that sits at Berlin. These states were free three years ago, governing themselves by their own laws. They must now be ruled internally as well as externally by the laws of the empire, that is to say, by Prussia; for the imperial chancellor is the Prussian premier, with full control over the cabinet. In a word, Germany is to be Prussianized. Prince Bismarck is no lover of half-measures. Already it was decreed, in spite of opposition, that the Prussian military code should serve for the whole empire. The bill for the organization of the imperial army retains the main features of the former organization. The term of military service is fixed at twelve years, and, as already seen, not even the orders which indelibly stamp a man as the consecrated priest of God, can save him from becoming a man of war.

Now, this one item of itself is sufficient to condemn this government in the eyes of humanity. What is the meaning of the words, "twelve years of military service"? Prussian military service is no playing at soldiers, be it remembered, like our militia here or in England. The average life of a man in these days probably does not much exceed thirty-six years. Yet in this new German empire the men who go to compose its 40,000,000 of human souls are compelled to devote one-third--the best twelve years of their lives--to what?

To serve in the armies of a tyrannical despot, who styles himself "William, by the grace of God"--to spend those best twelve years of their lives in learning the most expeditious method of killing their fellow-Christians! And that is what the glorious German Empire means.

What wonder that Germans should already fly in such numbers from this glorious and consolidated empire as to cause the same government that forbids freedom of religion to prohibit freedom of emigration? As all the world has seen, the German government is compelled to throw every obstacle in the way of its subjects to prevent their flying to this country. Does that betoken soundness, and a government grateful to the people? In the face of that one fact, it is needless to call to mind the riots that have continued at intervals throughout the year in various parts of the country, and the cruelty with which they were put down. What wonder that, even in the face of a military power, the Catholic party, persecuted as it is, should have gained, on Protestant concession, a small but decided increase on the vote of last year? What wonder that the liberty of the press should be attacked, and the journals that dared to publish the Papal Allocution confiscated?

It has been alleged all along that Catholics have been the foes of the unity of Germany. The allegation is utterly false. It is alleged by the Prussian government that they conspire against the empire, from the bishops down. Give us the proofs, say the Catholics; lay your finger on the words or the acts of conspiracy. The government refuses to take up the open, manly challenge. It knew that its charge was false. But had it, by any chance, been true, who shall say that a government that enforces such barbarous laws as those above given, which is compelled to resort to force in order to keep its subjects in the country, which compels every man to devote the best part of his life to preparation for war, whose revenues go only to swell vast armaments and fortify frontiers, which denies not only all religious but all political freedom--practically one and the same thing--is not a curse rather than a blessing to mankind? The German Empire, as it stands to-day, is nothing else than a rampant, military Prussian despotism--a danger not only to its sister nations in Europe, but to the world.

In Italy the story is much the same; and the wonder is the sufferance, in these days of vaunted enlightenment and freedom, of the utter violation and disregard on the part of governments of every human right, even to the seizure of private property. The bill for the appropriation by the state of church property passed through the Italian parliament. These fine words, "appropriation," "parliament," "debates," in this "house" and in that, seem to throw dust in the eyes of men who, when their own property is touched, are particularly keen-sighted, though the "appropriation" go not beyond a single dollar. This high-sounding measure simply means that the Italian parliament has forcibly taken possession of three millions' worth and upwards of property to which, in the face of earth and heaven, it had not one jot, one tittle, one shade of claim in any form.

Three years ago, the present Italian parliament--Italian by courtesy--was not known in Rome. The Pope was as much a sovereign as Victor Emanuel. The withdrawal of the French troops left the Sovereign Pontiff defenceless, and let in the King of Sardinia. Unprovoked and uninvited, he took violent possession of the slender remnant of the Papal States left to the Pope, and proclaimed himself King of Italy--the Pope still remaining on the soil which his predecessors owned and governed before the race of Victor Emanuel existed. Under the Papal rule, certain religious corporations--the religious orders and societies--rented, purchased, or owned certain property. The property belonged to those corporations as surely and as sacredly as property can belong to any man or body of men. Of course, when this Italian government laid its sacrilegious hand on the domain of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, it was scarcely to be expected that, with the example of Henry VIII. of England and, more recently, of William of Prussia before its eyes, it would stop short at the property of religious corporations. Consequently, we hear of a bill for the appropriation of this private property by the state. It is debated, and, after the usual objections to what is already a foregone conclusion, the property is seized by the state, and the owners turned adrift over the world.

When men, and by no means admirable men, calling themselves governments, play thus fast and loose with every vested right, Catholics are told, because they are so bold as to defend their own, that they are and, cannot be other than disloyal to that nowadays obscure thing, a state! The Vicar of Jesus Christ lifts up his voice, and, after his many warnings, pronounces the solemn sentence of major excommunication on all who have had hand, act, or part in these sacrilegious transactions, which the science of jurisprudence itself condemns utterly--and free men, with sound ideas on the rights of property, whatever may be their opinion on the rights of religion, find in his utterances insolence or ravings.

Treasures of art, libraries that are historical relics, relics of the sainted dead, all that the monasteries and convents held, flood the Italian market, and are bought up "for a song"; while the property itself is up at auction to the highest bidder. And what has this government done for the country? Has it, in a manner, justified its seizure by improving the condition of the people?

It only needs to read any of the Roman correspondents of the English or American press to know that never did brigandage exist in a more flourishing condition in Italy than since the entry of Victor Emanuel into Rome. Many Protestant correspondents, be it remembered, intimate plainly enough that the authorities wink at the brigands. Capture, of course, is made once in a while; but so occasionally as only to serve "_pour encourager les autres_." But, after all, there is no barometer like a man's pocket; and the rise and fall of taxation is a very safe indicator of the state of the political mart. On this point a little comparison will be found instructive.

The _New York Herald_, in the spring of this year, in an article entitled "The Debts of the State--Important Questions for Taxpayers," mentions, as the revelation of "a startling fact," that "the aggregate debt of the several counties, cities, towns, and villages of the State of New York, for which the taxpayers are responsible, exceeds two hundred and fourteen million dollars. This is more than ten and a half per cent. upon the assessed valuation of all property in the State.... If to this total debt of the subdivisions of the State be added that of the State itself, ... we have as the entire corporate debt of the State $239,685,902--almost twelve per cent. of the whole assessment of property." "This is a heavy encumbrance upon every man's and every woman's estate. It has grown out of a long course of reckless abuse of power, too lightly confided to legislative and the various representative bodies which control the State in its several divisions. Lavish extravagance has been too often authorized in expenditures for the public account, by men who carefully guard their private interests and credit, and it is no secret that many of the burdens imposed upon the taxpayers have enriched those who made the appropriations. How are these onerous obligations to be met? Or are they to be paid at all?"

It is doubtful whether many of the taxpayers in New York State will feel inclined to call in question the strictures here involved. At all events, the ex-Tammany chieftain has recently been consigned to the penitentiary. Turn we now to the taxation in Rome since the commencement of the Emanuel _régime_. A _Herald_ correspondent, who was despatched to describe the death of our Holy Father, and the election of his successor, and, finding his time heavy on his hands--as the Pope, in the face of an outraged world, refused to die before his Master called him--collected and sent back the following little items:

_Comparative Table of Taxes on an Annual Income of 70,000 Lire (Francs) paid in 1869 to the Pontifical Government, and in 1873 to the Italian Government._

TAXES PAID TO THE PONTIFICAL GOVERNMENT.

Francs. Per Cent. State taxes on property in Rome, 467.20 State taxes on property in the country, 248.75 ------ Total, 715.95 or 1.02279 Communal taxes on property in Rome, 864.95 Communal taxes on property in the country, 613.70 -------- Total, 1,478.65 or 2.11236 Total of all taxes paid under the Pontifical Government, 2,194.60 or 3.13515

TAXES PAID TO THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT.

State taxes on property in Rome, 6,250 State taxes on property in the country, 940 ----- Total, 7,190 or 10.62857 Communal taxes on property in Rome, 4,650 Communal taxes on property in the country, 651 ----- Total, 5,301 or 7.57286 Income taxes on 59,497 francs 7,854 or 11.22 Mortmain taxes on total of 70,000 francs, 2,800 or 4.00 Mortmain on buildings which give no rent, but are taxed, 1,500 or 2.14286 ----- ----- Total of all taxes paid under the Italian Government, 24,645 or 35.56429

SUMMARY.

Increase of Taxes Pontifical Italian under Government. Government. Italian Gov't. Per Cent. Per Cent. Per Cent. State tax--real estate, 1.02 10.63 9.61 Communal and provincial taxes 2.11 7.57 5.46 Income tax, -- 11.22 11.22 Mortmain, -- 4.00 4.00 Mortmain on buildings not paying rent, -- 2.14 2.14 ---- ---- ---- Total, 3.13 35.56 32.43

This schedule refers only to clerical property.

This is an increase of 32½ percent., or, not including the extra tax on mortmain property, 28½ per cent., within, at the time of writing, about two years.[178] Would the taxpayers of New York, who are presumably more wealthy than those of Rome, consider such an increase of taxation as that in two or three years "a startling fact"? And what is there to show for it? Absolutely nothing. All sorts of fine schemes for improvement of the city and such like are in existence--upon paper; unfortunately, they remain there. There is a grand new opera-house to be built, however. That is something. And then those royal visits to Austria and Germany must have cost something. And Victor Emanuel himself and his worthy son Humbert lead rather expensive lives. In the account of New Year's Day at Rome, a twelve-month since, we find the president of the chamber requesting his majesty to take more care of his health. And his majesty in response acknowledges the necessity of so doing, while he assured the president that arrangements existed which would ensure that the unity and liberty of Italy would in no case be endangered.

And here the Roman correspondent of the London _Times_, who, like most special correspondents of that journal, hates the Pope and the Papacy with a solid Saxon hatred that not even what is passing under his own eyes can remove, furnishes us with a little further information on the same point:

"The rigorous exaction of the taxes, referred to in former letters, has been a great element of discontent, especially in the south, which has suffered in many respects from the formation of the Italian kingdom. The only chance of rescuing the country [What country?--The exchequer of Victor Emanuel.] from its severe financial difficulties and probably from bankruptcy, was in such an exaction, but it has not the less pressed very cruelly on many needy classes. And it must be owned that, instead of seeking to soothe the sufferings of the taxpayers, Signor Sella has rather increased them by his cynical mode of treatment. People think it bad enough to be mulcted until they have scarcely enough left to live upon, and are not in a mood to be made game of also"--and much more in the same strain.[179]

Of the banishment of the religious orders and societies from Italy, which recently came into effect, the same only can be said as of the German expulsion. Our Holy Father, in receiving the generals of the various religious orders on January 2, said in reply to their address: "It is the third time during my life that religious orders have been suppressed. These corporations have always been the support of the church, and it is a dispensation of God that they should from time to time undergo such vicissitudes. This is a secret of Providence which I may not unravel, but I strive to see whether an angel may not be coming to aid the church. I do not say that I desire the destroying angel who visited the host of Sennacherib in order to save the chosen people of God. No, I have not that thought. I wish for an angel who might convert all hearts. We are in exile; we must come before God with the powerful arm of prayer, in order to obtain, if not what we wish, at least some assuagement of our misfortunes."

At the beginning of summer the world was excited by a rumor of the Pope's sickness unto death, and it was curious to observe the effect of the rumor upon the non-Catholic world. Pius IX. has already seen more than "the years of Peter." He has sustained in his own person the trials of Peter. But whatever the end may be which Jesus Christ has reserved for the close of the glorious career of his true Vicar, Pius IX. will leave this world, his soul borne up on the prayers and blessings of two hundred million hearts, while his name will for ever shine resplendent on the glittering scroll of the successors of Peter.

"On his return from Versailles, M. Thiers was greeted at the railway station by a crowd which was awaiting him there with loud cries of _Vive M. Thiers! Vive le Président!_" So runs a despatch from Paris on New Year's Day, 1873. How oddly it reads now! _Le Président est mort: Vive le Président!_ M. Thiers is politically as dead as he that was laid in his quiet grave at Chiselhurst in the first month of the year. It almost requires a strained effort of the mind to recall the fact that a short year ago M. Thiers was the master of the situation in France, receiving deputations and congratulations on New Year's, and talking of his presidential visit to the Vienna exhibition. A quiet but significant little despatch of the same date may partly explain the rapid collapse of M. Thiers: "Many persons of political distinction left their names at the residence of the Orleans princes." THE CATHOLIC WORLD for last January, in its review of the year 1872, said on the French question: "But Thiers cannot last, and what is to follow? The country would not bear the rule of the man of Sedan.... The speech of the Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier, on the army contracts, killed Napoleonism for the nonce. We can only hope for the best in France from some other and nobler sprout of former dynasties; we cannot foresee it."

It is needless to tell here the story of how M. Thiers was overthrown, or to comment on it, beyond the timeworn illustration that as a rule it is a radical mistake for any one man to set himself up as a necessity for a nation; yet such a mistake is the commonest indulged in by rulers (_in esse_ or _in posse_, as may be). In the midst of intense excitement in that most excitable of capitals, Paris, Marshal MacMahon was summoned by the majority of the Assembly to succeed M. Thiers. He placed himself as an impersonal instrument in the hands of the government, promising by the aid of "God and the army" to guarantee peace. He chose a conservative government. Order has been kept. The last farthing of the indemnity to Germany has been paid, and the last German soldier has quitted France.

A volume might be written on those few words--the indemnity has been paid: the last German soldier has quitted France. There is nothing but silent wonder for this marvellous feat, which in its way casts into the shade even the German conquest of France. A nation whose armies were one after the other shattered in a few months, an empire destroyed, an emperor led into captivity; its great fortresses beaten down, its capital besieged and taken twice over, first by the foe, after by its own soldiers from the hands of its suicidal children; two provinces, rich and fair, with their cities and peoples, amounting to a million and a half, taken away; its raw levies scattered into mist at a ruinous waste of life and money; its government overthrown and the entire national system overturned, so that men turned this way and that, and nowhere found a ruler. Men, money, provinces, cities, emperor, empire, rulers--all gone; commerce destroyed, the heart of the nation sore with resentment and stricken with sorrow: and all this crowded into a few months! Yet within less than three years this fickle, false, degenerate French nation--for such was the general character attributed to it after the late war--has restored its armies, has maintained peace, although even yet it can scarcely be said to have a permanent government, has set its commerce again afloat, and has rid itself of the foe at a cost that, when proposed, the whole world deemed fabulous.

One cannot help wondering now whether Prince Bismarck was prescient enough to foresee that France could afford to pay the fabulous sum for which he stipulated--more than a billion dollars. The figures are easily written down on paper, the words slip glibly from the lips, yet they signify a sum of money whose immensity, and the power that it contains for good or for evil, it is well-nigh impossible for the mind of man to conceive. When first bruited, the whole world looked aghast and refused to consider the idea that Prince Bismarck, especially after what the nation had suffered, could stipulate for the payment of so vast a sum--one that simply implied national bankruptcy. The world misjudged Prince Bismarck, and possibly he misjudged the power and vitality of the nation that lay quivering under his iron heel, or he might have demanded more. Yet here two years afterwards the almost impossible sum is told out to the last farthing, and the Germans are over the border again, with their gripe still on two French provinces, hastening fast to fortify and defend them from attack.

With what France has accomplished in these short months before our eyes, how irresistibly the thought comes to one--would it not have been wiser, truer patriotism, a loftier statesmanship, to have left those two provinces to France, and not hold them up for ever before her eyes as the fairest prize pitilessly wrung from her in her hour of anguish? Has not Prince Bismarck, or the Emperor, or Von Moltke, or whomsoever's doing it was, left the germ of future wars as a legacy to be fought by those yet unborn, when they shall be rotting in their graves?

A month or two ago, and the crown that once belonged to his race seemed to offer itself to the grasp of the Count of Chambord. Our readers know the story too well to repeat it here. All that need be said is, he refused it. Henri Cinq is very unlike Henri Quatre, the founder of his race. That Protestant gentleman deemed a throne worth a Mass; his Catholic descendant deems a throne insufficient to compensate him for a broken word or a wavering in principle. It is a lesson to kings; and if there be such a thing as royalty in these days--royalty as men once knew, or thought they knew, it--surely it belongs to the man who could quietly turn aside from a crown within his reach when he could not wear, as the brightest jewels therein, truth and honor untarnished. Verily Henri Cinq is the most royal of the Bourbons, and the line of crowned heads is redeemed in the person of their crown-less descendant. _Vive la France! Vive Henri Cinq!_

The crown which all felt to be virtually offered to him being refused, the conservative government, with MacMahon at its head, still remains in office, and a provisional government is voted for seven years. It is doubtful whether it will live that time. France is still open to eruption. Yet the present government deserves well of the country. It has shown itself wise, calm, and moderate. The debt was paid off, and the nation scarcely seemed to recognize the fact. How that vast sum of money was collected so rapidly and transferred to Berlin, where it came from, and how it was brought together at so short a notice, without any one apparently feeling the worse for it, is, and will probably remain, one of the mysteries of finance.

It is as impossible this year as it was last to forecast the French horoscope. The nation has accomplished wonders, and shown itself capable of everything save choosing a government which could satisfy the whole body. Probably such a government is impossible. Republicanism, in our sense of the word, is as far off from France as ever. Sooner or later some man will again possess himself of the power in France, unless, as is still not improbable, _the nation_ invite the Count of Chambord. The Duc d'Aumale has "won golden opinions from all sorts of men," and continues to win them. He is conducting the trial of Marshal Bazaine with great keenness and discretion.

"The man of Sedan" went to sleep at last as the year opened. He is reported to have died a Christian death, though the evidence of adequate reparation for his past crimes is wanting. Whatever he may have been, he left many close personal friends behind him. He did more than this: he left a party, or the germ of one, in that fatal legacy of the "Napoleonic idea," to his young son, who, if his life be spared, will probably guard it well, and follow closely in the footsteps of his father, if he have the chance to do so, which God forefend! His English education will not harm him; and he has seen too much of France and imperialism to relinquish an empire which, unless God give him grace to learn a better wisdom than that which his father bequeathed, he cannot fail to consider his by right. For the present he is harmless enough personally; but if France continues in its unsettled state, and if the son inherit any of the power and scheming of the race, he is as likely as any other to be the coming man. We trust, however, that neither of these conditions will be verified.

The death of the Emperor Napoleon undoubtedly lightened France. This is not the time to examine his actions or his policy. He is now part, and a very large part, of history; and history will paint him as it has painted better and greater men--in light and shade.

The pilgrimages to the various French shrines were a feature of the year, drawing the eyes of the world to France, and the blessing of heaven on France. Millions of pilgrims of all classes, ages, and cast of politics visited La Salette, Paray-le-Monial, Our Lady of Lourdes, and a multitude of other shrines. The whole world looked on with wonder. There was abundance of ridicule among a class of writers from whose pens commendation would be an insult. One pilgrimage went from Protestant England under the leadership of the Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl Marshal of England. The leading secular newspapers, as a rule, gave very fair and respectful accounts. If it were not invidious to select from many, the letters of the correspondents of the London _Times_ in England, and of the New York _Herald_ in this country--particularly the latter--were admirable in tone, spirit, and style. Pilgrimages were prohibited in Italy and Germany, on the ground that they were political assemblages. They seem rather likely to increase than to diminish in the coming year, and undoubtedly they have imparted a fresh impetus to faith, and returned a solemn answer to the "men of the time," the philosophers of the age, who find it so easy to disbelieve in God.

1873 will be memorable in Spanish annals. The heart sickens and shrinks from going over the dismal record. It is almost startling to read of "the king" receiving deputations on New Year's, and that king Amadeus. His abdication can scarcely have caused surprise to persons who had the slightest inkling of the real state of affairs in Spain. THE CATHOLIC WORLD, in its review of last year, although matters smiled on Amadeus at the time, said: "We do not expect to find Amadeus' name at the head of the Spanish government this day twelve-month." It said also, "A good regent, not Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don Alfonso; but where is such a regent? Don Carlos possesses the greatest amount of genuine loyalty to his name and cause, and he would be the winning man, could he only manage his rising in a more efficient manner." How far those predictions have been verified by events our readers may satisfy themselves. They required, indeed, no very keen insight to make.

Previous to the abdication of Amadeus, the Carlist insurrection, under the leadership of Prince Alfonso, the brother of Don Carlos, Saballs, and a number of other chieftains of greater or less note, again broke forth with renewed vigor. After his abdication, the government was all at sea; and from that time to the present date there has been nothing but a succession of changes of government, one as incapable as another, until the country no longer presents the appearance of a nation. Don Carlos appeared at the head of his forces early in the year. Frequent reports of Carlist annihilation have kept the telegraph wires busily employed ever since; yet, singular to relate, Don Carlos at present is actual king in the north of Spain. The forces sent against him have been defeated in every important engagement, and he only needs artillery to advance into the heart of the country. How it will go with him during the coming winter, which is rigorous in the north, remains to be seen. Insurrections broke out in various parts of the country, resulting, in some places, in scenes of horror and inhumanity, compared with which the horrors of the Commune in Paris were humane. Men seemed possessed by fiends, and the Spanish idea of a federal republic took the form of every petty town its own absolute sovereign. There was serious danger more than once of such insignificant governments embroiling themselves with foreign powers. Part of the fleet revolted, and is still in revolt. Part of the army endeavored to do so more than once. They cannot but despise wild theorists of the Castelar type, who would heal a bleeding nation with windy speeches. The future looks dark for Spain; and its only hope now lies in Don Carlos gaining the throne as speedily as he may. The country is overwhelmed with financial dangers, and it will take a cycle of peace and sound government to atone for the untold evils of these few years of excess. As matters now stand, victory sits on the helm of Don Carlos, and the coming year will probably find him King of Spain. We hope and believe that he will prove himself worthy of the vast sacrifices which have been made in his favor, and show as a wise, temperate, and truly Catholic sovereign over a noble race run mad with riot. As for a Spanish republic, Alcoy and Cartagena indicate what that means.

In this connection it would seem that we should take some notice of the case of the _Virginius_; but, at the time of sending this to press (Nov. 29), the question is too incomplete and unsettled to enable us to announce the final solution, which will have become a fact when these lines are read. To pronounce our own judgment on the merits of the case, in the brief and superficial manner to which our limits would restrict us, we are unwilling. We merely say one thing, which is obvious on the face of things, that there was no sufficient reason to justify the hurried and summary massacre of the prisoners captured on the _Virginius_. Filibustering we detest as a crime. Nevertheless, Cuba has been frightfully misgoverned. The reconciliation of Cuba to Spanish rule is impossible. If it can be rightfully made a free state, or annexed to the United States, we think it will be a benefit to the Cubans to be set free from Spanish rule.

The great feature of the English year has been the educational question--a question that at present is agitating the world, and is debated alike throughout all Europe, in our own country, in the states of South America, in India even, and in Australia. It is summed up in this: Shall education be Christian or not? If Christian, it tends to make the coming race bad citizens, inasmuch as it teaches children that there is a God, whose laws even governments must obey. There are side issues, but that constitutes the main point, however governments may seek to disguise the fact. If unchristian, the children learn that they are only graduating to become capable citizens of the state, and that that is their highest duty. This is paganism, and to this doctrine of education Christians cannot consent.

Mr. Gladstone, finding his party shaking, once more strove to consolidate and make it a unit on an Irish question. He took up the Irish educational grievance--and undoubtedly a sore grievance it is--and tried to construct a university which should be equally acceptable to all creeds and no creeds. As might have been expected, it proved acceptable to none. Mr. Gladstone's model university was to exclude chairs of theology, philosophy, and history. The very proposal is sufficient to show how impossible it was for Catholics to support such a measure. The Irish vote very rightly turned the scale against him, and Mr. Disraeli was credited with a victory. After a threatened dissolution, the Gladstone government resumed, and the conservative gains have gone on steadily increasing, so that it is not at all improbable that Mr. Disraeli will find himself and the conservative party in power after the next general elections.

The British government paid to the United States the amount of the Geneva award--£3,500,000.

A war is being waged against the Ashantees, successfully so far. The Australian colonies are advancing in wealth and independence. From Bengal, at the close of the year, comes a dread rumor of famine that seems to be only too well founded. There was an increase in the price of coal, resulting, apparently, from a report of its scarcity.

In the early part of the year, a strike of the miners and iron-workers of South Wales, by which 60,000 men were thrown out of employment, extended over two months. It was finally settled by mutual concessions on the part of masters and men. It evinced the growing power of trades-unions; but, at the same time, a few figures, furnished by the correspondent of the London _Times_, give sad evidence of what a losing game strikes really are when they can possibly be avoided.

The correspondent writes from Merthyr, February 9, while the strike was still in progress: "A few figures, showing the cost of the present struggle, are instructive. To-day the strikers enter upon the seventh week of its duration. Not a stroke of work has been done by over 60,000 persons since the 28th December last. In giving that figure, the number is under-estimated rather than exaggerated. The average weekly earnings of this industrial host was £60,000, while at the monthly pays or settlements it would not be going beyond the truth to say the payment exceeded the ordinary weekly draws by from 50 to 60 per cent. In the six weeks of idleness, therefore, the workmen have lost, in round figures, £400,000. The withdrawal of this vast sum from the circulation of the district has created such a dearth of money as no tradesman has ever experienced before. The strike payment of the Miners' Union has amounted at the utmost to only £15,000--a miserable pittance compared with the sum which would have been distributed through the various channels of trade had the works continued in operation." The past almost unprecedentedly dull business year in New York was owing, in great measure, to the strikes in the busiest season of 1872.

In Ireland, and among the Irish in England and Scotland, the agitation for home rule has spread with a vigor that promises success. Recently the Irish prelates have given in their adherence to the programme, and thus sanctioned the movement by the voice of the church. A cable message informs us that Mr. Disraeli has seized upon this fact to warn the world generally, and Mr. Disraeli's proverbially slow-witted party particularly, that the contest between the Catholic Church and the world is rapidly coming to a head, and will probably soon be fought out by ordeal of battle. Mr. Disraeli inherits a keen scent for what is likely to take in the market, whether of politics or a more vulgar kind of commodity. He is at a loss for a party-cry, and has happily seized upon one that of all others is likely to commend itself to the British bucolic intellect. In the meantime, the Irish at home may remember that in all their struggles, while they very wisely look to themselves to right themselves, they may count on fast friends, chiefly of their own race, scattered through every English-speaking people, whose voices, at least, will be lifted up in their favor. Let them continue to show such clean calendars as in the past year's assizes--in itself a very strong proof for the right, since it involves the power of self-government--and self-government cannot tarry much longer. The solemn consecration of the whole country to the Sacred Heart, and of Armagh Cathedral, are two events that will live in Irish history. The general wonder evoked by the revolt of an Irish priest against his bishop furnished a striking testimony to the unity of the church.

Russia has advanced a step farther into Asia and closer upon the British possessions. Khiva was captured, after a show of resistance by the forces of the khan. The collision between these two powers in the East is not far distant. Russia has not yet forgotten Sebastopol; and England showed a restive spirit at the advance of its great rival into the East that at one time threatened to burst forth into open opposition to the expedition. The contest is only delayed for a time. Russia internally is not as calm as it might be. We hear from time to time of the eruptions of strange secret societies. Undoubtedly socialism is at work; and in these days, not despotism, but rational freedom, is the only bulwark against its advance. The year opened with the illness of the czarowitz. He recovered sufficiently to absent himself from St. Petersburg just before the kaiser entered to greet the czar. The love of the czarowitz for the Prussians is too well known not to give a significance to his hurried departure on the arrival of their emperor in his father's capital.

Austria opened a universal exposition at Vienna with a financial panic. The country has under consideration the legislation of the period--a bill for the regulation of the affairs of church and state. Austria is not too strong as it stands; it will gain little if it join in the universal attack upon the church of Christ and his Vicar.

Switzerland has essayed the _rôle_ of Bismarck admirably. It has turned everybody in and everybody out, and church and chapel topsy-turvy, in right royal fashion. All the ecclesiastical laws of Prussia have been introduced there, with the addition that the _curés_ were elective. Of course, Catholics could not vote for the election of their _curés_; consequently, they did not appear at the polls in this matter. But there are Catholics enough in Switzerland, and Italy also, to make themselves felt at the polls in other matters, and it seems that the chief remedy for their evils rests in their own hands. In Germany, as was seen, the Catholics have gained a decisive increase on their vote of last year, however small; and, to judge of the future by the past, those German delegates will fight the battle of God and freedom nobly. In England Catholics are active at the polls, and, small a minority as they are, their vote tells.

Turning now to the East, every year seems to bring it nearer to the West, and possibly to the fulfilment of the promise that F. Thebaud brings out so strongly in his powerful work on _The Irish Race_--to the time when the sons of Japheth shall "take possession of the tents of Sem." During the past year, the Emperor of China made a concession unprecedented in Chinese history, and doubtless many an old political head shakes over the headlong rate at which the Chinese constitution is being driven to destruction. The Brother of the Sun--we believe that is the relationship--has allowed foreign potentates to present themselves at court after the fashion of the outer barbarians. This, however, is really an important concession, inasmuch as when the representatives of civilized governments have access directly to the person of the emperor, European and American subjects resident in China stand a better chance of having the many annoyances and grievances put in their way redressed; and the moral effect of the imperial concession on the narrow-minded Chinese nation cannot fail to be of benefit.

Japan seems earnest in its endeavor to become Europeanized as rapidly as possible. But it was as near, or nearer, centuries ago, when S. Francis Xavier confuted the Bonzes. The narrowness and selfishness of European traders alone prevented the nation from becoming Christian, probably, at that time. Much depends, therefore, on the representatives of foreign governments. If they are wise and large-hearted Christian men, they may prove apostles to this nation, which seems to possess so many admirable elements; but if, as so often seems the case, they are only second-hand agents of Bible societies and narrow-minded bigots, we may as well resign all hope of Japan. Some outrage is sure to recur sooner or later with lamentable results. Certainly, as a rule, our own foreign diplomats are not a class of men who reflect too much credit on the American nation. They appear to have been chosen blindly or at hap-hazard, in return for some electioneering service. Such is not the spirit that should move the government of a nation like ours, or any nation, to select representative men. They should be truly representative men of this great people, large and liberal-minded, with no bias whatever, but an eye single as that of justice.

Persia has also opened her gates and let forth her king to see the world. What impression the "civilized" world made on Nasr-ed-Deen[180] would be something worth knowing. He traversed Europe. He went to Russia, and the czar showed him armies; he visited Berlin, and the kaiser showed him other armies; he went to Austria--armies again; England--armies, a navy this time, and a lord mayor; France--more armies; Italy--armies still; and the king of kings went back again to Persia to open his kingdom to civilized governments. Belgium showed him the inside of a Christian temple for the first time, as he assured the Papal Nuncio, when expressing his regret at not being able to visit the Sovereign Pontiff. Can we wonder that the shah was soon weary of his journey? Civilization could show him no grander sight than millions of men drawn up in battle array and all the paraphernalia of war. It exhausted itself in that--armies and nothing more. Yes, there was something more--ballets.

The shah seems to have pawned his kingdom for a period of twenty years to Baron Reuter, who is to do what he pleases with it in the interim in the construction of railways, canals, and other means of internal development, he paying the monarch £20,000 annually and a tithe of the income resulting from the improvements. It seems a hazardous undertaking in such a country; but the man who undertook it doubtless "counted the costs" beforehand.

The mission of Sir Bartle Frere from the British government to the interior of Africa, with a view to the putting a stop to the barbarities of the slave-trade, promises, in connection with the expedition under Sir Samuel Baker, to open up a road to European intercourse with the natives of the interior. Some German scientists in Berlin also set on foot during the past year an association for the promotion of the exploration of Africa.

In the states of South America the same strife that we have witnessed in Europe is being waged, which, under the name of church and state, really means the absolutism of the state. The members of the Society of Jesus and of other societies and orders have been expelled from Mexico and several other states. Mexico has decreed civil marriage, as has also Brazil, whose Masonic premier and cabinet are entering on a persecution of the bishops for excommunicating members of secret societies. During the year, the city of San Salvador was utterly destroyed by an earthquake. The political order in these South American states corresponds very closely with their natural order. They exist in a chronic state of revolution and eruption.

In the natural order there have been furious storms, fraught with disaster to life and property; although lives lost in this manner have been insignificant in number compared with loss resulting from wrecks owing mainly to neglect, as in the case of the _Northfleet_ and the _Atlantic_, and several railroad disasters on a large scale. Boston was again visited by fire, but escaped with a loss less severe than before. The flooding of the Po once more brought disaster upon Italy, as did our own annual freshets upon us in the spring. With the exception of the threatened famine in Bengal, the seasons have been propitious, and the want which threatens the United States particularly during the coming year is due mainly to financial panics and strikes.

Within the past year, Berlin, Vienna, and New York have known panics, all seemingly resulting from the same immediate cause--the failure of one or two great houses; while the markets of the world have been threatened in consequence. Failures of one or two great houses could not possibly affect in so terrible a manner all kinds of business were it not that there was something radically wrong at the bottom--an evil leaven that has spread to the whole commercial mass. It would probably be a puzzle, even to a financier, to lay before the world the secrets of these periodical panics, resulting in ruin to so many outside of the comparative few immediately concerned. It looks as though, in this money-getting age, and among our own money-getting people particularly--on which subject the Holy Father this year addressed to us a special warning--the mass of men were animated by the principle, "Get money at all costs; never mind the means." Even the greatest houses live on a system of puff. In private life the man who lives beyond his means must sooner or later come to grief, and face ruin or roguery. In business the same rule must hold good. Vast establishments are conducted on a system vitally unsound. Probably there exists scarcely a house to-day that, if called on at any one moment to pay all its outstanding debts, could do so. But when the majority of houses are conducted on principles that on a limited capital base a business involving an outlay of perhaps twenty times its amount, we must be prepared for these periodical disasters. The evil is that this essentially dishonest system has become the only recognized style of conducting business in these days; so that commerce has come to be a game of speculation, where the cleverest and most daring rogue generally wins--a game fostered by the excessive issue of paper money.

Among events that attracted some attention during the year was the still lingering trial of the Tichborne claimant, which was not thrown into the shade by the trial of Marshal Bazaine. There have been meetings of the internationalists and other societies. New York was entertained or bored, as may be, for a week, by a meeting of Protestant gentlemen, mostly clericals, of all shades of belief, who called themselves an Evangelical Alliance. They were not quite agreed as to the particular object of their meeting, from which nothing resulted.

Several Catholic nations and numerous dioceses have been solemnly dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ during the past year, the province of New York among the number, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8. Dr. Corrigan was consecrated Bishop of Newark, and F. Gross of Savannah.

The last point has come: the mention of the dead. The Emperor Napoleon was the first of note to go; his empire went with him, for from first to last it was essentially a personal government. As his will, drawn up in his still palmy days, said, "Power is a heavy burden." He forced himself upon a nation of 30,000,000 of human souls; he voluntarily assumed the responsibility of the absolute guidance of that mighty multitude. He never had a fixed principle to guide him. He never dared honestly say, "This is right," "This is wrong." The power which he voluntarily assumed and kept to himself so long--one solitary man the ruler of 30,000,000--ended in disaster for that mighty multitude and himself.

This death dwarfs all the others. Nevertheless, many a man was laid in his grave last year whose name will live after him. The church has lost Mgr. Losanna, Bishop of Biela, the oldest Italian bishop; F. de Smet, the apostolic missionary among the Indians; and here, in New York, Vicar-General Starrs. Literature has suffered in Manzoni, whose death the Italians rightly viewed as a national calamity. Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, a man of many and great gifts, has at last gone to tell "what could he do with them." History will not soon find again an Amedée Thierry. Col. James F. Meline, a frequent and very able contributor to THE CATHOLIC WORLD, is a loss to American Catholic literature. The Anglican Bishop of Winchester, a gifted orator, but a churchman of no very fixed opinions, was killed by a fall from his horse. On the same day died Lord Westbury, a man of a singularly acute and powerful intellect, who has left his mark on English legislation. Our Chief-Justice Chase is gone, and it will be difficult to find his equal. Rattazzi, the Italian minister, is gone to his place. John Stuart Mill, who could not well be dismissed in a sentence, is dead. He was a singular mixture of philosophical acumen and practical stupidity. Art has lost Landseer; science, Maury and Liebig, the chemist; while medicine laments Nelaton. The American, French, and English stage mourns respectively Forrest and Macready, the once rival tragedians, and Lafont, a prince of comedians. Royalty has lost the Empress Dowager of Austria, a very holy woman; the Empress Dowager of Brazil; the King of Saxony, a scholar and a Christian, and the Duke of Brunswick, who was famed for anything but holiness. General Paez, who once was famous, is dead. The death of Captain Hall adds another to the list of brave, adventurous spirits who so far have wasted their lives in the endeavor to discover the North Pole. His death involved the failure of the _Polaris_ expedition, which was fitted out by the American government. The story of the rescue of the _Polaris_ crew belongs to the romance of history.

Bernstorff and Olozaga, the ambassadors respectively of Germany and Spain, have dropped from diplomatic circles into that circle where the finest diplomacy cannot cover the slightest delinquency.

There is little to add. Another year has happily passed over our heads without a serious war, but the future threatens to make ample and speedy atonement for this lamentable deficiency. Last year THE CATHOLIC WORLD closed its review by saying that "Europe was arming." This year it may say Europe is armed. Prussia, Russia, France, Austria, Italy--what are they? Nations of warriors. Had the Persian king asked the meaning of these armed nations, he would probably have been answered, with a grim jocularity, that civilized powers found such the only method of keeping the peace and preserving that imaginary thing--equilibrium. The Russian expedition into and capture of Khiva, the defeat of the Dutch by the Atchinese in the Island of Sumatra, the English war with Ashantee, make the three ruptures of international peace during the year. England seems particularly choice in her selection of foes: Abyssinia, the Looshai tribes, and now--Ashantee. She is jealous of her turbulent neighbors, and must vindicate her ancient prestige.

The main events which have moved the world during the past year have now been touched upon hastily and crudely enough, but sufficiently, it may be hoped, to give the reader some idea of the mainsprings which move this busy world, of which we form a part, and in which each one is set to play a part and render an account of it. What was said at the beginning may be more readily appreciated now, or denied--that the year of our Lord 1873 is bigger with portent than event, and a portent that bodes ill, as far as human eye can see, for the church of Christ, built upon Peter. Mr. Disraeli's party-cry may contain more truth than the crier, wise man though he be, dreamed: there is such an intense, bitter, determined, and general hostility, on the part of "the kings and the princes of the world, against the Lord and against his Christ"; the opposition is fast becoming so intolerant and absolutely unbearable to Catholics; while protest and opposition in words alone seem vain and idle when addressed to ears that are deaf.

In the meanwhile, Catholics must not budge an inch. They are not only fighting for their religion, but for human freedom. To yield the smallest point of principle is to be false to their conscience. The more persistent is the non-Catholic world in false theories of human rights and human wrongs, the more persistent must they be in adhering, at any sacrifice, to what they know to be right, and what was right when modern nations were unborn. Catholics must remember that all are fighting the same battle, and all are bound to take a hand in the struggle. What the Pope fights for, that all Catholics fight for--from the bishop to the priest, from the priest to the one whose voice is heard in the halls of legislation, to the editor in his office, to the merchant in his counting-house, to the very beggar in the street. There is no difference, no line to be drawn. We must be one, and, if right must win, then victory is ours.

For, for what do we contend? To be Christian; to be free to obey the church which our Lord Jesus Christ founded. Allegiance to a foreign power? What folly! Allegiance to Pius IX. is allegiance to Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less. Are Catholics not Americans, or Germans, or Irishmen, or Englishmen, for being Catholics? How, when, where, was it ever shown that they were not? Why, when Protestantism was not known, were Catholics not nationalists--when Christendom was one?

A new year is opening before us--a year of trial, not so much in this country, but to the universal church. Where freedom is left to Catholics, as in this country, they must never cease, by prayer, by the pen, by the voice, by every means that the occasion calls forth, to help their persecuted brethren; not looking to this government or to that to help them, but basing their cause on their natural rights. There is not a civil, religious, or political right anywhere existing on this earth, belonging to non-Catholics, which does not also belong to Catholics. They must get that idea fast in their minds, and fight on that which is a lawful and just issue. No Protestant can claim a right which does not belong equally to a Catholic. No Protestant, be he individual or government, can say to a Catholic: You must not believe this doctrine or that; you must not take the Pope for an infallible guide in religion, but yourself; you must not educate your children in your religion, and so on. This is the language, open or secret, of the day which is addressed to Catholics. It must be met with no hesitation, but with the response: Our freedom is your freedom; our rights are your rights; our interest is your interest; nay, after all, our God is your God. Let us fight our battles of opinion civilly. But when you issue paper constitutions every day, and tell us that we must obey such and such an iniquitous law--a law revolting to our conscience, our reason, and every aspiration of freedom--we throw your paper constitution to the winds, and refuse to obey it. _It is necessary to obey God rather than man!_ We conclude by wishing to all our readers a happy New Year, to our Holy Father a speedy triumph, and to ourselves the pleasure of recording, at the end of 1874, the history of the confusion and rout of the enemies of the church.

Of events accidentally omitted in the preceding record of the year, were the ravages of the yellow fever in the South, particularly at Memphis and Shreveport, where many Catholic priests and religious sacrificed their lives in the service of the sick. To the list of disasters at sea resulting from carelessness must be added the recent wreck of the _Ville du Havre_, with a loss of upwards of 200 lives. The festival of the Catholic Union at Boston also deserved mention, as it evoked a demonstration of Catholic strength and Catholic feeling that was an honest source of pride. Among names omitted in the death-roll were those of Dr. H. S. Hewit, a noble man who sacrificed much for his country and his faith; Hiram Powers, the sculptor; Laura Keene, the actress, an estimable woman and a good Catholic; Sir Henry Holland, Henry W. Wilberforce, brother of the Anglican bishop, and for a long time editor of the London _Weekly Register_ (Catholic); General Hardee, and a name once very famous, Abdel-Kader. A new Atlantic cable was this year laid by the _Great Eastern_ between Valentia and Heart's Content, N. F.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] "Church and State in Germany," _Catholic World_, July, 1872.

[177] See the response of the German Emperor to the Pope, in the correspondence recently published.

[178] The New York _Tablet_, July 19, 1873--"A Truly Liberal Government."

[179] The London _Times_, January, 1873.

[180] Possibly the spelling of the name is incorrect; but there is such a variety to choose from that the correct form is a nice question.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE ARK OF THE PEOPLE. By Plato Punchinello. Translated from the French by a Friend of Christian Civilization. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1873.

A very timely book, whose publication is very welcome. It is one of a class very numerous at present in France, which we hope to see becoming common in our own country. That is to say, it treats of the horrible consequences in the social order flowing from the prevalent infidel, heretical, anti-Catholic theories, maxims, errors, and illusions of the age, vamped up by sophists and charlatans, and palmed off upon their dupes and victims as philosophy, science, advanced ideas, principles of progress and improvement in civilization. It treats also of Catholic principles as the principles of true social and political order and well-being. It is lively and brilliant, and we recommend it most earnestly as a book most useful and entertaining, specially fitted to counteract the false notions which are but too current even among Catholics.

LASCINE. By an Oxford Man. New York: Appletons. 1873.

SEVEN STORIES. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

MARIE AND PAUL. By "Our Little Woman." Same publishers.

THE BARON OF HERTZ. A Tale of the Anabaptists. From the French of Albert De Labadye. New York: O'Shea. 1873.

GORDON LODGE. By Miss M. Agnes White. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1873.

Here is quite a supply of works of fiction by Catholic writers to help while away the dreary winter months. _Lascine_ is a story whose incidents are taken from the experience of an Oxford convert. A number of very good stories of this kind have appeared since the great movement began; and the movement itself, besides its serious importance, is certainly very fertile in romantic incidents, and furnishes abundant stuff for a skilful novelist. _Lascine_ is a book which can be read with great interest, and is by no means lacking in cleverness. Its principal fault is an excess of sentimentality. We think it promises a great deal for the future success of its young author.

Anything written by Lady Georgiana Fullerton must of course be excellent. The first and last of these stories are particularly good, and the last one ought to be read by all our young people, especially young ladies who aspire to become literary stars.

_Marie and Paul_ is a very pretty and pathetic tale.

_The Baron of Hertz_ has a great deal of historical instruction about the crimes and horrors of the German Reformation, couched in the form of a stirring and most tragic story.

Miss White's _début_ is very creditable to her. She has originality of conception and power of delineation and description. There are certain inaccuracies in respect to the English titles of nobility, and some other minor faults of style which indicate the need of a more careful attention to details and a more accurate revision. As a whole, the story is a very successful effort.

THE REAL PRESENCE. By Rev. P. Tissot, S.J. New York: P. O'Shea. 1873.

An excellent little book, solid, simple, and pious, good alike for old and young. The doctrinal gravity of the treatise is relieved in an agreeable and edifying manner by some interesting narrations of miraculous events relating to the Blessed Eucharist. F. Tissot has chosen these incidents with great judgment, selecting those which are both extremely wonderful and at the same time very well authenticated, and taking care to give the proof as well as the history. There cannot be anything more stupid or more provoking than the ignorant, supercilious, and flippant manner in which the writers for the secular and _soi-disant_ religious press, sneer at these Catholic miracles, without pretending to reason about the evidence on which the truth rests. There are some who think it the best policy to keep silent about them; but it is our opinion that we ought to bring them constantly before the face and eyes of the unbelieving world, although the light which flashes from them may be disagreeable to many who do not wish to be disturbed in their fatal slumber.

SAXE HOLM'S STORIES. New York: Scribner. 1874.

A most peculiar school of fiction, which we may call the "transcendental," has grown up among the New Englanders and their _semblables_ within our own remembrance. Some of its productions are of fine quality, and it oscillates in morality between the two extremes of Catholicity and pantheism. Nevertheless, as a dear friend, who lived and died a Unitarian minister, once remarked to us, the prevailing tendency of this entire transcendental movement is a very circuitous return to the religion of our Catholic forefathers. The stories of this volume, written, we conjecture, by a lady, are a sample of the kind of literature referred to. The first story, "Draxy Miller," is a _chef d'œuvre_. It may seem odd that we should perceive a Catholic undertone in a story the heroine of which, after marrying a minister in a wild country hamlet of New Hampshire, takes charge of the preaching for a year after her husband's death. Female preaching, and the whole set of strong-minded female notions, we abominate, of course. But Draxy Miller's last epoch of life, as the passing _umbra_ of her husband, is so described that the repulsive aspect of the pastoral office in petticoats is hidden. And as an ideal character Draxy is exquisite. "Reuben Miller's Daughter" wins the heart of the reader, as she did the hearts of the old captain, the stage-driver, the elder, and the elder's parishioners.

"The One-Legged Dancers" is capital also, and the other stories are written with skill and effect. There is rather too strong an infusion of transcendental notions about love, yet the moral tone is much higher than is usually found in novels, and the author appears to recognize the stringent obligation of wedlock. We rank this volume of stories decidedly in the first class.

In the advertisements at the end of the volume we perceive the announcement of a translation of Jules Verne's _De la Terre à la Lune_, together with another similar book, describing a journey to the centre of the earth. The first of these extraordinary _jeux d'esprit_ has given us so much pleasure in the original, overflowing, as it is, with humor, poetry, and scientific knowledge, that we call the attention of our readers, in a spirit of purely disinterested philanthropy, to the fact that they can get this book and its fellow in English. They will help very materially the effort to pass a merry Christmas.

THE ARENA AND THE THRONE. By L. T. Townsend, D.D., author of _Credo_, etc. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1873.

The principal object of this book is one in which we heartily sympathize, being the refutation of the ordinary shallow arguments which some persons consider as conclusive in favor of what is known as the "plurality of worlds" and the maintenance of the dignity of man as a worthy possessor of the universe of God. The material universe is insignificant compared with a single soul. We need not take so much pains to try to utilize it. The convenience of one man would be a sufficient reason for its existence. The physical arguments, drawn from actual observation, in favor of the uninhabitability of the worlds with which we have become in any degree acquainted, are well put.

RHODA THORNTON'S GIRLHOOD. By Mary E. Pratt. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1873.

A pretty, simple story of New England life; a good book for a school prize. The usual hearty country pleasures--husking and quilting parties, Thanksgiving, etc., are well and truly described; a healthy tone runs through the story, which is a natural and probable one. The little heroine, Rhoda, a thoughtful, womanly child, begins her life in an alms-house, and then spends a few years on an old-fashioned farm. She turns out to be the great-granddaughter of a lost member of an old family, whose heirs and representatives she and her brother become. The incidents are not violently improbable, and the disintegration naturally arising in such a family through imprudent marriages and removals to distant and unreclaimed territories very adequately accounts for the mystery. The style is free and simple; studied ornament or any silly rhetorical flourish is avoided.

RITUALE ROMANUM PAULI V. PONTIFICIS MAXIMI JUSSU EDITUM ET A BENEDICTO XIV. AUCTUM ET CASTIGATUM: CUI NOVISSIMA ACCEDIT BENEDICTIONUM ET INSTRUCTIONUM APPENDIX. Baltimori: Excudebat Joannes Murphy. 1873. 12mo, pp. 546.

This is the first entire edition of the _Rituale_ published in this country, and we take pleasure in commending it as one very creditable to the publisher. The type is large, the paper white and clear, and very excellent register is observed in printing the rubrics. If there is any suggestion we would offer, it is that the next edition be printed on thinner paper, so that the volume may be reduced to a more portable size without any diminution in legibility. The _imprimatur_ of the archbishop of Baltimore obviates any necessity for comment on the text.

THE ACTS OF THE EARLY MARTYRS. By J. A. M. Fastré, S.J. Third series. Philadelphia: P. Cunningham & Son. 1873.

The first and second series of this valuable and suggestive work have received due notice in these pages at the time of their publication. We have before us now the third series, chiefly treating of the martyrs of the IVth century, under the tenth general persecution--that of Diocletian. The contents are most interesting, the more so as some of the saints here mentioned are less known than those whose acts filled the first two volumes. The great and foremost reason why we rejoice to see the sufferings and constancy of the early martyrs brought before the remembrance of our people is that these sufferings have some analogy with the present condition of the church in many lands. Although the physical tortures of early days are out of fashion, the moral persecution is not less ingeniously spread over the whole life of a Catholic than it was in former times. The same kind of constancy is required to conquer the latter as was needed by the martyrs to overcome bodily pain. In those early times social ostracism, exile from honorable professions, and confiscation of property, were as frequently as now the guerdon of him who embraced the unpopular religion, as we see in the case of S. Tarachus and his companions. In every instance the bribe held out by Satan to the confessors of the faith was the favor of the emperor, the honors and emoluments of the magistracy, great riches, and high position, as we see specially in the case of S. Clement of Ancyra. His is the most wonderful life recounted in this little book. Eighteen years of incessant martyrdom; the most heroic constancy and patience; the most singular and miraculous Providence watching over him; the powers of persuasion which converted his jailers, his executioners, and thousands of pagans in the various places where he was tortured and confined; the manner in which it pleased God to make him whole no less than six times after the devil had done his best to render his body unrecognizable--all contribute to make of his life a tissue of a more wonderful and awful romance than any imaginary tale of mediæval marvel. To S. Blasius of Sebaste we would also call attention, as having forestalled S. Francis of Assisi in his god-given power over the lower creation. In the story of S. Polyeuctus the reader will recognize the foundation of Corneille's sublime Christian drama of _Polyeucte_, written at the instance of Mme. de Maintenon. The style of this book is flowing and correct; simple, as befits the subject, which cannot be raised higher by any flight of human fancy or adornment of human fashion; is accessible to the understanding of the unlearned, and cannot fail involuntarily to touch the hearts of all. Is it not a strange thought to dwell upon, that, among all the conversions wrought on the spot by the supernatural courage of the martyrs, there should be hardly one instance on record of it having converted their judge? The sudden judgment executed on some governors and prætors is indeed mentioned in a few cases. Are we to suppose that they were really beyond persuasion, being possessed by a devil who had complete control over their faculties? It is a very awful thing whereon to meditate, but these stories of our forerunners in the good fight certainly strongly suggest the idea.

* * * * *

ANNOUNCEMENT.--We shall begin in our next number the publication of a new story by Mrs. Craven, author of _A Sister's Story_, _Fleurange_, etc. The work will be issued simultaneously with its appearance in _Le Correspondant_, the translation being made from the original MS. with the special sanction of the author from whom the exclusive right of publication in this country has been purchased.

The continuation of _Grapes and Thorns_, which has been delayed by the departure of the author on an European tour, will be resumed in the February number.

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVIII., No. 107.--FEBRUARY, 1874.[181]

THE PRINCIPLES OF REAL BEING.

II.

EXTRINSIC PRINCIPLES OF BEING.

As in chemistry, so also in metaphysics, the labor and difficulty attending the analysis of complex things is proportional to the degree of their complexity. Hence in the search after the principles of real being, which we are about to make, we judge it expedient, for the greater convenience and satisfaction of our philosophical readers, to start from the principles of the most simple among the subjects of metaphysical analysis--that is, from the principles of primitive beings.

By "primitive" being we mean a being not made up of other beings, but "strictly one in its entity"--_unum per se in ratione entis_--and therefore having nothing of which it can be deprived without ceasing to be altogether.

It is to be observed that a primitive being may be conceived to exist either contingently or through the necessity of its own nature. Of course, a being which exists through the necessity of its own nature is perfectly independent of all extrinsic things, as it contains in its own nature the adequate reason of its being, and therefore admits of no extrinsic principles of any kind. But a being which exists contingently is a being which has not within itself the adequate reason of its existence; whence it follows that its existence cannot be accounted for but by recourse to some extrinsic principle or principles. As the knowledge of extrinsic principles is calculated to throw much light also on the intrinsic constitution of primitive contingent beings, let us make such principles the subject of our first investigation.

We affirm that the extrinsic principles of every primitive contingent being are three; for to the question, "Whence any such being proceeds," three different answers can be given, and three only.

First, we can assign the reason why, or the end _for the sake of which_, a being has been made to exist.

Secondly, we can point out the agency _through which_ a being has been made to exist.

Thirdly, and lastly, we can mention the term _out of which_ a being has been brought into existence.

These three principles virtually contain the whole theory of creation. If we were now writing for unbelievers, we would be obliged to commence by establishing some preliminary truths, such as God's existence, the contingency of the world, and the philosophical impossibility of accounting for its origin without recourse to the dogma of creation. But as our habitual readers are presumed to be sufficiently instructed about these fundamental truths, we think we may here dispense with a direct demonstration of the same, and avoid a digression which would lead us too far from the subject now under examination. As, however, this article may possibly fall into the hands of some dupe of modern infidelity, we propose to make a few incidental remarks on their usual objections, and to lay down, before we conclude, some of the arguments by which unbelievers can be convinced of the absolute truth of what we now assume as the ground of our explanations.

We assume, then, that there is a Creator, a God, a being infinitely intelligent and infinitely powerful, eternal, and independent. Such a being, as infinitely perfect, is infinitely happy, and experiences no need whatever of anything outside of himself. He therefore does not create anything, unless he freely wills; nor wills he anything, unless it is for some good which he freely intends; for nothing but good can be the object of volition. Now, the only good which God in his infinite wisdom can freely intend is the exterior manifestation of his divine perfections. It is, therefore, for this end that creatures were brought into existence.

Our first answer to the question above proposed points out this _final principle_ of creation--that is, the manifestation of God's perfections in such a degree and manner as he himself was pleased freely to determine. To attain this end, it is obvious that God was obliged to bestow upon his creatures such a degree of reality as would enable them to show in themselves and in their finite perfections a finite image, and, so to say, a reflex of the perfections of their Creator. Hence the final principle, on which the existence of contingent beings originally depends, comprises not only the manifestation of God's perfections in a determinate degree, but also, and more immediately, the bestowal of a proportionate degree of entity upon creatures, that they may carry on such a manifestation according to the design of their Creator. Thus the _ultimate_ end of creation is indeed God's glory, or the manifestation of his perfections; but the _proximate_ end of creation, and that which is immediately obtained in the very act of creation, is the existence of the created things with that degree of reality and with those endowments which make them fit instruments for the aforesaid manifestation. Accordingly, when asked whence a primitive contingent being proceeds, our first answer must be that it proceeds from God's design of showing his existence and infinite perfection by communicating contingent existence and finite perfections outside of himself.

Let us here take notice that "modern thought" ignores final principles altogether, and pretends that arguments from design have no value in science. In this pretension we unmistakably recognize the materialistic propensities and the lack of philosophical reasoning by which our age is afflicted. When our modern sages will prove that creation does not proceed from a will, or that a will can act without an object, then they will be entitled to the honor of a serious refutation. As it is, their negative position is sufficiently refuted by a simple appeal to common sense.

To those who, without denying final causes, maintain that we cannot ascertain them, nor make them an object of science, we reply that, although we do not know _all_ the particular ends which each creature may be destined to fulfil, we nevertheless know perfectly well the general end of creation. Now, nothing more is needed for establishing the reality of the first extrinsic principle on which the existence of every contingent being depends.

Our second answer points out the _efficient principle_ of creation--that is, God's omnipotent power. Rationalists and materialists have tried to do away with this most necessary principle. Besides the old pagan assumption of self-existent matter, which many of them adopted in order to supersede the necessity of a creator, they have tried to popularize other inventions of more recent thinkers, who for the God of the Bible have substituted what they style the _Absolute_, and pretend that what we call "contingent beings" are mere apparitions of the _Absolute_--that is, the _Absolute_ manifesting itself. Without stopping here to refute such a strange theory, we shall content ourselves with observing that what is altogether _absolute_ is intrinsically _unmodifiable_--a truth which needs no demonstration, as it immediately results from the comparison of the two terms; whence it follows that, if the _Absolute_ wishes to manifest itself, it cannot do so by assuming any new form, but only by means of something extraneous to its own nature, and consequently through the instrumentality of some being _produced_ by it, perfectly _distinct_ from it, and which may admit of such modifications as we witness everywhere around us, and as we know to be irreconcilable with the nature of the _Absolute_. This suffices to show that no apparition or manifestation of the _Absolute_ can be conceived without implying an exertion of efficient power.[182] We say, then, in our second answer, that it is through divine omnipotence that contingent beings were actually brought into existence by such a communication of reality as was proportionate to the design of their Creator. In other terms, God's omnipotent power is the _efficient_ principle of all primitive contingent being.

Our third answer points out the _terminus ex quo_ of creation--that is, the term out of which every contingent being is primarily educed. Such a term is mere nothingness; for whatever primarily begins to exist must come out of absolute non-existence. It is against this that our modern pseudo-philosophers most loudly protest, as they stoutly proclaim that "nothing comes out of nothing"--_ex nihilo nihil fit_. We may well smile at their useless protestation; for the fact is that nothing is ever brought into existence but from its contrary--that is, from its non-existence. It would be vain to object that, to build a house or a ship, materials are needed. Of course they are needed, but a house is a compound, not a primitive, being; and to build a house is not _to produce_ the house, but only to effect _the artistic arrangement_ of its materials. Now, undoubtedly, before the house is built, such an arrangement has no existence. The only thing, therefore, that the builder efficiently produces springs out of non-existence. We fully admit that a physical compound cannot be made up without materials--viz., without pre-existent components--but, to be sure, the first components do not themselves depend on other components, because the first components are _primitive_ beings, and, as such, cannot be made of any pre-existing material. Yet they must have been made, since they exist and are contingent; and, if made of no pre-existing material, certainly brought out of nothing.

But as our readers need none of our arguments to be convinced of a truth of which they are already in possession, we will set aside all further discussion on this subject, and conclude, from the preceding remarks, that when we are asked whence a contingent being originally comes, our last answer must be that it comes out of nothing as the _term_ of its eduction. Nothingness, in this case, holds the place of the _material_ principle, which is wanting.

It is clear, then, that all primitive contingent beings can, and must, be traced to three extrinsic principles. This doctrine contains nothing difficult, far-fetched, or mysterious, and its great simplicity proves that metaphysics, after all, may be less frightfully abstruse than some people are apt to believe. This same doctrine is also the universal doctrine of all philosophers who did not lose themselves in the dreams of visionary systems. It is true that they do not always mention, as formally as we do, the final object of creation as a distinct principle; but they do not deny it. In treating of the origin of things, they usually consider the final and the efficient principle of creation as a single adequate principle, on the ground that finality and efficiency, viewed absolutely as they are in God, are but one and the same thing. They also omit very frequently the mention of the term out of which things are educed, not because they do not acknowledge it, but because they know that it has no positive causality. Nevertheless, a little reflection will show that such a course is not the best calculated to give a distinct idea of the principiation of things; on the contrary, the very nature of the metaphysical process demands that each of the three extrinsic principles be kept in view very distinctly and explicitly.

We admit, of course, that the final and the efficient principle of creation, viewed absolutely as they are in God, are really and entitatively the same thing; but we consider that the intention, or volition of the end, has its connection with created beings, not on account of its absolute entity, which is necessary, but on account of its extrinsic termination, which is contingent; for, evidently, no act can be conceived as the principle of a being, except inasmuch as it is connected with the same being. Accordingly, God's volition is the principle of things, not inasmuch as it is an absolute act, entitatively necessary, but inasmuch as it is an act having a contingent termination. On the other hand, God's infinite power must indeed be conceived as connoting an infinity of beings that _can_ be created, but is not conceivable as connoting determinate beings that _will_ be created, unless something be found that connects it especially with the same determinate beings. Now, what is it that connects God's omnipotence with any determinate being which is to be created but his volition of a contingent determinate object--that is, his volition as having a contingent termination? Omnipotence, therefore, acquires a special connection with a determinate contingent being only on account of the extrinsic termination of divine volition; and thus divine omnipotence and divine volition have, under this consideration, a kind of relative opposition, on account of which the one that induces the special connection is to be distinguished from the other that acquires it.

Moreover, in the investigation of first principles we must continue our analysis as far as we can--that is, until we reach the ultimate terms into which the subject of our investigation can be resolved. Now, it is evident that omnipotence, as freely connected with the production of a determinate being, is not the ultimate term of analysis; for we can go further, and assign the reason of that free connection--viz., the actual volition of an end. Hence the final and the efficient principle of creation, though not really distinct in God, afford a real ground for two distinct concepts, and are to be considered as two distinct extrinsic principles with respect to all created things.

The third extrinsic principle--that is, the term out of which contingent beings are originally educed--is very frequently overlooked as irrelevant, because it has no reality. We are of opinion that it should be kept in view by all means, and prominently too, for many reasons which will be hereafter explained, and especially for the easier refutation of pantheism. Such a term has, indeed, no reality; but it is not necessary that all the extrinsic principles of being should be realities. Common sense teaches, on the contrary, that when a thing is to be first brought into existence, it is necessary that it should pass from its non-being into being; whence it is manifest that _its non-being_ is the proper term out of which it has to be educed. Now, the non-being of a thing is its nothingness; and, therefore, its nothingness is the proper term out of which it must be educed. For the same reason, the schoolmen uniformly taught with Aristotle that _privation_ also was to be ranked among the principles of things, although privations are not positive beings;[183] and therefore the nothingness of the term from which creatures are educed is no objection to its being placed among the extrinsic principles of contingent beings.

As, however, that which is looked upon as a principle is always conceived to connote the thing principiated, and, on the other hand, _absolute_ nothingness has no such connotation (for connotation is virtual relativity, and cannot spring from nothing), it follows that _nothingness_, when conceived as a term out of which a being is educed, is to be looked upon, not as an absolute negation of being, but as _a negation out of which divine omnipotence, by the production of an act, brings the creature into being_. In other terms, nothingness is to be considered, under God's hand, as _a negative potency of something real_, which can be actuated; and, with regard to any individual reality, as the potency of that individual reality. When viewed in this manner, nothingness assumes a relative aspect, in opposition to that reality of which it is the potency, and thus becomes apt to connote that same reality, in the same way as silence connotes talk, darkness light, absence presence, informity form. Hence we took care to say that a thing is brought into being out of _its_ non-being; because, as the fool only by divesting himself of _his_ foolishness can grow wise, so a reality which is to come out of nothing--say, a point of matter--cannot be educed out of the non-being of an angel or of any other thing, but only out of _its own_ non-being. Consequently, non-being, or nothingness, as the term out of which a point of matter is to be educed, means nothing but _the potency of that real point_; and thus nothingness, under the hand of the Omnipotent, acquires, in regard to that which is educed out of it, that relativity which is sufficient to make it a principle, according to the nature and manner of its principiation.

Some may ask why, among the extrinsic principles of things, we did not mention God's _archetypal ideas_; for it seems that, when we are asked whence a contingent being primarily proceeds, we might answer by pointing out God's ideas as the patterns to which creatures must conform, and by saying that things primarily proceed _from the divine ideas_ as from their archetypal principle; and if this answer--which is by no means absurd--be admitted, the extrinsic principles of contingent beings will be four, and not three.

But it is to be observed that God's ideas precede all decrees concerning creation, and are the archetypes not only of all the things that are created, but of all the things also which will never be created; and, therefore, God's ideas have, of themselves, no connection with the _existence_ of contingent beings, but only with their _intelligibility_. Hence we may argue in the following manner: The extrinsic principiation of a contingent being cannot be traced back to any _special_ principle prior to that which is the first reason of their creation. But God's ideas are prior to God's volition, which is the first reason of creation; therefore, the principiation of contingent beings cannot be traced back to divine ideas as a _special_ extrinsic principle.

Nevertheless, since God cannot intend to create anything but according to his own idea of it, we must own that the divine ideas share in the causality of things, inasmuch as such ideas are implied in the volition of producing the objects they represent; and though, of themselves, they are not a distinct and special principle of creation, yet, as included in the Creator's volition, they make up the whole plan of creation, and thus they have a bearing on the nature, number, and order of all created things.

Such is the doctrine which we find in S. Thomas' _Theological Summa_, where he explains how God's ideas are the cause of things. "God's ideas," says he, "are to all created things what the artist's ideas are to the works of art. The artist's ideas are the cause of a work of art, inasmuch as the artist acts through his understanding; hence the form or idea which is in his understanding must be the principle of his operation, in the same manner as heat is the principle of the heating. But it must be remarked that a natural form is a principle of operation, not inasmuch as it is the permanent form of the thing to which it gives existence, but inasmuch as it has a leaning towards an effect. And in a similar manner the form which is in the understanding is a principle of action, not inasmuch as it is in the understanding simply, but inasmuch as it acquires, through the will, a leaning towards an effect; for an intellectual form is not more connected with the existence than with the non-existence of the thing of which it is the form (since one and the same is the science of contraries); and, therefore, such a form cannot produce a determinate effect, unless it be brought into connection with one of the two contraries; which is done by the will. Now, God, as we know, causes all things through his understanding, for his understanding is his being; and, therefore, his science, _as united with his will_, must be the cause of all things."[184]

It might be here objected that if, for the reason just alleged, archetypal ideas are not to be considered a distinct principle of creation, then neither can omnipotence be considered as a distinct principle; for as archetypal ideas do not principiate anything unless through free volition, so, also, omnipotence principiates nothing but in consequence of the same volition; and, therefore, if archetypal ideas on this account are not a distinct principle of things, on the same account omnipotence cannot be taken as a distinct principle.

To this we answer that the assumed parity has no legs to stand on. That archetypal ideas are not a distinct principle of creation was proved above, not simply by arguing that they cannot principiate anything independently of free volition, but by showing that it is not from them, but from the volition alone, that the real principiation of things begins. Now, this proof applies to ideas, but not to omnipotence. In fact, ideas, even in God, must be conceived as having a certain priority with respect to volitions; for it is true, even in God, that nothing is willed which is not foreknown--_nihil est volitum, quin præcognitum_. If, therefore, God's ideas were a _distinct_ principle of creation, there would be something in God, prior to his will, which would entail the existence of created beings; which is impossible to admit so long as we maintain that God's will must remain free in its extrinsic operations. We cannot, therefore, admit, without absurdity, that the archetypal ideas constitute a _distinct_ principle of things. But, as to divine omnipotence, no such absurdity is to be feared; for God's omnipotence has no priority with respect to God's will; and thus the above argument cannot be used to prove that omnipotence is not a distinct principle of creation.

We conclude that the extrinsic principles, to which the first origin of contingent beings is to be traced, are not fewer, and not more, than three. Our Catholic readers will be satisfied, we hope, that this conclusion has been fairly established on what they know to be secure foundations. Infidels, of course, will object; for they will think that the whole of our discussion has been based on hypothetical grounds. In fact, we have supposed that there are "primitive" beings, that they are "contingent," that they need "a creator," and that the creator must be an "infinite being," a god. If a Comtist or a materialist happens to read the preceding pages, he will surely say that we have built nothing but a cob-house. But we do not care much what may be objected by such a class of frivolous and unreasonable philosophers. We know that their favorite theories have been a hundred times exploded, and their futile objections a hundred times answered. When a foe is defeated, what is the use of prolonging the contest? And when noonday light is dazzling the world, what need is there of lighting candles? Let them, therefore, only open their eyes, if they really want light. There is no scarcity of good philosophical works, which, if consulted by them in a spirit of candor, will afford them all the light that a man can reasonably desire for the full attainment of truth.

Yet the solidity of the ground on which we have taken our stand may be established in a very few words.

That there are _contingent_ beings is quite certain; for nothing which necessarily exists is liable to change or modification. But all that surrounds us in this world is liable to change and modification; therefore, nothing that surrounds us in this world necessarily exists. Accordingly, all that we see in this world exists contingently.

That contingent beings are either _primitive_ or made up of _primitive_ beings is, again, a well-known fact; for all being which is not primitive is a compound, and can be traced to its first physical components--that is, to the first elements of its composition. But the _first_ elements of composition cannot possibly be made up of other elements, and accordingly must be primitive beings. Therefore, primitive beings exist everywhere, at least (if nowhere else) in all the compounds of which they are the first physical components.

That every primitive contingent being must have had its _origin from without_ is a plain truth; for that which has no origin from without must have the adequate reason of its existence from within; and, therefore, it carries in its essence the necessity of its existence. But evidently contingent and changeable beings do not carry within their essence the necessity of their existence; therefore, contingent beings must have had their origin from without.

That every such being must have come _out of nothing_ is not less evident; for a primitive being cannot possibly come out of pre-existent beings as its material principles. It must, therefore, be _produced_ either out of God's substance or out of nothing. But not out of God's substance, for divine substance is not susceptible of contingent forms; therefore, out of nothing--that is, by creation properly.

Lastly, that the Creator is _an eternal, infinite being_ can be easily proved, independently of many other arguments, by the following general theorem, to which modern philosophers are invited to pay close attention. The theorem is this: _All efficient cause is infinitely more perfect, and of an infinitely better nature, than any of its effects_. If this proposition be true, it immediately follows that the Creator of the universe is infinitely more perfect than the whole universe, and has a nature infinitely better, nobler, and higher than that of any contingent being, and therefore is a necessary and independent being, the supreme being--God. Let us, then, demonstrate our theorem.

It is a known and incontrovertible truth that every efficient cause eminently contains in itself (that is, possesses in an eminent degree) all the perfection which it can efficiently communicate to any number of effects; and it can be proved, moreover, that the efficiency of a cause is never exhausted, and not even weakened, by its exertions, however long continued and indefinitely multiplied. The earth, after having for centuries exerted its attractive power and caused the fall of innumerable bodies, has preserved to this day the same power whole and undiminished, and is still acting, with its primitive energy, on any number of bodies, just as it did at the time of its creation. Our soul is not exhausted or weakened by its operations; but, after having made any number of judgments, reasonings, or any other mental actions, still retains the whole energy and perfection of its faculties without waste, effeteness, or decay. A molecule of oxygen, after having for ages, either free in the air or confined in water or in other compounds, produced such a number of effects as bewilders and beats all power of imagination, retains yet its efficient causality as entire and unimpaired as if it were of quite recent creation. These facts show that the efficient cause suffers no loss whatever by the exertion of its power, and therefore is fully equal to the production of an endless multitude of effects.

Some may say that this conclusion cannot be universal, as we see that natural forces are very often exhausted by exertion. We answer that, when _natural forces_ are said to be exhausted, the _efficient powers_ from which those forces result remain as intact and as active as before. We say, indeed, that a man or a horse is exhausted by fatigue; that our brain, after hours of mental work, needs rest to recover its lost energy, and many other such things; but, in all such cases, what we call _exhaustion_ is not a diminution of efficient power in the agents from the concurrence of which the natural forces result, but either the actual disappearance (by respiration, perspiration, etc.) of a number of those agents, or a perturbance of the arrangements and conditions necessary for their united conspiration towards the production of a determinate effect. _Natural force_, in the sense of the objection, is a combination of agents and of efficient powers, which produce their effect by many concurrent actions giving a different resultant under different conditions; and as any given effect proximately depends on the resultant of such actions, the same powers, though unaltered in themselves, must, under different conditions, give rise to different effects. Take a car and four horses. If the horses act all in the same direction, the car will move easily enough; but if two of the horses act in one direction, and two in the other, the result will be very different. Yet the powers applied to the car are in both cases the same. Again, take an army of fifty thousand men facing the enemy. If the men are well arranged so as to present a good line of battle, the action of the army will be strong; but if the men are disorderly scattered, the action will be weak, though the men are the same and their powers and exertions undiminished. Now, all bodies and all complex causes are in the same case; which is evident from the fact that with all of them a favorable change of conditions, all other things remaining the same, is always attended by an increase of the effect. Therefore, the so-called _exhaustion_ of natural forces is not a diminution of the efficient powers of which they are the result, but a state of things in which _the same_ active powers are exerted in a different manner, or have to perform a different work, according to the different conditions to which they are actually subjected. We therefore repeat that efficient causes suffer no loss whatever by the exertion of their efficient powers, and that consequently they are fully equal to the production of an infinite multitude of effects; and since every efficient cause, as we have premised, must contain within itself, in an eminent manner, the whole perfection which it can communicate to its effects, we are forced to conclude that the nature of every efficient cause _infinitely transcends_ in perfection the nature of its effects.

The theorem could be further confirmed by considering that all the acts produced by efficient causes of the natural order, either spiritual or material, are mere accidents, whereas the causes themselves are substances; and it is manifest that the nature of substance infinitely transcends the nature of accident.

It might be confirmed, again, by another very simple consideration. The efficient cause does not communicate any portion of itself to its effect.[185] In fact, efficient causation is production; and production is not a transfusion, translocation, or emanation of a pre-existing thing, but the origination of a _new_ entity which had no previous formal existence. It follows that the efficient cause, while producing an effect, retains its _entire_ entity, and therefore is never exhausted. Thus a syllogism is not a portion of the mind that makes it; and the making of it leaves intact the substance and the faculty from which it proceeds. Thus, also, the actual momentum of a falling body is not a portion of the terrestrial power by which it is produced; the power remains whole and undiminished in the substance of the earth, as already remarked, always ready to produce any number of changes, and always unchanged in itself. This is the reason why every efficient cause infinitely transcends the nature of its effects.

Our theorem is, then, demonstrated both by facts and by intrinsic reasons. We are confident that all honest philosophers, no matter how much their intellectual vision may have been distorted by false doctrines, will see their way to the right conclusion, and confess the absolute necessity of an independent, self-existent, infinite Creator, from whom all beauty, goodness, and perfection proceed, and to whom all creatures--philosophers not excepted--owe allegiance, honor, and glory.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[181] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

[182] This argument could be employed against all other forms of pantheism; but we must abstain at present from the discussion of particular systems, as we cannot deal fairly with them within the narrow compass of a single article.

As for _self-existent_ matter, we need only say that nothing which can receive new determinations is self-existent; and since matter receives new determinations, therefore matter is not self-existent. Hence the conception of eternal and uncreated matter cannot be styled a philosophical opinion, but only a dream of unreflecting or uneducated minds.

[183] The Aristotelic meaning of the word _privation_ will be easily understood from the following example: If a cylindrical piece of wax be made to assume a spherical form, the sphericity will be educed, as the schools say, from the cylindrical wax, not inasmuch as it is cylindrical, but inasmuch as it is non-spherical. Such a non-sphericity is a _privation_, which is more than a _negation_, as it implies not only the absence of sphericity, but also the presence of its contrary--that is, of the cylindrical form. Privation is usually defined _carentia formæ in subjecto apto_. It is a principle _per accidens_.

[184] We give the original text: _Sic enim scientia Dei se habet ad omnes res creatas, sicut scientia artificis se habet ad artificiata. Scientia autem artificis est causa artificiatorum, eo quod artifex operatur per suum intellectum. Unde oportet quod forma intellectus sit principium operationis, sicut calor est principium calefactionis. Sed considerandum est, quod forma naturalis, in quantum est forma manens in eo cui dat esse, non nominat principium actionis, sed secundum quod habet inclinationem ad effectum. Et similiter forma intelligibilis non nominat principium actionis secundum quod est tantum in intelligente, nisi adjungatur ei inclinatio ad effectum, quæ est per voluntatem. Quum enim forma intelligibilis ad opposita se habeat (quum eadem sit scientia oppositorum) non produceret determinatum effectum, nisi determinaretur ad unum per appetitum, ut dicitur in 9. Metaph. Manifestum est autem quod Deus per intellectum suum causat res, quum suum esse sit suum intelligere; unde necesse est quod sua scientia sit causa rerum secundum quod habet voluntatem conjunctam_ (p. 1, q. 14, a. 8).

[185] Parents, however, communicate a portion of their substance to their offspring. The reason is that parents are not only the _efficient_, but also the _material_, cause of their offspring. As material causes, they supply the matter of which the fœtus will be formed; but, as efficient causes, they only put the conditions required by nature for the organization of this matter. The position of such conditions is an accidental action as well as the subsequent organization. Therefore, parents, as efficient causes, produce nothing but accidental acts. The matter of which the fœtus is formed is, of course, all pre-existing.

DANTE'S PURGATORIO.

CANTO TWELFTH.

Paired, like two oxen treading under yoke, That burdened soul and I as far had gone As the loved Tutor let. But when he spoke These words: "Now leave him! We must travel on, For here 'tis good with spread of sail and stroke Of oar, to push his boat as each best may;" I made myself, as walking needs, erect, But only in body; just it is to say My thoughts were bowed, my spirit was deject. Still I was moving, and with willing feet Followed my Master; both began to show How light we were, when thus he said: "'Tis meet That, walking here, thou bend thine eyes below, So to observe, and make the moments fleet, Over what kind of bed thy footsteps go."

Even as, that so their memory may survive, Our earthly tombs, above the buried, bear The graven form of what they were alive; Whence oft one weeps afresh the image there, Pricked by remembrance,--which doth only give To souls compassionate a sting of pain-- So I saw figured o'er, but with more skill In the resemblance, all the narrow plain Which formed our pathway, jutting from the hill.

Him[186] there I marked, on one side, noblest made Of all God's creatures, stricken down from heaven Like lightning! Opposite, there was displayed Briareus, cast from where he late had striven, Smit by celestial thunderbolts, and laid Heavy on earth and in the frost of death. I saw Thymbræus, Pallas too, and Mars, Still armed, around their sire, with bated breath Viewing the giants, their torn limbs and scars! Nimrod I saw, at foot of his great tower, As if bewildered, gazing on the tribes That showed with him such haughtiness of power In Shinar's plain, as Genesis describes.

O Niobe! with what eyes, full of woe, Mid thy slain children, upon each hand seven, I saw thee carved upon the road! And, O Saul! in Gilboa, that no more from heaven Felt rain or dew, how dead on thine own sword Didst thou appear! Thee, mad Arachne, there I saw, half spider! fumbling the deplored Shreds of that work which wrought for thee despair O Rehoboam! there no more in threat Stands thy fierce figure; smit with fear he flies, Whirled in a chariot, none pursuing yet: Showed also that hard pavement to mine eyes How young Alcmæon made his mother sell With life the luckless ornament she wore How, in the temple, on Sennacherib fell The sons, and left his corpse there on the floor. The cruel carnage and the wreck it showed Which Tomyris made, when she to Cyrus cried: _Blood thou didst thirst for! now I give thee blood_; And showed th' Assyrians flying far and wide In utter rout, with Holofernes dead, And all the slaughter that befell beside, And the grim carcase by the bloody bed. Troy next I saw, an ashy, caverned waste: O Ilion! how vile the work showed thee Which there is graven,--how utterly abased! What master of pencil or of stile[187] was he Who so those traits and figures could have traced That subtlest wit had been amazed thereby? Alive the living seemed, and dead the dead! Who saw the truth no better saw than I, While bowed I went, all underneath my tread.

Now swell with pride, and on with lofty stalk, Children of Eve! nor bend your visage aught So to behold the sinful way ye walk. More of the mountain than my busied thought Had been aware of we had rounded now, And much more of his course the sun had spent; When he, who still went first with watchful brow, Exclaimed: "Look up!--to accomplish our ascent Time no more suffers to proceed so slow. See yonder angel hastening on his way To come towards us! and from her service, lo! The sixth returning handmaid of the day. Give to thy mien the grace of reverence, then, That he may joy to marshal us above. Think thus: _this day will never dawn again_." I had so often felt his words reprove My slowness, warning me to lose no time, That on this point I read his dark words right. With sparkling face, as glows at rosy prime The tremulous morning star, and robed in white, That being of beauty moved towards us, and said, Opening his arms and then his pinions wide, "Come, here the steps are!--easy to the tread And close at hand: now upward ye may glide." But very few obey this Angel's call: O human race! born high on wings to soar, Why at a little breath do ye so fall? He brought us where the rock a pass revealed Hewn out, his pinions on my forehead beat And with his promise my safe-going sealed.

As, to the right, in climbing to the seat Of the fair church[188] that looketh lordly down Over the bridge that bears the name this day Of Rubaconte, on the well-ruled town,[189] The sharp ascent is broken by a way Of stairs constructed in the old time, ere Fraud was in measure and in ledger found; Thus the steep bank is graduated there Which falls abruptly from the other round: On either side the tall rock grazes though. As we turned thitherward, were voices heard, _Beati pauperes spiritu!_ singing so As might not be exprest by any word. Ah! these approaches--how unlike to Hell's! With chant of anthems one makes entrance here; Down there with agony's ferocious yells.

Now, as we climb, the sacred stairs appear More easy than the plain had seemed before: Wherefore I thus began: "O Master! say, What heavy load is tak'n from me? No more I feel that weariness upon my way." "When every P, upon thy temples traced, Almost obliterate now," he answered me, "Shall be, like this one, totally erased, So by right will thy feet shall vanquished be, That they not only no fatigue shall know, But ev'n with pleasure shall be forward sped." Then did I like as men do when they go Unweeting what they carry on their head, Till signs from some one their suspicion waking, The assistant hand its own assurance tries, And seeks and findeth, such discovery making As may not be afforded by the eyes. Spreading my right-hand fingers, I could find Six[190] letters only of the seven which he Who bore the keys had on my forehead signed: Observing which, my Master smiled on me.

FOOTNOTES:

[186] Lucifer.

[187] _Stile_ here means a sculptor's tool, and not a writer's _style_.

[188] This is the well-known church of S. Miniato, which every boy who has been to Florence must well remember.

[189] Florence, in irony.

[190] The Angel, sitting at the gate of Purgatory, had described (as the readers of the Ninth Canto may remember, v. 112) the letter P seven times with the point of his sword on the forehead of Dante, in sign of the seven deadly sins,--Peccata--one of which, and Dante's worst, the sin of pride, now vanishes from his soul as the letter fades from his forehead.

THE EPIPHANY.

Let us, then, also follow the Magi; let us separate ourselves from our barbarian customs, and make our distance therefrom great, that we may see Christ, since they too, had they not been far from their own country, would have missed seeing him. Let us depart from the things of earth. For so the wise men, while they were in Persia, saw but the star; but after they had departed from Persia, they beheld the Sun of Righteousness. Or rather, they would not have seen so much as the star, unless they had readily risen up from thence. Let us, then, also rise up; though all men be troubled, let us run to the house of the young Child; though kings, though nations, though tyrants, interrupt this our path, let not our desire pass away; for so shall we thoroughly repel all the dangers that beset us; since these too, except they had seen the young Child, would not have escaped their danger from the king. Before seeing the young Child, fears and dangers and troubles pressed upon them from every side; but after the adoration, it is calm and security; and no longer a star, but an angel, receives them, having become priests from the act of adoration; for we see that they offered gifts also.

Do thou, therefore, likewise leave the Jewish people, the troubled city, the blood-thirsty tyrant, the pomps of the world, and hasten to Bethlehem, where is the house of the Spiritual Bread;[191] for though thou be a shepherd, and come hither, thou wilt behold the young Child in an inn; though thou be a king, and approach not here, thy purple robe will profit thee nothing; though thou be one of the wise men, this will be no hindrance to thee; only let thy coming be to honor and adore, not to spurn, the Son of God; only do this with trembling and with joy, for it is possible for both of these to concur in one.

But take heed that thou be not like Herod, and say, _That I may come and worship him_, and, when thou art come, be minded to slay him. For him do they resemble who partake of the mysteries unworthily; it being said that such an one _shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord_. Yes; for they have in themselves the tyrant who is grieved at Christ's Kingdom--him that is more wicked than Herod of old--even Mammon. For he would fain have the dominion, and sends them that are his own to worship in appearance, but slaying while they worship. Let us fear, then, lest at any time, while we have the appearance of suppliants and worshippers, we should indeed show forth the contrary.--_S. John Chrysostom._

FOOTNOTES:

[191] Bethlehem signifies in Hebrew "the house of bread."

GRAPES AND THORNS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF YORKE."